Okay, I know I said, I wasn't going to do what I was doing with Chet.

There comes a time in everyone's life, after you make up your mind not to do a thing, you end up doing it, because it becomes the right thing for you to do. Being with Chet was like that.

Chet was walking dynamite and I was doing my best not to get blown up. Even though my mind went into a tizzy every time I got near the guy, it was too soon to be crazy about a boy like Chet, but I felt what I felt. It was what it was. I was crazy about him, or maybe I was just plain crazy. It's hard to say which.

You can go through life without ever changing your mind, but you're going to miss some pretty good stuff by sticking to your guns. I knew I didn't know everything. I knew I didn't know Chet. I decided to give Chet a chance before I made up my mind. I did work on it in between kisses. He had his good points. He had some very good points, and he held my heart in his hands.

My guns weren't loaded. I feared shooting myself by accident. As it turned out, it didn't matter. Chet completely disarmed me. I was the moth to Chet's flame. Chet was the magnet, and his pull on me was undeniable.

At the beginning, I was powerless to resist Chet's charm. Resistance was unquestionably futile. My entire being was focused on him. What I wanted, what I needed, was to be with him, know him, and love him. Once I entered Chet World, I was memorized by him and it.

In time, I wanted to know about everything. For now I wanted to be with him. That didn't mean I didn't have parents, a job, and things I needed to do that didn't include Chet. We were feeling ourselves along trying to negotiate the turbulence that came with falling in love. My life reset itself once I stepped inside of Chet's apartment. I was along for the ride right now, but we'd add texture to our relationship as it grew. The main thing was being together.

I don't know if what was happening was sane or not, but it was happening, whether or not I felt like what I was doing was insane. I knew nothing about Chet. I knew he was sweet, thoughtful, charming, and he was funny. He was way older than boys I'd known. He had more experience with life. I would gain experience and learn from him in a way I hadn't learned from anyone else. If I was as calm and collected at twenty-four, as he was, I'd consider myself lucky.

I could not stop touching him. I couldn't keep my eyes off him. I was drawn to him like a bee to a flower's nectar. Chet was my flower. I realized what I saw in him may not be what other people saw. Like with Free, Chet was the most beautiful boy ever. My mind had changed. I'd been changed. I grew up with Chet.

The love was real, ran deep, and was returned a dozen times over. I never wanted to leave Chet. I was hooked. I had become an addict, without knowing what addiction was. Chet was habit forming. He was my drug of choice. Each time he took me further and higher than I'd ever gone.

I felt as though we might achieve low earth orbit soon. We'd forever be satellites of the earth. Everyone would be able to see us, because the energy we created could light the night sky, and I continued flying high.

"Dad, it's me. I'm at my friend's place. I'll be staying over tonight."

"You aren't going to work tomorrow?" my father needed to know.

"I have a job, Dad. Of course I'm going to work. I just wanted to let you know that I'm safe and I'm fine where I am. I'll call tomorrow. Tell Mom goodnight. Goodnight Dad," I said.

I disconnected before my father could question me. I waited for the phone to ring, but it didn't. I turned it off. I handed it to Chet to put on the nightstand.

"He's worried about you?"

"They worry, but they'll need to accept this. They'll need to meet you. That can't be avoided. They'll rest easier once they see you're fine."

"Am I fine? I have nothing to hide," Chet said.

"You're fine and you have things you can't hide," I told him.

He laughed.

I rolled back into his arms to kiss him and kiss him again.

"They worried? This is the second night in a row."

"They'll need to accept it. I can't leave you. I won't leave you."

"Work?" Chet asked. "You'll leave me to go to work, won't you."

"Yes, I will, but work is work. Everyone works. I will come back here after work tomorrow," I told him.

Chet didn't say anything to that. If he wasn't serious, and I couldn't leave him if he didn't throw me out, my presence in his life was permanent.

"Yesterday you were afraid to get into the car with me. Now, you're never leaving me? I mean I'm not complaining, but you've come a long way, Babe."

"I have haven't I. I wasn't afraid to get in with you. I knew I was getting in with you, what I didn't know is what would happen after I did. I've loved a boy before. I recognize the intensity. I can't turn it off. You'll need to turn it off if that's what you intend to do at some point."

