Bishop, hungry for something new, hoped that life would bless with an unexpected surprise.
The door to Stephen’s house opened as Bishop reached the top step. Standing there with her arms crossed was Stephen’s mother, Carol. Since childhood Bishop had found her attractive. She was smarter than the women and girls he knew, smarter even than his own mother. To her son’s embarrassment, Carol would sit down and explain what she was reading to Bishop. She’d taught him that it was okay to take interest in the world around him, that he should never betray his own curiosity. And her jokes always made him think. He suspected that some of her humor had rubbed off on Stephen.
She eyed him up and down.
“He’s in the back, Bishop,” said Carol. She motioned with her head for him to sneak around the side of the house.
“Thanks Mrs. Abelson,” he said as retreated down the steps. He ran by a row of blossoming rhododendrons as he paced to the back of the house. The air was cool and crisp as it rushed against his face; he thought he could start to make out something floral.
The metal latch gave easily as he bounded through the new wooden fence. Before him he found his best friend, Stephen Abelson, lying in the grass and tossing a baseball in the air.
“Steve,” he said in a gruff voice, “this is a lot of sports equipment for a lazy bastard like you.” He snatched the ball midflight as Stephen began to roll over. Around them stood a recently constructed basketball half-court, a makeshift volleyball net, and a tether-ball pole for Stephen’s younger sister.
“Where are the kids?” asked Bishop, half interested.
“Ah, shit, Stacy’s at Ashley’s tonight,” Stephen answered groggily. He’d brought himself to his feet and was dusting the grass off of his back.
“You mean us two lucky guys have this mansion to ourselves tonight?” said Bishop, a smirk growing on his face. “That is, aside from the lovely Mr. and Mrs. Abelson, of course.”
“Well imagine this, lover boy,” said Stephen, as he slipped his left hand into an old, worn leather glove. “Daddy’s gone for the night, so it looks like you’re going to have to keep Mrs. Abelson company.”
Bishop threw the ball to Stephen before dropping shaking his head in disbelief.
“You sick son of a bitch,” he said with a grin, “you’re the only guy I know who would push his own mother.”
Stephen laughed. “You know I’d kill you if you touched her,” he said, hurling the ball back to Bishop.
“Lucky for you, Steve,” he said after catching Stephen’s pass, “I’m a satisfied man.”
Bishop wondered how convincing he really sounded.
Stephen’s head rested in the palms of his hands, his elbows propped up along the kitchen table. Carol handed him an icepack wrapped in a dishtowel; he quickly brought it to his forehead. She rubbed his neck as he groaned aloud.
“Ughh…. These migraines are killing me.” Carol placed her hands on her son’s shoulders, affectionately rubbing him as he focused on reducing his pain. She looked across the table to Bishop, whose back was against the wall. He played with the keys to his work truck in his pocket.
“I don’t know what happened,” Bishop said, fondling the metal rings. “We were at the basketball court when he started complaining about his head.” He empathized with his friend’s misery. Migraines of this severity – or worse – were nothing new for Stephen. Unexplainable by even the most highly recommended doctors, Stephen’s migraines seemed divinely ordained. He was condemned to an adolescence of spontaneous agony. Judging from the few migraines that Bishop had experienced himself, he concluded that Stephen’s affliction was of the worst sort.
“Bishop, ol’ pal,” croaked Stephen, “I’m guessing you wouldn’t be offended if I took to my room. I need a dark place to rest in.”
“I hear you Steve,” Bishop said sympathetically. “You let me know when you feel better.”
Carol ushered Stephen out of the kitchen and towards his room. Bishop watched her as she cared for her son. As much as he pitied Stephen for his migraines, he envied the attention his mother took with him. He noticed a tinge of jealousy reveal itself in his thoughts.
Bishop pushed himself away from the wall. Noticing the remote on the couch, he planted himself on the cushion closest to the kitchen. He flipped on the TV, hoping to catch something of the news.
Economists say that the economy is getting back on its knees, blared a well-dressed man on the news, but local shop owners claim otherwise. Bishop devoted half of his attention to the program; the story was the same: big business makes out with a killing while the rest of us fight for the scraps. He’d only felt the shock of the recession through stories shared by his coworkers. Landscaping was a tertiary concern for most families; it obviously held nothing near the purchase of food and rent.
… and only time will tell if their predictions come true. The program transitioned to the weather.
“That poor boy,” Carol said as she came into the main room. “He was looking forward to tonight.”
“So was I,” Bishop responded automatically. He stared beyond the TV.
Carol picked up a stack of rented DVDs from the kitchen counter and turned back to Bishop. “You heard of Charlotte Brontë?”
He barely recognized the name. “What… Pride and Prejudice?” he said.
