By: Gerry Young

[Due to the nature and content of the following, my wonderful editor, Drew, in Yorkshire, England, has asked that he be disassociated from this chapter;  it is completely within his right to make such a request.  Sadly, I feel that I must submit to his wishes, having been assured that he will continue Editor/Author relationship in the near future.  I love you, Drew, and value your insight and helpful expertise more than you’ll ever know.

On the other hand, to the Webmaster of TickieStories.us, I wish to express my love and deep appreciation for all the time that he spends with me. The brain storming has been enlightening and wonderfully helpful;   in my senior years, I need all the assistance I can get!  Though, as the author, I constantly exercise my right to have the final say-so … unless he threatens NOT to post the particular chapter.  HAHAHAHAHA  And then, of course, I again submit to authority!  Oh, well!  Such is life!  It’s neither good nor bad – it only … IS.

Thanks, Babe.  1 – 2 – 3 ! ]

CHAPTER FOUR

[This chapter is totally new and has never been posted before.]

At home in Haight-Ashbury, near midnight, Labor Day evening, Monday, September 1, 1952.

Gerry jumped out of the automobile even before Tom had turned off the ignition.  He ran to the house, unlocked, opened and slammed the door before Tom caught up with him, and ran to the guest bathroom.  He slammed that door, too, then locked it, dropped to his knees, and puked into the toilet.  Not because he was drunk -- he hadn’t had anything alcoholic to drink at Dr. B’s cookout in Sausalito.  Not because he had over-eaten, nor even because some of the food might have made him sick.  Not because of the sickeningly sweet incense, either.  Not because of … well … just not because of any of those kinds of things.

He was emotionally sick to his stomach because of what he assumed had been planned and nearly carried out at the party.  He was sick to his stomach because he felt betrayed – betrayed by the man he had called his lover, and by another man he had grown to respect and admire and trust! Or so he thought.

He had neither been violated nor coerced into doing the most dreadful, painful thing he could imagine.  But it had come so close, so very close … before he ran – being the coward that he thought himself to be, for not being able to face the demons that had haunted him for a little more than three years.

His stomach heaved again, and more of it’s burning, acidic, sour contents erupted into the porcelain bowl.  Afterwards, with it dripping from the corners of his mouth and from the tip of his nose, he wiped them with a wad of toilet paper, then flushed the putrid stuff away.  He then crossed his arms on the lips of the toilet, rested his forehead on his arms, and gazed into the water closet … and remembered.

<><><> 

… ‘Riders!  To your mounts!  Let the games begin!’”  Boisterous responses.  “The ‘playroom’?  Downstairs?  Riders?  Mounts?”   “Yes, my darling boy;  your therapy is about to take a grand leap forward, if you will trust me.  You do trust me, don’t you, my darling boy?  He remembered all these words.

<><><> 

“Well … yes … but what’s…”

“You’ll see soon enough, Gerry;  soon enough.”

As Harry and Kim and the eight other guests hurried ‘downstairs’, Dr. B stayed behind to talk with Gerry and Tom and let them know what to expect.

“Ordinarily, Gerry, I wouldn’t do what I’ve done, but I’ve taken the liberty of explaining to my friends about the fear you have and the terror you’ve experienced.  They’re all my very closest and dearest friends, and I trust them implicitly not to repeat nor to do anything that you don’t want to happen.  We all love you, Gerry, and we want to help you overcome…”

“What?  What do you want to help me overcome?”  Gerry’s voice betrayed his anxiety about what lay ahead if he were to go ‘downstairs’.

“No one’s going to hurt you, Gerry;  I promise,” the doctor tactfully avoided a direct answer to his questions.  With love in his voice, he commanded, “Come on, Gerry.  They’re waiting.”

As Tom continued to hold and guide Gerry with an arm about his waist, they followed the doctor into the bowels of the house.  Down the humble stairway they went into what appeared to be a simple cellar with cinder block walls.

