Country

by Jeff Mann

  “I’d love to. I’d love to. More than you know. I’ve been wanting to plow you for decades. But…. You ever been ass-fucked before?” I say, brushing aside a lock of dark hair and kissing his forehead.

  “Naw, I ain’t ever. But I want it bad. Real bad.”

  “You sure?”

  “Hell, yes, I’m sure. I already told you, I been aching for this for years. I want you to be my first.”

  “Damn, Wayne. Okay, buddy. You got it,” I say, kissing his furry cheek.

  I climb up on top of Wayne and push my tongue into his mouth. His cock’s super-hard, trapped against my belly. Wayne’s eyes look moist, as if he’s about to cry. I knead his meaty chest and arms, and he flexes inside my touch, his flesh so full of maturity and strength. I grip his thick right pec in both hands, and I squeeze it and pull at the thick silvery hair there, and then I nuzzle and suck and twist and tug his nipple, till he’s squirming beneath me, mumbling baritone pleas for me to continue. Then I move my focus to his left pec and nipple and do the same, while his thighs stiffen and shake, and he rubs his hard-on against my belly.

  I slide down the bed now. I bend Wayne double, spread his buttocks, and for a long time I eat his musky butt out, flicking my tongue over his hole and then delving into it while Wayne whimpers and groans and wriggles against my mouth. His ass-crack and ass-cheeks and all the hair there are like a little gully full of brush between two wooded hills. Man, I love the smell—like forest loam and wild animals—and I love the taste—bitter like greens and pungent like black walnut and sweet like maple candy.

  Now I hoist his calves onto my shoulders, lube up my forefinger and push a dollop of KY up his ass, and now I finger-fuck him while I suck his fat dick. I get him close again and again and again and again and again. He whines and squirms and cusses. “Let me come, man! I’m so close. Please let me come.”

  I pull off yet again, letting his cock slip out of my mouth’s hungry suction with a pop. I work my finger in deeper so I can rub and poke his prostate.

  Wayne’s eyes grow wide. He jolts and gasps.

  “Ohhh, fuck! What are you…? How…?”

  “Feeling good, huh?”

  “Shit, yes. Damn! That’s amazing.” My beautiful buddy heaves a low groan and rides my finger, trying to get me in even deeper. “That feels wonderful.”

  “You want something bigger up your ass now?” I say, grinning down at him.

  “Believe so. Believe it’s time.” Wayne slides his calves off my shoulders, wraps his arms around his knees, pulls his thighs against his chest, and lifts his legs in the air. “Put it in me, man. Put that big thing up in me.”

  “You real sure?” I say, nibbling his cock-head and working a second finger up inside him.

  Wayne glowers at me. “Hell, yes, I’m sure. Do it!”

  “Let’s hear you beg for it,” I say, gently bending him double.

  “Damn. You bossy bastard. Okay, okay. Please, Brice. Please, Brice. Please, buddy. I’m begging you. I’m begging you. Shove your big fat cock up my asshole. Now!”

  “Here we go,” I say. I lube us up, and then I kiss him hard on the mouth, and then I push my cockhead up against his tight ass-ring. Wayne heaves a sweet, heartbreaking little sob of surrender and then, slowly, gradually, his body opens up to me, and I slide my cock—steady and gentle, inch by tight, blissful inch—up his asshole.

  “Like that?” I say, cupping a pec and giving his hole a few shallow thrusts.

  “Uhhhhhh. Uhhhh huhhhh.” Wayne nods and flinches and groans, crooks a leg around my waist, and bucks against me till my cock’s slid all the way up his ass.

  “Feel good?” I say, running my fingers over his hairy nipples and looking down into his dark eyes. Wayne huffs and grunts. “Ummmm mmm! Wow, you really fill me up. Wow.”

  “Want more now? Want me to ride you, buddy? Fuck you hard? Fuck you deep?”

  Wayne nods. “Hard as you want.” He squeezes my biceps and caresses my beard. His ass-channel constricts, gripping me from inside. “Plow me, big man. Split me in half. I can take it. I been wanting this as long as you have. Screw me cross-eyed. Screw me so hard I’ll be walking crooked for a whole damn week.”

