Second Wind

Chapter Twenty-Three

Joey

I felt bad leaving Connor with Ben for the second day in a row when I went to the nursery on Saturday, but at least this time it was only for six hours. After the long day I'd had plowing I didn't get up as early as usual, but I still made time to fuss and play with him for a while before going to work. Neither of my boys seemed to mind all of the time they were spending together. Connor was becoming very affectionate with Ben and Ben finally seemed to have lost the last vestiges of nervousness about handling Connor.

It was Anthony's Saturday to work so I enjoyed myself. I was able to get the payroll done, do some other office work and help out in the store. Anthony had discussed Sunday dinner at our place (I loved thinking of Ben's house as our place) with Gina and we firmed up plans. I also asked him if he could bring along a high chair for Connor. That would make it so much easier to get him fed. I hadn't thought to bring the one from my parents' house and I wasn't in the mood to face Mom again.

I made what was becoming our traditional Saturday night meal--spaghetti and meatballs. Once I didn't have to work every Saturday we both wanted to start entertaining and then we'd have something a little fancier. We hadn't had Becky and Glenn over for dinner since before the holidays and Ben wanted to have Rob and Jim one evening. After supper we were cleaning up the kitchen and talking about our plans for Sunday.

"Gina has confirmed with Mom that she's going to ten o'clock Mass tomorrow, so that leaves eight o'clock open for us."

"Us? You mean you took my offer to go to church with you seriously?"

"It sounded like you were serious to me. Not very enthusiastic, but serious."

"Yeah, I suppose I was. If you really want me to go with you, I will. But, as you said, not very enthusiastically."

"Look, Ben, I don’t want to make you feel like you have to go to church just because I do. You never did tell me what you had against the Church. You want to talk about it?"

"It's not that big a deal. You'll probably think it's silly, but yeah, I should tell you the whole story and then at least you'll know where I'm coming from."

Ben made a pot of tea and we got comfortable in front of the fireplace. He seemed nervous, like he was afraid of offending me. He knew the Church meant a lot to me and he was about to explain why it didn't mean much to him.

"Before I start I should tell you that I consider myself a Christian, and having had the usual strong indoctrination from the Church, I'll probably always think of myself as a Catholic."

"Yeah, I figured that."

"Well, you know I was really into the Church as a kid. I loved being an altar boy, helping the priest. It made me feel important and more religious. Looking back, I think I really got into the whole theatrical aspect of it, too. You'll have to admit that when it's done right, the Church puts on a good show."

"Yeah, when you look at the robes, candles, incense, oration and music it can be pretty mesmerizing. I'm sure that's on purpose. It's supposed to be impressive."

"Well, it sure impressed me. And I took the Church's teachings seriously, too. When I was a kid I actually thought of becoming a priest."

"Most Catholic boys go through that period, I think. The priesthood is held up as such an ideal."

"Once I hit puberty, I saw a little problem, though. My attraction to guys was pretty clear to me right from the start. I knew the Church's position on homosexuality, yet somehow I didn't want to believe it. I knew what a good kid I was so I couldn't believe that just because I liked guys that negated everything else."

"I can understand that. My coming to terms with being gay so much later in life probably helped me there. I have a better view of who I am at this point."

"Anyway, I was kind of shy and didn't have a lot of friends, but I did have this best friend Mike and he and I used to stay over at each other's houses all the time. One night when we were fourteen we got to comparing, you know the kind of things teenagers do. One thing led to another and he ended up showing me how to masturbate. I guess I was a pretty naïve kid, being fourteen and never having jerked off, but I was an only child and didn't have anyone to learn from."

"I can identify with that. My brothers had all been married and out of the house for years when I hit puberty. Believe it or not, Jenny is the one who told me about masturbation."

"A girl showed you how to jerk off?"

"No, she didn't show me. She just explained what it was and what she'd heard about how guys did it. Then I went home and tried it out."

"Well, Mike showed me and the first few times we just jerked off together. And I did it lots on my own, too. I loved my new toy. Then, one night he was staying at my house we moved up to the next step and jerked each other. I still remember that first time I felt another guy's hard dick in my hand."

"So do I, but then again that was only a couple of months ago for me."