At the bottom of the stairs, they turned a-hundred-eighty degrees and walked about twenty feet farther down a gradual incline of the dimly-lit, cold, bare hallway to an exquisite pair of dark walnut, hand-carved doors with ornate brass hardware.  The figure of an angelic cherub hung, spotlighted, to the right of the doors;  the figure of a grotesque human gargoyle, also spotlighted, hung to the left.

With Gerry standing between them, Tom and Dr. B, each, reached for the nearest door-handle, and together, pulled the heavy doors open.  Gerry almost expected the hinges to creak and groan, but such was not to be the case.  The two men gently ushered Gerry into the mysterious room and pulled the doors behind them.

He immediately broke into a cold sweat.  Before him was the strangest room he’d ever seen.

In the very center of the room, a single light, recessed in the high ceiling, shone down on a strange looking black leather contraption.  It was suspended by four gleaming silver chains from the ceiling, the purpose for which, Gerry had not the vaguest of ideas, but it looked menacing – almost as if it were something from a dungeon or torture chamber.  He began to tremble.

On the floor, at the sharp edge of the circle of light cast by the overhead fixture, stood twelve four-foot-tall brass candlesticks, evenly spaced, each with a thirty-six-inch tall beeswax ‘Cathedral’ candle in it;  each one was lit.  Also on the floor, between each of the candlesticks, was etched a ‘magical’ symbol or figure, each different from any of the others, and each being completely foreign to Gerry’s eyes and understanding.

Four three-foot-tall brass braziers marked the corners of a gold-leafed square enclosing the circle of light.  Each brazier glowed from the burning coals within;  above each, wisps of intoxicating, dizzying incense rose, filling the room with the aroma of some exotic aphrodisiac.

Shiny blood-red leather divans were evenly spaced (two on each side) around the outside of the square.  Gerry could only scarcely begin to imagine for what they were used.

From out of the shadowy perimeter of the room, silently walked the naked forms of the ten others at the ‘party’, each with a conspicuous erection leading the way as their owners slowly stroked them.  Each solemn man took his designated place between two of the candles.

As the men stepped out of the shadows, other tiny recessed lights began highlighting replicas of ancient art, painted as life-sized murals on each of the four walls.  To the east – Hindu;  to the north (the direction from which they had entered the room) – Greco-Roman;  to the south – Egyptian;  and to the west – Aztec and Peruvian. 

Each scene depicted erotic nude males engaged in sexual activities – activities to which only the most learned of men were exposed, due to their privileged access to the storerooms and locked galleries of the world’s finest museums, including several of the largest and oldest ‘Christian’ and other religious citadels.  For centuries, the originals of those replicated ‘debasing, sinful erotica’ had been hidden from the general masses.  Ohhhhhh, what activities those scenes must have inspired for all the clerics and illuminati behind those closed doors!

The entire setting exuded a strangely beautiful but bizarre, overwhelming aura of some secret ceremonial orgiastic rite in Gerry’s eyes.  His trembling became more pronounced.

Tom and Dr. B began removing and folding and neatly placing their clothes on the floor at the ends of two of the divans.

“What the fuck is this place?” Gerry demanded to know.

Dr. B began to explain as he continued with his undressing.  “Ordinarily, we use this sanctuary as a haven for the unbridled pleasures of our Brotherhood, but tonight, Gerry, we’re here to help…”

Gerry cut him off.  “‘We?  Our?’  You mean to tell me all of you get together here and … and … engage in your … your perverted … whatever?”  His voice was shaky and rising in pitch and volume.  “YOU, too, Tom?” he screamed.  “You said you loved ME!”

“I do love you, Ger;  I do!  But I want … no! … I need … more than you’re willing…”

“More than I’m willing to give you?  Is that it?  Huh?  Is that it?  You want to fuck me?  Is that what you want?  You think if all these men fuck my brains out…”

By this time, Dr. B was totally naked and Tom was nude except for his white briefs.  Gerry quickly glanced around at the circle of men.  They were still slowly stroking their erections, and then he looked down at the hugeness of Dr. B’s sex tool and shuddered, squeezed his eyes tightly closed, and shook his head in adamant refusal before glaring back at Tom and continuing his tirade.

