Part XIV - 4: Our Parents' Wishes

Looking for a place to stay in a college town the weekend before classes started was practically pointless. The only thing really left were the really crappy apartments that no one wanted, and family homes which weren't all that close to the campus.

We had taken a limo since I figured James would get a big kick out of riding in it and hoped he would pass the time watching TV. Well, I was half right. He loved the limo, but after the twins had surprised us by waking us up in their usual manner, James was constantly trying to be my bitch again, and I was getting fed up with it.

I even had to command him to not get any of the drink out. So after spending three hours in the car with a horny fifteen year-old who was hot for my body, I was already tired when we finally got there.

Four hours we spent driving around looking for a decent place to rent or buy that was close enough to the campus to walk. I wanted to be able to send James and Eric home without having to drive them there, but I was just about to give up on the idea when we ran across something I knew was perfect.

"This place is huge. You're not seriously thinking of buying it, are you?" James said as we looked inside the windows.

"Yeah, I'm serious. Okay, so it's too big for just the three of us. But it's so close to the campus, and so far it doesn't look too badly run down."

"What is this place anyway? It looks almost like a small apartment building."

"It's a sorority or fraternity house. Looks like it hasn't been used in years though. I don't get why another fraternity or sorority wouldn't have bought the place and moved in by now. Let's go back to the limo so I can call the number."

As it turns out, the number listed on the for sale sign was no longer in service. It took about an hour for me to track down the true owner, then another twenty minutes to find the relative that the deceased had left it to[SWB5].

The new owners lived in New York, and they had never been out to the place. With a little extra motivation, the deal was set and I had myself my own sorority house.

The house hadn't been used for over two years, and once I had a locksmith come out and open the door for us, I was dismayed to find that it had been broken into and anything of value had been stolen. That included the hot water heaters and furnaces, [SWB6] but considering the power, gas, and water were shut off, it wasn't really a problem right away.

The two story sorority house wasn't really all that big compared to the others I had seen. There were ten bedrooms, five and a half bathrooms, a kitchen, two living areas, and a nice big eating area that was probably twice the size the place actually needed. The basement had ten individual storage pens that were all empty, and besides those and the two sets of missing furnaces, the basement was just empty space.

Each bedroom shared a full bath with another bedroom, and they were all identical to each other. James asked whether we were going to each get our own bedroom and bathroom or not, and after thinking about it, I decided that James and Eric could each have a bedroom of their own and share a bathroom. He suggested we all three share a bathroom, but I insisted there wasn't any reason for us to have to do that.

The house was as cold as it was outdoors, so after James had pretty much explored everything and had claimed his room, he went back to the limo to watch TV and get warm. Once I had finished figuring out what all I needed to get done to the place, I joined him and started making phone calls again.

James actually was very compliant about running in to check on something for me, and helped me take a few measurements without complaint. By dinner time, we both were pretty hungry and tired, and since it was Saturday, nothing else could be done until Monday anyway.

So after eating at McDonalds, we started the journey back home, watching a videotape of Ghostbusters which he hadn't ever seen before. After singing the Ghostbusters theme three or four times after it was over, I put in a movie he had already seen, and I was relieved when he simply drifted off to sleep without once trying to start something. He had wanted to do something sexual the whole time, but he knew I wouldn't go for it. I had a feeling I would be having a lot of trouble with this later if I wasn't careful.

When we were getting near home, James called Eric to see what was going on and to find out if he was sleeping with him or not. I had to interrupt three times before Eric finally answered the question of sleeping arrangements, then ten minutes later they finally hung up when we pulled into Eric's driveway.

Eric had the front door open by the time we were out of the car, but surprisingly waited for us to come in instead of running out like I half expected him to. Eric gave James and I both an excited hug, and once both James and I had teased him about only being gone a day, he grabbed James's hand to dragged him to his room and shut the door behind them.

"It's Tim," I said after knocking on his parents bedroom door. "Eric said you wanted to talk to me?"

"Come in," Eric's dad said.

Mrs. Roberts came out of the bathroom brushing her hair in her sleepwear, but Mr. Roberts was at his desk still in his day clothes.

"Uhm, I could come back tomorrow... " I said.

"That's all right," Mrs. Roberts said. "James sees me in my pajamas all the time. It doesn't bother me."

