It was the usual problem. Jeff Johnson and his mother were out in the carport ready to go somewhere and Heather, Jeff’s older sister, was taking her own sweet time getting ready to leave. Jeff was excited. He was going off to State University to begin his first year. Normally, he’d be upset that his sister was causing a problem, but today he didn’t care. Soon he would be gone and he would no longer be involved in the fights between his sister and his mother.

Jeff rearranged the load in the back of his mother’s station wagon, moving his boxes around for the tenth time, trying to stay out of the argument by appearing busy. The boxes contained most of Jeff’s possessions. They were late getting started and Heather was going to delay them even more. Jeff kept his head down trying not to be drawn into the argument. His mother continued yelling.

"Heather! What is wrong with you? Why can’t you ever be on time? If we don’t leave now, we’ll hit the bad traffic in Los Angeles and Jeff will be late getting to State University."

His mother’s ancient station wagon was as well packed as Jeff could make it. Jeff would be sitting in the back seat of the station wagon during the trip, so he got in the car and rolled the windows down. The air conditioning in the station wagon didn’t work and he needed plenty of air so he wouldn’t suffocate in the July heat. They were leaving before the normal start of the fall term because Jeff was required to attend a special remedial summer program.

It was still fairly early in the morning on what promised to be a fiercely hot sunny day. There was a light breeze rattling through the dusty leaves of the mobile home park’s eucalyptus trees so it wasn’t too hot yet. Jeff looked around and saw old Miss Getzenberger watching from the kitchen window of her singlewide. He waved to her; she waved back and moved away from the window. She was the park’s main gossip and she would get some new material on the Johnson family today. She had taught high school mathematics for 40 years at Jeff’s high school and knew his teachers’ high opinion of him. As a result, she had a soft spot in her heart for Jeff. Her opinion of his mother and sister was as low as her opinion of Jeff was high.

Jeff turned back to the station wagon to see if there was anything else to do. The back seat could be folded down. It was supposed to be held up by a latch, but the latch was broken so that if the load in the back shifted, the seat could fold over on anyone sitting in the back seat. Jeff tore a corner off a cardboard box and wedged it in the latch. There was nothing else left to do. Everyone but Heather was ready to leave.

Jeff groaned inwardly. He hated trying to talk with his sister because he had a bad stutter. She and her boyfriends made fun of his speaking ability. When he tried speaking to his sister, his speech became worse.

Jeff was happy to be leaving home for the university. He was willing to be around his sister for another couple of days because soon he would be away from her and he could look forward to a new, hopefully less stressful, life. Jeff went back in the doublewide and checked the living room to see if he had forgotten anything (he hadn’t) and then went looking for Heather. He found her in her room packing a small suitcase with cosmetics. Stuttering badly, he told her that they needed to leave right away. He told her she needed to hurry but that he would help her carry her stuff out to the car if she needed some help.

"Jeff, you’re such a moron. How you ever got into State University is beyond me. It won’t matter if we’re late. You’ll still flunk out."

"Where’s Heather?" Jeff shrugged. "I thought I told you to get her." Jeff told his mother that Heather was packing her cosmetics and that she didn’t need help carrying stuff out to the car. "HEATHER!!!!!!!!!!!!! Get out here NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Heather and her mother were always arguing and her mother was more angry than usual but she didn’t really have much leverage with Heather. She couldn’t threaten to leave Heather at home because the last time Heather got left at home, her boyfriend got her pregnant and she had to have an abortion. Her mother could only yell at her. Jeff sat down in the back seat of the station wagon to wait.

Like a lot of people in his small hometown, Heather thought Jeff was mentally challenged because he stuttered so badly. In truth, however, Heather was the less intelligent child in the family. When she graduated from high school, she went off to the regional two-year community college with her friends but flunked out every term for a year and a half. Eventually they expelled her. She was now living off her mother while she decided what to do. Jeff felt it probably had something to do with cosmetics – or getting pregnant – or, more likely, both.

Jeff’s love life was a big zero. Nevertheless, he couldn’t imagine what guys saw in his sister. He didn’t think much of her boyfriends mostly because they made fun of him but also because they seemed headed to prison. Her latest boyfriend was a guy named Ralph who had already served time in prison.

After another few minutes and some more yelling, Heather came out carrying her small suitcase clomping along on her "do-me" wedgies. She left the front door wide open. Jeff got out of the car, walked to the door, closed and locked it. The Johnson family was finally ready to leave.

Heather got into the right front seat with her small cosmetics case and started yelling back at her mother. Once the two got started, the yelling could last a long time. Jeff sighed and settled into the back seat. It was going to be a very long trip.

They took California 99 south to the 5 and then took the Hollywood freeway south toward Jeff’s grandmother’s house where they planned to stop for lunch.