“…You think that if ALL these men fuck my brains out …” he repeated himself with emphasis, “… that I’ll be willing to let you fuck me? Is THAT what this is all about?”  His words were pouring out!  He wanted to run, but his feet refused to move.

“No, babe;  I don’t want to fuck you;  I want to Love you.”  Tom took Gerry in his arms and hugged him and kissed him on his neck.  Then, looking into Gerry’s eyes, his next words were soft and filled with love and tenderness and compassion.  “I want to be able to love you completely, Ger;  I want you to be able to love me completely;  and I want us to be one as only two men can be.”

“I don’t understand how you could’ve…” Gerry managed to say aloud before he began to cry.  His legs gave out and he started to collapse.  Tom caught him and lifted him back up onto his feet.

“Let’s sit him over there on the divan,” Dr. B said as he assisted Tom.  “I don’t know, now, if this is the right thing to do or not,” admitted the doctor.

“It’ll be all right, doctor;  I know it will,” Tom replied.

After Gerry was seated, Tom squatted between his feet, sat on his haunches, and cupped his hands around Gerry’s butt as he reached around his hips.  He looked up into Gerry’s eyes and said, “I love you, Babe;  I really … and truly … do!  Please believe me.”

Tom’s words were sincere and sweet to Gerry’s ears.  He stifled his crying, sniffled the mucus back into his sinuses and asked, “Then … why are you going along with this, Tom?  Why?”

“Ger … I need to love you fully and completely.  I need for us to love each other as we never have before.”

“But…”

“Shhhhhhhhh … Let me finish, please.” 

Gerry nodded.

“In the three years we’ve been together, you’ve never let me express my love for you in the greatest way I know how, and you’ve never been able to give me…”

“Because I don’t want to hurt you the way that I was hurt, Tom.  Don’t you see?  Don’t you understand?  I don’t want to cause you the pain that I went through.”  He had cupped Tom’s face in his hands and they were looking into each other’s eyes, tears running down their cheeks.  “And I never want to go through that pain again.”

“As long as I’m alive, you will never go through that pain again, sweetheart … never again;  I swear by all that’s holy!”

“Then why … why this?” Gerry gestured toward all the other men.

‘They’re here to help, Babe … here to help bring out the excitement and passion … AND desire … that I know is within you.”  Tom paused.

Dr. B had been standing at the foot of the divan and then said, “Physically, Gerry, you healed a long time ago.  There’s no reason … no reason at all … that Tom’s … uhhh … penetrating you – with the love that he has for you – should cause any pain or … or any damage … at all, and I can guarantee that before this night is over, you’ll be begging him for it.”

“After you and everybody else has…” Gerry scorned, eyeing the doctor’s dangling black monster.

“No, no, no,” Tom and Dr. B emphasized at the same time.

“That’s just not going to happen, Gerry,” Dr. B exclaimed.  “That’s not going to happen at all!  I promise!  But I do promise that you will enjoy what we’ve planned just for you!  Please trust us, Gerry,” he begged.

Gerry looked into Tom’s beautiful green eyes with their golden flecks;  he saw the love that Tom had for him.  He wanted to believe him.  He closed his eyes and hung his head for several quiet moments.  He thought;  he pondered;  he tried to fathom some reason why Tom would want them both to be involved with this … this … orgy!  He even toyed with the idea that all that Tom wanted out of their relationship was a good fuck – which Gerry, himself, had refused to let happen at any time during their three-year relationship.

From his kneeling position, Tom looked up at the doctor, obviously questioning what was going on in Gerry’s mind.  Dr. B. shrugged his shoulders, and his following gesture told Tom to be patient.

And then, with one deep, slow, final sigh of resignation, Gerry said in a whisper, “All right.”

