Summer arrived early, the hot sun baking the ground and heating up the air till it was stifling. Rains came sporadically, building up tremendous thunder clouds that filled the late afternoon sky and unleashed heavy downpours. It had been a week since the last rain and everything seemed dry, on the verge of wilting. Even the dog seemed beat down, keeping himself under the porch most of the day, only the sound of his panting revealing his location. I had been in the garden early this morning, picking squash, cucumbers and beans, and digging up a few potatoes. I hoed a few rows trying to keep the constantly sprouting weeds under some control then checked the tomatoes filling their cages. It was nearly eleven before I finished and by the time I got back to the house my clothes clung to my sweaty body. Sweat trickled down my face, the cap I wore soaked through, unable to absorb any more sweat. I kicked off my dirty boots on the screen porch and went in to shower and put on clean clothes knowing before the end of the day I would probably mess them up, but with this heat and the way I sweated, dealing with more laundry seemed such a miniscule problem.
I know I shouldn’t but when I’ve gotten overheated nothing is better than a long cold shower, just standing under the spray feeling it pull the heat from my skin. After sweating so, my body covered in dust and grime streaked where sweat trickled down, the shower also gave me a sense of cleanliness that was rejuvenating. I slipped on a pair of boxers, cargo shorts and a muscle shirt then headed for the kitchen. A tall glass filled with ice and water I made my way back to the screen porch.
In the shade, the heat was tolerable and I leaned back, sipping water, and watched Johnny move across the yard, first toward the east, then back toward the west, back and forth, the push mower cutting the grass one narrow strip at a time. He’d gotten a late start and was now out in the increasing heat of the day. I watched him push the mower thinking back a month ago when he first moved in and agreed to mow grass if he could avoid the garden. He believed he had a ‘brown thumb’ as he referred to it. An ability to diminish any plant or worse, kill it. It was humorous the way he had been so serious, making it sound like we’d starve to death if he went into the garden. He told how his own parents had forbid him from going into their garden, giving him other chores to do around the farm, and I knew it was true having heard James, his father, tell of Johnny’s misfortunes with gardening and the crops in the field.
I watched Johnny, the way he moved, his tall lanky body push the mower easily across the yard. He had been out for over an hour cutting the front yard first, next the large side yard on the east side of the house then the other side yard, smaller, with the drive cutting it in half. Now he was cutting the large rear yard working his way toward the barn. The riding mower was in the barn waiting on a new mower deck which left him the small push mower, one normally used for trim work, to do the entire yard. Shirtless and wearing a pair of my old gym shorts, dust and grime covered his body with rivulets of sweat streaking through it on his chest and stomach. Of all the gym shorts I owned he had on the most wore out pair with the elastic waist band stretched out. If it wasn’t for his round ass those shorts would have fallen down his legs, for they sat loose around his narrower waist revealing a couple of inches of the boxer briefs he wore beneath. In one sense, he looked ridiculous in those shorts. Shorts that were too big for him, with legs that hung down to his knees and the waistband sat barely above his crotch. He could have been a pauper, some homeless guy working for food, too poor to buy clothes that fit. Then again there was something sexy about it, the way he wore my clothes even though they didn’t fit, the waist nearly two inches too large at thirty-two inches. It made him boyish, younger looking than his twenty-two, all long arms and legs and a long lean torso to match. His light brown hair desperately needed cutting for it stuck out around the ball cap in all directions. Exposed to the sun it would bleach out almost blonde. His torso was nearly hairless, only a thin trail of hair from his navel down and thick underarm hair which was dark with sweat. His arms were nearly bare, only the lightest of blonde hairs along his forearms, but his legs, on the calves down had a light dusting of hair that was visible now with the dirt and grass clippings that clung to it.
I watched him work his way across the back yard, occasionally wiping his forearm across his brow trying to get the sweat off his forehead before it got into his eyes. When he got to the barn he worked his way around the front and one side, the other fenced off along with the back for my three horses. He moved slower now, the heat taking its toll.
