Ending Protecting David, at least as it was, was a very difficult decision for me and I realize that lots of people won’t like what I’ve done but this story is really still the same. It begins where the original Protecting David leaves off just ten years later, David is now 42, Mark is 41 and Alex is 15.

Protecting David - Growing Up 1

Alex

My name is Alexander Chauvet-Kerry, yeah hyphenated, dumb I know. The thing is that it was the only fair way to do it and my dads are totally fair, a little nuts at times but totally fair.

I didn’t start life as Alexander Chauvet-Kerry, I started life as Alexander Drueger. My dad was named Helmut and my mom was named Karen. They both died when I was little and I really don’t remember much about them, just flashes here and there and I’m not really sure that I’m actually remembering or making it up. Anyway, mostly, I only remember Mark and David. They’re my dads and they’re gay.

The thing that they’re currently nuts over is whether or not I’m gay. It’s really weird. They have these quiet discussions, and then these magazines start appearing, like Playboy and Penthouse and crap like that. I mean I know that if they were looking at these mags they’d only be ogling the dudes but I think they’re meaning to have them kick my heterosexual genes into overdrive. They didn’t used to be this crazy about my sexuality but now that I’m in high school they’ve turned on the nuttiness afterburners.

My dad’s are really different physically, cause Mark is like the poster boy for the Army Rangers, which he was and David is a lot smaller, now that I’ve really started to grow he’s even smaller than me. Course their personalities are pretty different too, Mark is more emotional and more touchy-feely and David is like more hard headed and practical.
David kisses me goodbye in the morning and kisses me hello at night but Mark just grabs me and hugs me all the time. Mark is really physical and he likes to play ball with me and he takes me hunting and fishing and we exercise together. We’ve been doing that for a long time, like since I was eight.

David on the other hand takes me to art galleries and museums and stuff like that. He made me learn French and German and now he’s got me working on Spanish, he can be a really intense guy. David is the dad that always looks at my homework and why god, why can’t it be Mark? David doesn’t let anything slide, not that he’s mean or gets mad or anything, it’s just that he doesn’t miss anything and he won’t ever just let me blow something off. I guess that you’d say Mark was easier going than David.

Well, that’s the basic layout. They’re both great dads and I really love them both and while in a lot of ways they’re really different, they’re also the same in a lot of ways. They’re both really honest, they’re both good looking and they’re both totally in love with each other and with me. The only real problem is that they feel that if I don’t turn out to be straight they will have somehow failed.

My problem right now, is one that most guys would give about anything to have. See I got laid last night. Yeah, it was cool……….well kinda. I had sex with Tommy Moran’s sister. It was my first time with anyone. She’s really pretty and all and we’ve done other stuff together, kissing and stuff but last night was the night. My problem is that while I was having sex with Monica, that’s her name, I was thinking about having sex with Tommy. I mean it’s not like it wasn’t cool and all, it’s just that I have these feelings for Tommy. I guess that maybe I’m bi, or maybe gay, I’m not really sure and the thing is that I gotta tell em, David and Mark that is, and it’s not something that I’m looking forward to be doing. It’s not that they’ll disown me or something. They’ll be like they always are but I know that it’ll be a disappointment to them and it makes me sick to my stomach to think about hurting them.

I guess that I should tell you something about Tommy. He’s beautiful! He’s not quite as tall as I am, he’s about 5’8” and I’m about 5’10’ and he’s got this beautiful dark, dark, brown hair that’s got this really soft look about it. I want to reach out and touch it and I almost have a couple of times until I caught myself. But see his dark hair works great with my blonde hair, like opposites attract, right? Except that I’m pretty sure that Tommy’s straight, I mean I’m not like positive but pretty sure. Like the babes are all over him cause he’s really good at sports and shit and his family’s got some money so they buy him stuff and he’s got like every CD in the freakin world. Well I guess that I do too but Tommy gives them that crooked little smile of his and they’re all creamin in their jeans.