"Eric said you still haven't made up your minds?" I said after Mr. Roberts signaled me to come in and close the door.

"It isn't that we haven't made our minds up... " Mrs. Roberts said.

"We're willing to let them go if you answer a few questions and the answers are reasonable," Mr. Roberts continued.

"Oh. What're the questions?" I said as I sat down on the edge of the bed.

Mrs. Roberts sat down next to me and said, "The most important one is, why?"

"Why? Why what?"

"Why do you want Eric and James to go with you," Mr. Roberts stated. "We know how Eric feels about you, and once we understood why he feels that way, we're grateful for treating Eric as well as you have. But Eric only cares that you have to leave and that he and James could go with you. He doesn't seem to know why you have to leave and what it is you will be doing."

"Oh... I'm sorry. I thought I had told him and he had already told you."

I proceeded to tell them about the symbols, what I wanted to accomplish, and why I felt I needed to, which included a little bit about what happened that summer. Actually, I told them a lot more than I had told Mr. Higgs or even Eric about that summer, and I quite honestly don't know why I did so. "Why do you need someone to go with you?" Mr. Roberts asked once I finished.

"Uhm, well... I kind of need someone to act as a briefcase. I can store memories in other people's heads faster than in my own, so I wanted someone who I knew, trusted, and who would be around so I could keep an eye on them. What I store in their heads wouldn't effect Eric or James at all. They won't even know there was anything different about them."

"You said you wanted to keep an eye on them. Does that mean there is a danger of someone else... using them?"

"I don't think there's any more danger of that happening than there already is. It would only be when someone else had already grabbed them that they might run across the memories I stored. That's why I wanted someone I could watch out for. After about a year, the memories I stored would be too far buried for anyone to find. Including by me. If there was any more danger, it would be over in a year, or more like ten months."

"Do you have any idea how long you would be gone?" Mrs. Roberts asked.

"Not really. I keep saying a couple of months, but I don't know how long it will really take. But I figure Eric and James would be ready to go home in three months tops, so even if I'm not done, I'd bring them back then. I have two other friends who probably would go with me too, so it doesn't have to be Eric and James. It's just that... You know. Eric wanted to go with me... "

Mrs. Roberts let out a "phhhhhhhhh" then said, "Three months. Well, if he could come home on a few weekends, I guess I could bear it that long. What do you think, Steve?"

Mr. Roberts stirred uncomfortably in his chair, then gave me a gauging look as he said, "I don't know. Three months is an awful long time for two fifteen year old boys to be out on their own like this. I'll be honest with you both. I know exactly what I'd be doing while away from home with two other gay boys. I'm afraid of what... "

"I'm not gay," I objected. "I like girls a lot more than guys. Eric was just at the right place at the right time for me to even consider fooling around with him. If I'm going to do any messing around on this trip, I'm going to mess around with a girl."

"So you, Eric, and James didn't have a three way at school the other day?" he stated.

I blinked at that, then said, "Okay, we did. But that was different. Eric was... pushing my buttons a little while I was kind of upset. It won't happen again."

"So you think now, but Eric is fairly resourceful when it comes to getting what he wants. And then there's James. Eric I think I trust not start anything with just anyone who's interested, and we probably have you to thank for that somewhat. But James... He's wild. Wilder than my brother ever was. He might just talk Eric into something that you don't find out about until it is too late."

"Hmm... Just what are your feelings towards James and Eric have sex with each other? I mean, do you disapprove, or think it is okay, or what? They really care for each other... "

Mrs. Roberts sighed, then said, "I was upset at first, but after Steve told me about what he and his brother did, I'm rather relieved that Eric found someone like himself to experience it with. I wouldn't like my little boy having sex with different people all the time. That's too dangerous. Especially these days."

"At one time, I would have loved to have what Eric has. A part of me still does. My brother was everything to me, and if he hadn't died... Well, no point of going through all of that again. As long as Eric and James don't do anything dangerous, yes, I approve of their sexual intercourse. In fact I envy them." Mr. Roberts said looking apologetically at his wife.

"But," he continued. "They simply can't be allowed to have sex all the time. Now that they know we all know, I think they won't be as reluctant to do it as much as they had. I'm worried they will get lost in it and do something very stupid."