Jericho's Wall - 1. Chapter 1

In the summer of 1992 my parents packed me off to stay with relatives so they themselves could spend the season touring continental Europe. I discovered later the trip was a last-ditch effort to save their marriage (it worked, by the way, they’re still together) but at the time I was petulant and resentful, not only because they were going without me but also because the enlisted babysitters lived on a farm about a billion miles away from any remotely interesting activity. During the long drive out to Chisaw County (aka Bumfucked Egypt), I watched the monotony of trees and fields and trees and fields with growing despair while my parents spoke cheerful platitudes about the fun in store for me, the sense of exhilaration and wonder to be found in the exploration of a new environment. At last tiring of my surliness, Mom sighed and advised me to make the best of an unavoidable situation while Dad admonished me to be on my best behavior no matter how sour I felt. I muttered “Fine” and the three us of lapsed into wounded silence. Well, wounded for me anyhow. My parents were just irritated.

It was late afternoon before Dad slowed and activated his blinker; no clue why, we were on a winding road (called Milk’n’Honey Lane—cringe-inducing, am I right?) with zero traffic besides ourselves. A neatly lettered hand-painted wooden sign listing produce sold at ridiculous prices (squash two dollars a peck? Wait, what’s a peck?) and a crooked mailbox introduced us to a long gravel driveway shaded over with cozy, intermingling trees. After about a quarter mile we emerged from the canopy of green shade into bright sunlight as the woods gave way to fields of vegetables on both sides; I recognized corn, tomatoes and lettuce, the rest were all foreign to me. A figure near the end of one row rose from a crouch, put a hand up to shade their eyes as we passed, and though I couldn’t tell due to the glare I thought they were male. The driveway ended in a large gravel turnaround between a freshly painted red barn and a sprawling, well-maintained clapboard house, and Dad parked close to three other vehicles: a battered Ford pickup truck, a decade-old Toyota Celica and a sleek, late-model Cadillac, gleaming gold in the sunshine and its superiority to its “working” companions. As we exited our car two young girls came around the corner of the barn and waved but didn’t come over to greet us, their attention fixed on the animals they were leading, a placid cow and a recalcitrant mule who appeared conflicted about going inside. Looking around and opening my ears, I was relieved to spy no wire-fenced coop or hear any telltale crowing or clucking as, to be frank, live chickens are my biggest phobia. All feathers and beaks and sharp claws and cold, dead eyes . . . just, no. I love ‘em battered and fried though. Go figure.

“We’ll unload your luggage later,” Dad murmured as we approached a sturdy but decidedly slanted front porch. “Don’t want to look like we’re walking up to a hotel.”

The front door opened and a short, plump woman in her late thirties stepped out, her tanned face stretched into a welcoming smile and twinkle, not even faltering when she realized my dad was black and his son mixed. June was my mother’s first cousin once-removed (I think) but the family resemblance was strong, as she was a ringer for the pictures I’d seen of my grandmother at the same age. She hugged Mom first, then Dad and finally, gingerly, put her arms around me, assuring me how happy she was I’d decided to visit (as if it were my choice) and how much fun I was going to have with my cousin Jericho (Jericho? Who the hell names their kid after an ancient Biblical city—oh wait, we were in the rural South) and wasn’t I just the most handsome young man she’d seen in a month of Sundays (is that 28, 30 or 31? Sheesh.)! Her words may have been a touch suspect, her tone was warm and sincere, not patronizing in the slightest. Feeling my mother’s narrowed gaze upon me, I patted June’s back and stammered I was glad to be here too, thanks for having me, and promised to be no trouble. Gracefully ignoring my awkwardness, June merely laughed and gave me one more tight squeeze before leading us inside.

