BENJAMIN.....

I think about him often. I think about how differently our lives would have been if I hadn't been married and had a child.

It all started out innocently enough. I never planned it going the way it went. We both volunteered to work on a Suicide Hot line for a Campus Christian Outreach. Neither of us was really qualified to talk people out of killing themselves. The training was minimal and we basically just tried to get them to accept Jesus as their personal savior and then hopefully they would stop thinking about killing themselves. We had a lot of down time. Most of the calls were middle aged alcoholic housewives who just wanted some attention and someone to talk to.

"Wanna wrestle?" he asked one night around three in the morning. The shifts were from ten in the evening until six in the morning. The phones were in the office area adjacent to a large carpeted meeting room. The front windows were frosted so no one could see in.

"OK. But let's do it in our underwear." We climbed out of our clothes and stood facing one another.

"Lets do it naked." he suggested. I hesitated while he gave me a mischievous grin.

"OK." We pulled our underwear off and threw them to the side. My heart was beating rapidly as I crouched and we began to circle one another. He rushed me and soon we were on the carpet struggling with our legs and arms wrapped around one another. Neither of us had any formal wrestling training. Ben was four years my junior and I was twenty-two at the time.

The next day he called.

"I'm sorry."

"What for?"

"It's not right."

"What do you mean not right?"

"It's a sin."

"Yeah, maybe."

"Can we get together tonight and talk?'

"Sure."

All day at work I thought about what we had done and the struggle inside me felt like it was tearing me apart. I loved my wife. I loved my year old baby girl beyond words. From my early teens I had struggled with my attraction to men. Always falling in love with my best friend and fearful that someday my inner life and secret would be revealed to the world and I would be shunned like a leper. My heart broke when I was a senior in High School and had fallen in love with my buddy, knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt that nothing could or would ever come of it. I determined then and there that night after crying and struggling with my feelings, that I would banish them and seek to be "normal". I would get married and have children. I wanted a family more than anything. My family life with my parents had always been tough. They fought constantly and I made up my mind that I would have something better, for me and my children.

I got married when I was twenty-one, which seems so young now. Three months later my wife found out she was pregnant. My daughter's birth was the most magical thing that had ever happened to me. We went to Lamaze classes and I was present when she came into the world. Supernaturally natural. Just after she was born I met Benjamin.

At first I didn't pay too much attention to him. He had just graduated from High School and went to the same church. I knew his sister from High School and he was in the class as my younger sister, although I had never known him. He hung out with some of the same people that I did who had all gone to school together and now formed a group at the church we all attended. A few of us started folk dancing at the Old Gymnasium at the University. It was then that I started to notice his free spirit and his natural ability to have fun and laugh.

Just after my wife and I got married, we both became Christians. The 'Jesus Movement' had just taken off and some good friends of mine kept trying to convert me. One night after a party at our house they dropped by and prayed with me to accept Jesus as my personal saviour. I jumped into the Fellowship and my wife soon followed. There were many of our friends from school who were apart of the group so we fit right in. Although we lost many friends, we gained many new ones.

Benjamin was one of them..

He picked me up in his green Fiat and we picked up a bottle of something. I can't remember what. We walked down the steps to the beach. The moon was not quite full and it was a clear warm summer evening. We found a spot on a rock and passed the bottle back and forth.

"I think I'm falling in love with you." I said.

"Yeah, me too."

"So, what do we do?"

"What can we do, you're married with a baby girl."

We sat and stared at the moonlight reflected on the water. Ben was an artist too. His plan was to go to Pasadena and attend Art School. I had been and was now working in the City Warehouse to support my family. I painted some, but didn't have a lot of time to devote to my art. Ben was an amazingly creative artist. He worked in several different mediums. His drawings were fun and whimsical. He made me laugh all the time.

"We need to pray and not let this go any further." He handed me the bottle. "I'm going away in the fall and let's make sure it doesn't happen again."

"OK." I was dying inside. I started to cry. I wanted him so badly. I wanted to hold him and be held. I felt like my life was slipping away. "Can we kiss one last time?"

He leaned over and kissed me and put his arms around me. It felt so right. How could it be wrong?

The next day was a Saturday and we came back to the beach. We took our trunks off and ran into the ocean. We horsed around and body surfed. We ran up the beach and threw ourselves down on the towels, our naked asses glistening with sea water. He was so beautiful wet. His hair in thick wet strings, the sun reflecting light off his tan body. We lay on our stomachs with our heads turned facing one another. His green eyes staring at me with longing, while the water danced off the ends of his eyelashes and the tips of his hair. We talked and laughed. Had I ever really been in love before. This was new. It scared me and exhilarated me at the same time. Like riding a roller coaster.

He turned onto his side and his semi-erect cock flopped onto his thigh leaving a string of precum from his leg to the slit of his penis. The sun reflected off it and made it look like diamonds. I don't think he even noticed, but I will never forget that moment. Time stood still and I have continued to play that scene over and over in my memory.

Benjamin went away at the end of the summer, but it was far from over between us.

