Cross
Currents
By
Adam Phillips
Part
One
1. Prologue
I
took a few days at the end of my final spring break to be by myself.
Instead of the standard beach trip this time, my crew--jocks, most of us, and
their women--had gone to the mountains of
But I'm not really a "mountains" kind of guy. No, for me it's
the beach. The ocean. The
sun and the surf. Specifically, the
I'm about to enter into a new phase of my life: I'm leaving college and I
guess I'm supposed to be all grown up. Actually, I'm not leaving college
altogether; I'm going off to grad school and delaying my entry into the real
world for a little while longer. But Angie and I have set a tentative
date. I take that seriously; and as the weight of that decision, that
commitment, settled in on me, I needed time to myself.
Angie was fine with that, as she always is. I don't know another woman as
willing as she is to let her man be who he is. I never feel like I have
to hide who I am with her. She understands that the depths get murky
sometimes and that I need time and space once in awhile to stay in the
game. So we flew back to
The day after we got home I made a call to an old friend, then drove over to
his house and picked up a key to a condo down on Mustang Island that I knew
almost as well as if it were my own. I'd made the request of Ruben's
parent’s months earlier, and my old high school jock crew and their parents,
well, we've all walked a lot of road together. It seems sometimes almost
as if their parents are mine and mine are theirs. There's a bond among
families of teammates. It's not a bad thing. So I knew I could have
the condo, if I asked, for a piece of the week. That's how it happened
that it wasn't being rented out for spring break. Friday morning, having
thrown some gear and clothes and toiletries in a bag, I borrowed my dad's SUV,
and set off for the eight-hour drive to
I checked in around five. Did the necessary paperwork, wrote the check
for the cleanup service that would set things right after my stay, walked
around the corner from the front office, took the elevator to the third floor,
and continued a good fifty feet south, until I was standing at the door of the
condo.
I put the key in the lock, turned the handle, opened the door...and found
myself staring into a roomful of ghosts.
Memories assaulted me with a ferocity I wasn't prepared for. Sounds,
words spoken and left unspoken, feelings as familiar as my own breath, but not
as matter-of-fact, all came back to me as I walked in. A
heaviness threatened to settle in and I wondered for a minute if I
should have come here alone.
But these ghosts were mine and nobody else's; and anyway, the haunting was part
of the reason I came. I needed to deal with my ghosts: phantoms of
other possibilities; memories that trail off into dead ends; wishes for square
triangles; and the chimera of The Endless Summer.
I shook off the feelings and began to walk back to the lobby. There I
grabbed a luggage-cart, and, hauling out all my gear from the SUV, wheeled the
cart first into the elevator and then into the condo. After I'd put my
stuff away, I stripped off my jeans and polo shirt, changed into some
beachwear, took the elevator back down, and walked down the long boardwalk to
the beach.
If you're a "beach" kind of person, you understand how the
salt-and-sea-life smell can sort of take you away. I spent about an hour
walking up and down the shoreline, transfixed by the beauty, aching over having
been away too long, and remembering.
How does a person live with, and own, the choices he has to make when life
presents him with a prepackaged, limited set that doesn't really meet the
deepest longings of the heart? That's what I was here to think
about. I'd been deeply in love with Angie for years. To be the love
of her life and the father of her children, to grow old with her, loving her,
making love to her...contemplating these things filled me with joy and optimism
about our future.
And yet, even as I looked forward with anticipation to our impending life
together, as I dreamed about our future together as a house in which our souls,
hers and mine, would take up residence...I was aware that for me, because of
the way I'd been made, and because of the currents that were stirred into being
here at this very place along the Gulf Coast, there would always be in that
house an empty room, a place where I spent time alone and lonely; and I understood
that that room would always be empty.
I also understood that there would be a nameplate on its door, designating the
space for someone who would never live there with me: "Matt."
I had come here for these few days to remember, to regret, to love, and to make
my peace with that.
2.
Beginnings
We moved to
Those trends continued in my new home. I'd been in Cub Scouts since I'd started
school, and in our new neighborhood my parents got me hooked up with a den
where the den mother lived just half a block away from us. And that's where I
met Matt.
Matt lived several blocks away from us with his mom. I'd seen him playing
outside that summer while we were moving in, and of course I ran into him at
school during recess in the early weeks of the school year, but here I got to
meet him in a more personal setting.
At that age I had vaguely blond hair and pretty fair skin. I was wiry but
strong. Fast on my feet and fast with my head. Always
talking. Matt, on the other hand, was darker. He tanned quickly and
deeply. He had to work harder at academics than I did; but he outweighed me and
was stronger and faster. And just like me, he liked to talk, and liked to play
ball. So it was in our Cub Scout den, and on the playing fields of school, that
the bonds of our friendship were established and solidified.
Both of us were intensely competitive, intensely aggressive on the playing
field, and both of us loved sport. We hit it off almost immediately. Well,
"hit it off" would be telling only half the tale. What I should have
said is that almost immediately we developed an intense love/hate thing:
In our relationships with our peers, Matt and I both found ourselves being
treated as "leaders of the pack." It’s generally not a pretty
thing to put two guys like that into close quarters with each other; the
rivalry gets intense, and it can get ugly.
We subconsciously recognized each other as rival contenders for the top place
in the little-boy pecking order. The things we had in common drew us to
each other; but they also set us against each other occasionally. As a
result, we became best of friends, and worst of enemies. One minute we'd
be hard at it, playing together on the playground; the next minute we'd be
shouting at each other, "I fuckin' hate
you!" and getting into fights of such intensity that the adults-in-charge
would have to separate us physically. And then, like a
Sometimes adults got smart and designated us as opposing captains when dividing
up a group of boys on the playground for games. You'd have thought we were
mortal enemies the way we brought our teams to bear against each other. Turf,
and the battle for it, was everything, and in that competition we were
unremitting opponents; but through the course of those days we were also
becoming the fiercest of friends. On weekends sometimes Matt would spend the
night at my place, or I'd spend the night at his. You remember how it was at
that age. And daily, after school, we could count on being together at my place
or his, watching TV, having an after-school snack, and doing homework together.
My family began to regard Matt as pretty much an extension of our own nuclear
family, and Matt's mom more or less adopted me into hers as well. It became
standard operating procedure to set an extra place at the table if one of us
was at the other's house after school.
Yet sometimes Matt would go through dark and sullen moods in which he was
difficult to talk to. He'd grow uncharacteristically quiet and withdrawn,
sometimes on a dime, out of nowhere. He was never overtly hostile, unless I
pressed him about it. But I learned to give Matt plenty of space during those
times.
I didn't know what to make of it. But I was aware that there were things I
didn't know about Matt that a third-grade boy doesn't know how to ask another.
Like, where was Matt's dad? And I'd seen pictures of an older brother at his
house. Where was he?