Leaning back, I let the sense of contentment bring a smile to my face. I couldn’t believe this feeling, one that I had dared hope to have one day but after the last few years began to think impossible to obtain. This rural area, so far from any city, provided few opportunities to meet someone and most only wanted to hook up secretly, away from prying eyes, afraid of the consequences if they didn’t. It was unsatisfying for me for I wanted more. I wanted a life with someone, a partner who would be there each evening providing all the things straight couples take for granted. Looking at Johnny I realized how lucky I had been for he was the last person in the community I would have considered available, much less gay. But life is full of coincidences, random occurrences that can surprise you.
Johnny is four years younger, a huge difference during grade school where I knew him, knew his family in fact, as just another little kid. Then I graduated and took up farming with my father, adding to our land by buying this old place. It’s such a seasonal thing, farming, the planting, cultivating if necessary, then the harvest, time moved along slowly, too slow it seemed at times but suddenly I was 21 and for a time made the trip to Montgomery or Mobile to go to a bar or night club. I had my fun, but in the end most guys considered farming a hick occupation, something they wanted no part of, especially if they had to live in the rural countryside. They constantly complained about the cities were too small as it is and moving to some place more remote, more isolated, seemed like a punishment. Over time I grew bored with clubs, the traveling for over an hour to get there made it tough and then to come home alone every time. By last year when I turned twenty-five my trips to one of the cities dwindled to only about once every two months and I began to hang out with some of my old friends here in the community settling for their companionship, going to one of the nearby towns to some dive of a bar listening to the same old country music our parents had listened. The routine was boring but easy, too easy.
Meanwhile Johnny had gone to some technical school, learned to be a mechanic and after working for some truck repair shop in Montgomery, he made his way back to this place taking a job over in Pineville working at the tractor dealership. For about a year we crossed paths, at the dealership where he worked on the old 4020 my grandfather had owned for years and dad had kept for minor work around the farm, at the grocery store where we would meet on one aisle after the next, sometimes the only two guys in the whole grocery store, and we would see each other at the drive-in or the fast food joint over in Greenville, or at some fish fry held by the volunteer fire department or some other group. I admit I looked, looked hard at times, study the way he moved and acted. I knew he was still single, heard all the gossip about how he didn’t accept any of the overtures by the available women in the area and let it fuel my imagination, thinking ‘maybe…just maybe’. But nothing, no signal he might be gay, or at least bi. Maybe it was the age difference, the knowing each other for so long assumptions were made about each other, conclusions made without fact. He was cute, still boyish in appearance due to being tall and lanky in build, the clothes he wore just hung on his skinny frame. But every time we crossed paths, spoke to each other I got no hint of any attraction from him and for my own attempt to read him…well nothing. Unfortunately, he was like myself, someone who’s mannerism or action gave nothing away, let us blend into any crowd. We were boring to a fault compared to some more outgoing characters I’ve met over the years. Was it some safety mechanism, some unconscious act to blend in, I’m not sure, but blend in Johnny and I did.
But that changed five months ago, back in January, when a slow drizzling rain set in for days. It had started on a Wednesday and by Friday I was stir crazy, tired of sitting in the house or riding the roads looking at wet fields. So, I got dressed, climbed into my pickup and headed south to the interstate and took it to Mobile. Knowing the long drive back would be too much after a late night I got a room at a hotel near downtown then headed to a restaurant in town I had discovered last year and returned to whenever I came to town.
The restaurant had been busy, even in the bar area, so it was nearly nine thirty when I stepped out into the night, the rain finally stopped leaving everything wet, reflecting the lights. It made the old port city look nice, somehow refreshed, an illusion I knew the light of day would reality. I strolled along the sidewalks toward my destination, a small casual bar in town. The sidewalks were surprisingly busy and I considered how the city seemed to be coming back to life, more people moving back into the downtown area which was supporting more business. Arriving at the bar it was quiet outside, only a few guys standing around the front door but as soon as I opened the door the noise of many voices and music from a jukebox came out to greet me. The bar was busy, groups crowded around the two pool tables and the few tables all crowded with more chairs than would comfortably fit. The bar along the back wall was crowded and I had to ask a guy to let me up to the bar.
