Age of Discovering
by Rick Beck
Chapter 9
German Boys
I had Glenn in the car with me. I didn't want to go right home. Jazzed after playing, it took me a couple of hours after a show before I was ready for some sleep.
Glenn leaned back and held his soda between his thighs. He closed his eyes and I took peeks at his face, when I looked into the rear view mirror. I drove on into the night.
I didn't get far and the need to sleep overtook me. Glenn had stopped talking and fell asleep. I turned into our neighborhood a few minutes later. I stopped in front of Glenn's house.
When I stopped, he didn't open his eyes. I sat for a minute before touching his shoulder.
"We're home, Glenn," I said.
"Oh!" he said, opening his eyes and sitting up. "Thanks."
He reached in the backseat for the violin, opened the door, and he headed for his house. I watched until I couldn't see him any more.
I went home, unhappy we hadn't made a plan for our next meeting.
On Saturday morning I did some reading for school after getting up late. I decided to go to the Five & Dime to see if there were new copies of my favorite comic books.
As my mind often did these days, I went from reading a comic book to wondering what Glenn might be doing. I let him get out of my car without making a date to meet and hang out.
I smiled, picturing him looking at me.
We were making progress. He did know I was alive. He came to hear me play and waited for me to drive him home. How cool was that?
I went back to reading the comic book. The door closed but I didn't look up. I needed to decide if I wanted the one I was reading.
"Anything new?" Glenn asked, looking over top of his Aviator sunglasses.
I could see myself in the lenses.
"Not really," I said. "What are you doing here?"
"Three Musketeer's break. It's creamy milk chocolate and big enough to share with a friend," he said, sounding like a commercial. "It's chocked full of energy for a growing boy. My little bit of Saturday morning self-indulgence. I only buy one at a time so I don't get big as a house."
"Oh!" I said. "You aren't that big."
"You obviously didn't get a good look while it was crowding us out of my bathroom," he said.
"You're obsessed with your endowment," I said.
He gave me that smug little smirk. In spite of his arrogance, he seemed warmer than before. He was definitely friendlier.
"How do you like my disguise?" he asked. "So my fans won't recognize me."
"I knew you right away," I said.
"You're my friend, not a fan," he said. "I'd have been disappointed if you hadn't recognized me. Thanks for the ride home last night. I was a bit out of it when I got out. I don't think I said thank you. Thank you!"
"i was wondering if you remembered?" I said.
"I remember any time someone buys me food. I was starved. After that I ran out of gas. I don't remember much after the Quik Stop."
"I could listen to you play all day," I said. "You're remarkable, you know."
"Let's skip the violin talk. I spent last week preparing for my performance last night. I'm just crazy old Glenn who'll do and say anything today."
"You are a musician. I'm a musician. I didn't think we had anything in common. Now I know we do."
"I'm not saying we never talk music again. We both performed last night and the day after should be about anything but performing," Glenn said.
"You can be serious if you try. That makes a lot of sense," I said.
"Don't let anyone know I made sense. I do have a reputation to consider, you know?"
"The day I came by to touch up your scrapes, you acted far more mature than I'd seen before. You actually acted like you were growing up and being serious," I said.
"I do slip up and forget I don't intend to grow up any sooner than necessary," he said.
"I think you're growing up in spite of yourself. You may not want to act more mature but it'll happen. It's what happens after you've been a kid for long enough. The more mature Glenn is a lot more fun to be around," I said.
"I waited until it was around the time we ran into each other here the last time. I walked up to see if you might be here. We didn't make arrangements to meet, so I took a shot."
"Mr. Crawford puts the new comics on the rack just before he opens at ten on Saturday mornings. If I'm not busy, I usually walk up to see if there's one I want."
"Bring your car, Gordo?" he asked.
"I walked up," I said. "It's how I get my exercise."
"Ah, I walked over too. I happen to be at a loss for what to do with the rest of my day. What say you about us going for a ride? I promise not to fall asleep."
