The Good Doctor 41
Mom managed to bring out about two hundred people for the
wake and a hundred for the funeral most of whom came back to
the house to eat. Way to go mom!
At the cemetery Jase took David’s hand and walked him
the couple of hundred feet to see Janet’s grave. The
two of them seemed to have forged a bond based on mutual sorrow
and I really had a feeling that it would be a lasting one.
Back at the house Pete and I took turns making sure that David
was never alone for any length of time with grownups he didn’t
know. I couldn’t imagine what it’d be like to be
totally without family and to be going through this alone,
not even being able to call some family member even if they
were far away and speak to them.
So when we’d see a bunch of my family descending on
him like a pack of hungry wolfs we’d do a David hand
off. Pete’d put his hand on the back of David’s
neck and when it looked like it was gonna get intense he’d
slide David over to me and say, “Eric, why don’t
you take David and…..” or me saying, “Pete,
show David that ……………..” Worked
pretty well too.
-------------------------
I felt someone pushing on me, or rather I felt myself moving,
it would take a couple more minutes before I was awake enough
to realize that someone was trying to wake me up. Finally
I turned my head and looked over at the dark mountain of
blankets that was Pete and then to my left. I saw Jase but
he didn’t really register and I dropped my head down
into the pillow.
“Dad.” Jase was whispering.
“Huh?”
“Wake up!”
“Huh?”
“Wake up, Dad!”
“Whasamatter?”
“You’re not awake!”
“S’okay……I’m awake.”
“You’re not!” He shook me again and then
fear began to surface.
“What’s up, Jase?” Waking up even more. “How
come you’re up?”
“It’s David! He’s crying! He did last night
too.”
“David?”
“You’re not awake!”
“I am, Jase. Gimme my boxers.” I swung out of
bed pulling them on and then sat there. “You can hear
him from your room?”
Jase looked really worried. “No but when I went in to
pee I could hear him.”
Their two bedrooms share a common bathroom.
I pulled him to me and hugged him. “It’ll be okay.
You go back to bed. I’ll take care of it.” I yawned.
He glared at me. “You’re not goin back to sleep
are ya?”
I smiled at him although I’m sure that he could barely
see it with the faint light from the window. “No, Kiddo,
I really am gonna take care of it but I do need you to go back
to bed. Are you gonna be able to sleep?”
“You’re really gonna take care of it?”
“I promise but if you’re gonna have trouble sleeping
get in bed with Pete.”
“If I go back in my room I’ll worry. I’ll
get in with Pete.” I got up and held the covers up for
him.
I walked down the dark hall and listened at David’s
door. He was crying. I tapped lightly on the door and opened
it. The small bedside lamp went on and I walked over to David’s
bed and hunkered down next to it. He was starring at me with
tears streaming down his face. I reached over and ran my hand
over his hair and then turned off the lamp on the nightstand.
“Shove over.” I lifted the covers and knew that
he was sleeping in pajama bottoms and a tee shirt.
He protested. “Eric, you’re just in your underwear!” I
slid into the bed forcing him over.
“Believe me you’re catching a break that I’ve
even got those on. But relax, I’m married and I’m
not into kids. Turn on your side.” He rolled over onto
his right side and I shoved my right arm under his head and
wrapped my left around his chest as I spooned him.
He turned his head slight back towards me and started to speak. “Why……..?”
“Sometimes life sucks. Now go to sleep.” And he
did.
Over the next week there were two more nights like that and
then it was over actually it was more than over because now
I was getting hugs from David. Once you’ve gotten comfortable
with someone touching you it’s pretty hard to go back
to being distant and besides I never gave David that chance.
Every time I was close enough to him to touch him I did, usually
pulling him into a hug and I also used that closeness as an
excuse to pry into every corner of his life. Thanks for the
training, Mom!
“Sooooo………..ya got a boyfriend yet?” I
figured that I might as well ask a question that I really wanted
to know the answers to.
“Eric!” He blushed and dropped his head. “No.”
I rubbed the back of his neck. “Ya make it sound like
that could never happen.”
He shrugged. “I’m not cool.” His finger
traced a pattern in the carpet and then he smiled. “I’m
kinda geeky.”