Beer in hand, I turned back to the room and officially began to people watch, to let my eyes roam the room. I saw several familiar faces, some I knew by name and some I did not, but it was still comforting, the familiarity, seeing others like myself. While I drank my first beer a couple of guys came over saying hello and we spoke briefly about me finally coming back into town and the usual pleasantries but they knew me, knew where I was from, someone who loved the rural life, something they could never accept, so they soon were off into the crowd, searching for that perfect someone, the man of their fantasies, the one to give them a contentment in life.
Draining the last of the beer I sat the bottle on the bar and headed to the men’s room. The narrow corridor to the rear exit and toilet rooms was crowded. Guys waiting on the next bathroom and guys flirting with them while they waited. The line gradually kept moving forward and soon I was heading back to the bar.
That was when I first saw him. I didn’t know it was Johnny, seeing him from the back with two guys closed in on either side of him. I recognized one of the guys, the one on the right, someone who floated around the room like a shark attacking every newbie that arrived in the bar. It was comical in a way, the way he tried to always be the first one to pick them up, like it was some competition, bragging rights on who was the best at picking up other guys. I had to smile at the cliché of it as I made my way to the bar aiming for a small opening to his right.
I didn’t recognize Johnny for he wore a ball cap pulled low in his head and being seated at one of the few bar stools available I had no sense of his body frame, his height, nothing that gave away who he was so imagine my surprise when I ambled up to the bar, ordered another beer and digging out my wallet as the bartender pulled the bottle from a cooler and twisted off the cap, that I heard my name.
“Brian?”
I heard the surprise in the voice, a shock of recognition, but I didn’t recognize the voice. It was too noisy in the bar and speaking only my name didn’t give me enough to go on, didn’t let me register the person was addressing me and comprehend who it was. I turned and looked over the shoulder of the shark and that is when I became surprised, shocked to see a familiar face I would never dream of seeing in this place.
“Johnny?”
The shark turned to me giving me a look as if I was a trespasser. The other guy smiled and backed away, knowing it was too crowded around Johnny.
“W-w-what are you doing here?” Johnny asked, his voice giving away a level of anxiety, an innate fear some of us, so I smiled at him as I leaned against the bar relaxing my stance.
“The same reason you’re here, I suspect” I said, winking at him, and I saw him relax, a smile form, the reality of the situation so simple, so obvious, made it all right. “You just get here?”
“Yeah…took me a few minutes to find this place. I had the address wrong.”
“Well you’re here now.”
Then the awkward moment, the one where I didn’t know if I should move away, leave Johnny to have a night away from anything or anyone familiar, or should I linger around, give him someone he knew in which to talk. The shark was obviously hoping for the former and he stood up between us leaning toward me.
“Hey, why don’t you give us some room…we were getting to know each other and you’re in the way” the shark whispered and his tone made me want to laugh. I nodded, not carrying to get into any kind of argument, something I never cared for, stood up towering over the shark with my six-foot two height and looked over his shoulder toward Johnny.
“Hey Johnny, I seem to be in the way, but if ya get bored I’ll be over there watching that pool game.”
As I walked away I heard my name called out, low, almost a whisper but I didn’t stop, didn’t turn around to acknowledge I had heard it, for I wasn’t sure I did. Maybe I fantasized it, wanted to hear my name. Threading my way through the crowd I made my way across the room. At the pool table, the game was nearing the end and I saw there was a line of four quarter stacks along the side at the coin slots. I had considered throwing my own quarters down but suddenly someone was standing to my side, nearly my own height, ball cap pulled low concealing their eyes.
“Bored already?”
A laugh then Johnny’s voice, just loud enough for me to hear him, “that guy was a bit intense and…” His voice trailed off never finishing what he was going to say.
“You know I was really surprised to see you here. I mean, we see each other around the community and in town but I…I never got a feeling…didn’t consider the possibly…”
“I was gay?” Johnny interjected.
“Yeah.”
“I know exactly what you are talking about” Johnny replied. We turned toward each other and began to laugh.
How long we stayed in the bar I don’t remember. Time seemed to stand still for a while, as we began to talk, to admit to so much we could never admit back home, where we kept this protective shield up, kept our feelings in check, head down going about our lives. We found so much about ourselves that was similar, aspects of our personalities, the way we carried ourselves in the rural region we called home. It would be over the next four months the differences would become more apparent, those characteristics that intrigued each of us, gave us opportunities to learn about each other, without all the assumptions and projections.