The interior of the house was slightly ragged but homey, with a clearly unused living room on one side of the entrance and a steep set of stairs rising to the floor above on the other. An array of comfortable scents rushed to greet my nose, the most prevalent being something delicious wafting from deeper within. Still chattering, June ushered us past the front parlor and another unused room, this one featuring a long wooden table with seating for ten, and ultimately through an archway opening into a large and cheerful kitchen, the heart of the house. The delicious smell intensified and I spotted a metal stewpot bubbling away on the stove. Another long wooden table stretched in front of a pair of windows with a prime view of yet another field, this one featuring a small and winding creek on the far end. Four other doors, one leading out back, one to the formal dining room, one to a well-stocked pantry with a deep freeze and a second refrigerator and the last giving onto a short staircase descending into a den; craning my head, I could see a couch and several scattered armchairs facing a huge console television, currently turned off. Noticing the direction of my gaze, June said, “Cable don’t come out this far but there’s a dish on the other side of the barn, so there’s always plenty of shows to watch. Not that we have much time for tv here.” Feeling Dad’s eyes on me this time, I muttered it was fine, I wasn’t much for tv anyhow, preferring to read. She brightened at my admission and told me one wall in the den was lined with books. “All kinds, mysteries and westerns and science fiction, but no gory horror stories. We don’t like those.” Of my own accord I replied I didn’t like horror either, I was a fantasy fan. “Plenty of those, too. The entire Xanth series to date by Piers Anthony, even. Haven’t read them? Oh, you’re in for a treat!”

June seated us at the table, poured us mammoth-sized glasses of lemonade then busied herself at the stove, and I found the delicious smell was a batch of homemade chicken-and-dumplings. My stomach growled in anticipation. She continued chattering as she cooked, barely letting us get a word in edgewise. A widow (“and a cheerful one too!”), she managed the farm with the help of her three children (“Mostly Jericho, but Janey and Juanita do their bit!”). June herself spent most of her time painting, and though she downplayed her talent she turned out to be one of the better-known landscape artists in the region. She sold her creations along with garden-fresh vegetables at a small stand out on the main highway (“You must’ve seen it, says ‘June’s Produce’ painted in big red letters on the sign!”), and business was brisk, allowing their little enterprise to thrive. “But everybody has to pitch in! I hope you’re not afraid of hard work!” Not in the slightest, I assured her. Satisfied with my answer, June returned her attention to cooking and chattering, littering her speech with plenty of exclamation points and the occasional emphatic clang of a spoon in a pan. Midway through a commentary on my parents’ exact itinerary, the back door opened and the two girls from earlier entered. Janey and Juanita were fraternal twin tweens, achingly pretty in a robust-but-innocent way. Friendly, a little shy, they smiled and waved again and excused themselves to clean up. “Hurry up, ladies, supper’ll be ready soon! And leave some hot water for your brother!”

Then the back door opened again, admitting the aforementioned brother, and I was instantly smitten. Tall, with faded-blue eyes, a voluptuous mouth and short-cropped auburn hair peeking from under the edge of his John Deere cap, my cousin Jericho might have been drawn from my deepest, most-secret daydreams. His shoulders were broad, his arms muscular and dusted with tiny hairs the same auburn shade as on his head. Waist trim, legs thick and straining against the worn, dirt-spattered denim of his jeans. Stained once-white socks on his feet. As if feeling my scrutiny he locked onto me, and we stared at each other for several silent seconds before he finally grinned. “You must be Mat!” Nobody called me Mat, ever, but somehow the hated nickname sounded like pure enlightened water dripping from his full and sensual lips. “I’m Jericho, your roommate for the summer.”

I squeaked and shook, my hand limp in his strong grip. He didn’t seem to notice and pumped up and down exactly thrice before releasing, and only as the blood begin to flow in my fingers again did I register his words. Roommate for the summer? I was going to sleep in the same room as this . . . this . . . demigod? I wasn’t sure if I were elated or terrified. Again, he didn’t seem to notice, greeting my parents while pouring his own mammoth-sized glass of lemonade. Mesmerized, I watched his adam’s apple bob as he swallowed, and I felt my pants growing tighter in the crotch. He took the whole drink in one breathless (for me) flow, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and grinned. “Come on, Mat, let’s fetch your bags inside. After I shower I don’t wanna lift anything heavier than the tv remote.”