I laughed. “I hadn’t noticed that. Whadya gotta
do to be geeky, be cute and have a great body…………cause
you are and you do.” He leaned into me and laughed nervously.
“Yeah right!”
“So how about a best friend?” They usually provide
a lot of the same services as a boyfriend but are more socially
acceptable.
“There’s a couple of guys at school that I talk
to but we’re not that close.”
--------------------------------
I figure that if a fourteen year old beats off four times a
day and uses four Kleenex tissues to clean up each time that’s
sixteen tissues a day or 480 a month. And that’s not
counting what Pete and I use. I made a note to buy two four
packs of the large boxes.
It was obvious that we needed to go shopping and not only
for Kleenex. When David moved in he had a fair amount of personal
stuff and the clothing that he had was all impeccably taken
care of but there wasn’t much of it. Now, God knows that
I couldn’t give a shit less about clothes but even I
remember that for a high school kid it was a big deal. Plus
we decided that David oughta be able to pick out drapes and
stuff for his room, stuff that would make it actually his room.
About twenty minutes from us is a large shopping center and
it has an Abercrombie & Fitch in it and the internet assured
me that that was the cool place to buy clothes for a teenager.
Knowing that I know nothing about clothing and also knowing
that Pete is inclined to buy everything he wears, and I do
mean everything, from Brooks Brothers, okay, maybe with the
exception of a pair or two of jeans slipped in there somewhere
but because of all that I decided to call the store manager
at A&F and ask for help.
I said to him, “The thing is that I’ve got this
fourteen year old kid and I’d like the name of a salesperson
that can relate to him and also help him pick out some things
that will actually look good on him and not just sell him a
lot of useless crap.”
He laughed. “You know that nobody has ever asked me
for that? But it’s a good idea. We’ve got a young
guy here that just started with us that comes from your area,
he’s only sixteen but he’s got great taste in clothes
and also some common sense. What’s the last name?”
“Cortland.”
“Just ask for Sam, I’ll let him know that you’re
coming and fill him in on the situation.”
David and Jase were sitting in the back seat of Pete’s
car as all four of us headed to the shopping center. David
spoke his voice hesitant. “Eric……..I really
don’t need clothes……..well anymore clothes
than I already have.” It took a week to get him to stop
calling me Mr. Cortland and then the crying at night thing
happened which brought us to a new level of comfort with each
other.
Pete looks at him in the rearview mirror smiles and says, “David,
it won’t hurt to look and everybody can always use a
few more things. Whadya say, Jase, how about you? You need
some clothes too?” He laughed and looked at me. “Your
dad always needs clothes.”
I turned and looked back at David. “A computer! You
need a fu………., you need a functioning computer!”
Pete laughed. “Nice save, Eric.”
Jase glared at me and I laughed. “Yes one for you too!
But boy are there gonna be parental controls on THAT puppy!” Jase
had been begging for a computer for a long time.
David laughed and poked Jase’s arm. Weirdly it was like
Jase was acting like the older brother a lot of the time because
it seemed like he was the one who was always comforting David.
That was slowly beginning to change. It was good to see David
beginning to laugh. There hadn’t been much of that since
his mom had died.
As we were walking to A&F I decided that this wasn’t
gonna work. We looked like a kid being escorted by his whole
family to buy clothes. That’s dumb.
I pulled on Pete’s arm. “Babe, why don’t
you take Jase to the computer store and I’ll drop David
for clothes and then we can come back when he’s done.”
He gave me an odd look. “Huh?”
“We look like the Clampetts bringing Jethro to get new
jeans. Let’s cut the kid some slack. I figured I’d
just go in and get David started with Sam and then leave em
alone.”
Pete laughed. “I never thought of it but you’re
right.”
Pete turned to David and put his hand on his shoulder. “David,
don’t be afraid to pick things out. You need new clothes.
Okay?”
David shuffled around for a while but finally said okay.
David and I walked into the store and then stopped for a moment
to look around. A tall gorgeous young guy with dark brown almost
black hair and warm brown eyes approached us and said tentatively, “Are
you Mr. Cortland and David?”