Last winter Tommy and I were skiing and fucking off and we ended up colliding with each other and ending up in a big pile. Well anyway when we stopped moving I was on top of Tommy and our mouths were just a fraction of an inch apart and I was staring into his big brown eyes and breathing the breath that had been in his lungs and I was fucking hooked. I think that I’ve beaten off about a million times to the memory of that moment.

David poked his head into my room. “Alex, give Mark a hand with the groceries will ya?”

I sat up quickly. “Yeah dad!” I always feel like I’ve just gotten caught beating off even though it’s never happened. I shot out to the garage where Mark was unloading the van.

“Hi Dad! Need help?”

Mark wrapped his arm around my neck and hugged me. Again! “Hey kiddo. Yeah a little help would be great. Whatcha been up to?” I felt like I should explain to him that I wasn’t beating off.

“Just hangin, a little homework, the internet.”

“How would ya feel about a little skeet shooting this weekend? Maybe Saturday.”

“Ahhhh, I was gonna do some stuff with Tommy. Would it be okay if he came too?”

“Sure,” Mark said, “if it’s okay with his mom and dad. We’ve got an extra gun.”

I was lifting a couple of bags of groceries and was kinda hiding behind them. “Dad? Do you like Tommy?”

My dad’s head was in the van and when he came out he had groceries in his arms and his head was kinda down. “Well, yeah, I guess so.” He glanced quickly at me, then away. “You like him don’t you? He’s your best friend.”

“Yeah Dad, I guess I like him fine.” I was looking into a grocery bag. “We do a lot of stuff together. We get along good.”

Mark walked over to me carrying the groceries. “So why the question?”

“Ah, nothing, just wondering if you thought he was………..you know, like a good guy.”

“Sweetheart…..”

“Daaaad! No sweetheart, you promised!” Thank god he doesn’t say it in public anymore!

“Okay, okay,” then pointedly, “Alex………..anybody that you think is a good guy we’re probably gonna think the same about. We trust your judgment, at least within the context of your being fifteen.”

He’s always saying stuff like that! “Dad, what does that mean, within the context of my being fifteen?”

Mark smiled and his face lit up. “That kiddo, means that when you’re fifteen there’re some things that you’re not ready to make judgments about. Come on, grab those bags.” Dad started walking to the door to the house.

I grabbed the bags and trotted after him. “But Dad, you just said that you trusted my judgment.”

Mark was setting the bags on the kitchen counter. “Alex, if you needed to have your appendix taken out would you let me do it, even if I told you I knew how?”

“Well, no……..but that’s cause that’s something you don’t really know about because you haven’t been trained.”

Mark looked at me and smiled. “Bingo! Given all the circumstances and taking the question in the proper context, it isn’t reasonable to let me take out your appendix.” Mark took off his jacket and laid it on the chair. “Would you let me buy your clothes?” He smiled. “Not just pay for them but actually pick em out.”

I knew I was screwed. “Nooooo!” He raised a questioning eyebrow. “Because you’re too old to really understand what I like.” I sat down at the kitchen table and laid my head on my hands. Mark hunkered down next to my chair, his head was even with mine.

He rubbed my back lightly, the warmth of his hand felt good. “I used to be fifteen you know. I wasn’t born forty-one.”

I smiled at him, my head still lying on my hands. “You sure?”

Mark gave me a slight grin and spoke very softly. “Whenever you want to talk about whatever it is that’s bouncing around in the back of your mind, you just let me know.”

I closed my eyes for a couple of seconds and then opened them. “I will Dad, I’m just not ready yet. Okay?”

Mark rubbed the back of my neck. “You bet buddy. Wanna go for a run?”

“Can’t I just lay here?”

“Nope stud. You need to get your skinny little butt in gear.” He took my hand and pulled me up and then turned me by my shoulders until I was facing the bedrooms. “Running gear, get it on. I’ll meet ya on the driveway in five minutes.”

