The Seventeenth Summer (1995)
by Mark Peters
Chapter 19
Danny spotted Jake's panel van as soon as he rode through the gates of the caravan park. It was parked outside the same cabin that Jake had stayed in the last time he was in town, so he quickly sped down the road and pulled to a stop outside the cabin, dropping his bike on the grassy verge.
'Are you there, Jake?' he called out, and before he had even reached the cabin door it opened to reveal Jake standing there with wet hair, wearing only a towel. A few drops of water were still dripping down his torso. The few strands of hair in the centre of his chest, along with those marking the treasure trail which disappeared beneath the top edge of the towel, were matted together and seemed to stand out more than usual.
'Hey, Danny. I thought you had forgotten about me,' Jake gently teased as Danny looked him up and down, before allowing his gaze to settle on the bulge that was hidden beneath the soft fabric. 'Sorry about this . . . I've just been over for a shower.'
'What are you sorry for? You look hot!' Danny replied. 'Now, are you going to invite me in, or what?'
Obligingly Jake stepped aside allowing Danny to pass, then slapped him on the bum as he did so, which caused Danny to yelp in surprise and spin around. As Jake swung the door closed Danny backed himself up against the small dining table which stood along one wall. He had some idea of what was about to follow and offered Jake a shy smile, which only turned into a slack-jawed expression of surprise when Jake let his towel drop to the floor.
'And how do I look now?' Jake enquired.
'On a scale of one to ten?'
'If you like,' Jake replied, as he started getting closer.
'About a twenty!' Danny giggled. 'But I need to warn you about something . . .'
'What's that?'
'My mum thinks I'm up to something . . . I think that she thinks I must have a girlfriend, or something . . .'
'Is that so?' Jake said. He was standing right in front of Danny now. Danny could feel Jake's hot breath on his face. He could feel Jake's erect penis prodding at his own. 'And why would your mum be thinking that?'
'Because of this!' Danny said, as he twisted his head to one side and pulled down the neck of his t-shirt.
'Hmmm . . . impressive. Do you want another on the opposite side? Or will your girlfriend get jealous?'
'I'll risk it,' Danny replied, before quickly pulling his t-shirt over his head and tossing it through the open doorway of the bedroom. Immediately Jake lowered his lips onto the teens' bare neck kissing him up and down before settling on one moist spot, while he let his fingers roam over Danny's smooth body. Danny shivered at Jake's touch. 'Oh, God. I've been waiting for this for weeks now . . .'
'So have I,' Jake replied.
'Been thinking about it every day.'
'So have I.'
'Been wondering what it might be like to take the next step . . .' Danny said in a coarse whisper.
'Do you think you're ready for that?' Jake asked, as he tugged on the elastic of Danny's shorts with just one finger.
'Probably not,' Danny whispered in reply. 'But there's only one way I'm going to find out now, isn't there?'
'And what will your mum think?'
'What she doesn't know about won't hurt her.'
'You know that if we do this . . . there's no going back . . .'
'I'm not going to get you in trouble, Jake. I love you and I want to be with you. And no matter what anyone else might say about it being right or wrong . . . it's what I want, more than anything in the world right now.'
'Well, if you're sure about what you want who am I to argue with you?' Jake responded, before hooking his thumbs in Danny's shorts and bobbing down, pulling them and Danny's jocks down as he went, and being more than surprised to see a wad of cash fall out as he did so.
He looked up at Danny and saw him smiling.
'That's my life savings,' Danny said with a chuckle.
It was the middle of the afternoon when Jake and Danny were woken by the sound of someone banging on the cabin door. They sat up and looked at each other, not knowing who it might be.
For a fleeting moment Jake was scared it might be the cops, but then they heard a voice call out, 'Hey, are you guys in there?'
It was Nate, who had obviously managed to track them down.
'Fuck!' Danny swore.
'Just relax,' Jake said. 'He's cool about the two of us being together, remember?'
'But like this?' Danny hissed. 'And my shorts are in the other room.'
'Well, I'll throw them to you before I answer the door.'
'And what will you be wearing?'
'I guess a towel will just have to do.'
'Oh, man. This is just . . .'
'Just relax,' Jake said, as he put an arm around Danny and hugged him close. 'It'll be fine. Trust me.'
Suddenly Danny looked scared. He and Nate may have shared a lot together, but this was taking it to the extreme, he thought.
Before he could say anything though, Jake was gone, leaving him sitting stark naked on the bed as the knocking on the door continued.
'Hold your horses!' he heard Jake yell out, just moments before his shorts and jocks came flying through the bedroom door, landing beside him on the bed. Picking them up Danny started pulling them on, but before he was even half way there a grinning Nate came barging into the small bedroom.
'Hope I'm not interrupting anything?' Nate announced, only to be stopped short at the sight of Danny with his shorts at half-mast and his bare arse facing the door.
