Jericho's Wall - 9. Chapter 9

I don’t know how long I cried. Might’ve been minutes, might’ve been years. All I know is I cried while Bud held me and murmured “it’s okay” and “let it out” and “I’m here, Mateo” on the couch in the rarely-used living room. I’d known the emptiness was a lie and I was right, I was so full of feeling it hissed out of me like a tire with a thousand punctures. I hadn’t realized I’d locked so much inside. I’d been on my best behavior the way my father expected the entire time I’d been here, so worried about putting a step out of place I’d clamped down on every visible emotion, even the positive ones. I’d been the respectful guest, the hard worker, the willing lover. I felt, yes, but I filtered how I reflected it, especially regarding Jericho. I’d tried so hard to not spook him I’d spooked myself; I’d been honest but not forthright. And every suppressed feeling came pouring out now, the words as jumbled as my tears, but they added up to the same sentence, just with different emphases, all about how I loved Jericho. How I loved Jericho. How I loved Jericho. The only non-italicized, non-emphatic word was ‘I’.

“Feel better?” Bud asked as I sat up, wiping at my wet, snotty cheeks and hoping I didn’t look as bad as I probably did. Ron had discreetly stepped outside to give us privacy and I heard him nailing something in the backyard.

“Yes,” I answered after too much thought. “I do feel better.” It was true. The raw, nervous, itchy feeling had been drained away. Now I just felt tired.

“Good,” Bud replied softly, leaning forward to brush a few dried tears off my cheeks. Yup, I must look bad. “All of that needed to come out.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “So sorry.”

Surprised, he asked, “Whatever for? I’m happy to have been here for you.”

“I know. Thanks for that, I needed you.” He made a pleased noise. “I’m apologizing for yesterday.” To his raised eyebrow, “When I snapped at you for only trying to help me. I was a bitch.”

Bud laughed, the silver tinkle he used when he was highly amused, and usually only with Ron. “Oh, sweetie, you’re gay. We’re allowed to be bitches occasionally, it’s in our DNA. I was a bitch the first day you visited when I thought you didn’t know the difference between AIDS and AIDS-related complications, remember?”

“Yeah, but that’s something everyone should know, gay or not. I was a bitch because you were trying to be nice and I didn’t want you to be. So I’m sorry.”

“Thank you, Mateo, I’ll accept your apology on the grounds we can still be bitches to each other if the need arises.” He held up a finger. “Occasionally.”

I laughed, and it felt good. “Deal.”

The telephone rang and he picked it up from where Ron had left it on the coffee table. Glancing at the caller ID Bud murmured, “I’m only surprised he didn’t call back ten minutes ago.” To me he said, “Hang on,” and carried the cordless receiver to the back door as it rang a second time. “Ron? It’s Jericho again, you speak to him.” I let out another laugh as the thought occurred to me all my cousin’s pacing and consulting with Ron in the yard hadn’t necessarily been trying to pinpoint the outhouse’s original location. I talk to him sometimes about stuff I can’t talk to anybody else about, especially since, since my dad died. Bud came back into the living room and took his spot beside me. “Jericho’s worried about you.”

I knew he was, but— “You and Ron tell each other everything, don’t you?”

If Bud were thrown by the non sequitur he didn’t show it. “We have no secrets, no.”

“Jericho talks to Ron. I talk to you. Between the two of y’all you and Ron probably know better what’s going on between us than we do.” I laughed at the notion.

Bud appeared startled for a moment then laughed along. “In a sense I suppose we do but only because we can put some pieces together you can’t.” Not even trying to deny they’d discussed Jericho and me. “You’re too close. And we don’t know everything, only what you choose to tell us, verbally or not. We all filter ourselves, it’s human nature to omit the most intimate details. There are things about you and Jericho we don’t want to know.”

Bud was right. I’d told him most of everything but not all for the reason he’d mentioned: the details were intimate. I’d told him Jericho and I had sex and he undoubtedly knew Ron had supplied Jericho condoms and while they likely guessed who topped and who bottomed I’m sure they had no idea we’d never kissed or blown each other. I’d explained Jericho and I had fought but not the subject. Jericho’s insecurity over his dick (for I’d decided it was insecurity though I hadn’t clue of the, heh, root of the issue; to me his dick was incredible, sight unseen) and the way he held me down and fucked my brains out were none of their business. They didn’t want to know these things as we didn’t want to know the same sorts of things about them. So I said again the one thing that was intimate but okay for them to know. They knew already.