“What?  What did you say?  Did I hear you right?” Tom asked, rising on his knees.

“Yes, Tom;  I said … ‘All right.’  I’ll do what you want me to,” he said a little louder, his voice cracking with emotion.

Tom threw his arms around Gerry and struggled to stand from his kneeling position, pulling Gerry with him.  “Oh, Gerry, Gerry, my love;  I love you, I love you, I love you.”  With unrestrained passion, he smashed his lips onto Gerry’s, but their teeth clinked together.  Tom backed away, recovering for a second, then chuckled, and tried again;  he sucked Gerry’s tongue into his own mouth.

There was neither audible nor physical response from Gerry;  he simply let Tom do whatever he wanted.

In his excitement and joy, Tom was blind to Gerry’s total, submissive surrender -- standing there, like a lifeless mannequin.

With Dr. B’s help, Tom quickly undressed Gerry and then pushed his own briefs down, releasing his own throbbing manhood.  He pressed himself into a full-nude-body hug with Gerry, smearing pre-cum between their bellies.  Then they parted.

With Tom at Gerry’s right and Dr. B at his left, the two men led Gerry across the gold-leafed square emblazoned in the terrazzo floor.  Then they crossed the distinct edge of the circle of light between two of the brass candlesticks, and continued toward the strange looking black leather contraption in the center of the room.

Dr. B silently summoned Harry Redfeather and Yong Kim to assist.  Together, the four men lifted Gerry’s limp and seemingly lifeless body and placed him in the ‘sling’, making sure that he would be comfortable and that every part of him would be accessible – at just about three feet off the floor, a perfect height for Tom’s cock!

From somewhere in the room, the haunting, hypnotic, repetitious opening strains of Ravel’s ‘Bolero’ could faintly be heard.

As one, four of the other men moved to the braziers and sprinkled more of the powdered aphrodisiac-incense onto the glowing coals within, sending plumes of the intoxicating smoke toward the ceiling.

Gerry’s awareness of what was happening began to show.  He was petrified!  His eyes were as big as saucers, darting here and there and everywhere around him.  His flaccid penis had shrunk into hiding in his pubic thatch.  Tom stood behind him, cradling Gerry’s head in his hands. 

As Harry and Kim secured Gerry’s wrists to two of the silver chains with padded brown leather straps, Dr. B did the same to Gerry’s ankles with the other two chains and padded leather – first the right leg and ankle, and then the left.  When finished with the straps, Harry moved to the right side of Gerry’s waist and Kim moved to the left, but Dr. B remained between Gerry’s up-raised and out-stretched legs.

The strains of music became louder, and Dr. B nodded at the remaining eight men.

As they slowly approached, Gerry noticed their movement.  He suddenly felt like a sacrificial … ‘candidate’ … trussed up for the slaughter by the sex-starved ‘cannibals’.  “Nooooo!” he cried aloud.

Tom bent forward and whispered in Gerry’s ears, “It’s all right, Babe.  I’m here.  No one’s going to hurt you, I promise.”

One of the men handed Tom a piece of black fabric.

“Gerry…” Tom said, “… hold your head up, please.” 

Gerry raised his head a little.

“I’m going to put this blindfold on you…”

“Why?” he screamed.

Tom bent down and gently kissed his lover’s eyes.  “To keep you from anticipating things that are not going to happen, Babe, and to heighten your sense of touch – your sense of feeling.”  He secured the folded cloth over Gerry’s eyes.  “Now, just relax and enjoy.  Relaaax.  Relaaaaax.”  While drawing out the last word, Tom moved his mouth to cover Gerry’s.

At first, Gerry tightened his lips, preventing any intrusion of Tom’s tongue, but with Tom’s gentle but insistent probing, and with the love Gerry had for him, he relaxed his lips and Tom entered.  All other sensations and thoughts disappeared as Gerry remembered Tom’s words – No one’s going to hurt you.

They kissed again – deep and wet, their tongues did battle.  And then, Gerry’s manhood began to ease itself out of hiding.

