Second Wind

If you are under age, or live in an area where reading stories that include sex between males is illegal, or if you’re not into this type of story, please leave. This is a story of love between two men. As such there is some sex but it is really more about their relationship. If you're into romance, I hope this story pleases you.

I'd like to thank my friends in the Nifty Six for their support and encouragement, especially Tim for his advice and his editing assistance. The author retains all rights. No reproductions are allowed without the author's consent. Comments are appreciated at NJMcMick@yahoo.com.

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Ben

The next week passed uneventfully. While we were all looking forward to James' birthday dinner, Joey and I were also planning our own party. Right after the custody hearing we had decided on a date in early June and had made some preliminary plans. Early in the week we got the invitations out to everyone on our guest list.

Dad had called me back around ten Saturday morning. He knew I wasn't an early riser on the weekend but Joey had changed that a bit. He had a way of getting me up, in more ways than one, that I didn't mind. Besides, since he worked most Saturdays if I didn't get up to have breakfast with him I didn't see him all day. Anyway, Dad was as excited as a little kid on Christmas morning and he babbled on and on about Lori and the baby. The labor had gone on quite long but in the end it was a normal delivery and both were doing well. Dad suggested we come into the city the next Saturday to visit but that was the day of James' dinner. Joey was planning to take the day off from work to get ready for it. I told Dad we'd try for Sunday, though I wasn't sure if Joey could get the whole weekend off.

Joey managed to rearrange his weekend schedule a little. He decided that he could work a half-day on Saturday and still get everything ready for the dinner as long as James and I got the house ready. Then he could take Sunday off as well without feeling guilty. Since Vinnie had made it clear he wouldn't come to the dinner, Joey put him on the work schedule for both days. There are advantages in being in charge of your company payroll.

I made sure I got all of my other chores out of the way on Thursday and Friday so I could concentrate on cleaning the house Saturday. Even though James would be helping me it was his birthday and I didn't want him to spend the whole day working. I let him sleep in while I worked. Connor kept me company, playing with Lula in whatever room I was working in. A little before eleven James came stumbling down the hallway, barefoot in his boxers and a t-shirt. I was dusting in the living room at that point and stopped, walked over to him and pulled him into a warm hug.

"Happy birthday, kid."

"Hey, I'm sixteen now, you can't call me a kid anymore."

"Yeah, you have been doing some growing up lately. But I'm an old man compared to you, so I can call you a kid if I like. It's a term of affection, not a put-down, you know that."

He lay his head on my shoulder and continued to hug me. "Yeah, I know. But that means I get to call you old man if I like. Thanks for being such a good friend to me, Ben."

I gave him a tight squeeze and then a light slap on the butt. "Let's get some breakfast into you, then I'm gonna put you to work."

"Slave driver! It's my birthday, I'm not supposed to work."

I gave him my best leer. "Okay, you've got your choice then. Household slave or boy-toy. You decide."

He blushed. "Um, slave it is, I guess."

Thank god.

Joey

I stopped at the supermarket on the way home from the nursery and picked up a few last minute things I'd thought of while at work. When I got home Ben and James had the house sparkling. I went to work in the kitchen while they set up the dining room. They expanded the table to its maximum length so it could handle the twelve of us, including Connor. My job wasn't all that hard. James had chosen the menu and he wanted mostly basic pasta dishes. Mom was bringing stuffed shells and meatballs. I made lasagna, eggplant parmigiana and mussels in marinara sauce. I also made a huge salad and a big bowl of steamed mixed veggies to try to lighten up the meal a bit. Rita had said she'd bring the cake and candles so I didn't have to worry about that.

Mom and Pop were the first to arrive, as expected. Mom joined me in the kitchen and immediately took charge. Ben poured wine for himself and Pop and the two of them went into the living room. James was still getting dressed. It was the first time he'd had his family to the house and he was nervous. I'd heard him going back and forth between his room and the bathroom for an hour. Mom checked over the dishes I'd made and murmured approvingly. Pop had brought several bottles of his homemade red wine so I opened a few of them and left them to breathe on the counter. I glanced up at the clock and it was just a few minutes to six. We were all ready. Now all we needed were the guests.

