Tim's Adventure 8
by Wordshop
As the sun set, Tommy left the gym. His butt was still sore, and because of the shots he had received, he had himself been on a somewhat limited training schedule. Until additional healing had taken place, he had been told to avoid a few exercises that could delay his healing or cause him additional discomfort. Courteney, one of the girls working behind the counter, had handed him a sports drink on his way out the door, saying he looked like he needed some rest. She was probably right, Tommy felt kind of weird and the world was a bit surreal. He had totally caught up all of his clients and in spite of his own fatigue, he looked forward to getting home. He wanted his butt to heal because he had to teach Tim how to ride a horse, he was really looking forward to that. It was a little tough on his ego. It seemed that Tim already knew how to do almost everything. Tommy was feeling almost like he was this big dumb muscle boy next to Tim. Here was one time where he could instruct the one he loved.
Tommy walked out the gym door and looked at the little Falcon Ranchero he had restored. He had worked very hard and really did have something to be proud of. He had studied the world of car collecting and had found that total complete restorations without modification had the highest values. This little car had the original thirteen-inch, four-lug wheels, dog dish hubcaps and he had upgraded to whitewall radials simply because they gave better fuel mileage and lower rolling resistance. He grabbed the keys into his left hand, shut the door, and placed his keys in the ignition. The engine fired immediately, and he placed the column shift initially into reverse, backed out and headed for the street. It would be about a fifteen to twenty minute drive from the gym to the ranch.
He made the few turns that would place him initially on the northbound highway and then the turn-off to the eastbound secondary road that would take him to the gate of the ranch. Once on the secondary road, the size of the acreage each home or ranch was on became larger and larger. The late afternoon sun was to the rear of him, and he could see the clouds in the sky in front of him glowing with that unique reddish cast against the blue skies and the glow of the setting sun on the mountains to the east.
One thing about the State of New Mexico, the sunsets and the sunrises were absolutely legendary for their colors and their beauty.
The speed had picked up to about sixty-five. It would not be long and Tommy would be skirting the property boundaries of his uncles' ranch. As Tommy turned off the highway, he realized he had forgotten to get the mail from the Post Office.
"Damn! The Post Office was on my way too!"
The ranch gate had a bridge type sign over the top. The sign simply said M&G Shadow Mountain Ranch. A small sign near the entrance gave more detail. "M&G Shadow Mountain Ranch Buffalo, Beefalo, Prime Beef," Right now the herd was primarily Herford cattle, but depending on the markets at the time the composition of the stock varied.
Tim pushed the buttons on an automatic opener and the gates began to part for him. As he drove up the main ranch road, he glanced to his left, and in the afternoon sun saw a small man riding a horse in the distance. The man on the horse saw him, and, the animal and it's rider turned and began to gallop towards him. He kept driving along the road, but was flabbergasted to see in the long distance that the animal in question appeared to be the ever-temperamental "Rosie". Tommy pulled over until the horse and rider started to get closer. As the distance between the Ranchero and the horse and rider began to decrease, Tommy was certain that he was beginning to see things. He had been particularly sore today and had taken a pain pill. As the horse and rider got within one hundred yards, Tommy's heart started racing. He had to be having a hallucination! The horse was definitely "Rosie", but the rider looked like Tim. No way man! This was a bad hallucination. His eyes were playing tricks on him. It had to be the trainer his uncles had talked about for the animal. As the horse and rider galloped in and began to slow in the last 50 feet, Tommy's hands were shaking, and he was certain that his mind had been lost. When Tim brought the horse up next to the Ranchero, Tommy was ashen white and completely speechless. All of a sudden Tommy had these horrible feelings of remorse, and a feeling of total failure and depression swept over him in a cloud of despair. He did not know why but he started crying and could not stop. The more he thought of Tim on top of "Rosie" the harder he cried. Tommy loved Tim and wanted to share in every moment. Now, it was obvious that someone else had taught him how to ride a horse, and taught him how to ride well in a time that was unheard of. He wanted to teach Tim, he felt helpless and left out. In addition, Tim was such a great rider and Tommy had not taught him. He knew that Tim was not an experienced horseman. Who? Where? How, in this short period of time? Then there was the fact that Tim had mastered a horse that had played every annoying and cantankerous game a horse could play on its rider. The combination of all of this sent Tommy over the edge. The intensity of Tommy's emotional outburst continued to escalate. He was crying so hard that he was gasping for breath. All Tim knew was that there was something really seriously wrong with Tommy. Tim had a two-way radio on him and after several tries finally reached Mike. Mike was there in only a couple of minutes. As Mike and a stunned Gary extracted a nearly hysterical Tommy from the Ranchero and got him into a ranch Jeep, Tim handed the reins of the horse over to Gary fully intending to be with Tommy.
"Tim, honey, we got a problem! The only one that "Rosie" gets along with is you. I know how you feel, but the safest way is to have you get that love-struck equine idiot back to her barn and I'll get the Ranchero back up to the garages."
