The Hidden Kingdom

The third weekend they were together, Jonas went back home because it was his mother\'s birthday and Damon came with him because Damon insisted. In fact, they had their first fight over the whole thing.

\"You don\'t want me the meet your family?\" Damon asked hotly. \"Am I something you are shamed by?\"

\"No,\" Jonas insisted, unsure of how not to hurt either his mother or Damon, but completely freaked out over the idea of the two of them meeting- gay in theory had made his mother cry- what would seeing him with a flesh and blood boyfriend do to her?

\"I have some terrible flaw you have never had the gall to inform me of?\" he demanded, waving a hand up and down his body as if asking Jonas to point to some imperfection. Jonas couldn\'t have even if he\'d wanted to- there just weren\'t any that Jonas could find.

\"No, Damon, it\'s not you.\"

\"So it is your mother? She is the one with the flaw?\" Damon lowered his tone, he maybe even sounded worried.

\"No, she\'s great. I just-\"

\"You just what?\" he interrupted, angry again.

\"I haven\'t told her I\'m dating you,\" Jonas finally confessed.

Damon took a minute to respond. \"And telling her when we arrive is not possible?\" he wondered, again seeming concerned or maybe perplexed.

\"She might not take it well.\"

\"Oh. You are telling me that she does not know your preference?\"

\"Uh, well, yes, she knows it, but I\'ve never brought a boy home to meet her.\"

\"Then, you are shamed by me,\" Damon concluded.

\"No, it\'s not that, it\'s more that I only just told her my, uh . . . preference- the day before I met you, I told her and she made me promise to, to take my time.\"

\"So, bringing me home to meet her mere weeks later would upset her?\" he surmised, finally understanding.

\"She thinks I\'m too naïve, too trusting- that I jump into things. I don\'t want her to assume this was a mistake,\" Jonas admitted, sagging back from the argument, both mentally and physically. It was out there- Damon would be mad now or he\'d understand now. Jonas didn\'t know which.

\"And you think denying your choice of me will make this better?\"

\"Oh. Maybe not. You\'re right, it would be better to be honest.\"

\"Of course I am. I promise I am nothing to be shamed by. I am a very good catch.\"

And so, it was decided and they drove to Jonas\' home in the expensive car that Damon kept parked in the faculty lot by special permission because his father had some kind of pull there at the university.

***

\"Joey Sweetie, come here and let me look at you!\" his mother ordered as she pulled him into an overly tight hug and buried her face in his shoulder. There was no way she was looking at any more of him than the patch of his t-shirt she was pressing her face against, but mothers got to get away with things like that- it was their due. She finally loosened up and then did look at him. \"Joey Sweetie, you\'re too skinny,\" she tsked, \"and you need a haircut.\" She ruffled his hair, like he was three years old.

\"I\'m thinking of letting it grow out some,\" Jonas answered, intending never to elaborate as to why he\'d made that decision to her. He heard Damon gently chuckling behind him, probably because he did know why Jonas had chosen to grow his hair long- Damon liked having it to hold onto and had told Jonas so in a passionate whisper the night before. \"Mom, I\'d like you to meet my roommate, Damon Barca. Damon, this is my mom, Tessa Dailey.\"

\"It is my honor and pleasure to meet you, Madam Dailey,\" Damon charmed, offering his hand and then kissing the back of Jonas\' mother\'s hand when she gave it to him.

\"Oh. Nice to meet you, too,\" she answered and Jonas was amazed to find he was both pleased and jealous because of the way she was looking at his lover- like he was important and clever and sexy. Though really, he wasn\'t sure which one of them he was jealous of- they weren\'t actually going to get along, were they? Jonas had been sure that they were going to hate each other, that fate or karma or God was going kick him in the teeth by making him have to choose between.

