by Todd Young
He got into the car early, and figured he could do some shopping first. Nothing perishable. But there were some other things he needed. Money was getting tight, so he was looking forward to his first paycheck. He went to Ace Hardware before going to the school. And bought himself some tools.
Then it was time for the meeting.
As he pulled up, Sandra was getting out of her car.
“Oh, hi,” she said. “You must be James.”
He nodded, unable to speak, and shook her hand.
“Come in,” she said, and then went ahead and unlocked the building, walking him through to her office.
She took a seat, and sat very close to him, her knee touching his occasionally. He wondered if she meant something by it, but dismissed the idea. She had long, dark hair, held in a ponytail, was in her thirties, and quite attractive. He wondered if he should have responded to the knee, but didn’t quite know what to do.
“So, where are you living?”
“Out at Obsidian.”
“Obsidian?”
He nodded.
“What the hell do you want to be all the way out there for?”
“I like the peace and quiet,” he said.
“Well, you’ve certainly got that. I spent a night out there once. Those birds — those night birds — they drove me crazy.”
She was speaking of the northern mockingbirds, which seemed to abound on the farm. He found them disturbing also, particularly when he was trying to sleep. They could mimic anything from a cow to a tractor, and more than once he’d been fooled into thinking something was outside the house. Just last night, one had been making the sound of the sewing machine.
“I’m giving you grade five,” she suddenly said. “You think you can handle that?”
He nodded, but he’d hoped to get grade two or three. For some reason they always wanted the men with the older children, and it hardly seemed fair.
She talked on for half an hour or so, asking him about his education, New York, his plans for the future, how he intended to manage his class. By the end of it, he felt exhausted.
Then she finished by saying, “Obsidian! I can’t imagine you staying out there for long.” She paused. “I guess you’re in the old farmhouse.”
He nodded.
“You know it’s haunted, don’t you?”
[] [] []
On the way home, he came around a bend and almost hit a truck. His heart began thumping and he had to stop, pulling over to the side of the road where there was a space. He sat for minutes, gripping the steering wheel, and then laid his head against it.
There really was something wrong with him. How could a meeting with a woman have left him in this state? Sure she was his boss, but other people got along with their bosses. He’d quite liked her, so he supposed that was something. But what was the thing with the knee about? Had she meant something by that?
It was a relief to get home, but the distance this time had really troubled him. It was so far. And now that he’d seen the school, he could imagine wanting to get home in the afternoons, when he’d have to drive all this way.
Even so, his opinion changed as he neared the house, as the other houses fell into the distance and he could see his own ahead. She’d said it was haunted. Was that what the thing with the sewing machine had been about. Now that he considered it again, it had certainly seemed odd. And wasn’t there a presence?
“James,” Tina’s voice said in his head, “your capacity for self-deception is beyond a joke.”
Yes, he thought. Perhaps she’d been right there. He didn’t even believe in ghosts.
When he got home, Ben was sitting on the front steps.
“Thought you might like some company.”
James drew his head back.
“You been into town?”
“Yeah. Yes.”
“All dressed up.”
James nodded.
“Nowhere to go?”
“No, I had a meeting. At the school.”
“Ah, that’s right. Dad said. You’re a schoolteacher.”
“Well, I will be one. I haven’t started yet.”
“Right.” He nodded definitively and got up, apparently waiting for James to open the door. He stepped by him and did this. James followed him into the house and he got a whiff of the most heady scent he’d ever smelt in his life. There wasn’t any cologne in it. It was a natural scent — Ben’s natural scent. It sent a pulse into his cock and he bit his bottom lip.
He’d had problems like this with guys before — getting a little excited and acting inappropriately. But he was a ladies’ man. There was no doubt about that. There was no doubt that what he’d felt for Tina was real.
“I need to get changed,” he said. It was incredibly hot inside, what with the windows being locked all day.
He walked into his bedroom and decided against closing the door. Ben had wandered into the living room. He loosened his tie, unbuttoned his shirt, and then looked up to see Ben in the doorway, watching him.
“You sure are buff,” he said.
“Buff?”
“Your chest.”
James blushed, and after waiting for a moment, removed his belt. He’d been in plenty of gyms, so he knew what it was like to get dressed in front of another guy. Guys expected it. It wasn’t as though Ben was going to go away. The only problem was that he’d worn a jockstrap today. He’d been worried about firming up inappropriately when he met Sandra, and the cup of the jockstrap was tight enough to make this all but impossible.
He kicked his shoes off, unbuttoned his trousers, and slipped them down. Then he was dressed in a pair of black socks and the jockstrap, which was white. He had to turn to get to his closet, but before he did, Ben put one hand on the doorjamb, utterly comfortable with the situation, apparently.
He turned away, his ass naked, and pulled a pair of athletic shorts out. He slipped these on as quickly as possible, but the jockstrap was killing him. It was so tight. He wanted nothing more than to take it off. A red tank top was sitting on the top shelf, and he chose that, slipping it over his head.
“Little more comfortable?”
