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| Part 2 |
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| First thing the next morning I am up and out of bed and out the door beforemy father leaves for work. I am standing at the kitchen counter eating apiece of dry toast over the sink when my mother walks in wearing her gauzysummer robe. "Well, this is a surprise. I haven't seen you up this earlyall summer. Feeling better?" "Yeah. Better. I was hungry." "Well I guess so. You didn't have any dinner. Want me to make you someeggs?" "No. This toast is fine. I gotta go." "Where are you going at this hour? You're not working this morning at thedrugstore are you?" "No. I'm going out." "Out?" "Out." And I am gone, before I can see my Dad. I don't want to discuss last night.The screen door slams behind me as my mom calls out "Will you be back forlunch?" "I don't know. Maybe." I am halfway across the lawn when I answer, and Idoubt she can hear me. The morning air is thick with moisture. It is goingto be another sticky day. I want to run over to Joey's house, but I don'twant to be soaking wet when I get there, so I force myself to walk. Therise and fall of the cicadas' raspy whine is already making a terribleracket. I haven't slept, and the heat and the humidity and the noise makeme feel as if I am walking in a waking dream. I feel as if I might say ordo almost anything. I am acutely aware of the things around me-the heavyfoliage of the chestnut trees and the sun reflecting off of the windshieldsof the parked cars-but I feel strangely disconnected from my body. I moveforward through the heavy morning mist by sheer act of will, and my bodyfollows, almost reluctantly. I rap my knuckles three times hard and fast on the wooden frame of thescreen door of Joey's house. Mrs. Mayfield answers the door. She isalready dressed for work in her brown denim work overalls and she has herhair tied back with a plain blue cotton scarf. "Peter Scoffield! How nice to see you! Where have you been? I guess youheard about Joey! Come in." The sound of her rapid-fire staccato speech isfamiliar and makes me smile. She doesn't leave room for me to answer thequestion about where I have been, and she doesn't expect or even want ananswer. "Such a terrible thing. He's so frustrated and angry, you can't imagine.We were at the hospital till all hours of the night last night. Poor Joey.He was in quite a bit of pain. Mr. Hess himself drove over here to tell meabout it and drove me straight to the hospital. They wouldn't see him untilI got there because he's not eighteen yet. Two weeks and he will be forgoodness' sake. He was just lying there on a stretcher in the hallway. Hewas real quiet, and pale, and kind of gripping the edge of the stretcher.All he would say to me was 'I busted my ankle ma. It's broken.' Over andover again. And then when they set the bones, you should have heard himholler. I think everybody in the whole hospital could hear him. And thenwhen Doctor Ryan told him he had to stay off it for six weeks? I thought hewould hit the roof. I don't know what we're going to do for money thissummer. He can't work at Hess'. He can't pump gas with those crutches andthat big cast on his foot. And he can't play baseball. He's fit to betied, let me tell you. When we got home last night he was so mad. I justhope he's going to be O.K. You know baseball means everything to him. Iwanted to take him on in to Cleveland to see an orthopedist, but coach Haneysaid Doctor Ryan had been setting broken ankles for years. Doctor Ryan saidit was a pretty clean break. Six weeks in a cast and he should be allright. I think it's going to be a long summer Peter." We are standing in her kitchen at this point. She has stopped, momentarily,to sip her coffee. "Would you like some coffee?" she offers. "No, thanks, I've had breakfast. I just came over to see Joey, to see howhe was." "You are such a nice boy Peter Scoffield. I've always said that. Joey'sstill sleeping. Finally. We were up half the night. And he couldn't sleepwhen we got home. What with that cast and all he couldn't get comfortable.I put the fan in there for him. I want to let him sleep, but you can wait.I know he'd be happy to see you. I have to run to work-going to be late asit is. Make yourself at home Peter. Listen, you call me at work if heneeds me. He'll never call me. O.K honey?" Uncharacteristically shekisses the top of my head and then she is out the door and suddenly I amalone in the Mayfield's tiny kitchen. I am enjoying the sudden quiet, and the feeling of being in the house whereJoey is sleeping. This is where Joey and I used to sit after school,drinking coke. I stare at the familiar swirls of black and pale yellow onthe red linoleum floor. Mrs. Mayfield has a collection of tiny salt andpepper shakers in a cabinet with glass doors at the end of the counter. Thered gingham