"What do you have in mind?" I asked.
"Want to hang out, fella?" he asked suggestively.
"Sure!" I said, unable to hide my surprise.
"Can we walk back and get your car and cruise around? I'm in the mood to cruise around. I try not to do anything constructive for a day after I play. Sort of a day off."
"Sure," I said, slipping the comic book back into the rack.
"See you Mr. Crawford," I said as Glenn held the door for me.
"See you next week, Gordon," Mr. Crawford answered.
"See you, Mr. Crawford," Glenn said, following me out.
"What do you usually do on Saturday?" Glenn asked as we walked.
"When I play Friday nights, I stay close to the house Saturday," I said. "Otherwise I just hang out."
"Do you ever play two nights in a row?" Glenn asked.
"Some times. If someone wants music and asks us to provide it, we play. We play a lot more often this time of year. Lots of parties in the spring."
"I never play two nights in a row," Glenn said. "I wouldn't play as well the second night. It takes too much out of me."
"Do you take lessons?"
"Not anymore. Pasquel told me not to waste my time. I don't know if he was calling me a hack or what."
"Pasquel?" I asked. "Did he hear you play?"
"He was my teacher, Gordo. Of course he heard me play."
"He wasn't calling you a hack then," I said.
Glenn looked at me, stumbling over a branch on the path we were taking through the woods. For some reason his stumble made him seem more normal.
"He was my last teacher. I went to him twice a week once we moved here. In Germany I first learned with Herr Gorman. He didn't speak English that well. I didn't speak any German at first. We got along pretty well. He taught me the basic technique I needed to know to playing the violin. He knew his way around the violin."
"You went to Germany after buying the violin?"
"How'd you know? You must be part wizard," Glenn said.
"If he was your first teacher and you bought the violin in London, it figures you must have gone to Germany after leaving London," I said.
"Well done, Sherlock. Good deduction. You do listen to what I say," Glenn said. "Yes, London and then Germany. Herr Gorman's main instruction was 'No, no, no, no.' I understood that. I didn't think I'd ever please him. I felt like he didn't think I could learn. "
"He was a hard teacher?"
"I suppose. He was old. Over eighty. Set in his ways. I picked it up fairly quickly. Then he'd say, 'Ya! Ya! Das es gute!' That meant it was good. I took his word for it. At first I thought he was putting me on, but I remember all the months of No! No! I figured I must be learning."
"Where do you want to go?" I asked, as we turned onto the street in front of my house.
"You have a car and you walk to town? Gordo, you've got a lot to learn."
"Costs money to drive it around. I walk when I can. It's good exercise. If I don't walk, I'll get fat."
"You make it sound logical," he said.
This question and answer made me think I was forgetting something. Being with Glenn, I was lucky if I could remember my name. He was too distracting for me to think.
"Believe me, I drive when I can," Glenn said.
"When can you?" I asked.
"When my parents have nothing to do and they think I don't look too spastic."
"Spastic?"
"What I do with my bike. they worry I might do that to the family sedan. It doesn't appeal to them."
"Would you?" I asked.
"No, you can't get a car back into the gravel pit," he said, as if he'd given it some thought.
"It wasn't your bike," I corrected.
"No! The car isn't mine either. Is there a way to get a car back into the pits? It would make a great dirt track."
I didn't go into the house. I had no answer for the question, 'Where are you going, Gordon?'
It was easier to drive away. I'd think of something to tell them before we came back. If I was lucky, they wouldn't even remember hearing the car start.
We were picking up where we left off the night before.
"There is, isn't there?" he asked, watching me as I turned the car around.
"Is what?" I asked.
"A way to get a car into the gravel pit.
"No, I wouldn't show you if there was," I said.
"Why not?" he asked. "One kid to another. It's the kid code, you know. You've got to tell me the truth. I'm sure it's a rule. I must have it written down somewhere. Right after the rule, never walk when you can ride."