"I was feeling guilty, not because it was gay but because I knew masturbation was a sin. I wasn't really thinking of what Mike and I were doing as sex, so when I went to confession I just said I masturbated. I didn't mention Mike."

"A sin of omission."

"A little one, I guess. So this went on for a few months, Mike and me jerking each other off, then me going to confession, doing penance, then doing it all over again. I felt guilty as hell but couldn't stop. One night we graduated to oral sex. I just had the urge to take him in my mouth as we were jerking, and almost immediately he exploded in my mouth. It was fantastic and I loved everything about it, especially the taste of his semen. And then he returned the favor and I thought I'd died and gone to heaven. Until the orgasmic high wore off and the guilt set in, that is."

"I always felt guilty after orgasm when I jerked off. It felt so good and then it felt so bad."

"I know, everybody does it but pretends you're not supposed to do it. But after that time where we used our mouths I knew we'd crossed a line and what we'd done was sex, gay sex. And I felt so torn up about it. I knew I had to confess it but I was afraid. We had two priests in our church. Father O'Malley was like sixty years old and never ever smiled. He always scared me. Then there was Father Tom. He was probably around thirty and a very friendly guy. He was cool and all of the kids liked him, so I decided to take my chances with Father Tom."

"And I take it it didn’t go very well?"

"That's putting it mildly. He practically read me the riot act. Not that he yelled and screamed in the confessional, but very calmly and forcefully he told me what a horrible sin I had committed. He told me the Church's position on sex outside of marriage in general and homosexuality in particular. I left the Church that day convinced that if I ever touched Mike again I would definitely go to hell, no matter what else I did with my life."

"I've been to confession a few times since we started this relationship, but I haven't said anything about us. The way I look at it, we're supposed to confess our sins, but there's no way I can see loving you or being loved by you as a sin. I know the Church says it is, but I can't agree."

"Obviously, I agree with you now, Joey. But back then I was a scared kid and a priest was like God to me. He scared the crap out of me and I was determined that no way was I going to be gay. I broke off my friendship with Mike and spent the rest of my teen years pretty miserable. I hated the part of me that was gay and spent at least an hour every day praying for God to cure me, to make me straight, to make me a good person. That's what eventually led to my fiasco with Nicole. I wanted so badly to be straight."

"And it obviously didn't work."

"No, my experience with Nicole and then with the football player right after showed me that all those years of praying and beating myself up hadn't changed anything, that I was as gay as ever. Doing what I thought I was supposed to do had only hurt Nicole and had been a lie. So I joined Dignity to try to reconcile being gay and Catholic."

"Dignity? What's that?"

"It's a gay Catholic organization with chapters all over the world. Obviously, the Church doesn't recognize it. In fact, the local chapter meets in an Episcopal church."

"And Dignity wasn't able to turn you into a happy gay Catholic?"

"No but it wasn't their fault. Shortly after I came out I went into the city with a few friends for a night of carousing. We went to a private club in the East Village. It was a pretty wild place with a back room where all kinds of things went on. After a couple of drinks I got up the courage to go into the back room, not to do anything, mind you, just to see what my friends were talking about. The first thing I saw when my eyes adjusted to the dim light was Father Tom in a sling. He was naked and getting, uh, taken care of by a couple of guys, with a few more standing around watching. Our eyes met and I knew from the look on his face that he recognized me. I dragged my friends out of the place and made them take me back to campus. And that was the end of me trying to be a good Catholic."

"I can understand how upset you were, but you shouldn't have let the hypocrisy of one priest turn you away from the whole Church."

"I know, but you can't imagine how angry I was. I'd literally hated myself through my teen years because of him. And then I realized that he hadn't said anything to me that wasn't direct Church doctrine. It wasn't Father Tom but the Church's teachings that had made me hate myself. Yeah, he was a hypocrite about his own life, but that didn't affect what he'd said to me. So I walked away from the Church and started formulating a personal philosophy of life based on the teachings of Jesus, not the men who came after him."

"I'm not sure that I even go to church for religious reasons, at least not the specifics. There are lots of things I disagree with the Church on, our relationship being a big one, but I suppose what I like about going to church is the feeling of comfort it gives me. It's a feeling of belonging, of being a part of a community and culture. It got me though some pretty rough times after Jenny died."