I held out my hand and the boy shook it. “You must be
Sam.”
“Yes, Sir.” He turned to David and held out his
hand. “And you must be David.”
I watched as Sam’s eyes seemed to get larger and David
stared into them for a moment and then started to blush.
Mentally I added condoms and lube to my shopping list.
David
One of the things that I’m happy about the accident,
not that there’s really much to be happy about the worst
day of my life, but I am happy that my mom didn’t see
it coming. She had just turned her head to look and me and
then she smiled that warm smile of hers and then nothing. I
guess that in a way I am lucky because that’s my last
memory of her.
The next thing that I remember is being in the hospital with
doctors and nurses running around like crazy and scaring the
shit out of me and nobody telling me about my mom. I asked
and asked and asked but nobody said anything about her just
that everything was gonna be okay. I suppose that’s when
it began to sink in.
Then Dr. O’Connor was there and he told me, and then
the crying really began. When I think about it now he must
have cancelled appointments so that he could stay with me cause
he was there for hours just holding my hand. If I had been
able to think of anything but the pain having him that close
would have probably made me hard because he sure did most of
the time.
When he was giving me my physical for school I got hard as
soon as he put the stethoscope thing on my chest. Man I was
so embarrassed and we hadn’t even gotten to the turn
your head and cough part. By the time my underwear came down
my dick felt like it coulda shattered if a breeze hit it.
He told me, “Forget about it, happens all the time.” Well
I knew for sure that it happened to me all the time but I thought
that it was just me.
Then I just blurted out the one thing that I most wanted to
keep hidden. “I think I’m gay!” Man it was
so fucking embarrassing because I didn’t just say it
quietly I yelled it out and I’m pretty sure that even
if someone was walking by on the other side of the door they
would have heard it.
Dr. O’Connor, well, Pete, was so cool about it. He just
said, “Turn your head and cough.” I started to
shake when his warm hand examined my balls and checked for
a hernia.
“What makes you think you’re gay?”
I could hear my voice get all squeaky. “Look what it’s
done, Doctor!” I pointed at my dick.
“David, that happens to a lot of guys when they get
a physical, especially guys your age.”
Somehow that didn’t make me feel better. “It happens
whenever I think about guys.” He pulled up my underwear
and told me to sit on the table. I figured he was gonna do
that part where they stick a finger up your butt but he didn’t
and I figured that must come later or maybe he wouldn’t
do it at all cause he knew it’d turn me on too much.
Geez, for an old guy Pete is sure handsome. I just wanted
to lay my head against his chest and feel those arms around
me.
“David, it’s not uncommon for guys at your age
to be attracted to both sexes. As you get older the odds are
that that attraction will center more and more on females but
even if it doesn’t it not the end of the world.” It
wasn’t the end of the world, the end of the world was
two months away but I didn’t know that then.
This wasn’t something that I wanted to talk about and
yet on the other hand it was what I wanted to talk about most. “Doctor,
it just keeps getting worse and even though I really try to
be attracted to girls I just think more and more about guys.”
“Are they romantic thoughts or sexual thoughts?”
“Both! I think about,” I sighed, “all kinds
of sex stuff but I think about kissing and stuff too.” Pete
looked like he was thinking and biting the inside of his mouth
like I sometimes do.
He put his hand on my shoulder and said, “Okay, we’ll
keep an eye on how things go but don’t automatically
figure that you’re gonna be gay.”
I was about to beg him not to tell my mom but he stopped with
his hand on the door and said, “Don’t worry, this
is just between us.”
The first time that I met Eric and Jase I was still in the
hospital and I was pretty numb because I was beginning to figure
out that I wasn’t gonna be allowed to go back to our
apartment to live and that the way this situation usually ended
was in a foster home. At the time I didn’t realize that
Pete was working on the problem and then when I met Eric and
Jase Eric just basically told me that he and Pete wanted me
to come live with them.
It’s weird because I had always had a problem being
around Pete. I mean for an old guy he’s still totally
hot and solid, solid in a, you can depend on him, way.
Eric on the other hand is flat out the most handsome man that
I ever saw. I tried to think of hot guys like from bands and
things but as hot as most of those guys are Eric is like in
a whole other class. The thing is that he doesn’t even
seem to know how he looks and that makes it even hotter.
