Noah and Me: A Gay Coming-of-Age Love Story

Sixteen-year-old, bisexual Todd falls madly in love with Noah, the cute boy in Free Enterprise class whom he doesn’t know very well. What happens when Noah invites Todd to his house for the afternoon? Does Todd find love?

FREE E-BOOK DOWNLOAD

Noah and Me
A Gay Coming-of-Age Love Story

Maxwell Carlsen

Copyright 2018 Maxwell Carlsen
Cover Photograph Credit: Sundikova/Bigstock.com

 
Chapter 1

April 1987

Noah sat next to me in Free Enterprise class. We sat in the back, on the left, near a long row of windows. He had the most beautiful brown eyes imaginable. His brown hair matched mine. I knew I was in love! I wanted to rest my head against his chest and listen to his precious heart beating. I wanted so much to hug and kiss him, to feel his handsome body against mine.

When I was twelve, I really liked both girls and boys. But most people didn’t accept gays, especially the kids at school. Now, we were sophomores. I turned sixteen two months ago, and Noah turned sixteen last month. I overheard him telling the teacher he was old enough to get a driver’s license.

Noah had some muscles, but he wasn’t one of the jocks. Neither was I. We weren’t with the nerds or stoners, either. He was a preppy; I was just a regular student.

We didn’t even know each other.

“Do you think it’ll be easy?” Noah asked as we sat in our seats waiting for the test to begin. “I’ll do well enough, I assume,” he added. I felt like the runt of the litter. He was a good student, so he just assumed he’d do well on the Arizona statewide high school testing exam. But that test made my stomach turn like a boulder tumbling down Mount Everest.

“I’ll do well,” I said. “I’ll at least be in the top fifty percent.” And this was true; I knew I’d probably do well, despite my nerves. “It’s not required to do well to graduate,” I said, as much to myself as to him.

“You're cool. How ’bout you come to my house after school, and we’ll play some pool?” he asked.

“Okay!” I practically cheered at the idea of spending time with him.

Maybe he loved me, too. Why else would he invite me to his home?

The only other class I’d ever had with him was English in the eighth grade. I remember the oral book report he did on Lord of the Flies. He did a great job speaking in front of the class. And that's when I had my crush on him. I’d love to be stranded on a deserted island with Noah, like the boys were in Lord of the Flies. He was really cute then, and now, he still had a cute face, great smile, and handsome body. But his voice was changing, because sometimes it would be higher pitched, and then at other times, it would fluctuate and become deep, like a man’s voice. My voice was already deep.

How could we see each other, though, in today’s antigay society, except through a clandestine relationship? Would he feel safe expressing homosexual feelings for me, if he was gay or bisexual? Or would he keep it to himself? I hoped to find out and very soon.

School got out at twelve fifteen, three hours early, because today was testing day. I always rode the bus home, but Noah drove, and a nice car at that—a metallic dark blue BMW! My parents couldn’t afford to pay for car insurance or a reliable cheap car for me. It seemed like a lot of the kids at our high school had rich parents who bought their kids nice cars. Noah gave people rides to and from school, I knew, though, and that was nice.

 
Chapter 2

Noah and I finished the test early, him first. We had to sit at our desks quietly until it was time to go home.

“I think I did well. It wasn’t too hard,” I said as the teacher let the class leave for the day. “I’m sure I’ll do well compared to everyone else,” I added, and he smiled.

“I’m going to do well, too. It was easy for me,” he said as we headed out to the parking lot, which was on the other side of campus.

“Have you taken the SATs? I haven’t, but I’m signed up to next semester,” I explained.

“Same here. I took the PSAT and did pretty well,” he said.

“That’s what I should have done,” I said with some regret. “Not that I’m going to go to Harvard or Yale, but I want to do my best on the SATs.”

“Let’s change the subject. I need a break from thinking about tests," Noah said, "At my house, we can play pool on our new table,” Noah said. “And the best news is that my little sis won’t be there, because she’s going out to a movie with her friends.”