One weeknight as I was lying in my bed trying to fall asleep I heard my parents
talking downstairs in the living room. When I heard Matt's name mentioned, I
perked up my ears, and heard a story that rocked my little third-grade world
and in many ways has haunted me and shaped me into the person I've become.
Apparently, a year before we'd moved to
Matt's brother was found dead in a garbage dump a few days later. He'd been
sexually molested and murdered. The murderer was never caught. In the resulting
grief and guilt and recriminations, the family didn't survive. Before a year
was out, one night, without a word, Matt's father quietly packed up his stuff
in the middle of the night and left. No goodbye, no note, nothing. In the space
of half a year, Matt had lost a brother and a father.
As I listened in increasing horror, my safe little world crashed down around my
ankles, permanently. So the kid stories were true: There were fucking
monsters under the bed. And they were real. And, worst of all, grownups
were just as scared of them as little kids, and grownups couldn't always keep
them from eating little kids.
I didn't sleep the rest of the night, and over the
course of the next weeks and months my world, and my attitude toward it,
changed forever.
First of all, my security was shaken to the core. To think that a kid like myself could be stolen and fucked over and murdered, and
that grownups couldn't prevent it--that was more than I was prepared to handle.
I mean, I'd seen and read about crime and tragedy and disaster on TV and even
in children's books...but right here in my neighborhood, evil stalking Death
had walked right up to a kid like me, and said, "Your ass is mine,
bud." What this meant to me was devastating beyond belief. It meant that
nobody could protect me.
So, secondly, over the weeks and months that followed, my shell-shocked little
psyche developed a set of convictions and an operating strategy in response,
which has stayed with me to this day: I decided that I was the only person who
could watch out for me. I vowed to myself that I would be constantly on the
alert for any kind of threat life would bring. I swore that I'd work hard on my
mind and body so that I'd be faster, and smarter, and stronger, and able to
scope the terrain constantly, to discern potential threats beforehand so that I
could stay three steps ahead. And I swore to myself that, in any case, if
anyone ever fucked with me, if I were outmatched and going down, I'd at least
see to it that my assailant would damn well know he'd been in a fight for his
life.
I realized was that it was pointless to talk to an adult about this horror.
Grownups were just as impotent before it as kids. Hell, some of them even
bailed on their families rather than dealing with it. And on top of it all, I
came to understand that Matt was carrying around a world of hurt. If just
hearing the story was traumatic for me, I knew there was no way I could
comprehend the horror as Matt had experienced it. And in the innocent optimism
which is the unique gift of childhood, I committed myself to easing his pain.
My parents and teachers must have seen that I'd grown somewhat quieter for a
few weeks. But I don't recall anyone asking about it, and I wouldn't have
talked with them anyway. During this time I was going through the motions of
third-grader life, but inside I was concentrating on what it meant to live in
such a world.
My friendship with Matt continued to be about the same externally. I needed to
talk to him about his tragedy but I didn't know how, and didn't have the nerve,
so I let it go. But sometimes when we were together I'd find myself staring at
him, lost in thought, trying to imagine what it must feel like to be him.
Gradually, things got to feeling back-to-normal. Thank God. I felt as though
I'd been transported to a new and stranger, more violent planet...but kids make
adjustments and norms re-assert themselves. One thing that didn't change was my
need to talk to Matt about it all. The thought of doing so scared me, but
learning about his tragedy had helped me understand his moodiness, and I had to
let him know that I intended to be his friend through whatever shit he still
had to deal with.
One Friday I was spending the night at his house. We were in his room playing a
Nintendo game. I'd been thinking about Matt's tragedy all evening. After
the last alien had been vanquished, I looked at him, then down at the floor,
and stuttered, "I heard...I...I heard my mom and dad talking about your
brother...and your dad."
I looked up at his face again; his steel-blue eyes locked onto mine and held us
both there, frozen. There was no sound, no movement in the room, for what must
have been forty-five seconds, as his piercing eyes both took in my compassion
and silently expressed his own deep devastation. I don't know how long we would
have remained frozen there, but a single tear cascaded silently down his face
from his right eye. Desperate not to cry myself, I put my right hand on his
left, and, clasping our hands together tightly, said, with all the ridiculous
bravado, naivete, and sincerity a third-grader can
muster, "I promise I won't let anything hurt you again."
Still radar-locked onto each other's eyes, a few more moments of silence
passed, as I watched his face register a series of takes which seemed later to
me to have expressed, in rapid succession, doubt, sorrow, a sense of
incredulity, even a sort of bemusement...until finally, he arrived at a sad
half-smile. Then, squeezing my hand even tighter, he replied, "I know you
won't." With those words, he let go of my hand and turned back to his
Nintendo game.
We finished the evening, and the weekend, not discussing it again, resuming the
rough-and-tumble camaraderie that had grown to be characteristic of our
friendship. We got into a couple of fights that weekend, and plenty more in
subsequent weeks and months. Situation normal, in other
words. But although I didn't know how to express it until years later,
Matt, at that hour, had become a part of me; an inescapable place in the
landscape of my heart; a tragic and beautiful piece of everything that I am.
3.
Growing
Third
grade gave way to fourth, fourth to fifth, fifth to
sixth. During these years Matt and I became more firmly who we each were, both
individually and as the duo of "best friends" that we were. Our
friends came to expect that when they saw one of us, more often than not they'd
see the other. The occasional explosions of hatred we'd sometimes expressed for
each other in our earlier childhood subsided; they were replaced by a steadily
growing mutual regard and respect, a respect given to each other for our
differences as much as for our similarities. Each of us moved with comfort into
our own personalities and into the roles life seemed to carve for us. As
elementary school gave way to junior high, we ended up, without consciously
trying, in that small group of "leaders of the pack," that upper
echelon of kids who seem to slide through the school years as if the way had
been paved for them. To some extent an outsider might think of all the members
of that crew as clones; but as we grew, in spite of all the time we spent with
each other, our peers became much less likely to see us as undifferentiated
"Matt-and-Andy," and more likely to see us as clearly distinguishable
individual personalities.
My neurotic resolve to be in control of the world around me reinforced some
basic abilities I already had. I'd worked hard to master as much of the world
as I could, and things had come together pretty well for me intellectually,
socially, and athletically. "Can-Do" became my basic operating
principle, and I discovered that both peers and adults responded positively.
The outpouring of all this good will was bewildering: Whatever I brought to the
table that impressed anyone was brought out of desperation. These people didn't
understand that the world scared the shit out of me.
That was fine, though. I'd just as soon not have anyone know that the only way
I got through my life was by putting on bravery and can-do-manship
daily and deliberately, as if they were battle armor, with a lot of self-talk.