At this, tears started to run down Tim's cheeks.
"What's wrong with Tommy?"
"Tim, honey, I don't know and I don't think that Mike does either…… yet."
"When we get back to the house, we will try and sort this out."
When Gary got into the Ranchero, he noticed a partially consumed bottle of sports drink on the seat. He started the engine, placed the shift lever in first gear and eased out the clutch. Then were the shifts to second and to third gears. In a matter of a few minutes he was moving along and Tim was at a full gallop on "Rosie" headed in as fast as practicality and kindness to the animal would allow.
When Gary exited and locked the vehicle he took the bottle of sports drink. Normally, he would have thrown it away, but this time he took it to the lab just in case no other explanation for Tommy's breakdown became evident.
Tim handed the reins of "Rosie" over to one of the ranch laborers, and, at a dead run headed for the house. Gary was walking far more briskly than normal as he left the Ranchero now parked in the garage.
When Tim and Gary reached the home, they could both hear sobbing and more subdued crying coming from Tim and Tommy's bedroom.
They rushed in to the bedroom just in time to see Mike give Tommy an injection.
"What was that?"
"A Mild tranquilizer."
"What caused this?"
"I don't know."
"I picked a bottle of sports drink off of the seat of the Ranchero, do you think that there is any chance somebody slipped something into that?"
"I doubt it, I think that Tommy is beginning to realize things, and he is being forced to become an adult."
Gary and Mike both walked Tim outside the door and said;
"Tim, I think that you're the key here and I also think that Tommy will talk to you far more quickly than he will to us. Go to him, comfort him, and see what you can find out."
Tim went back into the room and stripped down to his shorts. He crawled in bed next to Tommy and put his arms around the person he most loved. For a few seconds, Tommy pulled away and then began to relax. Initially Tim was a little hurt and as Tommy calmed down his own feelings also began to relax.
"You awake sweetheart?"
"Yeah."
"You want to tell me what happened?"
"I…..I…….I……don't really know how…."
"I'm getting a little sleepy…….."
"The tranquilizer shot is making you that way."
"Why did I need a tranquilizer shot."
"Because sweetheart you were hysterical and your emotional state was escalating rather than coming down."
"I don't understand…"
"Neither do we….."
"What upset you so much?"
"Realizing that I'm a failure…"
"Now, I don't understand….failure? How?"
"I wasn't there for you…I….I…failed you."
"I wanted to teach you how to ride….I wanted to have that time with you…I wanted to feel a sense of accomplishment teaching you something that I knew how to do. Right now I just feel like a huge muscle-bound dummy that isn't necessary and can't do anything right."
"How could you ever be in love with a loser like me……that's all I am is a freak…"
"You know, I understand your feelings more than you can imagine. But just maybe there are some things that you never thought of. There was once this teenager from Scottsbluff, Nebraska. He is or at least was a short, ugly, crater-faced geek, who had nothing. He is on top of all of that gay, afraid, inexperienced, and one day on the internet he meets the most handsome prince. The prince he meets, is, in his eyes, successful, intelligent, sweet, kind, unpretentious, and is physically in every respect the 'wet dream' of this poor little crater-faced geeks dreams. This little geek then as time goes on falls madly in love with a man that to him would have been unobtainable and so far out of his league as to actually make the little geek think that it is somebody playing a cruel joke. The little geek is again dismayed when everything appears to real and that even more strangely, the man of his dreams actually for reasons unknown finds him attractive. The geek is totally terrified, but takes a chance when the affection seems genuine, and the man of his dreams offers him a real life. A fluke then happens that throws this little geek out into the 'real world' for the first time. This little geek is away from home and on his own for the very first time, with only the person he loves, but does not know, moving to unfamiliar surroundings to start a job he knows comparatively little about."
"Now, there is so much I do not know that I am constantly unsure and doubting myself. Events that have taken place since I have arrived here have been literally in the realm of the supernatural."
"I know how to drive a truck because I worked at a truck-stop. What I know on this subject would never allow me to drive an eighteen wheeler on the highway. I have the skill to drive an eighteen wheeler around a parking lot and to maneuver it enough to get it away from an area where it could not remain. What I had to do with an old military truck had a great resemblance to moving one around a parking lot. My abilities with that truck were not based on brilliance, but on 'necessity being the mother of invention' from bad moments with a former job."
"Because I have to start carrying my own weight 'such as it is' around here, your two Uncles not knowing that my horseback riding skills were a 'sacred cow' to you took time from their busy schedules to patiently try to teach a totally uncoordinated geek-dufus how to ride. Now, you think that I am this monster rider who is so fucking gifted. You should have seen me on "Ranger's" back. Let me tell you, it was and is not poetry in motion, it is a horse and a rider tolerating each other and that is it. If you think I looked great at this, blame your fuckin' ' Rosie' for that! Who would have ever predicted in a million years that a horse who evidently has loathing and contempt for every person on this ranch would fall madly in love with me! It was a total fluke!"