"Do I look all right?"

Mom and I both turned to see James standing in the doorway. He was wearing a dark green polo shirt and khakis, nothing special, but he looked so crisp, so perfectly attired. His black hair had a messy look but I was sure that each curl had been strategically placed. His face was angelic. I realized that he was no longer a boy but he wasn't quite a man yet, either. But he was beautiful. Mom rushed across the room and threw her arms around him.

"You look wonderful, James."

She hugged him so tightly I could see the discomfort on his face but he grinned at me. When she finally let go I hugged him as well and whispered into his ear, "You're so beautiful. Everyone is really going to be impressed."

While I knew he wanted to impress us all, I had the feeling that maybe Jared was his real target. I didn't want to embarrass him by saying so, especially in front of Mom, but he got my meaning.

"You think so, Uncle Joey?"

"Yeah, you're gonna knock 'em dead."

We were interrupted by the doorbell. Ben had answered it by the time we got to the living room. It was Rita, accompanied by her other three children. There was no sign of Vinnie, of course. I knew James had just been to their house Thursday after school but they all greeted each other as if it were a long overdue reunion. The kids had never been to our house before (I love thinking of it as our house) and Lisa and Anna looked a little nervous. Mike took it all in stride, however. He was just thrilled to be with his big brother and didn't care where he was. Mom took the cake into the kitchen and James took his siblings into the family room, where Connor was in his playpen.

"So you got Vinnie to let the kids come. I'm so glad."

"I told you I had my ways, Joey. I just told him that if they weren't allowed to celebrate James' birthday he'd be spending a pretty lonely year in the bedroom until James' next birthday, when maybe I'd give him another chance."

"A year without? That's pretty cruel, Rita."

"Yeah, it would be cruel for me too, but I knew he'd give in."

Just then the doorbell rang again. I opened the door to Cookie and Jared, our last guests. James came out to greet them, hugging Cookie and bumping fists with Jared. He took his friends into the family room and Rita joined Ben and Pop in the living room while I went back to help Mom in the kitchen.

"He looks good, Joey. You're taking good care of him."

"He doesn't need all that much taking care of, Ma. He's a great kid and he only needs a little love and support."

Mom smiled at me. "You've always had so much love to give." Wow, who was this woman who looked so much like my usually overbearing, critical mother?

The food was ready in a few minutes so Ben got everyone into the dining room, while Mom, Rita and I brought everything out to the table. We sat James at the head of the table with Cookie and Jared on either side of him. Then his family, with Mom and Pop at the other end with Connor, Ben and me. Mom said grace and then we dug into our massive high-carb feast. We all stuffed ourselves until we couldn't eat another bite. There was still the cake to come but I decided we needed a little break before that. Ben and I cleared the table and did some preliminary cleaning up in the kitchen. We practically had to tie Mom and Rita in their seats, but James was with us every day; he didn't get to spend all that much time with his mother and grandmother.

I put the candles on the super-chocolate cake -- chocolate cake and frosting with chocolate chips throughout -- that was James's favorite. Rita said she made it for him every year. Ben helped me light the candles and then went ahead of me, dimming the lights as I brought the cake into the dining room. The whole room burst into a chorus of "Happy Birthday" as I placed the cake in front of a beaming James. He looked around the table at everyone, then took a deep breath and blew out the flaming candles.

"What'd ya wish for, James?"

"You know I can't tell you or it won't come true, Mike."

"Can't you at least give us a hint?"

"Nope, I'm not gonna tell." He looked around the table again. "There are lots of things I could wish for, one in particular, but right now I'm just thankful for all I've got."