“Good,” I said, hoping to be all alone.

“I’ve also got somethin’ to show you.” He smiled and said, “It’s something really cool.”

“Okay.”

That’s when she came striding out of the science building. It was Bonnie, a blonde-haired babe and the prettiest girl at school. She was a sophomore, like us.

Noah’s eyes met hers. He’s in love with her; I knew it right away. He practically drooled as he watched her walk ahead of us.

“She’s hot, dude,” Noah said. “Look at that ass.”

“Yeah, she’s hot. Maybe I’ll go to prom with her next year,” I said sarcastically. “Dibs,” I called.

Noah groaned for a second. “She’s all mine. That ass, and everything,” he said. “I’m going to prom, and with Bonnie right there with me,” he announced.

“I’m a virgin, and I hope she is, too,” Noah explained. “We’re gonna lose our virginity together, after we’re married.”

“Oh. Okay.” I was a virgin, too, but wished I could have a gay lover: Noah. Only Noah. It was true love. Noah was a beautiful angel!

His BMW sedan was brand new. His parents were very rich. Our high school was considered the rich school in Tucson.

“What does your father do?” I asked, smelling the new car smell as he drove us to his home. He played a Pet Shop Boys music cassette tape, which I’d never heard before—except for West End Girls, which had been popular in our freshman year.

“He’s an architect,” he said. “He designs skyscrapers and everything else. My mom is a teacher at Donaldson. She teaches fourth grade. Mrs. Wilson.”

“Oh! I didn’t know that was your mom. Once, when she was monitoring my class at recess, she gave me detention for going in the girl’s restroom,” I said. “My buddies dared me to go in,” I explained. “I was surprised that she caught me; she just happened to walk in.”

“Oh, yeah, she’s pretty strict. That’s why I do so well at school. Because of my parents,” Noah said. “My mom and dad push my sister and me really hard,” he said.

“Your mom’s a great teacher,” I praised.

“Thank you. I’ll let her know.”

“I want to be a journalist,” I explained. “English is my strong point, and I take great 35mm photographs with the camera that my uncle bought for me when he visited Hong Kong. They’re much less expensive there.”

“Cool. I wish I owned a camera as nice as that,” he said, making me feel less jealous. But then I wondered if he had just said that to make sure that I wasn’t as jealous as I assumed he believed I was.

“I hope to get into Arizona politics, and then maybe go national, if life works out,” he said, once again making me hate him, just a little. I bet he’d grow up to be president, and I’d just be some journalist. Maybe I’d interview him, though. That’d be cool. I made up my mind to be glad for him. Besides, I’d make something of myself, too, I knew.

“That would be awesome. I’ll vote for you, don’t worry.”

“Thank you,” he said. Maybe he’d be governor first, I imagined, and then be elected president. I was going to be happy for him.
“Did you ever notice,” I said, “that a girl who’s loose is considered a slut, and a dude who has a lot of sex is usually considered to have accomplished a great feat? It’s just not right.”

“I know. I’m serious about waiting to have sex until I’m married. People in Taiwan usually wait until marriage to have sex. It was on TV,” Noah said. I had no idea.

He drove for a while into the foothills of the mountain that I always saw from school and my house. His driveway was extremely steep. He parked in the third garage, which was separate from the house. I admired his house, which was two stories, unlike most houses in Tucson, which were only one.

“Do you have a basement?” I asked. “We don’t.”

“Yes.”

Most houses in Tucson didn’t have a basement, either. He unlocked the front door, which was a red double-door that led into a huge foyer.

“Wow. Your house is nice,” I complimented him over the din of birds chirping. My house was only about a fourth the size of his!

“Oh. Thank you.”

“You’ve got a lot of birds,” I said. How many did he have? They just chirped and chirped.

“They’re in the aviary,” Noah said, leading the way into a room adjacent to the humongous family room.

“Awesome,” I said, “How many do you have?”

“There are at least fifty.”