“Yeah. Yes,” James said. He peeled his socks off. “You want some fruit?” he said, doing his best to be friendly.
“I wouldn’t say no.”
“I put it in the blender. Drink it. You know.”
Ben looked at him as though he’d just said something crazy, but James walked through to the kitchen nevertheless and began preparing the fruit.
“You can just eat it,” Ben said.
“Yeah. I know. But I like it like this.” There was a touch of steel in his voice as he said this, and he told himself to be careful. He could really blow up at people at times, and right at the moment, Ben was pissing him off.
He poured the fruit drink into two tall glasses, added some ice, and handed one to Ben.
“Not often anyone offers me a drink,” Ben said.
“Oh — right. Did you want a wine or something?”
“A bourbon more like it.”
James didn’t have any alcohol, so he ignored this. Ben threw the fruit drink back like it was water. James had imagined them going out into the backyard. He really wanted to open the windows, but it was misty already.
“You think I can open these windows?” he said.
“Well, you can if you want.”
James nodded. There was something in the way Ben had said that, something sarcastic, but James began opening the louvered windows anyway. Who cared if it was misty? It was boiling in here.
Half an hour later, after Ben had left, he was regretting it. The mist had blown into the house, and now it was hotter if anything. He closed the windows again and then wondered what to do about the mist. There was condensation on the walls, and now it began to rain in earnest.
In the living room there was an open fireplace and some wood. He decided to light it. He didn’t know what else he could do, but as the house heated up, he took his tank top and sh
orts off, and walked around the house in nothing but the jockstrap.
[] [] []
In the morning it was raining heavily. James had had a hell of a night, listening to the mockingbirds. They’d seemed to be making the sound of a ghost every now and then, and a couple of times he’d heard a voice. Once, very clearly, it had said, “I don’t want you here.”
He got up with a headache and took some Tylenol. Then he ate some cereal and mixed himself some fruit. Years ago, he’d drunk coffee for breakfast — drunk it all day long. But he’d stopped that. It did something to him, Tina said, and he figured she’d been right. He had a temper, and since he’d stopped with the coffee, things had definitely improved.
There wasn’t much to do but some weights training, and he spent more than an hour on this. Then he had a shower, the thought recurring to him of how he’d imagined Ben at the window that night. That was crazy, surely. People just didn’t do things like that.
As he was wandering through the house, at a total loss with what to do with his time, the phone rang — the landline. It was his cousin, Miranda, who worked for AT&T. She said she’d managed to get the phone connected. He nodded dumbly, but then sat on the couch and felt like crying. Miranda was more than a hundred and twenty miles away, but it wasn’t that far. When he’d first come here, a few weeks back, she and her brother Scott had helped him look for a place and move.
At the sound of her voice he felt the tears come, a silent weeping. He didn’t try to explain it to himself. It was simply kind of her to have gone to all the trouble getting the phone connected would have involved, and then to phone him on top of everything else.
She asked how his mother was, and he began to cry in earnest. He’d left her in New York, on her own, and come all this way. His father had left years ago and his younger brother was hopeless. He had schizo-affective disorder, and was rarely out of hospital. Last he’d heard, he was moving into a group home, into one of those group homes where mentally ill people sat around all day, drugged out of their brains.
Hell, he thought, and tried to pull himself together.
He asked her how she was, how her mother was, and how Uncle Scott was doing. She said, “Fine, fine,” but then asked him if he’d like a visit. She wanted to drive all this way just to see him.
“You’re very isolated there.”
He nodded. With the rain today, he was really feeling it. “But I like it,” he said. “It’s working out just fine.”
He put one hand over the receiver and blew his nose on the sleeve of his T-shirt.
“Even so, I could come to see you, couldn’t I?”
“Sure. I mean, sure.”
“Maybe Scott could come too.”
He was less sure about this. There’d always been some problem between Scott and himself. And he didn’t like men. He didn’t feel comfortable in their company.
“How about Tuesday? I’ll come up on Tuesday.”
He said fine and she chatted on. By the time the call ended they’d been speaking for more than half an hour.
[] [] []
James decided to read a book. There was no television reception, and he’d watched every DVD he owned three or four times. He didn’t own any books, but there were some books in the kitchen, some books the landlord had arranged on some shelves. He hadn’t looked at them, but as he walked into the kitchen he picked up a piece of obsidian and hefted it in his hand. Ed had arranged a group of the stones along the top of the bookcase, and for the first time, James took an interest in them. The stuff had been mined here, but it was all over the place and in the stream. It was actually black glass, and he wondered if it was useful for anything, but given the proliferation of it, he doubted this. No, it was simply a curiosity.
He lifted the largest piece and weighed it in his hand. It was black, almost utterly black, and weighed a ton. It could certainly do someone some damage if it was hefted in the right way.
He put it down again and turned to the books. They were mostly non-fiction, and he really wanted a story. Then he spied a copy of Pride and Prejudice, which he’d had to read at school. That had been enjoyable. He could certainly read that again.