I protested that he didn’t have to help, I could manage fine but he ignored me and, with a cock of his head and a repeated “Come on, Mat!” disappeared out the door. Dad tossed me the keys and I followed my cousin onto a spacious porch, where I found him perched on the edge of one of three gliders, slipping his feet into a pair of muddy boots. Leaving the laces untied, he led me around the house to the parking area, keeping up a steady stream of chatter over his shoulder, as talkative as his mother. I barely heard him, my attention instead on the careless yet tight swing of his meaty rump, but the gist of his conversation was the usual small talk of a stranger introducing himself. He was seventeen (“eighteen in three months!”), a recent high school graduate and incoming attendee of the local community college, where he planned to study Agricultural Business. “I’ve got big plans for this farm, Mat my boy, big plans!” We fetched the bags (three suitcases and a duffel) and he surprised me by leading us back around to the kitchen door instead of using the front, which was nearer the stairs. He nattered on about how he’d recently broken up (“again!”) with his long-term girlfriend but had no interest in finding another at the moment, he didn’t really have the time to date, not during the growing season at least. “But I’ll probably wind up back with Jill anyhow, once she gets over her mad. We’ve known each other since forever, and who the heck else is either of us gonna find to marry around here?” Once again on the porch, he paused in his chatter to toe out of his boots. “Do your best to never track mud into the house,” he cautioned, “Mom’s busy enough without having to clean the floor every dang day too. Did you bring some shoes you can ruin? And some clothes? I hope you’re not afraid of hard work.”

As I’d done with June, I assured Jericho I wasn’t and that I’d brought an appropriate wardrobe. “Including gloves?” Yes, including gloves. He nodded in satisfaction and, stepping close, squeezed my shoulder. He smelled of earth and sweat and something delicate yet piquant, tangy yet sweet. “I’m really glad you’re here, Mat, and not just because you’re willing to help me out in the garden. I love my mom and my sisters, I do, but it’ll be nice to have some guy company around for once. Ever since my old man died a couple years ago there’s been a distinct lack of testosterone in the air.” He took a deep and comical breath, as if savoring my masculine essence, and winked. Unable to help myself I burst into laughter, feeling much of the day’s tension leak away. Jericho grinned again (as I was to discover, grinning was his favorite expression; he did so often, with great vigor) and opened the door. June was still chattering away, my parents still sitting at the table with their lemonades, Mom’s expression bemused, Dad’s eyes glazed and disbelieving as I returned the car keys. Rather than head for the front hall, Jericho again surprised me by leading me to the other door and the short staircase beyond. “We’re down here, away from all the clucking hens upstairs.” In on the evidently long-running joke, June cluck-clucked and swatted him with a potholder as he passed, pecked at his cheek when he leaned in for a kiss. Once in the den (large and jumbled with worn but comfortable-appearing furniture, three walls crowded with family pictures and the fourth with the promised books) he turned a sharp left into a corridor with another short staircase dropping to a landing with three doors. “Laundry room there,” Jericho clarified, tilting his head to the right. “Everyone is responsible for washing their own clothes, Janey and Juanita are in charge of towels and linens. Straight ahead is the bathroom but there’s only a shower stall, if you want a soak you’ll have to go upstairs. And this, Mat my boy,” he crowed, throwing open the third door, “this is your home for the summer!”

My home for the summer (one I still couldn’t believe I was sharing with Jericho) was long but narrow, gloomy from the pitiful amount of late afternoon sunlight slinking through the two slit windows, which were both high on the walls but obviously set just above ground level. Jericho crossed the darkened floor and switched on a lamp in the corner, driving away most of the shadows. Two neatly-made twin beds separated by a nightstand huddled at one end of the carpeted floor, two mismatched dressers separated by a sliding closet door stood guard at the other. Jericho’s scent permeated the atmosphere, maddening in its subtlety, but underneath was another, one any teenage boy would recognize in an instant. Semen.