  “You got it,” I growl. I shove into him as rough as I can. I start thrusting in and out like a wild man. He squirms and shakes and hollers, and I pinch his nipples and knead his pecs and spit in my palm and work his thick dick and kiss him and kiss him and kiss him, and I fuck my sweet, handsome friend harder than I think I’ve ever fucked any man before.

  Damn. Damn…. This is it. This is the paradise I’ve been hankering for all these decades. A strong, hairy, butch man, a man I love, all warm and naked in my arms, and my cock pushing in and out of him, and him panting and whining and begging me to ride him harder, and now I’m gripping his cock even tighter and working it even faster, and he’s shouting “Oh, God, Brice! Yes! Oh, God!” and slamming his ass against my groin, and….

  Brice tensed and shot, three big spurts into the bandana. He released a muffled moan and went limp. He lay there for a long time, heart slowing. Then he opened his eyes. He was alone again. He wiped off his hand, rolled onto his side, wrapped an arm around his pillow, released a shaky sigh, and fell asleep.

  BRICE WOKE TO BRIGHT SUNLIGHT AND A scraping sound. He rolled onto his back and pulled his knees against his chest a few times to stretch out his lumbar region—a preventative exercise his former bass player Buddy had taught him—before slipping out of bed. 10:15, according to the clock on the nightstand. Outside, in the park, bright light reflected off snow. Bending carefully, fearful his back would start up again, Brice pulled on sweatpants and hooded sweatshirt, slipped on socks and moccasins, and trudged down the hall. The guest bed was empty.

  Damn, where’d Wayne go? If I didn’t know better, I’d say he read my mind last night while I was dreaming about giving it to him up the butt, and now he’s run for the hills. Brice shrugged, used the bathroom, and descended the creaky stairs.

  The scents of coffee and bacon filled the first floor of the house. There they were, four strips of bacon, nicely browned atop a paper towel on a plate. On the stove, a pot of hot water simmered. Beside it was a cylindrical box of grits. On the table sat the butter dish, two bowls, and two plates. On the counter, the coffee carafe was full.

  Damn you, Gail Meador, wherever and whoever you are. Why can’t I keep your husband? Brice poured himself a cup of coffee, added some half and half, then wandered through the parlors. He was alone.

  Where the hell did he go? And what’s that scraping? Brice moved to the front door and peered out.

  There he is. My God. He’s cleaning my walk.

  Brice opened the door and stepped out into the frosty air. “Wayne! For God’s sake! You don’t need to do that!”

  Wayne, bundled in jacket and toboggan, waved Brice off. “I ain’t letting you do it with that bad back! Get back inside. I’ll be done directly. Why don’t you start up those grits?”

  Brice limped back inside, muttering. “The ideal man. Goddamn it. The ideal man. And he’s an inveterate pussyhound.” Sighing, he turned the water up higher and measured out grits.

  By the time Wayne entered the foyer, having shoveled the sidewalk all the way up to the top of the park, Brice had grits ready and church bells were ringing in the Central Baptist Church up the street. Wayne peeled off his coat and stomped snow off his feet, then took the mug of coffee Brice offered him.

  “Thanks, man. It’s still bitter out there, but the religious drones are swarming around the church anyway. It’s their fault, you know. They’re to blame.”

  “To blame? For what?”

  Wayne sat heavily on a kitchen chair while Brice doled out grits. “For you being holed up here. For you losing your career. All that anti-gay shit, it’s thanks to religion. Seems like every person I know who’s gone on and on about what a monster you are is real religious, calling you not just a pervert but a sinner too. The guys I work with. Myrtle. Folks who ain’t so devout ge
nerally ain’t so judgmental.”

  “Like you?” Brice placed a steaming bowl of grits in front of Wayne.

  “Yep. Like me.” Wayne grinned. “And this tasty country breakfast is my reeee-ward. Pass me that butter.”

  For a few minutes, the two friends ate in silence. Sunlight in the windows faded, and soon another light snow had commenced.

  “So, speaking of religion, do you believe in God?” Brice asked, biting into a strip of bacon.

  “Sure I do. Who wouldn’t, growing up in these mountains, as pretty as they are? But I don’t believe in some tight-assed bastard with a big beard looking down on us and just waiting for us to fuck up so he can snatch us up like ants and drop us into some kinda fiery pit. Do you?”

  “Naw. But sometimes I still feel guilty. For feeling what I feel. About guys.”

