by V. L. Locey
“No, I was thinking about being a living museum display.” I told him and got the oddest look.
“Does your mind ever stop?” he asked then shoved his hand down the front of my shorts. I gasped aloud and yep, I felt my mind disengage just a bit. Garrison took me roughly in his hand. I grunted in pain and his grip loosened immediately. “Sorry, shit, I didn’t mean to hurt you again.”
The man was wiggling under all my barriers. “Come up here.” I sighed and he did, sliding his big body up and over mine then crushing my mouth with his in a bruising kiss that made me all sorts of crazy to touch him as he was touching me. “I was going to let you run the show, but I need to feel you. Can I do that?”
“Yeah, oh shit, yeah please touch me,” Garrison breathlessly replied then wiggled off me, his hand slipping back inside my shorts. I pushed my hand between us, my fingers skimming under the band of his underwear then over the weeping head of his cock. He jerked at the contact. When my fingers went around him, he made a sound against my throat, a low rumble like a motor boat rolling over. Hearing that while we stroked each other’s cocks was the most erotic thing I had ever experienced up to this moment. “Slower, slower.” I told him when he pulled too quickly. “Let’s try to make this last.”
I placed my palm on the back of his neck then cupped his skull gently, putting pressure on him until he lowered his mouth back to mine. I ran my hand up and down the length of him as I tasted deeply of his mouth. He was clumsy and rough and I loved every moment of his fumbling attention.
“Make it last, Garrison.” I groaned into his mouth just before he came. Well, so much for making it last. He growled and bucked and his grip tightened as he rode out his orgasm. I milked him throughout the tremors, my fingers and his underwear sticky wet.
“Dammit.” He huffed as his hips flexed with one last pulse of pleasure. “I was afraid I would do that.”
“It’s fine.” I assured him as I rubbed the back of his head with my fingers. He sank into me, his mouth moving over mine in gentle searching ways. “Use a little more pressure, yes. Yes, perfect.” I sighed as his hand moved in the way I preferred. We lay in that old bunk bed, my hand tacky with his spunk and his moving with perfect speed, kissing and watching each other. When I was close he propped himself up on one arm while pumping my cock fiercely. My breaths were short and ragged, my fingers tight to his head, pulling at his hair. “Don’t…stop.”
He didn’t nor did he miss one sinful stroke. My balls contracted, and I felt my spine arch. With a firm punch of my hips skyward, I came like a wild man. Clawing and flailing, I blew apart in his hand. Eyes tightly shut I felt him watching me come and that heightened the already intense orgasm even more. Garrison leaned in and peppered my neck with kisses, his hand sliding with ease up and down, up and down, smearing hot semen over my prick.
“You are really beautiful.” He murmured as I trembled and gasped then slowly opened my eyes. What I saw through glasses sitting crookedly on my face was a man whose eyes were overflowing with affection and honesty. He pulled his hand out of my shorts and rubbed the pearly fluid over my bared stomach, mesmerized by the sights and smells. I was too if I was being honest. When he glanced at my face, I smiled and so did he. Then he reached up with sticky fingers to adjust my glasses. “Did you know your nose scrunches up when you come?”
“I did not,” I replied as a warm wind off the lake blew in the windows, drying me when it danced over my overheated skin.
“Neither did I, but it does.”
“Guess you don’t know everything there is to know about me, do you?”
“Not yet, but I really want to find out.” He crawled on top of me, his weight settling nicely on my chest and groin, his hands on either side of my head. His leg slid between mine. I pushed my hands into his hair and tugged his head down, nipping at his bottom lip then sweeping the inside of his mouth. “I want to suck you off.” He told me between deep explorations of each other’s mouths.
His request made me quiver. The thought of seeing him with my dick in his mouth had me growing hard again, but I shook my head.
“I know how heady this is but we both need to take this slow,” I said, hoping he would understand my reasoning. His expressive eyebrows knotted up. “You need to move slowly into this. It’s new for you, being with a man, and I want you to be sure.”