When I was lying in that hospital bed and Eric was telling
me that he wanted me to live with them he took hold of my hand
and it was like somebody had plugged me into a wall outlet.
He kept talking to me wanting me to agree and in my head I
was screaming “Yes!” but nothing was coming out
of my mouth.
Then when I did move in with them and I was still feeling
like sick-horrible about my mom and bawling like a kid Eric
must have heard it and got in bed with me.
He must have figured that I thought he wanted sex because he
told me that he was happily married but it never entered my
mind, I mean why would a guy that hot wanna have sex with me?
Anyway when he pushed me on my side and wrapped his arms around
me my cock was so hard it felt like if the blanket even touched
it it would break off.
Oh yeah, there’s this whole thing about the way that
Eric smells. It’s this very faint clean aroma that is
incredibly powerful. When he was holding me I noticed this
scent and then realized that it was the background smell that
I had noticed all week. It was an intensely masculine smell
that wasn’t at all offensive and at the same time was
like nothing I had ever smelled before. It went directly to
my dick. For awhile I thought that it was just me and then
one evening when Pete got home from work I noticed that he
hugged and kissed Eric and then buried his face in Eric’s
neck and inhaled deeply. Damn, I knew exactly what he was smelling.
It gave he a hardon just realizing what was happening in Pete’s
head because of that scent. And it isn’t just men, when
we finally went out shopping together I saw women who would
be drooling over Eric and then if he got really close to them
they got this weird look on their faces and they looked like
they wanted to bite him or something. He didn’t see any
of it, he’s totally oblivious to the affect that he has
on people and man I’m not even talking about seeing him
in just his underwear!
Jase! Geez, Jase has become really important to me. First
of all Jase can sometimes seem like the six year old that he
is and other times it’s like he’s thirty. But whatever
age Jase is he’s like the kindest human being on the
planet. He’s been so nice to me that there’s no
way to describe it and do it justice. LOL And he looks exactly
like Eric! With that wonderful concerned quality that Jase
has and the drop dead looks that he’s getting from Eric
that boy is gonna wipe out a whole high school full of girls
in about eight years.
Well between Pete and Eric both pushing me to get new clothes
and Jase telling me how great I’d look I was pretty much
looking forward to this shopping trip. I really couldn’t
believe that they were gonna buy me a computer too and actually
I figured that that probably wouldn’t happen. A lotta
times my mom would tell me we were gonna get something really
cool and then something would come up, the car would need fixing
or something else would break and that stuff always came first.
I couldn’t believe how good-looking Sam was. He was
tall probably six feet and had really broad shoulders and even
though he was wearing a pretty loose shirt you could still
tell that his chest was really well developed. His eyes were
dark brown and seemed to be really gentle but they also had
a way of almost twinkling like stars or something. When he
smiled his whole face lit up and those eyes did their thing
while the corners of his eyes got all crinkly and his teeth
seemed really white and straight.
He was about six inches taller than me and when he looked
down into my eyes there seemed to be something there and his
mouth opened slightly and then closed as his tongue came out
and touched his top lip.
Suddenly I realized that Sam was holding his hand out to me
and that my mouth was hanging open, so I closed my mouth and
shook his hand. I looked over at Eric who was standing there
with a small smile on his face.
Eric
I didn’t leave them entirely alone. I put my hand an
David’s shoulder and said, “I’m goin for
a walk but I’ll be back when you’re done. Try everything
on even the shirts.” Then turning to Sam. “Take
everything that you think he needs or that looks good on him
and put it in a pile and we’ll look it over when I get
back.”
I walked into the mall and sat watching them through the windows
as the boys worked together. After an hour David would try
on a shirt and Sam would stand close to him and adjust the
color or straighten how it laid on his shoulders. They began
talking less and smiling goofy silent smiles more. After a
while I was joined by Pete and Jase, Pete sat next to me and
said, “What’s up?”
“I think they’re almost done.”
“How’s he doing?”
“Preeeetttty good.”
He looked at me oddly. “So he got everything picked
out?”
“Yeah that too.”