  “Well, hell. Of course you do. Ain’t you been told all your life that being queer is wrong? It’s damned hard to feel something or think something that you know is right when all the rest of the world is telling you it’s wrong. It’s a lot easier to just assume that the majority is right and that you’re fucked up somehow. Look, Brice, buddy, you have every right to feel what you feel about other guys. Stop caring so much about what the world thinks about you. What do you think about you?”

  “I don’t know. That’s the problem. All my life I’ve tried to accomplish something so that folks would…well, love me. Treat me like someone special.”

  Wayne rolled his eyes. “Folks? What folks? The pious dickweeds in this town? Who named a bridge after you, and then turned on you when you were down? Why should you give a flying rat’s ass what they think?”

  “I don’t know why.” Brice shook his head and scraped the last bit of grits from his bowl. “I care about what you think about me. That’s why I never told you I was gay.”

  “Yeah, you said that last night. I understand. I do. And, not that it’ll do any good, but I’ll tell you exactly what I think of you. You’re a talented, kind, strong guy, and, like I said last night, I’m proud to be your buddy. And if I were different, if my dick worked like yours, I’d be glad to be your…lover? Honey? Husband? Whatever. As it is….”

  Wayne reached across the table and gripped Brice’s hand hard. “As it is, I’m your friend, and, by God, I say you need to get through this. This is probably the worst thing you’ve ever experienced, right?”

  Brice looked Wayne in the eyes. God, I love you. God, I want to kiss you. God, I’m thankful to have you in my life in any way possible. “Yeah. It sure is. The life I’ve built is pretty much in ruins.”

  “I can see that. This is as low as you’ll ever be, that’s my guess.”

  Wayne released Brice’s hand and took a big gulp of coffee. “You’ve lost a lot, absolutely. But don’t lose yourself. Don’t lose your music, what you do best. You gotta just say, ‘Fuck all y’all,’ and keep going. I know you get…grim. I never understood it myself, but Gail…sometimes…depression runs in her family too. You got to fight that, Brice. It’s dangerous. Gail’s aunt was on lithium. And her great-granddaddy killed himself. Don’t you pull that kinda shit.”

  Brice stood. “More grits?”

  “Naw. I’ve had enough, thanks. Brice, you hear me?”

  “Yeah, I hear you. I just don’t know where to go from here. I try to play my guitar, but nothing comes. And my old songs, most of ‘em are just lies whipped up to please the Nashville executives.”

  “You’ll get over that. The music’ll come again.”

  “Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe I’m tapped out. And why keep writing music if there’s no one who’ll listen to it? Who’d care if I ever wrote a song again? Not my former fans. Not Nashville. Shit, Wayne, I’m nobody without my music and my fans. Who’d even care if I jumped off the frigging Suzanne Matthews Bridge? Who’d care if—”

  “Brice, goddamn you. Stop talking that way.” Wayne rose, scowling. “You keep that shit up, and I’ll punch you in the jaw. Buck up, dammit.”

  “Okay, bossy. Bucking up right now,” Brice grunted. “I’ll do these dishes if you start up another fire. Looks like we’re in for more snow.”

  Wayne was stretched out on the couch beneath the afghan when Brice, finished with his cleaning-up, entered the parlor. A fresh fire sputtered on the hearth.

  “Ummm, feels good,” Wayne said. “I could drowse here all day.”

  “Well, y’ought to,” Brice said. Because when you go, I’ll be alone, and that’s going to be even bitterer after time with you, being reminded of all I want and can’t have.

  “Naw. Need to spend some time with ole Roy. And Myrtle. She’s crazy as a shithouse rat, but she makes Roy happy.” Wayne yawned and sat up.

  “You need anything? There’s more coffee.”

  “Yep.” Wayne yawned again and stretched. “How about ‘one more cuppa coffee for the road,’ as Dylan would say? Then I better get on up the street.”

  Brice fetched them both cups and sat down beside Wayne. Brice studied the darkness of his friend’s beard and the muscled heft of his chest. Remembering the fantasies he’d enjoyed the night before, he blushed. How can I feel aroused and ashamed at the same time? “So how’d you sleep?”

  “Great. Like the dead. I love the sound of the trains. But then I had a bad dream about 4 am, and it took me a while to get back to sleep.”