I went to my room and put on running shorts a tee shirt and my running shoes and ran into Mark coming out of his and David’s bedroom. We were headed out when Mark made a detour to David’s office to let him know that we were going.

David’s office looks like the Launch Central at NASA with David being the only one at the controls. Mark walked behind David’s chair and bit him lightly on the back of the neck, which of course caused David’s to almost go over backwards but you could tell he loved it. I can’t believe these guys are still doin this shit after all these years. Grope city, my God!

Mark

Alex lopes, he’s all arms and legs, like someone who’s hopped into a big new car but doesn’t really know how to drive it yet. The only time he smoothes out is when we’re running or exercising, then his muscles and frame seem to mold suddenly into one and he’s beautiful to watch. At fifteen a boy is constantly flipping back and forth between manhood and childhood, not that he is totally aware of that and certainly not that he would want adults to know that. I know that it drives him crazy but I just want to hold him, to tell him that it’s gonna be okay, that I won’t let anything bad happen and that he’ll emerge from this cocoon soon.

David and I have always been afraid that somehow our being gay and being a couple, with all that that entails, would somehow influence Alex. We’re both aware that that supposedly isn’t true but it’s something that we worry about. The thing is that I’m coming to believe that Alex is gay and of course it bothers me that we may have somehow screwed him up and pushed him in that direction. Logic doesn’t play a big part in something like this, especially when your kid is involved. I guess the thing is, that if he is gay there is shit all that I can do about it except support him.

Tommy Moran! Well he is a cute little fucker. I wonder if they’ve done anything yet?

We’re just back from our run and Alex has this glazed look on his face and almost walks into the doorjamb. I grab him just before he hits.

“Whoa buddy!” I wrap my arm around his neck. “You dreaming?”

Alex blushes and kinda flips his hand back and forth. “I guess. Maybe not enough sleep.”

I don’t release his neck. “Couldn’t be anything else huh?”

Alex looks at me with slight panic on his face. “Dad! I’m just tired! Geez!”

I push him toward his bedroom. “Why don’t you shower up and I’ll see what David has planned for dinner?”

I walked into David’s office where he was video conferencing with Jamie in London and a man I didn’t know, I just stayed in the background out of sight until they finished.

I walked over and stood behind David’s chair. “Jamie sounded a little weird.”

David laid his head back and looked up at me. “He thinks Buchanan, that was the other guy, is setting us up. I’m beginning to think that he’s right.”

“What’s he want?”

David turned his chair around and wrapped his arms around my waist and laid the side of his head against my stomach. “Wants us to do a private placement of his company’s stock. They’re a private company. The thing is that everything is based on, well, air.” David ran his hand over his forehead. “The guy has got contracts with several governments and private companies for this thing they make, except that everything is contingent on something.” David looked up at me. “I guess that I just decided not to risk our investors money. Too many what ifs.”

He smiled up at me. “You’re stomach is growling.”

“That’s cause I’m fucking starved.”

“Well we’re on our own. Whadya say we do steaks on the grill? Is Alex eating here or is he gonna eat at Tommy’s………..again?” David tilted his head when he said it and I noticed again the tiny wrinkles at the corners of his eyes. I know, I know, but they look good on him. Ten years, going on eleven and I still want him all the time, still am jealous of every second that I have to spend away from him.

I took David’s hand and pulled him up and wrapped my arm around his shoulder. “He’s here and I assumed he was staying but I guess that I don’t really know. I gotta shower, I’ll check on him.”

I walked into Alex’s room and poked my head into his bathroom. He was studying himself in the mirror. “SweeeeeeAlex,” I laughed at my partial screwup but Alex just gave me a dirty look in the mirror, “you eating in tonight?”

He started to say something but I anticipated it. “Steak…….on the grill.”

“Yeah Dad, sounds good.”

“Well tell David will ya? I gotta shower.”

I was standing in front of the bathroom mirror wrapped in a towel and combing my hair when Alex walked in and leaned against the door jamb. “Dad, why can’t we get like a normal car? It’s embarrassing!”