"Bet me," I said. "It isn't my rule. My rule is, you don't help another kid get into trouble."
"Why not? What's it to you?"
"I like you. I won't help you kill yourself," I said.
He looked at me but had no answer. I guess there was no rule to cover that.
Old Highway went south. It was all rural countryside once we passed the only light in town. There was one more housing development near the by-pass and it was all rural after that.
No one came there any longer, except those of us who lived in the dozen housing developments built within minutes of several super highways that sped the suburban dwellers into town.
When I moved there, we moved into The Heights, which was the first housing development. We renamed it Gravel Pit Heights. By the end of the first year, our lawn was filled with gravel that came up from a few inches down.
Lawns became too dangerous to mow.
You could put all the dump truck loads of soil on your lawn you wanted. In a few months the gravel was banging and clanging under the lawn mower and hitting the house next door.
Going south took us into the landscape that existed before progress came to town. There were forests, wide streams between the hills, and rolling farmland. Once prime tobacco country, corn, beans, tomatoes and squash replaced tobacco that had fallen out of favor.
"I didn't realize there were wide open spaces so close," Glenn said. "Must be nice having a car, Gordo."
"It belonged to my father." I explained. "When he needed a newer car, he gave me his old car."
"Cool," he said, keeping his eyes on the road.
"It's a relaxing ride. No one drives this way. The main highway is about a mile over that way," I said, pointing east without him noticing.
We drove for a few miles in silence.
"I'm not easy to like, Gordon. I'm hard to get to know." he said.
"You make music. That's all I need to know. We share something important."
"I suppose," he said, and I waited for a yawn.
"That is another way of putting it," I said. "I don't want to change you, Glenn, but I need time to adjust to you."
"You said you were a gymnast. That's how you built up your body? How can you be spastic and a gymnast?"
"Two separate parts of me. Like my music. It's a separate part of me. It's complicated. I never said I was a good gymnast, Gordo. I broke my arm doing it. It's what the boys I liked did," he said.
"Tell me about them. They weren't put off by you being an American?"
"They actually liked that I was an American. I hung out with Fritz, Lang, and Freddy in Germany. They were cool. They liked me. I've never been easy to like, but they were blunt and open, just like me. We hit it off pretty well together."
"Boys you liked?" I said, biting my tongue as soon as the words slipped out.
He looked at me and didn't look away for a minute.
I watched the highway. He turned back to face the road ahead of us.
I didn't say anything else. I wanted Glenn to be gay. Liking a couple of boys didn't mean he was gay. I knew that even before I accepted my homosexuality. Challenging the boy I wanted to spend time with was a bad idea.
"Don't start with me, Gordo. Life isn't as simple as who I like or when I like them. I can't explain who I am or how I got this way. It won't explain why I'm here with you."
"I know that. I wasn't implying anything. I didn't mean it the way it sounded," I apologized.
"I'm different. I don't fit a mold. I am my own mold. I do what I want to do, when I want to do it. If I had to explain, I couldn't."
"I want to know you better. I'd like to be your friend. Someone you trust. That's all."
How to win friends and influence people, or not. This was harder. My fantasies were way easier than this. Knowing what to say was becoming harder.
He stared at me again for what seemed like too long for simple displeasure. He went back to watching the road in a few minutes. I couldn't think of anything to say.
"It's complicated. Making friends isn't easy for me. There aren't many people I want to know me. I'm not one thing, Gordon. I'm always ready with a joke because I don't need to be serious all the time. No one really knows me, unless I decide to tell them about me. It's complicated. I'm complicated."
He looked at me while he spoke and then he looked back at the road.
"I like you the way you are. You dive right into things. I've never met anyone like you. I want to know all there is to know. I want to hear about your friends in Germany, about your violin, about your travels. I've never been anywhere."
He turned his head back toward me. He leaned his back against the passenger door. I was afraid he'd fall out. I was afraid if I said anything now, it would interrupt what was coming.