  “Nightmare, huh? Yeah, I’m having those pretty often. Can’t sleep real well either.”

  “Your nightmares aren’t about a bunch of pissed-off country-music fans waving torches and a bunch of hill-holler preachers coming at you with pitchforks, are they?”

  Brice grinned. “Pretty much. How about you? Your nightmare?”

  “Uh, just Marine stuff. Fighting. Killing. Being killed.” Wayne rubbed his brow and sighed.

  “Weird coincidence. I dreamed last night that you and I were Rebel soldiers fighting in the Civil War together,” Brice said, adjusting the truth. “Was it bad? The Marines?”

  “Naw. Not really. I lucked out. If I’d been born just a few years earlier….”

  “Yeah. I thought about that a lot after you enlisted. You would have ended up in Vietnam.”

  “Like so many other West Virginia boys. Cannon fodder. Like my cousin Joe.”

  “Yeah. That was the first funeral I ever went to. We were both ten, I guess.”

  “Yep. Aunt Sally never got over that. He was her only son.”

  Wayne stared at the fire. Brice stared at Wayne’s handsome profile. “You could have ended up dead in some ditch in some godforsaken jungle.”

  “Yep. Like so many guys from around here.”

  “Guess that kind of loss helps put mine in perspective, huh? I was thinking about that the day I left Tennessee. I stopped by the cemetery where my Confederate ancestor is buried. That guy died at age thirty with a bullet in his head…and here I am, still alive and healthy and forty years old, whining about how I’ve lost my audience.”

  “We’re both lucky, Brice, when you come to think of it. Okay, enough about nightmares and war and who lost how much. So I gotta ask….”

  “What do two men do together?” Brice gave Wayne as sinister a leer as he could muster and moved an inch closer.

  “I already know that, fool.” Wayne scooted away from Brice and returned his mock-leer with a look of mock-fright. “You keep your hands off my butt now, you crazed pervert! Naw, what I wanna know is…last night you said that you’d written some songs about me back in college. Did you ever record any of ‘em?”

  “Ego!”

  “What? I’m just curious.”

  “Well, you said you had all my CDs, right?”

  “Sure do.”

  “Okay.” Brice slipped off the couch, opened up the piano, slid out the seat, and sat down. “So what’s this?” He picked out the melody in E minor.

  “‘Hard Gray Rain?’ Title song of your first album. You wrote that about me?”

  Brice grinned with pride. “Uh huh. Sure did. So what’s this?”

&n
bsp; Brice shifted keys, picking out a slow tune in C-sharp minor and humming softly along.

  “That one too? ‘Sad-Eyed Angel?’”

  “Yep. I wrote it about that time we busted our butts on the football field but we still lost the championship to Liberty, and you and I went camping that night and we got drunk and you….”

  “And I just about cried? Actually, I did cry, I was so frustrated and disappointed and angry.”

  “I cried too. I was just as disappointed as you.”

  “And the next morning, we both pretended not to remember how we’d lost it the night before.” Wayne chuckled. “Amazing how you got such a pretty song out of such a silly evening. Fuck, it was just a football game.”

  “It was everything to us then, though, wasn’t it? Okay, two more. Here’s this one.”

  Brice played another melody, this one medium tempo in G major. It feels good to have an audience again, he thought. Even if only for a few minutes.

  “‘See the Storms as Baptism.’ Hearken to your own words, Mr. Brown.” In a low baritone, Wayne sang the lyrics.

  See the storms as baptism.

  Stand out in the rain.

  Feel the heavens touch your cheek.

  There’s learning in the pain.

  “Yeah, yeah. Easier sung than done. Last one. I recorded it on guitar, but here it is on piano.” Brice shifted keys, slipping into a few rippling bars of another up-tempo tune, this one in E.

  “‘The Blood of Fire!’ That’s just about my favorite on that CD. C’mon, Brice. Sing it.”

  “Okay. Just a few lines. Here you go.” Brice cleared his throat and sang.

  Pale skin gleaming in the blood of fire,

  your youth holds mine this summer’s night.

  Girl, your bare beauty’s God’s greatest gift,

  your black hair and eyes are all delight.

  My body’s a bonfire,

  My body’s alight.

  My body’s a bonfire,

  burning upon your body’s height.

  Brice ended with E major 9, letting the chord ring and die.