Sometimes I felt as if I were performing a role in a play that required me to
become someone I wasn't. But that never seemed apparent to anyone else, which
was fine with me. I disguised my inner wariness with a disarming, no-worries
exterior face.
Ultimately, I suppose, when you play a part long enough, you become that which
you play. These days, those traits have been with me for so long now, I don't
know anymore where the role ends and I begin. But back then I was only too aware
that there was a scared little boy inside. The qualities that everyone seemed
to admire in me were created from nothing more than sheer force of will. Those
qualities were alien to me, I felt, and not natural.
As further defense, I countered my interior caution with an external
devil-may-care attitude that led me into more than my share of risky adventures
involving railroad tracks, water towers, abandoned houses, drainage ditches,
dirt bikes and ramps; things that would have caused my parents to ground me
permanently if I'd been caught. That typical
boyhood-daredevil stuff occasionally kills a boy or two here and there.
The irony of this escaped me, however; I was too busy living, and playing
roles--roles to keep myself feeling safe, roles to help me in my project to be
the kid everybody liked. I was the golden boy with adults, and the kid who
acted as if he had the devil in him behind their backs. But I knew how to keep
my nose clean and my reputation intact. I wasn't a bad kid; I just felt
compelled to push the envelope while maintaining the persona of being unusually
responsible. After all, if you're gonna be prepared
to fight with monsters, you have to have some "bad" in you yourself.
My covert refusal to be entirely "the good boy" earned respect from
my pack; I was "ballsy" and "cool," and above all, I
"got away with it." And I was never alone in my adventures, inside
the lines or outside. Matt, too, was every bit "all boy" and was
generally my partner in crime in the petty misdemeanors of my boyhood.
Of course, Matt had his own pain to deal with, pain that was much more
personally grounded in horrible reality than mine was. But he was dealing
with it in his own way, just as I was. In school he was a capable leader,
a skilled athlete, and an intensely likeable guy. But where I tended
toward "fiery" and "explosive," Matt was generally more
placid, and was always friendly to just about everybody.
As time went by, it became increasingly clear that Matt was the better athlete
of the two of us. Style and agility and strength flowed effortlessly through
him and from him. He had an instinctual and thorough command of his body, and
the natural, effortless masculine grace of a jaguar; I had to supplement my
physical talents by applying my brains to my game. The combination of those two
made me almost as good an athlete as he was.
Almost. But not quite. Still,
I was never resentful or jealous. His accomplishments and abilities made me as
happy as my own. And together, we were a formidable pair, on the playing field,
in the social realm, and, eventually and especially, with the girls.
Matt struggled with schoolwork, however; I spent a lot of time helping him
there. He always received the help with gratitude and without feeling
inadequate. His untroubled acceptance of his lesser gifts in this area earned
my deep respect, because I often tended to torture myself over my own perceived
shortcomings. And while my drive to excel derived from, and hid, an almost
manic desperation, Matt appeared to be the very essence of calm, which
mystified me. My game, on the field and in life, radiated passion and
intensity and an almost fuck-you defiance of challenges and obstacles. Matt's
approach, on the field and off, was one of calm yet steady progress toward the goal.
He displayed quiet confidence in his ability to achieve what he needed to. And
Matt never met a person he didn't like or wouldn't accept, in contrast to my
own growing belligerence.
As we grew older, we began increasingly to diverge from one another on this
critical front. From the fourth through the sixth grade I was in danger of
becoming the typical jock who bullies "lesser kids." I'd worked hard
to master a threatening world, and it had worked for me. But along with that I
had grown into a boy who had little patience with, or compassion for, those I
perceived as too lazy or cowardly to have developed a battle-mentality like
mine. It wasn't that I went around beating up on kids, although by sixth grade
I was getting close to flirting with that extreme. More typically, I had a
tendency to lacerate kids verbally and to get in their faces physically. I
never really had a malicious or violent heart; but I'll admit with shame that
during those three years I was increasingly prone to humiliate peers who
displayed cowardice or tentativeness toward the world. Inside, I felt a rage at
them for taking the easy way out and crawling under the blankets instead of
fighting back when life threatened them, and I think I was subconsciously
attempting to bring the warrior out in them by confronting them with the fact
that there was nowhere to hide.
Matt had a different approach. If I'd nursed an imaginary wound during those
years, he'd been living with the real thing. That pain gave birth to a
compassion that refused to treat anyone badly. But since I was usually wherever
he was, he was almost always witness to my petty acts of cruelty.
He never openly called me on those, but he invariably came to the rescue of
whatever kid I'd zeroed in on. Matt was a master at diverting my attack,
walking a fine and delicate line with the tact and skill of a born diplomat,
making light-hearted cracks about his "big bad friend" and making it
clear to the kid in question that as long as Matt was at the scene, Andy wasn’t
any threat to anyone. This usually ended up eliciting a smile out of the poor
victim. I always knew what was going on and was usually secretly thankful for
Matt's intervention. My attack-dog instincts were a by-product of viewing life
as a chronic threat, and those instincts were often stronger than my ability to
control them. I didn't like the way it made me feel about myself, and I was
always relieved when Matt stepped in and defused things. And I usually then
ended up trying to make nice with the kid I'd almost flayed. As a result, many
a boy who might have otherwise grown to hate me during that three-year period
managed, by virtue of Matt's skill, to view me in a much more kindly light than
I actually deserved.
One day in the sixth grade, during a meaningless pick-up basketball game after
school, one of my teammates, a kid named Josh, allowed his opponent to
intimidate him out of a crucial go-ahead basket. Thwarted, he backed off the
offense and, tripping over his own feet, crashed to the ground. I extended a
hand, pulled him to his feet...and proceeded to rip him a new asshole.
"You worthless piece of shit," I raged, "pull up your diapers
and fuckin' go for it. You think he's gonna ask you to make the basket? I can't believe I
picked you for my team. Jesus fuckin' Christ! I don't
want you ever watchin' my back or I'm dead meat. Get
off the fuckin' court and go play with the girls, ya
little pansy."
My teammates began to grin and giggle; Josh turned pale and looked from me to
his other teammates with the eyes of a cornered wild animal. I could feel a dogpile of insult and humiliation coming Josh's way, and I
was frankly eager to watch it happen.
But Matt called attention to himself by stretching and yawning and feigning
boredom over the entire development: "Who gives a rat's ass? Y'all
outgunned us today anyway. I don't have time for this shit any more. I gotta go
do my homework before my mom has a cow."
I glared at him, on fire with rage and frustration: He was damn well not
going to call off the dogs the way he usually did; anyway, we had a motherfuckin' goddam basketball
war to win! But he met my look with a determined one of his own that said,
"Nope; not this time."
I was livid. I couldn't even speak I was so angry. Matt, for his part, never
flinched. His eyes held mine unapologetically, in calm but determined defiance.