On the way down out of the Hollywood hills, the traffic began to get heavier. Heather and her mother were still arguing and Jeff was looking at a very pretty building, some kind of church, perhaps, when Jeff noticed brake lights in front of them. Distracted by the arguing, his mother had not yet noticed. Jeff reached between his mother and sister and pointed and tried to yell "WATCH OUT!", but it came out "HAKADAHAKADAHAKADA...." Heather yelled some insult at Jeff but his mother saw the brake lights ahead and stomped hard on the brakes trying desperately to stop the station wagon before they ran into a pickup truck stopping in front of them.

Sometimes Jeff developed an involuntary verbal tic with the sound "HAKADA" repeated loudly. When that happened, he usually couldn’t stop shouting "HAKADA" on his own, so he stuffed his hand in his mouth to try to stop the spasm. Sometimes it worked; more often it just muffled the sound.

With tires squealing the station wagon bounced and shuddered as it slowed down. The load in the back came sliding forward. The broken latch didn’t hold and Jeff was thrown on the floor under the folded rear seat and a pile of boxes. Jeff pushed up at the seat and managed to make a hole between the boxes so he could get up and see what was happening.

The driver of the truck in front of them was pretty smart. He drove toward the left to give them enough space in the lane to pull around him and stop safely. They managed to stop next to him. The HAKADAs had stopped so Jeff waived to him with one hand while he kept the other firmly in his mouth to prevent the HAKADAs from returning. The driver of the truck smiled.

Heather was screaming. "You moron. Look at this mess. You hit the seat deliberately and made me spill my nail polish! Mom, this is all that moron’s fault. I’m not cleaning it up." Because his hand was in his mouth, Jeff couldn’t say anything. He just pushed the boxes back and managed to get his seat up so he could sit down again.

The Johnsons were four hours into a long trip with the mother driving; they had nearly been killed in a traffic accident; the mother was shaking; the daughter was worried about some spilled nail polish; the son had nearly been buried by a load of boxes and had his hand in his mouth. For them, this was completely normal.

Their mother managed to get them safely the rest of the way to her mother’s house in Hollywood. She was still shaking as they pulled up to the house. She hadn’t said anything since the near accident. Even Heather finally noticed the strain and shut up.

Jeff’s mother’s sister, their Aunt Hilda, came out of the house to greet them. "Garnet, Heather, Jeff. Good to see you again. Grandma is inside. Are you hungry?"

Hilda looked at their mother. "It’s a little early, isn’t it? We’ve got lunch all ready for you."

They went inside the house and Jeff’s grandmother gave him a hug. "Jeff, you’re getting bigger every day. How have you been?" Jeff had taken his hand out of his mouth but was afraid to speak, so he nodded in reply and rolled his eyes at his mother. Their grandmother also greeted Heather but just frowned at Jeff’s mother.

Jeff liked his maternal grandmother very much. She was a kind and loving person. She also liked Jeff. Neither she nor his aunt Hilda approved of his mother’s drinking. His mother went over to the liquor cabinet, found a bottle and brought it to the table. While everyone else drank iced tea, Jeff’s mother poured the liquor into her glass and drank it straight. While they ate lunch quietly, Jeff’s mother drank steadily. Both Jeff’s grandmother and his aunt just watched his mother drink. No one said a word about it. Even Heather was quiet for a change. Finally their mother stopped shaking and she even managed to eat a few bites of lunch.

Their Aunt Hilda really knew her sister well. "Garnet, I know you want to continue on your trip this afternoon but I’m thinking maybe it would be better if you would stay here tonight and get an early start tomorrow. Jeff, why don’t you empty out the car."

Jeff’s mother didn’t even reply. She just headed toward the guest bedroom to sleep off the effects of the alcohol.

"Heather why don’t you help your grandmother and me clean up these dishes while Jeff empties the car." At home, Heather would have had a screaming fit if her mother had asked her to help with the dishes but here she didn’t say anything; she just went into the kitchen carrying some plates.

Jeff emptied the car, putting their mother’s and Heather’s bags in the guest bedroom and stacking the boxes with his things in a corner of the kitchen. When he was done, he asked his Aunt Hilda for a rag to wipe up the spilled nail polish in the car. She gave him a rag and some solvent. He cleaned the mess off the front seat and the small case. When the case was as clean as he could get it, he brought it to Heather. She was sitting on the front porch with their grandmother and aunt drinking iced tea. He sat down with them and drank tea, too.

Their grandmother and aunt were curious about their mother’s drinking. "I thought Garnet had stopped drinking. What happened?"

Heather didn’t say anything, so Jeff was forced to stutter through an explanation telling them that his mother had not had anything to drink since last Christmas but that they nearly had an accident on the Hollywood freeway coming down the hill and that it was pretty scary. He explained how lucky they were that the guy in the pickup truck in front of them pulled to the left in the lane so they could go around him and stop without hitting him.

Jeff told them that the boxes in the back of the station wagon slid forward and knocked him on the floor because the seat latch was broken and that his impact against the back of the front seat caused Heather’s nail polish to spill. It took him a while to stutter through all this but Heather didn’t say anything to help him out.

