My father was a twin. He and brother were not identical but they looked very similar. My dad passed away when I was 12. My mother passed when I was 16. I had always been close to my dad's twin, my Uncle Will, so I went to live with him when mother was gone.
Uncle Will got me through high school and helped pay for my college so I could get a degree in Mechanical Engineering. I spent four years away coming home only for Summers to work. Somewhere along the way, Uncle broke up with his girlfriend and is now living alone. He works some but it seems it's mostly for something to keep himself busy rather than any specific financial need.
##
"Let's take a drive, Samuel - there's someone I want you to meet." We hopped into Uncle Will's restored 1968 Ford pick-up truck that had belonged to my Grandfather. Classic Rock was all it seemed to play. The radio looked like the stock AM radio but the sound from the speakers was all modern day! He told me a little about his friend Samson as we drove. They've known each other for twenty years having worked at the factory together. My Uncle worked in a steel mill for twenty years before taking their early retirement. He's a burly man, 5'11" and 225 pounds of solid muscle I suspect. I'm still filling out at 195 though I have reached 6' tall.
We pull off the highway and rumble down a dirt road into the country outside of town. Uncle Will turns onto a gravel driveway with cows on one side and alfalfa fields on the other. At the end of the drive is a well-kept farmhouse with a covered porch on three sides. A large black man is standing on the porch as we park. He's holding a tall glass of sun-maid sweet tea I will soon learn. Uncle Will turns off the motor and we both hop out of the truck. I follow my Uncle towards the porch and Samson descends the steps to meet us in the drive. The two large men hug warmly as old friends do. Samson is jeans, boots and a wife-beater t-shirt is even bigger than my uncle.
When Samson shakes my hand with his own massive one, I get a sense of his size. He's easily 6'2" but a muscled 245 at least. His big smile is immediately disarming to anyone who receives it. "Damn, boy. You look like a young version of Will." Uncle Will reminds Samson that my dad is his twin brother. "That's right, I remember that now." He brings out a couple tall glasses of his sweet tea and we sit on the front porch. Uncle Will and Samson talk, tell stories and laugh repeatedly at what I'm guessing is stories they've recounted fifty times. I feel the Summer heat and enjoy the camaraderie of old friends.
After we've finished the tea, Samson offers to show me around his farm. In addition to the cows, he has chickens on the shady side of the house and a few horses out back. The old barn that could use a few repairs doubles as a machine shop, garage for his own classic GTO and stalls for the horses when the weather turns bad. All-in-all, Samson's property is seems a mighty nice place to call home. Samson and Uncle Will hug good-bye and Samson gives me a warm hug as well. Once more, I'm taken by his size and obvious muscled frame. The ride home with Uncle Will seems to take half the time it took to get there.
##
A couple nights later, I get home from work and find Uncle Will on the back porch grilling steaks. He tells me to grab a beer and bring out the vegetables on the counter. Spring is beginning to become Summer and the early evening hour finds the sun still high in the sky and the air quite warm. I take off my dress shirt from the office and join Uncle Will on the deck. The beer is cold and tastes good as I swallow. The vegetables sizzle in the pan as they feel the heat. Uncle Will turns over the steaks and takes a pull on his beer. "What did you think of Samson, Samuel?"
We talk a little about their work history and their friendship as we sit at the outdoor table having dinner. Each man has been married and divorced since they first met at the steel mill. They've even had a girlfriend in common with the lady living at Samson's after she and Uncle parted ways. After dinner is finished and I take care of the dishes, we find ourselves sitting on the porch in just shorts sipping on beers. "I'm so glad to hear your views on my old friend, Samuel. There's something I want to tell you ..." a long pause as Uncle takes a drink, "and I hope you'll be good with it." I take a look at Uncle as it sounds a bit ominous.
"Samson and I have a special friendship ... we sometimes get together for sex." He looked me straight in the eyes as he said it. No shame, just concern for our own relationship. I sat up and leaned forward on the chair before saying anything.
"Maybe a little surprising, Uncle, but it's cool if that makes you happy." Uncle Will exhaled deeply with my response and said he needed something a little stronger. He got up and walked into the house before returning with two tumblers of bourbon. I was standing at the deck rail looking across the lawn when he sidled up beside me and put a glass on the rail. "You know Uncle, in college, I spent time with women and men myself."
The big man beside me seemed surprised to hear my revelation. He had paid for my tuxedo take Emily to the Senior Prom five years earlier. Since I graduated and moved back home, I really hadn't gone on many dates or brought anyone around the house. Starting my career seemed to be the most important thing the last few months. "Samson is good looking man, Uncle," saying as I pictured these two large, muscled sixty year-old men in bed together. "And you both have so much history, I can completely understand it."
"Well thank you for being so open-minded, Samuel. I really wasn't sure how you'd feel - I mean, not knowing you have some experience yourself." He went on to tell me he'd been with men off-and-on for the last ten years. It was a couple years after his first homosexual experience that he and Samson got together for the first time.