Danny wasn't quite sure which of them was the more shocked, he or Nate, whose jaw instantly dropped and his eyes seemed to bulge wide in surprise when he saw Danny half-naked and struggling with his clothes. Instantly he started backpedaling, trying to get back out past Jake and through the door, but all he succeeded in doing was bumping into Jake and dislodging the towel that he had loosely secured around his waist.
'Oh, Jesus . . .' Nate cursed as he rushed through the doorway. 'You guys are just too much!'
Danny and Jake looked at each other. At first Danny wasn't sure what was happening or even how he should react, but when Jake's face broke out into a grin Danny's soon followed.
When they emerged from the bedroom a few moments later, both now wearing shorts at least, they found Nate sitting in one of the chairs in the small lounge room looking as if he had just seen a ghost.
'You're a pair of bastards! Both of you!' Nate spat. 'You were doing it, weren't you? And I walked right in . . .'
'Well, not quite,' Jake replied. 'You actually woke us up.'
'But you were doing it! Why else would you both be naked like that?'
'What's wrong with you?' Danny chuckled. 'That was hours ago! Anyhow, you keep telling us you're okay with us . . . so what's your problem?'
For a long while Nate just looked up at them from where he sat on the lounge as he tried reconciling things in his own mind.
'I . . . I know I said that, and really, I am happy that you guys are together . . . it's just . . .oh, shit, I don't know what it is . . .'
'I think,' Jake offered, 'you might have just gotten a bit more than you bargained for by barging in like that.'
'Way more, I'd say,' Nate replied, while managing a faint smile. 'I guess I should take my mother's advice and learn to knock!'
'That mightn't be a bad idea,' Danny chuckled, before crossing the room and sitting down beside Nate.
'Well, sorry about that,' Nate replied. 'So, apart from you guys havin' a good old roll in the hay, what else have you been doing? Have you started making any plans?'
Danny and Jake looked at each other. That was just it, they hadn't really made many plans just yet, other than Danny agreeing to travel with Jake to Nimbin and that they were leaving Sunday.
'Nate, please don't take this the wrong way, but what would you say if I suggested that we don't tell you where we are going . . . at least for the time being?' Jake responded.
'Why the hell not?' Danny immediately asked, jumping in before Nate even had the chance to respond.
'Because, if Nate knows where we are he might just spill the beans, even if it is accidental. And who knows what sort of things could happen if your parents, or even the cops, knew that you had run away with me or where we were.'
For a few moments the boys thought about that, before Nate slowly nodded.
'It's like, if I don't know where you are then I can't tell anyone. Is that what you mean?' he asked.
'Exactly. Does that make sense to you?'
'Well, now that you put it like that . . .'
'But . . . how can we still stay in touch with each other?' Danny pouted.
'I'm not sure yet, but we'll figure it out somehow,' Jake answered.
'You do know where you're going, though?' Nate asked.
'Yeah, mate. We do. I found a place amongst people just like us. It's not far from the beaches, so that we can still spend as much time there as we want . . . and it's a beautiful place where we can both work on our art.'
'It already sounds nice.'
'Oh, it is. Trust me,' Jake answered.
'So, can I come too?' Nate enquired.
'Once we've settled in there, and things have settled down here, we'd love for you to come and visit,' Jake replied.
For a few moments Nate looked crestfallen, at least until Danny placed one hand over his and an arm around his shoulder.
'I hope you understand?' Danny said to his friend.
'Yeah, I do . . . it's just that . . .'
'Yeah, I know, mate,' Danny whispered, as he hugged his best friend close.
By the time Nate left the cabin at the end of the day, leaving Jake and Danny together, plans for their escape were all in place. It was now Friday afternoon, and within forty-eight hours his friends would be leaving Thompsonville behind; quite possibly forever. No matter what Nate might have said to them about being cool with what they were planning there was a part of him, a part that he couldn't quite understand, which still found it difficult to accept that he would soon be losing his best friend.
There was also a part of him that felt uneasy when he saw them together. It wasn't anything he could put a finger on . . . just a niggling feeling that he also didn't understand . . . but he knew he could never say anything about that to either of them. They were his friends, and even if they were leaving him now, he wanted them to always be his friends.
Between the three of them they had discussed everything that they could think of; from how many and what kind of belongings Danny would be able to take with him, to where they would load it up and leave from, and when. They even worked out how Danny and Nate would be able to stay in touch with each other, with the plan being to use Jake's family's address in Newcastle, or that of another relative in Brisbane who Jake was particularly close to. The boys would write to each other using those addresses as the contact points, with the letters then being forwarded to and from there. How much easier could it get?
As he rode his bike home he felt grateful that his friends had included him in discussing their plans with him, but it was then, even though he had known about it for almost two weeks now, that the realisation of what was about to happen finally began to sink in.