“Left bed, left dresser and left side of the closet are yours,” Jericho said, indicating each with a nod of his head as he dropped my bags. “I’d advise unpacking now, don’t leave it for later. When you finish you can go back up to the kitchen if you want. I’m gonna take a shower.” So saying, he tossed his cap on the right dresser and shrugged out of his shirt, revealing a smooth chest bearing tiny, protuberant nipples and a firm, flat belly with a small trickle of dark hairs leading down into his jeans. His torso was muscular but not chiseled, the result of physical toil rather than hours spent in a gym; even at my tender age I could tell the difference, and the crotch of my pants was suddenly tight again. As he unbuckled his belt Jericho suddenly glanced up at me, busting me in the act of ogling. I froze, trying to fumble up some excuse for my lecherousness, but before I could embarrass myself he grinned, not in the least offended. “So I take it you’re gay, then.”

“Eep!” I squeaked, put on the spot. I’d not come out to anyone yet, although I had a notion my mother suspected.

Reading my squeak as an assent, he continued, “Yeah, I thought so. Don’t worry about it, Mat, outing you is the furthest thing from my mind. I’m not gay myself, like at all, but I don’t have a problem with your sexuality. Heck, I’d be a hypocrite if I did, much as I messed around with my best friend when I was a kid your age.” A kid my age? There were barely nineteen months (I’d counted) between us! Still, I took no insult from his words, as I was too busy envisioning. Did his words mean he’d be willing to— “I don’t do it anymore of course,” he continued, blasting my nascent fantasies to smithereens. “Not that I didn’t have fun at the time, but I grew out of it. Most boys do.” He pushed down his jeans, revealing shapeless green boxer shorts and miles of thick muscular legs lightly furred with auburn hair a shade or two darker than on his head and arms; the same color as his pubes, I suddenly realized, and the crotch of my pants, which had loosened during his conversation about my sexuality, was suddenly tight again. “Well, except for the gay ones, I guess.” He flashed me his devastating grin and for a split second I could’ve swore his gaze flickered down, as if clocking the party in my cramped ballroom. If he did notice he didn’t react, simply pulled off his socks and added them to the ball of discarded clothing in his arms. I had a faint hope he might strip off his boxers as well, but he didn’t, unfortunately. “There’s a hamper with your name on it in the laundry room,” he said, changing the subject. “Use it if you don’t want your clothes to be lost forever. Trust me, it’s happened before.” I barely heard him, I was too busy watching the careless but tight swing of his meaty rump as he exited the room. I stood frozen as the door clicked shut behind him, not moving again until I heard the faint sound of spraying water through the wall. Exploding into action, I dropped the suitcases I didn’t realize I still held and reached for my zipper. I’d had crushes on other boys before, this was my first experience with all-consuming lust. I spanked hard and fast, imagining Jericho’s wet, naked body maybe ten feet away, and in less than a double handful of strokes my orgasm ripped through me, so intense I almost whited out. When the aftershocks faded I was shocked at my own depravity. What the hell was I thinking, jerking off in another boy’s room, in a house I’d entered not even an hour before, with people I didn’t know liable to walk in at any given moment? I grabbed some tissue from a convenient box on the nightstand, cleaned and put myself away, dithered for endless seconds over how to dispose of my mess. A small metal trash can sat beside the door, but it was empty and I didn’t want the tissue to be noticed, and if I stowed it in my pocket the aroma might expose me. Without any other options I stuffed the wadded twist into my sock, resolving to flush it before we went back up to the kitchen. Trying to ignore the uncomfortable dampness against my ankle, I quickly unpacked, finding plenty of space in my designated areas to store my clothing (and maybe taking a moment to sniff my cousin’s shirts hanging in the closet—they may have smelled of Tide, not his enticing scent, dammit). The chore didn’t take long, and when I finished I sat on my bed and studied Jericho’s room in more detail, trying desperately for some insight into what made him tick but not gleaning much. It was your typical teenage boy-cave, with your typical posters on the fake-pine walls and your typical knickknacks scattered on the mismatched dressers. I’d stood in many similar over the last few years, seen many more in movies and on tv. My own at home was much the same. Jericho’s, though, was somehow different, somehow emptier. He slept and changed clothes and even masturbated in this room, judging by the olfactory undertone, but I doubted he spent much time here otherwise.

