I Am An Official NANOWRIMO08 Winner, Yay!

Someone ‘Splain This To Me

In our weekly Tuesday Morning Torture Session yesterday, Douche Bag distributed the following document which supposedly has gone out to all of the Northern California Region employees.  At the top was the official logo with the burning people and the name of The Company That Created The HMO and it read as follows:

Northern California Region

Employee Live Call In Guidelines

November 2008

Purpose: Live call in refers to a process of requiring employees to call and speak directly with their managers (or designee) when they are unable to work their assigned hours.  The live call in process is designed to work in conjunction with other efforts to improve attendance.  Together, these efforts will help ensure a superior healthcare experiences for our members.  Having employees speak with or call in to a manager/supervisor creates an interaction where employees are supported to stay home when they are sick and find alternatives to calling out when they’re not.  If conditions other than illness(es) exist, alternative options can be explored such as coming in later in the shift so as not to miss the entire shift or other potential work accommodations.  This can help employees maximize the use of their sick leave benefits and minimize the impact to operations.

Impacted employees: All employees in Northern California

Expectations of impacted employees:

It is critical to our mission of providing superior healthcare to our members that employees and managers work together to manage attendance.  Therefore, impacted employees and their managers who do not follow the established expectations of the live call in process may be subject to disciplinary action or the corrective action/issue resolution process.

1.  Follow the established procedure for reporting absence:

a.  Call the identified number when unable to come to work

b.  Notify their manager (or designee) of his/her absence at lest two (2) hours before the employees scheduled start time whenever possible (and in accordance with relevant collective bargaining provisions)

c.  Provide the following information:

i.  The time and date of the call and the shift for which they are calling in sick

ii.  The general reason for the absence (i.e. illness, family members illness, etc.)

iii.  Expected date and time of return to work; and

iv.  Phone number and best time for the manager to call the employee back, should the manager need to contact the employee,

2.  When an employee leaves a call back number, the manager may elect not to call the employee back when in their judgment, the absence does not warrant a call back.  Call backs are for the purpose of verifying lengths of absences, offers of assistance and other similar information to aid managers in planning appropriate staffing levels.

Expectations of managers:

1.  Inform employees of the call in process and answer any questions they may have

2.  Provide the telephone number to which employees will be calling to report their absence

3.  Answer the established phone line on a regular basis

4.  When an employee reports an absence (from NCAL Attendance Management Guidelines section C-5)

a.  Establish estimated return to work

b.  Keep a record of the discussion in your anecdotal file and note the absence on any formal monitoring tools utilized

c.  Refrain from discussing reason for absence but make note of relevant information the employee voluntarily shares

d.  Ask the employee to bring in a Work Status Form if you have reasonable belief that the absence is questionable.

e.  Advise the employee of procedures to be followed if the absence may qualify for protected time, i.e. Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA)

5.  The manager will speak with those employees with ongoing attendance problems upon his/her return to assess the circumstances, and if warranted take appropriate action in accordance with the Attendance Management Guidelines.  (Union represented employees – in accordance with the provisions of their respective collective bargaining agreements.)

Accountability

It is critical to our mission of providing superior healthcare to our members that employees and managers work together to manage attendance.  Therefore, impacted employees and their managers who do not follow the established expectations of the live call in process may be subject to disciplinary action or the corrective action/issue resolution process.

So here are the things I need explained to me.  First of all, “The live call in process is designed to work in conjunction with other efforts to improve attendance.  Together, these efforts will help ensure a superior healthcare experience for our members.”  This tells me we have a significant problem with attendance, but also that it is taking it’s toll in the Medical Centers.  I do not work in a Medical Center.  I work in the Facility Management office of a high rise building seven miles from the nearest hospital.  I never see, talk to or touch, a member (except for all the ones that work in my building and none of them in a medical capacity.)  Even if I had a problem with excessive absences, it wouldn’t impact the members.  More importantly, this tells me we have a problem with morale, in that setting, that our “Senior Leadership”, as they like to be called, can’t seem to identify.

“Having employees speak with or call in to a manger/supervisor creates an interaction where employees are supported to stay home when they are sick…” First, I don’t need support for that and secondly that’s my business.  “…and find alternatives to calling out when they’re not.”  Again, this is my business and no one else’s.  “If conditions other than illness(es) exist, alternative options can be explored such as coming in later in the shift so as not to miss the entire shift or other potential work accommodations.”  If conditions other than illness exist, they’re still my business to deal with as I see fit.  If my employer feels that I have excessive absences, they have the right to track them and give me a warning about it and ultimately if it’s effecting my work or productivity then they must deal with that.  But this is a separate issue from an across the board mandate about how to use ones sick time.

“This can help employees maximize the use of their sick leave benefits and minimize impact to operations.”  The argument against this is right there in their own words, “use of their sick leave”.  This document applies to our union employees who are granted sick leave, and vacation days separately.  Their sick days are for calling in sick.  Unexpectedly, needing to take a day off.  Calling in for something they didn’t have the ability to plan in advance and take a vacation day for.  It also applies to those of us who are non-union who are granted Paid Time Off (PTO) days each month which are to cover all forms of absences, sick and vacation days alike.  Neither group is granted “personal days” which means that if there is a personal issue that must be dealt with it must come from one of the time off categories they do have, and The Company that Created the HMO does not really have the right to tell us how or when we can or can’t handle these personal issues.

This first paragraph of the “Guidelines” clearly implies that our managers are to take it upon themselves to determine if our reasons for being out are justified and acceptable or if they think we should arrange our time differently than we have, yet Douche Bag in discussing these “guidelines” insists that it does not mean that, and that the only thing that’s changed is that we have to speak to him directly and not just leave a voice mail.  “If anything this means more work for me, not you.  You just have to call and do the same thing you’ve been doing, only talking to me.”  The problem with this theory is that DB is notorious for not telling the rest of the staff that an employee is not going to be in that day until noon, by which time it’s become clear to the rest of us that the person will not be in.

The list of expectations of the employee states that we should give a “general reason” for the absence.  This makes perfect sense, except that it is a contradiction to the first paragraph that clearly suggests that the manager will determine whether the absence is acceptable to his standard.

Here’s one of my favorites, “2.  When an employee leaves a call back number, the manager may elect not to call the employee back when in their judgment, the absence does not warrant a call back.  Call backs are for the purpose of verifying lengths of absences, offers of assistance and other similar information to aid managers in planning appropriate staffing levels.”  I’m pretty sure if this document had been given to me in soft copy and I’d highlighted that paragraph it would have included something along the lines of “So we can check up on you and make sure that you really are sick and staying home taking care of your self and not taking the day off to take your children to Disneyland, or take your car to the mechanic or have a vasectomy that you didn’t want to discuss with your boss or some other such nonsense.

I’m fairly certain we were not intended to see this document that we were given.  It seems clear to me that The Company that Invited the HMO would have preferred that we not see the “Expectations of Managers.”  “b.  Keep a record of the discussion in your anecdotal file…”  “c.  Refrain from discussing reason for absence but make note of relevant information the employee voluntarily shares.”  Might as well read, “Make subjective judgments about the validity of the employees reason for being absent without gathering any reliable information from the employee first.  Do not blatantly violate the employees rights but do it secretively and as subversively as you possibly can, so as to avoid any culpability should legal action ensue.”

Country Dumbkin, in her infinite “wisdom” piped up during the Tuesday Morning Torture Session that this was unreasonable.  “What’s the point?  They think we’re going to be afraid to talk to you and so we won’t call in sick?”  Bingo!  And if the Village idiot picked up on this…?

Don’t misunderstand me.  It’s not that I have a problem with talking to my boss when I call in sick.  No, I don’t want to, because he’s a putz and I’d rather just state my plans than have any sense that I have to justify myself, but I can do it without a problem.  Traditionally, I use voice mail so that I can leave one message for everyone in the office without having to make multiple calls.

What I resent is the implicit sense of being reprimanded.  There is clearly a problem that needs to be dealt with but that problem is not how I go about calling in sick.  It also seems clear to me that the real motivation behind this has nothing to do with how we call in sick but rather to try and prevent us from doing so.  The real motivation is to try and force us to disclose what we’re doing with our personal time so that our management can decide whether or not they feel that the reason for the absence is justifiable.

I think the part I resent the most is that we (the staff) discussed in the Tuesday Morning Torture Session that this is nothing more than an intimidation tactic and Douche Bag insisted that it was not.  He actually said, “Well, let me put a positive spin on this…”

We sat and looked at him, waiting for the “positive spin” and after nearly ten seconds I said, “Too late.  If you have to think that hard to come up with positive spin, then I don’t believe you anyway.”

Upon further consideration and discussion with Unsvelt Girl Who Runs I’m not entirely convinced that this document is legitimate.  I’m not inclined to think that Douche Bag is lying to us, at least not knowingly, but it’s hard for me to believe this is a legitimate document.  The Company That Created The HMO is fond of sending out mass, Corporate Communication and I’ve read a lot of it.  This document doesn’t read like the majority of those documents.  Furthermore, there is a specifically formatted, document template that the company uses for all Policies & Procedures/HR Guidelines, and this document does not match them.  You will, of course,  have to take my word for it because the recreation above doesn’t look anything like the document I received, let alone matching the template to which I’m referring.

Their are two working theories in place:

Theory A: Douche Bag, who is decidedly passive aggressive (occasionally rather aggressively so) has issues with how things have been going but doesn’t have the balls to deal with it directly.  The flaw in this theory is that this document was, without a doubt, not written by Douche Bag himself.  When the document was discussed and he mentioned the part where it discusses alternative accommodations, our Financial Analyst piped up and said, “Is telecommuting considered an alternative accommodation?”

I looked over at her and said, “Considering you’re the only one in the department who has that option?”

She didn’t respond verbally but it was clear from her expression that she didn’t appreciate the comment.  I do not care because it needed to be pointed out and there is a considerable amount of inequality going on in my department.  I don’t expect it’s going to change, and in fact I’m pretty sure it’ll get worse, but I feel like someone has to make sure it doesn’t go unnoticed.  If I’m the only one who will carry that torch, then so be it.

Later when Douche Bag couldn’t “put a positive spin on it” and I called him on it Financial Analyst, who had otherwise been fairly quiet about the whole thing (the only one in the meeting who was) said, “We’ve talked this to death.  Let’s move on.”  One could argue that her tone was somewhat defensive.  Perhaps it was, or perhaps Unsvelt Girl and I are reading into it to support the following theory.