We eventually left the bar and not in rush for the night to end we strolled the city. It was getting late, the night settling down, growing quiet. We walked for blocks as we got more personal about each other, admitting to those times we eyed each other, gave in to the fantasy the other could be gay, could be available, if only…and it made us laugh, relax with each other with our familiarity, a sense of a common bound that grew in strength with yet another aspect shared.
“Where are you staying tonight?” I asked as we approached the block my hotel was located.
“Stay? I was going to drive back tonight?”
“Seriously, now? You have somewhere to be in the morning?”
“No, I just didn’t consider staying tonight. I kind of figured I would feel out of place…or chicken out and would have been heading home before now.”
“I have a room at the hotel up there…you want to come up?”
He smiled, mischievously, knowingly, and he nodded yes as we walked toward the hotel.
It was odd, this lack of a cat and mouse game, the flirtation normally associated with meeting someone, but riding the elevator up, the walk down the corridor and that moment when the key card didn’t work the first time and I nervously swiped it again, the realization this was actually real set in. What would Johnny be expecting, what would he want, this first night we were alone together, now knowing the other? We entered the room and Johnny excused himself heading straight to the bathroom, making me realize we had been out walking for a long time and I too had to take a piss.
The toilet flushed, the lavatory ran then the door opened. “All yours” Johnny said as he passed me still standing in the small foyer of the room. I wanted to reach out and touch him. No, I wanted to grab him, pull him into my arms, but the need to go to the bathroom was suddenly too great to ignore and he stepped into the bathroom.
Finished, hands washed, I stood at the mirror and looked at myself. Clean shaven, the sparse pattern of beard caused me to keep it shaved off. The gaps along the jaw, the way it wouldn’t grow in full or the way it trailed off leaving nothing for sideburns. I looked younger than twenty-five in the face but my body had filled out, the manual labors on the farm and the occasional weight lifting I did at the system I set up in the barn three years ago. Over time it all paid off. I ran a wet hand through my hair thinking I should have gotten it cut this past week and smiled at myself for this moment of vanity.
I came out of the bathroom and found Johnny standing on the balcony, the curtain pulled back and sliding door wide open. The humid air, with its faint odor of the nearby bay, wafted into the room. The only light came from the lamp next to the television, the bulb on the lowest level, the dim light giving the room a glow. I moved across the room and out onto the narrow balcony, up close to Johnny, only inches from his back. He turned to me, leaned against the rail and reached out and touched my arm, gently, his fingers just barely grazing the skin.
“Brian, you wanna…”
I pulled him to me, pressed his tall lanky body against mine as I kissed him. I felt him relax in my arms. His mouth opened and I slipped my tongue into his mouth, moving around this own. I led him back into the room sliding the closed with one hand as the other guided him toward the bed. I tugged at his clothes, undoing the top three buttons then impatiently lifting the shirt over his head. Running a hand over his chest and stomach I felt the firm flatness of his torso, the tightness of the muscle beneath the skin. A runner’s build some would call it. To me it was simply a farm boy’s build, energetic and full of stamina. Kissing his neck and tonguing his ear I worked his jeans loose, pulling the buttons free down the fly till they opened up and fell to around his ankles. I ran my hand over his boxers, felt the fullness of his cock, the way it flexed and pushed outward, growing hard with my ministrations. He worked his shoes off and struggled to get his jeans off, nearly tumbling to the floor making us both snigger like high schoolers doing it for the first time. Holding him steady I watched each leg slip free of the jeans. I pushed him on the bed moving on top of him. I ground my crotch against his knowing the feel of the denim jeans would make him more aware of his own near nakedness. I felt his hardness, felt it press against me, as I pressed my body down on him. Rising up slightly, I reached between us and tugged his boxers down, struggled to get them over his hard cock, but soon was pushing them down his long legs where I could use one foot to push them off.
Naked he submitted to me, spread his legs apart and wrapped his arms around my back and held us tight together. He tugged on my t-shirt, slipped it free of my jeans and worked it over my head. The feel of his warm torso against my own urged me on, made me more aroused, my jeans suddenly too confining, cock aching for release from their tightness. I rolled over and undid them pushing them down my legs till I was free of them. I felt Johnny’s hand touch my stomach then move down over the bulge in my boxer briefs, the fingers massaging my cock creating a wet spot where the head pressed against the soft cotton. I lay back, hands locked together behind my head.
