BROKEN

By Wes Leigh

 

This is a work of fiction intended solely for the entertainment of my readers; any resemblance to any real people or places is purely coincidental. Readers who would like to chat are encouraged to contact me at weston.leigh@protonmail.com.

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Chapter Nine

 

I wake up the next morning and feel a change in the weather. It's still cool, and the breeze blowing through the window makes me glad I have my warm cocoon underneath the heavy blankets, but I can tell that it's different today. The chill has left the air.

I toss the blankets aside and walk to the window. Goosebumps on my naked flesh!

I lean out the window and take a deep breath. The smell of garden soil, freshly turned and ready to be planted, rises up from below. I also smell something sweet and almost fruity. The yellow half-moon is rising in the east, shining just enough light on the side of the house for me to see that the honeysuckles next to my window have begun to bloom! That's what I'm smelling, and there's a faint whiff of moisture in the air too. It might rain later this morning, and not a teeth-chattering blast of ice-cold water pelting you while trying to do chores, but a warm Spring sprinkle that makes you want to dance and laugh and spin in circles while your body gets soaked. Springtime is finally here, and the grip of winter has been broken.

I see a faint purple glow on the horizon. Sunrise is still an hour away. It's time to get dressed and help Poppa and Carson with the morning chores. Then eat Momma's amazing breakfast. And it's my first morning working with Monty as a full-time horse trainer! No riding to school on the bus, no sitting at a desk next to stupid classmates, no PE, no showers, no jerks!

Change in the weather. Change in my life.

I can't wait to get started!

I turn and grab my jeans off the chair. I pull them on quickly and tuck myself in. Zip up and snap them shut. Grab a tee-shirt and work my arms into it. Ouch, just a little sore from the last workout, but not bad. I think I'm getting used to it. I dash out into the hall and beat Carson into the bathroom. I'm first to pee, and he stands at the door, leaning against the frame, scratching his belly. He watches me, waiting, and when I finish and move to the sink, he slides in next to me and pushes his underwear down. His big cock flops out and immediately starts hosing down the toilet. I look at his cock, then up at him. He's yawning. When he finally closes his mouth and opens his eyes, he sees me looking at him and grins at me. He tussles my hair gently, and I hug him from the side, pressing my face against his warm skin.

Is it weird to hug your mostly naked brother while he's pissing? Doesn't feel weird to me. Not anymore. I feel close to him, after all that's happened this week, and I like the change in our relationship.

Mattie is standing in the hall, impatiently waiting for her chance at the bathroom. No change there. She's still a nasty witch from the Dark Nebula.

I head downstairs and find Poppa hugging Momma from behind as she rolls out the biscuits. That's also not a change. They're always hugging each other. And stealing kisses. I grin and sneak up on them, then grab them both in a hug from the side. Momma squeals and Poppa chuckles. They both hug me back. Momma leans down to kiss me on the cheek. Poppa squeezes my arm and comments on how big my muscles are getting. He's silly. They haven't grown yet. I check every day, so I know, but it feels great that he's saying it.

Monty is sitting at the table, drinking coffee. That's a change. He usually has coffee out in the bunkhouse, but I guess he's feeling more like a part of the family now. I slide into the chair next to him and ask him what he has planned for the training today. He gives me a quick overview while he sips his coffee.

Carson comes clomping down the stairs, dressed for the morning chores. He swats me on the shoulder as he passes me, headed for the door. Poppa motions at me and Monty to come too, and the four of us walk out into the still, pre-dawn air to begin the day.

I'm out of grain for the chickens. The sack I've been using is nearly empty, and I need a new one. They're not light. About fifty pounds of dead weight, and I usually need Carson's help to pull a new sack out of storage. This morning, I try to wrestle it out on my own. Hey! I surprise myself by getting it down without any help! It's still bulky and hard to manage, and I can't yank it out and toss it over my shoulder like Carson can, but I'm able to pull a new bag off the stack and load it into a wheelbarrow, then wheel it out to the chicken house.