“I love Jericho. I’m in love with Jericho.” The words felt funny in my mouth; I’d known this all along, I just hadn’t said it aloud, even to myself, until a few minutes ago.

“He’s your first great love, isn’t he?” Bud’s tone compassionate.

I saw no reason to deny. “Yeah. Yeah he is.” I’d crushed on other boys before, my cousin Jericho was my first experience with pure, unadulterated love. “Since the instant I saw him.”

“Well, let me tell you something I’ll be surprised if you’ve considered. You’re Jericho’s first great love too.”

Bud was right. I’d not considered this. “No, no I’m not,” I spluttered. “He’s been with Jill a long time, they’re just bro—”

He tutted. “I’m not talking about Jill. She’s something . . . different, something other. She’s—”

“She’s his future,” I said firmly. “And he loves her.”

Bud blinked at me, as if he hadn’t expected me to know this. Hell, he probably hadn’t. But he didn’t correct me. “Whatever Jill is to Jericho, you, Mateo, are his passion.”

I blinked back at him. “Nonplussed,” I whispered.

Bud appeared delighted. “Yes, it is a good word, isn’t it?”

“You’re right,” I admitted. “I’ve never considered myself to be his passion. But I knew it anyway. The way he—” grinned at me clutched my shoulder held me down fucked my brains out “—touches me shouts it loud and clear.”

“And it bothers you, doesn’t it? You’re in the middle of your first love affair. And you’re a—” he hesitated and I knew the word he was going to speak, but when he did it wasn’t as my mom spoke it, in a sympathetic, condescending and sometimes annoyed manner, but as a fact of life “—a teenager, and you have all these huge emotions with nothing to compare them to and you don’t know what do with them.” I nodded, agreeing with him so far. “But you’re also grown-up and realistic enough to know the hard truth.”

I nodded again. “In a month-and-a-half I’m going home to Atlanta and Jericho is going to marry Jill.” Bud opened his mouth but I interrupted. “Maybe not the next day but surely within the next year, two at most.” Bud closed his mouth, not arguing. “And they’ll have babies. For the good of the ‘farm’.” I couldn’t help the smarminess of my pronunciation and I didn’t try. “I’m not stupid, I know all about Jericho’s promise to his dad—”

“Wait, what?”

“That’s the reason Jericho and I can never be. He made a promise to his father and he’ll put his aside his own—”

“Okay, stop right there,” Bud ordered, his mouth twitching to soften his tone. “His father was a good man. The best. And Jericho loved him like crazy, was devastated when Joe passed, so devastated he didn’t fully snap out of it until this summer and you. But Joe wasn’t a farmer.”

“He was an insurance salesman who decided to reopen the farm as a hobby, a way to provide fresh vegetables for his family. Jericho loved the work and—”

“Jericho told you this?”

“Not in so many words but it was pretty easy to figure out.”

“Apparently not. Have you ever heard the expression ‘never assume because it makes—'”

“’—an ass of U and Me,’” I finished. “What did I assume wrong?”

“When Jericho started crawling Joe and June had one hell of a time keeping him out of the yard and the mud, especially after it rained.”

“So? Sounds like most kids.”

“But do most kids throw a temper tantrum when their father tries to cut the grass?”

“Uh, what?”

“When Jericho was three years old he pitched an absolute fit when Joe got out the mower for the first time that spring. Laid down in front of the thing, rolling and screaming on the ground and refusing to move because the grass had a right to grow. The grass was alive. It got so bad June had to take the boy completely off the property for Joe to mow the front lawn.”

I chuckled, picturing it. “Sounds like him.”