I kept my eyes on the road. He remained silent for a few miles. He looked straight ahead when he spoke.
"I'm not easy to know. That's why I like myself, I suppose. We move a lot. I made some friends when I got somewhere. No matter where, no matter what, we always moved. Before I knew anything, I knew I didn't like the way it made me feel, when I had to start over again in a new place," he said. "It was painful but that's the way it was. No one asked me whether I liked it or not."
"It all started a few months after we moved to Germany. We went into that shop and I came out with a violin. I think the idea was to get me something that went from place to place with me. That became the violin."
"We moved to Germany. My mother found Herr Gorman. I would learn the violin under him. My father already knew he was on an extended tour. We wouldn't move for several years," he said.
"I met Hermie first. A prototype German kid. If there were Nazis around these days, Hermie would have been the leader of the pack. He had blond blond hair and vividly blue eyes. He gave me chills when he spoke German."
"Where'd you meet Hermie?"
"He was at Herr Gorman's. He had the lesson time right before my lesson. I was always early, and I came even earlier yet once I knew Hermie would be there. I was thirteen and I didn't know much, but I knew I liked Hermie."
"What happened?"
"Herr Gorman always took a ten minute break between lessons. One day when I came in, I wanted to listen to Hermie play. He was quite good. This one day he didn't have his shirt on. I couldn't take my eyes off of him. He was sixteen and quite handsome. Herr Gorman took his ten minute break, and Hermie put his shirt on and walked over to me. When I stood up my pants were tenting out. I wasn't full sized then but I was big enough to attract attention."
"You had an erection?" I asked.
"Did I! How'd you know? He buttoned up his shirt while looking at the front of my pants. He reached out and squeezed my dick through my pants. My knees buckled. He said something in German, I nearly came. Then he seemed to realize I was American. 'I'll take care of that for you if you like? I'll meet you outside after your lesson.'"
"What happened?" I asked.
"I didn't please Herr Gorman that day. I couldn't think of anything but what Hermie said. I wasn't sure what he had in mind, but I couldn't wait to find out."
"What happen?" I asked.
"You want a blow by blow description. Hermie took me to a place he knew, told me to drop my pants, and he was pleased with how things came out. He said he'd wait for me on the days of my lesson. Sounded like a plan to me."
"What happened?" I asked.
"I made a friend. Actually, Hermie was everyone's friend. He was quite popular, especially with teenage boys," he said. "Hermie didn't always come alone. I didn't always meet him at Herr Gorman's. There was an arcade where he hung out, and I met him there some of the time."
"That meant you met more boys?" I asked.
"I wasn't interested in other boys. I was interested in Hermie. Then one day he showed up with Fritz. He was Hermie's age. Hermie was more pretty and he had a smooth body. Fritz was muscular as well as handsome. He was a gymnast. I was cramping Hermie's style. I was jealous when other boys gave Hermie their attention."
"Did they know what Hermie and you were doing?"
"Hermie was giving them B. J.s before he was giving them to me. I didn't know that then. I thought Hermie thought I was the cat's meow. I was another kid with a dick he liked," he said.
"What did Fritz do?" I asked.
"The big thing he did was take me to gymnastics practice with him, but the first time I saw him, Hermie wanted to show him my dick. He had me drop my pants. Of course it was hard before they hit the floor. I was always hard when I was around Hermie. Fritz reached out to feel it. 'You got a nice dick,' he said."
"What did you think?" I asked.
"I thought I had a nice dick. I was glad Fritz liked it."
"And Hermie?" I said.
"Hermie liked getting me to the point I was ready, but he'd stop before I got off. He let me cool down and do it again. By the third time I wouldn't let him get off me until I finished. That's what he liked." Glenn said, smiling.
"When you're fourteen and horny all the time, Hermie was a good boy to know. He was everyone's favorite. You'd need to see him to appreciate that," Glen said.