As we discussed the idea that this was possibly not what it was presented to us to be, she brought up the possibility that perhaps Financial Analyst wrote it for Douche Bag.  I have never had a reason to read anything that Financial Analyst has composed so I don’t know how likely this theory is.  If it’s true though, it is rather strange.  One has to wonder what could possibly be the motivation behind it all.

Theory B:  Douche Bag‘s boss is somehow behind the whole thing and his incompetent Adminary, who Unsvelt Girl and I, not so affectionately refer to as Tri-dub or Wicked Witch of the West (because she’s in the other building which is west of ours) was the actual author.  It reads like someone who is rather ignorant and thinks more highly of their intellect and abilities than is justified, wrote it.  Since that is an excellent description of Tri-dub it would not be so far fetched to believe that she authored the document.  It is also not so far fetched to believe that Douche Bag‘s boss is behind the concept of the document.  It is, however, difficult to believe that he would use deception in such a manner as to suggest that this is a regional policy if it isn’t.

What is really going on, I do not know.  What I do feel confident of, however, is that there is much more than meets the eye and I’m really grown tired of all the games and half truths that I’m dealing with.  I desperately need to find new employment, but I’m afraid that with the economy in it’s current state, and unemployment numbers being what they are, finding new employment isn’t likely to happen any time soon.  Sigh!

Batman’s Return, Part 3

In my dreams.

After it was over, he continued to hold me close to his body.  He made no effort to remove his shrinking member from my ass, and as we lay there quietly listening to each other as our breathing began to synchronize, I knew I’d have sweet dreams that night.  And then we drifted off to sleep.

When the morning came, the sun was streaming in through the open windows over my bed, bathing the room in the early morning light.  Despite my remarkably restful nights sleep, I had moved in the night and was now facing Batman, with our heads mere inches apart, sharing the same pillow.  As I stretched myself awake I slowly opened my eyes to see my new lover, looking sweetly back at me, just watching me sleep.  “Mmmmm,” I cooed.  It was an automatic reaction as I stretched.

“Good Morning,” Batman softly spoke to me.  “How’re you feeling?”

“Mmmm,” I repeated, as I opened my eyes and smiled.  “Good.  How about you?”

He smiled back at me.  “Really good.  I’m so happy to be here with you,” he said as he brought his right hand up to stroke my cheek.  For a brief moment we were silent as I closed my eyes and enjoyed the loving caresses of his hand on my face.

As he moved his hand down and placed it on the back of my shoulder, as if to hold me close, but still maintain a safe distance, I looked up into his eyes, again, and asked, “What happened between you and Mrs. Batman?”  It was time for the talk we hadn’t had the night before.

For a moment his face hardened, as if encountering a painful memory, and then just as quickly his countenance returned to the softness I was used to.  “After you moved out, I tried to get back to my old life.  I missed you and I was really sad that our friendship hadn’t survived the experience.  But I understood why it hadn’t.  I thought I had done the right thing, standing by my wife and against Bat-Mother-in-law-”

“You did,” I interrupted.  “She was wrong to try and come between the two of you.”

“I know,” he replied, “But I’m really sorry she used you to try to do it.  That wasn’t fair to anyone.”  He paused for a moment, as if lost in some memory.  “But what I didn’t realize at the time was that you meant a lot more to me than just a friend and I realized, after you were gone that I had really lost a lot.  I loved my kids and I truly cared about my wife but I realized, when it was too late, that I really cared for you too.”  His face was now very somber and I could feel the pain in his words.   I reached out to him, placing my left hand on his bicep.  He was still holding on to me, and I stroked his arm lightly.  He looked into my eyes and smiled faintly again.  “After that, something changed with Mrs. B and me.  I wasn’t exactly angry, but I couldn’t really stand for her to touch me either.  Before you moved out, she and I discussed having another child.  After you were gone it was clear, she really wanted one, but I wasn’t so sure.  Things had definitely changed between us.  Mrs. B would make advances and I continually made excuses not to be with her.”

“But you did have another child,” I stated, confused.

“Yes we did.  You have to realize this process went on for almost seven years.  I had to have sex with my wife if I wanted to keep my marriage intact.  Every once in a while, I even wanted to.  I started drinking more and before long I was drinking too much most days.  Over the course of a few years, I went from believing I was straight and that drinking made me feel open to more possibilities with men, to feeling like I only wanted to be with a man and drinking made it possible for me to have sex with my wife.  Eventually, there was so much distance between us that we had no choice but to discuss it.

“She turned to me one morning while we were getting ready for work, I was in the shower and she was brushing her teeth, and she asked me, ‘why don’t you ever want to be with me anymore?’  I was totally caught by surprise and I tried to sidestep the question at first but she wouldn’t let me.  She said that for years now, I’d been very evasive and that most of the time when she was feeling amorous I had some excuse as to why it wasn’t a good time.

“I wanted to tell her that she was wrong and everything was fine but it was clear she wasn’t going to accept that…  And you’d be surprised just how truly vulnerable you feel  when you’re completely naked and the only route of escape is blocked by an angry woman.”  He smiled now as we both laughed lightly.  In spite of the somberness of the moment, I was beginning to sprout a little wood at the mental image of him naked in the shower, all soaped up, with his Army issue dog tags hanging between his mocha colored erect nipples, jingling quietly as he scrubbed his body clean, and for the first time since arriving at my apartment the night before, I was glad we had some space between us and he couldn’t feel my inappropriately timed hard-on.  “I hesitated for a moment, turned the water off, opened the shower door and looked at her.  I could see in her eyes, that no matter what, she wanted the truth.  So I took a deep breath and before I could think better of it and stop myself I told her, ‘It’s because I’m gay!'”

I felt like I was living in that moment as I felt his body tremble with the memory of the fear he felt that day.  I remembered how I felt the first time I told someone I was gay and how hard it was to hold my hands steady, let alone my voice.  I resisted the urge to reach out and pull him closer to myself as I sensed that if we didn’t finish this conversation now, we might never finish it.  With wide eyes, I asked, “What–  How — I can’t even imagine what her reaction was to that!”  I had learned enough about Mrs. B to know that she wasn’t very tolerant of behaviors that didn’t satisfy her.

“No you can’t.  She threatened to kill me.  She threatened to Bobbitize me.  And then she threw my towel at me and told me to get out.  I packed a bag before I left for work, not knowing what to expect when I came home.  I ended up spending a couple nights in a hotel and then I got an apartment with a six month lease.  I wasn’t ready to accept that my marriage was over, and yet at the same time I felt so much better having come forward and finally told her the truth of my feelings.”

“Did you tell her you had feelings for me?”  I didn’t mean to be insensitive but given how the story had gone I couldn’t help but feel somehow responsible for what had happened.

“No!” he said.  “By this time I’d assumed I’d never see you again and this was about me and my feelings.  I had slowly but surely grown to be attracted to men and was constantly checking out hot guys, everywhere I went.  Turned out she’d noticed and had her suspicions for a while.  I guess she just wanted to hear me say it.  Anyway, it took a little while and things got really ugly for a time but we finally sat down together, just the two of us, without our lawyers, and discussed the whole thing.  I explained to her that when I married her, I honestly didn’t think I was gay, and that I loved our children no matter what.  I even care about her.  I just had learned this new thing about myself that couldn’t be ignored any longer.  That’s when we agreed, that I’d move back into the house with my own room.  Thanks to the VA, we had gotten a grate mortgage on a nice big house and it has two master suites on either end.  We agreed that I’d move back in and we’d raise our children together as one unit and that we’d have our individual love lives, too.”

“Wow.  That’s really amazing…”  I paused, looking into his eyes and trying to decide what to ask next and how to ask it.  “So…  Last night…  You were meeting…  a… date?”

Batman pulled his hand away from my shoulder, as if it had been on fire and he was suddenly feeling the heat and I could see his body tense up.  Without thinking I reached out and took hold of his hand, placing it on my chest and holding it in place.  “It’s OK,” I told him, reassuringly.  “Nothing you tell me is going to change what’s happening here.”

He took a deep breath.  “After Mrs. B and I split up, I began to explore this other side of my self.  At first I just really needed to know what it was all about.  To be honest, I did some things that, looking back on it, I’m not really very proud of.  But once I knew what I’d been missing all those years I couldn’t get enough.  I have profiles on several of the top gay dating sites.  Last night was a semi-random hook-up that was set up on one of those sites.  I’m thinking now, though, that it’s time to shut that down.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” I said, smiling, “we might get some mileage out of those sites yet!”  I grinned at him, deviously.  “So you’re not exactly new to all this, then.” I said, more than asked.

“No,” he answered, “I’m not.  I hope that doesn’t bother you.”

“Are you kidding!  Last night probably wouldn’t have been nearly as hot as it was if we were both novices.  I’m glad you knew what you were doing.  God knows, I wouldn’t have.”

He smiled, “So you’re not mad?”  I smiled and shook my head as I gazed into his eyes.  “When I first saw you last night, I knew this was what I wanted.  I just didn’t want you to be mad that I was… experienced.”  I raised my left hand and rubbed his hair back away from his face and caressed the back of his head.  With that, he reached out and pulled me close, wanting to hold me tightly again, like he had the night before.  And then he pulled his head back to look at me with pleasant surprise on his face.  “Well, hello!” he said, as he looked toward the middle of my body.  Hidden under the sheets, my semi-hard cock had poked him in the crotch.  I pulled him close and kissed him deeply and passionately on the lips.

“Batman,” I said, “I’m happy to have you back in my life, and even happier to have you in my bed.  I can only be grateful for whatever lead us to this moment!”  As I leaned in for another kiss, he took control again and rolled over on top of me, lying between my legs, our erections building as they were pressed between our bodies, side by side like two baguettes in an oven.  He was kissing and licking my chest and neck, nibbling on my ear lobes when I said, “You are so good at this!  I’m so impressed!

“This is the easy part,” he pointed out, “What I did last night is the part that should impress you.  I don’t do that very often.”

I placed my hands on his muscular shoulders and pushed him up, looking incredulously into his eyes.  “What do you mean you don’t do that very often?” I asked, shocked.  “You sure seemed like you knew what you were doing to me!”

He smiled back at me and said, “I have done it, and I do know what I’m doing, but I kind of prefer to be on the receiving end of a good ass fucking, if you know what I mean.”

Indeed I did.  “So you’re more of a catcher than a pitcher?” I said.

“That’s not really the commonly used terminology, but, yeah, I guess you could say that.  I’m versatile, but I do enjoy being the one to get fucked.”

I just looked at him for a moment, shocked by what I was hearing.  Finally, I spoke up.  “Why did you–  I mean, if you prefer to–  Wh– huh?  What happened last night?”

