Nick's Story
by Nick Brady
Chapter 2
The big pool at the Y continued to be my favorite thing, and I seldom missed a day without a swim. I talked with Carlos when I saw him there and we still played around in the water, but we didn't shower together again. He would just dry off, pull on his clothes and wave good-bye.
I didn't just goof off all the time. I started to get serious about my swimming. Jack was one of several pool attendants but the only one who seemed to notice me and really show an interest in me. I really liked Jack. He was handsome in a rugged masculine way, slender, muscular, and well defined with an easy manner about him. I found myself wondering what he looked like naked and wished he used the same shower room as the boys but never saw him there.
Jack was quiet but observed everything. It was easy to forget he was there until someone did something reckless then his whistle would snap us to attention. I would swim over to where he was sitting and make small talk with him. He was friendly and nice to talk with but his eyes were always watching the water.
Jack was an excellent swimmer and took the time to coach me a little on how to synchronize my arm stroking and kicking, and how to roll my body from side to side to make my breathing smoother. He seemed to take an interest in me and with his help and a lot of practice I was becoming a pretty good swimmer. I could usually beat the other guys in impromptu races. Jack even suggested that I try out for one of the swimming teams that the Y sponsored. That made me feel pretty good.
Even though I spent a lot of time working out in the water, I seldom missed the opportunity to slip down to the pump room to look through the thick glass window at the deep end of the pool. Sometimes nothing was going on and sometimes I would see something interesting. If something was interesting I would usually end up jerking off as I watched.
After a couple of months I became a little less worried about getting caught down there. Jack was the only attendant who was aware that I knew about the little room and he didn't work every day. When Jack was there I would always slip out when he wasn't looking my way so he wouldn't wonder where I was going.
One Wednesday afternoon there were some boys who were horsing around down at the deep end so I snuck away to see what they were up to. As I watched them through the window I could see that one of the boys was a little older with a big fat dick and a lot of pubic hair and he was touching the hairless younger boys and letting them feel his hard dick and bush of hair. Two of them had their hands on his cock at the same time and watching this got me pretty excited.
I had dropped my towel to the floor around my feet and was stroking my dick with my face pressed close to the glass, oblivious to everything except the boys in the water. I didn't hear Jack walk up behind me, but when he stepped up close I could feel the warmth of his body on my back before he even touched me.
There I was in the forbidden room, bare ass naked and pounding my pud, and Jack had caught me. I straightened up as soon as I sensed him but when I did, he placed his hands on my shoulders. I jumped and my heart beat faster as he wrapped his arms around me and gently stroked the palms of his hands over my chest and stomach. My skin was chilled from standing naked in the damp room and Jack's hands and body felt very warm.
He was tall enough so that his arms draped over the top of my shoulders and the length of his arms fell across the front of my body. He pulled me in close to him and I could feel the cold wet top of his swim suit against the small of my back and his warm skin above it. I felt something hard push against me and felt a rush of excitement at his closeness. I wanted nothing more than to be held my him, to feel his strong body against me. My heart began to pound and I felt breathless with excitement. I could see our reflection in the window glass, my surprised face and Jack's above me smiling. He left one hand on my shoulder and with the other ran his fingers through my curly hair.
"Didn't you promise not to come down here without me? Jack asked.
I was too startled to do more than mumble "Yes sir".
Jack looked up and down my reflection. I was naked, erect, and totally busted.
"You are a good looking boy" he said, "Some guys would find you very attractive". He stepped back, ran his hand down my back and slapped me on the butt. "You will get me in trouble coming down here. Don't let me catch you here again". His tone was quiet but quite firm. He turned and left without another word, leaving me flushed and lightheaded.
I picked up my damp towel, wrapped it around myself and started slowly back up to the pool level. I didn't return to the pool but went directly to the boys locker room to change.
I felt strange, different in some way. As I sat on the wooden bench in front of my locker I slowly realized that I had never felt this excited over a girl. I had not dated any girls, preferring to spend time with my buddies. I had never really thought about sex a lot, certainly not about my sexual orientation. When I was horny I jerked off. When Carlos and I were both horny we jerked off each other and it didn't seem like such a big deal. But what had I felt when Jack was close was very different than what I felt with Carlos.
I dressed and returned to my apartment building. Everything seemed so normal; my mom in the kitchen, my little brother Kevin lying on the floor watching TV, but my inner world was upside down.
I accepted the fact that I jerked off a lot and figured that every guy my age did the same. Playing around with guys in the pool was just horny fun and no big deal. But when I found myself in the shower with Carlos I wanted to do more than that, more than Carlos was ready for, and now I wanted to do a lot more with Jack.
I was kind of quiet during supper and when my mother asked me if I was OK I said sure, just tired. But my mind was preoccupied with the events of the day. That night I laid in my bed listening to my little brother Kevin breathing softly as he slept in the bed next to mine.
Kevin was 11 and a quiet sober kid. I was more outgoing and physical and he was the reader and thinker. We got along OK but basically left each other alone. I don't know if he was jerking off or not, maybe he was too young for that. He had caught me stroking a couple of times and sort of rolled his eyes like he was grossed out while I quickly pretended to be doing something else.