curtains hang stiffly over the small kitchen window that looksout at the red maple in the front yard. The house is a flattened outMidwestern version of a small New England cape. Besides the kitchen and asmall sitting room in the front, there are two small bedrooms in the back,separated by a bathroom. Joey sleeps in the bedroom on the right. There isan attic I have been in, with stairs that lead up to it from a door in thefront sitting room. It is filled with boxes and trunks and dust-mostly Mr.Mayfield's clothes, and Joey's 4-H trophies. His mother's wedding dresshangs from a nail in a rafter in a big zippered plastic bag. There is alsoa cool damp basement, with the laundry machines and a pantry with the fruitand vegetables that Mrs. Mayfield puts up every summer. Mr. Mayfield's shopis down there too, the large heavy planer, the big raspy metal files, andthe lines of ascending drill bits, all untouched for more than ten years. I get up and walk into the sitting room. There is a Davenport against thewall, and a small wooden rocker in the corner. There is one worn armchairwhere Mr. Mayfield used to sit, and a small oak desk with a drop leaf. Thesmall cubicle partitions inside the desk hold Mrs. Mayfield's bills andletters and stamps, and her small collection of US Savings Bonds. The bondsare for Joey. He wants to use them to buy a motorcycle. His mother wantshim to use them to go to college. Joey showed them to me one afternoon whenwe were talking about the Harley Davidson he wants to buy. From the sitting room I can see that Joey's bedroom door is pulled nearlyshut but is not latched. I have spent hours with Joey sitting in thatbedroom-reading comic books, reading Sports Illustrated, listening tobaseball games on the radio, doing my homework, doing his homework. Thatbedroom is where we listened to the seventh game of the World Series whenthose amazing Brooklyn Dodgers finally beat the Yankees. We whooped so loudat the end of that game that I thought for sure his mother would yell at us,saying we were giving her one of her headaches, but when I looked over myshoulder she was just standing in the doorway of the bedroom smiling at us. I walk toward that bedroom door, and push it slowly open. The room is warm.The metal blinds are shut against the morning sun and it is hard to see inthe dim light until my eyes adjust. Joey is asleep on his back. His mouthis open and he snores lightly. His dark hair is matted back and sticks upoff his forehead. He is partly covered with a twisted white sheet. Onelarge hand rests on his chest. Joey's chin is stippled with dark coarsewhiskers-a two or three day growth. At the foot of the bed, Joey's rightankle is encased in plaster. The cast looks heavy, and bright white even inthe dim light of the darkened bedroom. His long toes stick up out of theend of the cast. Against the wall I see a pair of wooden crutches proppednext to him within easy reach. The cast rests on a pillow, as his headdoes, so his hips bend slightly down in the middle, his body forming ashallow v. I cross the small room slowly and sit down quietly at the wooden chair infront of Joey's desk. The room smells of Joey. I can smell his shoes andhis sheets and even his breath in the warm still room. The fan his motherbrought him sits by the window, its metal blades unmoving. I watch Joey'shand rise and fall with his chest as he breathes. Joey has dark hair on hischest, and on his legs. There are even long black hairs on the toes thatstick up from the end of the cast. As I sit watching him his toes jerk onceinvoluntarily, but otherwise he remains motionless. I have seen Joeysleeping before. I know that under the sheets he is wearing white Jockeyundershorts. He has spent the night at my house, sleeping on the twin bed across the roomfrom mine. When my parents went away in March, to the MLA meeting in Chicago, they saidhe could stay with me. I was sixteen and he was seventeen. It was thefirst time that my parents let me stay for three days like that without asitter to stay overnight with me. Our parents agreed that Joey and I couldlook out after each other for three days. The Mayfields didn't have anextra bed, so there was no room for me to stay with them in their house. Those three days at my house-that's when it started. That's when I firstknew for sure that I was in love with Joey. Going to sleep in the same roomwith him, waking up in the bed across from him, having breakfast together,walking to school together, doing our homework on the kitchen table togetherat night, with nobody looking over our shoulders-it felt like the best threedays of my life. We were supposed to take our evening meal with Mrs.Mayfield every night, but one night I convinced her that I could make dinnerat my house for the two of us. She told us to call her if the house burneddown. I made hot dogs and baked beans out of a can and bought some