The sun was so bright. It was hot. Rick turned over onto his side. He hated waking up with dank sweaty clothes on. He realized that he did not have any clothes on. It was just a dank sweaty sheet in which he was rolled. It was suffocatingly hot. Up until that point he had not realized that he was not home in his own room. His room was on the shaded side of the house and never got the morning sun and was never this hot. Lying beside him was his naked young lover. He was sprawled on his back with this obscene eight-inch cock sticking straight up in the air. Rick laughed to himself and thought that Asa should get a picture of this hard-on. Rick got out of the sheet with some difficulty. The damp cloth had twisted around his body. Finally, he too was lying on his back, but his slight little four and a half inch dick was standing just as tall and just as hard. Rick could not help think-that is my boyfriend lying there with that huge cock. We are going to be together for a long, long time and that cock belongs to me. He said that it did last night. The clock on the table by the bed said that it was eleven after eleven. Weird. Robert flung his arm out in his sleep and pulled Rick to him. He pulled him hard up against his body. Rick laid his head on his chest and breathed in the musky smell of teen boy. His already hard cock seemed to get even harder. He hated it, but he had to piss. Silently, in hopes that he would not awaken Robert, he slid out of the bed and headed for the bathroom. Just as he stood up to leave the room, Robert opened his eyes.
"Where do you think you are going?"
"I have to go to the bathroom."
"Not before you give me a kiss. You don't ever get up and leave me without a kiss. I won't ask much from you but there are two things I insist on. We kiss good morning, and we kiss good night. That way if we ever have an argument we have to settle it before we go to bed. You can't kiss somebody good night that you are mad at." He pulled Rick into a hug and kissed him on both cheeks and then the lips. It was not a passionate kiss. They both knew that they needed to brush their teeth or gargle or something.
"It sounds like you have it all planned out." Rick thought to himself that for a young boy, he sure has thought about all this an awful lot.
"I do."
Rick hurried out of the room and down the hall to the bathroom. He was still naked, but he hoped Robert was right when he said that his mother never came upstairs without announcing that she was coming. He was standing there pissing. It felt so good. Robert was right beside him. He had trouble holding it down and getting the piss to start. Rick finished and watched as Robert solved one of the problems of having a dick that large and taking the morning pisses to get rid of the piss-hard. Robert leaned with his left hand against the wall. This way he was leaning above the toilet and could use his right hand to pull his cock to the point that it was pointed directly down into the commode. At that point gravity took over. Rick stood transfixed as Robert emptied a long, hard flowing stream of yellow piss. He thought there were just one of the things that he was going to have to learn about his lover. They brushed their teeth quickly, washed their faces and returned to Robert's room.
Again Robert lay on his back on the bed. He patted the bed beside him and motioned for Rick to lay down with him. He did.
"This is nice, but don't you think that your mother is going to wonder what we are doing or why we are sleeping this late?"
"She's not like that. She never makes a todo out of when I sleep or don't sleep. She used to try, but finally gave up. I think she knows that I get enough sleep and that's all that matters to her. We'll make lunch. Come here."
Robert pulled Rick on top of him. Rick could feel his boyfriend's growing member against his naked stomach. His own cock hardening with the excitement of being loved by the wonderful boy. Rick though how much of a dream come true this really was. "Robert you know I have dreamed of us being like this."
"So have I. I just could never figure out how I was going to meet you in the first place. I think that it was fated that we get together, you know. I played this scenario out in my head over and over. I have jacked off so many times thinking of you, little man."
"Are you serious?"
"As a heart beat. Many, many times."
"I've jacked off thinking about you as well."
"You know that I have most of the rest of our lives planned out don't you? You will finish high school and go to community while I finish high school. Then we'll move to Columbia, and I'll work while you finish college. If I decide to go to college, I can do it once you are finished and working. You can pay for me to go. I already know what I want to do."
"What do you want to do?"
"I want to learn to be a good mechanic and something about agriculture. Whatever I do I want it to be with you. You are mine, and I am yours. Most people will not believe that we will be together that long. Most people will never understand how we love each other, but we do and we will be together for a long, long time. I love you, little man."
