A Fable — Chapter 1

Once upon a time, not so far away and not so long ago...

Whether they admit it now or not, lots of guys had adventures with buddies growing up that led to sexual awakening. A few were lucky enough to have those experiences turn into lifelong friendships. Here's a story like that.



Let’s call ’em Bubba and Scooter. Sounds like country boys, but they grew up in a small town just down the street from one another.

One was dark and one was light, Scooter’s blond crew-cut contrasting with Bubba’s nearly black hair that was usually kinda shaggy. When their parents took them to the beach, Scooter would get tan and his hair would turn bright by the end of summer but Bubba would always burn no matter how much sun block his mom insisted he slather on.



Bubba loved music, loved to read stories about heroes and to run. Scooter was into just about every sport. They couldn’t wait to get home after baseball practice to race their bikes in the field a few blocks away or be jungle explorers in the adjacent woods. They both thought Batman and Robin were weird and way, way wicked gay!



Scooter always felt funny when Bubba’s big brother Buck — three years older and a major jock — was around ’cause he called Bubba names and would wrestle him down to the floor and tickle him so hard he almost wet his pants. They shared a dislike for Scooter’s stuck-up big sister who would say things like, “All men are pigs” when he asked her why she didn’t have a date on Friday night. Scooter really wanted her to have a date so Bubba could sleep over like that one time, talking most of the night about what it would be like when they got old enough to do stuff like the older boys at school had told them.

* * * * *

Their early years were filled with what most boys do: baseball, basketball, trading cards, video games, Transformers, super heroes, exploring everywhere and getting dirty in the process, riding bikes to the corner store, watching TV as late as possible, popsicles, nights at the county fair, go-carts, putt-putt golf and on and on.



Sleepovers often featured imitation WWE wrestling and somebody’s mom threatening to put one of them out on the couch if the noise didn’t stop. And get to sleep! Maybe the noise stopped after the 3rd (maybe 5th) warning, but not much sleep. Staying for dinner started with the promise to have good manners, but somebody would make a questionable noise, somebody would snicker, and the uncontrollable laughing would begin.