Diving back into Ryan's life was normal to me. All was forgotten and I accepted that we were once again the best of friends. Our together time improved beyond my expectation. During the time we'd spent going in different directions, I thought over what Ryan said about me being lucky he let me have my way with him. While accepting being gay wasn't on my mind, finding a way to stay involved with Ryan was.

I didn't know if I was lucky or not but I was happy to be back in the only routine I knew. We gave ourselves less time to be alone in one of our bedrooms and this kept our minds off the touchy subject of sex, but even this idea got lost in our complete familiarity with one another and for awhile we forgot we'd ever been apart.

There were other timeouts over the next few months but none as long or as earthshaking as the first. It was easy to tell him I had to work or I had been working, but he rarely noticed I was staying away from him because it was too hard for me to stay away from him for more than a couple of days. Ryan's life simply wasn't structured to the concept of hours and days.

For a long time after that first breach it was never mentioned. We went back to playing softball, roaming the ancient hills around Statesville, and dodging the security guards at the mall as we annoyed people and made a nuisance of ourselves in ways that seemed fun at the time. We had a new appreciation for one another, or so it seemed, and so I wanted to believe.

First thing each morning, if there wasn't a lawn to mow, I woke Ryan up the summer I turned fourteen. These were the best times, because he was horny when he first woke up and hadn't had time to solve the problem. I could tell immediately if something was going to happen because of the frisky way he wrestled me into the bed with him, complaining all the time about being awaken from an absolutely orgy filled dream.

Stripping away his underpants for me to find his "hot rod," told me what he wanted. Most mornings I knew to avoid making contact with it while he wrestled with the idea of rubbing it against me it ways and places that brought it to the hardest condition it attained, anticipation showing on the shinny head.

With his knees pinning my arms, his balls brushing my neck, I got an up close and personal look at his weapon of choice. If I turned my head to act like I didn't want to give him what he was after, he'd struggle to get my lips to stay in place.

By this time the covering of skin would be retreating off the plump inflamed head as he was reaching his peak of excitement. His playful laugh and harmless wrestling changed as he decided he couldn't wait any longer.

"Damn it, Do!" he'd cuss, letting me know the time was right and he was the one who wanted my attention.

Making me give him what I'd been thinking about since I got up wasn't a certainty in his mind as he worked hard to get my mouth and his dick positioned properly to achieve maximum results. I'd resist for as long as I could but it never took all that much persuasion to get me down on him. By the time he was getting what he wanted, Ryan was ready to give it his best shot. It seemed as if things were only getting better as I learned how to handle the sex deal in a way that didn't end in argument.

I liked to wrestle with him because it brought us close together and I was able to touch and feel his body as much as I liked under these circumstances. Ryan was growing faster than me and he was taller and heavier by a considerable amount by then. He was physically able of overpower me if he wanted to force the issue, but he never needed to go beyond insisting for me to surrender to his will.

The more we wrestled the more determined he became and the better it was for me. It wasn't until I had him exactly where I wanted him that I gave in, taking his leaking "hot rod" between my lips. This often took the fight out of him. The pleasure it gave him canceled his aggressive nature.

At times he was rough and more forceful and in a few minutes he was pumping out the lusty load we'd wrestled up. He'd watch his hand pumping out the white liquid onto my chest, grinning, groaning, and grunting as he did so. There were other days he got real still, but never stopped kneeling over my face, letting me suck, lick, and offer the lip service that had him swelling with desire as his groans and gasps gave me some idea of how long I had before meltdown. I was able to forestall the impeding explosion if I used my teeth or squeezed his swinging balls enough to get his mind off of what he was about to do.

Mostly he'd remove his "hot rod" as it went off, but not always. He'd avoided doing things we'd argued about and I no longer insisted that we trade blow for blow and that he should give as good as he got. Knowing how he felt made his attention suspect as forced or unpleasant to him. There were times when he returned the favor without hesitating, which satisfied me in a way I didn't expect.

When he'd jump up and take a shower, I knew we were done for the day, usually. By the time he dried and got back into his cutoffs, we were planning a stop to raid the kitchen of Cocoa Puffs or Trix if it wasn't too close to shopping day, when we'd already finished off our favorites.