Rick felt the tears rising in his eyes. He thought of himself as a frustrated romantic. This boy was more than that. He was the true romantic. Robert Stanley was some thing of a gallant hero from a romance novel. Rick thought about what he had done with Asa last night. At first he thought that it was too much. The whipping on the boy's bare bottom. It had turned him on big time. He would have to ask Robert if he knew that Asa was going to get a hard-on when he gave him his bare bottom whipping. Rick had never thought of himself as a sadist, but he had enjoyed watching his muscled lover give it to his nemesis -- the boy that he had first experienced sex with -- Asa. After he considered what Robert had done, he saw that it was for Asa's on welfare and not some perverted fetish with Robert. Robert was probably the only one of the three that did not get an erection when he was whipping Asa. Then when he had the boys from the Elm Street Queers all fuck Asa, it was not so much a grudge fuck as it was a bonding. Asa had not been physically hurt so much as humiliated. His punishment had to be rather severe to get his attention. Rick thought that the fact that Asa had discovered why he was acting the way he had been acting was worth whatever they did. The fact he recognized that he was emulating his brother, Jared, was enough of a break through that Rick hoped and prayed that it would result in a major change in Asa, his attitude and the way he treated other people. He must know after last night that everyone wanted him to be a part of the gang. Even thought Rick lived on Central Avenue next to the High School, he felt that he was a part of the Elm Street Queers. He had only had sex with two boys who lived on Elm Street, Robert and Asa, but he felt apart of the gang after last night. They must have fallen back to sleep. He felt Robert shaking him. "Come on little man, I'm hungry." The two basic drives of hormone driven youth were taking over. A stiff dick and a hungry stomach. He could hear Robert's stomach growling as his ear was against his chest.
"I guess we better get you something to eat I hear a ferocious animal inside of you growling."
Robert swatted at his ass as he was bending over to listen. They both got out of the bed and into their shorts. "No underwear?" Robert asked.
"Oh, wait. I only had what I had on and I am sure they are crusty, but I better not after what happened last night. I would hate to have to explain how a slug got into the dinning room." They both laughed. They went down stairs like two good buds. Laughing. Joking.
Mom Stanley had fixed egg salad so that they could make their own sandwiches and there was also left over meatloaf for meatloaf sandwiches with Heinz 57 sauce dripping out off the bread and onto their fingers. Robert put his sauce-covered finger out for Rick to suck. Just as Rick was licking his finger in a very suggestive way Mrs. Stanley came back in to make sure that they had gotten out the left over jello salad. Rick turned as red as beet. Mrs. Stanley had no question in her mind that the two boys were lovers after seeing that display. She smiled to herself thinking that Rick was probably a very happy boy this morning if her son was as half as good as his father had been last night. Then she chided herself for thinking such wicked thoughts.
The boys ate. They drank iced tea. Rick only had one egg salad and one meatloaf sandwich. Robert ate at least three sandwiches, finished the jello salad from the night before and still had room to store a piece of coconut cake somewhere in there. They were full when they finished. Without being told, the two boys cleaned up after themselves. Mom Stanley was in the living room working on something that she was crocheting. You could hear the mocking birds in the magnolias in the yard next door. It was not quiet as hot as it had been the day before. The boys sat in the big swing on the front porch. Then they wandered around the side of the house toward the back yard. Rick heard someone calling.
"Hey, Robert, there's some calling from somewhere. I don't see anyone, but I hear them."
Robert grinned and told him to look up. Rick saw this woman. At first he thought that it was a ghost but then realized that it was the daytime. She was waving with a white handkerchief. She was calling all these people names and saying hello to them. Her hair was gray, and it was wild. It looked as though it had not been cut or combed in years. It stuck straight out all the way around her face. "That's Ms. Adda. You remember Mortimer. Mortimer Garland."
"Yeah. He graduated a couple of years ago, but I remember him. He was really smart and got a scholarship to some college up north."
"That's his mother. She has been up there since before I was born. She went off just after Mortimer was born. I can only tell you what my mother told me. When I was younger she used to tell me to wave to Ms. Adda and not to make fun of her. She explained that she was a sick woman who did strange things, but I was not to make fun of her for any reason. Then when I got older, she told me that after Mortimer was born, her husband ran off with the traveling Bible salesman. Ms Adda could not cope with it. She went off the deep end. All three of the Drs. Labore tried to work with her and got nowhere. Finally, her parents put her in the attic so that she can't hurt herself. They take her food and bring her down to bath her, but mainly she stays up there. The last Dr. Labore wanted to put her in an institution, but the family would not hear of it. They take care of their own." Rick was fascinated with the spectacle. She was calling all these names of people that he had never known. He kept waving to her. Robert was watching her and waving too. Finally, they heard her say, " I see you waving little Danny Plum. You are such a pretty boy. I am glad you found your friend."
"What did she say?"