“Take them off” I said to Johnny. It wasn’t a question, or a demand. Just an instruction and I raised my hips and watched as he slipped them down my legs letting me kick them off. He moved to my cock, let it fill his hand as he held it up, the wet head glistening in the dim light just before he put his lips to it, let them slide over the head. He moved over me, down between my legs and as he got in position to take me all the way, my cock sliding through his lips till his nose pressed into my abdomen. I gasped for air as my hips pushed upward trying to get more of myself in to his mouth. He let me, held his head over my hips and let me move through his lips, the piston motion of my cock sinking into his mouth then pulling back over and over and over till I ached for release.
He pulled up and looked at me with glazed over eyes. “Not yet” he commanded.
Lying on top of me, arms slipped around my neck he guided me to roll over on top. I eased down between his legs and kissed his mouth, ran my lips along his jaw, his left ear and over the side of his neck. I felt him beneath me, the heat of his body, the sense of him being all arms, legs and cock. The press against my abdomen, being touched over my back down to my ass, fingers digging into the flesh and legs shifting, moving along my own. Then legs hooked around my waist and arms hugging our torsos together as I smothered his pleas with my lips and pushed my tongue into his mouth. His breathing grew ragged, his skin hot everywhere we touched. I felt his skin grow slick, wet with perspiration. I could only think of one thing: the pleasure from my cock rubbing against him, the flared head sensitive to every touch. I pushed it against him, felt it slip down between his legs and I pumped it along his ass. He moaned in my ear then begged me to fuck him, pleaded for me to put it in him.
I slipped my arms underneath his legs, lifted them up and folded him over beneath me. His ass rose up, turned toward me and I pressed against the opening. Tight, unyielding at first, I bore down on it, pushed with the weight of my hips feeling the head of my cock squeeze through penetrating him. The hot exhale hit the side of my neck as I pushed inward. Slowly I pushed inward, inch by inch, feeling the tight ring of his opening milk my cock. His whole body quivered beneath me and I felt his hands hold on to me, tightly, fingers digging into my flesh. I knew the desperation, the desire, the need to take it and I pushed inward till my abdomen pressed tightly against his ass.
Then I fucked him.
I drove my hips with an urgency not felt in a long, long time…if ever. I pushed my cock into his depths, over and over, my pace building up till the bed seemed to bounce with the rhythm of our fuck. He clung to me, held tight, as my cock piston in his hole. The room filled with the noise of our fuck. I heard our moans get louder, obscene, primitive. I shifted down beside Johnny, lifted his leg and pushed into him again, thrust all the way into his loosened hole and fucked. I grabbed him around the neck and pulled his lanky body against my own, once again aware of the heat of it, the slick wet skin so firm to the touch. Every muscle tight, his body aroused. I fucked till I was near exhaustion but holding back every time I felt close. I wanted this to last, to go on as long as my body would allow. Johnny must have sensed this for he slipped out of my grasp, pushed me on my back and straddled my waist. He faced me, let me watch him take my cock and sit down on it. He didn’t ease down, but dropped his weight all at once letting my cock penetrate him quickly, deeply, all the way. He rode me, roughly, rocking the whole bed. The way he pounded down on me, his whole weight driving him down, taking me with a voraciousness that excited me, made me so aroused I didn’t last long, couldn’t hold back anymore and I put my hands on his thighs and pushed down as I shoved upward feeling my cock grow thicker, the surge of release swelled it up within Johnny’s depths till I exploded and filled his depths with my load.
We stayed in that hotel room till Sunday morning, coming out only to eat and for about an hour on Saturday night when we went for a beer at the bar. We fucked to the point of exhaustion, bodies covered in sweat, then took another shower, sometimes fucking there. I remember what the room looked like when we checked out, the bed completely torn apart, a pillow on the floor, the arm chair moved to the window (Johnny wanted me to fuck him once while he watched people move about on the street below) and every towel we had gotten wet and hanging from a door or the top of the glass enclosure of the shower or thrown over a chair. I should have straightened the room a bit but for some reason it seemed appropriate to leave it.