“Alex, what on earth are you talking about? David’s got a van and I’ve got a regular car from my company.”

Alex sighed. “Dad, they’re just so lame! Couldn’t you get an SUV company car, then we could say the van was just like a second car.”

I smiled at him in the mirror. “I know, why don’t we get those Mercedes two-seaters. We could get three of them. One for you, one for me and one for David, all in different colors.” He let out a loud moan and turned on his heel and tromped back to his room. Being fifteen is hell. I remember. I threw on a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt and walked to Alex’s room. He was lying on the bed with the pillow pulled over his head.

“Honest to God it gets better.”

He pulled his head out from under the pillow. “Whadya mean?”

“All this crap. It goes away. Well, slowly, but it does go away.”

I laid down on his bed with my back against the headboard and pulled him over to me so that his back was lying against my chest. Sometimes he still lets me do this and sometimes he’d rather die. It was always kind of a toss up. Today he was okay with it.
My hand was on his forehead holding his head to my chest. He was looking up at me with those crystal clear blue eyes.

“You’ve got hormones being pumped into your system like crazy. Your body is growing at an almost unbelievable rate. You’re learning new stuff every day. You’re feeling feelings that you’ve never felt before and along with all of this you got television and the internet throwing information at you faster than any computer could handle it.” I kissed the top of his head. “It’s just that,” I lifted my hand and dropped it, “I’ve been through it and it does end. I know that you may not even realize that there’s a problem, that this is happening.”

Alex raised his hand and then dropped it. “I feel……………..guilty, and frustrated, and angry, and afraid, and embarrassed and stupid and lame! God! It’s like the seven ugly dwarfs!” He groaned and turned his face into my chest.

I was amazed that he could articulate it. I couldn’t have at fifteen. “When I was fifteen I felt guilty and embarrassed about beating off which I did almost constantly. That what’s bothering you? Cause you know that it shouldn’t, bother you, that is.”

We had had this talk before and I knew that Alex hated it. “Daaad! I don’t wanna talk about it.”

“I know kiddo. I’m just trying to tell you that if it’s sex stuff it’s not anything to be embarrassed about.” He tried to get up but I pulled him back down. “Okay, okay.” I laughed. “You don’t have to beat off if ya don’t want to.”

Alex is very blonde, his hair is almost platinum and although he tans really well he blushes easily and he was blushing now. “Dad, Tommy’s dad never talks to him about beating off. Nobody else’s dad talks to them about beating off.” Alex rolled off of my chest and onto his stomach. He was facing away from me.

“Dad, I wanna ask you a question but I don’t want ya to freak out or read more into it than there is, okay?” Alex was lying with his arms at his sides and his hands balled into fists. He was partially talking into the blanket.

I started to reach out and touch Alex’s back but caught myself and pulled my hand back. “Alex, you can ask me anything.” I said quietly. “And unless the cops are looking for you as we speak I probably won’t freak out.”

“I wanted to know if………………………………….if before you met David…………you ever had sex with a woman?” His ears were bright red and his body was rigid. This was not the kind of question that Alex would normally ever ask, not at least since he had been a little kid and asked about everything.

“Yeah Alex, I did. Up until the time I met David I had only had sex with women…………but I always thought about guys.”

Alex rolled over onto his side and looked up at me. “Always?”

“Yeah. Well, at the beginning of a date I wouldn’t be thinking about guys but when we started having sex, then I would.”

“How did that make you feel?”

“Like a jerk, a fraud, someone living a lie. I felt that way for a long time and then finally I just couldn’t go on with it. I felt really bad about treating women that way. Just because I’m gay it doesn’t mean that I hate women and when you lie about a thing like that your misleading the woman that your with, making her think that there’s a chance of a relationship when there really isn’t.” Alex had a really guilty look on his face.

I scrunched down lower on the bed so that my face was even with Alex’s and reached over slowly and put my right hand on the side of his neck. I spoke very, very, softly. “Son, is that what you did?”