"I think that's what keeps a lot of people going. Of course, religion has a lot to do with it, too, or at least the feeling of being religious that going to church gives you. And even after all this time away from it, I could appreciate the comfort that the familiar rituals gave me on Christmas Eve. So if it will make you feel better if I go to church with you, I will. Just don’t expect me to show any support for the Church. I don’t support anything or anyone that doesn't support me."

"I wouldn't ask you to, Ben, but I'm going to take you up on your offer. I'm going through another one of those rough times with all of this crap from my family and while the Church gives me some comfort, being with you gives me even more. So maybe for a while you could go with me. I'm not saying that it's forever, just while I need it."

"Of course, Joey. I will always be there for you, whatever you need."

Ben

I had a bit of a conflict in my head over whether attending Mass with Joey could be construed as supporting the Church, but I decided that it was really supporting Joey. That was what mattered. If he needed me, that was really all that mattered.

The worst part about going to church with him was getting up so early on the weekend. He found a way to make that more pleasant than I could have imagined. I was dreaming that he was going down on me, sucking my cock, when I realized that I was awake and it wasn't a dream. I looked down and saw the back of Joey's head covered with his dark curls, slowly sliding up and down as I felt the moist warmth of his mouth on my dick. He still couldn't quite take the whole thing so he had his hand around the base, pulling as he sucked. I reached down and gently ran my fingers through his hair. When he realized I was awake, he started bobbing and sucking harder. He grabbed my sac and pulled with his left hand and that did it for me. I felt my balls pull up and I creamed into his mouth. He continued sucking every last drop out of me. As my dick started to soften, he pulled off and crawled back up along side me. As he went to kiss me, I turned my head.

"Morning breath," I mumbled.

"Counteracted by cum breath. Don’t worry about it." I turned back and we shared along, passionate kiss. I could taste the traces of my juice in his mouth.

"Mmm, I'll go to church with you every day if that's gonna be my alarm clock."

"Once a week for church is fine, but I could set the alarm more often if you'd like."

I reached down and wrapped my hand around his thick throbbing erection.

"You're definitely already up, but maybe I could help you out a little, too."

"We're in a little bit of a hurry so how about we save some time by taking care of that in the shower?"

"Sounds good to me."

We jumped out of bed and while I ran naked to the kitchen to turn on the coffeemaker, Joey ran naked into Connor's room to check on him. We met back at the master bathroom. He'd lost most of his erection by then but it came back with a vengeance once we were both in the shower and I started stroking him. We'd previously discovered that it was hard to suck in the shower without drowning, so I soaped up his schlong and began stroking it slowly with my right hand. He was turned sideways to me so with my left hand I felt up his ass. His cheeks were so round and firm. I soaped up my left hand and ran my fingers up and down his crack, pushing deeper into the cleft each time until I felt a fingertip brush against his pucker and he moaned. He said he had no fantasies about getting fucked but his anus was very sensitive and he always seemed to like it when I touched him there. As I continued stroking his hard dick I played with his hole, running my fingertip around it, pressing in slightly now and then. His breathing was getting shorter and more halting so I knew he was close. With one quick thrust I slipped my finger into him up to the first knuckle. He gasped and I felt his rod pulse in my hand as he started shooting all over the tile wall. I firmly milked seven or eight shots out of him and then he threw his arms around me and collapsed against me.

"Oh man, we gotta get up early every morning, except I don’t know if either one of us would be good for anything else the rest of the day if we started like this all the time."

"If every day started like this I don’t think I'd care much about the rest, Joey."

We hurried through the rest of the shower, washing each other from head to toe. We were both hard again by the end but there was no time for an encore performance. I made toast and got Connor's cereal ready while Joey woke Connor, changed him, cleaned him up and got him dressed. The whole family was going to church.

The service itself was actually kind of nice. It was the usual ritual and the sermon didn’t touch on anything that offended me. Since I hadn't grown up in Madison there was no one in the church that I knew, expect for one fortyish woman who kept staring at us. She looked very familiar and I was pretty sure that she was either John's or Vinnie's wife. On the way out I pointed her out to Joey.

"Yeah, that's Rita, Vinnie's wife. She's nice enough, but on the timid side. Between that and Vinnie's strong personality they have one of those old-fashioned relationships where he really rules the roost. She pretty much gives in to him all the way down the line."