The door clicked open, shattering my obsessive reverie, and Jericho strolled back inside, a fluffy towel around his waist and hanging to his knees, his aura strong with soap and deodorant and the faint hint of tangy sweetness that drove me so crazy. “Oh, hey Mat! I figured you’d be in the kitchen by now, hanging out with your parents before they leave.” My parents? Oh yeah, my parents. As angry and resentful as I’d been with them earlier, suddenly I realized I hadn’t thought about them once since meeting Jericho. Maybe spending the summer here wouldn’t be so bad after all. I stammered something about needing to go the bathroom first and he nodded as if my excuse made any sense at all. “Cool, cool.” I was fast coming to learn it didn’t matter much what I said or how I said it, Jericho was perfectly content to carry on a conversation by himself. He started chattering again but I didn’t understand a word, as at the same moment he stopped in front of his dresser and pulled the towel from around his waist to reveal his gorgeous and meaty ass, blindingly pale in contrast with the rest of his sun-blessed skin, smooth but for wispy strands of auburn hair peeking from between the cheeks. Despite the firecracker release of only minutes before my pants again grew tight.

Dear God, I was wrong. Spending the summer here was going to be torture. Glorious torture, to be sure, but torture all the same.

Still chattering, standing ass-naked in front of the distant cousin he’d just met, Jericho tossed the towel over his shoulder to land between our beds, and I would have wondered at the confident precision of his throw had I not been thoroughly cursing the lack of a mirror on his dresser. He retrieved a pair of gray basketball shorts, seemingly at random, from the dresser, then bent over, giving me the briefest glimpse of balls hanging between his thighs, to pull them on. When he had them situated and finally faced me I caught my breath. Droplets of water sparkled in his short-cropped auburn hair and dotted the swell of his pecs and flat belly, the weight of his equipment pressed against the thin silk of his shorts. “Forget you needed to pee?” he asked, his grin guileless but somehow mischievous. He knew what he was doing to me. He had to know. At least I think he did.

I sprang up and hurried out, his throaty chuckle following me. Once in the bathroom, I took a few deep breaths and tried to compose myself. I truly did need to pee, so that helped, but as I put myself away my eye caught on the shower, curtain pulled back, tile still dripping, and when I realized Jericho had been standing naked right there only minutes ago I fell back into helpless, simmering arousal. Cursing whichever god or devil had decided fucking with me would be funny, I flushed, washed up, then had to flush again when I went to exit the room and realized I’d forgotten the soiled tissue in my sock. I was all sorts of frazzled.

Jericho awaited me in the hall and thank heavens he’d donned an oversize t-shirt reaching his mid-thigh, sparing me the tantalizing view of his torso and the vague shape of his privates shifting in those long, baggy shorts (and don’t forget he’s not wearing underwear! my brain unhelpfully reminded me). I followed him back up to the kitchen, where we found the table sagging with dishes and surrounded by hungry people. One of the twins, Janey I thought, quickly muttered a few words of prayer and we dug in. Everyone, even the girls and myself (“It’s a special occasion, after all!”), was given a single glass of elderberry wine made with fruit foraged from wild bushes at the rear of the property, and on my first curious sip I finally found a comparison for Jericho’s scent; the wine may have been a little bit sweeter, a little less tangy, but the delicate piquancy was similar. The vegetables were homegrown and fresh, the chicken bartered from a neighbor up the road, and I’m sure the meal was delicious but I didn’t taste a single bite. Instead, I sucked down Jericho’s every last word as if gaining nourishment from them rather than the food while trying to ignore my mother’s slight smile, hoping she took my rapt attention as hero-worship and not infatuation. Jericho and June dominated the conversation, him good-naturedly pressing to buy some goats, her good-naturedly demurring, saying goats were stupid but sly and he’d spend more time trying to keep them out of the garden than doing actual work. Dad eventually butted in (ha ha), both because he had a more metropolitan turn of mind and also (I presume) to make sure his own voice still worked, commenting, “Jericho is an interesting name for a young man.” This from someone who’d named his own child Mateo. “How did you come about using it?”