Furious, but outmaneuvered, I mumbled something about a rematch later in the
week. Everybody began to walk off the court, some hopping on bikes, and we all
began to head for home. I stormed off by myself in the direction of my house,
but Matt wasn't far behind me. Sensing his presence, I turned around before I'd
gone a hundred steps. I stopped in my tracks, and waited for him to catch up.
While he was getting closer, I debated whether I should just take a swing at
him or whether I should go for a verbal evisceration. He was not fuckin' getting away with rescuing that little candy-ass.
I'd realized in the intervening seconds that it had been a while since we'd
really had a good fight, and that these days he'd probably end up kicking my
ass; so I'd decided to bruise him up with my words. As he got within hearing
distance, I opened my mouth to savage his "let's all be friends"
bullshit, but again, the calm steadiness in his gaze unnerved me. Standing
face-to-face with me he held me fixed, as he always could, with the
determination radiating from those ice-blue eyes of his; then, after half a
minute of silence, he quietly said, "Isn't there enough hurt in the world
already, Andy?"
My stomach felt like it had fallen out and hit the ground. I felt the blood
drain from my head, and for a few seconds, I felt dizzy and light-headed, and
things actually started to grow dark. I shook it off and continued my walk
home, with Matt right beside me, his very presence now tormenting me with guilt
and shame. I was silent all the way to my house. Before I turned onto the walk
toward my front door, Matt slapped me on the back, smiled, and said, "See
you tomorrow, bad boy." I nodded silently, unable to speak, and went
inside.
Matt was right. He knew hurt personally. It was his daily silent companion. I
knew he still hurt over the loss of his big brother; I knew the knife-edge that
sliced into him when birthdays went by without a word from his father. Pain was
his mortal enemy. He hated it. And he would give its deliberate
infliction--upon anyone--no quarter. And finally, he'd seen all of it he could
stomach from me.
In that moment, a gut-wrenching truth assaulted me with a punishing clarity:
Matt lived with genuine loss throughout these years and carried himself with
more grace and dignity than I had managed, even though I'd lived only with its
false twin. And in putting up with, and having to defuse, my own escalating
acts of cruelty toward others, Matt felt his hurt reflected back onto him. I'd
betrayed him. In bringing hurt on others, I'd been rubbing his own pain in his
face and disrespecting him. And worse: I'd been spitting on the childhood
promise I made to him. I went straight to my room and cried my eyes out.
In that single determined act of confrontation, Matt tamed the demon of rage
inside me. "Isn't there enough hurt in the world already?" became my
mantra from then on whenever I felt anger pushing me toward cruelty. Matt's
tragedy had early on given me bravery in a threatening world; now it gave me
the seeds from which would spring my desire to model in my own life his
unconditional compassion. It was a gift that would keep on giving.
4.
Testosterone/Changes
As
Matt and I got older, our individual sports interests went in slightly
different directions. At the junior high level, in addition to recreational
leagues, the schools also fielded teams for all the sports. During the rec years, both of us had played most of the
recreation-league sports that were available, but as time went by we discovered
some separate favorites. While he and I both played football, baseball, and
basketball for our school, Matt was also on the swimming team, and I played
soccer for the school team. Occasionally there was a schedule conflict, but the
coaches were always good about making concessions to athletes' multiple sports
involvements at that age. Outside school, both of us stayed with league
baseball and basketball, but I discovered a genuine passion for, and ability
in, both soccer and baseball. Matt, on the other hand, had grown tired of
soccer and had begun more and more to get involved in rec
league football.
In the fifth- and sixth-grade years, soccer players with ability and interest
are scouted by the soccer clubs. Youth soccer clubs and club-based leagues have
sprung up around the nation to make up for the dearth of quality soccer
programs in the schools. They are fiercely competitive; a player has to try out
for one of no more than twenty spots on the team. If he makes the team,
he has to sign an exclusive playing contract. Each player's family is
expected to pay in the four figures each year for dues, uniforms, out-of-state
tournaments, and other associated costs. The clubs are run by guys who've had
life-long experience playing and/or coaching world-class youth soccer. They're
often British or Brazilian or from the
During my early teenage years I began to invest more and more of my sports
energy there. I liked the other sports, but in my opinion, soccer's the game
that requires the most out of a player, not only in terms of athletic ability
but also in terms of intelligence. In a way it's like high-speed chess. You
have to keep running tabs on the variety of options open to you and to your
opponent. While you're executing moves, you have to anticipate what the
opponent may do in response. And this sort of calculation not only applies to
you as an individual with the individual opponent covering you; it also applies
to the teams as a whole. You have to understand what your move contributes to
the position of the team, and how the opposing team is likely to respond, and you
have to do it all lightning-fast.
I'd made it onto a club team in a neighboring suburb and spent most of my
soccer days from then on as a midfielder. Of all the sports I played,
soccer was the one that inspired passion in me. Matt, on the other hand,
preferred to spend his fall sports season with American football. I played the
game too, but never like Matt: the boy had an arm on him, and was a great
scrambler. Not only that; he was also absolutely fearless on the field.
The coaches tagged him as a quarterback almost immediately.
Our differences in the classroom in junior high were even more pronounced than
they were in sports. Matt had never been much of a student, and junior high
didn't change that. I had always enjoyed learning; Matt tolerated it at best.
During these years, I began to love math, and discovered that I had a real
aptitude for it. Matt was happy just to get through schoolwork as quickly as he
could.
My education didn't end when my school day ended. On the home front, my dad was
intent on turning me into a Renaissance man, so in addition to my academic load
at school, he eased me into a ten-year reading schedule laid out by the
University of Chicago's "Great Books" program. The idea was to cover
the greatest literary works of Western civilization in a decade's time. Weekly
he'd ask me to read one of the works, and once a week he and I would sit and
discuss what I'd read. I had no doubt that even when I was off in college
he'd be calling regularly to see if I'd stayed with the damn reading plan.
He'd also seen to it that I'd had some exposure to the arts. By the time I was
in the third grade, he had me taking piano lessons. I continued those through
my senior year in high school, so I'm a not-too-shabby musician.
As for Matt's education, well, I pretty much got him through school by forcing
him to study with me. It's not that he was a total dunce; he just preferred
"living" to "thinking." Abstractions weren't interesting to
him; people were. But Matt had a pretty decent musical sense about him too. He
started taking guitar lessons and got pretty good.
He and I both had a high profile of involvement in student leadership. We were
always in student government, and, under the leadership and sponsorship of
various teachers and coaches, we took charge of a wide variety of student-led
service projects. Although we were solid in the "in-crowd" at school,
we never turned up our noses at anybody, and spoke to everyone with respect and
cordiality. I'd be lying if I didn't admit that Matt was totally
responsible for this. In any case, we were both fairly well-liked by the
various other factions that had begun to emerge in the student body: the "goths," the "stoners," the "Jesus
kids," the "nerds," the kids in band and choir and orchestra,
and the wood-shop and auto-mechanics boys. Everybody.