"At that age I wasn't the wise guy you see before you now. I was in a different country. I felt like I was making friends. I knew I wouldn't need to give them up after a year. I was learning the ropes and someone was there to make life easier on me when I rubbed myself raw jacking-off," he said.
"Fritz? He's the gymnast? He knew Hermie?"
"Yes, Fritz was the first gymnast I met. He was another one of Hermie's boys. When I started to cramp Hermie's style, getting upset by the other boys he liked, he introduced me to Fritz. Hermie told Fritz all about me. They were both sixteen."
"Fritz was supposed to keep you busy and out of Hermie's hair?" I asked.
"Yes! I didn't know what Fritz was doing, but by hanging with him I was hanging around a gymnast. I wanted to try it. There was an American coach. He encouraged me. I could do the rings with a little coaching. Growing taller meant I was awkward and not suited to some of the other disciplines."
"What did you do?" I asked.
"The American coach took me under his wing. He knew I was friendly with Fritz and he wanted to keep Fritz happy. The other coaches didn't mind me doing only the rings. I was good at it."
"You met Fritz's friends?" I asked.
"Fritz's best friends, Freddie and Lang. By hanging with Fritz I was hanging with the other two," he said. "We stuck together at practice. We took the trolley all over town. We could waste a day just roaming. It was cool."
"Didn't that cramp your style? I mean Fritz did something sexual with you the first time you met. He felt your dick. Did that stop or did his friends fool around too?" I asked.
"You just want to hear jerk-off stories. You're getting a head of me. We were together all the time. What they did together, I did with them. It's what friends do."
"They fooled around too?" I asked.
"Freddie talked about sex all the time. Lang rarely talked about it. Fritz told me that Hermie blew him. I wasn't shocked," he said.
"Fritz was the oldest. We usually did what he wanted to do."
"What did he want to do?" I asked.
"We roamed a lot. Road the trolley. There was an arcade that was a regular stop. Fritz belonged to a swimming pool. It was on the base. He was a military brat too." he said.
"Who went to the pool?" I asked.
"Mostly younger guys. Older than me though. Boys new to the military went there. The older military guys and their families had their own pool. The one we went to no one wore swim suits."
"How'd that work?" I asked.
"Worked fine for me. By the spring when we started going to the pool, I was accustomed to my friends being nude. It was a theme Fritz liked. He liked showing off. He had an awesome build. He was pretty big himself. We're speaking dick wise. I was taller than him by the end of my first year in Germany. I didn't have his body," Glenn said."
"When did you find that out?" I asked.
"When he first felt mine. Hermie told me to feel his. He was big. I'd never felt a guy's hard dick before. It was sort of hot."
"What about Hermie? You didn't touch his? I thought he was blowing you every chance he got."
"He'd see me after violin lessons three days a week for a while. Hermie was a doer. He didn't care about being done," Glenn said. "If he'd asked, I would have given him a hand. He didn't."
"Didn't Hermie go to the pool?"
"He did but he didn't swim," he said.
"What did he do?" I asked,
"A guy like Hermie liked giving boys what they want. I'd say it was his purpose for being alive. How hard do you think it is for him to find a horny boy where boys swam nude? Or a boy who got horny when he saw Hermie."
"No one said anything about it?." "Yeah! 'That guy's giving blow jobs in the locker room again,'" Glenn said.
"No one said that," I said.
"Have it your way. I told you what I heard. In Germany they don't get apoplectic over the nude human body. They aren't shocked boys get horny or that they find ways to solve the problem.
"What happened?" I asked.
"After a year in Germany, I'd almost finished growing. I turned fifteen and all the pieces were in place. My life was almost perfect. We wrestled after gymnastics practice a couple of times a week. For the first couple of months I was a gymnast, I wasn't asked to wrestle," he said. "I'd shower after practice and Fritz, Freddie, and Lang disappeared. You know how I dislike showering alone. One day Fritz asked, 'Would you like to wrestle with us? We wrestle after practice some times. Freddie said I should ask you to join us.