cabbagesalad at the market on the way home. Joey got one of the mechanics at thegarage to buy him four bottles of beer. I made root beer floats for desert.It felt very grown up, making dinner and having the house to ourselves. Thebeer made me giddy, and I longed to touch Joey. Standing beside him at thesink doing dishes after dinner I almost put my arm around him, but shrunkback, afraid to ruin our perfect evening. I dared not hope he shared mydesire for the two of us to live together, in a house just like this,forever and ever. That was the night we started jerking off together. We were both in bed,reading. I was lying on my stomach, a textbook open on my pillow. I keptlooking up from the page I was reading to look over at Joey. He was lyingon his back, wearing just his Jockey shorts, his book resting on his chest.It happened without my planning it. Joey's hand traveled absently down tohis crotch. He slid his fingers under the elastic waistband of his shortsand cupped his balls. I pushed my own hard-on down into the mattress.Reading had become impossible. I could see that Joey was fingering hispecker, and it seemed to me that it was starting to stiffen. I wanted to beable to touch my own hard cock. I took a deep breath and rolled over ontomy back, closing my book loudly and with a heavy sigh so that Joey wouldlook over at me. My own erection was clearly visible poking up through myunderwear. "I just don't feel like reading any more history tonight." Joey turned his head. "That's some boner you've got there pal," he saidsmiling. I moved my hand down over the bulge in my underwear and grabbed my hard cockthrough the white cotton. "I guess I got other things on my mind besidesstudying," I said grinning back at him. My heart was racing. "I can see that. If that's what two beers done to you we'd best keep you onthe wagon. Ain't a girl in town be safe when you're drinking." He pulledhis hand out of his underwear, clearly revealing his own hard cockstretching the material of his underwear in front. "But I know what youmean about having other things on your mind besides studying." He startedto rub his hard cock through his underwear. "This fella here has a mind ofhis own." I followed his lead, and started stroking my cock through my white cottonshorts. "This one too," I smiled. "He's always looking for attention." "The more attention the better." He slipped the elastic waistband of hisunderwear up over his cock and hooked it down under his balls, revealing hisnaked cock, its round red head straining. "Yours looks like he could use some company," I fumbled, pulling my cockfree of my underwear. From across the short divide between our two beds itlooked to me like my cock was longer than his, but thinner. Joey had a wideflat cock that he wrapped his large hand around. He spit on his palm andgreased his head with saliva. Again I followed suit, making my cock slickin my hand. There was no more talking as we both jerked our cocks, watchingeach other. I could hear little gurgling grunts coming from Joey's throat.It didn't take very long before we were both shooting up onto our bellies.I shot first and then Joey shot right after, spitting out a tight, clipped"oh, oh, oh" as he pumped himself dry. We both laughed, throwing our headback onto the pillows. "Study hard," he whispered from his side of the bed. I threw him myundershirt from the foot of my bed to clean himself off with. I didn't wanthim to get his goo all over the sheets for my mother to find. I kicked myshorts all the way off and wiped my belly clean with them. I got up,completely naked now, and he handed me the wadded up T-shirt. I stuffed myshorts and the shirt into the hamper and walked across the room to shut offthe light. It felt good to be walking naked in front of Joey. He watchedme cross the room in front of him without saying anything more. I shut outthe light and climbed back into my bed. I felt like I was glowing, like myheart was on fire. From across the darkened room Joey giggled "no more beer for you." "No more for you either," I answered. And then, after a silence I added "Iguess I don't need a beer to feel like that." There was another silence inthe room. Finally he answered. "No. Me neither." "Good-night Joey." "Night Pete. Thanks for dinner." "Sure." And that's how it started. After that, pretty much every time we were alonetogether, which was usually at his house after school, before his mothercame home from work, we'd end up jerking off together. Sometimes he wouldstart it. More often I would. It would usually start with one of us saying"I wish we had us some beer," and the other one answering "I guess we don'tneed no beer." Sometimes we'd be in his room studying, or reading comicbooks, and I would just start rubbing my crotch. Pretty soon he'd berubbing his and next thing you knew, we'd both have our cocks out strokingto beat the