"Too bad. He could really use a tough wife who would stand up to him and put him in his place. The last thing he needs is someone who lets him get away with his shit."

"I agree. There have been times at family gatherings that he's really treated her badly but she just puts up with it."

The church had been only half-full for the early Mass and once Joey got Connor all bundled up to leave we were at the end of the crowd leaving the building. When we got to the door the priest who was greeting the parishioners smiled at Joey and held out his hand. Joey had been carrying Connor in both arms but shifted him to his left so he could shake hands with the priest.

"It's good to see you here, Joe. And how's your boy? He's bigger every time I see him."

"He's great, Father. And though he's growing fast I think part of it is this coat he's wearing. Father, I'd like you to meet my friend, my partner, Ben Donnelly. Ben, this is Father Vittorio."

I was surprised but proud of the way Joey introduced me. He was done hiding anything from anybody. As I shook hands with the priest I looked him over. He was in his fifties, average build, balding a bit. He had a warm smile but his eyes were probing and I could tell he was checking me out at the same time.

"Nice to meet you, Ben." He turned back to Joey. "How are you doing, Joe? I was talking to your mother last week and she was pretty upset about what's going on between you."

"I'm doing all right, Father. I know Mom's upset but there's nothing I can do about that."

"When it comes to those we love there's always something we can do to try to make things better. Let me know if you want to talk sometime. Maybe I can help."

"I'll let you know, Father."

We walked to the car. I wasn't sure what to make of Father Vittorio. He had been talking to Mrs. Napoli so he obviously knew what was going on, especially after the way Joey introduced me. My own experience with priests didn't give me much hope that he'd be understanding.

"So what do you think, Joey?"

"Father Vittorio is pretty hard to read sometimes. He's been here since I was a little kid and I've always liked him. He's friendly and doesn't come across as judgmental. But he is an older Italian priest, so I don’t expect him to welcome our relationship. I suppose at some point I'll talk to him. He's heard Mom's side, it's only fair that he hear mine, not that I think he'll be on our side."

"I wish there didn't have to be sides, Joey."

Back at the house we began to prepare for the dinner. Joey began working on the lasagna while I poured marinade on a large London broil and chopped some veggies. While the pasta was boiling Joey tossed a salad and I set the dining room table. I'd never expanded it before and it looked pretty impressive set for eight. I then went out to the patio and cleared the snow off the gas grill. Even in the dead of winter cooking on the grill wasn't out of the question. It's not like you had to stand there next to it and watch the meat cook.

After all of the drama with Joey's family for the past two weeks, the dinner with Anthony's brood turned out to be an anti-climax. Anthony had started out the most tolerant brother and had made quite a bit of improvement in his attitude toward me, but even so he was probably the least accepting member of his immediate family. Gina reminded me more of Becky than a Napoli and the kids were all great. Most of the afternoon we didn't even talk about Joey's coming out or the problems it had caused. It was just a fun family dinner.

Of course, we did talk a little bit about various family reactions over dinner. We already knew how the adults felt, but Anthony's children were able to tell us a little bit about how their cousins were handling the issue.

Anita had run into John's son Vito on campus during the week and tried to talk to him about it.

"He's hopeless, just like his father. He said that as long as Uncle Joey wanted to be 'queer' he wasn't his uncle anymore."

"Wanted to be queer. That's an interesting way of putting it, as in 'When I grow up I want to be queer.' That sounds like John's way of thinking." Joey just shook his head.

"Well, Toni doesn't see what the big deal is," Will piped in.

"Okay, I need a little help here. Who's Toni?" What I needed was a pen and a pad of paper to take notes.

"Toni is Vinnie's younger daughter. She's in Will's class in middle school," Gina said.

"Yeah, she said Uncle Vinnie's like totally off the wall about it, but she just doesn't get it."

"What about the rest of her family? Has anyone talked to James?" I knew Joey was concerned about how he was taking it. We both were.

"No, I see him in the cafeteria all the time but he's so quiet, especially lately. It's all I can do to get a hello out of him. The only one he talks to is his friend Cookie Marshall. I did talk to April, though. She's just like Vito and Uncle John. I swear they're a Stepford family, six people with one pre-programmed brain." Carole froze her face and moved her arms like she was a robot.