Carson notices. He starts heading my way, like he's going to help, then stops and stares when he realizes I've managed on my own. He gives me a thumb's up. I smile and wave and keep going. It's another change.

We finish the chores faster than usual. Monty is helping, so it doesn't take as long. Poppa thanks him. Carson claps him on the back. I give him a cowboy hug.

We men walk back to the house together for breakfast.

͠ ͠ ͠

It feels strange walking to the pasture next to Monty after breakfast instead of walking down the lane with Carson and Mattie to catch the bus.

I'm carrying the halters and lead ropes. Monty is carrying the lunge strap, an extra-long lead that we'll be using this morning.

The young horses see us coming. The fillies walk slowly towards us; they know the drill. The colts dance around, moving close, then running away. They're like this every morning. Goofy.

Monty and I slide the halters on the fillies and brush them down as their reward for coming in to start work. We ignore the colts. With both fillies haltered up, we snap regular leads in place and start walking them side by side. Then Monty clicks his tongue, the signal to trot, and tugs on the lead to get Misty to speed up. I do the same with Cinnamon, and we trot them down to the fence and stop them. We turn and head back, walking at first, then clicking our tongues as we tug them into a trot. It doesn't take long before the fillies are responding to our verbal commands and breaking into a slow trot the moment they hear the clicking noise.

"Time to add a canter," Monty says. While trotting, he gives a sharp hiss and takes off running. Misty's ears perk forward at the sound, and she breaks into a loping canter to keep up.

Horses have three gaits: walk, trot, and canter. Well, I guess there are other gaits too. Some people say a gallop is different from a canter, but I can't really tell. It just looks a lot faster to me. I should ask Monty to tell me the difference. And I've heard there are some breeds of horses that have special gaits they do, that look really different and amazing, but our horses are just good old quarter horses, and the only gaits we're interested in are walk, trot, and canter. Walking is nice and slow, and trotting can be slow or faster, but since we're leading the horses, we can't go all that fast. Cantering is hard to do when a horse is on a lead like this. It means Monty and I have to race along next to them to keep up. I'm sure glad Carson has been working on my legs to make them stronger.

For what we're teaching them this morning, the horses don't need their full speed. We just want them to get used to the sound of our voice commands. The fillies pick it up quick, moving into a trot or canter when they hear us click or hiss, dropping back down when we command them to walk or say, "Whoa."

The colts watch us working with Cinnamon and Misty. They're curious, and when it's their turn, they come over and let us halter them up. They're just as smart as the girls, but they're also ornery, so they try to get away with bites and misbehaving every now and then. Monty and I don't put up with it. We watch them closely and call them back in line every time, so eventually they give up the games and work with us. That's when we praise them and continue teaching them to follow our cues.

When we finish the training, we spend an hour grooming them. Brushing them down, scratching their backs and above their tails, loving on them.

The sun is well up now, and the day is warming. I can hear birds singing in the trees around the house, and every now and then the lowing of a cow whose calf has drifted too far from her side.

Monty is brushing Chance.

I'm grooming Misty.

"How do you like being off from school?" Monty asks.

Shrugging, I reply, "There are a lot of things I won't miss. Dealing with the assholes is one of them. But I like learning, and it's not going to be as much fun having to read everything out of the textbooks on my own."

"It's only for a few weeks, right?"

"Yeah. We were pretty much done in all my classes. The last month of the year is mostly review and taking the final exams. The last week is torture, because everyone wants the year to just END already. The teachers schedule a LOT of films that week."

Monty chuckles. "Hey, it wasn't that long ago for me. I remember what it's like."

I grin. "What's your last memory of school?"

Monty frowns, then wrinkles his brow and says, "I, uh, skipped my last year of school. Joined the army and headed off to boot camp."

"Why?"

He swallows hard, then says, "It felt like the best way to deal with everything that was going on in my life at the time."

I can see that Monty doesn't want to talk about it, so I ask, "How long were you in the army?"