While they were sitting there on the front porch talking, an incredibly good-looking guy came down the sidewalk. He had a beautiful milk chocolate brown complexion, was very well built and showed off his muscular body with a tight tank-top muscle shirt and cut-off shorts. His arms and thighs were extremely muscular but he had short stick-thin calves. His small lower legs were connected to feet that were turned inward toward one another. He tottered along on the outsides of his feet, which were twisted toward the front. He wore athletic shoes with thick soles. The best part was that even though he had a disability and had difficulty walking, it did not seem to bother him: he walked along with a macho swagger that really turned Jeff on. He noticed Jeff staring and stared back adjusting the large bulge in the front of his cut-off shorts.

Heather also noticed. "Jeff, you are so queer, you even go for crippled guys." Jeff was embarrassed and looked away from the guy but Heather was not done. "You are such a loser. I can’t believe we’re wasting time taking you to State University. It’s a waste of money, too."

Jeff’s grandmother came to his defense. "Heather, you know Jeff won the math prize and the computer prize in his graduating high school class. I’m sure he’ll do well at State University. What will you be majoring in, Jeff?"

Jeff explained that he would be majoring in computer engineering but that if he did well in math, he might minor in math or do a double major: math and computer engineering.

He hoped the change of subject would silence Heather, but it didn’t work. "If Ralph knew you were queer, he’d beat the crap out of you. He doesn’t like queers." Jeff wondered if Heather’s boyfriend, Ralph, had been sexually active in prison but knew better than to say anything.

His grandmother wasn’t ready to quit either. "Jeff, you won some swimming award, too, didn’t you?"

Jeff told her that he was the California State high school record holder in the butterfly.

Suddenly their grandmother stood up. "Jeff, why don’t you and I go out back and work in the garden. Hilda and Heather can stay out here on the porch and relax."

Jeff always liked working with his grandmother in her garden. The work was fun and relaxing and the conversation was usually very enjoyable. She got her gardening tools and they went out into the backyard. They put on their straw hats and sat out in the sun on old flowered chair cushions while they weeded and talked.

"Jeff, I’m so proud of you. I know you’ll do well at State University. You’ve always done well in school. You’re a wizard on the computer and you are really sharp at math." Jeff’s grandmother had taught at Jeff’s high school with Miss Getzenberger and had kept a watchful eye on him through her so she knew how talented he was.

Jeff thanked her for the kind words. They scooted around on the ground and weeded some more.

"Don’t let other people define you. They will always define you in the smallest way. Don’t let people limit you by their definitions. Be who you are.

"I love you just the way you are. Be everything that you are. Once you let people limit you, there will be less of you to love. I love all of you. I will always love you. No matter what."

Jeff was sure he understood what she was trying to tell him. He thanked her again.

At home, Jeff slept on the couch in the living room of the doublewide. In the summer before his junior year, with earnings from his jobs, he had bought an old computer and modem he set up on his study table in the corner next to the couch. With them, he found a wider world he hadn’t previously imagined. He found other men like him, men turned on by men with disabilities. For the first time in his life, Jeff didn’t feel alone.

SU was his one big chance to get away from home, discover the wider world and make something of himself. There were so many possibilities. He couldn’t wait.

When they were done weeding, Jeff and his grandmother picked some ripe tomatoes and cucumbers for dinner. They went into the kitchen and washed them off. His grandmother poured both of them glasses of iced tea. They sat at the kitchen table, drank tea and talked while she peeled, seeded and sliced the cucumbers.

"State University will be an entirely new experience for you. Besides learning new things, you will meet new people of all kinds. I hope and pray that you will find love there. You have a good heart. I hope you can find someone who appreciates you. You are very special to me."

Jeff was pretty embarrassed, but he told her that he had spent a lot of time working on SU’s roommate form and freshman website. He told her he had filled out the form as honestly as he could and that he hoped he would find good friends at SU.

He also was hoping he could find love there. State University was known for its outreach programs for students with disabilities. Jeff had applied to SU because he knew about the outreach programs. He did not know that old State University was known unofficially as "Amputee State University" because of the large population of amputees on campus.

SU asked students to fill out a profile so that students could check each other out and select roommates rather than have them selected randomly by SU. Jeff sweated blood over his profile:

On the roommate form, he said that he preferred gay or bisexual roommates and roommates with a disability. He let SU select his roommates because he couldn’t find what he was looking for in the profiles of the other freshmen.

That wasn’t really what concerned his grandmother. In the tenth grade, the year before he purchased his computer, Jeff had tried to commit suicide. He thought no one in his family knew, but his grandmother knew because Miss Getzenberger had called her rather than his mother. His grandmother was concerned that he find friends who loved him enough to help him over any problems he might encounter. She knew he was gay and she hoped he would find someone with whom he could share his life. She desperately wanted to encourage him.

As she sat there talking with him, she imagined his life’s blood leaking from his many wounds. She didn’t know how to bandage those wounds and stop the bleeding. The only thing she could think of was to love him and encourage him. She hoped that would be enough.

