Chapter 3 Chris Donovan vs. Shane Lewis: There's no love like the first...Memory Lane!

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Chris nodded, his eyes still riveted on Shane's seat. His heart was pounding so hard, he thought he might probably be coming down with a heart condition. Chris couldn't believe he'd actually seen Nicolas Lewis after all these years. He'd never connected that Shane Lewis was the same as Nicolas Lewis. He'd looked different...bigger than the last time he'd seen him, but there was no mistaking that face, those eyes...that had been his Nick. He would know that face anywhere.

"Chris?"

"Yes." Chris' voice was barely audible. "Yes, I knew him personally."

"Okay," Damon said, looking at Chris. "How long ago was that?"

Chris shrugged. "Fifteen years, four months, six days...and some hours," Chris said quietly, making Damon whistle.

"You mean you've been keeping all this in your head?" Damon asked incredulously.

Chris gave a short bitter laugh, still not turning to look at Damon. "I calculated that during the meeting."

"Thanks a bunch, dude. Instead of listening and contributing to what was being discussed, you chose to calculate the last time you saw some billionaire hunk." Damon chuckled. "So tell me...what's up with the two of you?"

"I knew him when we were both kids, Damon." Chris took a deep breath and plunged on. "My dad took my stepmother and I to his country home for summer vacation. It was the best vacation of my life. Not because the countryside was beautiful, or because I was virtually always left on my own the whole time so could therefore do whatever I wanted. It was because Nick was there."

"Who's..."

"Shane," Chris said quietly. "He was Nicolas Lewis then. His mother was our housekeeper. She was...she was the mother I never had, Damon. My dad and stepmom were virtually always out. Only God knew where they usually disappeared to. But I didn't care because I had Nick. We had a lot of fun together. In fact, so much fun that I never wanted to leave the place. His father had died some years earlier together with Nick's...Shane's elder brother in a car crash so all he had was his mother. There was so much love between mother and son it was beautiful to watch. But Auntie Sylvia never once made me feel like my own mother wasn't around." Chris' own mother had died moments after giving birth to him. "She showered me with so much love I thought I was in heaven." Chris paused and shook his head sadly. God knew his stepmother didn't have that time and love for him.

"Nick and I...we were like Siamese twins. We went everywhere and did everything together. We even slept in my bed at night." Chris gave a humourless laugh. "We would play dominos till the wee hours of the morning. I taught him to play but he was so smart he started beating me at my own game. I was so impressed with his intelligence and skill, I gave him the dominos as a gift. He cried." Chris grimaced. "He was that grateful for the gift." Chris went quiet for a while but Damon didn't say anything. He wanted Chris to tell him at his own pace.

"I would draw him." Chris' voice was barely above a whisper. "I loved to draw even then so I drew lots of pictures of him." Damon nodded even though Chris couldn't see him. He knew Chris' hobby was drawing. "He would make funny poses for me to draw. I've never had as much fun drawing anything as I did drawing him. He was...beautiful. As fate would have it, we fell for each other. I fell so hard that the mere thought of going our separate ways after the vacation was unbearable. I wanted to share everything I had with him. You see, I was bigger and richer...thanks to my wealthy father, so though I was the same age as him, I thought he was my responsibility. He was so small and so damn handsome." Chris gave his first real smile since he saw Shane at the meeting. "No one knew how we felt about each other. He was my world. Then it happened. One evening, we were in my room watching a movie. 'Endless Love.' I'll never forget that movie. We...we started making out. We had never done anything like that before. Maybe the film got to us but...it just happened. Then he started touching me. God, it felt so good. I knew I should stop him but I just couldn't. Then he...he went down on me. I was just a kid, Damon." Chris' voice broke. He went quiet for a while to compose himself before he continued.

"I'd never felt anything so exquisite in my life. When I came, he didn't even get off my cock. He licked me clean. It was..." Chris shook his head slowly, obviously lost in pleasurable memories. "One moment, I was feeling an overwhelming pleasure and love for him, the next, I was feeling so disgusted. I couldn't believe I'd actually allowed a guy to do that to me. It's not like I had a girlfriend somewhere or had ever gotten intimate with a girl. I just felt that no matter how pleasurable what had happened was, it wasn't right. I'd heard my dad say enough hate words about homosexuals to know I was probably going to burn in hell for what I'd allowed Nick to do to me. I panicked, Damon. I... Fuck!" Chris swore and banged his fist on the table so hard some papers flew onto the floor.

"What did you do, Chris?" Damon's voice sounded strained even to his own ears. And when Chris finally turned his eyes onto Damon, there was so much self-loathing in his eyes Damon dreaded what Chris was about to say next.

"I beat him to a pulp!"

"Fuck!"