It is hard to keep many secrets when you share a room with your brother but we gave each other some elbow room and accepted each other. I guess we loved each other in the way that brothers do – bickering over little things but basically loyal. It was as if we didn't have any big secrets to keep from each other so we didn't worry about it. But now I had something in my life that I instinctively knew I had to hide from Kevin, and from my parents. I felt scared and kind of lonely.
I thought about Jack and wondered how he felt about finding me in the pump room. What did all this mean? Was this a bad habit I needed to break? Could I resolve not to let anything like this happen again? Was I gay? Thoughts and emotions flashed through my mind like the cars of a speeding train. I finally fell asleep thinking about how warm Jack's hands felt on my cool skin.
It was summer and baseball was happening. I played on a little league team sponsored by Nelson's hardware store. There were 7 teams in our group that competed together. I played first base and hit the ball well enough to get on base pretty consistently. I loved to steal bases and was a hero when I made it and a shithead when I didn't. I love baseball. It's the perfect game.
Some of the guys on my team were boys that went to my school and I had played ball with before. The rest were new this season. I had to look twice at some of the guys I had played with the summer before because they had grown a lot since I had seen them last. A lot can happen to a guy between ages 12 and 13. A couple of the boys that had been my size last summer were now taller than me, and several obviously had more in their crotch than a floppy jock strap this year.
My playing around with Carlos and my experience with Jack made me look at them in a different way. Where before they were just other kids like me, now they were boys with rounded shoulders and chests, solid thighs and a new crop of hair on their legs and under their arms. What struck me was that I was so aware of all this and couldn't keep myself from looking at them and wondering what their dicks looked like this summer. This both excited me and concerned me but I threw myself into playing the game and tried to put it out of my mind.
Steven had grown a lot since last summer. We were in elementary school together and started to play ball then. His family had moved to a different part of town and now I only saw him in the summer during baseball season. He had always been about my same size but now was a couple of inches taller and a lot more solid. Not fat at all, but kind of thick, especially in his upper body. I would guess that he had been spending some time lifting weights.
But the smile was the same – a big toothy grin that covered his face and wrinkled his eyes. We were glad to see each other. We horsed around a little before practice and then got down to business. He usually played catcher but this year was trying to pitch and wasn't doing bad at all. His new height and strength helped him deliver a good fastball but he was a little wild when he tried to put some moves on the ball. The coach told him that if he worked on his control he might make a good pitcher.
After practice we talked some more and rode our bikes to a Quik Trip for a soda pop. We each got a large fountain drink and then went out to sit on the shady side of the building leaning back against the cement wall. Good old Steve, same likable studly guy and now looking even better than ever.
I kept looking at him. He was getting really muscular with good definition. I told him he was looking great and he said he was using a health club that his family belonged to. I said I was swimming a lot at the Y but wasn't doing any weights. Seeing him made me wonder if I should start.
Steve looked good to me, too good for my comfort. I was checking out his arms and shoulders, his thick chest and tight waist, his narrow hips in shorts that looked to be cut offs from some old sweat pants, and at his heavy thighs and rounded calves. I was also very aware of the wisps of dark hair that strayed out from the sleeves of his sweaty T-shirt, and of the dark hair on his forearms and lower legs, and of the curve of his dick under the knit shorts. He had a few short dark hairs at the corners of his upper lip and on the point of his chin that told me he was starting to grow some facial hair and had already shaved it at some point.
All the time we were talking I was laughing and joking about nothing in particular while a different part of my brain was focused intently on Steve's maturing body. I was wondering how much hair he had around his dick, trying to recall if I had ever seen his dick before, and trying to discern from the bulge in his shorts if he was cut or not. All the time there was this little voice in another part of my head that was telling me that I had to be careful not to be too obvious about looking at him.
"Do you have a girl friend ?" Steve asked.
"Uh – no, not really" I replied, startled by the question. We had been chattering about nothing in particular and my mind was more on my curiosity about Steve's development than on the conversation. "Do you?"
"Oh yeah" Steve said with a huge grin. "Do you remember Melissa from 6th grade?"
"Yeah, I think so. She is real pretty, kind of blonde?"
Steve's big smile and energetic body language told me that Steve was very much into girls, and was probably doing some good with Melissa. I realized with a slight flush that my interest in Steve's body and thoughts of trying to ease the conversation towards some way of getting together with him were traveling in the wrong direction. If Steve knew what I was thinking he would probably be offended.
Again, I had to realize that while my buddies were beginning to be very interested in girls, I really was not. I was more interested in my buddies. What was wrong with this picture? So we talked about Melissa and how cute she was and finished our drinks. Steve rode his bike off toward his house and I rode back to my apartment. It was time for a swim.
It had been several weeks since Jack and I had been together in the pump room. I had continued to go to the Y to work on my swimming but had not spoken to Jack much. If he was on duty when I came in he would look at me and nod to acknowledge my being there but made no attempt to talk. At first I thought maybe he was mad at me but the quiet open look he gave me told me that he was just giving me some space.