"I mentioned your hesitancy because it's a far piece from where we are."

"Where are we?" I asked.

He put his lips on mine. He was a great kisser. The kiss was magnificent. It gave new meaning to, sealed with a kiss. I was sign, sealed, and delivered to Chet. I was ready, willing, and able to love him until the end of time. Yes, it had been a little more than 24 hours, but technically, I'd known him since I arrived in California. I saw him in the storm drain a week after we moved to El Cajon. Our love had been simmering ever since. I was going to call it by its name, Chet.

When I woke Monday morning, Chet wasn't in bed with me. I was beside myself with fear that was so fresh I could taste it. He stood at the door of the bedroom looking at me.

"I didn't go anywhere. I made coffee. You can't go to work without coffee."

"You give new meaning to, too good to be true, My Lovely Boy."

We pulled up in front of Hitchcock's Market at fifteen minutes to eight.

"You want me to pick you up this afternoon, or will you go home?"

"You've got to pick me up. My skateboard is beside your skateboard just inside the front door of you place."

Chet smiled.

"See you at five," I said.

"I'll be here with bells one," Chet said.

I got out and stood at the front door to watch him drive out of site. He'd made a normal U-turn, once the coast was clear. He did only show off for me.

"Did I hear that sports car out front, Z?"

"Yes, Mr Hitchcock, you heard the sports car."

"I thought I hadn't seen the last of that young fellow," he said with a smile.

"You may be seeing a lot of him in the future."

He would be seeing a lot of Chet. Anyone who had anything to do with me would. I could be away from Chet while I was at work. Nothing else tore us apart at the beginning. I wanted to know everything about his past, we'd create our own present, and the future would be ours to write.

*****

Chet began to talk after a few rounds, once we went to bed. As I tried to recover my senses, I learned about who Chet was, and how he got here.

I kissed his chest and rolled over to see him while he spoke to me.

"I had no preparation for it. I was an innocent kid, and that would depend on your definition of innocence. I couldn't live at home any longer and my friend asked me to live at his house. Skippy and I were fond of each other, and there was nothing innocent about our friendship. We were teenage boys who liked each other. His parents liked me. They fed me for two years, until I graduated."

Now was my chance to confess my sin, but I couldn't say it. What if he decided he wanted to be with Skip.

"I figured they fed me for long enough. I wanted to go to LA. Figure out where i would go from there."

"How'd you know you'd be able to eat. You went to LA without preparing."

"I had no preparation for any of it. I went from being nobody to being a headliner. I couldn't live at home to finish high school. I was living with a friend, Skippy. His parents made sure I had what I needed to finish school. Once that was done with, I took off. I had no idea of where I was going or where I'd end up. What happened after that just happened. There was no plan. I had a lot of help along the way. I didn't set out to be a dancer. The closest thing I did to dancing is skating. When I came back here, I danced with my board. I was always good on the skateboard. Even without being on a skateboard in years, it came right back to me. That's about the time I saw you. I'd only been back to El Cajon a few weeks. There you were. There I was. I just skated."

We didn't bother with clothes when Chet got up to fix breakfast. I got up with him, I stood behind him with my arms around him as he cooked.

I kissed each shoulder blade, his back, and his neck.

"If you keep that up and if it gets up, I'm going to cut a couple inches off," he said, cutting onions and peppers in the grease.

"Good thing you have a couple of inches to spare, isn't it?"

He laughed.

Chet was pushing six feet. I was pushing five ten. His body wasn't any bigger than mine, but the way it fit together made me look like a tubby. I wasn't fat, but I wasn't shaped anything like Chet. If there was any fat on his body, I hadn't found it yet.

He was a dancer. He had a dancer's body. He moved like a dancer around the kitchen. His motions were smooth and without hesitation.

He'd done all the chopping he intended to do and he tossed the small knife into the sink with some cups saucers and plates. He moved the potatoes, onions, and peppers into the back of the pan, stirring the mix together.