She raised her eyebrows. “Not bad, Bishop! Jane Eyre.” She started for the stairs as she raised her voice. “The DVD player’s broken down here. Come on up if you want a good story.”
“You gotta understand, Bishop, this was revolutionary stuff at the time.” Carol sat upright with two pillows between her back and the wall at the head of her and Mr. Abelson’s bed.
Thirty minutes in and Bishop was impressed. Jane Eyre was a young woman, no older than her late teens, when she met her patron, Mr. Rochester. He was quick and domineering; his remarks ceaselessly chided at the help’s incompetency. But Jane Eyre’s witty responses took him aback. Never had Mr. Rochester been spoken up to by a woman, let alone one of his hands. But – Bishop noted – this made him love her all the more madly. His castigating phrases protected him from the vulnerability of relationship implied in the world around him, and Jane Eyre, with her hunger for the freedom granted men at the time, tore through this veneer as if it were paper of the thinnest quality. Bishop respected her for that.
“Most men would have beaten her for speaking that way,” Carol said, reaching for another handful of popcorn. Bishop thought about the women in his life. Nearly four centuries had passed, yet he detected a similar servility in the conventions of the Victorian England.
He wasn’t blaming them, no. If anyone, he blamed the generations of men before him. Maybe he blamed himself, too. All around him he saw either weakness or strength. When one of his classmates found confidence, it was only through diminishing that of another. When someone sensed their own respect for themselves slipping, they looked over their shoulder, searching for someone weaker. It was predatory, he thought. A sort of spiritual cannibalism in which the few who survived had long since lost their dignity.
“Carol,” he said before pausing. “What’s happening around us?” The room felt silent, as if the monologue on screen had faded into oblivion.
“I don’t know, Bishop,” she solemnly responded. For a few seconds neither of them spoke.
“When I was your age, I imagined a life so different from what we have now.” She paused the film before continuing. “You know I was active in the ‘60s – well, the tail end at least. As scary as things were, the world lay before our eyes like a black screen, and we truly believed that we could write what would come next.” Her eyebrows had furled.
“I don’t know when I first noticed that those feelings had died,” she continued. “I was caught up raising Tess; I thought I could step away for a few years and come back to find everything as it was.” Bishop searched her eyes for strength.
“Maybe we all thought like that,” she said. “We all turned our backs on a dream, and in doi
ng so we killed it.” A dozen seconds passed before she met his eyes with her own. Marbled and wet, they held firm.
Near speechless, Bishop stared back. He was formulating his response when Carol slipped into tears and rolled to face the opposite wall. Releasing a few weak sniffles at first, her body soon heaved in despair. Her body tightened inward as she diminished in size.
Without a moment’s hesitation, Bishop was on the bed by her side, his strong arm thrown over her body so that he could pull her closer. Carol had found the perfect environment in which she could grieve that long-treasured part of her past.
There was nothing more assuring for Carol than waking in the arms of another. Her heavy cries seemed like distant islands quickly vanishing with the shifting horizon. Looking around, she noticed the digital clock on Ted’s nightstand. Two-thirty in the morning.
But the man in whose arms she rested were not her husband’s. They were her son’s best friend’s. They were Bishop’s.
It’s impossible to decide when a boy becomes a man. Throughout history cultures have faced this challenge with a variety of practices. Burugi elders of the South sent boys of fifteen years old into the forest with only a stone blade and a rolled leaf’s worth of boiled root. The Anomana of Africa demanded their boys to perform fellatio on their fathers. And in America, we asked them to park a car between two sets of orange cones. Supposedly linking these practices though is the assurance that he who was once a child is now determinedly a man.
But rather than solving this difficulty, these traditions point to a more nuanced problem: the impossibility of adulthood itself. Carol knew this better than anyone. Her episode last night before Bishop was case in point. She would always be twenty-three. Her body’s aging was a lie, a biological mishap – a waxing dissonance between spirit and vessel.
Bishop had long been aware that Carol was no longer asleep. Her long, rhythmic inhalations were replaced by shallow, quiet breaths. Not knowing what to say next, and fearing that she would make him leave, Bishop feigned sleep.
Before long, though, Bishop became aware of something coming – growing - between them. He tried to reposition himself but only managed to settle his erection against her rear.
Her breathing shortened. His followed. In the middle of the night they lay spooning one another, neither of them breathing, each trying to parse out a sign that the other was awake. In their shared anxiety, neither of them broke the silence.
To his surprise, Bishop felt Carol’s hips push back against his – slowly at first, but nonetheless direct. He kept his midsection firm.