Rick stood there with his mouth dropped open. "She thinks that I am my uncle who was killed in the war. I never knew him, but everyone in the family says that I look like a miniature version of him when he was my age. She thinks I am Uncle Daniel. They must be right that I look like him. He never married, and I have often wondered about him. Maybe he did have a boy friend like she said." The boys waved good-bye to Ms Adda and moved on into the backyard. They sat under the Chinaberry Tree, which gave a lot of shade. The great huge white and lavender snowball bushes were in full bloom in the front of the back porch. The heavy scent of Cape Jasmine permeated the heated air rising and wafting from the hedge of the waxy green scrubs that led to the old abandoned garage. The garage had no lock on it. Rick could see that it was filled with all sorts of plunder.
In Poinsettia people rarely locked their doors. Most of them stayed open because of the unbearable heat. The door was just another way for air to get into the house. Some people did latch their screen doors. No one that he knew of had ever been robbed except on the news from somewhere else. Not the local news. Just about all old houses had the old garage that was too decrepit to use to shelter the car, but it did not leak and so you stored stuff like quilting frames, and old victrolas that you had to wind up to play, there were canning jars in boxes, some old shoes that some one just could not throw away because they had been such faithful servants and always there were boxes and bags filled with the wrapping paper and boxes from last Christmas' gifts and the ornaments and tensile saved for next year's tree. On some shelve there would be the angel that sat at the very top of the tree. The old garage had another use. Since city boys could not learn about sex out behind the barn, most of them learned about jacking off behind the garage since it was usually at the back of the house and on the back part of the lot and had bushes growing behind it to help hide what you were doing.
"We used to have an old garage behind our house," Rick said.
"Yeah? Well, if my mother puts one more thing in that one I think it will explode like on a comic strip. Boom!" Robert was laughing. "My father keeps threatening to have it torn down. She cannot stand it. Where would I put all that stuff? He told her that she could throw most of it away. My mom is a packrat and something that packrats do not like is throwing stuff away."
"My dad had ours torn down. I kind of miss it. It was a landmark. That is where Asa Jones taught me how to jack off."
"It was the first place I jacked off too. Only I was by myself."
"Well, Asa had learned from Jared and then he showed me. You know that Asa was the one that taught me how to suck cock. He was the first person who ever sucked me. It was not until people started making fun of us and calling him a fairy that he turned on me. We really did have some good times together. Out behind the old garage."
"Maybe, just maybe, he will come around now that he realizes that he was just trying to be like Jared. I have known other brothers who tried to be like their brothers. Most of the time it was for the better. Do you know Will and Phil, the brothers who live out next to Cousin Carl?"
"Yeah. They are both muscle studs. I guess working on the farm must do that to these guys. Look at your Cousin Carl."
" Since we are not going to have any secrets from one another," Robert rolled on his stomach. He did not want Rick to watch him get hard when he started telling him about going out to the farm to pick beans. " I told you that Carl was my first everything. Well, Will and Phil were my second everything and a few more first things."
"You're kidding? You mean those two studs like to screw around with other guys? Robert you are fibbing. Tease."
" I am not. We went swimming. Skinny-dipping everyday when we would take a break from picking beans. We would get out and then do what they called a daisy chain. That's where everyone sort of lies in a circle and sucks the next guy's cock. They were the ones that taught Carl all the stuff that he knows."
"You are serious. I would have never have thought that those two... . Of course I would have never thought that you or Carl would either, so I guess I should not be surprised. Will, Phil, Alex, Carl and me all in the same class, Asa is our age but he has been held back two years so that is why he is in your class. Wonder who else? Oh, yea, I forgot Trey's in our class, too. Maybe the Elm Street Queers is too small a group. What about the Poinsettia Queers?" The two boys lay on the green summer grass and laughed. They could smell the wild onions as they crushed them under their bodies. All those fragrances -- jasmine and wild onion and the old honeysuckle vine behind the garage when they went back there so Robert could show him his old hide out. They were walking back toward the house when they saw Asa's mom and dad drive out in their new car. Asa was sitting in the backseat. He leaned out the window and gave them the figure, and you could tell he was mouthing the word, "faggot."
Rick shook his head. "Does not look like it worked."
"No. I guess you are going to have to do something with your parolee."
"What can I do? Really? I thought that last night was a break through. He told me how much he liked Trey and how sweet Trey was. He had seen Jared and how he treated him and thought that it was wrong. Then this... ." He threw his arm out as if presenting the lost Asa.
About the time that they were going up the front steps, Jared went past in his sporty looking car that he had gotten for graduation. He gave them the finger and did scream out the window. "Hey, you fucking queers."