Throughout all the changes of these years, we continued to be best friends and
constant companions. Although we'd irritate each other from time to time, the
days of the explosive "I-hate-you-asshole" fights were gone for good.
Along with that came some personal growth. My own sense of paranoia over real
and imagined threats began to level off somewhat. And with Matt's constant
example as a guide, I became less abrasive and more accepting around kids whom
I felt weren't pulling their weight.
For his part, Matt was growing into a guy who was remarkably self-possessed,
even during the storms typical of the teenage years. Occasionally,
however, there were dark days where he was quiet and seemed to lean on me just
to get through the day. From that night in the third grade onward, I
never forgot the tragedy that haunted him, and during those times where he
seemed cloudy and troubled, I hung out with him quietly and kept him company,
taking my cues from him. It was understood that he didn't want to talk
much during these episodes, so I just stayed with him, working on homework with
him, or playing a video game or shooting hoops or watching TV, never talking a
whole lot. Once in a while when he got into these moods he seemed to need
to say something, but I don't think he knew how to express in words the depth
of his despair. Sometimes his attempts to talk about it would end up in
tears. I never knew quite what to do, and couldn't even begin to think of
what to say; so usually I ended up going over to him, awkwardly patting his
shoulder or trying to hug him, letting him put his head on my shoulder and cry
it out. During these times he always struggled hard to get control as
quickly as he could, and often seemed embarrassed for having "lost
it." But I never said anything much beyond, "It's
okay, Matt." It was all the comfort I knew how to give,
and it seemed to be enough.
The dark days came only occasionally, though, and usually passed without
incident. He never talked much about those moods. I would discover
much later that during these years his internal struggle was more intense and
desperate than he ever revealed to me. I didn't know it at the time,
though. As far as I could tell, except for his infrequent moodiness, Matt
was like me: a typical middle-class American white boy, enjoying life.
Adolescence begins to shape a guy into the man he's going to become, on a
number of fronts. Matt and I both got the hormone surge toward the
late-middle of sixth grade. By seventh grade, we'd both been catching the
girls' eyes for a couple of years. They liked our faces. On top of
that, we had solid muscle, and the physical grace that comes from years of
athletic play. Our voices began to deepen, our dicks got bigger, and we
sprouted hair under the arms, on our legs, in the pubes region. I'm assuming
that, anyway; I couldn't speak from firsthand knowledge regarding Matt's pubes
or his dick. At that point I'd never seen him naked. Even at sleepovers we
never stripped down beyond boxers.
During this period, as if someone had flipped an "on" switch, we
began noticing the girls the same way they'd been noticing us since fifth
grade. It all seemed to wash suddenly over me late in the sixth grade. From
then on, I felt like a walking hard-on. I discovered masturbation on my own as
a really young kid, but never did it much. Beginning in late sixth grade,
though, more and more of my life and awareness seemed to center itself on my
dick and its constant ache for release. I had my first wet orgasm the summer
after my sixth grade year, and the locker room that next year grew more and
more to be dominated by sex talk; the other guys had apparently discovered
their dicks, too.
Matt was in my gym class in seventh grade. The locker room in our junior high
had communal showers, and there was one at each end of the fairly large
dressing area. At the beginning of the school year the coach assigned us
lockers; Matt and I had been assigned lockers on opposite ends of the locker
room, so during gym period we never really ran into each other except out in
the gym, or on the playing field, depending upon which season it was. Showering
with other guys was no big deal for me. Some of the guys, it was obvious, were
kind of ashamed and made a few lame attempts to hide their nakedness. It never
bothered me, though; by the beginning of seventh grade, I already had a little
pubic hair, and my dick was a pretty good size already. It had grown in length
and thickness already during my sixth-grade year, so I wasn't nervous about
letting it hang out in front of people. I wasn't particularly interested in
seeing other guys naked, except for the standard compare-and-contrast thing all
guys have going on. It was naked girls that inspired my own hard-ons and jerk-off fantasies. I did notice, however, that I
got more than my share of furtive stares in the locker bay and in the
shower. I knew what that was primarily about. Unlike most of my
peers, my parents had decided to allow me all the sensitivity that nature
intended me to have: I'm uncut. So the guys, though they tried not to
show it, were curious.
That fact also fueled an interesting encounter with Matt in the second semester
of my seventh-grade year.
After Christmas break, we came back to gym class to find that our lockers had
been re-assigned. One of the other gym sections had to be added to ours because
a coach had quit mid-term and his class had to be absorbed into ours. In the
resulting shuffle, lockers had been re-assigned.
On the first day after break, Matt and I were walking to the locker room,
talking trash to each other as gym period began. After consulting the
locker assignments on the bulletin board, we realized quickly that we were
heading in the same direction, and pretty soon we found ourselves in the same
locker bay. Our banter died down as it dawned on us simultaneously that we were
about to strip down in front of each other for the first time ever. I stripped
off my shirt, and then down to my boxers; Matt followed suit. But neither of us
seemed to be able to go the next step toward getting our jocks and gym shorts
on, so to delay the inevitable we attempted to continue the small talk. It was
clear, though, that both of us had our minds on the same thing. We were
stumbling around with our words, until finally Matt looked me in the face,
grinned, and said, "What the fuck, Phillips, it's just a little skin; we
might as well whip 'em out and get it done."
That broke the ice. I leered at him in response, hooked my thumbs under the
waistband of my boxers, and shot back, "Yeah, it's just skin, but ain't nothin' little on this
boy!" And with that, I shoved my shorts down to my knees, stepped out of
them, and thrust my hips forward in an obscene "check-this-out"
move.
Matt was stepping out of his boxers at the same time, and I checked out his
package. He had a respectable cut dick hanging between his legs. Average-sized
for that age, I guess, or maybe just a little more, but definitely more in the
way of pubes than I had. I quickly re-directed my gaze to his face, and noticed
to my amusement that he was still staring at my dick. An involuntary
"wow!" escaped from his lips.
I couldn't resist; Matt was my best friend, but I was gonna
make him squirm over this.
"See something that interests you, sport?"
He mumbled a response: "Dude, you never told me before you aren't
circumcised."
"I can't imagine why I never brought the subject up before," I
deadpanned.
He blushed. "You're kinda big, too."
"Aww, honey," I quipped, "I didn't
know you cared."
Matt looked at me with malice. I realized I was pushing it, so I quickly added,
"That's not a micro-dick you're packin'
either."
His gaze softened and became inquisitive. He opened his mouth and began to ask,
"How does...how does the..." Then he stopped, as if recognizing that
this wasn't a conversation he was even remotely interested in having anyone
overhear.