“Well,” he started with a laugh, “I wanted to give you pleasure last night.  I wanted to give you as much of myself as I could and I hoped I could do that by showing you what is, to me, one of the most pleasurable parts of being gay.  I hope I was right.”

“Well, yeah.  I mean, it was really incredible, but, well, I think it should go both ways, don’t you?”

“Sure,” he answered exuberantly.

“I want to–  I mean.  Can I–  I think I’d like to try it.”

“Try it?” he asked.

“Yeah.  I mean, if you think it’ll be good, I want to… to…  be the top?”  I asked, feeling foolish for not knowing the terminology.

His grin grew exponentially as he said, “OK.  If you think you’re up to it,” and as he said the word “up” he grasped my cock which was already quite hard.  “You need to be good and hard, or it won’t really work for you.  Maybe I can help ensure that!” he said as he began to stroke and kiss my growing hardness.

I stretched my body out flat to enjoy my lover’s ministrations.  As my cock grew harder and the sensations more intense I lifted my arms above my head, reaching for the headboard of my bed where I grabbed hold of the rods, thinking how perfect this bed was for a little bondage action.  Perhaps next time (if there would be a next time – God I hoped for a next time) we could explore more deeply, the sexual options available to us.  As Batman worked on my cock I remembered the escapades of the night before and felt the familiar sensations of my cock in his throat.  When he felt that my cock was sufficiently solid, he reached for one of the condoms that I had brought from my goody drawer the night before, opened the package and began to seductively roll it down my solid, throbbing cock.  The he reached for the bottle of lubricant I had provided and turned it over above my dick squeezing a generous amount out onto the tip of my shrouded dick.  He smiled at me and said, “Are you ready?”

“I sure hope so,” I said, as he climbed up onto his knees and straddled my body.  He reached down and took hold of my throbbing member at the base, holding it upright and placing the tip at the opening of his waiting hole.  I felt a little pressure on my otherwise stiff pole and then I saw him sink down the full inches of my dick as I felt the tight pressure of his guts holding tightly onto me.

“You are officially fucking me,” he said joyfully as he grinned broadly at me.  “How does it feel?”

“It’s incredible,” I said, “How does it feel for you?”

“You are awesome,” he said.  “Your dick is hitting all the right spots.”  I wasn’t really sure what that meant, but I knew, from what had happened while he was fucking me the night before that there were great sensations to be felt while riding a stallion and I was happy to oblige him.  He sat down hard, on my balls that hung just below his ass hole at this point and pulled his feet up underneath him and then he reached back and put his hands down on my thighs.  He began raising and lowering his body on my solid rod and the sensations were amazing.  Up and down, up and down, he continued to impale himself on my healthy member.  I could tell by the look on his face, the way his eyes were closed and he was biting his lower lip, that he was enjoying what he was experiencing.  He repeatedly looked down into my eyes and then closed his eyes and threw his head back.  As he was controlling the rhythm and depth of my penetration I reached down and lightly took hold of his cock that had been sticking out in front of him bouncing to his movement and slapping my abdomen with each inward penetration.  It felt so soft and smooth.  As I gently pulled on it to the beat of his own movements, I again felt the pre-cum oozing little by little out of the slit at the end of his cock.

As it became clear that he was tiring from his exertions I reached out for him and he collapsed forward onto my chest, still riding me and squeezing my dick with his sphincter and Kegle muscles, milking me for all I was worth.  He kissed me deeply and I wrapped my arms around his back.  Now I was in control and I rolled to my right ending up on top of him with his legs on either side of me.  I took hold of his ankles and pressed his legs toward his head, slightly raising and spreading his ass cheeks for a better angle of approach.  Now Batman was lying on his back and I was kneeling at his tunnel of love.  I took hold of my cock which had begun to shrink slightly and stroked it a few times, through the condom to return it to full mast.  After a few masturbatory strokes I was ready to enter him again.  I placed the tip of my cock at the pucker of his anus.  I looked down at him and he nodded.  I leaned forward slightly, placing some extra weight on his sphincter.  It was clear he was used to this because my cock head slipped right past the outer ring of his ass.  Once the initial pop of that that barrier was complete, I slid right in to the hilt.  I could feel my balls, hanging below and resting against the his Bat-cheeks and for a moment I was reminded of the hard pounding I’d received the night before as his hips slammed into my ass cheeks.

I started out slow, this was all new to me, after all.  Once I got the hang of it though I began to really get into it.  Thwap, thwap, thwap.  My thrusts were hitting home and his bat-cheeks were beginning to redden, just as I had imagined mine had done the night before.  As I was holding his legs up and apart, Batman reached down with his right hand and began to slowly stroke his cock as he used his left hand to twist and tug on his nipples.  I watched him jerking it and I looked at his face and saw how he was truly enjoying this fucking I was giving him.  Thwap, thwap, thwap.  This was such an incredible experience and I didn’t want it to end but I knew I couldn’t hold out much longer.

Suddenly I knew.  If it had to end, I knew how I wanted it to happen.  I let go of his ankles, reached down and took hold of his wrists, taking them away from his dick and nipples and I collapsed on top of him, pinning his arms down above his head and licking and kissing every bit of his torso as I continued to, Thwap, thwap, thwap.  It wouldn’t be long now.  And then he took a cue from my moans and began actively milking my full cock with his sphincter muscles.  Within just a few moments I began convulsing as I was filling my the condom with my own fluids just as he’d done to me the night before.  As the last few pumps were shoving the last of my cum from my cock, I kissed him passionately, so grateful for the opportunity to return the favor that he’d done for me the night before.

As I pushed myself back up onto my knees to remove my waning erection from his tender ass and removed the condom I looked down and realized that his erection was still hard as a rock.  “Let me help you out with that,” I said, as I lay down next to him for a closer vantage point.  “Mmmmm” was all he could manage as I took his nine inch dick into my hands and began running my tongue up and down it like a candy cane at Christmas.  While fondling his dick with my mouth I used my left hand to rub and tug on his balls, while simultaneously pressing a finger into his taint.  I’ve always been a quick study and I wanted to show my appreciation by giving him every bit as much pleasure as he had given me.  From the involuntary movements of his body I could see I was on the right track. I continued to manipulate his balls and put pressure on his perineum as I opened up and took the top of his penis into my mouth for the first time.  It tasted salty but good and I lightly sucked on it, drawing some of the fluids out of the slit at the tip.  His dick was rock solid by now and I was leery at first but I was determined to return the favor he’d done for me, so I began to press my mouth down on his shaft.  It felt so good to have so much of him inside my mouth, but I knew I was about to get into trouble.

Suddenly, I began to choke and sputter as I pushed his leaking member too far into my mouth and had to back off before I gagged myself.  “Are you alright?” He asked me.

“Yeah.  I guess so,” I said.  I just don’t know how you did it!”

“Just relax,” he told me.  “If you’re tense about it your throat will never open enough to let it in.  Just take it slow and easy.  And if you can’t take it all the way, it’s ok.”

I took a deep breath ready to give it another shot.  I leaned down again, ready to give it my best.  I was working the shaft and squeezing his balls and breathing deeply to relax myself and give it another shot.  Suddenly I felt him moving and as he turned toward me, he leaned forward to take my own growing cock into his mouth.  I couldn’t believe I was actually ready to go again after such a short time, but more importantly I couldn’t believe I was actually engaged in my first 69 position with another guy.  My cock was quickly returning to a fully erect position and as I worked on his dick I suddenly slid down to the hilt and found myself sniffing his balls as they were pulling up close to his body preparing to loose their load, and his dick was in my throat.  I was feeling really close myself and I was completely amazed as we both shot another simultaneous load deep into each other’s throats.  Beep, beep, beep.  I felt like I’d shoot into his throat, forever.  “What is that sound?” I heard him ask.  Strange that he could speak so clearly while my cock was still shooting into his gut.

Beep, Beep, Beep.  Pulse after pulse after pulse of cum shooting into my throat.  “That’s just my alarm clock,” I said.  Wait!  His cock is still in my throat!

BEEP, BEEP, BEEP.  “Oh shit,” I sighed.

As I opened my eyes, I realized that my alarm had been screaming at it’s top volume for several minutes, working at it’s maximum effort to wake me from this glorious dream.  As I moved forward on the mattress to turn off the offending device atop my night stand, I felt the familiar, wet and sticky sensation of my cum on the sheets.

The entire thing, may have only been a dream, and I’d mourn the loss of that relationship, all over again, but at least I’d gotten a good orgasm out of the deal, and how could I possibly complain about that.  Where ever you are, out there, Batman, I do still miss you.  And I do still love you and I only wish that my dream would somehow come true!

Batman’s Return, Part 2

How was that?” Batman asked, knowing what the obvious response would be.

My chest and abdomen heaved as I struggled to stabilize my breathing.  “Mmmm,” was all I could muster at first.  “Tha-  That was incredible.”  A few more breaths, “Best I’ve ever experienced, for sure.”

“Well, hold on to your hat, sweet cheeks,” he told me, “‘cause the fun has only just begun!”

He settled down on the bed next to me and his thigh was pressed against my side.  I brought my arm down from the headboard where I’d been holding on tight during this wild ride and rested my hand on the soft skin of his leg.  Suddenly I felt something brush against the edge of my hand and then I reached over to feel his hard-on sticking straight out in front of him.

I wrapped my hand, apprehensively, around his thick, nine incher and when I gave it a gentle tug, I felt  the sticky pre-cum as it oozed out of the tip and down my fingers.  “Mmmm,” he cooed as he laughed quietly, “that’s nice.”  I slowly stroked it a few more times and while I did I smiled at him not knowing what would come next, or how much more I could endure.  “What did you have in in mind?” I asked.

“Do you have any condoms?”

I turned over and opened the top drawer of my night stand where I kept all my goodies and brought out a box of condoms and a bottle of lube.  As I turned back I said, “I’ve never done this before.  I just thought you should know.”

“Damn!  What are you?  A boy scout?” He exlaimed.  “‘Always be prepared’.”, and then he looked over at the drawer to see what else was there.  “Wow, you really are prepared.  Grab those latex gloves and the plastic wrap too, OK?”  I reached back into the drawer to retrieve the requested items and turned back to face him, laying the items on the mattress next to him.

“I guess I just didn’t want to be caught with my pants down…” I said, bashfully.  “Well, I mean, I did want to be caught with my pants down, but…  ech.  You know what I mean.  I guess I’m just a little nervous.”