“Joe’s ancestors have owned the land there since before the Civil War, did Jericho tell you? It went fallow a few generations back and nobody cared. Joe even had plans to sell off at one point until seven-year-old Jericho guilted him out of the notion. Their farmer blood may have skipped some generations but Jericho got a full dose. He’s the one who agitated for the first few plants. Joe gave in, thinking when they died Jericho would drop the subject, and when the garden thrived the boy came to him with a five-year-plan to expand. Jericho was eleven at the time. A year or so later he brought Joe two handwritten essays and worksheets, one on the benefits of owning a cow and the other on the cost of owning a mule versus hiring someone with a tractor to plow every season.”

I smiled. “Now he’s on about goats.”

“He’ll get them too, however stubbornly June resists. She’s an artist at heart and doesn’t grok the connection to the land, her connection is to the colors and spirit of nature. But Jericho? That farm is in Jericho’s very marrow, like writing is in mine and wood in Ron—good Lord, he’s infected me with the damn pun even when I’m trying to be serious. Jericho’s not a farmer because of a promise he made to his father. He’s a farmer because he’s a farmer because he’s a farmer. End of story.”

“I know he’s tied to the land, for whatever reason. He loves the farm and wants to expand it, to pass it on to others who’ll love it, others he can trust to love it because it will be in their blood, their marrow too. I can’t give him that. Jill can. He loves me, I know this, and I also know he only loves the idea of her. He’s sacrificing for the farm and not even seeing it as a sacrifice. What was it you said about him? For Jericho it’s function over form. That’s the hard truth.”

Bud did not disagree. “And it’s not fair, is it?”

“Fair? Who said anything about fair? What is it with you adults, always thinking us teenagers whiny babies crying about how life’s not fair?”

“Because most of you are,” he pointed out. “I was, what makes you any different?”

I sighed. “You’re right, it isn’t fair. It’s never been fair. But that’s not what prompted my meltdown today.”

“Isn’t it? Isn’t it about how you know y’all have no future beyond the summer? You can know something is unfair and rail against it even as you also know in your heart there’s nothing you can do to change it, and sometimes that makes the most satisfied railing.”

“No, that’s not it at all. I know my heart is going to be broken. I knew it the very first day. I accepted it. I still accept it. As much as I love Jericho, as much as I love working on the farm, it isn’t my life. It’s never going to be my life. I want other things. I’d never be happy in the country, he’d never be happy in the city. I wouldn’t ask him to try. Take him off his land he’ll die like any plant ripped out by a storm unless you pat him back into the ground right quick again. But—” I paused, trying to think how to explain my thought processes, then stood, walking over to the wall of sketches. “It’s like this picture. The artist and the curly-haired boy, sitting naked on the porch drinking elderberry wine while an endless train rolls by and the full moon watches from the sky.” Bud’s brow wrinkled at my mention of elderberry wine but didn’t interrupt. “For all you’ve dug up from old-timers or from Clarice, the fact remains all we know of these boys is that once they sat on the back porch and the artist drew it. They’re not still there now, the train has rolled on. The rest is sixty-year-old gossip.”

Bud nodded, seeing my point. “And you and Jericho are the artist and the curly-haired boy. But which is which?”

“Depends on the situation,” I replied. I sat down again. “I think the tornado reminded me we might be blown off the porch before we’re ready.”

“Mateo hon,” was Bud’s quiet response, “we’re all blown off the porch before we’re ready.”

“I know. And that’s what made me cry.”

I left a few minutes later, having washed my dirty, tear-stained face and extracted Bud’s promise he wouldn’t use our teenage drama as fodder for his own stories, but I figured he had his fingers crossed behind his back as he vowed. He hugged me long and hard then Ron hugged me long and hard and I climbed into Truck and headed back to the farm. Back to Jericho. As I crunched up the drive I glanced at the position of the shadows of the plants in the garden, concluded it was only around three or so. So early? Whoa. Seemed like it should be a whole lot later. Sure enough, Celica wasn’t home yet, probably wouldn’t be for a couple hours. I found Jericho on the back porch, not Bud and Ron’s, not the artist’s, but ours. His. He was still barefoot, dressed in his usual silk shorts and tee, his usual farming tome in his lap, but the book was turned down and he was gazing across the fallow field with a pensive expression on his face, and I didn’t have to guess his subject. His faded-blue eyes shifted to me as I climbed the steps. He said nothing, just tilted his head, waiting for me to speak. I had many things I needed to say to Jericho before a tornado or time blew us off the porch but I wasn’t sure which to say first. And then I realized everything I needed him to know came down to two phrases, and I spoke the most important first.