Her hips pushed further, now taking a wider stroke forward before swinging back against his hard penis. Bishop brought his hand down away from her shoulder to the middle of her stomach. He guided her body as her hips slowly picked up speed.
Carol’s breath left her lungs in barely audible proportions. He felt his member grow further in size, tight to the point of discomfort. He brought the arm he’d slept against out from under him and placed his hand on Carol’s upper back. While bringing his own body to a sharper angle with hers, Bishop pushed her upper body forward, using his hand on her stomach to keep her hips in place. He reached into his pants to pull forth his penis. Now bent over on her side, Carol’s vagina was perfectly aligned for his thrusting.
Bishop opened his eyes in alarm. As if half asleep, he’d returned Carol’s advances without reflecting on the nature of their relationship. His body still in vigorous contact with Carol’s, he thought about Stephen, about Ted – about Candice. He knew rationally that he shouldn’t proceed, but he couldn’t manage to stop. He felt his own thumbs slip underneath the denim band of Carol’s jeans. To his fear and excitement, she quickly undid the button and pronounced her rear for him to remove them. He looked back at his waking life and was surprised at the lack of emotion he felt in regards to it. His hands brought her pants down below knees, from which point she removed them herself as he removed his own.
The Abelsons, Candice – none of them felt real, but like a dream fading upon waking.
He reached under her upper thigh and lifted her leg. She’d already opened her lips with her fingers as he pushed his member against her. Carol moaned and swore out loud as she pushed her lips around him.
Bishop only paused briefly, fully considering the seriousness of their fucking, before pushing on ahead. He held his arm against her side and cupped her shoulder from the front, using it to leverage his own thrusting in and out of her wet grip. She held onto the nightstand in front of her, the lamp rocking gently as their thighs slapped against each other. He found it incredibly pleasurable to press his grown against her rear, her hips stuck out just right for his member to enter and reenter flush each time.
He could tell she was on her way to climax. Her cries were sharper and louder, her legs tightening in spasms.
“Fucking, get on me,” she said as she rolled onto her stomach and brought her legs together. He straddled her as she reached through her legs and guided him inside her again. She pressed the base of her palm against her clitoris as she lifted his penis upwards to keep him from falling out. At that angle, his head pressed against her upper ceiling. Her pleasure was met with the strong urge to urinate. (Years of experience had taught her to ride through the discomfort.)
Bishops moved his body steadily, each time pulling out quickly before slowly filling her body again. His hands were at her sides, below her arms, and he looked down at her back, longing to see her skin and wishing he’d taken her shirt off. Her behind was strong though, and as it dug into his pubic mound as he thrust himself inside of her he felt a tingling sensation run through his spine.
“Oh yes, Oh yes,” she said, her face half buried in a pillow, her hands clenching the edge of the mattress. “You fucking don’t stop.” She sat herself up on her knees as she gripped the bedrail at the head of the bed before her. Bishop planted his hands on the sides of her hips, standing upright as he held his groin tight. He stopped moving as she began to rock her hips back against him; he guided her with his hands, pulling her in as he watched her lips overtake him. Her cheeks slapped against the top of his thighs as she moved faster, her body arching upright as she felt the bottom drop out from under her. Bishop looked down as she came on him; confident that she was through, he let himself go, ejaculating just as her pace lessened.
Far from their world, they stood on their knees as their heart rates returned to normal. Still facing the head of the bed, Carol threw her arms over her shoulders and held the back of Bishop’s head. He cupped her breasts while she turned her head to kiss his lips. He kept his body pressing against her from behind.
A band of light streaked through the room, slowly lifting with the rising sun. The light eventually reached the loosely shut eyes of Stephen Abelson.
He rubbed his face as he threw a leg out from under the sheets and over the frame of his bed. His head still hurt from the night before, but from all available signs he judged that he was through the worst of it.
Stephen dragged himself from his bed and made his way to the window. Nine forty-five, he noticed. He drew the blinds and felt the light of the sun envelop his body. Its warmth welcomed him to a new day, one that he hoped would end more pleasurably than the last.
Looking out across High Country Point, he saw the shells of uncompleted homes scattering the hillside. Then, drawing his attention closer to his own home, he caught sight of Bishop’s car. He hadn’t left, he thought.
He bound out of his room and into the kitchen, his pants barely up around his waist. Bishop threw his toothbrush into his bag as he noticed his friend.
“Hey boy, how you feeling?” His voice was flat.
“After a night in hell, I’m back on my feet,” Stephen said with a grin. “You running out already? We didn’t even get a chance to kick it.”
“Yeah I’ve got work, ‘sides I’m feeling like shit myself.” He looked like he meant it.
“Alright, brother, you hit me up when you wanna roll again.”
XXX College Erotic Stories – Volume I Page 7