He stepped into his gym shorts, pulled on his t-shirt, and said, "What the
fuck. Let's cut the 'peeping tom' shit and get our gear on and get the fuck out
there."
"Fine by me, sweety," I smirked, and pulled
my shorts on.
"Fuck you."
Laughing, I arched my eyebrows and said, "Well..."
"Oh, shut up," he laughed, and shoved me hard in the back, pushing me
toward the door to the gym.
At that point in the year we were playing basketball in class. Matt and I got
picked to captain opposing sides and we spent the hour playing hard against
each other. Matt's team won. At the end of the period we showered up and
dressed for the rest of the day. Before the bell for next period rang, Matt
said, "Meet you outside the gym after school. Your place
or mine?"
I thought for a moment then said, "Dude, let's go to yours. Remember, you
said your mom was leaving a new batch of cookies out for us."
"Oh, yeah," he responded. "Okay, see ya."
"You already did," I said, and arched my eyebrows at him again. He
responded by saluting me with the middle finger of his right hand. I laughed
and headed on to science class.
5.
Explorations
I
met Matt outside the gym right after school. As we started walking toward
home, he grabbed me by my shoulder, then put his arm
across the back of my neck and around the other shoulder. Pulling me into him
until we were side by side, he said, "Hey, loser, I've had a hard day at
school, and I think you oughta carry my backpack for
me, since we trashed your ass all over the court today."
"Yeah, that's gonna happen," I responded,
pulling his arm off my shoulder and stepping away from him. I got a couple of
arms length from him and kept walking. Undeterred, he took a few large strides
and caught up with me, and we continued down the road.
I looked over at him as we walked, waiting to see if he'd press the issue.
Reaching for "sullen" on his face but not quite achieving it, he
said, "Shit. Just goes to show you who your friends are."
"Damn straight," I responded. "I'm looking out for your ass.
Your puny biceps need the extra workout or you're never gonna
get any more women."
He frowned at me. "Carrying a backpack doesn't work your biceps, moron.
And I'll put my biceps up against yours any day," he said, flexing an
arm. "Anyway, you're sooooo fuckin' wrong about the women. Beth wants me, dude!"
Oh, brother. Matt's crush-of-the-week. He was making
his way through the opening act of puberty in larger-than-life style. Matt was
hopelessly, serially in love with the girls in our school, one right after
another. Each week some new girl was "absolutely the love of his
life." And every weekend he was getting a different one to hang out at the
mall with him or go to a movie and make out with him. And each week I had to
hear about it.
I could match him erection for erection in our relatively newfound interest in
girls. And I had no trouble in getting girls to pay attention to me, either. It
was that way with most of my buds. The crew of young jocks I ran with was
already "taking girls out"; that is, walking with them to hang out at
the mall or the movies. We were all pretty fast for our age; there was usually
some heavy making-out going on when my friends got together with girls.
Matt and I had both had our share of experience in that area. But I tended to
focus on one girl at a time, in one- or two-month time periods, rather than
swapping out at the end of a week. At his current rate, Matt was going to go
through all the girls at our school before I'd had my chance with them. And I
didn't want to think of myself as getting Matt's leftovers. Lucky for me that
he isn't fucking them yet, I said to myself, or pretty soon virgins would be an
extinct species.
Hearing him talk about Beth pissed me off. She was on my radar
screen right now. She was a cheerleader, and she was beautiful. Even at the
junior-high level the jocks and cheerleaders seemed naturally to gravitate
toward each other. So Beth was definitely in my sphere of influence, but for
that reason she was in Matt's, too. I didn't want to see those two get
together. I hadn't gotten the nerve to make any moves on her yet, but in my
mind, since I'd been interested in her long before today, she was off-limits to
Matt. I didn't want to admit that to him, though; I mean, what if he'd already
asked her out? I'd look pretty pathetic going on about some girl Matt was
already hitting on.
So rather than admit my interest in Beth, I chose to focus on Matt's incipient
"womanizing." I scowled at him and said, "Man, I don't wanna hear about it. It's always somebody new with you.
Last week it was Julie, wasn't it? Week before that it was Jennifer."
"Okay, so I like cheerleaders," he said, laughing. "Fuckin' execute me! And speaking of Julie and Jennifer,
you've been out with both of 'em too, so don't talk
that shit with me. I can't help it that Beth's all about my gorgeous face and
my hot body."
With that smart-ass remark I felt anger and jealousy rise up from the pit of my
stomach. All of a sudden, Matt was the last person on the planet I was
interested in walking home with. I picked up my pace, creating a little
distance between us, and mumbled, "Fuck you, I noticed her first,"
under my breath, not intending to be heard.
No such luck. Matt stopped me by grabbing me by the shoulders. Turning me
around to face him, he asked, "So why didn't you just say that?"
I was embarrassed that he'd heard me. "Because you're the one who
brought it up, not me," I yelled. "You're all 'Oh Beth, she's
got the hots for me,' so what am I supposed to do now
that you've asked her out? Like I'm supposed to say, 'You
can't go out with her because I liked her first'?"
He looked at me with wide, disbelieving eyes, and said, "Well, I haven't
asked her out, but as a matter of fact, yeah, that's exactly what you're
supposed to say!"
I muttered, "Like that's gonna make a
difference."
Matt's face fell. He didn't say anything for a minute. Then he shook his head
and said, "Whatever, dude. Let's go." And he turned around and
resumed walking.
I followed him, feeling vaguely guilty for reasons I didn't understand. I
wasn't sure what to say, wasn't sure what to think. Once I'd reached his side
again, he looked over at me and said, "Andy, between the two of us we'll
probably date a million girls."
I stopped walking, crossed my arms, and said, "So?"
He didn't hesitate. "I just think it ought to be an understanding
between us. If we've got it bad for the same girl, neither of us asks her
out."
I wasn't sure I liked that proposal. "Why? It's like you said, there are
lots of girls around. We both do okay with girls. Why not just say
it's up to each one of us to make the first move and the other guy can't give
him any shit for it if he does?"
"Because there's lots of girls to choose
from," he said. "But there's only one Matt-and-Andy. I don't
want anybody to mess that up. He paused, looked down at the ground for a
moment, then looked back into my eyes and continued. "My family's been
fucked. I don't always deal so good. Sometimes you
keep me in the game, you know?"
Jesus. There it was again. Why the hell was it that Matt always seemed years
ahead of me when it came to matters of the human heart? Now I understood why I
was feeling guilty. I wasn't clear with myself that I would put our friendship
ahead of our sex drives. But he was plenty clear on the matter, and to
hear me express the slightest doubt about him on the matter stung him a little.