Robert said very quietly without any sign of anger at all, " We need to start cleaning that family up at the source. Jared is the one that needs to accept what he is. We need to talk to Trey. If Jared straightens out, then so will Asa." It did not work exactly like he said but came pretty close.
The rest of the afternoon, they spent getting to know each other. They talked. Really talked. It was not like with some guys who you just bull with, they talked about what they wanted and liked and disliked. They talked about what they thought about other people, even religion and politics. Mostly, they agreed on things. There were some where they were really different. It just added to the mix. Then they went to Rick's house to get more clothes for him. He introduced him to his parents. The Plums were old enough to be Robert's or Rick's grandparents. Mr. Plum had already retired. Mrs. Plum had retired from teaching years ago. Rick was born late in their lives, and for the most part they treated him just as though he were another adult living under the same roof with them. He was a smart and good child, so they rarely had to correct him or even be concerned about him. Although they loved him in their own way, they were not really like most parents. They did not do a lot of hugging or kissing or even patting on the back. His father had never kissed him as far as Rick could remember. His father had never even spanked him and rarely even touched him. Rick's mother was a nice elderly woman. She would have made the perfect old maid school teacher except that she was married and had a child. She treated Rick like he was one of her students since he was small. Once she retired from teaching, she retired from Rick as well. It was like it was over after they gave her the banquet and the gold watch for thirty years of service. From that day on, he was no longer her student, but just another person living in the house. She made sure that he was fed in a fashion. Mostly, she read and played the piano and went to bridge parties.
Robert thought it was strange how formal their house was. Everything was really quiet and somber. The rooms were curtained and very dark. It was cool but there was the faint scent of gladiola like those funeral sprays that they put on the front of a house when some one died. I was like everything was in is place. There was not a single thing that he could see that showed that anyone lived there. Mrs. Plum was taking frozen food out for their dinner. She asked Rick if he and Robert would like for her to take something out for them. He told his mother that unless she had some reason she wanted him there, he was going back to Robert's for another night. She just told him that he should take enough clothes with him so that he could dress for dinner. That sounded strange to Robert. He made a note to ask Rick about what she had meant. Then she said that Rick should not out stay his welcome. Rick assured her that Mrs. Stanley had invited him to stay again. When they went up to Rick's room, it was like the rest of the house. Everything was in order. The bed was made. It was so dark that they had to turn on a lamp when they went in so that they could see. Robert had once stayed at a motel with his parents when they went to Atlanta for a clothing show. Rick's room reminded him of that room. It was like anyone could live there but no one really did. There were very few things that proved that some one lived there. The desk and the closet were probably the only two exceptions.
"What did your mother mean when she said take clothes so that you could change for dinner?" Robert asked Rick. He was sitting on the side of Rick's bed. It was a single bed with a chenille bed spread on it. Robert felt uneasy sitting there since it appeared that each of the little puffs on the bedspread were aligned perfectly.
"We put on clean clothes each night before we eat. We always eat at six thirty. I am expected to wear at least a tie on Sundays at lunch and dinner and anytime we have guest. That rarely happens since my father retired. But we still have dinner, and we still get dressed with dress shirts and the whole bit. It is sort of lamo, but you get used to it."
"It does not sound like much fun."
"It isn't."
They left without seeing Mr. Plum. Rick explained that he was playing golf in Greenville with some of the other textile people. It seemed that he played every Saturday and had been doing it for years. Robert wondered about all this. He did not say anything, but he wanted to talk to his mother. She might be able to help. After all Rick already was calling her Mom Stanley.
It was a quiet evening. Robert and Rick put Rick's clothes upstairs in Robert's room. Robert cleaned out a drawer so that he had his own space.
"You don't have to give me a whole drawer. I'm only going to be here just tonight."
"You be coming back and forth, so you might as well have your own space. I don't need all those drawers anyway. Here hang your shirts up in here." Robert took half the closet and cleaned it so that Rick could hang his clothes that his mother insisted that he bring up. "Rick, would you feel better if we dressed up for dinner? I mean it is what you are used to."
"No. Lord, no. I hate doing that. It is just too pretentious. I mean on special occasions and when there are strangers or something. Sure. But I had just as soon eat naked. I take that back. I couldn't concentrate on the food if we were both naked and if only I was naked you would not let me eat." He was laughing. "Robert, that's very thoughtful of you. I prefer jeans and a tee shirt or shorts and a tee for dinner attire."
"Dinner attire," Robert mocked laughing and rolling on his bed that still had not been made up since they got out of it. He thought Rick probably felt like he was a heathen because he did not make his bed and pick up his dirty clothes until it was time to put them in the washer. It looked like Rick was enjoying some of the freedom, however.