Armed with our sugar rush, we raced one another to our bicycles and charged into the street to race under the large shady oaks for whatever destination we had in mind. It was usually softball behind our old elementary school first.

We'd been playing there since we were seven and the bigger boys ruled and might include us in the hot games if they were generous that day. Now we were the big boys and we called the shots. As quick as we rode up, I pulled my glove off the handlebars and headed for the shortstop position. Ryan took over the catching chores.

There was no rancor or argument from the smaller kids. It's simply the way it had always been and still was. The older boys got respect from the younger boys. When the big kids showed up, it was big boys rule.

On the days Bobby Henry came to play, I'd gladly give him his shortstop position, except he played centerfield in softball. He explained the bigger ball made fielding somewhat different and he didn't want to take a chance it would throw him off his game. I didn't understand but I was happy to keep playing.

This was my training center. By the time I was eight I was following Bobby Henry to watch what he did. Bobby was the oldest kid who played softball, but he was nice. When I asked him how he did what he did with his glove, he took time to show me. I think he coached me but I thought he was just telling me about what he did.

I was captivated by how Bobby's long slender body moved after the baseball, keeping most balls hit to the left of second base from reaching the outfield grass in the high school games. I knew he knew what he was doing and I wanted to know more. I don't know why I felt that way. Maybe because he was nice and took time to talk to me.

I'd known Bobby before he went on to play shortstop at Statesville High. Ryan and I went to watch the high school games sometimes. I went to most of the home games whether or not Ryan went with me. It was the first routine thing I did without Ryan when he didn't want to go.

One day Bobby saw me in the stands alone and he waved at me. I really felt super by that. When the game was over, he came over to say hello, and then, he invited me down onto the field and introduced me to some of the team.

"This is John Dooley. He's going to be Statesville shortstop once I'm done here," he told one of the infielders.

I never forgot how it made me feel. I didn't think I wanted to play on a team at the time but Bobby thought I was good enough to play. Of course he'd never coached me about hitting, and he was deadly with singles and doubles. He rarely struck out and often walked. I never asked him about batting, but I never missed a chance to watch him bat.

Hitting a softball is one thing and hitting a hardball is totally different. A softball is soft. A hardball is hard. That might sound simplistic, but stand up at the plate one time and let a baseball pitcher throw a fastball at your head. There's a respect for a hardball you never have for a softball and the brain knows the difference.

A hardball comes at you faster and it might dance for you. A softball isn't going to get all that fancy with its motion. I could nail a softball pretty good at times, but I was only a fair hitter playing softball behind the elementary school.

Perhaps it was my problem, thinking about it that way, but I didn't know then that I'd go out for baseball in high school. I guess you never know how things will play out over time, but baseball wasn't all that important to my future as I saw it at the time. The future for me that summer was what came after our softball game.

Usually it was getting too hot to stand out in the sun by noon no matter if I was mowing or playing ball, so Ryan and I were usually on the way to the mall by that time. Between the two of us we would have enough change to buy a round of soda or ice cream. I worked and always had pocket change. Ryan got an allowance, but I didn't dole it out without Ryan needing to ante up some days. We knew each other well enough so we didn't ruffle each other's feathers over such simple issues of friendship.

It was during one of our visits to the mall that Ryan started to moon over Rachel Horton's continuing breast enhancement. Along with her expanding breast size, she'd been developing a loyal following among the adolescent boys we knew. I only notice Rachel's changes when someone like Ryan pointed out her increased wholesomeness.

"Hey, Do, you see the rack on her?"

"She's got big boobs, Ryan. It's not a crime," I reminded him.

"No crime but I'd nail her for it if I got the chance," Ryan said, laughing his evil little laugh as he leaned to get a better look.

Rachel was always with her girlfriends as the boys followed not too far behind. She had learned how to use makeup and dress in a way that made apparent what the boys came to see. There were rumors she did and Ryan said he would, and I let it pass, figuring he wouldn't, but it did indicate a subtle change in his style.

It wasn't long after this conversation that we got a new neighbor. He was more Ryan's neighbor, moving in across the street from him and two houses down. I was off mowing lawns the morning the moving van was out in front of the Herman house, but the Herman's had moved at the start of the summer.

Ryan didn't mention Timmy that day, but I heard all about Bonnie. Bonnie was a year older than us but looked like a woman if I wanted to take Ryan's word for it. He described her and what she was wearing and then threw in the fact she had a little brother.

