February 3, 1995
“Pleeeeeeeease?” Eric begged his mom. “I swear I’ll be good. I’ll brush my teeth, I’ll even floss,” he added. “And it’s Bobby’s birthday on Saturday.”
Mrs. Wantanabe sighed. She and Eric’s dad had won tickets to a Rotary gala up in Riverside, the county seat, which was about an hour north. It would be a nice dinner, and plenty of other kids, too, and they had planned on taking Eric and staying the night. But Eric was desperate not to go. “I’ll call Bobby’s mom. Hang on,” she said, giving in.
Eric and I had planned this all out on the bus. I was sitting on the stairs reading when I heard the phone ring and my mom answer. “Oh hi Camille,” my mom said. “Oh did he? … I suppose it wouldn’t be a problem … no no, it’s not an imposition at all … mmm hmm … mm hmm … this Friday? The third? Well, sure, that should be fine … yeah, I think Bobby would be happy for the company on his birthday … Yup, I’ll be home. Anything I need to know about, food-wise? … That’s fine. OK, Camille, I’ll let Bobby know. Thanks for calling. Bye bye.”
Mom found me on the stairs. “So Eric’s parents are going out of town, and Camille says you invited Eric to stay the night,” Mom said.
“Is that OK? He kind of sprang it on me on the bus today,” I lied. “He really doesn’t want to go.”
“I mean, Rotary, I kind of see his point. I just wish you would have asked me first before Eric’s mom called.”
“Sorry mom,” I said.
“You can stuff your sorries in a sack, mister, because you’re going to help. You have to clean your bathroom before Friday and I’ll get you sheets for the guest bed. Start clearing off your bathroom counter and I’ll bring you some Ajax,” she said, but I was already bolting up the stairs. I scrubbed the counter and floors in the bathroom within an inch of their lives, even getting the gross dust behind the toilet. I whipped the old sheets off the guest bed, and mom brought me fresh ones.
What made this perfect is that our recent-construction, neutrally-painted, anodyne tract house had one nice feature — the two upstairs bedrooms that weren’t the master bedroom were connected by a bathroom. So, in theory, of course, Eric could get to my room, and I could get to his room, through the bathroom rather than out through the hall.
Friday morning I went to school, catching the bus with Eric, and later Eric’s mom brought over a duffel bag with a change of clothes and his toothbrush. “My brother was like that with his best friend,” Eric’s mom said to my mom as they visited for a minute. “I mean, you know how boys are at that age, they’re inseparable.”
“Bobby always wants to study with Eric, and honestly I’m relieved. My brother started getting into trouble at 12 years old: smoking, cutting class. Bobby’s grades are good, he doesn’t get in trouble at school. Eric is such a good influence on him,” Mom said.
“I feel the same way about Bobby. Truthfully if it was one of their other friends that Eric wanted to stay with, I would have been a little more … I don’t know, I’m sure they’re fine, and I know we’re not supposed to pick favorites, but —”
“Oh no, Eric’s my favorite,” Mom joked. “No contest.” They both laughed.
That afternoon, and as much as our moms loved us, we were still loud. Eric and I loved to design elaborate “what-if” scenarios and step through them.
“What if you had only one food to eat for two weeks?” Eric asked as we played LHX on the computer. “And you can’t say a sandwich or a hamburger — it has to be one kind of food for every meal, for two weeks.”
“Can I drink water?” I asked.
“You can drink water, but if you said something like a Coke that would count as a food,” Eric further clarified.
I thought about it. “I’d probably go with peanut butter,” I said. “I’d never eat it again after that, but I think I’d survive for two weeks. How about you?”
“I’d figure out what I can blend into a smoothie, and then drink that,” Eric said triumphantly.
“But that’s made up of more than one type of food! You’re blending things together —”
“IT’S A BEAUTIFUL DAY,” Mom said over the top of our rising voices, “so why don’t you go outside and play,” she said more normally, having successfully got our attention. It’s true: It was a nice high-desert winter day, clear and dry.
We shut the computer down and went out to the little backyard behind my house. There was maybe a patch of grass about 20 feet wide and 60 feet long, and the grass needed mowing. We continued our cheerful argument. “But what if it’s just apples that I blend up? It’s still one thing: Apples,” Eric said, as he started to grab me around the waist. He wanted to wrestle — really wrestle, that is, nothing that mom couldn’t see.
I started to counter him, shifting my weight forward so I wasn’t as easy to take down. “But you couldn’t have water! You’d be drinking basically —” I grunted, trying to shift Eric’s center of mass — “thick apple juice for two weeks. You’ll chip the porcelain on the toilet!” I said, proud of finding a use for a phrase I learned from my uncle. I was able to feint back, and caught Eric off guard. I scrambled and put him in a schoolboy pin on the grass as he bucked and thrashed.