After Benjamin left I decided to confess to my wife.  I had already confessed to having an attraction to men, but I told her about Benjamin and promised that it was over.  She cried and told me she forgave me and she never brought it up again.  I started counseling with my pastor and prayed long and hard that God would take these feelings away.  Every time I felt a lust in my heart or a thought for Benjamin would enter my mind, I would ask for forgiveness and ask God to drive these emotions from my life.  I was miserable.  Nothing changed. 

My sex life with my wife was fine.  She was very sensual and together we had a very satisfying sex life.  But in the back of my mind and heart I could not let go of Ben. 

Ben visited from time to time and the following summer he came home.  He would come over to the house and have dinner with us.  We laughed and had a good time.  We sang together.  One of our favorites was the hymn Cat Stevens made famous, Morning Has Broken. 

The following spring my son was born.  He was born at home with a doctor.  I went back to school and was heavily involved with the local theatre scene and started a theatre company at our church.  I got Ben to help me with posters and graphics. 

That summer I directed a production of The Importance of Being Earnest.  Ben had come back to town and was house sitting for a good friend of his.  The house had a hot tub.  He came to see the show and afterwards invited me up to the house.  I brought a bottle of wine and soon we were naked and in the hot tub.  It was only a matter of time before we inched our way closer and closer to each other and kissed.  I had lied to my wife and told her I was going out with the cast.  While she was home with two small children, I was in a hot tub sucking my best friend's cock.  That night he told me I had beautiful feet and sucked my toes.  Funny the little things that stick with you.

A few days later I was back up at the house in the middle of the day lying naked in the sun with him again.  We reached across the lounge chairs we were in and held hands.  I got hard immediately and when we had had enough sun we went into the house and showered together.  We couldn't get enough of one another.  Our lust knew no bounds.  He sucked my dick like a starving man and for the first time ate my cum.  Benjamin had been with several guys while he was at Art School and when he would talk about them I would feel pangs of jealousy.  I knew I had no right, but it still hurt and I longed to have him all to myself.   When his stint of house sitting ended, he moved home for the remainder of the summer.  A place had opened up in town with about ten private hot tubs.  Some of them were enclosed with redwood fencing and opened up to the eucalyptus trees and the sky overhead.  We would meet occasionally and have sex.  One day we sat facing one another at the edge of the tub kissing.  Our legs were spread and our cocks were touching.  Hard, we were about the same size.  But his cock was bigger when soft. 

"Look, our dicks are identical." he said.  I looked down and sure enough we were the exact same shape and size. 

I learned to love the taste of his cum, but we never fucked.  He told me he had been fucked a few times, but preferred being the top.  I was never sure which I would prefer and he never pressured me.

He went back to school in the fall and I was busy with school and my theatre company.  The following summer I worked as an actor in a Summer Repertory Company.  I saw him very rarely that summer because he got a job in LA. 

My wife and I started having serious problems and went to a marriage counselor.  We were struggling with all the pressures of juggling family, jobs, school and never having enough money.  We fought a lot.  My wife decided to start doing day care at home and we took in a woman from our church and rented a room to her.  The garage had been converted into an extra room and at first we used it for the day care, but when Janice moved in, we gave the room to her and moved the day care into another bedroom in the house.  And then my wife announced that she was pregnant again.  She had an IUD, but somehow when they checked her after she got pregnant, it could not be found.

A few months later, Janice left for Israel to work on a kibbutz.  She left her things in the room.  She had a lovely big antique bed with a dark wood head board and foot board.  One night I got a call from Ben that he had to see me.  He was in town and couldn't stop thinking about me.  I told him to wait until my wife had gone to bed and I would meet him out in Janice's room.  You had to go outside to enter the room from the front of house and when I opened the door he was standing in the dark waiting for me.  We fell into each other's arms and kissed.  He brought a bottle of red wine and asked me to get some glasses.  I snuck back into the house and got the glasses.  We sat and talked, whispering while we drank our wine in the dark with only the glow of the streetlight outside shining in through the window.  After only one glass of wine, he stood up and started taking off his clothes.  I set my wine glass down on a table next to the bed and rushed to get my clothes off too.  As he moved towards me to help me undress he hit the glass of wine and it sprayed all over the wall.  We laughed as we fell onto the bed.  Our lovemaking always felt like it would be the last time.  We grappled and wrestling with passion, kissing and groping one another.  I wet my fingers and finger fucked him as I jacked him off, drinking his cum and licking up what fell on his stomach.  He returned the favor.

The red wine left a stain on the wall.

A few months before my third child was born, I had some business in LA and called Ben and asked if we could meet.  I had never been to his place in Pasadena and after I finished my business I drove to a very posh neighborhood where he rented a mother in law unit in the back.  He had made reservations at Ma Maison in Hollywood and we had a lovely dinner sitting across from Julie Christie and as we left I noticed Peter Sellers was also there.  We went back to his place and found ourselves in the shower.  Always with water.  I had come down with the intention of ending the relationship, but when we were together it all seemed so right.  I was going crazy from all the confusion, doubt and turmoil the relationship was causing me and here I was naked in the shower with my fingers in his ass. 