When Ryan said her little brother, I understood it to mean little, and Timmy was little, looking eleven or twelve, but it turned out he was two months older than me. The fact Timmy looked young and innocent didn't make him young and innocent.

The first time I saw him, he was drinking lemonade on the Herman's big stone front porch. I had walked up to Ryan's from the lawn I'd mowed a few blocks away. As I turned to go around to the back of his house, he stopped me.

"Hey, Do! Come here," he called to me.

"Timmy, this is my best bud Do. This is Timmy, Do. You should see his sister."

"I've just seen her," I said sarcastically. "Give me a minute to catch my breath. Has she changed since last night?" I said, being hot and tired from my morning labors.

"She's got a rack like Rachel," Ryan continued without bothering to notice my attitude, or he was ignoring it.

"She's got a boyfriend." Timmy revealed the cold hard facts. "He's in college. He's nineteen. They've been dating awhile."

"How old is she?" I asked, sensing she was out of Ryan's league.

"Fifteen," Timmy said. "She's ten months older an me. She'll be sixteen in December."

"You're fourteen?" I quizzed, surveying him with a glance, realizing my eyes had deceived me.

"Yeah, I'm a runt. My momma says all her brothers matured late too. Runs in the family."

"Don't run in Bonnie's family," Ryan said dreamily. "Let's go over to my room."

We strolled across the street and went into Ryan's house through the backdoor, giving us easy access to his room.

"She know any boys around here?" Ryan asked, still working over Bonnie in his mind.

"She's got a boyfriend. He's big. You might not want to worry her all that much. She don't like young boys," Timmy said with the insult built into the warning.

"Yeah, well, I'm old enough" Ryan said, grabbing his package to emphasis his readiness.

"Just enough for her to rip off," Timmy said with a certainty. "One of my friends back home got fresh with her and he couldn't pee for a week once she let loose of him. He never did come over again."

"Ouch," Ryan said, feeling the front of his pants tenderly.

"You play softball?" I asked.

"No, didn't get up in time. You never showed up."

"Work, my man. I've got responsibilities. You ought to try it."

"Who'd hire me? Besides, I get an allowance."

"I'm going to have me a car when I'm sixteen," I bragged.

"Yeah, and I'll be sitting right beside you."

"Isn't that where his girlfriend will be sitting?" Timmy wondered.

"No, Do ain't got no girl. He's not the girlfriend type of guy."

"He's not!" Timmy said with surprise, looking me over too carefully for my taste.

"Ryan," I growled.

"Jesus, Do, he's a little kid. What does he know?"

"You don't like girls?" Timmy asked with concern in his words.

"Do likes everyone, but especially me," Ryan said, giving me his evil little grin.

"Ryan," I growled some more.

"We're best buds, aren't we?" he said, sounding hurt by my reaction to his insinuation.

Ryan grinned at me. Timmy looked at Ryan's face before looking at mine. I could almost see the wheels whirling round and round inside his head.

We didn't exactly run with a crowd. Ryan and I had been together forever and while at times we played with other guys, it wasn't a routine. We all went our separate ways once we finished playing ball. Sometimes we roamed the hills with guys we knew and stuck with the same boys at the arcade, but mostly Ryan and I were together. It's how it had always been. We never needed anyone else.

"Where's your house?" Timmy asked.

I went to the window with him at my side. I pointed across Ryan's backyard to the back of the house to the right of Ryan's room. Timmy followed my finger's direction before speaking.

"Neat. You can see the back of his house and I can see the front," he said, seeming pleased by the connection.

Timmy's move into our neighborhood was a small thing to all those around us. For me it changed the direction of my life completely. I didn't know it at first, and I didn't understand it for a long time, but the single link that still held Ryan and me together had been silently severed by a boy who appeared as though butter wouldn't melt in his mouth.

Timmy was way ahead of Ryan or I in experience, coming to our sleepy little hamlet by way of Chicago. At the time he was another kid moving into the neighborhood and I didn't see beyond the little boy smile.

When I said it was time to leave, Timmy told Ryan he was going to see my house. He followed me through all or part of three backyards and into my house and up to my room. He stood admiring my posters for a few minutes without commenting. Then, he seemed to have a question about my taste.

