John and Peter - Chapter 1

My name is John Maynard. My father’s name is also John Maynard. But because our middle names are different, I am not a junior. My father, in his own way has always been an important person in our community, and so all through my high school years I’ve wanted to be the same. I didn’t want to be mayor or governor, or anything like that. But I always wanted to be someone who made a meaningful difference to those around me. But upon graduating high school, college just didn’t seem right for me. So I opted to stay home, live with my parents, and attend a nearby community college. But because I still wanted to make a difference in the world, I was a serious student while taking classes in math, science, mechanical drawing, mechanical engineering, and in renewable energy. In the end, that all added up to an Associate’s in Art degree in mechanical science with certificates in renewable energy.

After earning those limited credentials I had no idea as to how I could use them to land a decent job. Then one day I read a help wanted ad in our local paper. The ad offered employment in several different areas while working for a company called, W.S.R.E.C., or the Wind Source Renewable Energy Company, a sub-contractor to California’s P.G.&E. which is more broadly known as the Pacific Gas and Electric Company.

Even though I had never heard of Wind Source, I took and past their written exam, and then a physical agility’s test. And once I past those tests I was told to report to a medical clinic for a full physical. I thought that was a lot of scrutiny just to work for a renewable energy company, but after I was actually hired by Wind Source, I understood, because, instead of getting some office or warehouse job, I was immediately assigned to a wind turbine maintenance crew, a job that required me to climb vertical ladders and work in very high places under dangerous conditions.

Wind Source’s main workhorse at that time was the 1.5 megawatt turbine generator system, built by the Westinghouse Corporation. Westinghouse not only built the generator, its spin-up drive train, and all of the associated controls that made the whole thing work, but they also supplied its tower and turbine blades. And so all of our turbine generators were exactly the same.

Each generator was mounted in a streamlined housing called a nacelle. And the nacelles were all mounted atop a 212 foot tall tubular tower, and were only accessible by climbing a succession of two 80 foot vertical ladders, and then a final 52 foot ladder that were all permanently mounted to the inside of the turbine’s tubular tower. The nacelles were big enough, and was built around the generator in such a way that you could stand up in them and walk around the generator, its drive train, as well as all of its associated controls and positioning equipment.

The only reason I mention this information now, is because it lays a foundation that allows me to tell you that even though I’ve always considered myself to be as brave as the next guy, this was a very scary job for me. And even though I felt lucky to have landed such a position right out of community college, I often felt an all but paralyzing fear and anxiety while preforming my daily tasks.

Although I didn’t realize the importance of the fact that Wind Source was a new and growing company when I was first hired, that fact also comes into play in this story. Because not only was Wind Source a new company, but all of its employees were also knew, and so no one had any real seniority on anyone else, and so promotional opportunities that weren’t possible with our parent company, were quite possible with Wind Source. But more on that later.

My first assignment was to a crew of four men whose job it was to perform scheduled maintenance on the actual generator and its associated equipment. A job that required me climb 212 feet of ladder every time I serviced one of the company’s generators. It was a job that had me regularly fighting my fear of heights, a fear I fought while hoping I would eventually get used to working so high above the ground. A fear I fought because I thought I would probably be doing such work for the rest of my life. But in less than a year even that was not to be as my life would change yet again, and in the very unexpected way.

Those unexpected changes began to unfold, because one of the maintenance services I was hired to perform, was to change the gear oil in the generator’s drive train. Wind Source was using Westinghouse’s proprietary lubricants, and when I suggested to our foreman that we could switch to Petro-Canada’s Harnex 320, a full synthetic oil that was specifically designed for turbin spin-up gearboxes for half the price, he simply brushed my suggestion off with a smirk and a laugh.

Now this isn’t at all like me, but I decided not to accept my foreman’s out of hand rejection of my idea, and so I decided to send my suggestion to our corporate office. As it turned out, someone at corporate not only liked my suggestion, but also appreciated my initiative. As a result, Wind Power not only changed gear oil, but three weeks later I was promoted to foreman myself.