Chet set the alarm for seven, and he'd cook me breakfast and have me in front of Hitchcock's before eight, unless we couldn't untangle ourselves after going to the bedroom to get dressed. It was our time to share at the start of a new day. As much as I liked sleep, I liked to spend this time with Chet even more.

I kissed his neck.

"I like my eggs over easy. How about you?" he asked.

"Over easy is fine. Do you have bacon. I feel like bacon."

"Fridge. Second shelf. Get out the sausage too. We'll do both. The biscuits will be a few minutes, and I'll have the bacon and sausage cooked when the biscuits come out. We'll eat the eggs and potatoes, and then I've got the most delicious strawberry jam and Damson preserves that will set those biscuits off."

When I handed him the sausage and bacon, there was another pan with grease starting to sizzle. I knew the feeling. I'd been sizzling since I first saw Chet's sports car on Saturday afternoon.

We sat across from each other at the small glass top table. Our knees touched as we ate. Half way through his eggs and potatoes, he got up and turned what he'd put in the second fry pan. He popped open the oven and used a pot holder to take out some golden brown biscuits.

"You've done this before?"

"Not a lot to do. I work twenty hours a week, and the rest of the time I'm here. I enjoy cooking. I didn't have a home cooked meal for years. I'm not a great cook but I'm a great eater."

I laughed.

"You aren't at all fat. You eat like this very often?"

"No. I'm trying to impress the new guy I met with all my best qualities. You'd be surprised by what I can do," he said.

Keeping his green eyes on my darker eyes as he spoke.

"You forget, I've been in bed with you a lot for the last week. Nothing you do surprises me."

His face didn't change. Our eyes danced together. He took my hand across the tiny table with a glass top. We sat there looking at each other. I never felt quite like that before. I started the day wanting to eat, but food was the second thing on my mind once we sat with our knees mingling together.

My heart tap danced in my chest, and anything that could get hard, got hard. These were dangerous events if I intended to get something to eat before I arrive at work by eight. This time food won out over more lustful pursuits.

He was right when he described the biscuits. I ate sausage, bacon, and a strawberry jam biscuit. Then, I ate bacon and sausage with damson preserves. First I put sausage on the biscuit with the jam, then I tried bacon with it.

No matter how I did it, the results were the same. I needed to force myself to leave the table, and then there was the mine field going into the bedroom created. I'd only been late one day, since discovering Chet, and I don't need to tell you what we were doing to make me late for work.

On my way to work, after a quickie, my mind was still on the food.

"You don't make these biscuits?"

"No, Tevo's cook makes all his breads, biscuits too. He brings them. He gets the jams and preserves from a woman that makes all his jams and jellies. She puts up fresh vegetables. Tevo buys everything she puts up for the restaurant. He'll bring some of the dishes his cook prepares once or twice a week when he resupplies me with food ready to eat and other dishes ready to pop in the oven."

"T brought this cook to the States with him. Tevo always takes him to the restaurant he's opening. He's his best cook. He's a wonderful cook and he's been with Tevo since he opened his first restaurant."

"He brings food to you from his restaurant? Tevo?"

"You'll see. He brings meals with him half the time. When he comes. We spend ten or fifteen minutes unloading his trunk some days. He brings the family car to carry it all. He's got an even stouter sports car than the Lamborghini," Chet said. "He couldn't bring me a knife and a fork in that car."

"I don't get it," I said. "You like speed?"

"Took me a while too. I kept waiting for him to ask for payment. He bought the Lamborghini. You see how tiny it is. T's six seven. No way he was going to be happy with that car. He wanted a Lamborghini. He bought a Lamborghini. He needed to fold himself up to fit into it. He wanted a Lamborghini but it was just too small for him. He was tired of it by the second day. He was on his way back to the dealer to exchange the Lamborghini for a street version of the Mclaren race car. Before he got there, he turns around and he drove to my place. I'm always home. He took me out to see the Lamborghini."

"'I bought this,' he said. 'I love it. What a car. It's too small for me. I saw a Mclaren I decided I had to have. If you want the Lamborghini, and you'll need to lend it to me when I have the urge to drive it, I'll sign it over to you if you drive me back to get the Mclaren. Then, we can change the title over to you on this.'"

"He gave you the Lamborghini?" I asked with astonishment.