Only a second or two passed and he felt both arms and both legs being lightly stroked, rubbed, and massaged by delicate fingertips. 

Tom broke the lip-lock and kissed Gerry’s cheeks, his nose, his ears, his chin, his neck;  where he didn’t kiss, he slid his hot, wet tongue up and down, across and around, and he even curled his tongue and probed as deeply as possible into each of Gerry’s nostrils.  Once more they kissed and shared the other’s saliva as if it were the elixir of life itself.

Dr. B had not been idle;  his hands had slowly, sensually been rubbing the insides of Gerry’s thighs, again and again, up and down, back and forth.  With each new pass, his hands slid further into the groin, and the backs of his fingers rubbed against Gerry’s hairy scrotum, sending little shocks of stimulation through his entire pubic area.

Gerry felt the light scintillating touches of Kim’s and Harry’s fingertips on his breast, his stomach, his abs and in his short-and-curlies. 

‘Little Omar”, as he liked to call his private playmate, had risen to attention and was jumping around whenever the three men’s fingers drew near, and his testicles had begun their little dance whenever the doctor had touched their furry covering.

Suddenly, Gerry felt someone … no! … TWO ‘someone’s’ … begin licking, kissing, sucking his armpits.  No longer were his arms and legs being ministered to, but other ‘someone’s’ were sucking his fingers and his toes.  Someone else was kissing and sucking his belly button.    Others were sucking and gingerly nibbling and tweaking his pecs and nipples.  And still someone else – Dr. B, perhaps – was alternately sucking his ball-sack, sliding his tongue up and down Omar’s hard, throbbing shaft, and encircling his anus with his tongue.  He moved from one to the other, back and forth, again and again – sucking, licking, nibbling – driving Gerry insane with desire and passion.

The crescendo of the music grew stronger and stronger, louder and louder.  And with it, the kissing, licking, sucking, stroking, rubbing, nibbling grew more frenzied, more mind-blowing, more earth shattering, faster and faster, harder and harder.  Gerry could no longer rationalize who was doing what.  He heard the enticing throaty moans from the men surrounding him, filling the room with sounds of eager   lust.  He felt a pair of lips, hungrily sliding down his aching erection, then retreat, and then slide back down again.

He, himself, began moaning.  He was lost in sexual delirium.

“I’ve got something for you, Ger,” Tom whispered.  “Now just relax and let your head hang back.  And remember to breathe through your nose as you’ve always done.”  Gerry knew what was coming.  He’d heard Tom say those same words hundreds of times as he lay on his back, his head hanging off the foot of their bed, awaiting Tom’s exit from the shower.  Gerry smiled, trusting his lover.  Come what may, this was comfortable territory for the moment.

Carefully, Tom eased his supporting hand down, and Gerry’s head followed, hanging over the edge of the black leather, his mouth and throat forming a perfect, smooth, hot, moist passageway for Tom’s instrument of love.  Slowly, tenderly, Tom eased his throbbing spear into Gerry’s mouth, leaking copious amounts of pre-seminal fluids onto his lips and tongue.  Further in it went and then withdrew partway.  Again, Tom slid further in before withdrawing a second time.  On the third gentle thrust, Gerry felt Tom’s ball-sack against his nose and upper lip.  Tom’s sweaty, musky maleness only heightened Gerry’s acceptance and desire, as the slick head drove beyond his reflex center and fully entered his throat.

Gerry soon discovered that if he clinched the muscles of his ass together, he could thrust his own throbbing cock further up into the unknown mouth that was swallowing his aching maleness.  The two lovers – one standing;  the other, secured in the ‘sling’ – thrust in rhythm with each other, again and again.  After their three years together, each instinctively knew when the other was close to climax. 

Gerry was incessantly moaning, squirming, thrusting – the vibrations of his throat, massaging Tom’s tumescent prick.