When they got back downstairs, there was a delicious aroma in the air. They sneaked into the kitchen to find the source of those odors. Mom Stanley was browning chicken. She was browning it one or two pieces at a time in a big black iron skillet. "What are you boys up to?" she asked them.
"We came to see what was smelling so good." Rick said. "What did you put on the chicken to make it smell so good? I have never smelled anything like that when other people were frying chicken."
"An old family receipt," Rick's mother said laughing. "What you smell is the garlic and black pepper. I mix a lot of thyme with some coriander, salt, and garlic with the flour and then dredge my chicken pieces in that just before I fry it. Then I brown it quickly. Once I have it all browned I will put some more Crisco in the pan and melt that. Put the chicken all back in and put a lid on it. Cut the heat down really low and let it stay there until supper is ready."
"It will melt in your mouth, believe me," Robert said attesting to his mother's ability and the old family recipe. Robert fixed them two large glasses of iced tea. It was really dark colored and very sweet. They sat at the kitchen table and talked to his mother as she busied herself with getting the dinner ready. She took flour and milk and more Crisco and make biscuits. She laughed at Rick when he asked her if she did not need a recipe to make the biscuits. She cut up a cabbage and made cole slaw. Then she took a colander from the refrigerator. It was filled with speckled butter beans that she had shelled that morning. These were put on to boil with salt and pepper and more lard.
"Your father should be getting here pretty soon, why don't you set the table." Robert started pulling dishes from the cabinet and handing them to Rick. Rick started towards the dinning room to set the table. "Mom, do you want to eat in here are the dinning room?"
"Whichever you boys want. It is probably cooler in the dinning room."
"Rick, just set them like we did last night."
"Robert, there's someone in an old truck out front," Rick called from the dinning room.
Rick and his mother came from the kitchen to see who their company was. "That's Cousin Carl and his mother." They all went on the front porch. Carl and his mother came in from the car bringing two large brown grocery bags with them. After the greetings and the introductions. She told them that there were tomatoes and green beans in the bags and some cucumbers and squash from the farm. Rick's mother asked them to stay for dinner. She said that it would be no trouble to add a couple of more plates to the table. Carl's mother said that she had to get back to fix dinner for them. They had run in to pick up some things and wanted to drop the vegetables by first. You could tell that Carl wanted to stay. He begged his mother. Finally, she said that it was fine with her. Rick wondered what would happen now that Carl was spending the night. After all Carl was the first one that had ever done anything with Robert. He felt a little intimidated by the boy.
As they sat down to dinner, Rick and Robert sat beside each other, Mr. Stanley was at the head of the table and Mrs. Stanley was at the other end. Karl sat on the side opposite them. He was a nice looking guy, Rick thought as he watch him passing the food dishes. Accompanying the platter of fried chicken that really would just fall off the bone it was so tender, there were bowls of mashed potatoes, a boat of creamed gravy made from the drippings where the chicken had been cooked, the hot biscuits, speckled butter beans, cole slaw, a cold fruit salad that had walnuts and fresh shredded coconut with apples, oranges, bananas and raisins, anther platter with slicked tomatoes, cucumbers and green spring onions, bowls of homemade pickles and chow chow. Rick remembered reading somewhere of a table groaning with from the weight of all the food. He figured he better listen closely since this one should start groaning anytime. Karl talked about what they had been doing on the farm since Robert had been out there. He obviously did a lot of the work since he rarely mentioned anything about his father working with him. Rick thought that was a little strange for a fifteen or sixteen year old to be responsible for all that work.
Even with all the food, he was surprise at how little was left when the boys finished. Even he had eaten twice or three times as much as he normally did. He could feel his belt biting into his stomach. Teen-age boys who are active can really put the food away, and if the food was a good as what they had it disappeared quickly and in large amounts. Mrs. Stanley was beaming because they all kept telling her how good everything was. Rick thought that he had really falling in love not with just Robert but with the whole family. Even Mr. Stanley, although he did not say much, he was there and apart of what was going on. This was not like the stilted dinners that he had with his parents. He avoided those if at all possible. Rick could feel Robert next to him. A sense. A knowing who that person is that is beside you. Don't look. You don't have to. He is and he's there and he's yours. Rick thought this has to be love. I have nothing to worry about with Carl, or anyone else, Robert loves me and I can feel it. It is just not going to be simple like a girl friend boy friend where you are the only two people that matter. This is better than that. This is real. We may be kids, but this is some adult sort of love.
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