"He signed it over to me at the dealership. Wrote a check for the Mclaren. T does what he wants. I'm still not sure he's real. My life was a disaster area. I'm lucky to be alive. Tevo saved my life. He treats me like I'm his son."

"He has a physical attraction to you?"

"He does. He doesn't understand it. As I said, he's married with children. He'd never been with a man until he was with me. That was the first year. He'd moved me here and I went to work for him. The physical aspect of our friendship lasted that first year, and then he decided he'd worked his feelings for me out in his mind, and he needed to go back to being faithful to his wife."

"He's not gay?"

"No, I went to bed with him that first year. I owe the man my life. For about the first year, he came to sleep with me. I love the guy. He gave me the life I had. He dragged me out of the craziness my life had become. He's never stopped treating me like I'm his son. He's the most generous man I've ever known."

"His wife knew?"

"I don't know and I didn't ask. T had his own reasons for doing things. I don't question him on what he does. I'm the beneficiary. T calls the shoots."

"How often does he want to drive the Lamborghini?"

"Never. The car he bought makes the Lamborghini look like a kiddy car. He leave me in the dust when he feels like showing off. He never intended to ask to drive the Lamborghini. He may have thought he did, but I've been driving it for over a year now, and it's a sweet car."

"You know his wife?"

"Yes."

"What does she think?"

"She comes to the restaurant. She keeps an eye on what T does. She is a stickler for keeping bills paid. She keeps his books and writes the checks. Tevo's is solvent and she's a good reason why, or so T says."

"The cars. What did she say about buying two outrageous sports cars?"

"Never said anything to me and she knows I have the Lamborghini. He might have some accounts off shore she doesn't know about. I don't know. I never saw the books or heard them argue about expenses. Tevo's restaurants are all high dollar money makers. The prices are high and the food is stellar. I pull down three to four hundred dollars a night in tips and T pays me."

"Takes me two weeks to earn your nightly tips."

"Doesn't surprise me. Four people eating and drinking at Tevo's will spend five hundred dollars. They tip twenty percent of the bill. I serve four to five tables a night four days a week. Tevo gives me a hundred each night. Same as the other waiters. He's closed Tuesdays and Wednesdays and he still makes plenty."

"What happens Thursdays?"

"He has special events. There are people who come in to run the show. People who belong to clubs or some organizations pay five thousand to have the entire restaurant Thursdays. T's cook and outside waiters who only do special events. The bar tab is separate from buying this service. They pick the menu and pay the food bill separate."

"He loves his wife and daughters. I am a distraction he saw at a dance club. He wanted to know me. He saw where I was going, and he gave me a way out. I owe him, Z. He once told me, sitting right here, "In China, if you dive in to pull a drowning man out of the water, you become responsible for him from that moment on." I guess I have some Chinese in me somewhere, or T does."

I stood at the sink to wash the dishes. He stood behind me holding me from behind. He kissed my neck and back.

"How long have I known you?" he asked, kissing my neck.

"Counting when we met at the market?"

"All of it. Our entire relationship, after we met close up. How long have we known each other?"

"A little more than a week," I estimated.

He didn't say anything for a while. He just held me. He put the side of his face against my shoulder, letting out a long sigh. His best part was pressed against my backside, and I thought I knew in what direction we were going.

"How can I feel like this about someone I've known for a week? I've been alive for closing in on twenty-five years. How can I feel like this about someone in a little more than a week?"

"Does it matter how we can feel the way we do. Be glad we do? I count my lucky stars, Chet. I've never felt like this before."

"Do you do dishes often. Z."

"I've never done dishes. My mother does the dishes. Free lived in the woods. No dishes. No sink. No water. We ate at the food court."

"The boy you loved was a naturalist?"

"Your childhood and Free's childhood are inner changeable. He couldn't live at how, and he lived in the woods."

"Oh, that is roughing it," Chet said. "You collect damaged goods."

"No, I don't collect anything. It's how the cards fell. I met Free at the food court at the mall. The first boy I met was skating on the street. I couldn't take me eyes off him. He took me in the bushes to let me give him a blow job. My first. I never did anything to anyone back home."