“It’s OK.  We’ll take it slow and easy.”  Batman leaned forward and started kissing me again and when he did, I could taste my own juices on his tongue.  This time his kisses were slow and gentle as though there was all the time in the world and as far as I was concerned, there was.  He kissed my lips and explored my mouth again.  And then slowly he began to make his way down my body taking his time to give equal attention to my chin, my neck, each nipple, my chest and abdomen and finally back to my spent cock.  He licked it, starting at the tip and working down to the orbs suspended below.

He stopped here and focused some attention on my balls, taking first the right one into his mouth and then the left.  Then while gently stroking my dick with his left hand he used his right hand to collect both balls at once and shoved them into his mouth where he began to suck on them.  The pressure was at once painful and intensely pleasureable.  As the waves of pleasure/pain radiated out from my balls my body stiffened in ecstasy and my back arched…  And then I began to laugh as I said, “Keep that up, and you’re gong to give me a hickey.  Gives a whole new meaning to the phrase ‘blue balls’.”

Just as quickly, my back was arching again and my breathing changed to shallow gulps as Batman pressed his thumb deep into my perineum and I moaned with pleasure.  And then he stopped.  He let my balls drop from his mouth and let go of my cock that was already partially engorged again.  “Do you trust me?” he asked.

I nodded, unable to verbalize a response.

“Turn over,” he said.  And as I started to move he gingerly put his hand on my side to guide me.  I turned onto my right side and he leaned me forward and bent my left leg forward to help support me, leaving my ass fully exposed to him.  “Good.” he said as though he were training a dog.

I heard him rustling through the supplies I’d given him but I was too nervous to look back and see what he was doing.  And then I felt him touch my bare ass cheeks.  With his left hand I felt him squeeze and push my left buttock up and out of the way and then I felt the strangest sensation as he lay a section of plastic wrap over my anus.  Instantly that sensation was replaced by another as he began to run his tongue all around my sensitive ass hole.  My dick sprang to life again as I felt his tongue darting around and in and out of my ass hole.  I couldn’t even tell the plastic was still there and it felt so good.  And as I encouraged him with my soft moans of pleasure, I felt him flick his tongue into my hole, swirl it around the perimeter and once in a while, just to keep me on my toes a nibble on the exposed ass cheeks.

I’d never experienced anything like this before and it felt so incredible.  My whole body was tingling with pleasure and I felt weak.  And then he stopped for a moment as he tenderly pulled my left leg out straight again and pushed me over onto my stomach.  I heard him pulling on a latex glove and then felt the cold of the lube as he squeezed some onto my ass hole.

“Aahhh!  That’s cold!” I squealed as I felt him begin to rub at the lube.  I was suddenly back to my senses, but only for a moment.  The anal massage felt so good.

“Are you ready to go a little farther?” he asked me.  “I promise to be gentle, and I guarantee you’ll like it!”

I was apprehensive, of course, but we’d come this far.  I stammered, “O- Ok.  I trust you.”

And then I felt another chill as more lube touched my ass hole but this time it wasn’t being applied to my ass directly and I felt the tip of  his finger pressing against my sphincter.  Instinctively, I clinched my hole tight.  “This will help you loosen up and get used to the sensation,” he said.  “Just relax and let it happen.”  I took a deep breath and as I slowly exhaled I felt his finger slowly and smoothly enter my hole.  It felt very strange, but very good at the same time.  For a moment he just sat there, with his finger invading a part of me where nothing had ever entered before, allowing me to adjust to the sensations and then he began to move it.  First just a slight and gentle in and out motion, finger fucking my ass, and then he began to bend it, gently rubbing parts of my body that had never been touched before.  And then he removed his finger, only to replace it with two and then three.

Suddenly he was pressing his hand harder toward my ass hole and I felt the most incredible sensation!  “Unh!  Mmmmmmm,” was all I could convey.  My dick was hard as a rock again and I felt as thought I’d erupt from deep within me.

“That’s your prostate” he told me with a gleeful tone in his voice.  “Feels awesome, doesn’t it?”  I responded by pressing my ass upward and toward his hand.  “I’m glad you like it.  But just wait.  I’m not through with you quite yet.”  He removed his fingers and I heard the snap of the latex as he removed the glove.  “Roll over on your back.”

I obeyed his instructions and as I did so, I saw him masturbating his cock a few times while reaching for a condom.  He placed the corner of the wrapper between his teeth and pulled, opening the package.  As he plucked the condom from the package, I swung my left leg over his head so he was between my knees and I sat up and took the condom out of his hand.  “Let me,” I said as I examined the condom.  I found the reservoir tip and grasped it between my left thumb and index finger.  Placing the tip on his engorged cock head, I slowly and methodically rolled it down his beautiful shaft, feeling the blood pulsating in his bulging veins as I went.

“Are you ready?” he asked.

“I’m not sure,” I said, “but I let’s give it a shot.”  And as I lay back down he took hold of my ankles and placed them on his big, powerful shoulders.  He looked down at me and smiled the most caring smile I could remember ever seeing.

“Just look into my eyes, and when you feel me start to enter, take a deep breath and relax your sphincter muscles.  It might help to bare down on me slightly, too.”

I nodded and took a deep breath.  I looked straight into his eyes and saw the affection and compassion he felt and I smiled.  And then I jerked in pain as his hard penis slid past my outer ring and into my ass.  “That hurts!” I yelled as I breathed deeply, wide eyed.

“I know.  I’m sorry,” he said softly.  “Just relax for a minute.  I promise, in a second it will feel good.”  He continued to look deeply into my eyes as I breathed deep, ragged breaths.  But as I calmed down and breathed through the pain, it started to melt away and then it really was quite a pleasant feeling.  Batman watched as my breathing eased and he could feel as every muscle in my body relaxed and eased.  “OK,” he said, “let me know if you don’t like something, or if you want me to stop.”

I nodded and stared into his eyes as he began to slowly, rhythmically pull back and push forward, pull back and push forward.  Once the pain had passed it felt very good and I was really starting to enjoy myself, and offering up involuntary moans and grunts to prove it.  As he pumped at my ass, my cock was becoming stiff again and I began to alternate light strokes at it with rubbing at and tugging on my balls, occasionally reaching up to pinch and tug at his nipples.

I could tell that this was feeling really good to Batman as well and his thrusts were getting more and more vigorous.  And then he stopped, pulled out of my well loosened ass and pulled my ankles down off his shoulders.  He took hold of my hands and pulled me forward.  “Doggy style,” was all he said to me as he guided me into an all fours position facing away from him.  Now I was really getting into things and I couldn’t wait for him to enter me again.  It didn’t take long for him to oblige me and before long, I was bouncing around like balls in a fun house and the headboard was banging the wall to the rhythm of our fucking.

“Oh God! That feels great!” I exclaimed as I collapsed onto my shoulders, ass still sticking up in the air for his pleasure.  I reached back and took hold of my dick and tugged and stroked it loving every moment of this education I was getting.  “Unnnhhhh!!!  Yes!  God that’s incredible!” I repeated over and over.  I could feel his hips slamming into my ass cheeks and knew I was going to have a hard time sitting down tomorrow, but I didn’t care it felt so good!  I just pressed back harder into his thrusts loving every minute of the pounding he was giving me.  On and on this went until I thought surely I’d burst with another load of cum all over the bed, when he stopped again, this time with his rock hard cock still fully inserted in my ass. He collapsed onto my back the sweat we’d both built up sticking to our fevered flesh.

And then I felt him tremble as I heard an almost silent sob and I turned to look at him.  “What is it?  What’s wrong?” I asked fearfully.

“It’s nothing,” he lied.  “It’s just that–  Well, I never thought I was going to see you again.  I thought I’d destroyed our relationship.  And now…” he trailed off into silence.

Almost as if it had been pre-choreographed we gently lay down on our left sides, me still impaled on his massive rod and as I spoke, I began pressing backward and forward, temporarily taking charge of our thrusts.  “Batman, that’s all in the past.  All that matters is that we’ve found each other again.  I just want to stay this way forever.”

“Me too,” he said as he began thrusting into me again.  He reached around in front of me and began stroking my cock in rhythm with his thrusts and I could feel the build up coming.  He reached up and began fondling and twisting my nipple as I took over jerking off my cock.  I was close and I knew I had to cum or I’d be in pain for days.  And I could tell he was getting close, as his thrusts became shorter and less rhythmic and then as if planned I felt his entire body tense up, holding me tightly against him as he filled that condom up inside my ass and at the same moment, I began to shoot my second load onto the sheet in front of me.

After it was over, he continued to hold me close to his body.  He made no effort to remove his shrinking member from my ass, and as we lay there quietly listening to each other as our breathing began to synchronize, I knew I’d have sweet dreams tonight.  And then we drifted off to sleep.

There is a third piece to this story, so stay tuned for the third and final installment of my own private Batman Saga, coming soon!

Batman’s Return

About a year ago, I had a dream about Batman and the Mrs.

I was sitting in the corner of a dark, noisy and crowded Cantina reading a book and eating a burrito.  There were neon signs all around advertising Coronas, Pacificoes and Tacates, and there were fluorescent representations of donkey shaped piñatas and sombreros and cactuses (cacti?) on the walls.  Suddenly what little light there was for me to read my book was blocked by a figure.  I looked up and there he was.  He was gorgeous.  Much the way I remember him, and yet, somehow different.  I couldn’t put my finger on it at first.

There was a difference in his presence.  A maturity that wasn’t there before.  An intensity in his gaze at me.  He greeted me with an exuberant handshake and before anything else happened Mrs. Batman approached.  My heart sank a bit.  I was happy to see him and I didn’t want to be holding a grudge against her but it was hard not to experience those negative feelings and emotions from so long ago.  Mrs. Batman said hello, and I offered them both the seats across my table from me.

I realized, there wasn’t just a difference in him.  There was a difference in both of them, in the way they were together.  They didn’t touch.  Batman didn’t put his arm around Mrs. Batman.  He didn’t put his arm on the back of her chair, or over a shoulder.  He leaned forward on the table and focused his attention directly on me.  Mrs. Batman, didn’t lean toward him.  She didn’t put a hand on his leg.  She didn’t glance lovingly in his direction.  All the tell tale signs of a couple in love were absent.

