Jericho's Wall - 7. Chapter 7

“I’ve got condoms,” Jericho assured me, his voice firm in the darkness. “I mean, I’ve only ever been with Darren and then Jill but even with them I wrapped up.”

I seized on the condom thing, needing a moment to assimilate. “W-where did you get them?” He hadn’t been out of my sight or hearing since I arrived.

“From Ron. And he gave me plenty.”

Nope, still needing a moment. Besides, I couldn’t not ask. “What did he say?”

“Only asked if I needed him to fetch a cucumber and demonstrate how to roll one on properly. When I said I already had experience he said ‘okay then’ and changed the subject.”

“Do you think he told Bud?” Jericho didn’t bother to answer; he didn’t have to. I took a deep breath, ready. “Yeah, of course you can fuck me, Jer. I’ve been waiting for you to ask.”

“You have?” his voice shy, disbelieving.

“For awhile now.”

Again with the contemplative “Huh.”

Another deep breath. “But on one condition.”

“What?” He sounded eager to promise me his firstborn child.

“That you don’t offer to swap after. You’ve got a magnificent ass, trust me, the greatest I’ve ever been tortured by, but I have no interest in topping it.”

“But—”

“But nothing. Heh. Get it?”

It took him a sec but at last he snorted. “Good one. Okay, okay, I swear I won’t offer you my, my ass in return.”

“Well you don’t have to sound so relieved,” I remarked, and he snorted again. “Get over here, Jer, and fuck my brains out.”

He’d been given permission and just like that! he took charge. His shadow loomed beside my bed and the strong smell of elderberry wine swelled in my nose. “Here, put this under your middle.” Either my towel or his, it didn’t really matter. “Take off your boxers, can’t just pull ‘em down. Or we could but—”

“Already done,” I said, dropping them to the floor and tucking the towel under my middle as directed.

“Enthusiastic, are we?” I heard the slide of cotton dropping down legs that went for miles and though I intently searched I only barely saw his dick swinging in the shadows. I couldn’t tell the length or the width but it looked very, very hard, and I smelled the warmth and sweat from here. I only bit back the urge to lunge by reminding myself of his daknophobia (looked up at Bud’s using an actual index in an actual book—Google wouldn’t be around for six more years; how do I know this?).

“Like you’re not,” I retorted.

“You’re about to find out how enthusiastic I am,” he replied, his threat laced with heat, and I shivered. “Slide over.”

“Let me get the mineral oil first.”

“Nope, that stuff eats right through latex, me and, uh, I found that out by accident. Ron gave me some better lube.”

Thank heavens he’d not said the name. “How do you want me?”

“On your side.” He slid in behind me, the elderberry wine swelling to envelope the rest of me, and I felt the usual prod of his dick on my backside and shivered again. No crack or thighs this time, he was going to be inside my body. He lay his strong hands on me, arranging to his liking by pushing my top leg up and out and straightening the other, and my dick drooled onto the towel at the effortless domination.

“Okay, give me some lube so I can—”

“No, Mat my friend.” His voice firm, and I shivered again. “I’ll take care of you. If I can stick my dick up an ass it’d be stupid to be squeamish about fingers.” His voice rough, his words telling me the smut was rising. He’d never used his fingers to touch my center before, only his glans, so I’d assumed he had been squeamish but he proved me wrong and I gasped as he probed, soft but forceful. I heard the door slam, the twins’ faint, squabbling voices, but their footsteps moved across the kitchen, down the hall and up the stairs, and I lost myself in Jericho’s careful massage. I’d diddled myself before, mostly in the last few weeks, but these fingers didn’t belong to me, they belonged to Jericho. He stroked, slowly rotated, and I groaned, loud, as he rubbed against the place inside me I was about to get to know a whole helluva lot better. He laughed, low and sexy and self-satisfied. He was too gentle and I growled and reared back against him. “So enthusiastic,” he said, his voice awed.