After dinner, the kids went back to the family room while the adults adjourned to the living room. It wasn't as if the party had completely split in two; the house had an open floor plan so we could all see each other. Cookie had made a CD of every song she could find that mentioned birthdays, from "You're Sixteen" to the Beatles' "Birthday." They were playing that at a reasonable volume. When "Sixteen Candles" came on, something made all of us adults look toward the family room. Jared was standing and held out his hand to James. James stood and Jared pulled him into a hug, but then started dancing with him. The sisters giggled as they watched their brother slow dancing with another guy.

Mom, Pop and Rita all looked a bit shocked. Ben and I looked at each other and smiled. The boys looked so sweet together. When the song ended, though, Jared did something that shocked even the two of us. He leaned in to James and kissed him, a long, deep kiss. When it ended both boys seemed a bit stunned for a moment and then embarrassed when they realized what they'd done in front of everyone. Jared excused himself and rushed off toward the bathroom, the tent in his pants obvious to anyone who looked. James sat down next to Cookie and his sisters began teasing him. The grown-ups were all speechless for a minute. Rita found her voice first.

"I thought they were just friends, Joey. What's going on here?"

"They are just friends, Rita. Something more might be developing, but so far they've been focusing on friendship. I think Ben and I are going to have to talk to James again, though, and maybe Jared, too."

"James is too young for this kind of thing. You're going to have to put a stop to it."

"Sixteen isn't too young for dating and kissing, Ma. You wouldn't be saying that if Jared was a girl."

"No, but this is different. James could get hurt."

"It's not really different, but I'll agree that he could get hurt. That's always a danger with teen relationships. Ben and I will talk to them and make sure things aren't moving too fast. Don’t worry, we're on top of it."

The rest of the evening passed without any more shocking scenes. A little after ten Mom and Pop left. Not long after that Mike began yawning a lot and Rita decided it was time to take her kids home to bed as well. Cookie and Jared hung around and we continued the evening in the family room. As soon as everyone else was gone, Jared was apologetic.

"I'm really sorry, guys. I didn't mean to disrupt the whole party. It's just, when the song came on it seemed so romantic and I just wanted to hold James. But that seemed weird so I started dancing."

"And that didn't seem weird?"

"Well, Cookie, I guess it did, but it felt great, too. Then when the song ended I looked at James and he looked so sweet. I thought of that line, 'sweet sixteen and never been kissed', so I just had to kiss him."

"But you kissed me once before."

"Yeah, but that was just a little peck on the lips. You needed a real kiss."

"Well, that sure was a real kiss. But you're sixteen, too, Jared. When was your first kiss?" James smiled at Jared nervously.

"Um, actually, it was tonight. I guess I needed a real kiss as much as I thought you did."

"Well, it's about time you guys finally did it, then. I knew James had the hots for you, Jared, but I wasn’t sure if you felt the same way toward him."

"I wasn't sure either, Cookie. Well, maybe I was but I was having trouble admitting it to myself. I've been pretty sure I was gay for a while but wasn't dealing with it very well. And then James came along and I was so attracted to him." He turned to face James. "I tried to keep my distance a little, but as I got to know you I liked you more and more, so I just had to deal with it."

James turned to Ben and me. "So what do we do now, guys? You're the experts."

"I've got more experience than Joey I this area but I don't consider myself an expert. You guys seem to be doing well getting to know each other. I'd say you should just keep going the way you have been, working on building up your friendship. Take your time and don't push it and see what, if anything, develops past that."

After a while, Cookie and Jared got up to leave. Ben offered them a ride home and James went along with them. I finished cleaning up in the kitchen while they were gone. When they got back James went right to bed. I checked in on Connor and then Ben and I went to bed. I made love to Ben, slow and sweet, and we made a point of being quiet. After the little bit of passion James had experienced that evening the last thing he needed was to listen to our lovemaking. Afterward, I spooned Ben, holding him in my arms.

"How'd it go in the car? Was there a goodnight kiss?"