"You're having a little trouble rinsing off all that dish soap?"

"How come my mother's dishes don't feel so slick. I can't hold on to them."

"Soap. It works better if you use a few drops in your water as you run it into the sink. You don't really need a half cup of dish soap," he explained.

"Oh, I don't. I figured more soap was better."

"Not when it comes to washing dishes."

"You do dishes," I asked.

"If I want to eat off of clean dishes I do. I'm the only one here, and no, Tevo doesn't bring dishes with the food. I do need to supply something. Although these dishes were here when I got here. T made sure I had what I needed. I just left rehab and I was a bit shaky when he brought me here. It took another month before I could go to work."

"That bad?" I asked.

"Worse than anything you can imagine. Getting hooked on drugs was the easiest thing in the world. I didn't know what addiction was. Getting off drugs was about the hardest thing I've done."

"I'm so lame," I said, being distracted by the slick dishes in the sink..

How come I didn't know a simple thing like how much dish soap to use? I paid no attention to what my mother did. My mother did the dishes. I never offered to do them. Too late now, I suppose. I hadn't been home in over a week. .

"You're so beautiful. We've known each other a week and I've never felt this comfortable with anyone, Z. Do you think we're meant to be together? Our lives were meant to intersect at Hitchcock's that day?"

"Yes."

He kissed my neck. I trembled as I let all the water out of the sink and the soapsuds were still piled so high I could find the dishes.

"Let's us rinse all those soapsuds and then put more water in the sink and see if we can't fix it so the dishes don't slip out of our hands."

We changed places. I knew when I was licked. Chet provided the food, cooked it, and I couldn't even do the dishes. It was way more fun standing behind him and letting my erection slide up and down his backside.

"You keep that up, stud, and we'll never get these dishes done, Z."

"Can't blame a guy for trying. You do have a lovely ass, you know?"

Chet laughed as he got the final few dishes into the dish drainer.

"I'm going to take care of you right now," he said.

He turned in my arms and planted a rather passionate kiss on me.

*****

I leaned my head against his chest, once we took a break. He looped his arm over my shoulder and down my chest so we could hold hands.

"Does T like the Mclaren?" I asked.

"He loves it. He's a fan of racing. Mclaren is a racer. The car he bought is the street model of cars Mclaren builds to race. I guess it is street legal, but it has a racing engine. It absolutely screams."

"It's bigger than yours?"

"Only a little. He had to have a special seat made. He talked to a guy who made special seats. He built the seat for five thousand dollars. It puts him further back from the steering wheel, which gives him the leg room he needs."

"You drive it."

"No. Not even interested. Too much power for me. I might wreck it."

"He couldn't have done that for the Lamborghini?"

"Sure. He didn't think of it. The guy who sold him the Mclaren told him that he could have a seat specially made to fit him, after he bought the Mclaren."

"That kind of money boggles my mind," I said.

"You aren't the only one. I've learned to accept it, but I never had money."

"A dancer should make good money," I thought out loud.

"I did. It all went up my nose. I don't want to get into that yet. Let's keep things on an even keel for a while before we start delving into my past," he said.

"T doesn't pay retail for anything. He knows money, when you have money, you learn how to keep as much of it as possible, and T knows money. To get rich people to buy from you, you've got to be willing to bargain. A poor man might not have any options. Rich people can go anywhere to get what they want. To get their money, you've got to bargain."

"How did Tevo get rich enough to buy two sports cars. He has a past too, Z. It's not for me to talk about, but T was in the family business, and so were his brothers, Tevo worked in the family business, until he started looking for a new way to make a living. He already made a lot of money, and the way he talks seems to indicate he has plenty put away off shore, before he came to the US."

"Jamaica is known for things other than fine restaurants," I said.

"Oh, yes, it has a wonderful history with pirates. You might say, T and his family carried on the pirate code of ethics."

"Why did he get out?" I asked.

"Two dead brothers convinced him. His daddy is in prison now," Chet said.

"Sounds like a rough business," I said.

"That's how he knew how much trouble I was in after he met me. He'd seen it all before. He'd been in that condition once."

"How about those Yankees," I said, not wanting to hear any more.