So overall, with the exception of John's clan, the kids seemed to be handling things better than their parents. Well, James was a mystery but at least he wasn't antagonistic like his father. And nobody knew about the little kids but they probably didn't even know what was going on. Joey seemed reassured that he hadn't lost everybody and by the end of the day had some hope that maybe it would all work out eventually.

Joey

The dinner with Anthony felt like old times. Better, actually, because Ben was there as a member of the family. It was a start, anyway. I was pretty sure that soon we'd talk Donna Marie into bringing her family over, though the rest were out of the question, for the near future at least.

By the time Ben and I went to bed Sunday night, I'd made a decision. Actually, it was something I'd been thinking about for a long time, since before I came out, but I decided it was time to stop thinking and just do it. I was nervous as we got into bed and covered it up by launching a tickling attack on Ben. In no time he was a quivering mass of giggles, but I had to stop before we woke up Connor. He lay there gasping, trying to catch his breath.

"What was that all about? You usually only resort to tickling when you're nervous about something."

I turned on to my side and put my elbow on the bed, propping my head up with my hand. With the other hand I lightly traced tiny circles around Ben's nipples. He was still feeling ticklish and I could see his pecs jump at my touch. I looked into his eyes and held his gaze.

"I want you to make love to me, Ben. We've talked about it before but I think it's time."

"Are you sure, babe? You don’t have to just because you feel obligated, like out of a sense of fair play or something."

"I know, but I want to experience everything with you, to love you in every way possible. I want to feel you inside me, to have you be a part of me the way I'm a part of you the other times we make love."

"Well, as long as you're sure you really want it and you're not just doing it because you think you should. I'll admit I find your ass to be very, very appealing. You don’t know how many times I've just wanted to dive into it."

"For this first time I hope you'll be a little more gentle than that, but I do want it."

"Gentle is the only way I could ever be with you."

Once I'd made it clear what I wanted to happen I left it in Ben's hands. When we had first started making love I had been very tentative, letting Ben take the lead since he was more experienced. As I grew more confident in my desires, I became more assertive in bed, and Ben seemed to like it that way. But I was back on unfamiliar ground, where I really didn't know what to do, so I let Ben take charge again.

Ben rolled me over onto my back and climbed on top, kissing me passionately, grinding his hips into mine, sparking a little swordfight between our dicks. After a while he moved down a little and gently nibbled at the side of my neck right above the collarbone, knowing that drove me crazy. Then he continued his way down my body, licking and lightly biting, sucking parts of me into his mouth. My nipples were usually pretty sensitive and he spent a lot of time working on them, running the tip of his tongue around them, pulling on the nubs with his teeth. I ran my hands over his back, massaging him, pressing his body into mine. He continued his journey south, bathing my abs with his tongue, until he got to my pubes. He held my rock hard dick straight up and flicked his tongue around the rim of the head. He then ran his tongue around the underside of the rim, causing my entire body to shiver. After what seemed to be an eternity of this teasing he finally put his mouth over the head and sucked on it as he continued running his tongue around it. I immediately felt a tightening of my balls and pushed him off, panting.

"Damn, I'm close. I don’t want to cum yet, though, babe."

"I don’t want you to cum so soon either. Maybe I can work on something else for a while."

"How about I take care of you until I calm down? You don't have to do all the work."

"It’s not work, Joey. I'm loving every minute of this. But this is all about you tonight. You asked me to make love to you and I'm going to make love to all of you."

He then had me roll over onto my belly and he sat on my butt and began massaging my back, working first on my shoulders, digging his hands deep into my muscles, kneading and probing. Then he worked his way down my back, releasing tension I didn’t even know I had from my muscles. He slid down and continued his massage on my ass, kneading each cheek with his hands. It wasn't a sexual thing, it was still more of a regular massage, but it felt so good.

After a while he spread my cheeks and began to lightly run his fingers in between them. There must be a lot of nerve endings in that area because I always went nuts when he touched me there. I felt the mattress move slightly and then he pulled my cheeks further apart. A second later I felt something touch my anus and an electric shock seemed to go through me. I couldn't figure out what was touching me since both of his hands were busy spreading me apart. As it moved and I felt the wetness I realized it was his tongue. He licked around and around my puckered hole, gently poking and prodding. The sensations were absolutely incredible. In no time I was pushing my hips back, pressing my ass into his face. I just couldn't get enough. He continued rimming me and I could tell he was getting his tongue further and further into me as I relaxed more and more. I never wanted it to end. My dick was hard as steel under me and was dripping, making a huge wet spot on the sheet. I was alternately grinding my ass into Ben's face and my cock into the mattress and was sure I was going to blow any second, but he sensed my excitement and pulled off at the last second.