“I am sure,” he said then kissed me breathless to prove it. The man was an excellent kisser. I’d have to thank Dee-Dee if I ran into her back home. She and all those women in college had taught him how to use his tongue well. If he sucked dick half as well as he kissed…
“Well, yes, sexually you are but you need to move slowly mentally,” I said and he made a face that said he was not totally buying what I was telling him. “I need to be reassured that I’m not making a mistake by allowing myself to love you again.”
Ouch. That one made him flinch. He nodded and rolled off me. I sat up as he tugged his shorts back into place.
“Garrison, I didn’t mean that to be so harsh, but we’re being honest with each other, right?” I threw my feet off the bed and removed my shirt with a hasty jerk. I balled it up and swiped at the semen he had worked into my chest.
“I know. It just hurts when you remind me of what an asshole I was to you.”
I looked up from cleaning off my abdomen. He was staring out the window, his shoulders sunk in. I left the bed and walked over to him, shoving my dirty shirt into his chest.
“Wipe off your hand on this,” I said as I leaned a hip into the window casing. “It’s painful for me too. I was raised to be kind, even when it wasn’t warranted, but lying is what caused our rift. I refuse to lie to you. You need to know how I feel, and I need to know how you feel.”
“Okay, well, right now I’m feeling like a jerk again, for like the five millionth time since that night in the treehouse.”
I flattened my lips as he angrily wiped off his hand with my shirt. When he was done, he held out my shirt. I took it, rolled it into a tight ball of yellow cotton, and chucked it on the bed we had just vacated.
“Did you feel good before I spoke up?”
“Yeah, really good, like this was always how you and I were supposed to be.” He confessed then shot me a sideways look. Oh, those eyes of his…they made me long for an O’Malley/Garrison supposed to be as well. “Want to go for one last dip in the lake?”
I thought on that for a second. “I’d really like that since some dunderhead smeared come all over me.”
“Next time I do that, I promise I’ll lick it off.” He gave me a smoldering look then walked to the door and out of the cabin.
“Well, isn’t he the honey-tongued devil?” I asked myself then gave the cleanup that had stalled a long look. I ran out after Garrison and leaped off the porch onto him. He gave me one wild piggyback ride to the lake. We fell into the water fully clothed and laughing like the ten year old best friends forever that we had once been. Within five minutes every counselor minus one, and Professor Belshaw, had joined us in Lake Amalie for one final romp before we returned home and tried to figure out how that adulting stuff worked.
***
“I’m not sure how to tie this in,” Garrison said the next morning as we studied all the baggage in the back of his blue Silverado. His hand rested on my lovely Morticia Addams wicker chair. “Any ideas?”
“Tightly,” I replied then tossed a thin length of poly rope to him. Emily was already impatiently waiting in the cab seats of Garrison’s truck. His face wrinkled cutely before he set to work. I hefted yet another duffel bag of girl’s clothing over the side of the truck. “How many bags did you bring, Miss Emily?”
She stuck her face into the rear window. “Enough so that I never had to do laundry in that yucky laundromat in town that you told me about.”
“Clever girl.” I murmured recalling my trips to the laundromat in the nearest town. It was yucky. The washing machines were grimy and the clothes always smelled like dead mouse no matter what kind of dr
yer sheets you put in with them.
“Are we ready to go yet? I have to be home by noon so I can sign up for summer lacrosse camp.” Emily reminded us – yet again.
“Hey, blame Mal.” Garrison grumbled then tugged on a huge knot behind my chair. “It’s taking forever to get this stupid chair tied in so it doesn’t blow out as we’re sailing down I-26.”
I stuck my tongue out at both Rook children then hurried to send Dad a quick text informing him we’d be home in about two hours. Three if we stopped to eat, which was a given since Garrison had yet to find food. I could probably go until lunch but a fuel-burning machine like him couldn’t skip meals and probably shouldn’t.