I saw a plethora of different colored parakeets in the aviary, which was also huge. Several perches and five bird swings were covered in birds!

“How much do they eat?” I asked in amazement. “These are so cool!”

“I don’t know, but my dad loves his birds. And, no, he doesn’t have names for all of them.”

In the kitchen, I phoned home to let my mom know I was at Noah’s house. Then, we made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches using peanut butter from a brand I had never seen at the supermarket we shopped. It had to be stirred because some of the oil had separated. The jelly was cactus jelly, which was made in Arizona from prickly pear cactus, I knew as my family had bought some in the past as a present for relatives from out of town.

Noah removed his shirt, which was a complete surprise. He had a handsome chest and a nice stomach, which was definitely fit. You could just barely make out his abdomen muscles. I hadn’t expected him to remove his shirt, as the air conditioning made his house cold enough in the sweltering Sonoran Desert. After he poured each of us some chocolate milk in tall glasses, we sat at the kitchen counter and ate.

“Have you seen Lord of the Flies? I’ve read the book, but haven’t seen the movie yet,” he asked.

“No, but I’d like to watch the movie,” I said.

“We have it on Beta,” Noah explained. “We can watch it sometime.”

His words made me want to see him again and again.

“Your family has Beta?” I asked. “We’ve got VHS.”

“Yeah, my dad thought Beta would become the standard, but he was wrong.” Everyone knew that the VHS version became the standard in the Betamax–VHS fight.

“I’m having my wisdom teeth removed by surgery over the summer,” I said. “The surgeon calls them dumb teeth because they cause people so many problems, like how they shift the other teeth when the wisdom teeth come in.”

“That’s a great idea. I used to have braces, so I should have mine removed before they affect my teeth,” he said.

We played pool on his family’s brand-new pool table in the game room.

“I haven’t played pool since I was eight or nine, before my family moved here from Connecticut. We had a small pool table set up in our basement. It was cool, but we donated it before we moved. It was nothing like your pool table, with all the fancy woodwork,” I said. “This one looks antique. Is it?”

“No. My dad had it custom made from a company in Georgia that makes pool tables. It’s okay,” he said. Then he shrugged. “I just don’t want to show off.”

Before I could say anything, Noah continued. “What do your parents do?” he asked. “I remember your dad coming to our sixth-grade class on Career Day to talk about being in the Marines. Now, that’s totally awesome. I plan to join either the Marines or the Army after college. I want to be a grunt, so I can travel the world defending America, fighting for democracy, and fighting the Russians.” Noah’s words made me feel a lot better and not nearly so jealous. “I wish my dad had been in the military,” he added. “It’d be so cool.”

“Yeah, my dad’s a recruiter now. Maybe you will enlist after graduation, and he’ll help sign you up.”

“My mom’s concerned about me getting hurt or killed. She wants me to do something safe, like a boring office job, or something else not too dangerous,” Noah said, making me proud of my dad.

“My dad served in Vietnam, where he got most of his experience. He usually doesn’t talk too much about some of the things he saw. He regrets how the war turned out—us not supporting the South Vietnamese like we should have. He’ll tell you all about the politicians and the rules they created that, according to my dad, hurt America’s war effort. He’s a proud Marine. He likes to show off about it, I admit, but it’s pretty cool, being a war veteran and all.”

“Wow. I admire him a lot. Those damn reds. They’re doing a good job subverting democracy,” Noah said.

His words made me ponder for a moment. “You’re just like my dad. He will argue with anyone about the need to wipe out communism.” I smiled. Noah knew that him and I were alike, too, which made us bond—I could just tell.

Then it happened. He smirked and said, “Let’s go in my bedroom.”

We put our pool cues in the rack recessed in the wall.

“Stay in here,” he said, and I sat on his queen-sized bed as he went to another room. I had a twin bed at home. I loved sitting on Noah’s big bed, where he slept. This was something sacred.