Up to that point, Jeff had hated his life. He was hanging onto life by his fingertips. He had always felt the universe was a hostile, cold, uncaring and unloving place – that as a gay devotee he would never find anyone to love him – that his life was meaningless and empty.

He had always felt alone. He had no friends from high school. No one in his family seemed to care about him except for his grandmother. He decided that he would work hard to find what he was looking for at State University. If he found it, fine; otherwise he decided he could always make another attempt at suicide. He considered SU his last chance.

Later, Aunt Hilda and Heather came in off the porch. They had an idea. "Suppose Heather stays here with us while your mom takes you to State University. It will only be for a couple of days. Heather and I could go shopping with her birthday money. She’d enjoy that. You and your mom would have time alone together. I’m sure both of you would enjoy that. What do you think?"

Jeff said he thought it was a great idea but they’d have to convince his mother.

Early the next morning, Jeff repacked the car and he and his mother started out on the next leg of their trip. It was pretty uneventful. His mother let him drive when she wasn’t feeling well or when there wasn’t much traffic.

They spent the time talking awkwardly. Conversation was difficult because there were so many touchy things one of them wanted to discuss and so many touchy things one of them did not want to discuss. There were many silences.

Jeff had never asked his mother about her drinking. He was curious, so he asked her about it. He had always blamed himself for his mother’s drinking and wondered whether it was his fault.

"I started drinking in junior high school. Your dad and I always drank a lot when we were young and partying. Later, we drank just to be drinking. Perhaps you remember the arguments between us. That’s why we divorced."

Jeff remembered the arguments. He remembered more, much more. He remembered being scared by the shouting. Sometimes when they argued, he hit her. Jeff remembered that. He remembered worse things. He remembered being terrified of his father when he drank because sometimes he hit him. He remembered being so afraid he taught himself not to cry so his father couldn’t find him when he hid. But, these were things he couldn’t talk about.

"I don’t know. I guess it’s a crutch for me. I know it’s bad for me to drink, but sometimes I just need a drink."

Jeff asked her why she drank so much, why she couldn’t limit it, why she couldn’t stop once she started.

"That’s right. Once I start drinking, I can’t stop. I just crave it too much. I’m an alcoholic."

"I hope so, too. I know you don’t drink. I hope you will never drink. It’s not good."

Jeff told her he was glad she was going to meetings of an organization for alcoholics.

"Yes, it’s helped me a lot. Why did you stop going to the meetings for children of alcoholics?"

Jeff told her they weren’t helpful. Actually he was pretty embarrassed at the meetings. They had to speak about their experiences and Jeff felt he couldn’t.

"You know, one of the things I learned was that one child becomes the surrogate parent in the family, taking over for the alcoholic parent. Another child will rebel. I found my meetings very helpful to me."

Jeff didn’t have anything to say in response, even though he knew she was talking about him and Heather. Jeff remembered being hungry when she spent their food money on alcohol. Jeff remembered once having to accept a sandwich from old Miss Getzenberger when he hadn’t had anything to eat for two days. After that, he hid food around the double wide so that he would have something to eat at the end of the month before his father’s next support check arrived. Jeff also joined the high school swimming team because team members got a free breakfast and free all-you-can-eat lunch on days they practiced.

Jeff asked his mother why his father just walked out without saying good-bye to him and Heather and why he had not kept in contact with them over the years. It seemed as if he had just disappeared.

"Jeff, your dad was very unhappy when we were married. After we divorced, he put the unhappiness behind him and started over. He stopped drinking, married again and is very happy with his new family. I guess you and Heather and I remind him of unhappy times. That’s why we don’t hear from him except for the support checks."

"He became a big-time attorney in The City. He’s very successful there. He had much less opportunity in our little farm town. I think that was one of the reasons why he was frustrated – why he wanted to leave so badly."

Heather always told Jeff that their father left because of him – because of his stutter. Jeff asked his mother if that was true.

"No. Your dad cared about you very much. We spent a lot of money taking you to speech experts in The City. He wanted to help you. He didn’t leave because of you. I think he still cares about you. After all, he’s helping to pay for your college education."

Jeff remembered the speech experts. There were so many. He didn’t like any of them. The therapy didn’t work. He stopped going to any kind of speech therapy after his father left. Then his mother took him to an evangelist who said he stuttered because he was possessed by the demon of homosexuality and he could cure him by working a miracle and casting out the demon. That didn’t work either – no miracle. At the time, Jeff was just a boy and didn’t know what homosexuality was. Later, when he found out, he wondered how the evangelist knew. Was stuttering a sign of homosexuality? Jeff wondered if heterosexuals might be more sensitive than commonly thought.

"You just don’t try hard enough." She sounded angry. She was still blaming him....

"Your dad didn’t think you tried hard enough either. That’s one of the few things we ever agreed on."

"We both think you don’t like girls. We both think you just don’t try hard enough." She blamed him for that, too. It seemed everyone knew he was queer before he knew. Jeff wondered what she would think if she knew that he was a devotee. He decided not to find out.