"Four years. Spent some time in Florida, then a short tour in Germany, and when they asked me if I wanted to re-up, I said no. Worked in restaurants for a couple of years, then decided I wouldn't be happy until I got back to the life I left behind."

I'm doing the math in my head. He was probably 17 when he joined. Four years in the army. Two years as an unhappy waiter. That would make him 23? He looks younger than that, but that could be because I see him as my friend, not just another adult.

"Enough talk about me," Monty says, leaning across the colt's back. "Do you think these horses are ready to try lunging?"

"That's what I thought we were going to do this morning," I reply.

Monty nods. "I wasn't sure how quickly they'd pick up the gait commands, but they're coming along fast, so I think we're ready. Let's bring them up to the round pen and give it a try."

The horses all have their halters on, so we snap on the leads and walk them back up the lane to the stables and the round pen out back. We have one special corral where we train horses. It's round, about sixty feet across, with a tall, six-foot-high fence and soft sand inside. We'll be breaking the horses to saddle here, when they're ready, but for now, it's the perfect place to teach them to lunge. We can stand in the middle and teach the horses to run in a big circle around us, switching gaits on command, starting, stopping, changing direction. It's a good way to exercise a horse too, but for these two-year-olds, it's the next step in their education.

We take Misty into the round pen and put the other three into side stalls. Monty stands in the center, holding the end of the lunge strap. I start off walking next to Misty, keeping her out at the end of the lead. The filly wants to walk toward Monty, but I keep a hand on her halter to show her where we want her to walk. She picks it up quick, and soon I'm able to climb up and sit on the top rail of the corral while Monty takes the horse through her paces. She's fantastic.

Next up is Cinnamon. Monty and I switch places for Cinnamon. I'm in the middle of the corral, giving the commands. Monty is guiding her along until she understands what we're asking. Two down. Two to go.

Strangely enough, the colts aren't any trouble at all. I guess they've been watching the girls and figuring out what we want. They seem to enjoy working at the end of the lunge strap. One of them even kicks and farts while he's cantering.

It's getting close to noon, so we take some time to brush the horses down and turn them out onto the pasture again. Monty and I gather up all the gear and head into the barn to put it away.

He turns me to face him and places one hand on each of my shoulders. "That was a good morning, Truman. And a great training session. With you helping me, we'll have these horses saddled in no time."

I grin up at him. "Cowboy hug?" I ask.

When he nods, I slide into his arms, pressing my cheek against his warm chest, breathing in his scent, feeling his arms around me, holding me close. I'm not sure why I like hugging Monty like this, but it feels—I don't know—right, somehow.

͠ ͠ ͠

That afternoon, Momma has me sit down at the kitchen table and do schoolwork. Poppa and Monty take the tractor down to the river bottom and start clearing out brush for the new fields Poppa is planning to put in.

It doesn't take me long to finish my schoolwork. I'm beginning to see how much of my day is wasted on walking between classes, listening to morons ask stupid questions, and waiting for teachers to answer stupid questions.

I show Momma my finished homework. She rubs me on the back and thanks me for working so hard. I gather up my books and papers and take them all up to my room. Then I head outside.

I'm bored, so I head over the bunkhouse. Maybe I'll read Monty's book again. I know we need to start getting the horses accustomed to blankets and saddles next, but I can't remember if we do that before or after we teach them to wear bridles.

I scan through the chapter that talks about the next stage of training. The author writes that it's up to us to decide, depending on the animal's temperament. I should have guessed that.

I put the book back on the side table and look around. Monty's bed is sloppy. He didn't make it up this morning. The blankets are tossed back into place, and it's obvious he just rolled out of bed and left it pretty much unmade.

I walk over and pick up his pillow. I lift it to my nose and take a deep sniff. It smells like Monty. I love this smell.

I put the pillow back on the bed and lie face down. My nose is pressed into the pillow. My cock is pressed into the mattress. I feel myself getting hard, so I slowly thrust forward, enjoying the feeling of the bed pushing back against my cock. I groan and keep thrusting. I have to slide one hand inside my jeans and move stuff around to make it more comfortable. I pull my hand out and press Monty's pillow against my face while I begin humping the mattress faster. I'm really hard now, and it's beginning to feel tingly.