He finally quit. “Ugh fine, not an apple smoothie.” I let him up and we started again. We batted hands, and Eric went low for my legs, and took me down to my knees. He was around my back and basically pulled me backward onto him, and he rolled us onto my front.
“How about, like, almonds?” I volunteered, struggling slightly as Eric climbed on top of me. I tried to push him off to the side, but he crashed his chest down into mine, knocking me into the grass. He pressed his crotch into my crack, hard.
“How about I drink your cum for two weeks,” Eric breathed into my ear, and I got goosebumps on my arms.
“Stop,” I giggled. I tried to roll Eric off me, but he spread his legs out wide. “C’mon, my mom is right there,” I whispered back.
Eric came up to straddling me and put his hands on his hips. “Fine,” he said, giving me a half smile. “Almonds. You win.” He got up off me as I rolled over, and he stood on my foot to give me a hand up.
We wrestled some more, and Eric didn’t try to be flirty again. The closest he came was trying a leg scissor around my hips. I could tell he was hard, and maybe a little frustrated that I didn’t want to fool around in front of my mom. Tired, we laid back on the grass and looked up at the sky, a lone contrail following behind the engines of an airliner. My hand was at my side. I felt Eric’s fingers barely touch my fingers.
I didn’t move them. Eric didn’t move either. We just laid there for five minutes? Half an hour? Who knew: silent, catching our breath, waiting for our boners to slowly shrink a bit before trying to stand up.
I heard the window over the kitchen sink slide open. “OK boys, who wants to help me make chicken. Shake ‘n’ Bake!” my mom called to us. We got up off the grass, and came inside. “Go wash your hands,” my mom instructed. Just as we were coming back into the kitchen, I heard the garage door and Dad coming home from work.
“She’s putting you to work, huh?” my dad asked us, as he sat down in the living room. We said yes simultaneously, and Eric said his hellos.
We came back with clean hands, and each had a pile of three chicken thighs. I had done this before, but Eric hadn’t, so I showed him how. My mom put the breading mix in two paper bags, and I demonstrated by dropping a thigh in the bag and shaking. Then you take it out and put it on a plate. To my mom, it was preferable to hear the shushing sounds of paper bags shaking than Eric and I argue about whether or not a hot dog was a sandwich.
Fried chicken for dinner, green beans, baked potatoes. Halfway through dinner, my mom suddenly looked up at my dad. “Oh, I’d better take it out,” she said. “It’s someone’s birthday tomorrow,” she added, smiling at me.
Eric and I watched her like a hawk, and saw her produce an ice cream cake from the freezer and set it on the counter. “Cookies and cream,” she said, as she sat down. Eric and I looked at each other with excited looks, making yummm sounds. “But you have to clean your plates.”
“I don’t think Eric will have trouble, but you’d better get going, Bobby,” Dad said. I still had half a chicken thigh on my plate, and two or three green beans. We both polished everything off at the prospect of an ice cream cake.
Mom put candles on the cake, and they sang the song. Eric dug into that cake like it was going to run right off his plate, and subsequently had trouble sitting still at the table. What we didn’t really know is that when Eric had sugar, he got really hyper. Finally we were excused, and after we helped clear the table, we ran into the living room. I was getting the remote to turn on something to watch, and Eric was already grabbing me and pulling me to the floor.
“Let me at least … aah … turn on the TV,” I said, finding a recent repeat of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine where Riker’s transporter twin visits to the station. Eric was practically hanging off me, trying to get me on the floor. My parents followed us into the living room.
“C’mon boys, keep it to a dull roar,” Mom said.
Eric managed to pin me. “Are you ticklish?” he asked.
“Oh, Bobby’s ticklish,” Mom said, giving Dad a sly look.
“Mom! Agh, no!” I protested as Eric started to find my ticklish spots on my neck and in my armpits. I giggled uncontrollably as Eric kept me pinned and tickled me until I ran out of breath. “Stop,” I heaved, almost unable to speak, dissolving into laughter again.
“Hey, OK, it’s TV or wrestling but not both,” Dad said, getting slightly annoyed. The sugar from the cake had finally peaked in Eric’s bloodstream. He climbed off me, and he and I sat on either ends of the love seat, tangling our legs together.
After DS9, we were sent to bed, and we put on pajamas, brushed our teeth in the connecting bathroom.
“G’night,” I said to Eric, giving him a little smile. He knew. We had closed our doors to the hallway, but were careful to leave the bathroom doors slightly ajar.
We both clicked off our lights in our separate rooms, and stared wide-eyed at the ceiling. The combination of the ice cream cake and the absolute overwhelming desire to get with each other meant I wasn’t falling asleep, period. I watched the clock. 9:15. 9:30. 9:50. Finally 10:00 rolled around, and my parents came upstairs and went to bed. I heard the big double doors to the master bedroom latch closed.