Tom’ complete withdrawal was accompanied by a regretful moan from Gerry.  Tom cupped his head and raised it back to a more comfortable position.  He then bent forward and whispered, “Are you ready, now, Gerry, Honey?  Are you ready to become one with me?”

“Yes.  YESSS.  YESSSSS!  OH, GOD, YES!” he screamed.  “FUUCCCKKKK MEEEEE!  PLLEEEAAAASSSSSEEEEEE!”

Dr. B stepped away from between Gerry’s legs, and moved to take Tom’s place.  Somewhere along the way, he retrieved a tube of lubricating jelly, which Harry had brought home from the hospital pharmacy.

As one huge hand replaced the smaller one supporting Gerry’s head, the doctor gave Tom the tube of jelly.  Gerry knew immediately that the giant hand belonged to Dr. B.

Except for Tom and the doctor, everyone else had stepped back and beyond arm’s reach of the naked, aroused body secured in the ‘sling’.  In some weird way, Gerry felt naked for the first time since the hands and fingers had spread their sensual warmth across his body.

And in that moment, he realized that the only hand touching him was the huge one holding his head.  Safety in numbers, he thought.  What’s happening? he wondered.  Behind the thickness of the blindfold and his closed eyelids, Gerry’s eyes were darting left and right, up and down, trying impossibly to catch a glimmer of light, shape, or form.

Frightened at the feel of a different hand behind his head, Gerry sensed that Tom was moving away from him. 

“What?  Why?  Where are you going, Tom?  Why are you leaving me?  What’s happening, Tom?  Don’t leave me.” Gerry’s screams and begging increased with desperation.

“No problem, my love.  I’m not leaving – just moving,” Tom reassured, as his fingernails trailed across Gerry’s nipples, titillating them into an immediate, erect state.  His nails continued their tantalizing journey down Gerry’s chest and abdomen, now heaving with passion and anticipation.  And then, his hot hand embraced Gerry’s deflated manhood.  That touch, alone, began the return of Gerry’s diminished rigidity.

Tom reached around Gerry’s up-raised leg and switched hands on the erecting flesh as he then positioned himself between both of Gerry’s legs.  He bent forward, and the only lips that had ever completely thrilled Gerry, sent shock waves of electrical impulses through his entire, trussed-up body.  He would have ejaculated instantly had Tom not severely gripped the base of his cock while at the same time, he squeezed and yanked Gerry’s balls away from his body.

“Owwwww!” Gerry yelled.

“Not yet, Babe,” Tom lovingly chastised;  “not yet.  I want us to cum at the same time.”

Tom knelt as his hands caressed the backs of Gerry’s thighs.  With agonizing gentleness, he rubbed the exposed globes of the ass only inches from his face, all the while, softly blowing his hot breath back and forth, up and down and around Gerry’s cock and balls and the gateway to his love canal.  It twitched, winked, spasmed, and Gerry moaned in spontaneous delight.

He continued his ministrations, laving those beautiful, soft mounds of ass-flesh, nibbling and marking his territory with tender love-bites;  he licked and sucked that taut, furry sack with its mobile nuts churning away, making more of Gerry’s delicious, sweet love juice;  and finally, he waggled his hot, moist tongue around the puckered, scarred lips of Gerry’s asshole.  Tom, himself, moaned, as an animal in rut, inhaling the sweaty, musky scent of the man he loved.  He curled his tongue and speared into Gerry’s most private part.

“No,” Gerry said.  He clinched his ass-cheeks together, forcing Tom’s removal.  “No!  Don’t,” he pleaded, raising his blindfolded head, sightlessly facing Tom.

“It’s all right, Ger.  I’m not going to hurt you.”  With the palm of his hand, he rubbed up and down the crack of Gerry’s ass.  “Just lay back, relax and enjoy this.”

Gerry grunted in discontent as he helplessly lay his head back into Dr. B’s hands once again.

“Good,” Tom responded.  “Good, Ger;  that’s my man.  Don’t be afraid.  You’re gonna love this.”  His words were warm and soothing – confidently filled with compassion.”