Janey and Juanita groaned, even gagged a little, and Jericho’s grin was indulgent but slightly exasperated too, as if the question had been asked enough to become a minor nuisance. Ignoring her children, June laughed and explained, “Joe—that was my husband’s name—Joe used to say it took him seven times marching around me and blowing his horn before my walls finally crumbled, and the very first time they did this handsome boy here was the result.” Another gag from the twins. Uncaring, June reached up and tweaked her son’s cheek. Jericho reddened and grinned again, still exasperated but willing to put up with her affection. “Joe even wanted to call one of the girls Rahab but I put my foot down there.”

“I should think so!” my mother gasped. “Wasn’t Rahab a prostitute?”

June shrugged. “Eh, she was a hero too, hiding the Isrealite spies and all. My point was Rahab didn’t start with ‘J’.” And she was off again, something about the symmetry of names being the fengshui of close families. Having learned his lesson, my dad reapplied his attention to the feast and solemnly nodded as appropriate. We had red velvet cake and ice cream (“Not as good as hand-cranked, but not bad!”) for dessert, and by the time we finished we’d all likely gained ten pounds; I may not have tasted the food but by God I put away my fair share. My young cousins rose to start cleaning up, and when my mom raised her eyebrow I hurried to help, scraping dishes and handing them over to either be scrubbed by the girls or precisely placed in the dishwasher by Jericho. When the kitchen was tidy we sat around and made small talk (June apparently sated enough to let other people chat for a minute) until my mother glanced at her watch and commented they’d better be hitting the road, they had a long drive home and an early flight tomorrow. At her words the resentment I’d temporarily forgotten welled back up, fighting for space in my distended belly, but it was muted now, not natural, almost forced. My rude exile suddenly didn’t seem so terrible. June was certainly sweet, the twins kind and polite and Jericho was . . . intriguing. To say the least. Though they followed us out my hosts lingered on the front porch, allowing me to walk my parents to their car alone. Dad shook my hand, reminding me to be a good guest and of his love, Mom hugged me for a long time. “I think you’re going to get along just fine here,” she whispered, “no matter how determined you are to be miserable.”

I thought I was going to get along fine here too but being an angsty teenager (it’s what we did, after all) I heaved a long-suffering sigh. “If you say so.”

She half-smiled but didn’t let me go, and I tensed. “I can see you like Jericho,” she said, choosing her words with care, “and that’s a good thing, he’s a nice young man.”

“He’s okay,” I admitted, grudgingly.

Mom squeezed me tighter, not fooled in the slightest. “But just remember, honey, he’s older than you. Don’t . . . don’t pester him too much.”

“Mom, I—”

“He’s probably got a girlfriend, maybe even planning to marry her, as responsible as he appears to be, and they’ll want some alone time, and you need to give them that.” Not at the moment, I wanted to reply to her first assumption, but then I’d be forced to reply to the second yes, he does have plans to marry and yeah, you’re probably right to the third and fourth. So I let Mom keep mothering and didn’t say a word. “You can be . . . intense in your feelings sometimes and I don’t want you getting them hurt.”