"Not yet, Joey, the best is yet to come."

Ben turned me over onto my back again and lifted my legs, pressing my knees back into my chest. He had me hold them tight in that position and lifted my butt, shoving a pillow under it. He dove back in, licking, sucking and nibbling on my hole again for a bit, then took some lube and worked it inside me. I was familiar with this part of things, having experienced it from the other side so many times lately, but Ben was going very slowly and carefully. He gently worked a finger inside me. He'd never gone any deeper than the first knuckle before and when the finger was nearly all the way in he hit something that sent shock waves through me. "That's your prostate, babe." He smiled down at me and continued his finger massage. After a minute he slipped another finger in. This felt a little more uncomfortable but didn't hurt at all. When he thought I was ready he added a third. I felt very stretched, and while it didn't feel good, it wasn't bad either.

After gently turning and twisting his fingers inside me for a while, he pulled them out, leaving me feeling a bit empty. He had lubed up his dick with his other hand and immediately replaced his fingers with it. He pressed the head against my now stretched pucker. At first nothing happened, then it popped in. I felt a sharp stab of pain and gasped.

"Is it too much? Should I pull out?" His face showed concern.

"No, it's not so bad. It was just that first shock of entry. Give me a minute to get used to it." I took a few deep breaths and tried to lose myself in Ben's beautiful green eyes. It worked and the pain subsided. What was left was a very full feeling. "Okay, go ahead. It's all right now."

Ben very gradually pushed into me. I could feel his dick slowly slide into me until his pubic hair was brushing against me. He stayed like that for a few seconds, then slowly withdrew until just his head was in me. He pushed back in, a little faster this time and didn’t stop when he hit bottom, just pulled out again. He began slowly pumping in and out of me, keeping his eyes locked onto mine the whole time. On most thrusts he pressed against my prostate and I felt that jolt each time. At first I was concentrating on the physical feelings that were so new to me, but suddenly the emotional end took over. Ben was inside me and I was a part of him. We were one. I lost myself in his eyes as he continued making love to me. I wasn't aware of anything but Ben's love. I felt his thrusting into me and the pleasure as he hit my button inside, but more than anything I was overcome by the love he was giving me. I became aware of the increase in his breathing and the speed of his thrusts and knew he was getting close so I grabbed my dick in my fist and began pumping it. Ben beat me to the finish and he moaned as he started flooding my insides with his love juice. His dick was still pulsing inside my hole when I felt the familiar sensations warning of my own orgasm. My first shot went over my head. The next several hit me in the face and on my chest.

Ben leaned in and licked a little cum off my face, then kissed me. At some point during the kiss his cock slipped out of me and he moved over alongside me. I lowered and stretched out my legs and he cuddled against my side. We just lay there for a while, neither one saying anything, both lost in the emotion. Finally he got up and went into the bathroom to clean up. When he came back he brought a damp towel and cleaned me off, then lay back alongside me.

"So how was it?" I knew he wasn't fishing for compliments; he was just concerned as to whether I had liked it, whether he had hurt me.

"Not bad," I giggled. I thought for a minute. "It was good. Not just the physical part, though. I mean, that was okay, but not really something that got to me. The rimming was fantastic, but the rest was more like an uncomfortable full feeling with some pleasure when you hit my prostate. But the connection, the love, the whole emotional experience was like nothing I've ever felt. I definitely want to do it again sometime."

"Are you sure? We don’t have to, you know. It's been years since I topped and I'd be lying if I said I didn't love that, but you know I'm just fine on the bottom."

"I know, and physically there's nothing I like better than making love to you. But that doesn't mean we can't switch now and then." I giggled again.

"What now?"

"I was just thinking about what Anthony said that morning in Mom's kitchen after he found us in bed. How do you think he'd react to this?"

"He doesn’t have to know everything, babe."

We were both quiet again for a few minutes, just snuggling.

"I love you so much, Joey."

"Couldn’t be more than I love you."