They didn’t look unhappy, in fact they looked very much the opposite.  Like they were content with their lives and the directions they had gone in.  As I looked at them and noticed these changes, I also noticed that there had been some definite physical changes in Batman.  He was leaner.  Not thinner; God knows there was no room for that.  Just fitter.  The gut was completely gone, replaced by a complete absence of shirt pucker.  His clothes weren’t skin tight but they left little question as to his condition.  Where once there had been a gut, and then, in Stockton, a slight lump, now there was nothing but a flush, smooth line from puffed up chest to his belt.  His hair was shorter with more of a spiky look, and he had bleached highlights I hadn’t noticed until he sat down and the light was above his head and not behind.  The glasses were gone and in their place his beautiful, intensely blue eyes as blue as the Caribbean sea on a perfect day, and they were focused directly on me, looking into my eyes.  And then I saw the most notable physical changes.  His ears were pierced.  One small, simple hoop in his left ear, but in his right, he had the matching hoop, with a stud next to it.  He also had a bar running through the top of his ear lobe, and a small hoop through the cartilage just in front of his ear canal.  In addition, there was a hint of a tattoo, showing beneath the bottom of his short sleeve on his right arm.

“What happened to you?” I asked aghast.

“What do you mean?” was his response.

“Your ears.  The Tattoo.  Mrs. B was always opposed to those things.”  I couldn’t contain my complete surprise.

“I still don’t like it,” was her simple reply.

“What I do with my body, stopped being up to her a few years ago,” he said matter of factly.  “We’re divorced.”

You could have knocked me over with a feather.  There’s was never, by any means, a rock solid marriage, but they’d had a mutual determination to stay together forever.  The two of them just looked at me as though he had just informed me of the time and not that their marriage had ended.  And then he continued.  “We split up about three years ago,” he said.  “It was a difficult time for us but we worked through it and for the sake of the kids (they had two the last I knew) we’ve worked out a deal.  We still live together in the same house, just separate bedrooms, and we are friends.”

“Wow.  Well, that’s really great that you could do that, but uh, wh-what’s happening tonight?  You’re out together?  Without the kids?”

“Oh,” piped up Mrs. Batman, “I was actually just dropping him off here, and thought I’d come in and get some dinner to take back with me.”

“My car is in the shop right now, and I’m supposed to be meeting someone here.  Mrs. B was nice enough to give me a ride.”

“Oh,” I said, some what deflated.  “Well, it was good to see you.  I don’t want to keep you from your…  Date?  Meeting?  Friends?”  I had become quite engaged in the conversation and was really enjoying the time with and attention from my long lost friend, and so I was quite disappointed to realize it would be cut short.

“Anyway, I need to get going,” Said Mrs. B, as she was standing up from the table.  “It’s nice to see you again, Kevin.  Maybe I’ll be seeing more of you,” she said.  It came out laced with hidden meaning I did not yet know.  Why would she be seeing more of me?  Batman and I were no longer friends and I didn’t really think their divorce was going to change that.  Especially not if they still lived in the same house.  Before I could say anything, she turned toward Batman, shot him a knowing glance and walked away.

I heard a chuckle from his direction and as I turned to look at him, I realized my mouth was hanging wide open betraying my shock and amazement at the whole thing.  As he moved over to the seat in front of me I asked, “What are you laughing at?”

“Just you.” he replied, smiling.  “Obviously, this all catches you very much by surprise.”

“Uh yeah, you could say that!  I’d love to hear the rest of the story, but I guess you better go find your party.”  I answered, disappointed.

“Eh.  He doesn’t know what I look like.  Never seen him before in my life.  I think I’d rather stay here and catch up with you, if that’s OK?”

“Um–  OK.  Yeah.  I’d love that but what am I missing here?  You’re meeting a guy here you’ve never met before and who wouldn’t know you if he saw you, and whatever the reason it’s unimportant enough to ditch him and hang out with me?”

Batman just laughed and smiled and stared into my eyes.  “That about sums it up,” he said.  “Look, Kevin, the reason why Mrs. B and I split up is because after you were gone from my life, I realized something I never knew before.  Our friendship meant a lot more to me than I ever realized, and in ways I never realized.”  His perpetual grin slowly drained from his face and where just a few minutes prior he had been up-beat and joyful, suddenly he was somber, his eyes were moistening and welling up and there was a quiver in his voice.  “After we stopped being friends and I realized what I’d lost and the part I played in it, I also realized that there was a hole in my heart because of it.  Over time, I realized that what I was missing, wasn’t just your friendship.  I had been in love with you, and I didn’t even realize it.”

With that he reached across the table and gingerly placed his hand on top of mine and looked deeply into my eyes for my reaction.  I was frozen in place.  I could barely feel his warm, soft hand on top of mine.  I couldn’t form any words with my mouth and for a moment it seemed as if we were the only two people in the room.  The music was gone.  The voices that had been straining to be heard over the din were gone.  There was nothing but the sound of my own heart beating in my ears as I struggled to process what had just happened.

And then just like that, it all came rushing back.  The noise, the vibrations, the physical sense of all the people around us.  I blinked, and a single tear fell from my eye and ran down my face.

“Please say something,” he spoke.  “Whatever you have to say, I can take it.  I just need to hear your reaction.”

“I- I never thought–  I mean- I…  I was in love with you too.  It’s part of why the situation was so difficult for me living with you and your family.  I wanted to be friends and I wanted to be accepted by your family so that we could continue to be together in the only way I ever thought we would, but I secretly loved you and was so jealous of all that they had of you, that I could not have.”

There was a long pause as we both just stared into each other’s eyes, not knowing what would come next.  And then I spoke, but the words seemed like they were someone else’s.  I had never imagined this moment could be possible so I certainly had no idea how I could or would react.  “Would you like to go back to my apartment to talk?  I think the peace and quiet would do us both some good.”

I opened the front door of my apartment and looked around, glad that the cleaning lady had been in.  Stepping aside, I held the door as Batman walked past me to explore.  I closed the door behind him and when I turned around, he was right there, looking me in the eyes, and he put his hands on my shoulders.  “I don’t think I want to talk,” he said, as he pushed me against the door and tenderly kissed my lips.   He was so unashamed, uninhibited it took me by surprise.

I’d never done this before.  I’d never brought a man who, for these intents and purposes, was a stranger back to my home.  I’d never immediately launched into a physical encounter barely after the door was locked.  I’d never locked lips (or anything else) with a friend.  In fact, I’d never locked lips (or anything else) with any man, ever, before in my life.  Of course, I had fantasized about it many times before.  I had known for some time that it was something that appealed to me, but it had only been a year or two since I’d finally accepted and stopped denying my sexuality, and thus far, I had never physically acted on those desires.

Batman on the other hand, seemed to know exactly what he was doing.  He started out tenderly, gently, almost like he knew this was a first for me.  And then his kisses became more intense, more emphatic, and before I knew it, I was responding in kind.  I reached out for him and wrapped my arms around his back.  My right hand was on the back of his neck and my left hand was around his waist as I held on to him almost for dear life, afraid this moment wasn’t real, that it would end suddenly.  I tilted my head into his kiss and as I parted my lips to kiss him harder I felt his soft, warm tongue slide between them and press against mine.

I felt his hands pressing my shoulders against the door as he dove into my mouth and then I felt him press away from me just a few inches as his hands slid down to the center of my chest and grab the placket of my button down shirt.  In one swift moment he ripped his hands outward, popping every button off my shirt exposing my chest and abdomen to him.  It was every bit as erotic as I dreamed it would be.

As I heard the buttons bouncing off the walls and along the floor, I felt his strong arms wrap around my waist under my shirt and then, while continuing to kiss me passionately, I felt him lift me off my feet and carry me over to the end of the couch where he put me down and shoved me over the arm and down on to the cushions.  And then, with one swift motion he crossed his arms in front of him, grabbed hold of the hem of his pull-over shirt and slipped it right off and over his head, revealing the rock hard abs and perfectly toned, smooth chest that I knew were under there just waiting to come out.  He still wore his military dog tags which nestled nicely between his hard, brown nipples.  And as he looked down at me and grinned, I inhaled sharply, taking in this beautiful specimen of a man that stood before me.

And then he pounced!  He climbed on top of the couch, on top of me and began running his tongue all over my upper body.  My smooth, pale chest and abs were his for the taking, and take them he did.  As he was licking, kissing, nibbling and stroking my body, I could feel my erection beginning.  Just a slight heat at first, but soon, it was pressing against my Calvin Klein’s and my jeans and he could feel it pressing against his chest.  As he was kissing my six pack and sticking his tongue in my belly button, he looked up at me, made eye contact and smiled.  He opened his mouth wide and bared his teeth.  I was excited and nervous all at the same time, not knowing where this was going.  But it was perfectly clear, very quickly, what my friend had in mind.  He tilted his head down and grabbed hold of my belt, the part, in front of the buckle, with his teeth and began to wrestle it free.  He pulled the strap a few inches out of the buckle until it formed a small bump on my waist and then he grabbed it with his left hand, pulling the strap the rest of the way free.

My cock was rigid by now and was pressing uncomfortably against the soft fabric of my briefs and I couldn’t wait for it to be freed.  Batman feverishly worked and within a few seconds he’d unfastened my belt and the button on my pants waist and pulled the zipper down.  Then he reached up and put his fingers inside the waist band of my underwear at the corner of either hipbone and cocked his head slightly.  Without saying a word he conveyed his intent and just as he tugged on my clothes I used the slight leverage of my feet on arm of the couch to raise my ass off the couch cushions making it possible for him to pull them down and away from my now fully engorged penis.  Thwack!  As he was standing up and pulling my lower body attire the rest of the way down to my feet, my erection snapped out of the restraints of my underwear and slapped into my quivering abdomen.  Batman began to laugh as he was struggling to pull my pants all the way off, not remembering I still had my shoes on.

Laughing as well, I sat up and grabbed his wrists.  As I slammed my body back against the cushions I pulled him back over the arm of the couch and down on top of me.  I doubled over slightly as he came down on top of my solid member laying out on my stomach, but I didn’t care about the pain.  I wanted to be in contact with his hot flesh!  Again, I placed my hand on the back of his head and pulled his mouth down onto mine.  This time there was no time for tenderness.  I needed to feel his skin against mine.  I needed to touch his warm lips and probing tongue and for a few minutes I explored every part of his mouth, his chin and his neck and shoulders.  And then I became the forgetful one as I found some leverage and pushed to roll over on top of him, not remembering that we were on the couch and there was no where to roll to.

My downstairs neighbors probably had a start when they heard the thud on their ceiling, and for a moment I had to stop and laugh at the idea that they had no knowledge of what was happening right above their heads.  And then, there we were, Batman splayed out on the floor, pinned beneath my body.  My pants were still around my ankles and the restriction that provided had me straddling my friend, with my feet between his knees and my knees on either side of his hips.  Then I felt his own erection pressed against the inside of my naked left thigh.  He resisted slightly and I gently took hold of his wrists and pinned them above his head on the floor.  I leaned down to kiss his face and made eye contact with this beautiful creature beneath me.  I stopped abruptly and just stared into his eyes.