Noah’s bedroom was huge compared to mine, replete with a TV that had a screen larger than the one we watched in our family room! There were also Atari, Intellivision, and ColecoVision game system consoles and a shelf that was as high as the ceiling and full of video game cartridges and music cassette tapes. I was so jealous of his boom box, which had two large speakers on opposite ends of his room. There was also a Betamax video tape player on the shelf right below the TV.

Noah came back holding a Betamax video tape, just as I noticed an old plastic margarine tub on the shelf with the word grass scrawled onto the side of it in thick black magic marker.

“Grass?” I asked. “Is that weed?” I hoped it wasn’t.

“Oh. That’s model railroading scenery grass,” he said. “See?” He opened the container carefully, so as to not spill any of the green foam particles onto the carpet.

“Okay. That’s good that it’s not marijuana, because I’d immediately leave if it were,” I said. “I don’t do drugs or associate with druggies or dealers.”

“Neither does my family,” he said with a nice handsome smile. “We don’t do drugs.”

Noah held the tape up to my eye level. “Just wait ’till you see this.” He was wearing a big grin as he put the tape into the player.
“Watch this,” he said as he pressed play.

 
Chapter 3

“Ooooh,” he smiled as he glanced at me and then sat next to me on his bed. There were people having sex in the movie.
“Oh, neat,” I said. “I’ve never seen one of these.”

“Yeah. Just wait,” he said with a smile as we watched a handsome man having sex with a blonde-haired babe in a Jacuzzi. She moaned as he groaned. Sex was awesome. "That's going to be Bonnie and me, someday," he said.

“Watch,” Noah said, as the man withdrew and climaxed on her back. “Isn’t that great?” he said, adjusting his shorts. He loved watching the couple have sex, and I did, too. But I wanted to have sex with Noah.

Another scene played. This time, a long-haired older man had intercourse with a pretty brunette on a bed.

“If you give a girl oral, do you get pubic hair stuck in your teeth?” Noah asked.

“I don’t know. I’d give her oral,” I said as we watched.

“You can jack off, if you want.” Noah smirked and glanced at me for a second. “I want to,” he added, making my stomach whirl with delight.

“Okay,” I replied, grabbing his crotch. He pushed my hand away. I made a mistake. I was moving too fast.

In shock, I didn’t know what else to do. I pulled down my shorts, and he did the same. We jacked off as we watched the movie. But I did it with Noah! He was so cute and handsome. His legs were as handsome as his chest. My anus tingled at the sight of his long penis, which was circumcised like mine. He loved to glance at me, I could tell. Then, we finished, me first.

“I loved doing that,” I said, smiling. He glanced at me and pulled up his boxers and shorts while I pulled up my underwear and shorts. I could tell by his glance, that he might be interested in me, but not right now, because we hardly knew each other.

“Those babes are just too cool,” Noah said, leaving me to wonder again if he was gay. Did straight boys masturbate together? I wondered.

Then, he put the video back in his parents’ bedroom, and we played another round of pool. He won, but I did pretty well. We bantered about the babes at school, Madonna, music, and our plans. At four, he drove me home.

 
Chapter 4

The next day in Free Enterprise class, I felt a close bond with Noah. Before class, we talked.

“Hey, I asked Bonnie out, and she said yes. Isn’t that cool?” Noah bragged, “She’s a ten.”

“Yeah.”

“How ’bout you come over to my house after school, and we’ll watch Lord of the Flies?” Noah asked. “My parents and sister won’t be there.”

“Yes. Sure,” I replied, getting an instant erection, happily admiring his handsome brown eyes with a big grin. Then, he grinned, too. Another jack-off session? I loved being so close to him. Maybe, he'd come out of his shell, and be my lover, in time.

###
 
About the Story:

Sixteen-year-old, bisexual Todd falls madly in love with Noah, the cute boy in Free Enterprise class whom he doesn’t know very well. What happens when Noah invites Todd to his house for the afternoon? Does Todd find love?

About the Author:

Maxwell Carlsen is an author of gay coming-of-age love stories. Maxwell lives in the southwestern United States. www.maxwellcarlsen.com