"Yeah, a little one, nothing as passionate as the one earlier."

"Did you guys talk on the way home?"

"A little. I just wanted to be sure James was in control of his feelings, that he was taking it slow."

"Yeah, I know how hard that is, though. Like when we first decided to pursue a relationship last fall we decided to go slow, but it's hard to keep your heart and your head from racing on ahead."

"You can't always control emotions but as long as you realize what's going on you can keep from getting carried away. I think James will handle it all right."

"And he's always got us if he needs us."

"He knows that, Joey. I think that makes him feel a lot more secure about the whole thing."

"Our little boy is growing up, Ben."

"Connor is our little boy, babe. James is more like our little man. But, yeah, he's growing up."

Ben

The day after James's birthday party my new little family went into the city to meet the latest addition to my old family, my little sister. That sounded so weird. Okay, she's my half-sister, but I never thought I'd not be an only child. Both Dad and Lori were positively glowing. I introduced them to James and then they took us up to the nursery to meet Megan. Connor was the first baby I had any experience with, but as tiny as I thought he was when I met him, he was a year-and-a-half old and walking, not really a baby. Megan was six pounds, six ounces, just a tiny pink doll. I was even more terrified of holding her than I'd been of Connor in the beginning. Joey and James were old pros with babies and took to her right away.

Apparently newborn babies sleep nearly all the time so after just a few minutes of being fussed over she yawned and nodded off. We went downstairs with Dad and Lori and visited for a while but it soon became clear that Lori was a bit tired herself, so we didn't stay long. Before leaving they promised they would be at our party in June. They'd received our invitation the week before and Lori had already spoken to her parents about coming into the city to babysit that day.

It was a beautiful spring day so when we left Dad's townhouse on the Upper East Side I drove down to Chelsea and found a place to park on West Twenty-eighth Street. We'd decided to give James a tour of the gay neighborhoods of Manhattan. We took turns pushing Connor in his stroller as we made our way down Ninth Avenue toward the Village. Eventually we found ourselves on Christopher Street. James was practically beside himself watching all of the gay guys. We followed Christopher down to the Hudson River, crossed West Street and went into the park that was on a pier jutting way out into the river. We sat at a table out near the end and basked in the warm sunshine, watching the ships going up and down the river.

Later, back in New Jersey, we stopped at Fernandes, one of my favorite Portuguese restaurants in Newark and feasted on rodizio, a Brazilian specialty consisting of many grilled meats. It was fantastic but Joey commented on the way home that we were going to have to watch out diet more carefully. Pigging out on carbs one night and meat the next wasn't the healthiest way to eat. But for one weekend it wouldn't kill us. And it had been a great day all around. What made it even better was at bedtime when James hugged both Joey and me.

"Thanks, guys. This was the best birthday weekend ever. I love you both."

Over the next several days the responses to our invitations started dribbling in. The party was still three weeks off so there was no rush. We'd invited a real assortment of people other than our families. There were several couples I knew from my old life with Paul, about half the bowling league, Becky and Glenn, of course, and Angie and Ethan. We'd also sent an invitation to Rick and his friend Deirdre, although we had only met them once. Rick did have a connection to Joey's family, so he wasn't a complete stranger. And odds were Vinnie wouldn't be coming, so we didn't have to worry about any confrontations. We'd settled on the food we wanted and made all of the arrangements for it with Mother's caterer in conjunction with Joey's mother and aunt. The only decorations we were having were going to be lots of flowers and Joey ordered them through the nursery.

One day about a week and a half after our trip into the city Joey came home from work looking a little down. He was quieter than usual all evening and I finally asked him what was wrong when we went to bed.

"I went to see Father Vittorio this afternoon."

Something must have really been bothering him although he had seemed fine up until that evening.

"Is something on your mind, Joe? Something troubling you?"

"No, it was nothing like that. I know we decided we didn't want any kind of ceremony at the party, but I thought that it would be nice if Father Vittorio would say a few words, maybe give us some kind of blessing."