For the next two months, I guess you’d say we dated, if you can call it that. It didn’t seem like normal dating, more like a trial period of being a couple, partners in life. He stayed here more often than not, and when we were not working we were together. Some began to comment on it, our parents wondered about this new closeness, asking those leading questions, searching for reason for it without considering the obvious. Not at first, anyway. But a realization soon took hold. His mother the first, I’m sure but over time the others in our family. My sister began to come by, something she had never done before, and probed for some admission till I finally asked her what she wanted to know.
“Are Johnny and you…like a couple?”
The question hung in the air for a long time, not sure she was ready for the truth till I saw her smile, that mischievous smile she had when she had done something wrong, or caught me doing something wrong, and we kept it amongst ourselves. “Maybe” I responded and she laughed, out loud, then looked at me going “I knew it.” Then she told me so did our parents, who were afraid to bring it up, not sure how to bring it up, so we let them know in our own way, slowly over time till the day Johnny officially moved in and all their suspensions confirmed.
There are some in the area who have been nasty about, quoting scripture or making crude comments but luckily, we don’t have to be around those assholes much and those we are around have a ‘live and let live’ attitude. Johnny still works at the tractor dealership in the shop as I farm with dad. It is not always an easy life, but it is one, for the two of us, that is satisfying.
Like now, sitting here watching that lanky boy put the mower away then amble across the yard, his torso glistening with sweat. Even the gym shorts are soaked around the waistband. He moves over to the small patio area where the garden hose is curled up on the wall hanger. Hose in hand he turns it on holding it over his head. The water cascades down his body, soaking the shorts till I can clearly see the gray boxer briefs underneath. He holds his head back and let the water hit him in the face and suddenly it arouses me, entices me, and I get up, slipping my shirt off as I stand. By the time I reach the screen door my cargo shorts are falling down my legs allowing me to step out of them. I feel my cock through the boxers, feel it thicken at my touch even more, as I move up to Johnny. He sees me coming, smiling as I move up next to him. He turns the hose on me, the cold water taking my breath for a moment, but it feels good, so cool in this hot humid air. I look down at how my boxers are translucent, my cock visible where it pushes at the front.
I reach out and push Johnny’s shorts and boxer briefs down and they slide easily down around his ankles. He does the same to me and we’re both naked, aroused by each other. I feel my cock bump Johnny’s as I pull close, bring our bodies together. We kiss, hands groping over each other, till I’m ready for more, and I lift him up carrying him over to the picnic table.
We both eager, so aroused there is little foreplay, and I’m quickly between his legs, cock sinking into his body. I hold his legs against my chest and drive with my hips, thrusting forward sinking all the way inward, then pulling back till I nearly slip free. I fuck with full swings of my hips and occasionally I do pull free only to slam back through his tight opening, breaching it again, stretching him open till he takes my fuck easily. He begs me to fuck harder and I drive harder into his hole. I see his body tighten up, muscle outlined across his stomach, his legs and arms flexed tight. I know the angle to push into him that hits his prostrate, the best way to batter it till he can’t take it and soon I see his cock flex, see the head swell up then fire his load. Thick wads soon cover his chest and stomach and I feel the spasm of his hole around my cock. It’s too much, the way it milks me, squeezing my shaft as I piston through it with a furious pace. I cry out and shove inward all the way. I come, shoving inward in hard jabs with each ejaculation till I’m spent.
Johnny lays back, legs resting against my chest as we hold still. Slowly our breathing returns to normal and I lean down kissing him feeling the cooling slick cum smear between our bodies.
“We probably should get inside before someone drives by and sees us” he whispers in my ear, sniggering, knowing neither of us really cares. But I stand up, help him up and we make our way inside, straight to the shower where we both climb in to clean up. Another day on the farm where we end up in the kitchen preparing dinner knowing later we’ll sit in the living room watching television then at some point, without either saying it is time, we’ll retire to the bedroom where we may lay down to go to sleep or we may find a renewed arousal, a desire for each other again. In the end, I’ll lay on my side with Johnny spooned up next to me and we fall into a rhythm of breathing soon to slip into sleep.
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