That promotion came with a sizable pay raise, but it also required that I be transferred to a new wind farm in the far north of the state of California. Although I was put in charge of my own maintenance crew, it was a small team of only three men, plus myself. I was what Wind Source referred to as a working foreman, and so my actual day to day duties hardly changed. I was still climbing the 212 feet of ladder to service our generators. And I was still changing gear oil in their spin-up gear boxes, albeit Petro-Canada’s Harnex 320 full synthetic.

Now all of that information brings us to the real start of this story. Because about three months after I had been promoted to foreman, and had moved almost 400 miles from my parent’s home, I woke up one Monday morning feeling kind of out of sorts. But being freshly promoted to foreman, I trudged off to work as I wanted to set an example for my crew, and be seen by Wind Source as a reliable employee. Once at the wind farm I assigned my three employees their generators, and then I climbed the fourth.

Unfortunately, I got sicker and sicker the higher I climbed. At first I thought my sickness might be connected to my fear of heights, and so I tried to put it out of my mind. But by the time I got up to the nacelle, I was about to pass out, and so I knew that my fear of heights wasn’t my problem. At first I tried to recover by laying down on the nacelle’s cold diamond plate floor in hopes my symptoms might pass. But when they didn’t, I was forced to call my most experienced crewman on my walkie-talkie, and tell him I was sick, and so would need help getting down from the nacelle.

Soon, (almost a half hour later) all three of my men were in the nacelle with me. I had vomited twice by that time, and was so sick that I knew I wasn’t going to be much help in getting myself back down to the ground. My senior crewmen then decided to call 911 on his cell phone, and about twenty minutes later the local fire department showed up with a fire engine, a 100 foot aerial ladder truck, and a crew of six men. The pumping engine and ladder truck turned out to be no use. But their crew assessed the situation and decided to strap me into their Stokes litter, and then lower me down to the ground through the center of the tubular tower by use of the tower’s electric tool hoist. It was a slow process with my maintenance crewmen and the fire fighters guiding and stabilizing the Stokes litter as it was lowered to the ground. Getting the Stokes litter up to the nacelle, and then lowering me in it took another twenty to thirty minutes, and my ride to the hospital in an ambulance took several more minutes.

All in all, almost two hours had passed from the time that I knew I was too sick to perform my duties, to my arrival at the hospital. That would have been okay had I had the flu or some other bug, but immediately upon being placed in the ambulance, it was determined that I was suffering from a ruptured appendix. And because it had taken so long to get me down from the nacelle, my transport to the hospital was with flashing lights and siren.

To tell you the truth, I don’t remember a lot of what happened once I had been placed in the Stokes litter. But I was told that I was taken directly into emergency surgery upon my arrival at the hospital, and that the on-duty surgeons determined that peritonitis had already set in before they were able to make their first incision.

After my surgery, all I truly remember is being sick, and I mean really sick for several days. I not only suffered great abdominal pain, but terrible headaches and nausea. Other than being real sick, the only other things I remembered from that time was the puss that continued to drain out of my body through small plastic tubes that passed through my surgical wound, and a beautiful boy who came to my bed every morning to give me an enema.

You may think those were strange things to recall, but the puss was gross, and the beautiful boy was truly beautiful. He was always nice and gentle as he prepared my anus and rectum, as well as while administering my enemas. But more importantly, everything he did to me seemed so sensually erotic, that even though I was quite sick I got an erection every time he came to my bed. Of course I was totally embarrassed by that fact, and so glad that I was in a private room. I also didn’t understand it because I had hated enemas from the time I was a small boy, mainly because I found the whole process to be unbearably embarrassing and humiliating.

The same was true for the enemas that beautiful boy was giving me. Actually, even more so because I couldn’t help thinking they were so erotic because he was purposefully making them so. In fact, he was so good at turning me on, that after two or three days, even though I was still pretty sick, I remember being aware of the fact that my cock would start to erect the instant I saw him enter my room with an enema bag. And even though that greatly embarrassed me, I could feel my anus and rectum yearning for his attentions.