“Dammit, Jer, get your dick inside me!” Although I truly could have used more stretching he took me at my word and scrambled to obey. I heard a metallic rip and rattle, felt his right arm moving in a familiar motion, but he wasn’t jacking off. He rolled onto his side so he was nestled close to me and I again felt the familiar probe of his glans, but this time it was slick and it didn’t just catch on my hole it pressed, pressed some more, and both of us gasped as he breached me. Thick, so thick. I’d had three of my fingers inside me before but this felt like four, maybe even five.

“Breathe, Mat my lover, breathe.” I heard the endearment and the significance helped me relax enough for him to slide further in, further still. It hurt, oh my grinning stars it hurt, stealing all sensation from the rest of my body and focusing it here, where we were joined, all-encompassing, all-consuming. In all this shadowy, sweaty world there was Jericho and Jericho and nothing but Jericho, and before I’d quite realized he was all the way inside, stuffing me with a dick I’d never seen, tickling my ass-cheeks with pubic hair I’d never ran my fingers through. I didn’t care. They belonged to Jericho.

“Fuck, Mat,” his whisper moist and warm in my ear, “you’re fucking hot and tight, your asshole is squeezing my dick, if I wasn’t wearing the rubber I’d be spewing inside you right now.” He’d given up all pretense. No more “they” or “them” or “somebody”, now he was fucking me, Mateo. Mat. Mat my lover. He started moving, introducing me formally to the spot inside me I’d heard so much about, the spot I planned to thoroughly become acquainted with over the rest of the summer, and with each stroke it whispered along with me. Jericho. Jericho. Jericho. No tinny guitars weeping about Tuesday being gone with the wind. No annoyed bats or nonplussed cicadas, just Jericho. Jericho. Jericho. When he’d said the act was extreme, he’d not been lying. It was extreme, in the very best of ways. He asked if I liked when he did this and I babbled I loved when he did that, our filth personal and not generic. He lifted my leg and slid the crook of his elbow under my thigh, opening me further, and I cried out as he went deeper, deeper still. He laughed in my ear, smug and pleased with himself, and I gasped when he grabbed my cock; I’d forgotten I had one, so intent was I on the feel of Jericho inside me. “Wouldn’t be fair if you didn’t get a reacharound, would it? Damn, Mat my lover, you got a big ol’ dick. And you’re hard, so hard, and you’re leaking too. You must like my cock rearranging your insides.”

“I . . . I love it, Jer my . . . my lover. Fuck me, Jer, fuck me!”

And he did. He slid his other arm under my neck and clutched my chest, pulling me closer, his hand stroking me in time with his pounding, and he talked to me, breathed in my ear, spilled his porn into my brain and into my emotions, stroking the spot inside me I had decided was my new favorite playpretty. The bed creaked under us until suddenly it stopped as he stilled, buried to the hilt in my ass, one single second stretched on endlessly and he bit my earlobe, the pain sharp and shocking and pushing me over the edge as he throbbed, filling the condom.

He released me, let my shaking leg drop to the mattress, and we lay curled together, still joined, until our breaths calmed. Bestowing a sweet, gentle kiss on my shoulder, he extricated himself, and as always I mourned the loss of his touch. I felt huge back there, gaping, like I’d been reamed out by a concrete post, but it was a good ache, one I hoped to feel many times in the future. He sat up on the side of the bed, rolling off and tying up the condom. Placing it on the nightstand, he said, “I’ll flush this in the morning when I put up the towels.” He yawned, leaning backwards far enough his back touched my hip, leaned forwards to feel around on the floor for a towel and, after wiping me off him, for his discarded boxers, then stood, my bed creaking, mourning his loss as well. His shirt had been bunched around his upper torso, now it dropped low as he stepped into his underwear, me studying the familiar globes of his meaty rump more from memory than vision, then dropped into his bed. I pulled the towel from underneath me, glad Jericho had suggested laying on it because if he hadn’t I’d be swimming in a lake of my own spunk. Holy cow, how much had I shot? Might’ve been gallons for all I knew. I dropped the towel to the floor, pulled on my own drawers and lay back, still feeling slick and violated downstairs and loving every achy squish.