“What?” he asked, slightly out of breath but sounding worried.  “What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know.  I just–  I guess, I’ve been waiting for this moment for so long and now that it’s here…  I just don’t want to ruin it.  I want it to be special.  Meaningful.  You know?”

He smiled so tenderly at me.  “I know,” he said.  “Here.  Get up,” he told me as he began to sit up on his own.  I climbed awkwardly off of him and sat, bare-assed, on the couch.  Batman sat up on the floor and tuned to face me.  He placed his hands on my exposed thighs and looked into my eyes.  He just looked, tenderly at me for several seconds before he said, “If you don’t want to do this, I understand.  I think it would be really beautiful though.”  I smiled slightly.  “Besides,” he said as he ran the back of his hand along my waning erection, which jumped lightly at his touch, “You do seem like you want to do this.”

I smiled.  “I do.  I really do.  Let’s just…  Let’s just make it count. OK?”

He didn’t answer.  He just smiled sweetly and then looked down at the floor.  Slowly he reached down and lifted my piled up pants from the top of my left shoe and pulled the end of the lace.  The laces came untied and he loosened them before he pulled my shoe off.  Then he gathered the material of my pants in his right hand while gently lifting my leg out of the pants leg with his left.  When my leg was free of the fabric, he used his right hand to remove my sock.  After doing the same with my right leg he uncrossed his legs and effortlessly stood up from the floor in one muscular, fluid motion.  Standing in front of me naked from the waist up, he tugged his own shoes and socks off and kicked them to the side before extending his hand to me, palm up.

I reached out and placed my hand in his and he lightly supported my weight as I stood up from the couch now completely naked and with my half mast sicking straight out in front of me and rubbing slightly on his still shrouded crotch.  “Which way is the bedroom?” he asked.  I turned to the side, took his hand in mine and led him, silently, to the bedroom door.  The sheets were fresh and the bed beautifully made, thanks, again, to the cleaning lady.  After I opened the door, Batman silently walked past me and led me to the bed.  He delicately pulled back the linens and then guided me to the edge of the bed to sit.  As I sat facing him I watched as he began to loosen the belt on his own jeans.  He unfastened his belt and his pants and slowly began to push them to the floor.

As his own solid cock sprung from his clothes I again took a sharp breath.  I’d never been in this situation before.  I’d never been in the same room with a real live hard erection that wasn’t my own, and never been about to do what I now knew was going to happen, and was certain it was what I wanted.  He stepped out of his jeans and took a step toward me, motioning with his hands for me to climb into the bed and lay back.

I carefully slid to the far side of the bed and lay my head on the pillows.  My breath was shallow and quick and I could feel the nerves rising in my stomach.  This was really happening and I was ready!  As I felt the mattress sink at the weight of Batman climbing on, I closed my eyes and waited for what was to come.  I sensed, more than felt him hovering over my hard-on and then I felt the light, moist touch of his tongue starting at the base of my cock where it meets with my balls and working it’s way slowly up to the tip where he licked the opening that was already releasing pre-cum.  And then I felt him take my cock in his hand and lift it up to his lips, while the other hand began to lightly fondle and squeeze my nuts.  Suddenly, I felt a wet warmth as my dick was engulfed in his mouth.  Slowly at first he ran his mouth, up and down, up and down running his tongue over the sensitive under-side of my engorged tip.  I couldn’t believe how incredible it felt.  Just as I knew it would, it felt like the most perfect, natural thing in the world.  Not even coming close to the sensations I’d experienced in my few previous encounters with the opposite sex.  This was as God had intended for me.

My friend continued his ministrations and I could feel my ball sack tightening as he continued to take all of my eight inches into his mouth and throat.  He was clearly quite skilled in this area, so to speak, and as my body began to stiffen and quiver, he stopped his motion, with my erection deep in his throat and began a light sucking motion that I had never experienced the likes of before!  “I’m gonna cum!” I whispered, as that was the most sound I could produce.  I expected he would pull my cock from his mouth and let me shoot my load, but instead he kept my dick deep in the back of his throat and increased the intensity of his suction.

“Unh-  uh, Ahh.  Ahhhh! AHHHHHHHH!!!” I cried out as I felt the cum leaving my body and shooting deep into his throat, nine, ten, eleven, twelve times I felt my entire body convulse as I shot load after load into his belly.  When it was done, and I was completely still, he slowly began to extract my now softening penis from his mouth, keeping his lips tight while sucking, licking and pulling every drop of cum from my spent member.    When he was done, he looked up at me and smiled.

“How was that?” he asked, knowing what the obvious response would be.

My chest and abdomen heaved as I struggled to stabilize my breathing.  “Hmmm,” was all I could muster at first.  “Tha-  That was incredible.”  A few more breaths, “Best I’ve ever experienced, for sure.”

“Well, hold on to your hat, sweet cheeks,” he told me, “‘Cause the fun has only just begun!”

I had no idea I had so much story to tell.  Stay tuned for Batman’s Return, Pt. 2, coming soon!

Batman’s Beginning

Until now, I’ve always made my closest friends in my workplace.  This goes back as far as I can remember.  Even to my senior year in high school when I worked at the grocery store that was in Scornful Mother‘s back yard.

I met Batman while working as a cashier at Price Mart (since bought out.)  He was a bagger.  He was handsome.  A few inches shorter than I, with sandy blond hair and a tan complexion.  He worked out and it showed.  He always wore the long sleeves of his white button down, oxford shirts rolled up to above his large, hard biceps.  He wore a perpetual, goofy grin on his face and he was completely endearing to everyone who ever met him.   I was instantly enthralled with his good looks and great attitude.

In addition to Batman, my friend who I have referred to on this blog as RNJ also worked at the Price Mart.  At the time, I believed I had feelings for RNJ but she had no interest in me.  The two of us were in choir together in school and had grown a friendship there.  She was, by far your traditional cowgirl with a rebellion just waiting to come out.  For a brief time, we were like the Three Musketeers.

RNJ and Batman flirted back and forth relentlessly while I looked on with despair and desperation.  I wanted to be loved.  I wanted to have a relationship with someone like these two had.  Batman was RNJ‘s prom date.  I went to dinner with the two of them and a platonic date, but because I was under 18 and Scornful Mother wouldn’t give her permission for me to go to Prom I didn’t attend.  (A story for another time)   I spent the entire evening lying on my platonic date’s parents’ bed watching Homefront and waiting for Batman and RNJ to come back and pick us up again.

Not long after graduation, RNJ entered a rebellious phase and she dumped Batman.  He and I had become friends though, or at least I thought so.  Looking back I realized that, at that time at least, Batman was the kind of guy who thought of nothing but you…  while you were in front of him.  But as soon as you left his sight, he promptly forgot about you.  Anyway, we were friends for a time over the summer.  I was out of school and probably held some appeal in that regard.  He was popular, funny, good looking and had no shortage of self confidence.  I really enjoyed being his friend.

One Summer, afternoon while at work, Batman invited me to come over to his house after we both go off work and spend the night.  His parents had this big, beautiful house with a kidney shaped pool in the back yard.  We stayed up half the night talking about all kinds of things, chief among them, RNJ, of course.  Batman deduced that I had feelings for her, and even though I flatly denied it, it seemed clear that there was something to what he was saying.  Certainly I had some affection for her, but there seemed more to the story.

We spent the next morning lying out next to the pool while he told me of all of his sexual escapades, of which there were many.  The part of my brain that was under Scornful Mother‘s programming was, well, scornful, of his behavior.  The larger part of my brain though, was enthralled.  I was impressed with his apparent prowess.  I was jealous of his nerve and adventurousness.  I was envious of his experience.  And I was glad that we were sprawled out on our stomach’s and he couldn’t see what was happening in my swimming trunks thinking about him in the various sexual endeavors he described.  Even then I couldn’t really accept what that might mean.

I decided a the last minute to go off to college in the fall and we didn’t have any interaction for several months and when I returned at the end of the semester, I had a wrecked car to pay for, a job to work full-time and before long a fiance to connect with (another story for another time.)  Batman had his senior year in high school, an untold number of girlfriends and a very emotionally – if not physically – abusive home life to contend with.  (Something I didn’t know about until years later.)  We grew apart during that time.

That October, I took Dead Beat Dad up on an offer to come live with him for a time while I earned money to buy a car and have more freedom and independence for when I got married the following year.  Batman joined the military, almost as soon as he graduated from high school and that seemed to be the end of our relationship.

I stayed at Dead Beat Dad‘s house for nine months, during which time, my fiance took up with my so-called best friend, started going partying at clubs on a regular basis, cheated on me with an unspecified number of men, broke up with me and got engaged to another man.  All this, while I was out of town on a mission we agreed was important to undertake for the betterment of our future together.  Not two weeks after I returned to Oklahoma, she married another man who she left six months later, just to take up with her boss and get pregnant with his child.

I lived in Oklahoma for six months that time before I got promoted to Store Manager and moved away again.  I was gone from The Town Named for Damaged Native American Weaponry for about nine months before I decided I couldn’t continue in my career path and I gave up my position to move back in with Scornful Mother and give school another try.  School never did work out but I’d been thinking about Batman a lot at that point, wondering what ever happened to him and missing our friendship.  So when I returned to TTNFDNAW I looked him up.  I was anxious about calling him.  What if he didn’t want to reconnect with me?  What if he was still cooler than I and didn’t want to have anything to do with me?  What if this person in the phone book, with his name, wasn’t even the same guy?

I sent him a letter saying if he was the same guy and he wanted to reconnect that he should give me a call at Scornful Mother‘s house.  A week later, he called and my heart danced in my chest!  He wanted to get together for lunch the following week.  He was working for an earlier incarnation of The Soul Crushing Telecom Company and invited me to come out for a tour of the site and lunch at a local eatery.  Naturally, I agreed.

I was sitting in the main lobby of the company campus waiting for him to come and greet me when I saw something I couldn’t believe.  Off in the distance I saw something that vaguely represented my friend known as Batman but was more reminiscent of The Penguin.  It turned out that, when Mrs. Batman got pregnant with Bat Baby they decided they were ready to exit Military Service.  Apparently, that was relatively easy for Mrs. Batman to accomplish, but Batman would have to be a bit creative.  Batman immediately stopped exercising and started over eating.  When it came time for his PT (Physical Tests) he was no longer able to pass them, and he was given an honorable discharge.

After filling me in on the years I had missed in his life; his marriage and recent birth of his six week old Bat-daughter, he told me about The Company and how they were always hiring.  He told me about their benefits.  I’ll never forget the moment he pushed his glasses up his nose and told me, “They offer really good Obstetrics coverage.”