I understood what she was really saying: Don’t fall in love with your straight cousin, Mateo, he’ll break your heart without ever realizing, the closest either of us had yet come to acknowledging my sexuality aloud. But I think we both knew it was already too late, my heart was destined to be broken, and I conceded her point by changing the subject, reminding her to send lots of postcards and bring back even more souvenirs. Taking the hint, Mom squeezed me tight one more time and released, saying she loved me and promising plenty of presents for everyone. As they drove away my resolve almost broke, and I needed to fight back the urge to chase after them, beg them not to leave me behind. I was about to take the involuntary first step when a hand landed on my shoulder. Jericho grinned, silently assuring me he understood, then comforted me by starting up his usual chatter, his topic this time an old British sitcom they’d recently discovered on a faraway PBS channel. “It’s set in a department store where the women’s wear and men’s wear salespeople are forced to share space, and it’s hysterical! A little dirty, especially for an old show, but one of the guys is gay as heck and he’s a scream!” Janey and Juanita excused themselves, claiming they didn’t understand most of the jokes and the ones they did get were gross, but June and Jericho and I settled in to watch. Jericho’s prediction about the show’s hilarity must have been true, the way he guffawed and slapped his knee (and sometimes mine) at every other gag. The channel ran two episodes back-to-back, and after the first June hugged us goodnight and went upstairs, leaving Jericho and me alone to enjoy the second. I didn’t bother paying attention to the plot, I just sat back and savored Jericho’s rich, infectious laughter. Yeah, I had it bad.

When the show ended he switched off the tv and stood. “Let’s hit the hay, Mat my boy, it’s getting late.” Late? It was barely nine o’clock! Jericho grinned at my obvious dismay. “Five a.m. breaks early.” Five a.m.? I usually slept till at least ten in the summer! But I stifled my groans and followed him to his—our bedroom with minimal reluctance. “Aren’t you glad you didn’t wait to unpack? Now you can go straight to sleep and not have to worry about it!” He let me have the bathroom first, and as soon as he went for his own turn I promptly shed my clothes and slid between the sheets, not wanting him to see the boner tenting my drawers. I usually jerked off when I turned in and despite the firecracker explosion only a few hours previous was going to need a second round before I’d be able to crash. Maybe I could wait until he was asleep and—no, I might wake him up, I’d likely make too much noise, as aroused as I was. A better idea would be to slip into the bathroom. Or maybe I should just try to wait until my morning—

The door swung open, interrupting my dithering, and Jericho stepped back inside, still clad in his long shirt and basketball shorts. “You don’t wear pajamas?” I shook my head, mute in the glow in of his grin. “Me either, just what I’ve got on now. You’re not naked under there, are you?” He tugged at the sheet, teasing me with the threat of ripping it off to see for himself.

“NO!” I yelped, slapping my hands down, then cleared my throat, a poor cover for my panic. “No, I’m not naked,” I explained in a more reasonable tone of voice. “I always sleep in my boxers.”

“You need to wear more than that.” He tossed over a random t-shirt from my dresser. “Gets a mite chilly in here at night, what with the AC set on ‘deep freeze’ and the fact we’re below ground level. This used to be a root cellar ‘til I convinced my old man to let us remodel.”

“Y’all did a good job,” I commented, shrugging into my tee, uncaring which he’d given me. “I couldn’t tell.”

His grin faltered and he looked around as if refreshing his regard. “Yeah, we did do a halfway decent job, didn’t we?” He contemplated a moment before switching off the floor lamp and plunging us into darkness—no moonlight poured through the slit windows to provide even the dimmest illumination, so I heard rather than saw Jericho return and drop into bed. “G’night, Mat, sleep well.”

“You too. . . Jer,” trying it out, and when he didn’t object I allowed myself a small sigh of relief. Silence descended, at first absolute but gradually giving away to night sounds, much as my eyes began to adjust enough to discern vague shapes in the shadows. The house settled around us with minute creaks and groans, Jericho breathed soft and steady across from me. I was too far away to pick out his elderberry wine scent, but I imagined I smelled him anyway, and my boner throbbed. No doubt about it, I was gonna have to make my way to the bathroom very—

“Mat? You still awake?” His whisper low, gravelly. Without waiting for a response he continued, “You mind if I masturbate?”