The boy, who turned out not to be a nurse, but a California Nursing Assistant by the name of Peter Benson. When I think about it, I don’t know why I describe Peter as a boy as he was only a year younger than myself. Even though there was no way Peter could have missed the fact that I became erect every time he came to my bed. I felt fortunate that he never mentioned that fact, even when a few days later he began to stop by my room for a friendly visit after he got off duty.

Peter and I never talked about anything sexual, and in particular the erections I got during my morning enemas. Instead we talked about such things as the weather, our jobs, and my getting well. Peter not only seemed friendly, but he seemed to be a genuinely caring and attentive person who was particularly interested in me, something that meant a lot to me as I was so far from home. And because I found him to be so sexually attractive, I was also interested in him.

Even though I was still trying to avoid and even deny my homosexual interests in other men and boys, I knew that I found Peter to not only be beautiful as previously mentioned, but indescribably cute in both his personality and physical appearance, and so I not only wanted to know him better, but to be his friend. And judging from our conversations, I felt that he felt the same way about me. The only impediment to our developing friendship, was the fact that I knew that he knew that I got hard-ons from the enemas he was still giving me every morning, an embarrassing fact that I was in no way even close to facing.

Because of the peritoneal infection that had been caused by the bursting of my appendix before it could be removed, it was 12 days before my leaving the hospital was even considered. And because I had no wife or family in the area who could help care for me, I was told that I would most likely be released to a convalescent hospital. Of course I didn’t like that idea one bit, and so I told Peter about that possibility when he stopped by after his shift. He was quiet for a few seconds, and then said, “I’ve got some vacation and comp time on the books, so if you’d like, I could take care of you.”

I smiled, and thanked him for his generous offer, but told him that I thought my medical insurance would pay for the convalescent hospital, but that I doubted it would go so far as to pay for a private nurse. I thought that would be the end of that conversation, but then Peter surprised me by saying, “That’s okay, I’ll do it for free.”

I was touched by his offer, but said, “I can’t ask you to spend your vacation tending to me. That just wouldn’t be right.”

“Oh, but you could.” Peter said, “Please, John, I really want to do this.”

“But why, you hardly know me?” I said.

That statement brought a sudden sad expression to Peter’s face. The room went silent as he focused his eyes on mine, and said, “But I thought we were becoming friends. In fact, I’ve been feeling closer to you than all of my other friends put together, and I thought you felt the same way about me. The thing is, I really like you, and so I want to help you any way I can. Please, John, let me do this for you. Besides, I’m pretty sure you’ll be needing morning enemas for several more days, and I don’t think you’ll like having some fat old convalescent hospital nurses giving them to you.”

I couldn’t believe he spoke those words, and so I just looked at him as if I were seeing him for the first time. That was a moment that was very uncomfortable for me as it was also a moment where I felt pressure to admit a sexual awareness I wasn’t quite ready to face. Finally I gestured for Peter to lean in close so I could quietly ask, “Do you like giving me enemas?”

And without hesitation, he answered, “I love giving you enemas.” And then he leaned in even closer, and said, “I think you are the sexiest guy I’ve ever met. But to me you’re most beautiful when you have an enema hose up you sexy butt. That’s why I hate the idea of someone else giving you your enemas. I feel like that’s my job, and I want to keep it that way. I want to be the only person to do such things to you from now on.”

I really liked Peter, but that response only added to my identity crises. I wanted to say YES to his offer, but I felt as if our conversation had already brought me to the brink of admitting I was gay. Even though I was very aware that I often had gay thoughts and feelings for other men and boys, I wasn’t ready to admit that I was actually gay, not to myself, and certainly not to Peter.

Unfortunately, when I didn’t respond quickly enough to Peter’s offer, his facial expression quickly changed from a dimpled smile to that of hurt and disappointment, and maybe even humiliation and embarrassment. So I wasn’t all that surprised when, without warning, he turned away from me, and left my room with no further words.