I couldn’t help but laugh.  “I’m sure that came in handy for you, but I’d settle for some decent optometry coverage.”

Batman explained to me how they hire through a temp agency and how I should go there and register.  He’d put in a word for me with the hiring manager and get me in for an interview.  The rest of the story is fairly obvious.  I interviewed for a trainee position through the temp agency and was offered the slot.  I wouldn’t be hired permanently by the company till I finished the training program and proved I could handled the job.  I wasn’t concerned.

When I got the call that they were going to bring me in I called Batman to share the good news.  He was excited for me, and very encouraging.  And then he dropped the bomb.  “Unfortunately, I won’t still be there,” he said.  “Mrs. Batman and I are moving to California.”

Batman‘s entire family had moved away, and in fact he’d been renting and living in his parents house that he lived in during high School, the last of his multi-syllabic named clan in town.  Mrs. Batman’s mother lived in Turlock, California and she operated a day care center out of her home.  She’d made an offer to have them move in with her.  Bat-baby would stay in the day care while Batman would go work and Mrs. Batman would go to Dental Hygienist school while they concentrated on paying off their debt so they could buy a house.  I was, of course really disappointed that he was leaving after we’d reconnected, but what could I do.  I offered my support and encouragement and offered any help I could provide.  The week before I started the training program I helped him load a 26′ Penske truck with everything they owned in preparation for their cross half the country trip to Turlock, California. The night before they left town, after I’d helped load the last of their belongings in the truck and left them for the last time, I sobbed in my bed as I thought about what I’d gained and immediately lost again.

By the time I finished training, Batman had gotten hired and was fully established in a position with the same company, but in the San Jose, California office and he e-mailed me to keep in touch.  To keep a long story short, he helped me get my foot in the door with The Soul Crushing Telecom Company in the Bay Area.  That October, I flew to California for a week where I interviewed with Batman‘s boss and looked at a few apartments in the area.  It was at this time that the offer was extended for me to come to California and stay with Batman et. al., even if it wasn’t for the the position with TSCTC.

I chose not to accept the full time position that I was offered in Oklahoma because company policy would have prohibited me from being hired in California, even if I had quit the job in Oklahoma to move and accept the new position.  Little did I know it would take four more months for anything to happen.  Finally, in March of the following year, I was giving a verbal offer of employment and I quit my temp job and moved to California to stay with my “new family” and get started with the rest of my life.

While I was on my own half-cross-country drive from The Town Named for Damaged Native American Weaponry, The Soul Crushing Telecom Company announced that they had just bought out another local telecommunications company and that they were instituting a hiring freeze until all that companies employees had been assimilated into the population.  I was concerned, but mostly just happy to be moving to California (a dream I didn’t know I had, coming true) and to be living with my good friend.

It is a little known fact that there are three factors in life that tend to trigger depression in just about anyone.  1) Marriage, Divorce or A Death in the Family, 2) Career Change or 3) Major Relocation.  I had two of the three working against me, plus being already predisposed to depression, plus, as it turned out the Bat-Mother-in-Law was determined to come between Batman and his wife and was happy to use me to make that happen.

I lived with the Bat Brood for four long, hard months.  It was horrible for me, feeling like an outsider and seeing that my relationship with Batman was quickly slipping away.  When all was said and done I can only congratulate Batman for standing up to the Bat-Mother-in-Law and not letting her come between him and the Bat-wife, but it was at my expense.

By the time it was over, there was nothing left of my friendship with Batman.  He did make a few attempts here and there to remain friends but I couldn’t get beyond the fact that he had put his wife and her mother ahead of me, when they were doing such evil things to run me out.  (The Bat-wife got snookered, at least for a time, by the Bat-Mother-in-Law.)  Soon, his attempts to continue our friendship gave out and we stopped communicating.

In the summer of 2001, I was contemplating the idea of joining the California National Guard.  I was sick of my life (not unlike I am now) and I desperately needed to do something to make a change and to take control.  I was sick of my body, sick of my mind and sick of having my life.  I thought joining the CNG would 1) whip me into shape, 2) Help me find myself and 3) change my entire existence for the better.  I had no interest in going oversees or going into battle, but I was interested in getting the training and willing to take the risk of being involved in some disaster relief efforts, or God forbid, some police actions.  At one point I had a meeting with a recruiter and was seriously giving it some consideration but thought I should get some information from someone who knew stuff.  I sent an e-mail to Batman asking him to meet me for lunch so I could get some information from him.  He agreed to meet me and I drove to Stockton, California where he was working to meet up for lunch.  I sat in the parking lot waiting for him.  About ten minutes after I arrived, he came down the sidewalk in my direction.  He was just a sliver of who he had been the last time I saw him….  and he looked awesome!

He told me everything I wanted to know about being in Boot Camp/Basic Training and what he thought I’d be getting myself into.  I told him that I apologized for my part in all the hurt that happened when I lived with him and his family.  That I was struggling emotionally and the turmoil was just too much for me, but that it’s no excuse.  We said we’d keep in touch, and continue to work on our friendship and neither of us has made an effort to contact the other since.  And a few weeks later, some psychopaths flew two commercial airplanes into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City.  I knew we would be going to war, and while I was as enraged as the next American at the events of that day, I knew I could not go to Afghanistan, or Iraq, or any of the other countries and fight a war that I felt had no purpose.  And I knew if I signed any enlistment papers, I would be doing just that.

My life has gone on since then, without Batman and without the military but not without it’s price.  I still think about him and about the friendship I lost.  I still think about how great he looked that day lying by the pool, and about how confident he was, everyday, even as a fat man, and how sexy that made him.  And I still miss that friendship.

About a year ago, I had a dream about Batman and the Mrs…

Part two of this story will follow in the next day or two.

His Tragedy Gives Me Hope

I know this guy.  A really wonderful guy.  He’s kind and compassionate.  I’ve never seen him angry.  Of course he is a vendor with whom I interact in a professional capacity, but I feel as though, I’ve known him and worked with him long enough that he’s more than just a vendor to me.  He is a friend and as a friend seeing him angry wouldn’t be completely unreasonable.  Yet it doesn’t happen. He’s always positive and upbeat.  He’s always encouraging and supportive.  He’s diplomatic and charismatic.  He’s always very peaceful and I really enjoy dealing with him.

You might wonder why this seems so incredible to me.  Why is it so noteworthy?  You see, my friend has every right and reason to be completely messed up.  No one could blame him if he was a miserable, unlikeable, pitiful excuse for a man.  He suffered greatly in his early days, both due to his environment and directly at his father’s hands.  And later when the world learned of his experience, no one could have faulted him for having been affected by it.

You see, my friend isn’t just any man.  He isn’t just any formerly abused child.  He’s the son of a psychopath.  My friend’s father was a very disturbed, evil man, who manipulated hundreds of people and is directly responsible for one of the most infamous and horrific mass murders of my lifetime.  My friend is the only living biological son of The Reverend Jim Jones and his wife Marceline.

With a name as generic as Jones, you’d never imagine that my friend could possibly be the son of such a sick individual.  I’m only aware of it because a former co-worker, big on over-sharing, told me about my friends history one day several years ago around this time.  Yesterday was anniversary of the massacre that took the lives of over nine hundred members of “The Peoples Temple.”  If you don’t know the story, You can find out a little bit here and here.  I’m not going to recount it in this forum.  The truth is, I wouldn’t have known anything about it if it weren’t for my mouthy co-worker, but as a person who is fascinated with disaster and destruction I couldn’t help but do some research afterward.  Like most people I’d heard the various catch phrases about “the Kool-Aid” (which it was not) but I didn’t know the story, and never before that day was it so personal.

Thirty years ago this week, the disaster took place.  The things I’ve read, and the television shows I’ve seen about the event are chilling to say the least.  I can only imagine what it must have been like in the days and weeks after the mass murder for my friend, (I can’t call what happened suicide.)  Knowing that he had survived this tragedy when so many innocent people died at his father’s proverbial hand, I can only imagine the survivor’s guilt that he must have suffered.  Likewise, I can only imagine the years of therapy it must have taken for him to become the man he is today.

In preparing to write this post today, I did a little internet search for information and I came upon a story about my friend and his appearance in, but disinterest in watching, a documentary type special, a couple years ago, about the Jonestown Massacre.  While I have read stories in the past about my friends life, I happened across this and was, nonetheless surprised:

The younger Jones concedes he went through hell and back trying to come to terms with his ordeal. “I’ve finally found a little peace.”

That peace wasn’t in place at Jonestown. “Then I was always enraged with my father, and I showed it openly,” he says.

“There were even times when we squared off in front of everybody at the Temple, with guns pointed at each others heads,” Jones says.

“But did I help anything? No, I really think I made it worse. I increased the fear and dread in the community. My rebellion was all about making him look wrong. There was little about standing up for the people in the community. I could no longer rationalize the sickness and the wrong of what he was doing, yet I rebelled from the safety of royalty.”

“…with guns pointed at each others heads.”

It’s hard for me to imagine my friend holding a gun, let alone, pointing it someone’s head.  Especially at his own father’s head.  How tragic in it’s own right that such a thing should happen.  I’ve never discussed my friend’s father with him.  Part of me would very much like to.  I have many questions that go unanswered, but I just can’t help feeling like, perhaps he doesn’t want to talk about him.  Perhaps, he shares his story and does his interviews with news outlets out of some sense of obligation or responsibility but doesn’t desire to talk about it with people with whom he has a personal relationship.  I can imagine he’s got some incredible, exciting stories to tell.  If it weren’t such a tragic and disturbing true story, I would very much like to hear (or read) them.  But they’re surely not incredible, exciting stories to him.  They are the stuff of his tumultuous early years which is very likely better left buried.

Often, I have thought about what it must have been like for my friend, to grow up in such an environment.  I know, from reading my friends own writings on-line, that Jim Jones was a very disturbed and often violent father.  I know that he was addicted to drugs and carried on in a sexual manner, not appropriate for a father or a husband, and certainly not for a Pastor.  I know that my friend had a miserable childhood that included, among other things, multiple attempts at suicide by over-dosing on his father’s drugs.  I think about these things and I think, “Man!  What am I moping about?  My life was a walk in a park compared to that.”  And then I found this.