"The one doing their best to teach me how to ride has been 'Rosie'! I have had my ass (which is also sore as hell by the way) in a saddle on 'Rosie' as much as is possible simply because I can see that I need my own riding skills to not be something I even think about. To be effective as a Ranch Manager, I have a very difficult job. I not only have a very short time to learn what my job is, I have a very short time to earn the respect of the other hired help. I need to impress on these men that I am not some idiot that was hired for my relationship to you, but that I was hired because I have some semblance of competency. Just for the record, my ass is so sore from that idiot "Rosie" that I think I have blisters." I am riding her constantly because we have to, I am told, bond and 'become one', and she is the one having an absolute blast! Not me! My ass hurts!"
Tears again started streaming down Tommy's cheeks.
"As usual, I fucked everything up……it was…..it was my screw up…..I just wanted to have the privilege of teaching you something I knew."
Tim held Tommy while he sobbed softly.
"I wanted to start teaching you how to ride and it could have been something we could have done together."
As Tim comforted Tommy………
"You know sweetheart, there are going to be many times in the future when you and only you will be my mentor for different things. As soon as my life-partner's butt has healed from the injuries I inadvertently caused, I would far rather you and I take two horses and go out somewhere on horseback and just enjoy a picnic lunch."
The next morning Tommy found himself bent over a bench in the lab and his butt was being examined. It was Saturday morning and Tim was still asleep in bed unaware that Tommy was not in bed next to him.
"Tommy, this is healing well and the special shots we have given you are really beginning to kick in. Are you still in pain this morning? No, Uncle Gary I'm not."
"The tissue regeneration and modification will prevent this from happening again."
"How soon will I be well enough to ride?"
"Is tomorrow soon enough?"
"Tommy, in a way I want to apologize to you, I had no idea that teaching Tim to ride was something that was special to you. Your Uncle Mike and I both discussed it, and to us, we thought that getting this out of the way was something you would have wanted."
"Uncle Gary so much has happened in the short time since Tim got here. I feel like a total jackass because I simply have not been there for him. It's been work, it's been my clients, it's been my sore ass, it has just been one endless stream of things keeping me from holding and loving the one I love most."
"By the way, you are definitely going to be mentor to Tim in one area we can't help."
"You mean?"
"Yeah."
"When?"
"Soon."
"How soon?"
"Well, Tim is well on his way to proving himself to us. I don't think it will be very long at all. We just have to be comfortable that Tim is part of the family for good and not something that passes in the night."
Tommy hung his head in sorrow.
"I don't really understand?"
"Why don't you just enjoy that picnic lunch."
"You overheard?"
"Yeah!"
"Tommy you are one lucky bastard! Tim is a really great person and you my young friend are the one that got him. What I witnessed this week with the riding lessons, 'Ranger' being almost threatening towards Tim, and all the rest and he still stuck to his ground. Many would have been a big wuss….., not him, he toughed it out and made me damn proud, and, even more grateful that you found him. I can train in the duties and the job, I can't train in the willingness, the acceptance of new challenges, and the greatness of the man. Oh, by the way, he is definitely a young man. You my friend may have found the ideal mate. Just as with your Uncle Mike and I, we both have different qualities or weaknesses and strengths which complement each other."
"There is something else to think of Tommy."
"You know my fondness for classical and all organ music. You also know how much I enjoy playing the organ. Your Uncle Mike and I could afford anything we want. Many years ago I wanted a real pipe organ. I have this great friend who is one of the best and a professional musician. He said something to me and it was the best piece of common sense advice I have ever heard. What he said was: Do you want to play the keyboards or do you want to play in the chambers. What he meant by that was: Did I want to enjoy playing and performing on the instrument or did I want to have the enjoyment if it was enjoyment to constantly be maintaining or tinkering with the mechanics. I wanted to play the instrument, not be the one maintaining it. As you well know we have a huge sound sampled digital electronic organ."
"You should be grateful, instead of having to deal with the day to day things with Tim, you have been left free to work towards your own goals in bodybuilding. You have the enjoyment of the time you have with Tim without the hassles of the day to day things."
"As you work towards your own goals in the sport, your time here on the ranch will become less and this will be particularly hard on your relationship when you are competing. I am trying to set it up so that the time you and Tim have together will be all for the both of you." You will discover that the hardest thing you ever have to endure is separation from the one you love most."
Tommy hustled back to bed and cuddled up against the one he loved most.
Tim backed up against him, and with this, Tommy started feeling a stirring in his dick.
Tommy simply wanted to cuddle, sex was on his mind, but it was not an out and out fuck that he wanted. What he wanted was more geared toward romance than towards brutal sex. The funny thing was that he was beginning to realize something and that was that a relationship contained both sex and romance. They were two parts of something much greater. As he thought of the sleeping body he held, tears were slowly dropping down his cheeks as he really began to realize what love was.