“I love you, Jericho. You don’t have to say it back,” I hurried to add, not that he was raring to interrupt, “I just thought you should know.” He nodded, acknowledging my declaration, but he didn’t look surprised. He knew, just as I knew he loved me. Would’ve been nice to hear it, but not necessary. “The tornado scared me more than it should have and made me realize I needed to say it. And . . . and I’m sorry. I had no right to act the way I did, I had no call to attack you, I had no reason to demand you share more of your body than you’re willing.”

“No, you didn’t,” he said without a lick of judgment. “But I accept your apology. I just hope you’ll accept mine.”

“You don’t owe me—”

“Yes, I do. For one, I pushed you into the creek when I should’ve walked away until we both cooled down. For two . . .” He put the book down on the glider beside him and stood up. “Come on. Please.”

“Where are we going?”

“Our bedroom.” I followed him into the house, wondering what he wanted to show me. Our room was gloomy, not enough sunlight coming in the slit windows, but he switched on both lamps, the one in the corner and the one on the nightstand we’d never used because we didn’t read in bed. “Close the door.” I did and by the time I turned around he’d stripped off both shirt and silk shorts, stood naked in front of me, his muscular, hard-worked body glorious as always but now I saw his genitals and tidy patch of auburn pubes too, giving me what I’d asked for. He held out his arms and said, “Now you know.”

“Know what? That you’re beautiful? I’ve always known that.”

Jericho rolled his eyes. “No, about my dick.”

I examined it. It was a nice dick with a loose foreskin. Looked like a dick.

“What about it?”

He groaned because I was making him say it, whatever ‘it’ was. “It’s so . . . so . . . small!” I’d been right. Insecurity.

I examined again. I’d not seen a ton of flaccid dicks in my time but I’d seen a few. “Looks pretty big to me.” It didn’t, it looked average. Like a flaccid dick.

“You don’t have to lie to me! I’ve . . . you only thought I never glanced over. I, I glanced. Plenty. And you are. Big, I mean. I knew way before I grabbed hold, way before this afternoon.”

“I’m a show-er,” I pointed out, “I get hard, not bigger. You’re a grower. You do get bigger. What you’ve put inside me is a fuck of a lot larger than what’s hanging there right now.”

“But it’s not big enough,” he muttered. “Darren was the same as me soft but when he got hard he was a lot longer and, and he’d laugh at me and I was afraid you would too.” Once again I damned this “best friend” who didn’t sound to me like he’d been much of a friend at all. “I figured since you’d never . . . never been with anyone you wouldn’t know the difference.”

His assumption was correct but I had (pardon the pun) bigger fish to fry. “Was Darren as big as me?” I asked. I wasn’t being arrogant, no matter what I said during my meltdown; I’d only been trying to shock him, to piss him off. I could give a crap about the size of my dick and could give a crap about anyone who only wants to be with me because of the size of my dick. I’m big, so what? It’s just another part of my body like my big hands or feet, my brown eyes or large nipples. Easy for me to say, I know, but it was the truth. Still is. Not that I don’t enjoy my dick but I’m a bottom, remember?

“No, but that’s not—"

“That’s exactly the point. Yeah, I’ve got a big dick, but I don’t want to fuck myself with it, even if I could. Maybe Darren has a big dick or Bud or Ron or Ron’s asshole brother. I don’t want any of them. I want you. I love when you’re holding me down and pounding so hard I can’t breathe.”

Maybe it was my imagination but I think his average flaccid dick stirred in its tidy nest of auburn pubes. “Yeah?” Jericho asked, his voice a little low and breathy.

“Yeah,” I breathed back. I advanced on him, he saw me coming, didn’t move back. “I wanted to see your dick because I want to know everything about you. I want to know what you look like hard just like I want to know what your face looks like when you cum. I’ve never seen that either, I’m always turned the other way.” I was almost on top of him now, as close as I’d been on the creek bank, but now the situation was reversed. He was the one bare-assed, not me.