But it had been that easy- Jonas\' mother had invited them in for lunch and they\'d all made small talk as if it was a normal thing, as if things were just fine and dandy. Jonas and Damon had talked about their classes and Jonas had given Tessa her birthday gift- a set of hand carved wind chimes to hang in her back flower garden. She collected them- Jonas sometimes wondered if she had planted the garden just to have a place for the chimes, there were so many. Damon, being the tallest had hung them for her, earning a sweet, gentle smile from Tessa. Jonas wondered if this might be the right moment to tell her that Damon was more than his roommate and he\'d actually said it aloud, but the wind blew strong at just the same time and nobody, not even Jonas himself heard him say it.

His mother had a Friends of the Library meeting that afternoon, so she left a little after that, but not before telling Jonas that he and Damon could have the guestroom- the one with the double bed in it, if they wanted. Then she\'d winked at him- his mother had winked- at him- conspiratorially- as she told him to sleep with his boyfriend under her roof- it was surreal. She knew- she\'d guessed who Damon was to him and, okay, maybe not that big a leap, but she obviously approved of his choice and was maybe even giving tacit approval for them to have sex in her house. Jonas was sure that if he\'d been straight and had brought his girlfriend home with him, there was no way she\'d have giving them the guestroom and winked at him.

After they put a load of laundry in the wash, Damon pushed Jonas up against the machine and kissed him like the world championship was on the line. Jonas spent about thirty seconds freaking out that they were kissing in the same place where his mother washed what she called her \"unmentionables\" before losing interest in caring about anything but what Damon\'s hand was getting up to down there. Damon already had Jonas\' fly open and was pushing his big, warm hand against Jonas\' growing erection, rubbing the thicker material of the front seam back and forth across it, making the skin a little scuffed and extra sensitive. It was the good kind of good and Jonas leaned into it, moaning.

The fact that they\'d been having a lot of sex for the last three weeks theoretically should have made Jonas able to last longer, but he found it was all on Damon. Damon could make him wait, using slow torturous motions and squeezing him tight at the base of his cock at just the right moment to stave off orgasm or Damon could make him come spurting in just a few seconds by pulling him fast and hard, fondling his balls, pushing on that really good spot just behind them and biting Jonas on the neck at the same time- that was lightening.

This time, Damon opted for fast, bringing him off in minutes before smoothly pushing Jonas to his knees and getting a good grip on his hair. That had gone fast, too- also Damon\'s doing- he liked to be in control and Jonas had found he liked giving it up, so having Damon pull his hair and fuck his face as he leaned against the vibrations of the wash cycle in his mother\'s basement was exquisite.

***

After the naughty basement fun time, Damon had been restless, so they waited long enough to put the wet clothes in the dryer and start another load in the washer, and then they walked down to the neighborhood park. Jonas wasn\'t surprised to see the usual Saturday pick-up baseball game going and some of the players called hello to him. They stopped to watch and Jonas explained the game to his roommate, while Damon commented on which of the players looked most fuckable. It felt really dirty because Jonas was pretty sure that all of them were straight- of course, there wasn\'t one of them Jonas himself hadn\'t jerked off thinking about, but that was different, that wasn\'t out loud and that had been before he\'d come out, too- so it somehow seemed less real. Damon had no shame and Jonas would have wondered what that felt like, except he\'d sucked off his boyfriend in his mother\'s laundry room something like an hour earlier, so he didn\'t have to wonder, much.

During the next inning, Tommy Laradino, who was nowhere near as big of an asshole his older brother Jimmy was, got beaned and went home for ice, so Jonas was called in to replace him at centerfield. He almost refused, not wanting to leave Damon feeling abandoned, but Damon had insisted he play, saying he wanted to see Jonas get all sweaty and dirt covered, which was a convincing argument. It felt good to play again. He missed baseball whenever he wasn\'t playing. He was still hoping to go out for the Kansas State team in the spring. It was a good afternoon, followed by a relaxed family dinner with Jonas\' mother. The trip home was going so much better than Jonas expected- it made him nervous.