I couldn’t take it anymore. I pulled down my shorts and pushed them to the foot of the bed with my feet, followed shortly by my shirt. If Eric wasn’t coming over, I was going to him. All my clothes were stuffed at the end of the bed, under the covers. I was hard as a rock, my heart pounding out my chest. Then, I heard it — the softest squeak from the bathroom door on the guest room side. A pause, then the door to my side swung carefully open. I couldn’t see anything in the darkness, but I felt Eric feeling his way along the foot of the bed, and then up the side. I lifted the blanket up, and Eric crawled in behind me, the big spoon to my little spoon.
“You’re already naked,” Eric whispered.
“I couldn’t sleep,” I whispered back.
“Neither could I,” Eric said, as he pulled down his shorts and undies, kicking them to the end of the bed. He sat up and pulled his shirt off, tossing it to the side. He knew from our study sessions where the lotion was in my nightstand drawer, and squeezed some out on his hand. I felt his arm wrap around me, and his hard lubed cock press into my crack. His hand snaked down and held my shaft, stroking it. The feeling of his body against mine as he jacked me off made my heart flutter in a way I never felt before.
“Cum for me, Bobby,” Eric moaned, a soft whisper. I nodded getting goosebumps again as I felt Eric’s breath on my ear.
It wasn’t five or six long strokes later when all I could whisper was “Eric,” and my cock throbbed in his hand, my load oozing through his fingers and onto the sheets. My chest was heaving. He wiped off his hand and pushed me onto my front, mounting me, like he did on the grass.
Eric layed down on top of me, and started to hump my crack. His cock was wet with lube and precum, and I was surprised at how hard he pushed. “Now you can cum for me,” I whispered. Eric giggled softly. He really wanted to cum, and, like me, it didn’t take much time for it to happen. I felt his cock throb between my cheeks, his load pooling at the base of my spine.
“Do you think you can sleep like that?” I asked Eric softly. “You feel really good,” I added.
“I just realized how tired I am,” Eric replied. “I don’t think I could get off you if I tried.” I had a second pillow on my bed that I folded in half, and put it just above my shoulder. “That works,” he said. “G’night.”
“G’night,” I replied. We drifted off to sleep, having spent all our anxiety and energy that we had built up.
I woke up in the night with a deep inhale, my memories from earlier in the night flooding back in a rush. Eric has slid off me a little. I yawned, and I heard Eric whisper “are you awake?”
“I thought you were the deep sleeper,” I said.
“I can’t sleep. Turn over,” Eric said, sliding more to the side so I could. We tossed the pillows out of the way with a soft giggle. Eric climbed on top of me, but we were both still soft. I didn’t care — Eric’s body on top of mine felt good whether or not we had boners. Eric’s face was an inch above mine as he held himself up on his elbows.
“Do you have another one in you?” I asked.
“Maybe,” Eric said. “I want to ask you something.”
“Anything,” I replied, our voices as soft as possible.
“Can I kiss you?” He wasn’t joking.
I didn’t hesitate, and I grinned and nodded. Eric’s lips were soft, and our first kiss was … well … kind of chaste in the sense that we’d never done it before. He raised back up and looked into my eyes.
Now our second kiss: That’s where things started to get sloppy. Eric plunged his tongue into my mouth and started to wrestle with mine. It felt surprisingly good — an electric sort of energy as we groped and explored each others’ mouths. Our cocks stirred, or at least mine did, getting hard under his weight. We started to grind as we made out. I wrapped my arms around Eric in a hug, running my fingers up and down his spine. I corkscrewed our legs together, and Eric had to break our lip lock to giggle at my little signature move. But his tongue was back in my mouth a second later.
This time our orgasms took a lot longer. Eventually we were both breathing hard enough that we couldn’t maintain the kiss, and Eric rested his forehead against mine as we focused on our cocks, working, rubbing, grinding them against each other. Eric came first, his body shuddering suddenly and his forehead slipping to the side. He kissed me again as he felt his cock throb, and that pushed me over the edge. I moaned, just a soft hum as our lips were connected, and pushed my hips up into Eric as I erupted, a much larger and more satisfying orgasm than before. It felt like it went on forever.
Finally we came to a resting point. “I really liked that,” I whispered finally.
“Me too,” Eric said, turning to look at the clock. 12:07. “Happy birthday,” he whispered, scooting down and resting his head on my chest.
We laid there for a while, but eventually Eric dug around for his clothes and went back to bed. I fell back asleep eventually, realizing that as excited as I was, I was tired too. My body was flooded with a new feeling, one that I’d never felt before, but was the product of a moment I wished I could just live in forever. At breakfast the next morning, I couldn’t help but look at Eric a little differently, but to everyone else, Eric seemed like the same Eric.
His parents came home, and Eric packed up his duffel bag and we said our so-longs at the door. “Thanks for letting me stay over,” he said.
“Anytime,” I replied.
“Happy birthday,” he said slyly with a half-smile, turned, and ran home.