The bunkhouse door swings open. I roll over and suck in a breath. Monty is standing in the doorway, looking at me. There's no way I can explain this. I'm on his bed. I'm holding his pillow to my chest. My pants are tented out with a full-on boner.

I'm so, so dead.

͠ ͠ ͠

I quickly roll off Monty's bed on the far side and run into the bathroom at the back of the bunkhouse, slamming the door behind me. I slide to the floor with my back to the door, covering my ears with both hands. I can barely hear Monty on the other side of the door, calling my name, pleading with me to open the door, and now I'm gasping for breath, trying to stop the tears from flowing. How could I be so stupid? Why did I do that? Now Monty will hate me, and he'll tell my parents what I was doing. There's no way I can explain it. After what happened at school, everyone will think I encouraged Clayton to touch me with his cock. They'll believe his story now. They'll think I was staring at his cock and that I wanted him to fuck me in the shower and that I'm a stupid, broken gay boy who gets boners just from smelling Monty's pillow and imagining him hugging me in his bed and ...

I hear a soft voice, calling to me through the door. "Truman. I know you can hear me, and I'm going to sit here on the other side of this door until you come out. I'm not leaving until you do, even if we miss supper and breakfast too. And the horses are going to wonder where we are and when we're going to train them some more. But the entire world will just have to wait for us, because I ain't going nowhere until you come out and give me a big cowboy hug and talk to me."

I moan, "Why would you want a hug from a stupid, gay pervert like me?"

Monty doesn't answer right away. Then I hear: "Is that what you think you are?"

"What else do you call a boy who humps your bed while he's sniffing your pillow?"

I hear a soft chuckle. "I suppose I call him a normal, horny teenager."

I'm sure Monty can hear the disgust in my voice when I reply, "Horny maybe. Normal, not a chance. How can you say that was normal?"

"Would it change your mind if I told you I know another boy who did the very same thing, and who got caught just like you did?"

"Who?" I ask.

"It doesn't matter, Truman. You'll have to trust me when I say it's a very common thing for a teenager to do."

"It's still not right. Aren't you mad that I was humping your bed?"

"No. Not at all." Monty pauses. "You know ... it would be a lot easier to have this conversation with the door open."

"I can't look you in the face right now, Monty. It would be too embarrassing."

"Can we at least open the door? We can sit back-to-back, so you won't have to look me in the eye."

"Fine," I say, standing up and opening the door. Monty is sitting on the floor with his back to the door. He doesn't look around when I open the door, but waits for me to sit back down. I lean back against him. Our shoulders are touching. My head rests in the curve of his neck. I can feel his warmth, and for some reason, it calms me down.

"Is this okay?" Monty asks, gently.

I nod, and I know he can feel my head moving.

"Truman ..."

"What?"

"You called yourself a stupid gay pervert. We both know you aren't stupid. Far from it. You're one of the smartest kids I know."

"If I'm so smart, why did I do such a stupid thing and get caught at it?"

"Truman, what you did wasn't stupid, but it was careless. What if had been your dad or mom who walked into the bunkhouse?"

"They would have knocked first. They've always told us kids that the bunkhouse is like a stranger's house when we have hired hands living here. We have to be polite, knock, and wait to be invited inside."

"I see, so maybe it wasn't careless."

"Nah. It was. `Cause you're allowed to open the door and walk right in. It's your place. And I wasn't expecting you back so soon."

"So we can agree that it wasn't stupid, but it was a little careless?"

I sigh. "Sure. If you want to say that, but that's not important. It's still a super pervy stunt for a guy to pull, humping another guy's bed."

I can feel Monty nodding his head. "You wanna tell me why my bed made you feel so horny?"

"No, I don't want to tell you, actually."

"Don't you think you kinda owe it to me? After all, it was my bed you were trying to poke a hole through."