Danny really was going.
And there was nothing he could do about it.
Following Nate's departure, Danny and Jake retreated to the bedroom once more and in the fading afternoon light they picked up where they had left off earlier in the day. Danny was relishing the new experiences that Jake was providing him with, as he explored his sexuality and his newfound freedoms.
There was no turning back now. This truly was the beginning of his new life; and he was loving it.
When he finally left the caravan park it was well after dark, and he figured that he should get home before it was too late rather than risk another scene with his mother.
He had no idea whether Brad would be at home, but that didn't concern him greatly; as he now believed that he had the edge over him if anything came up.
Despite the fact that time was ticking by, Danny chose to walk home, pushing his bike instead of riding it, as he relived every moment of his afternoon. He knew that Nate would laugh at him if he knew the real reason why he was pushing his bike, but thankfully Nate wasn't around to see his discomfort, so it was something which he wouldn't need to explain to him. Or at least that was what Danny hoped.
And now, as he strolled along the quiet streets letting the cool ocean breeze wash over him, he knew that he was alive. He hadn't really known what to expect when he and Jake had finally done what they did, but Jake proved to be the most gentle and patient lover one could imagine and he was so glad that it was him with whom Danny had been able to share his first time. The experience would be one that he knew would live with him forever.
When he finally reached his home Danny was relieved to see that his stepfather's truck wasn't there. He pushed his bike down the driveway to the rear of the house, where he found the outside light on illuminating the back yard and the garage a short distance away from the house. After safely stowing his bike away he walked across the lawn to the house and let himself inside, where he found his mother filling up the sink to start washing the dishes.
She looked up at him as he entered, giving him a smile.
'Did you have a nice day?' she asked.
'Yeah, I did. Thanks.'
'I thought so,' his mother said, before grinning at him. When he shot her a confusing glance she reached up and patted her own neck, which immediately told Danny what she was inferring.
Once again Danny felt his face flush with embarrassment.
'It's okay, Dan. I think I'm finally understanding that you are growing up,' she said with a sigh. 'Now, there's some pizza in the oven for you,' she added, before picking up a clean plate from the sink and drying it, then crossing the floor and handing it to him. As she did so she put a hand around the back of his head and leaned forward giving him a quick kiss on the forehead. When she was done she straightened up and studied him for a moment, giving him what he thought was an odd look, as if she were trying to figure something out.
Did she just turn her nose up at something, he wondered.
'What's wrong?' Danny asked.
'Nothing, darling. Get yourself some pizza before it gets too dried out from being in the oven too long.'
'Thanks. I will.'
As he took the cardboard take-away box from the oven and set it on the table, then began dishing out his dinner, he glanced at his mother a couple of times. Each time she seemed to sense it and looked back over her shoulder at him. A kind of wistful, almost sad expression seemed to come over her. It worried him, but the last thing he wanted was to tempt fate by saying anything to her, so he simply sat and ate his meal while wondering just what the next few days would bring.
When he had finished eating, Danny walked over and set his empty plate on the sink giving his mother a peck on the cheek as he did so, before turning to leave the room.
'Danny,' his mother said, stopping him in his tracks before he could get through the door.
'Yes, mum?'
'You would tell me if there was something bothering you, wouldn't you?'
'What makes you think there's something bothering me?' Danny asked.
'I'm your mother, Danny. Mothers have a tendency to pick up on these things,' she said, as she crossed the room and stood in front of him.
'There's nothing wrong, mum. I promise. In fact, I don't think I've felt happier in a long time . . . I've . . .'
'Met someone?'
'Yeah, something like that.'
'Hmmm . . . so I've noticed,' she said with a smile, as she reached up and gently brushed her fingers across the bruises on his neck, causing him to shudder. 'I just hope you're being careful, that's all. I'd hate to see my baby with a broken heart!'
'MUM!'
'Well, whoever it is, they must be doing something right. But just remember I'm always here if you need to talk, okay?'
'I will, mum. And thanks,' he replied, before once again giving her a quick peck on the cheek.
'Now go and have a shower. You stink!'
Now that he had been totally embarrassed by his mother, Danny retreated down the hallway to his room. She obviously knew something was going on, and with someone, in fact he himself had admitted as much to her; but just how much did she know? Or had she figured out?
As he sat down on his bed he started replaying the conversation in his mind.
'Well, whoever it is . . .' she had said.
Whoever it is . . . whoever IT is, she said.
Not whoever SHE is . . .
And she had also said earlier that she had seen Jake in town that morning.
FUCK! Had she put two and two together already? Did she really know who it was?
As he started stripping and looking for some clean boxer shorts for bed, he also started to wonder just what it all meant, and where it was all leading.
Growing up sure seemed to be making life complicated, but he felt sure that the promise of what was to come would make it all worthwhile.
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