"I would imagine that the Catholic Church has specific rituals for maybe thousands of different occasions, but probably not one for this."

"Yeah. Father Vittorio said that while he would be happy to attend our party as our friend and share in our joy, he wouldn't be able to do anything in his official capacity as a priest. He said the Church not only doesn't bless relationships like ours, it condemns them, so he could get in a lot of trouble giving any kind of official sanction to this."

"I suppose that was to be expected. You aren't surprised, are you?"

"No, I guess I knew he'd say that." Joey sighed and was quiet for a long time. I pulled him tighter against me and we snuggled for a while. "You know how much the Church has always meant to me, but I'm having trouble with all of this. I've always known the Church's position on homosexuality, but I suppose as long as I wasn't living mine openly I could ignore it. As you pointed out to Mom back on Thanksgiving, lots of Catholics disagree with some of the Church's teachings on any number of matters."

"At least Father Vittorio understands and doesn't condemn you."

"Yeah, but maybe it would be better if he did. It's easier to ignore the Church on the issues where you disagree when your priest seems to ignore it, too. But isn't the whole point in belonging to a church that you believe what the church teaches? What's the point if you're going to ignore it? I also remember you making a statement about not supporting a church that won’t support you. That makes a lot of sense to me."

"I suppose you have to balance what the Church means to you and how much of it you believe in against what you don't believe, and then make a decision from there."

"It would help if I thought things were changing in the right direction, but it seems to be going backward lately. Now the Church is talking about not allowing gay men to be priests. Can you imagine what would happen if some Protestant denomination announced that from now on they weren't going to ordain black ministers because they thought that blacks were morally unfit to be in the clergy? Not only would there be outrage from all the other churches but every single black member that church had would walk out. Yet we gay Catholics just keep going back for more insults and abuse. We must be masochists."

"If you're looking for someone to defend the Church don’t look at me, babe. You know where I stand. But I think the reason we stick with the Church has a lot to do with the way we're indoctrinated from an early age. We grow up with being Catholic such an ingrained part of our being. It's a whole culture, not just a religion. And then there are a lot of gays who have some residual homophobia buried within themselves and deep down they may actually believe some what the Church is saying."

"You mean gay people who don’t like other gay people or even themselves?"

"Sure, how else do you explain gay Republicans? But seriously, we've grown up being taught the same antigay stuff straight people are taught. And even though most of us have overcome a lot of it, there's still some of that shit lurking in the minds of even well-adjusted gays. How many of us don’t talk about being gay because 'it's nobody's business?' Do straight people ever feel that way about their sexuality? Of course not. They put their pictures in the newspaper when they get engaged and married, announcing who they're going to be fucking on a regular basis. I was at a rally for gay marriage last year and one of the speakers said, 'When gay people talk about their sexual orientation, it's called coming out. When straight people talk about their sexual orientation, it's called talking.' That about sums it up."

"Well, I guess lots of us still have a long way to go before we think of ourselves like everyone else. But what am I supposed to do about the Church, Ben? It's been bothering me more and more."

"I can't answer that for you, babe. You know how I've worked things out. While faith and spirituality mean a lot to me, organized religion just isn't that important, though deep down I'll probably always think of myself as Catholic. You're going to have to decide what is really important to you and then make some kind of accommodation. But there's no rush and no need to obsess about it. You'll figure it out eventually."

"I suppose." He turned onto his side and faced me. "Thanks for listening to me. I didn't mean to get all heavy and depressing. It's just been bothering me and I needed to talk it out."

"Hey, that's what I'm here for. Anytime you need to talk about anything, I'm here. You'd better believe that I depend on you being there for me when I need you. That's part of what love is all about. Listening, supporting, comforting."

Joey climbed on top of me and pressed his body against mine. He gave me a long, soulful kiss as he ground his crotch into mine.

"Yeah, and a little of this, too."

To be continued.