“Mateo?”

“Yeah, Jericho?” But I knew what was coming.

I was right. “Thank you.”

“You’re very welcome. Thank you.”

“You’re very welcome.”

We chuckled, and it was tired, sated. We wouldn’t be talking long tonight.

“Mateo?”

“Yeah, Jericho?”

“I just . . . I just want you to know that . . . that what we just did? It was the best sex I’ve ever had in my life. I mean, not that I’ve had a lot, but still.”

“Well, you know with my experience it’s gotta be in an at least the top two hundred.” Another tired laugh. “No, Jericho, what we just did . . . I mean, you know it was my first time but . . . but it was better than I imagined. Better than I ever dreamed. And I dreamed a lot.” Of you. I didn’t add the last part because we both already knew.

“I dreamed a lot too.” Something else we both knew but just like the first best left unmentioned. “So you’ll wanna . . . wanna do it again?” Past too-casual into shy. Ergo, very worried.

“Jer, if I didn’t have to bend and squat in the garden all day tomorrow I’d be on my hands and knees presenting like Calico in heat.”

Tired chuckle. “She’s fixed, but I know what you mean. You’re not . . . you’re not hurting?”

“A little,” I admitted, lowballing a tad. “But it’s a good kind of hurt, the kind makes me remember how I got it and how much I want to do it again.” I shifted in bed. “Just not right now.”

“We can . . . we can still . . .”

How did I know he’d go there? “No, Jericho. Thanks, but no need. I’ll be right as rain tomorrow night and ready to hurt again.”

Another tired chuckle and I thought he was falling into mumbles until he said, “Mateo?”

“Yeah?”

A long pause. “Good night.”

“Good night, Jericho.” I waited until I for sure heard him mumbling before I swung my feet to the floor, hissing at the sting in my backside. I felt along the nightstand for the tied condom, along the floor for the towels. Tiptoeing across the room, I eased open the door, slipped out. I put the towels in the correct hamper and carried the condom into the bathroom, aiming to flush it, but before dropping it into the bowl I held it up, examined. Jericho’s elderberry wine essence was in there, white fluid trapped in latex by a finger-twisted tie, the part of him able to fertilize ova and produce life. I prayed I’d live long enough to build a time machine and come back for a sample to clone myself as many Jerichos as possible but when no future me popped in with a beaker I reluctantly dropped and flushed. I cleaned up, wincing at the soapy bite, and tiptoed back to the bedroom, accidentally ramming my toe on the doorjamb, and I grunted.

“Mat?”

“Just stubbed my toe, Jer. I’m okay, go back to sleep, sorry to wake you.”

“Okay,” he yawned, “just wanted to make sure. Be care—” and he was out again.

I eased the door shut and slipped back into bed, pulling the sheet up over me and curling up facing Jericho, listening to him breathe and mumble. I didn’t mull; mulling was done for a day or two. Instead, I marveled. I marveled at the ache in my backside, fierce but so right, like the aches I’d earned (and still did earn, though not as frequently or as intensely) when I first started working in the garden, the ones that felt good because they came from being productive. I marveled at how luxuriously naughty and sated I felt, marveled how I’d never expected sex to be so good, even with Jericho. And I marveled at the emotion I’d felt as he’d fucked me—emotion he’d felt too, I know he did. He could’ve rolled me over the first night I was here, I would’ve had my drawers down almost before he’d finished asking. I probably would’ve seen his dick, maybe even sucked it (and boy didn’t I curse Darren for not learning to cover his blasted teeth). He could’ve been fucking me every damn night, and we both would’ve came hard and enjoyed every single pumping, thumping minute. But it wouldn’t have meant anything; it would have been boys playing, taking advantage of our shared bedroom. I was perfectly fine with how long I’d waited for him. Because as much as he talked about “experimenting” and “fooling around” he loved me. He’d never told me so other than as how much his family loved me, the general kind we shared as blood-kin, but I knew he did. He wrestled with how much he loved me, I’d seen him do it and didn’t have to read his thoughts to understand. And he knew our love was doomed just as well as I did; we both comprehended the concept. We were a summer thing and he wrestled with his feelings, not wanting to hurt himself, hurt me. Every single step he took deeper into our intimacy was tortuous for him. I would have pitied him the struggle had I not been the subject; I still pitied him, a little. He loved me, but Jill waited for him in the fall. He knew and I knew. Hell, she knew. But I was happy I was here, and I marveled.