The questions Jeff really wanted answered, he couldn’t ask. What he really wanted to know was why this all had happened to him. Why did he stutter? Why had his father beaten him? Why was he gay? Why did his mother and father get divorced? Why was his mother an alcoholic? Why was he a dev? Why did his sister hate him? Why was his life such a disaster? Was it all his fault? Jeff wondered why nothing good ever happened to him.

In the end, Jeff supposed, it was a good experience for them to have some time alone together to talk. Mostly....

Jeff and his mother arrived at State University on Sunday, a day later than they had planned. His mother stayed with the car as Jeff moved his boxes into his room in his residence hall. His room was in a quad -- a four-person apartment with two two-person bedrooms, a bathroom and a large lounge. Sweet.

The fall term at SU started at the end of August but Jeff was arriving over a month earlier toward the beginning of July in order to take part in a special program. SU had a famous speech therapy department and Jeff was going to take part in an early academic program they ran for students with speech problems. Jeff would be required to spend two hours every morning in speech and language therapy for a month before the fall term started. The therapy included daily reading and writing assignments to work on his "written language skills" in addition to the speech therapy. Jeff supposed the written work was added in case he never learned to speak well. He would also be working in the athletic department to help defray the cost of his education.

When Jeff entered his quad, one of his roommates was already there. His name was Olney Jefferson. He was sitting at the large round table in their quad’s lounge with one very muscular leg up on the table, reading. He was wearing shorts and no shirt. He was very handsome. Jeff was nervous meeting him and stuttered a lot. He introduced himself and asked Olney which bedroom he had taken.

"I moved into the A bedroom. Why don’t you move into B? At least we’ll have our own rooms for the next month or so."

Jeff couldn’t believe it. He would have his own room. All his life, Jeff had slept on the couch in his family’s doublewide and never had had any privacy. This was a dream come true.

When Jeff shook hands with Olney, he noticed that Olney had only the one leg, the massive and long left leg on the table. Huge hands. A huge foot. And a beautiful broad tanned chest to go with his blond hair and blue eyes. Fantastic abs and a very narrow waist. What a hunk! Jeff couldn’t believe his luck. Olney was a fantasy come true.

Jeff remembered Olney from his profile on the university’s freshman website – especially his picture. As handsome as he was in the picture, Jeff thought he looked a lot better in person. His profile did not mention that he was an amputee. Jeff remembered from his profile that he was from Florida and, like Jeff, a swimmer. Jeff asked Olney about swimming.

"Yeah, I swam on our high school team. Mainly freestyle. I remember you from your profile. You’re the Jeff Johnson who has the California State High School Record in the butterfly, right?"

"Yep." Jeff said he was on a partial athletic scholarship and would have to work in the athletic department.

"Me, too. I’m here to take a remedial bonehead math class this summer. I want to major in computer science, so I have to take this class so that I won’t be behind in the fall."

When Olney looked at Jeff, he saw a tall muscular swimmer with short brown hair, vulnerable-looking gray eyes and an enormous, wide and thick chest. He noticed the stutter but found that Jeff was perfectly understandable if he was allowed to speak without interruption.

Jeff was grateful for the way Olney just waited for him to complete his sentences. He never completed Jeff’s sentences. Olney was really cool about it and Jeff noticed and appreciated that.

Jeff became excited when he saw that Olney was an amputee. He wasn’t very cool. Each time he brought some boxes up from the station wagon and struggled with the spring-loaded door into the quad, he was able to say a few words to Olney and stare at the empty right leg of Olney’s shorts. Olney knew that people were curious when they met him, so he didn’t care if Jeff stared at him. To Jeff, it looked as if Olney might have a short thin stump. It was hard to tell from the way he was sitting. Jeff was aroused and desperately wanted to see his stump.

"When you get done bringing your stuff in, let’s go over the Athletic Center to see where we are going to work."

Jeff dropped his last load into the B bedroom. He brought his mother up from the station wagon so that he could show her his room and introduce her to Olney. When he was introduced, Olney didn’t get up. Jeff’s mother gave Jeff a goodbye hug and he was on his own – finally – sink or swim.

Olney hopped to his room and put on an athletic shoe, a white tee shirt and got his underarm crutches. He glided along on those crutches as if he had two legs. Jeff was impressed. As he swung along, Jeff noticed that something was swinging back and forth in his shorts on the right side. Jeff kept staring. He couldn’t help it. He was embarrassed about his staring, about the incredibly hard erection he was sporting and about his stutter. To Jeff, Olney seemed oblivious to what was going on. He seemed very self-assured – a cool guy. Actually, Olney found the whole situation amusing – especially the erection.

To Olney and Jeff, their jobs in the Athletic Center didn’t seem too bad. They were assigned together to a ten-man team that cared for the men’s Team Locker Room. Only members of the various intercollegiate teams, including the disabled swimming and wheelchair basketball teams, could use that special locker room. Their job was to put out clean towels, pick up dirty towels for the laundry, mop the floors, clean the whirlpool and the toilets, hose down the showers, etc. Basically their team was assigned to keep the place as clean as possible. They were going to be glorified janitors. It was a big job but split ten ways it didn’t seem so bad to them.