The other night, I watched the MSNBC special presentation, Witness to Jonestown.  I wish I could remember more specifics, but as I was watching this show and my mind was drifting on and off of what I was seeing and hearing, I was suddenly snapped back to the reality of the show when I heard a woman say, “You weren’t allowed to disagree.  You weren’t allowed to have a different opinion.”  I have expressed that very sentiment, almost word for word many times, in reference to growing up in Vengeful Mother‘s home.  And today I read the brief article “A cult is like abusive relationships…  You are trapped like a caged animal.”  The interview with Deborah Layton, a survivor of Jonestown, read, in a lot of ways, like a description of my own childhood as I was being raised by VM:

“…plays on people’s insecurities and gives them a sense of order in the world…

“You find a niche… where everything is black and white, where this way is good and the other way is bad.”

The logical consequence of this thinking, however, is that any deviation from the cult leader’s [Vengeful Mother‘s] thinking is automatically condemned. Members’ individuality is suppressed and subject to fear and suspicion…  “It’s an abusive relationship…you can’t extricate yourself without hurting yourself or your family. You are like a caged animal.”

There is a frightening and painful similarity between the way Vengeful Mother controlled me (and in many ways, still does) and how someone like Jim Jones controls the members of his Cult.

Come to think of it, my amazement at my friends ability to heal from his tragic early days also gives me hope for my own future.  Encouragement that I can and will find peace in my own life without the bonds of my previous existence holding me down, preventing me from finding a place in this world where I can fit in and be happy, healthy and whole.

Theraputic Mistery

Therapy was tough tonight.  There was a moment that kinda slipped by me until after it was all over.

Insightful Therapist and I briefly discussed, at the end of the session, the fact that I had been honest with the Match Support Specialist (MSS) at Big Brother’s and Big sisters, on Thursday, about the fact that I’m gay.  IT asked me if that felt significant to me, to have “come out” and been so honest with the Specialist about something that is so intensely difficult for me.  I said that it did not, because much to my surprise it wasn’t nearly as difficult for me as I thought it would be.

It was a little difficult to say, but far less so than what I had anticipated.  The MSS asked me about my relationship with my family and in particular my parents.  Describing my relationship with Dead Beat Dad was easy.  I pretty much don’t have one.  I’d like to.  And I am sort of working on it, but for the most part it’s just too difficult.  Vengeful Mother on the other hand is a little more difficult to explain.  I just told the MSS that my relationship with VM is strained, that I wish it wasn’t and it’s a work in progress, but that VM is very emphatic about her Christian beliefs and that she and I have some conflicts of interest, namely that I’m gay and VM wouldn’t be OK with it if she knew.  I informed the MSS that my family is not yet aware of this.

What I was expressing to Insightful Therapist, though possibly not completely clearly, was that despite my expectations, it didn’t feel like such a big deal to tell the MSS that I’m gay.  IT was asking me if that felt like a significant experience to me and I said, “No.”  But what I was saying was, “No. It didn’t feel terribly significant to tell the MSS about my sexuality.”

As I was leaving the waiting area of Insightful Therapist‘s office, it suddenly dawned on me.  She wasn’t asking me if it felt significant to tell a virtual stranger about my sexuality.  She was asking me if it felt significant to me, that it didn’t feel significant to tell a virtual stranger about my sexuality.  My answer to that question is, “Yes!  That’s huge!”

There was a lot more to our session tonight.  I’d hate to suggest that I’ve got it all worked out and narrowed down to a handful of factors, just to be wrong, but it seems to me that I’ve stumbled upon something.  It’s my fear that’s holding me back.  I am, truthfully, and shamefully, terrified of taking any steps that might move me forward.

I’m terrified of going to AA meetings, or Coming Out Support Groups.  I felt sick to my stomach and like I might pass out when I was seriously considering the possibility of volunteering with the HRC.  It’s not that I don’t think I can do anything with them.  I know I can.  But there are people there.  People that I don’t know.  And when I began to imagine what might come next after filling out the volunteer form, I was in agony… sick to my stomach… light headed.  I felt like I might just faint, right here in my chair whilst I considered such an absurd thing.

I’ve had so many experiences of rejection by people in randomly public situations that I don’t really feel comfortable taking the risk any more.  It’s easy for Insightful Therapist to nod her head and say, “That must have been so painful.”  But it’s so much more than painful.  It’s debilitating to think of taking the risk again.  To consider putting myself out there for such treatment to be issued, because what IT doesn’t convey that she understands is that it will happen again.  Maybe not on such a grand scale.  Maybe not in such an oppressive manor, but it will happen again.  And it will happen every time I put myself out there.  For every person who will treat me with a modicum of respect, there will be fifteen who will treat me like so much dog doo on the sole of their shoe.  Like I’m something to be dealt with and forgotten about.  I just want to be welcomed, treated with respect and dignity and love, just for being who I am.  To be treated like I’m Somebody’s Somebody, but I can’t shake the fact that, no matter where I go or what I do, There will always seem to be a majority who does not like me.

Two Is Better Than One

My latest foray into sobriety was pretty short lived.  Not that it was very whole-hearted.  Or even particularly necessary really.  But I had decided to take a little break from the drinkin’ for a bit.  Certainly only for a little bit anyway, as the holidays are coming up and between celebrating and trying to forget there was bound to be some inbibation taking place.

Anyway, I was down to my last couple bottles of wine in the rack and I just decided to not buy more when that was gone and take a little break from things.  The final bottle was finished off on Saturday and that was to be the end of that for a while.  I thought maybe, I’d only drink a single drink when I was out for dinner, or at a friends (Read: Green M&M‘s since I don’t have any other friends that I socialize with.)  Otherwise I’d just not drink.  For some reason, voicing this decision to another living soul is a little too intimidating for my taste.  So when it was decided that Green M&M was going to come over for our weekly/bi-weekly Dancing With The Stars viewing party I mentioned to her that I didn’t have any wine.  She was going to bring a bottle from home but it wasn’t going to be cold because this conversation took place after she’d already left for work.  Upon further discussion however, it was suggested that she should bring dinner with her from our favorite Tacqueria, Tacqueria Cancun in Berkeley, CA.  They make really excellent Mexican food and sell it out of a restaurant in a really terrible location.

See, I hate Berkeley to begin with.  It’s crouded and poorly laid out.  Getting anywhere in Berkeley, in my opinion, is far more difficult than is worth whatever you may be going there for.  Because of this, I do not go to Berkeley any more than I absolutely have to (which is actually ever Tuesday night since that’s where Insightful Therapist‘s office is.  Fortunately she’s just on the edge of town and getting there and back isn’t too much of a nightmare.)  Green on the other hand grew up in Berkeley, and thinks nothing of the chaos that surounds the burg.

Since Green would be going through Berkeley to get dinner, she’d be that much later getting to my house, which was understood and perfectly ok with me, but then she suggested, “While I’m doing that, you could go to the store and buy a cold bottle of wine.”  I don’t think she really appreciated the humor in that statement.  “…buy A bottle of wine”?  Just one?  Really?  Funny, funny girl!  Why buy one, when you can buy eight?  The wine in question is comparable in price and quality to Two Buck Chuck so it wasn’t a tremendous expenditure.

I went to the local grocery, (real name Lucky, but I insist upon continuing to call it Albertson’s, because Albertson’s has always been the superior brand and I do not like that they reverted all Northern California stores back to the Lucky brand) to purchase the aforementioned vino and then headed home, with just about an hour to chill the wine and clean house enough to make things presentable for the delicate sensibilities of the fairer sex.  When I arrived home I immediately put one bottle in the freezer, and two bottles in the fridge, ostensibly so that it would be cold the next time I wanted wine.

The bottle in the freezer was split down the middle with dinner and we each had our share.  A while back I took to adding diet lemon-lime soda to my wine – a spritzer if, you will.  It was entended to cut the wine and have it go farther but instead it has just made it easier to drink faster.  Anyway, I opened the second bottle after I finished eating my burrito (Carne Asada, if you must know.)  By the time I turned off the TV to go to bed a little before midnight, I had finished off the second bottle.

This doesn’t actually, really concern me all that much.  I mean, it’s not like I “tried” not to drink it and couldn’t help myself.  I just didn’t give it much thought.  And I wasn’t drunk when I finished it.  It takes a lot more than a bottle and a half of wine to get me drunk.  And I didn’t have a hang over when I got up this morning.  Yes, I over slept, and yes I was late for work but that’s because I was up until after mindnight, and because I slept so badly over the week-end.  (I oversleep and am late for work on an almost daily basis, so today is nothing special.)

Maybe I’ll take another break from “the bottle” after these remaining six are gone.  Or maybe I’ll just throw in the towel until January and then give it another shot after the torture of the holidays has blown over…

Ding Dong

I’ve just come from the men’s room where I was poised to take care of some personal business.  If you’ve read my list of Random Facts then you know that I tend toward a bit of a stage fright issue, so you can imagine my predicament when I’m standing in front of the urinal, shmeckle in hand on the verge of release and I hear the toilet in the stall immediately behind me flush and almost at the same instant the stall door opened.  Despite my discomfort, I’m sure you’ll be very relieved to to know that I was, well…  very relieved.

So there I stand, unit in hand and my men’s room cohabiter at the sink when I hear a door bell.  Bear in mine I’m in the men’s room.  (Heh heh, “bare.”)  In an office building.  On the 23rd floor.  There should be no door bell’s ringing here.  The tile walls behind the urinals are surprisingly shiny, which is simultaneously amusing and unexpected.  It’s also a little disappointing, because despite their shine, you can’t really see anything good.  But I could see the world behind me in the shine.  I looked up to see a handsome young man, four inches shorter than myself, wearing jeans and a t-shirt and a fluorescent orange “The Company That Created The HMO construction services” vest.  He’s standing at the sink and scurrying to get his hands washed and rinsed so he can answer what I then realize is his ringing cell phone.

“I’ve never heard a door-bell in a bathroom before,” I said.

He laughed and told me that it’s the only way that it get’s his attention, otherwise it just rings and he doesn’t notice it.

As he was walking out of the restroom I was reminded of another incident that took place in that very same spot more than a year ago.  There I stood with my pants open, hose nozzle on full blast, if ya know what I mean, when out of the corner of my eye, I see the door open and a familiar figure walking in.  Vickie A. took six steps into the men’s room before she realized that the figure she saw before her, one that she too recognized, did not belong in her restroom.  I couldn’t help but laugh and having grown up in a house with Vengeful Mother and CPA Sister and only one bathroom, I wasn’t bothered by her presence.  There was, after all a wall between her eyes and my accoutrement.  Poor Vicki was so flummoxed that she just stood there for a minute looking at me and babbling about how it’s true what they say about how we stand while we’re doing our business, before she finally turned around and sprinted out the door.

She continued to work on the same floor as I do for another year after that.  I suppose a kind and benevolent person would have let her live this down.

Unfortunately for Vickie, I am neither kind, nor benevolent.