We overslept in the morning, not by much, fifteen minutes or so. The first thing he did when he shook me awake was to thank me again, his eyes sparkling in the dim glow of the floor lamp, and then again when he noticed I’d disposed of the condom and towels. As we hurriedly dressed (me still occasionally wincing) I noticed the foil wrapper on the floor where he’d tossed it. He didn’t, still muttering under his breath and buckling his belt as he rushed out, but I did. I retrieved, crumpled and tossed it in the wastebasket. If Janey felt the need to rifle through our trash, she’d do it with my blessing.

Speaking of Janey, she proved in top form as we entered the kitchen, looking up from the bacon to comment not on our uncharacteristic lateness but instead, “Where’d y’all disappear to last night?”

I expected Jericho to snap our absence was none of her business but he was in much too good a mood. “Went to go visit a guy I heard had a baby goat he’d be willing to trade for a nosy little girl.”

“A kid for a kid?” I guessed as I accepted the cup of coffee he’d poured for me.

“Bingo,” Jericho said, and winked.

Everyone but Janey laughed. “I was just asking.”

“It’s okay, I was only teasing. Me and Mat got tired of the crowd and smelling weed and went up near Dead Lover’s Cave to watch the fireworks.”

“That place is haunted,” Juanita said, hastily adding, “Or at least that’s what I’ve heard. Silly kids.” Her tone was uncertain.

Jericho heard it too. “I didn’t believe it myself until last night.”

Juanita squinted at him. “Really?” Her hand slowed beating the eggs as June turned away, sniggering.

“Yeah. It was spooky. We only got Truck halfway up the hill when the engine died and wouldn’t restart, and no it wasn’t the loose starter wire. I was working on it, hoping to get to the top before the celebration started, when we heard a strange dragging sound.” He went on to describe the horrors he and I had faced, fighting zombies and ghosts and were-lesbians and whatever else when all we wanted was to watch the dang fireworks show, and he made me out to be the hero in every situation. Juanita caught on quickly enough, bless her heart (yes, I’d started doing it too), and he kept up the tale all through breakfast, embellishing with the same creative imagination I’d caught quick glimpses of before (most notably in finishing out the story of the artist and the curly-haired boy) and once again I sat back and marveled. At one point as I listened, spellbound, I shifted in my seat and provoked another twinge in my backside, letting out a “sss” (sounding a bit like an ugly booger) before I could stop myself. Jericho’s eyes met mine over the table, his gaze amused but sympathetic as he talked slightly louder, trying to cover it up for me. June didn’t seem to notice, her attention fixed as firmly on the tale as everyone else’s, but when I went to brush my teeth before bed I found a tube of diaper rash cream in the medicine cabinet. Ah, June. I also found a nightlight installed and illuminated every single night on the landing outside our bedroom; ah, Jericho. Neither of them said anything about their contributions and I never thanked them but they knew I was grateful.