They also checked out the exercise room, the weight room and the indoor pool. SU’s facilities were very nice.

Then they went back to their quad and Olney helped Jeff unpack. When they were done, Jeff’s room looked like Olney’s – messy. Both had computers that were strewn all over the floor of their rooms so they helped each other set them up and connect them to the university network. They both had to crawl around on the floor to connect everything up. Jeff was still desperate to see Olney’s stump, so he took every opportunity to look up Olney’s shorts. Jeff never did see it because Olney didn’t have a hip on his right side and the right leg of his shorts kept falling closed over it. If he had a stump, it was small.

Olney was an exhibitionist but did not realize it. That was why he had joined the swim team at his Florida high school. He loved showing off his huge equipment to the other members of his swim team and he thought that was a normal thing guys always did. They enjoyed checking him out and his fantasy was to get super hard and touch them with it but he never got hard and so was never able to carry out his fantasy. Even though they were curious about him, they never got hard either.

Olney enjoyed Jeff’s interest in him and wanted to excite Jeff so much that he would not be able to speak. He knew he wanted to show his body to Jeff but thought it might turn him off, so he was cautious.

After setting up the computers, they didn’t have much to do so they went to dinner in the student union. Jeff was going to help Olney by carrying his tray but he didn’t need help. He was able to hold his crutches under his arms using his biceps and lats and walk without using his hands. He walked slowly and was easily able to carry his own tray. Jeff loved the way Olney moved on his crutches and his leg. Olney loved the way Jeff watched him. He looked forward to the day he could "show off" to Jeff.

Olney saw a notice for a free movie later that evening. They hung around the student union looking at bulletin boards waiting for it. It was an action-adventure flick with a lot of car chases, shooting and explosions. They both enjoyed it a lot. Olney got a lot of stares. He ignored them. Nobody stared at Jeff but he felt uncomfortable with the stares Olney was getting.

After they got back to their quad, Olney joined Jeff in their lounge and asked him about math. "Your profile on the freshman website says you are interested in math. Do you think you could help me with my developmental math class? You’re taking a developmental class, too, right? Maybe I could help you with yours."

After some effort, Jeff finally managed to say that he was taking a speech therapy class with reading and writing assignments every day. He became so embarrassed that he got stuck trying to speak so he wrote the rest of what he had to say: I am not a good writer and I don’t read much. I like the way you understand what I say and how you wait for me to finish a sentence. I’d be grateful and happy if you would help me. Jeff had never discussed his speech problem with anyone but his family or therapists so he was very nervous speaking to Olney about it.

"I like to read and I am a pretty good writer so I can help you with that if you want. I’m going to need a lot of help with math. Will you help me with it?"

In high school, several "friends" had used Jeff to give them help with math. They never studied or did any homework. They thought copying homework and cheating on tests would get them through math. Bad move. Some did not graduate with their class. They were angry with Jeff when they failed. So, Jeff told Olney he would help him but only if he did all the work assigned in the course and the extra problems Jeff gave him. Jeff promised Olney he would do the same thing with the reading and writing. Olney agreed. "I’ll work as hard as you do, Jeff." They shook hands on it.

They finished cleaning up their rooms and turned in. The next morning, Monday, their classes and jobs started. They both worked very hard on their coursework and they enjoyed the work in the team locker room. Their early mornings were spent in the exercise room, the weight room and the pool; late mornings in class; afternoons at work and evenings in the pool again and at study. As the weeks passed, they gave each other assignments in addition to the ones their teachers gave them.

Gradually, Jeff became more relaxed around Olney. Olney became more comfortable, too, and planned for the day he would "show off" to Jeff.

Olney’s main difficulty was math word problems. So Jeff gave him the problem of the chickens and eggs. If one chicken lays one egg in one day, how many eggs do a dozen chickens lay in a week? When he concentrated, Olney would "unconsciously" manipulate his "stump." The previous time he did that Jeff nearly had a heart attack. Olney enjoyed the stricken look on Jeff’s face.

"Is the answer a dozen eggs?" Bend. Lift. Squeeze. Rub. Bend. To Jeff, it seemed limp.

Jeff was holding his breath. His heart was in his throat and his mouth was dry. It was a wonder that he could even stutter.

Jeff finally managed to tell Olney he was incorrect. Jeff suggested he work the problem of two chickens and one day, then one chicken and two days and then two chickens and two days.

The next time Olney started pressing and stroking, the right leg of his shorts rode up "accidentally." Jeff saw clearly that it was not a small stump he was pressing on; it was a very large male member. Uncut. Jeff froze. Olney pretended he did not notice and eventually moved the shorts back down to cover it.

Jeff decided he was going to enjoy working on math with Olney and Olney decided he was going to enjoy working on math with Jeff.

Olney assigned Jeff to read "The Mountains of Mourning," a short story about a guy with a disability. The author seemed to understand really well what it was like to have a disability. Jeff loved the story. He discussed it with Olney.