“I . . . I wouldn’t mind seeing your face when you cum either.” A slight, horny grin as his dick shifted, growing, and the elderberry wine scent rolled off him in waves. “Since you’ve always been turned the other way.”

One more step and I was closest of all. I’d seen his dick, he’d shown it to me, now he gave me my other request. “The best and most important thing about your dick, Jer,” I said, grabbing hold and enjoying the way his faded-blue eyes dilated, “is it’s yours.”

“You’re mistaken, Mat,” he whispered. “It’s not mine. It’s yours.” With a sudden movement he slid his hand around my hip, grabbing my ass through my jeans and squeezing, and his cock stretched in my grasp. It wasn’t hard yet but it was getting there. “Just like this is mine.”

“My ass is—” I started to agree but was interrupted by his decision to give me something I’d never asked for because I’d assumed (and what do we say about when we assume?) no matter what other concessions he might make he’d never grant this one. He slid his other hand to my other ass-cheek, squeezed both and hauled me in for my first kiss, his voluptuous lips greedy and demanding. I gave as good as I got, grasping his now-fully erect cock so tight I felt the throb while licking into his mouth, tangling his tongue with mine, lapping up and getting drunk off his wine. One of us moaned, then the other, then both. I was fully erect now too, my jeans constrictive on my big dick but I couldn’t push them off without taking my full attention off his kiss and fuck that. When at last we had to stop long enough to take a breath I looked down, giving the dick in my fist my full attention. “Bloody hell,” I swore, and Jericho went instantly tense.

“What?”

“Look. Not at my face, look at your dick.” He gazed at me mistrustfully for a sec before complying. “I can’t get my fingers around this thing and I’ve got big hands. You might not be the longest” (maybe five-a-half inches, not more than six) “but I didn’t even know dicks could be this thick. Reminds me of the tree we cut up last week.” I understood why Darren had scraped his teeth there, I’d have a hard time getting it in my own mouth without mangling.

“You better not take a chainsaw to me,” Jericho warned, but his eyes dilated further until the pupils were almost completely black. He liked my praise. Was starved for it, in fact.

So I fed him, not that I didn’t mean every word. “When you first put this up in me I remember thinking it was bigger than three fingers, maybe more than four or five. It’s probably a good thing I didn’t know how big you were then or I would’ve been afraid you’d rip me in half.” And no wonder Darren hated catching, only a pure bottom could love a monster Jericho’s size.

“Yeah? You were so tight I thought I was going to rip you in half.”

“But when you got in? When you got in, Jer, your weight on my sweet spot drove me completely insane. You’ve spoiled me, I don’t care how fucking long someone is, if their dick isn’t the circumference of a tree trunk they can go jump off a cliff. Wanna know why Darren laughed? Because he was outmatched and knew it.”

Jericho abruptly released me, pushing me back so his stiff, eager cock pulled from my hand and bounced against his lower belly. I thought for a moment I’d gone too far, said something wrong but he disabused me of my stupid assumption by yanking at the front of my jeans so hard the button popped off, landing so far on the other side of the room we took over ten minutes to find it later. “Mom and the girls won’t be home for a couple hours, Mat my lover, I’m gonna fuck you until your eyes cross.” Not asking. Telling. He didn’t need to ask anyhow. While he clawed at the placket of my pants I ripped the shirt over my head, tossed it . . . somewhere. Toed out of my shoes, slung them . . . two different somewheres. As soon as my dick popped free he grabbed hold, squeezing, and used it for a handle to haul me in for another kiss as I stepped from my jeans, turning the legs out, and kicked them . . . somewhere else entirely, the forgotten Truck keys and miscellaneous coins spilling out on the carpet. Still holding my dick, still kissing me, Jericho reached his other hand to squeeze my ass-cheek while walking me backwards and I reached both my hands around him, finally getting my mitts on the pale but glorious and meaty rump I’d been tortured with since my arrival. My bed was closer and, breaking the kiss, he pushed me so I fell backwards, but instead of water I bounced on softness. He thumped to his knees, used my ankles to yank me closer to the edge of the mattress. When he had me positioned where he wanted he reached for the nightstand to rummage for a condom.