He squeezed out a gob of the cool jelly onto his fingers and spread it around Gerry’s spasming hole.

“What’s that?” Gerry cried.

“Just something to help make it easier for us to unite, my love.  It’ll help relax you, and soon you’ll feel the warmth of it.”

With the fingertips of one hand pushing Gerry’s ass-cheeks apart, Tom slowly began to insert one lubricated finger of his other hand into Gerry’s tight ring of muscle.

Gerry flinched and jerked his head up again.  “No!  Stop it!  Stop it, Tom!  I can’t take it!” he yelled.  He began fighting the leather restraints, trying to free himself.

“Gerry!  Please!  Just relax!  I’m not going to hurt you!  You’ll enj…”

“NO FUCKIN’ WAY!”  His breathing had become labored and erratic. “I’VE HAD IT!  I’M THROUGH WITH ALL THIS SHIT!  JUST GET ME THE FUCK OUTTA THIS DAMN MUTHERFUCKIN’ … THING!” he screamed.  Though only lightly secured but unable to free himself, he became as a madman – jerking at the chains, thrashing about, twisting, turning, screaming.  “Both of you said that I wouldn’t have to do anything I didn’t want to, and I DON’T WANT TO DO THIS!  DO YOU HEAR ME, YOU MUTHERFUCKERS?  DO YOU HEAR ME?  NOW … GET ME THE HELL OUTTA THIS!”

“Calm down, Gerry;  just calm down,” Dr. B said, using one hand to stroke and soothe Gerry’s brow.

“SHUT THE FUCK UP, YOU BASTARD,” he screamed again.  “YOU!  You!  You’re the one that instigated this whole damn thing;  DAMN you!”

“Okay, Babe;  it’s over;  it’s over.  Hold still, now,” Tom said as Gerry felt Tom’s hand on the leather strap around his right ankle.

“Just calm down, Gerry.  You’re making it difficult to get these straps loose,” Dr. B said, trying to unfasten the one around his right wrist.

“Fuck that!  Hurry up!” Gerry demanded.

Tom was working on the strap around Gerry’s left ankle, but no sooner had Gerry calmed enough for Dr. B to unfasten the right wrist-strap, Gerry quickly reached for the left wrist restraint.  He tumbled out of the sling with a resounding thud as the straps slapped tight, the chains rattled, and Gerry’s right hand hit the terrazzo floor.  He was swinging in mid-air, still tethered to two of the chains.

“Oh, my God,” the doctor hollered, rushing to Gerry’s aid.

“Gerry!” Tom screamed as he jumped to help his lover.

All of the other men yelled something, their mixed words, unintelligible.  Harry and Kim ran to assist.

Gerry was flailing his one free arm and kicking at nothing in particular with his free leg.  His heel slammed into Tom’s naked, unprotected nuts, causing him to double over in pain.

Dr. B maneuvered himself to where he could single-handedly lift the struggling boy.  Cautiously, Harry and Kim unfastened the two remaining straps and moved back.

As the doctor helped Gerry to stand, Tom straightened up, still with some slight pain, but moved to put his arms around Gerry.

Gerry shoved him backwards with such strength and anger, that Tom nearly tripped and fell on his ass.  “Don’t touch me.  Just stay away!” Gerry yelled.

Shocked, Tom just stood there and looked at him, tears forming in his eyes.

“And YOU, you sonuvabitch – I don’t ever wanna see your ugly  face EVER again in my life!” he roared.   He wasn’t even aware of the venom he was spouting.  “And put some clothes on!” he added, pointing to Dr. B’s huge appendage.  “That thing is fuckin’ ugly!”

Everyone was stunned by his outburst!  The silence was deadly!  Their mouths hanging open, they nervously stood where they were – like statues.