"Yeah. The guy in the story was born that way. She wrote several other stories about him. It happened to him in the womb. I’m a congenital amputee. I was born without a right leg. I have a big dick instead of a leg, see?" Olney pulled up the right leg of his shorts and stroked himself. "My pelvis is deformed, too, so I can’t use a prosthetic leg. Nobody knows whether it’s genetic or whether it happened in the womb. Did you always stutter?"

"Nobody????!!!" Olney couldn’t believe Jeff had handled his disability all alone.

Their month and a half together passed rapidly. Olney and Jeff grew closer. Olney continued to show himself off to Jeff "accidentally" from time to time. Jeff was grateful that Olney seemed to accept his stutter as a normal part of him. He always listened carefully to Jeff and seemed to understand what he said no matter how bad his speech was. Olney helped Jeff with reading and writing and Jeff was surprised how much better he got. For his part, Olney worked very hard on his math, improving steadily.

The football team started working out in the middle of July, a week after Jeff and Olney started work. Most of the team members were OK. The exception was the quarterback. He had graduated from Jeff’s high school two years before Jeff did, so he knew Jeff. He made tenth grade in high school a living hell for Jeff. For a whole year in high school, he called Jeff the "stuttering faggot." The only thing Jeff could figure was that he had stared at too many guys too much and he caught on. Jeff tried to stay out of his way at SU. He succeeded for a while....

One day at the end of August, during the last week of summer immediately before freshman orientation started, the quarterback came back from practice, stripped, squatted down over a pile of dirty towels and took a dump. He picked the soiled towels up and threw them at Jeff.

Jeff dodged and the towels splattered all over the lockers behind him. The quarterback grabbed a towel from the clean pile and headed to the showers. Jeff froze. Olney swung a crutch and hit the quarterback in the back of the knees. He folded like a cheap stepladder and flopped onto the floor. Hard. It knocked the wind out of him. One of the football coaches saw what happened, came over and asked Olney and Jeff to leave. He told them that the quarterback would clean up the mess and do their work with the crew that afternoon so they had the rest of the day off.

Jeff was scared that Olney wouldn’t like him being gay, but that was the only thing Olney said. In fact, Olney was happy that it happened. It gave him an afternoon to show off to Jeff.

The coach never did report the incident but he must have said something to the quarterback because Jeff had fewer problems after that – for a while.

They went back to their quad, put on swimming trunks and went over to the outdoor recreational pool. They swam slow laps and fast laps. They both did some diving in the deep part of the pool. Olney didn’t use his crutches so he hopped around on his leg with many guys and gals staring at him. They ignored Jeff. Olney was cool about the whole thing. Jeff couldn’t understand that. When people heard Jeff speak, they stared at him, which made him nervous. Often that would make Jeff stutter even more and that would make him even more nervous and he would end up not being able to speak at all. What was worse, sometimes the HAKADAs started. Even worse, sometimes the verbal tic manifested itself in a form that caused Jeff to make barking sounds. In either case, Jeff had a hard time stopping the verbal tic. Putting his hand in his mouth would often muffle the sounds and help him stop.

Near the end of their afternoon off, as they floated in the sun holding onto the side of the pool, Jeff grew relaxed and was able to speak better. Jeff asked Olney how he could be so cool when people stared at him.

"Look. You remember the short story?" Jeff nodded. "That guy’s handicap was obvious. He couldn’t make it disappear. He couldn’t hide it. What could he do? He figured out what strengths he had and he used them. ‘What you did best, that was what was wanted from you.’ He let people stare at him as much as they wanted. He wanted them to see him because it didn’t hurt him; it helped him. Think about it."

Jeff asked Olney whether he had ever "lost it" and gotten upset that he had a disability.

"No. I was born this way so I don’t know anything else. My mom was a big help, too. What about you?"

Jeff told him that people always assumed he spoke normally until they heard him say something. Then they treated him differently. He told him he wished he could talk normally and that he was often frustrated and the more frustrated he got, the poorer he spoke and the poorer he spoke, the more frustrated he got. Sometimes he "lost it."

Jeff said that he also believed in God. He asked him if he thought God had caused their handicaps and that maybe it was some sort of punishment.

"No. I don’t believe it’s a punishment. After all, we were born this way. What bad thing could we have done before we were born? What could we possibly be punished for? It seems to me that most people have two legs; a few have one. Most people speak well; a few do not. People are different. I don’t blame God for my disability. What about you?"

Jeff replied that he wasn’t sure.... He asked him if he ever wondered if God cared about them – whether He wanted to help them.

"Sure. I think God cares about us. God sends us family, like my mom, and friends and other people who love us to help us. Don’t you feel the same way?"

Jeff said he didn’t know. Jeff told Olney that he was the first person he ever met that he could talk to about these things. He told him he always felt no one cared about him. At that point, he started stuttering badly. Jeff couldn’t say any more. When he regained his composure, they got out of the pool and headed toward the outdoor pool’s locker room.