He went and laid down in his room and then got up again and opened the curtains so he had some light. Ten minutes later, he was engrossed, and it wasn’t until four p.m. that he got up again. It was early, but he fixed himself some steak and some vegetables and went to bed.
[] [] []
He woke at five a.m. to the dawn chorus and stretched. It was sunny again, and not so warm today. Or not so warm as yet. He got out of bed and fixed himself some breakfast, and then went back to bed and continued with Pride and Prejudice. By eleven thirty, he’d finished it, and it was hot now. He was sweating. He fixed himself some fruit in the blender, and then decided on a swim.
As he was walking across the paddock, he saw Ben on his tractor, making his way in the opposite direction. It occurred to him how Ben had been in the tree when he was swimming the other day, and as it occurred to him, he decided that it really must have happened. Maybe Ben had been at the window that first night too.
He took his shirt off and lay on the grass for half an hour or so. He was wearing jeans again, but was steeling himself to swim naked today, to skinny dip as they put it.
Finally, he steeled himself to do it. He got up, and in one fluid motion, took off his jeans and his underwear. Then he stepped gingerly into the water. It was cooler than he remembered, and as his penis dipped beneath the surface, he took a deep breath and said, “Fuck!”
He breaststroked out into the middle of the pool and then turned onto his back. That was when he saw Ben, or the leg of Ben’s jeans, hanging from the tree. He panicked and turned over quickly, taking several short, sharp breaths.
Hell, he thought, it really was Ben. Unless it was the leg of an old pair of jeans caught up in the tree. He glanced a little sideways, but didn’t want to look. What would Ben say to him? What would he say to Ben?
He trod water for a few minutes and tried to calm down. Then he remembered how Ben said he was “buff,” and he figured he could stand up in the water and show off his chest. He’d never done that before. He stood, and smoothed his hair back over his head, stretching his arms back and displaying his chest. The water was about waist deep, but it was clear as crystal, and James supposed Ben could see everything. He started to get hard. Soon his cock was jutting into the air and threatening to break the surface.
He wondered for a moment if he wasn’t imagining things, if Ben really wasn’t in the tree. Then he saw it jounce out of the corner of his eye. Hell, he thought.
He did what he’d done the other day and duck-dived beneath the water, making sure his ass was on display, though this time it was naked. It gave him a thrill, and as he swam along the bottom of the pool, he put his hand on his cock and pulled a little. What would Ben think if he saw him jacking off?
He broached the surface again and swam freestyle across and back again. Then he turned onto his back and floated, lying his head back, and very well aware that his cock was hard and jutting into the air. He was almost coming. The feeling was so strong that he decided he had to do it, so he made for the opposite bank, where Ben would have a clear view. He sat at the edge of the water, but instantly swore. He’d sat on a piece of obsidian, and the black glass had wedged itself into his ass. He reached beneath him, found it, and thought about tossing it. Then he thought again. He would show something Ben really strange, something he’d only ever done when alone, as he was now, as he surely was now, he said to himself.
He gripped his cock with one hand and began to jack off. He was uncut, so it was easy, but as he was getting close to coming, he suddenly hit himself in the balls with the piece of obsidian. It gave him the most incredible rush. He did it a second, and then a third time, and then he was coming. He watched as the cum pulsed out of him, flailing into the air.
Then he felt ashamed and guilty and angry as well, and he got up and dove into the water. There w
as no way Ben was in the tree. That was nonsense. No way Ben would have seen that.
[] [] []
It was almost dark by the time he reached the house. He’d been in the water for hours. He’d wanted to make sure Ben wasn’t in the tree, and aside from directly looking, he’d done that. If Ben had been there, he’d left quietly, perhaps when he was underwater, though that hardly seemed possible. No, he’d imagined it. He’d imagined Ben at the window, and had imagined Ben in the tree. Really, he could be as bad as Jeremy, his brother, when it came to imagining things that weren’t and couldn’t be real.
He walked all the way home in his underwear, a white pair of bikini briefs, but what did it matter? He’d hit himself in the groin. That was what mattered. When he let himself go like that, he could be depressed for hours afterwards. He had a very strong notion that he would one day do something to himself, something awful — smash his testicles with a rock or crush them in some awful way. He even dreamed of it at times, though in the dreams it was the most miraculous thing — the best jacking off experience he’d ever had, because right at the moment everything was lost, he came, coming fountains of cum.
Now he felt sick.
He took a shower and put a clean pair of shorts and a T-shirt on. Then he made himself something to eat, some lamb cutlets and vegetables. By the time he’d eaten those he felt a little better.
[] [] []
Ben appeared at nine p.m. He knocked on the front door and James got a shock. He opened it, expecting to see Ed with some problem, but Ben was standing there, dressed quite neatly for him, in clean jeans and a plaid shirt. He was swinging a bottle of bourbon, and he held it out to James as some sort of peace offering. Or that was how James interpreted it, until he told himself again that Ben couldn’t, couldn’t and wouldn’t have been in the tree today.
“Thought you might like a drink.”
“Yeah. Sure,” Ben said, though he’d stopped drinking over a year ago now, and he certainly didn’t want bourbon.