"Who's the old dude?"

"Mario Andretti," I said, knowing he wanted to know more.

"He a fag?"

"What?"

"You don't like girls. You got some old dudes on your wall. I just wondered."

"I like girl's fine. Mario Andretti was one of the greatest race car drivers who ever lived. He won the Indy 500 and the Daytona 500. Two totally different types of race cars. Mario could drive the wheels off anything."

"Oh! The ball player? Chicago?"

"The C is Cincinnati. It's Pete Rose. Probably the greatest player who ever played baseball."

"Never heard of him," he said.

"He was thrown out of the game for gambling."

"Gambling what?" Timmy quizzed.

"Money. He bet on almost everything. He got caught and they threw him out of baseball."

"He got thrown out of baseball for gambling? Why have a poster of a loser?"

"Yeah, tough game. He did things no one ever did in baseball. He was one of the greats. The biggest stars fall. Besides, the poster was only a buck."

"This is a fag," he said, staring at the figure in the tiny bathing suit.

"Greatest American diver to ever live. Won the Olympic diving championship in two different Olympics. Hit his head on the board and missed his dive during qualifying in his second Olympics. Knocked him silly. Got stitched up, came back and qualified, won the gold metal for the second time. He's Greg Louganis."

"Impressive," Timmy said, checking out the tiny bathing suit a second and third time. "He ain't so old."

There had been other posters that went up and came down over the years, but these were the posters with the most meaning to my life.

He looked at my books next, sitting on my bed. He watched me get ready for the shower I sometimes took at Ryan's, after early morning mowing services were rendered. Timmy stayed through it all, talking about his sister, her boyfriend, and then, quizzing me about Ryan. He gave me a good going over with his eyes as I grabbed my towel to head for the bathroom.

"I guess I'll go. Nice room," he said, seeming satisfied.

"You'll forgive me if I don't see you out," I said, raising my arms so he could see I was naked, but he'd checked me over pretty good while I undressed, but he gave me a smile and one more once over with his eyes for the purpose of memory I suppose. He headed for the backdoor.

I walked back to my bedroom window to watch Timmy retrace our path back away from my door. It didn't mean anything. Of course it was the only way he knew to go, and I watched him go into Ryan's backdoor. There was no knock, no hesitating, he simply walked in like I'd done a thousand times. Why it bothered me seeing him do it, I don't know.

Summer was racing to an end and school loomed in the near future. All the lawns I'd been avoiding needed cutting before I was too busy in school to do more than one a day. After three mornings of lawns, I finally managed to pull myself up and dress to head for Ryan's the first free morning that week.

I raced up the steps with one thing on my mind, and as I pushed the door open, there Timmy sat, watching Ryan's small black and white television. He glanced in my direction long enough to see who it was and went back to his cartoons.

"He's a lazybones," Timmy informed me.

"Yeah, lazy," I said, looking at Ryan whose swollen brown eyes were open as wide as he could get them at nine in the morning. Ryan shrugged, looking at Timmy as if it wasn't his idea.

That weekend I was supposed to sleep over and without thinking, I showed up Friday afternoon, once I'd showered and dressed up a little for my first shot at Ryan in way too long. Timmy was lying on his bed when I showed up.

Ryan was sitting beside the bed with his feet propped up on the edge. They both greeted me like we were all old friends, but Timmy was starting to get on my nerves. It came as a surprise that Timmy was staying the night as well, and I realized it wasn't the first night he'd slept in Ryan's bed by the way Timmy talked.

Sometime during the night an unusual motion the bed was making woke me.

"That's it. Yeah, just another minute. Yeah, go down like that."

Ryan was whispering but I recognized the instructions. Timmy was missing, out of sight, under the sheet, but the motion of the bed said it all. Ryan added his two cents worth.

"Yeah, oh yes. Here it is. Here it comes. Oh yeah, …suck it. …Suck all that shit. ...Oh, man, phew! …That was awesome."

It grew cold for a late summer's night. Adding it all up wasn't difficult. A couple of times Timmy said things that indicated he'd be more than happy to give me the same as he gave Ryan, but I wasn't interested in him and the fact Ryan was made all the difference to me.


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"Outside the Foul Lines Book One" Copyright © 1 December 2007 OLYMPIA50. All rights reserved.
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