He was there when I walked in from the dressing room and nodded to me. I nodded back and gave him a little wave, then dived in for a swim. I did some laps then tried a couple of dives and ended up surfacing at the edge of the pool where Jack sat in his lifeguard chair, legs crossed at the ankles and his arms folded across his chest.
"Hey" Jack said, looking down at me.
"Hi" I said, wiping the water from my face and wondering what to say next.
Jack cocked his head a little to one side and asked gently, "You doing OK?"
"Yeah", I said, "I guess I'm all right, how are you?"
"I'm cool. We haven't talked for awhile"
"No, well, I started playing baseball".
"Yeah? What do you play?"
"First base – for Nelson's Hardware".
"Cool. Maybe I'll watch you play sometime".
Jack wasn't mad at me. Here we were talking like nothing had ever happened between us and I realized that I had missed talking with him. We would usually talk about different stuff, maybe what was going on with me in school, maybe some advice about swimming, never anything about sex. That's why I was so surprised when Jack found me in the pump room. My feeling at the moment was mostly one of total confusion.
"Do you like me?" I asked suddenly, surprised at my own question.
Jack paused a moment and cracked a trace of a smile. "Yeah, I do actually. Why do you ask?"
"Well, you know – a couple of weeks ago – you know?"
Jacked leaned back in his chair and stretched his arms up over his head, taking a deep breath and then exhaling slowly. "We need to talk".
Jack stepped into the pool office and told the other attendant he was taking a break and picked up his towel while the other guy took his place. He walked out of the pool in the direction of the pump room and I got out, wrapped a towel around my waist and followed him.
When I walked into the pump room Jack had opened a couple of folding chairs and was sitting in one of them, pointing at the other for me. The feel of the cool damp air, the smell of chlorine and oil, and the hum of the pumps brought a flood of sensations to me. Jack sat in his chair wearing his swim suit and with his towel around his shoulders. I sat opposite him with a towel around my waist, filled with a mixture of sexual excitement and dread.
Jack hesitated and then said, "How do you feel about what happened a couple of weeks ago?".
"Ah, I was kind of embarrassed I guess" I mumbled, wondering where this was going.
"Look," Jack said, "I shouldn't have hugged you, but when I came down to check the pump room I saw you standing in front of the window jerking off and, well, I guess I watched you for a couple of minutes and it made me horny as hell. I have been worried that it freaked you out".
"No, I liked it – well, I guess it did freak me out a little but – yeah, I liked it. I have been thinking about it a lot".
"So what do you think about it?" Jacked asked.
I tried to answer but all of a sudden my throat got real tight and my eyes began to burn. "I don't know" I said, "I feel pretty confused".
Jack didn't reply, he just continued to look at me with a concerned expression on his face and nodded to go on.
"I don't know how I feel. I like to jerk off but that's no big deal. I have done it with a couple of guys but that's no big deal either. But when you held me, well it was way different and I don't know…", and at that point I started to cry.
I caught my breath and pulled back to look at him. "I'm queer!" I croaked hoarsely, " I'm gay, I'm a fucking fag!", then I dropped my head and started to cry again.
Jack leaned forward and took my head between his hands and whispered softly in my ear, "It's OK Nick, It's OK. You're either straight or you're gay. You don't really get to choose."
I let this sink in for a couple of minutes while Jack waited patiently. I took a deep breath and leaned back to look at him, thinking about feeling him pressed against my back. "Are you gay?" I asked.
Jack paused and then said, "Yes. I'm gay. I figured that out a long time ago".
"But why? I mean why are you gay? Why am I gay? I really don't want to do this, everybody hates queers".
Jack laughed and wiped the tears from my face with the palms of his hands. "That's a pretty good question Nick. I wish I knew the answer to that. I think it is like being born left handed. Most people are born right handed, some are lefties. I don't know why that is. Most people are straight, some are gay. I don't know why that is either. If you figure it out, let me know, OK?".
"So what do I do now? I mean…".
Jack kissed me on the forehead, then sat back in his chair. "What you do now is accept it. You will have to struggle with that for awhile and basically 'come out' to yourself. It's different for everybody. It depends on your family, your friends, what kind of life you want. You have to make choices just like everybody else. But I will tell you that it is nothing to be ashamed of and it is nobody's business but yours."
So much was whirling in my head. "So what do you do? I mean do you have a boyfriend? What kind of stuff do you do? I really don't know a lot about this".
Jack laughed again. A relaxed friendly laugh. "I really have to get back to the pool. If you want to talk more about this then maybe we can get together when I get off work. I mainly just wanted to know if you were OK with what happened".
Jack stood up to leave and I stood too and hugged him. I felt about 500 pounds lighter. "Thank you Jack. I don't know what else to say, just thank you. I'll wait until you get off work and then we can talk some more. Can I come over to your place?".
"No", Jack said, "I don't have a place of my own, I live with a relative. I have been looking for an apartment".
A million ideas suddenly began to whirl through my head. "I know where some cool apartments are".
"OK", Jack said, "Let's talk about that when I get off.
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