“Eep!” I squeaked.

“I always indulge when I turn in, it helps me drift off to sleep, but if it’ll make you uncomfortable I’ll—”

“No, it’s fine,” I interrupted, hardly daring to believe both his words and my own. “I usually do too, so . . .” I let my voice trail away.

“Cool, cool. We can whip one out together, it’ll stay just between you and me.” The frame of his bed began a slow, measured creaking and I glanced over, but all I could see was the shadowy mountain of his raised knees. “So go ahead if you need to.” Too late, I was already stroking, falling easily into his audible rhythm. “You jerk off a lot?”

I barely clamped down on yet another squeak. “Yuh-yeah, a fair amount. You?”

“Twice a day and three times on Sunday.” He didn’t sound as if he were joking. “Jill says I’m too horny for my own good, it’s why she gets so annoyed with me sometimes. You like to get your dick sucked?”

“Eep!”

“Yeah, most guys do. Not me, I have kind of a phobia about letting sharp teeth anywhere near sensitive skin. I like to fuck.” And he was off. I’d already remarked how clean-cut in language Jericho seemed to be, preferring “dang” and “heck” to “damn” or “hell”, but the words pouring from his mouth now were pure smut. He bragged about how he liked to use his big cock to drive his companion crazy, to diddle them shallow and then plug them deep, to make them holler as they quivered and came, pouring out his filth in a whisper raspy with heat, scratchy with desire, occasionally hitching or breaking into a short moan. I clamped down hard on every lewd image, fantasizing myself into the role of his partner; I had little-to-no sexual experience at the time, having only indulged in a couple furtive thirty-second blowjob swaps with friends who seemed to feel ashamed after, but I felt I could be a perfect slut for Jericho if only he’d allow me. Our wooden bedframes creaked in time together, the darkness crackled between our writhing bodies, his voice growing more throaty and raw, my balls tightening and edging towards boiling over. In the middle of a sentence regarding his greed for the way a tight hole milked out his load he suddenly stopped, gasped, stilled in his bed. A half-second of silence stretched to infinity, then a high-pitched grunt and the unmistakable splurt of cum on belly. The salty semen undertone of Jericho’s room swelled in my nose and then I was shooting too, the bright glare of my orgasm briefly overwhelming the shadows.

Nothing for a moment but the calming breaths of two satiated young men, and I savored our intimacy; we might have been laying shoulder-to-shoulder instead of on two beds separated by a nightstand. Maybe he felt the same, because he suddenly chuckled and said, “Whoa. Haven’t jerked off with another guy since my best friend and me gave it up a couple years ago. Kinda cool, huh?” Sudden movement as he rolled over, reached to the floor between us for the towel he’d left there earlier. The soft rasp of the material wiping at his belly, then a flutter and a soft thump as he tossed it over. I sensed him grinning as he commented, “Be careful with that, I think I spunked a gallon.” I immediately began running my fingers up and down, and my freshly-spanked dick twitched as I found traces of what he’d warned me about. “Just drop the towel back on the floor when you get done.” He paused to yawn. “I’ll put it in the linen hamper in the morning, Janey and Juanita will never notice the stains.” He yawned again. “At least they haven’t yet. Trust me, if they did they’d say some . . .” His voice faded away. I cleaned myself up and disposed of the towel as directed, then curled up facing Jericho’s bed and listened to his deep, regular breaths and sporadic, incoherent muttering—he couldn’t shut up even in slumber. As I lay there, amazed to find myself growing drowsy, the thought occurred to me that not once during his porn-worthy monologue had Jericho specified who or what he imagined himself fucking. No mention of girls or women, just a gender-neutral ‘they’ or ‘them’. No titties or pussies, only tight holes and wailing orgasms. Ruminating on the mystery of my cousin, I at last sank into a sleep as dark and peaceful as our shared bedroom.