“Wait,” I said, and he did, though his raised eyebrow was of the considered opinion I was nuts. “I want you to go bare.”

His other eyebrow raised. “I’ve never—”

“I know you haven’t,” I rushed. “I haven’t either.”

“We shouldn’t—”

“Look, you’ve only ever been with Darren and Jill, right? And you wrapped up too.” He nodded. “And you’ve never had a blood transfusion.” He shook his head. “Ever shot up heroin?”

“I hate needles.” Kind of a strange response but I took it and ran.

“And me? I’ve never been with anybody, never had a blood transfusion or done any intravenous drugs, I hate needles too. I’m not Haitian either.” I considered. “I don’t think.”

“Right now Bud is feeling a sharp pain in his temple and doesn’t know why,” Jericho said, but he was amused.

“Bud isn’t here. It’s just me and you. Do you trust me?”

“Yes.” Instant response.

“Good. Because I trust you. With my life. I want your life inside me. I want you to shoot your cum so deep I’ll be tasting it for breakfast.”

The arousal flared in his faded-blue eyes. “Your wish is my command.” He reached for the nightstand again.

“Use the mineral oil,” I suggested. “It’s slicker.” I had no idea if this were true, I just wanted to use the oil because it was fucking Darren’s.

Jericho didn’t care which we used, he only wanted to lube up and sink inside me, so he changed course without a word, not reaching up’n’under from the wall side, simply shoving his arm in from his. He stretched, patted, finally found what he was looking for. I grabbed my knees, spreading my legs wider, and he poured the coldness down my crack. “I’ve never seen your asshole before either. Quick glimpses when we dry-humped but I wouldn’t let myself look.”

“You saw my asshole earlier today,” I teased.

He shook his head. “We all have that kind of asshole and it stinks when it comes out.”

“Ten out of, of ten,” I gasped as he dandled his finger at my entrance.

“I’ll take it. No, the asshole I’m talking about is this one—” at least two fingers shoved inside at once, ripping and burning and splendid, and I gasped again “—and it’s beautiful, it’s snug, it fits my dick like a glove—” twisting and stroking and in complete control, turning my sweet spot to song “—and it’s yours, Mat, it’s beautiful because it’s yours.”

“It’s, it’s yours, Jer, only yours,” and then I was mourning, he’d pulled out, was not touching me anymore, instead slicking his thick cock with quick, savage licks of shiny oil.

He settled his glans at my hole. “You’re goddam right it’s mine,” he said grimly, and pushed, ripping into me, stretching me out, and kept pushing, shoving himself all the way inside in one fell movement, deeper than he’d ever gone, his tidy patch of auburn pubic hair pressed into my skin.

“Holy humpbacked baby drag queens!” I swore when I could breathe again, something I’d once heard Bud say and now seemed entirely appropriate.

Jericho cracked up, laughing so hard his dick—or was it a traffic pylon?—rocked inside me. “That good, huh?” he teased.

“That fucking big!” He stopped laughing, worry furrowing his brow, so I hurried to assure him, “But good too, more than good. Just, just give me a sec to adjust.”

And he did, stayed still and throbbing, his faded-blue gaze intent on me. I breathed and gradually relaxed and, sensing it, he started moving, bare inches at first, then sliding in and out, further each time, faster, his weight on that spot inside me I was thrilled I’d gotten to know well so delicious the spasms spilled through me in uncontrollable twitches and moans. And while he fucked me he talked, his smut personal. “This feels so good, so much better than when I’m wrapped up, your grip is so tight and sweet and strong. I love watching my big cock spearing in and out of your hole, so slick, and the way you gape when I pull out like this and your gorgeous hole twitches, crying for me to shove back in like this. Why didn’t we fuck in the light before, I could smack myself, we’re getting a mirror I swear because I want you to see this too.” I answered with filthy babbles of my own, and the pressure rose and rose and I fixed my brown eyes on his faded-blue ones as the end neared, as the fire blazed too high and must burn itself out and as much as we’d wanted to see each other’s cum face we didn’t, not that round, because our gazes never broke, not once. And as he shot his life inside of me and I spilled mine all over my belly and his hand I screamed the only word that mattered.

“Jericho!”