I had to let him know that I was as loyal to him as he was to me. I also had to
save face. "Yeah, okay, you're right, ya big asshole," I finally
responded. "I guess if you can't handle the competition, I'll throw you a
break."
Matt's eyes sparkled undisguised pleasure at that response, along with a hint of
mischief. He grabbed me by the neck and put me in a headlock. "That's my
man. Always lookin' out for his bud; after all, you
have to give us guys with micro-dicks a fighting chance, big guy."
I was about to respond with "Damn straight," when he winked and
added, "Not that any of that could have kept Beth from picking me if we
both went after her!"
I was totally disarmed; he had me laughing again. "Oh, man, you are too fuckin' much!" I broke free from his headlock and
tackled him, dropping him onto the front lawn of the house we were standing in
front of. After a short wrestling match, I got the upper hand, and sat on
top of his chest. Holding him down by the shoulders, I dangled a wad of spit
from my lips, right over his eyes.
Looking up into my face, he cocked an eyebrow and said, "Would the
pleasure really be worth the pain?"
Considering for a minute, I decided against it and spit into the grass over his
right shoulder, then let him up.
"Smart boy," he said. "Now let's go eat some fuckin'
cookies."
We started walking again, side by side, laughing and trash-talking.
----------
Matt's mom made the best chocolate chip cookies on the planet. She wasn't home
from work yet, and wouldn't be until around five, but there were about two
dozen cookies on a plate sitting on Matt's kitchen table. "Oh, man,"
I said. "Let's pig out!" We took the cookies and went upstairs to his
bedroom.
When we got there, he went over and turned on the TV. We took off our shoes and
socks and Matt went to his collection of video games to pull one for us to
play; already sprawled out on his bed, I said, "Hang on, my man, what's
going with homework?"
"Done and done," he replied.
I wasn't sure. Matt tended to loaf if I wasn't cracking the whip. "Okay,
boy, this is not your mom you're talking to. Are you shittin'
me?"
"Jesus, Phillips, you're such a little slave-driver," he said,
rolling his eyes. "Dude, my homework is done. I did everything I had
at the end of math. We had time. You wanna check it
out or something?"
"Nah, I believe you. I don't have any homework either. I'm just trying to
save you from a life of homelessness and poverty." I took the game from
him, loaded it, and sat down with a controller.
"Yeah, well, thanks for nothing, dickhead," he said, joining me with
the other controller.
"Any time," I said, laughing.
We played a round or two. I didn't have this game at home, so he kicked my ass.
After a while, he dropped his controller and said, "Dude, you need
practice. Play one-player for awhile. I'll just watch." So I messed around
with it for awhile, slowly improving my technique.
He watched quietly. Every now and then I turned to look at him or say something
to him, and occasionally when I did, I noticed that he was staring at me
instead of the video screen. But I was so engrossed in the game I didn't think
anything of it.
After I'd had my fill, I put down the controller and said, "Let's go
outside and shoot hoops."
He didn't say anything for a minute; he was still looking at me. The look on
his face gave the impression of someone who has something on his mind but isn't
sure about talking about it.
I looked back at him and asked, "What?"
Silence. After a moment or two, he shook his
head, looked nervously at the floor, and said, "Never mind."
I wasn't having any of that. "Okay, spill it; what's on your mind?"
His face still seemed tentative and a little wary. Finally, he took a deep
breath and said, "We're best friends, right?"
Now I was sort of alarmed. This seemed way too serious for
what we'd been doing the last hour. I quickly replied, "Shit, yeah.
You shouldn't even have to ask."
"So like if I wanted to ask you something weird you wouldn't give me shit
about it or go telling the whole fuckin'
school?"
"No way, man," I said, calling on all the sincerity I had to bring to
the response. "I would never do anything to fuck you over, and you know
that."
"Okay," he said. "Here's what it is. I never...man, don't think
I'm queer or anything, but I never seen a dick with all its skin, you know? And
I...I guess it kinda freaked me out when I saw you
today. I mean...I'm not saying you're a freak! I just...well, I mean,
we're so much alike about stuff...well, not everything but you know what I'm sayin'...and, well, we've been friends all this time. I
guess I never even thought about it that you'd be...you know, like that.
Not that I go around thinking about your dick or anything."
I was relieved and amused at the same time. What a stupid-ass thing to get all
serious about! Matt was my best friend and I'd never hurt or humiliate him, but
damned if I wasn't going to have at least a little fun with this one. I wasn't
sure where he was going with this, but I was going to make the getting-there a
little bit of a trip for him.
So I smirked at him and said, "So what's your point?"
He said, "Okay, I guess I..." he paused;
then, turning red, he said, quietly, "Could I see it again?"
I burst out laughing. "You wanna see my
dick? That's what this is about? Oh, man! I woulda
never guessed it!"
"Fuck you, asshole," he snarled, getting even redder. Snatching
up the game controller I'd just laid down, he faced away from me and focused
his attention on the video screen, muttering, "Just forget it, goddammit." Then he turned back to face me and added,
"I swear I will fuckin' beat your face in if you tell anyone about this!"
I stifled my hilarity a little. After I'd gotten some control of myself,
I thought about it for a minute, and, still working hard to keep from laughing,
I said, "I'm sorry, man, it just seemed funny. You gotta admit it's kinda 'out there.' But, really, dude, it's all good. If you
wanna see my dick it's fine
with me, I don't give a shit. You know I'd never tell anybody shit like
that, and if you don't believe me--well, tell you what: you drop the trousers
too, and that way it'll be safe."
"Huh?"
"Well, if I were gonna be a total asshole jerk
and tell the school you were pervin' on my dick, you
could say I was pervin' on yours."
Matt grinned sheepishly at me and said, "Yeah, I guess so. Okay. It's just
that I never seen one and I'm really curious and you're my best friend."
"Enough already, I said I'd do it," I replied, and started unbuckling
my belt. Matt began to strip down with me. We got down to our boxers.
I looked at him, put my thumbs inside the waistband and said, "Here
goes." Then I pushed my boxers down, let them fall to the floor, and
stepped out of them.
Matt followed suit. We stood there facing each other, less than a foot and a
half away from each other, naked from the waist down, eyeing each other's
dicks. Matt had a good bit of dark brown hair surrounding a cut dick of
greater-than-average thickness that was maybe three and a half inches soft. His
balls hung loosely in their sack. My own equipment wasn't too different. I
didn't have as much hair down there as he did, and it was a lighter brown in
color; my uncut dick, soft, was about four and a half inches, with about the
same proportion of length-to-girth as his.
The absurdity of this little tableau was threatening to make me laugh again,
but Matt seemed genuinely interested in checking out my dick. Which, of course, was threatening to make me laugh even harder.
Still, I managed to hold it in.
After a few moments he asked, uneasily, "Does it just like,
skin back? I mean, can you move it below...below the...you know...the
head?"