Jericho’s fancy continued throughout the meal and ensuing clean-up, and as usual we stepped out into a gorgeous (and hot) sunrise. I told him I’d warn Bud he had some serious competition in the story-telling field, Jericho’s cheeks pinked as he grinned and we got to work. We did our thing after lunch down by the elderberry shrubs but we only dry-humped, we didn’t fuck. For one thing the weight of his cock in my crack reawakened the sting I’d gradually forgotten over the morning and for another neither of us felt the need. Fucking was for the night and the darkness; the nightstand no longer separated us, not entirely. We knocked off early, in the mood for a brownie, and cleaned up for a trip into town. Jill was working and for once wasn’t overbearing or flirtatious and her makeup and hair and boobs were back to normal. She was pleasant, we were pleasant in return, and she didn’t ask where we’d disappeared to the night before. She’d figured out her invincible weapon the previous week; all she need do was sit back and wait, and she did, with such quiet grace I grudgingly upped my level of respect for her a smidge. Despite our protests Rodi refused to charge us for our brownies or accept a tip, saying we had no idea how she’d appreciated our taking time to amuse Quincy at the cookout, he’d enjoyed himself so much he’d woken up chattering about it and us. “Folks don’t always engage with him, either because they don’t know what to say or they’re afraid of hurting him. He doesn’t say anything but he notices. So thank you.” Rodi said she planned to comp brownies for Janey, Juanita and Isabella next time she saw them too so we didn’t feel quite so bad and accepted her gift with appreciation. Back at home in addition to swinging his feet into my lap as we read on the back porch he laid his head there as we screened Are You Being Served? before bed. June sat in her usual spot and watched her usual single episode and never mentioned our odd positioning, merely bent over to kiss his cheek on her way to bed. When he entered me later it hurt worse than the night before but I loved it anyway. It was Jericho.

The days passed. We made another trip to visit the chicken lady, this time carrying for barter a peck of carrots; I loaded the basket, Jericho eyeballed and said, “Good enough.” I steeled my nerve and got out of Truck and found Clarice to be a lovely woman, if a bit incomprehensible (no teeth), though I stayed well away from both the monstrous mutt and any roaming poultry (cynophobia and alektorophobia, if you’re interested, looked up at Bud’s as well). Jericho noticed and grinned but not in a mean way. Fondly. Sympathetically. The stench was horrible too but I survived. A few aches returned to my body from being held down and fucked to within an inch of my life every night (Jericho was shall we say passionate and had incredible stamina) but they eased up even as my hole began to adjust, my diaper rash cream usage lessening. I still hadn’t seen more of his dick than thick, swinging shadow but I didn’t care. I didn’t have to see it. Our intimacy blossomed out of bed too. In addition to laying his head in my lap or pulling my head into his every night as we watched television he’d stand behind or beside me with his arms draped around my neck or sometimes with his jaw hooked over my shoulder. Sometimes he’d even hold my hand in the mornings as we headed for the barn with the girls. Juanita acted like she didn’t notice, Janey’s eyes widened the first time she saw our fingers entwined. She didn’t say anything though and by the next day was as blithe about our open affection as her twin. Janey had long suspected; now she knew and was satisfied. Her eyes widened again the first time Jericho slipped up and called me “Mat my lover” at breakfast then narrowed when he tried to cover it up by claiming she’d heard wrong and he’d actually said “Mat my brother”. She didn’t believe a word but let it go and I was my “Mat my brother” for the rest of the summer, at least during the day; I didn’t mind. Like, at all. We sat in the pew at church, pressed closer together than the sparse population of our “family” row demanded, listening to Sister Sarah explain more of God’s simple, approachable logic, and no one in the congregation said a word although several people obviously noticed. I went to communion with him, the two of us opening our mouths and bowing our heads together to receive God’s blessing through our smiling, soft-spoken deacon server. We cuddled on the back porch at Bud and Ron’s, Jericho on the top step, me between his spread legs on the riser below. Ron raised his eyebrow for a split second but neither of them called us on it, just chatted about the usual, Bud getting excited about whatever gay or AIDS-related injustice was going on in the news (I think one topic was people who claimed to be allies and wore stylish red ribbons on their lapels but never actually helped, financially or otherwise) or just the general state of the nation and current presidential campaigns, Ron bickering and flirting then soothing and flirting him down. The days passed, and we were happy.

Then came the tornado. And things changed.