"I can't do this, Ben."  He kissed me. "I have to go.  I can't keep doing this to myself and my family."

He told me he understood and he would be alright.  I left and cried all the way home.  When I walked into the house, everyone was asleep.  Janice had returned from Israel and my pregnant wife and two beautiful children were asleep in their beds.  I laid down on the couch.  What was I going to do?  My heart was telling me that I was head over heals in love with Benjamin, but my head was telling me that I had responsibilities and a family to love and care for.  I prayed and struggled knowing that the answer was to let go of him forever, but my heart was breaking.  Finally I got up and went to bed.

Benjamin moved to New York when he graduated and although I missed him terribly, I felt a great sense of relief.  It would be several years before I saw him again.

My third child was born at home with the help of a midwife and Janice who was a registered nurse.  Our children were present and watched their sister come into the world.  A friend of my wife's who also did day care in her home, came over with her kids to watch our two kids and the kids that my wife cared for.  After my daughter was born, the children paraded in to greet her.

I got my degree in Directing and then we moved away for Graduate School.  Benjamin had taken a trip around the world and when he returned fell in love and began living with his new partner.  My marriage was disintegrating.  While I was in Graduate School I met someone and began to obsess about him.   Another artist.  Although he was straight, he was willing to talk and explore what I was feeling.  Through him I began to see how I had denied myself and buried so much of my passion and emotions.  We planned a trip to Greece together.

With a fellow art school student, Benjamin started a company that produced creative toys, books and games.  It has since become very successful and he splits his time between New York, Indonesia and another home in Virginia.  At the time I went to Greece he was still living in his apartment in Chelsea.  My buddy and I planned our trip to Greece and his plan was to go to New York ahead of me and make some connections in the art world before we left for Greece.  I would join him at the airport.  I made arrangements for him to stay with Ben.

I left Greece early and returned to the United States.  While I was running to catch my flight in Frankfurt,  something tore in my calf.  The pain was excruciating.  I drank heavily on the plane until I got to New York.  I decided to stay a few days before returning home and made arrangements to stay with Ben.  He was thrilled to see me.  His partner was out of town and he assured me that he was madly in love with him and that it would be OK for me to stay at his place.  I hobbled around New York with him, eating out and enjoying the sights.  My leg was still very painful and he massaged it for me.  That night he made a bed for me on the floor in the living room.  He had French doors from his bedroom to the living room and left them open as we laughed and talked.  It was August and the windows were open and we could hear the sounds of the streets below.

"Get up here."  he commanded.  "Get up here and get in bed with me.  This is stupid."  I was naked as I limped over to his bed and fell into his arms again.  We make love so effortlessly.  It is always so organic and natural.  Very little thought.  My body was tan and hard from a month of walking and swimming in Greece and he marveled over it.

"Are you sure about this?"  I asked.

"Yes, I'm sure.  He knows all about you and he'll understand." he said as he kissed me.  We fell asleep in each other's arms.

The next day I flew home and found out that my Hurculean tendon had snapped.  It would be another four years before I saw Benjamin again.

I left my wife and moved to Japan with my two youngest.  Our oldest daughter had moved out and was on her own.  I came to the conclusion that I could not be responsible anymore for my wife's happiness.  My life was a mess and I needed to find out who I was.  When we moved back to the States, we settled in the Napa Valley.  My kids were in school and I was busy working in the wine industry.  I got a call from Ben that he was going to be in San Francisco for business and had a few days free.  He rented a car and drove up.  My kids were visiting their mother for a few weeks and I lived in a converted carriage house.  We drove over to the Russian River and rented a canoe.  Half way down the river we pulled over and he led me behind some reeds.  He fell down on his knees in the sand. 

"Come here.  I need to taste you."  I stepped over to where he was kneeling and he undid my trunks and took me in his mouth.  I watched a hawk circling over our heads as he sucked my cock.  I held his head and when he was finished we kissed long and deeply.  I could taste myself.

That night we made love in my bed and after I got him off he licked my ass and under my balls as I came.  We slept in each other's arms again.  He left the next day and it would be another seven years before I would see him again.  I was working in New York at a trade show and he was working the same show.  He had a son. 

When Ben did his World Tour, he went with a woman who fell in love with an Israeli woman when they were in Tel Aviv.  They became lovers and eventually started living together.  They wanted a child and they asked Ben to be the father.  It was the first and only time Ben made love to a woman and it took.  The lesbian couple broke up eventually and Ben, his partner and the Israeli woman raised the boy.  When I was in New York, Ben had to work on his son's fifth birthday and asked if I would take him around New York.  It was my day off and we went to the Statue of Liberty and climbed up to the torch.  We spent the rest of the day at the Museum of Natural History.  He fell asleep in cab as we drove back to Ben's place.  We hugged and kissed good-bye and I have not seen him since.  His son is twenty years old and very happily adjusted.  He speaks fluent Hebrew and splits his time between Israel and the States.  Ben and his partner are still happily together and his business is thriving.  We talk on the phone about twice a year.  We have a standing date to walk on the beach together again some day.