I giggle and he chuckles. Then I sigh and say, "I don't really know why, Monty. I was just stretched out there on your bed, and everything smelled like you. Your pillow. Your sheets. It was like we were in bed together, and my cock starting getting hard and rubbing against the mattress and ... it felt so good I kind of lost control."

Monty's voice is barely above a whisper. "Truman, are you gay?"

I whisper back, "I don't know, Monty. I think I might be. When Clayton's cock was bouncing around in his shorts, I thought it would fun to see him running naked. And when Mandy's butt was sticking out in front of us, I didn't care. I didn't want to see her naked. And when Clayton's cock touched me in the shower, it scared me, not because he was pushing his cock against my leg, but because I almost wanted him to do more."

I lean forward and wrap my arms around my knees, hugging them. The tears begin flowing again, trickling down my cheeks and soaking my legs. I moan and say, "I've been having these thoughts lately about all the boys. Lots of them, and I'm worried about what it means." I feel Monty get up behind me, then move next to me and wrap me in his arms, his strong, bulging arms. His chin is next to my ear. He's holding me and hugging me, and now he's crying too. His warm tears are falling on my neck.

"Monty ..."

"What is it, Truman?"

I have to say the words, to get them out while I can. "I am gay." There. I've said it, and it's actually a relief to admit it to someone.

Monty hugs me gently, then says, "Truman ..."

"Yes, Monty."

"It's okay, cowboy. I'm gay, too."

͠ ͠ ͠

"How long have you known?" I ask Monty. We're sitting on his bed now, facing each other. Monty dried my tears, and we both blew our noses, so at least we're not blubbering any more.

Monty thinks about my question and replies, "I guess I was your age when I realized that I liked boys, not girls."

"When you were living on your ranch in Montana?"

He nods. "Yep. And let me tell you, Truman, being a gay teenage cowboy isn't easy."

"Hey, being a gay teenage farmer isn't exactly easy either."

He smiles and bumps my foot with his foot. "Good point."

"Did your parents know?"

Shrugging, Monty replies, "Probably. My parents were pretty sharp. Kinda like yours. They noticed things, but they kept it to themselves. They wanted me to be happy, and they could see I wasn't chasing the girls very hard. I think most parents know, even if they don't talk to you about it."

I feel a touch of panic growing in my stomach. "Monty, do you think my parents know I'm gay?"

He thinks carefully. "Maybe," he concedes. "Like I said, your parents are sharp. They know how much Carson kisses his girlfriend on the bus."

I stop him with one hand on his knee. "They know about that?"

Grinning, he replies, "Sure do. Your father was talking to me about it a couple days ago."

"Are they mad?"

He chuckles. "Why would they be? It's normal for boys and girls to kiss."

I consider that and decide he's right. "I guess so, but how do they know? Is Mattie tattling?"

Monty shrugs. "No idea. Maybe they've talked to your bus driver or his girlfriend's parents. It's not important how they know. They know, and they're not upset. Why would they be, considering they aren't shocked about Mattie and what she does with the boys behind the barn?"

"WHAT? They know about that too?"

He nods. "They're keeping an eye on her and hoping she finds a steady boyfriend and settles down soon."

I shake my head in disbelief. "Wow. Mattie would have a cow if she knew that they knew." I pause and look at Monty. "What do they know about me?"

He gives me a serious look and answers, "They know you're a terrific kid who's finding out just exactly who he is, who's going through a difficult time in life, and who, despite the challenges he's facing, is still a terrific son and little brother. They don't know for certain that you are gay, but they will never stop loving you, no matter who you end up loving. That's how much they adore you." Monty isn't pulling my leg or buttering me up. He means what he just said. I can see it in his eyes.

I rub my face. I don't want to cry anymore.

I stand up and motion for Monty to stand up too.

"I could use that cowboy hug now," I say.

He wraps me in his arms. I press my face against his warm chest. He holds me, and doesn't let me go, even when my cock gets a little hard and starts poking him. I don't think it's a problem, `cause I feel something poking me back.

 

The end of BROKEN, Chapter Nine