As Garrison, who was looking quite nice in a pair of old jeans and a blue tank top cut low under his arms, bound my chair into his truck I gave the old camp one long last look. I would miss coming here but the counselor positions were for student teachers looking to pick up credits and experience. My credit seeking days were done. Now I had to begin job seeking. As I enjoyed that final look around my sight fell on Alex stuffing a bag into the trunk of a taxi. He was headed back to California and school in another month. My empty stomach cramped a bit when I reflected how poorly I had handled things between us. The truck wobbled and I glanced up. Garrison was in the back, wrapping more rope around my wicker throne.
“I’m going to go say goodbye to Alex.” I told him. Emily made a huffing sound that I heard clearly despite her being inside the truck. Garrison stood up, the rope dangling from his right hand, and looked over at the yellow taxi parked in front of Alex’s cabin.
“Are you sure you want to do that?” he asked, and I nodded.
“Yes, I treated him badly and would like to try to make amends one last time,” I said then shoved my phone into the back pocket of my tan shorts.
“Okay, I can understand that,” Garrison said. I patted his truck and then walked confidently over to Alex. He saw me coming and slammed the trunk of the cab down just as I arrived in front of him. I held out my hand. He looked down at it then back at my face with zero emotion.
“I’d like to apologize and say goodbye.” He stared at me blankly. This was much harder than I had thought it would be. Maybe I needed to go a little easier on Garrison in the future. “I hope your life brings you nothing but happiness and great success. You’ll make an incredible teacher.”
One side of his mouth crinkled up but he finally put his hand into mine.
“Thanks.” He muttered as we shook hands. “Sorry for being such a jerk. I knew from the first time I saw you and he made eye contact that whatever it was we had starting was going to get plowed under like a rotten potato.”
“That’s quite the vivid imagery,” I said with a smile. He grunted then released my hand. The taxi driver tapped his horn. We both startled. “I’m not sure I’d say you were a rotten potato.”
“I don’t think you realize just how in love with him you are. No other man really stands a chance.” He climbed into the taxi and rode off into the new day. I stared at the yellow cab’s shiny silver bumper for a good long time, my finger tapping the bridge of my glasses. I ruminated on his parting words as I meandered back to the overpacked Silverado.
“If you could use one word to describe us, what would it be?” I asked Garrison after he had jumped out of the back of the truck. He gave me a confused look.
“Is this some kind of test that you found in one of Emily’s teen magazines?” He leaned against the cab of his truck and folded his arms over his chest.
“No, I was just wondering if you thought we were gardeners.”
“Okay, you totally lost me.” I was about to explain when Professor Belshaw came clattering up to us, her arms filled with wind chimes. She was a sight in her rainbow caftan.
“I am ridiculously late.” She panted, and I thought of the White Rabbit from Alice in Wonderland. She had that frenzied kind of look about her. “My roommate is waiting for me.”
“You probably shouldn’t keep Miss Rhonda O’Dell Dowdy waiting any longer than necessary,” I responded. Garrison looked utterly confused.
“My thoughts exactly,” she said then nudged me with a bony elbow. It hurt. “Peek into this teapot, O’Malley.” She rolled her arm upward to make one silver teapot bounce slightly. I took off the lid and pulled out a neatly folded sheaf of paper. “It’s my recommendation to any future employers.”
I thought she hadn’t cared or liked me enough to write one when so much time had passed and no recommendation had come forth. I wanted to cry. This paper was a priceless gift. It would open up doors for me as I searched for a teaching position. I coughed out something and threw my arms around her, hugging her and all her stupid teapots and rattling spoons on strings.
“Thank you so much.” I sniffled when she finally wiggled free from the bear hug. “This means so much to me.”
“You deserve it. You’re a good boy with a very sharp if somewhat overactive mind. Garrison, you take care of this one. Emily, I’ll see you next year I hope.” Professor Belshaw shouted over her shoulder as she hustled to her refurbished VW van, pots and spoons making a terrible racket.
“So why did she tell me to take care of you?” Garrison asked his brow wrinkled with worry.
“I’ll tell you on the way.” I gave him a big thumbs up and then hugged my recommendation close to my chest. He shook his head while wearing that lopsided smile of his. The future seemed incredibly bright at that moment, even if we had a crabby, hungry, impatient tween in the truck.