"'Sure,' I said, happy they wanted to include me."
"Fritz said, 'We wrestle nude. It's how the ancient Greeks did it.'"
"I'd never heard of that. I could find nothing wrong with the idea," Glenn said. "I told him, 'I might be embarrassed. I get hard easy.'"
"'Me too,' he said. 'it's more fun when you do. We get off with a little help from our friends. Good way to end a day.'"
"When I went into the wrestling room, and the wrestling room was all the way back behind the steam room and the sauna, we stripped out of our practice gear. I stood naked looking at." "You wrestled naked?" I asked. "You aren't putting me on?"
"I did. We wrestled without benefit of clothes. I don't mind telling you, the first time I did it, I could barely hold off. Being in close contact with hard bodies like those was erotic," he said.
"What was that like?"
"It's like doing something naughty and knowing you shouldn't, but it's way too much fun to stop."
"Like I said, we all started off with hard dicks. I worried I'd be hard and no one else would be. It put us on an even level. I don't know what I expected but it was my first time there. I figured they would let me know where the foul lines were," he said.
"Freddie was aggressive. He came right over to feel mine. He looked at my face to see if it bothered me."
"Did it bother you?" I asked.
"If I was suppose to be offended that someone wanted to feel
my dick, I wasn't. Fritz came over to give it a feel. Then he got behind Freddie and lifted him off the floor. They paired off when we wrestled."
"Wrestling nude? Are you putting me on?" I asked.
"They did. Fritz liked Freddie. Freddie would do anything. Everything is good when you're horny. Lang wasn't that aggressive. He liked to watch. You and Lang have something in common," he said, grinning at me. "Lang was Austrian. Could be why he wasn't as aggressive as Fritz and Freddie."
"They were gay?" I wanted to know.
"You have a need to label everything. No, I don't think they were gay. I don't know. Maybe Freddie was. He had the most fun and he made sure everyone had fun with him. I don't know how he thought. I'm not certain how I think. I have time to figure it out. What I knew was, I liked wrestling nude. It was fun. It was that simple for me."
"I bet," I said.
"I learned a lot but not how those three thought. Applying muscle to muscle can be stimulating," he said. "I learned that."
"What got you off?" I got up the nerve to ask.
"You're going to use what I'm telling you to jerk-off, aren't you?" he asked with a smirk.
"I'm curious. I've never done anything," I said. "Any information you have on the subject helps."
"Yes, you are. You put words together without answering the question. Maybe this will help. It always helped me. Freddie would do anything and he did it mostly with Fritz. They always wrestled together. There was nothing I didn't see them do in their version of freestyle wrestling. Fritz could get pretty turned on. Freddie knew how to keep him going. The first time I saw them together it shocked me but what did I know? It's what they did to have fun."
"Lang and I wrestled together while Fritz wrestled Freddie. We were more interested in the show."
"What did you like most?" I asked.
"It didn't occur to me to like one thing. I went there to wrestle and whatever happened was cool with me. The one thing that really got me going was the way Fritz would wrestle Freddie. I could see his dick wedged in Freddie's crack. That was hot," he said. Then, with Fritz on top, I could see Fritz's balls but not his dick. It disappeared. The first time it took a minute for me to figure out where it was. I didn't know a dick fit up there but it did."
"I figured most guys would make a fuss before taking something that size up his butt, but they kept wrestling. I mean they stayed hooked up that way. After a few minutes, Fritz would roll off him. The way Fritz looked after one of those sessions, you'd think he had the dick up his butt."
"I didn't know much about how things worked. Freddie liked being on the bottom. Fritz liked being on top. Lang liked watching. I liked it all," Glenn said.
I was so hard I needed to rearrange myself in my jeans. Glenn watched with that smirk of his. Hearing about such things excited me. Knowing Glenn had done such thing excited me even more.
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