They used the shower to wash the chlorine off. Olney draped his right arm over Jeff’s shoulder and asked Jeff if he could hold on as they showered together. "It’s pretty slippery here. Can I hold on to you?"

Jeff finally got to see Olney’s deformity. He found it very interesting. His torso tapered evenly down to a very small waist above his one huge leg. His large glute was slightly to the left of the muscles along his spine. All his stuff hung off his right side and it looked normal except that his dick was very large and he had some sort of big bulge behind his ball sack making it stick out. It was the first time Jeff had ever seen a guy’s hole. All of it turned Jeff on except for the hair. Olney’s sparse pubic hair sprouted randomly in ugly clumps. It was the strangest part of the whole package because it didn’t look like normal pubic hair. The rest of his body was almost completely hairless.

Olney noticed Jeff looking at him and he displayed his body as much as he dared in a public locker room.

The next morning before they left to do their laps, Olney asked Jeff if he would help him shave his body for swimming. Jeff told him he would but that he preferred a chemical depilatory. Jeff asked him if he ever used one.

Jeff told him that he cleaned off his stuff as well as his arms and legs. He said that he could never feel comfortable with anything sharp near his stuff. Olney laughed. Jeff told him that the depilatory he used did not burn his stuff and he could probably protect his sensitive parts with petroleum jelly if necessary.

Jeff agreed but suggested that he do only a part at a time so that if he had a problem, they could stop immediately.

Jeff started with his arms. They had a small amount of very fine blond hair on them. He applied the depilatory up and down his arms, including the backs of his hands and fingers. Jeff used an old towel of his to wipe away the fine blonde hair after a few minutes. When he was satisfied with the job, he applied a soothing cream that had the additional advantage of inhibiting hair regrowth. Jeff asked him how his arms felt.

"No problem, but this is enough for today. Maybe we’ll do more tomorrow, depending."

Jeff did both of his own arms and arm pits. Then they went off to their usual morning swimming workout at the indoor pool.

After doing their laps and using the weights, they came back to their quad and showered. This time Olney invited Jeff to shower with him. He put his right arm around him just like he did in the shower at the outdoor pool and they soaped and washed themselves. Olney soaped his stuff and rubbed himself against Jeff aggressively, mainly against his left leg. Jeff enjoyed it even though he was too nervous to respond. They both enjoyed soaping Olney’s arms and feeling how super smooth they were. Jeff was so nervous he didn’t touch Olney’s stuff or get hard. Even though Olney was rubbing up against him, Olney didn’t get hard either.

"The hair on your left leg feels scratchy. I’ll be glad when your legs are as smooth as your arms."

The next morning Jeff did Olney’s leg and foot and Olney did his own armpits. They didn’t do any more than that because Jeff wanted to make sure the depilatory wouldn’t bother him. Jeff finished himself off doing his legs, lower abdomen and stuff. Olney watched him carefully as he cleaned off all his body hair. He seemed especially interested as Jeff cleaned off his stuff.

When they showered together after laps, Olney soaped up and rubbed himself against Jeff a lot more than he did the day before.

He stayed soft. He kept looking at Jeff’s but didn’t seem to know what to do. Jeff was extremely nervous so he didn’t get hard either.

The next morning, Jeff cleaned the hair off Olney’s stuff. He made sure he got the large bulge behind his ball sack, too. Later, when Jeff used a towel to rub the hair off the bulge, Olney lengthened but didn’t get hard. Jeff assumed the bulge was some sort of vestigial right leg.

When they showered after their laps, Olney rubbed himself against Jeff again. Jeff tried speaking with him, but he was stuttering very badly, so Jeff showed him what he liked by touching Olney. It lengthened a lot. It was huge. It wasn’t quite as floppy as it was the day before but it still didn’t get hard. Jeff tried touching his hole, but Olney wouldn’t let him.

They fumbled around clumsily with one another. Jeff was extremely hard and Olney didn’t seem to know what to do, so Jeff took Olney’s huge hands in his and showed him how to take care of him. After Olney took care of Jeff, he thanked Olney and told him he had great hands. Jeff was still stuttering pretty badly, but Olney just listened and smiled, enjoying his fantasy. Then Jeff stopped speaking and tried to take care of Olney, but he pushed him away. He still wasn’t hard. Jeff wondered if Olney were impotent – or, he thought, it would be just his luck if Olney were straight.

After only a month, Jeff and Olney both found they liked university life far better than they ever expected. They enjoyed working together as a team. They had learned a lot; their classes had gone well and they had become intimate friends. The fall term would begin in a few days. Both could hardly wait....

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Name:	Jeff Johnson
Interests:	Sports, music, movies, computers, mathematics
Personal:	Shy, not good at speaking, sense of humor, easygoing
Accomplishments:	All state in swimming, state record in the butterfly, marching band
Music:	All kinds, prefer classical, play the clarinet
Turn-offs:	Prejudice, bigotry, put-downs
Major:	Computer engineering but interested in math