This was Weird Planet as far as I was concerned; I mean, I didn't think any the
worse of Matt for it, but I wouldn't have ever expected to be in Matt's room
with him comparing dicks. There was something kind of perversely riveting about
it, though, and in my typical balls-to-the-wall attitude, I decided to myself,
well, shit, why don't we make this interesting?
I raised an eyebrow and replied, "Why don't you see for yourself?"
"What?"
"Put your hand on it yourself," I said. "Slide back the skin. You wanna know how
it works, try it out yourself."
He stepped back a couple of steps and shook his head. "No fuckin' way. I'm not gay and you know it. I'm not gonna have you blabbing all over town that I got queer with
you."
"Dude, I know you're not gay," I said. "Don't be stupid.
And I'd never do that to you, asshole. I totally get it: you wanted to check my
dick out because you never seen one like mine. Well, here it is. I just figured, why not satisfy your curiosity all the way?"
He hesitated for a few minutes, staring at my dick the whole time, but unable
to cross the line.
I urged him on. "Look, man, I know you're not gay, and I know you want to
touch it. I'm telling you it's okay, and if it'll make
you feel better I'll touch yours too. And nobody has to know anything about
it."
Matt eyed me warily, then relaxed and said, "What the fuck. Okay, come
here."
I stepped closer, still facing him. He reached out and touched my dick. He ran
his fingers from the base of my shaft up towards the tip of the foreskin. Then
he looked up at me and asked, "Can I, like, skin it back?"
"Yeah," I said. "Just be careful. Don't pull too hard or too
fast. And also, a promise is a promise, so..."
I reached over and grabbed his dick, feeling up and down on it. Matt slowly,
almost gingerly, skinned back my foreskin. "Wow, the head of your dick is
so friggin' shiny."
"Yeah, well, it gets more protection than yours does."
He pulled the foreskin back into place slowly, then
slid it down again. It didn't take long at all before my dick started getting
thicker and longer. "Oh, shit," he muttered when he realized what was
happening, and he let go of my dick like it was a poisonous snake. I dropped
his too; it was starting to respond just like mine.
Pretty soon both our dicks were at full attention. As Matt watched, his eyes
got even wider. "Damn; you're fuckin' huge! How
big is it?"
"Almost seven and a half inches," I said with some pride.
"Wow, you're almost an inch and a half bigger than me," he said.
"Well, you're not really little either. I read somewhere that six is
average and we're only in junior high."
Somewhere in all of this I started getting really horny. I was kind of freaked
out, but I thought to myself, hell, let's just go for it. So I said,
"Dude...it felt good in your hand. Do it some more." I reached for
his dick to give him some encouragement.
"We're gonna jerk each other off now?" he
said with a mixture of horror and fascination.
"Your call, bro. I'm game if you are."
"Okay, cool. But you better not tell."
I rolled my eyes at him. "How could I tell? I'll be doin' you just like you're doin'
me."
He put his hand back on me and slowly started sliding my foreskin back and
forth on my hard cock. For a guy who didn't have a foreskin, he figured out
quickly how most of us uncut guys do it.
For my part, I noticed that it didn't work quite as neatly with a cut guy. I
said to him, "Got any Vaseline?"
"Just use your spit," he said, already breathing heavily.
I spit into my hand and started jacking him off slowly. The room was silent
except for some occasional moans and our increasingly heavy breathing.
By his facial expressions it was clear Matt was feeling the same pleasure that
I was. As we increased the speed and intensity of our hand-action, it was
obvious I was getting closer faster. When he could see that I was about to
shoot, Matt said, "Let go of me and let me finish you first."
I was in no condition to argue. I let go of his dick, closed my eyes, and
concentrated on the sensations. "Keep going, dude, I'm almost there,"
I moaned.
Matt continued working my dick furiously. Finally, I felt my whole lower torso
tense up. I was dizzy with the need for release. Matt kept pumping and my dick
began to spurt its juice. The first three squirts shot all over his shirt, at
first right below his neck, then at chest level, then at his waist. After I was
all drained, he continued to jack me, but my dick was getting supersensitive.
"Okay, stop," I said.
He let go of me and I fell to the bed for a minute, spent. He was breathing as
hard as I was, and his erection still pointed angrily toward the ceiling,
aching to be finished off. I was kind of past the mood, and the
"gayness" of the encounter was beginning to freak me out a little,
but fair is fair, so I gripped his dick again and began pumping him. His
breathing got even more ragged and he gasped, "Faster." I increased
my intensity and worked on him about another minute. Then I felt him tense up
and his dick spat three good-sized sprays of cum on my shirt and all over my
hand.
I continued to work him with my hand until his dick stopped spasming.
Then I let him go and he sat down hard on the floor, breathing slowly and
deeply. I sat on his bed and he sat on the floor, both of us naked below the
waist and tired. We were silent for a while. Then Matt got up and left the
room. When he came back he'd brought a couple of damp washcloths. He threw one
at me and, grinning, he said, "We don't wanna
leave that on our shirts."
We got cleaned up, then he took the cloths back into
his bathroom, washed them out in the sink, and hung them up on the towel rack
to dry. When he came back into his room, he looked at me with a sickly
expression and said, "Man; that was pretty queer, wasn't it?"
I looked at him and said, "Yeah, maybe." Then, after a pause, I
added, "But I don't give a shit. It was fuckin'
hot!"
Matt rolled on the floor laughing; I rolled on his bed laughing. We must have
belly-laughed and joked around for a good five minutes, until Matt looked at
his clock. A look of terror gripped him, and he said, "Shit! My mom's gonna be here any second. Get your fuckin'
clothes on!"
We both jumped into our clothes and started straightening up his room a little.
And in fact we'd barely been dressed for sixty seconds when, through his
bedroom window, we saw Matt's mom pull up into the driveway. We turned his TV
on again, popped in a video game, and tried to look like we were deep into it.
When Matt's mom got into the house she came upstairs and greeted us. "Hi, sweety. Hey, Andy. Are you staying for dinner?"
I grabbed my backpack and said, "Not this time; I need to get home tonight
'cause I told Mom I'd be home for dinner. Thanks for the cookies, though; they
were awesome!"
"No need to thank me, sweetheart; if you boys liked them, that's all the
thanks I need."
I rolled my eyes furtively at Matt. His mom was always calling me
"sweetheart" or "honey" or something like that, and it was
kind of embarrassing. Matt just grinned and gave me one of those "deal
with it" looks.
"Okay, Mrs. Price," I said. "I'll see y'all tomorrow. See ya,
Matt."
"Not if I see you first, cowboy," he quipped.
With his mom in the room, I decided not to make the reply that came into my
head.
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Copyright 2003-2007 by Adam Phillips