He spun around, still wobbly from most of the blood having drained from his tingly limbs while hanging from the chains.  He stormed toward the massive doors.  “I’m getting’ the fuck outta here!” he muttered.  “I’m goin’ home …” he began, then suddenly stopped, turned on his heel, glared at Tom, and added, “… even if I have to walk all the way!”

Without waiting for a response, he turned and continued toward the doors.

“Gerry!” Tom called out.  “Your clothes!”

“Who the fuck cares?” came the reply without Gerry turning back.  With what seemed like super-human strength, Gerry easily flung the pair of heavy doors open and continued up the inclined hallway toward the stairs.

“Go after him, Tom.  Take him home,” Dr. B suggested.

Tom hurried toward his clothes and, jumping around on one foot and then the other, quickly put on his pants and slipped into his loafers;  then, after grabbing his underwear and shirt, he snatched up all of Gerry’s clothes and dashed after his lover.

“Give me a call if you need me,” Dr. B called to him.

“I’ll try, but if I don’t, I’ll probably see you tomorrow at work,” Tom yelled back over his shoulder as he ran.

“If you need to take the day off…” the doctor yelled, but Tom was already up the stairs and out of earshot.

Tom called for Gerry, but there was no answer.  Again and again.  No answer.  He went out onto the garden-patio-deck.  No sign of him.  He ran through the living room, the dining room, the hallway, and the foyer.  There, he discovered the main entry door standing wide open.  He ran out into the tiny yard between the house and the road and called again.  The only answer he heard was the voice of a coyote or wolf, probably baying at the nearly full moon almost directly overhead.

From the center of the unpaved public road, he saw the lone figure of a man walking downhill in the moonlight, toward the main road which led to the Golden Gate Bridge and then on to San Francisco and other peninsular cities and towns.

Tom ran back to the parking area, jumped in his baby-blue ’51 Pontiac Catalina convertible, and sped off down the road, kicking up gravel and dust along the way.

In less time than it takes to shake a sheep’s tail, Gerry’s naked butt was in the beams of the automobile’s headlights.  Tom came to a screeching halt, again throwing dust and cinders helter-skelter, threw on the emergency brake, Tom grabbed Gerry’s white briefs, and ran after him.

“Here, Babe, at least put these on, for God’s sake.”

Gerry jerked them out of Tom’s hands, balled them up, threw them as far as he could into the dark brush at the side of the road, and kept walking.  He didn’t say a word, and he didn’t even look at Tom.  He just kept walking down the center of the dirt road.  Tom tried to retrieve the briefs but the brush was too thick, and after a few minutes, gave up and ran after Gerry again.

Catching up with him, Tom decided to walk along beside him.  After a couple of minutes of silence, Tom said, “You know, Babe … you can’t walk into The City naked like this;  they’ll arrest you and throw your ass in the can.”

No comment;  not a word. 

The farther they walked, the dimmer the beams from the headlights became.

“And after they throw that twenty-three-year-old ass of yours in the can,” Tom continued, “those winos and thugs locked up in there are really gonna love gang-banging that sweet ass, and I can just imagine some hard, dirty, stinky-cheese-covered, Coke-bottle-sized cock raping you a brand new asshole.  Is that what you want, Ger?”

Gerry stopped, and as Marcus Aurelius, the Stoic, might have done, he stood there in the pale moonlight in all his naked beauty, surrounded by nature, head held high, and stared into the distance.  Still, he said nothing.

Tom took him by the shoulders and gently turned him into the dim beams from the automobile.  Silver moonlit tears dripped down Gerry’s cheeks.  Tom hugged him for a moment.  “Oh, Hon … I’m sorry.  I’m so sorry.  It was all my fault.  Can you forgive me?”

Without turning his head, Gerry’s eyes looked into Tom’s – the first bit of communication since he had run from the house.  Still, he was silent.  Emotionless except for the few tears.  And then again, he stared straight ahead into the night.

“Come on, Ger.  Come back with me, please.  I’ll drive us home.” 

<><><> 

Tom’s yelling and pounding on the bathroom door, brought Gerry back from his remembering.