When we pulled away from camp, bittersweet emotions swelled up inside me. Then Garrison turned on the stereo and blasted everything but my fillings away. His taste in music had not changed. Mine had matured into what you would call hipster music. I now listened to lots of indie folk-tinted bands like Mumford & Sons, Bon Iver, Fleet Foxes. Garrison loved his metal and always had. While he enjoyed the classics, he tended to dig into the underground for new bands.
“Who is this?” I yelled as we pulled away from Lake Amalie.
“Rotten Sound.” Garrison shouted back then began pounding on the steering wheel and screaming the lyrics. I had never been happier to see a little Tex-Mex place come into view as I was an hour later.
“Look…food!” I yelled and pointed. Garrison nodded, or maybe it was a headbanger move and flipped on the turn signal. We pulled into a slot near the side doors and I nearly flung myself out of the truck. Garrison shook Emily to wake her up. She stumbled into the tiny eatery, her headphones still over her ears, and her long dark hair knotted from sleeping on bags of clothing. We took our seats, me sitting on one side of the booth and the Rook kids on the other.
The interior was bright and festive. The walls were yellow and orange. The curtains red and yellow with bright green trim. We chatted with a young man in black trousers and a white t-shirt under a yellow apron with the restaurant’s happy chili pepper logo on it. He brought us all water and menus then left us so we could decide.
“I’d like some breakfast food,” I said as I scanned the choices in this little out of the way diner.
“They have breakfast burritos,” Emily said then pulled my menu down so she could point at the burritos section.
“Perfect. I’ll have one of those and some coffee,” I cheerily said and closed my menu.
“Me too.” Emily announced, snapping her menu shut as well.
“Since when are you allowed to drink coffee?” I enquired and was summarily blown off by Miss Emily.
“So, are you two dating now?” Emily asked while pulling her bright blue headphones off and letting them rest on her slim neck. Garrison choked on the sip of water he had just taken. “What? I mean, it’s pretty obvious you’re making out. O’Malley’s neck looks like he’s been dating Patty Obernetty.”
Garrison couldn’t speak quite yet so I leaped in while trying to cover my neck with my hands. “Who is Patty Obernetty?”
“Some girl in my class,” Emily said then rolled her brown eyes. “She’s got a boyfriend
and every time you see her, her neck is covered with hickeys. Kind of like how yours is now.” She waved a finger at my throat. I desperately wanted to slide under the table and stay there. Garrison groaned loudly and began waving his hand in the air for our waiter. “You have one too, Gar, right by your shoulder.”
“Thank God.” Garrison grunted when our server hurried over. We all ordered and then the waiter left. Emily’s sharp brown eyes latched onto her brother.
“So, are you guys dating? Or is this just a friend with benefits deal?”
“I have to use the men’s room,” Garrison said but Emily kept her butt planted, barring him from leaving his seat. I whistled and studied the hanging lamp over our booth. It was quite festive. The links of the chain that ran from ceiling to lamp needed some dusting. Overall, it was a very nice lamp that lit things up nicely, as a lamp should. I peeked at her and was caught quickly.
“Wow, you two are so awkward.” She huffed then slid out of her seat to go wash up or text her friends. It was probably a toss-up. As soon as she disappeared from view, Garrison let his head fall back dramatically.
“That was handled well. Kudos, big brother,” I whispered as I leaned over the table to keep our conversation to ourselves. Garrison moaned as if he had already eaten the four breakfast burritos with a large helping of refried beans on the side. I hoped we got home before all those beans kicked in.
In the past, I had been forced to endure plenty of flatulent episodes with Garrison Rook. Once, when we were nine, we had been sharing a sleeping bag during a backyard campout and he passed gas, wiggled out, and zipped the bag over my head. He then held the zipper shut as I gagged and tried to get out of the sleeping bag. Oh, how he laughed. There were times I wondered why had I been friends with him.
He opened his eyes and picked his head up from the bench behind him. When he looked at me, he was smiling. Oh yeah, that was why I had been friends with him. That smile, those eyes, the way he defended me and laughed with and not at me. The way he had made me feel special, strong, and cool when I had not been any of those things.