band. Sometimes he would just reach into his pants and startplaying with himself. One look at his hand down his pants was all it tookfor me to stiffen up. I'd pop the buttons on my jeans and we'd both be off. Now here I am sitting in that same bedroom watching Joey sleep with hisankle in a cast. I know that when he wakes up he will have an erection. Healways wakes up with a morning piss hard-on. I don't know if I should besitting here in his room when he wakes up, but I know I have no power toleave his room. I would like nothing more than to grab my dick and jerk-offwatching Joey sleep. I consider it, briefly, and my dick starts to hardenin my pants. The last thing in the world I want Joey to see when he wakesup is me with my dick in my hand. That's over. He made that clear. AllI'm hoping is that he won't throw me out of the house again the moment hesees me. I haven't been in his room since the last Sunday in April, the Sunday afterEaster. His mother was gone for the day, visiting her sister in Ashtabula.We were hanging out at his house, killing time. It was raining, and hismother had the car, so there wasn't anything much to do. We were smokingcigarettes out on his back stoop, under the awning, trying to stay out ofthe wet. I was restless, and randy, and bored. I was sitting on the stoopand Joey was standing in front of me. I stubbed my cigarette out in the canon the step and then for no particular reason, I pushed Joey backwards outinto the rain. The run-off from the awning soaked the back of his shirt.In a flash he was back on the stoop and pulling me up by the front of myshirt and the next thing I knew I was standing out in the rain. He ran intothe house laughing and I followed in hot pursuit. I caught him at the farend of the kitchen and tackled him onto the sitting room floor. Hestruggled to get up but I wrestled him down against the Davenport. He flunghis weight over on top of me and we rolled across the floor, our bodies andwet clothes locked together in mock combat. I could feel myself gettinghard from the contact with Joey's body. Without thinking I reached for hiscrotch and felt his dick hard through his jeans. "Feels like you need abeer to me," I taunted him. "I'll show you a beer!" Joey grabbed for my crotch and got his hand on thebulge of my cock through my jeans. It was the first time we had touchedeach other's peckers. My cock pulsed and jumped from the pressure of hishand. "Your clothes are wet," I whispered, squeezing his dick again through hisjeans. "So are yours man," he said, pushing his flat palm against my hard-on. I followed him into his bedroom where he was peeling off his wet T-shirt. Istepped out of my shoes and pulled off my wet jeans. He dropped his pantsdown to his ankles and stepped out of them. I pulled my shirt over my headand slid my underwear off, stepping naked toward the bed. Joey hesitatedand then pulled his shorts down as well. I pulled him down on top of me andthen wrestled myself around on top of him. Sitting on his thighs I wrappedmy hand around his hard cock and started stroking him. His eyes grewsuddenly big with fear, and then he seemed to relax, and his eyes closed.He didn't reach for my cock, but he started to roll his hips up off the bedas I stroked him. Instinctively I lowered my head and covered his cock withmy mouth. He froze his hips, startled. I moved my tongue and lips slowlyover his hard cock, and he slowly began to roll his hips again. Prettysoon Joey was caressing my head and pushing his cock deeper into my mouthand throat. I moved my mouth and hands faster and faster up and down hiscock, trying not to choke. Pretty soon Joey was grinding his hips up intomy face to meet my mouth. I started stroking my own cock, pumping myself asI was sucking Joey. Then we were both exploding, Joey coming in my mouth isbig spurts of salty jism, and me squirting ropy jets of cream over hischest. We were both laughing and screaming out of nervousness and physicalpleasure. I collapsed down onto him, my head resting on his chest, while mybreathing returned to normal. Somehow I expected him to put his hand on myhead. Instead he pushed me away. "Get up!" he growled. I thought I washurting his legs, or that he wanted to clean up the jism on his chest beforeit ran down onto the sheets, but instead he spit at me and yelled "get thefuck out of my house you filthy cock-sucker!" I thought he was joking. "Joey!" I teased. "All that without a beer." "Get the fuck out you fairy!" I was stunned. He was serious. I stumbledbackward trying to grab my clothes as I went. In the sitting room I pulledon my jeans and my wet T-shirt without any underwear. I ran out into therain, tears streaming down my face, not looking back to see if he waswatching me or following me. And that was the last time I was in Joey'sbedroom, until now. |
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