bianchi_andreas
Slut
Now, all y'all just shut the hell up. I've been sitting in this damned bar for three hours, and I've heard about all I'm gonna take about how Timmy was banged by the high school prom king runner-up, and about how Pete turned a straight guy, and about how Rodney gave his best friend a blow job twenty-five years ago and still dreams about it. Well, lemme tell y'all something... your best friend is now bald and fat and has three kids and halitosis--- he ain't coming back for a second round with your sagging derriere. I got a story about me and the quarterback from my high school that is the absolute truth that will put a little lead in all y'all's pencils.
The summer before my senior year in high school my mother tells me that we are moving to her father's house in the Tennessee mountains, some bumblefuck town that was the capital of The Land That Time Forgot. It was perpetually, like, 1950 there. Mama fit right in, of course. She always wore a house dress and knee-high stockings and had her hair up in curlers when she went to the grocery store, may she rest in peace, but. . . Shut up, Rodney, I know she isn't dead, no thanks to you, all three hundred pounds of your ass showing up in your Scarlett O'Fuckinghara ball gown last Halloween, like to a given her about five different kinds of stroke. It's just a figure of speech.
The reason we had to move was that my granddad was sick and needed someone to take care of him, and as the only relatives living or dead that could stand the old coot, we were the ones that had to do it. Mama kept saying he was suffering from a weak constitution, and that may be true since I'm pretty sure any constitution would be weakened by two packs of unfiltered cigarettes and a quart of corn liquor a day. He was a mean ol' sumbitch under the best of circumstances, and bad health and a houseful of annoying relatives would try the patience of a saint, so after only a few days the atmosphere in the old homestead was pretty tense.
One day, when Doc Mitchell came to make a house call, Granddaddy was yelling at me about some damn thing he thought I had done or not done or something, and the doctor offered to see if there was a summer job for me down at Mountainview Country Club, where he was on the membership board or some such hoity-toity garbage. Well, Mama like to have knelt and kiss his ring with gratitude at how nice he was treating us, but I was thinking that my granddaddy's union health insurance was likely paying the freaking quack's dues, anyway, and a summer of serving rich jackasses wasn't my idea of paradise, so I wasn't exactly joining in kissing his old shriveled hindquarters in gratitude.
However, of course, I wasn't going to turn down the chance to get out of that house every day and go somewhere to earn a little hard cash, so a couple of days later I present myself all squeaky clean and shiny at the club, and they hire me to work at this rinky-dink snack bar out by the swimming pool. Most days out there it was just this other guy and I doling out soda pops and ice cream. This was Steve's second summer working there on his break from the university, and he was pretty cool about cluing me in on the local social scene, which in such a small town was as rigid and convoluted as the Court of Versailles.
Steve had warned me on the first day, "Most of the members aren't too bad, and they tip pretty good, but you really have to watch your step around that bunch of high school kids that always sit in the corner over there."
"Why?" I asked. "Who are they?"
He pointed across the pool to an underweight, pretty girl with about three times as much make-up on as she really needed. "That's Amber Lewis, her folks own the Ford dealership out on the highway. The guy she is pretending to ignore is Pete Ballard, captain of the basketball team, and the goon flexing his muscles is Josh Norris, our very own local football star."
Shut up, Rodney! This story isn't about Josh, so, no I won’t tell you how big his dick was.
So anyway, Steve tells me, "Those are the only ones you need to worry about except for their ring-leader, the worst one of the bunch, but she's away on vacation now. That's why it's so peaceful around here."
I asked, "What does she do?"
He just grinned. "Wait until she's back. You'll see!"
And then a couple of days later, here comes little snotty Miss Melanie Warburg, the reigning Kudzu Queen of the Picador County Fair, all dark roots and fake smiles. Everybody pretended to just love her to death, but she was mean as a freaking snake and twice as dangerous. She thought she was hotter than forty miles of Georgia asphalt, and treated everybody like dogshit that was clinging to her pumps. As God is my witness, I can say without a SPECK of malice in my heart that I hope she has to shove her tits aside to scratch her knees after all these years.
Anyway, Steve was right when he said I would have no trouble figuring out what Melanie was all about. As soon as she emerged into the summer sun, it suddenly felt ten degrees hotter as everyone scrambled to keep her happy. She had to have the coldest drinks, she had to have the deck chair with the best angle when she wanted sun and the deepest shade when it was too hot, and everyone danced to her tune while she was there, including Josh, Amber and Pete.
The first time I had to serve her at the snack bar, she gave me the once over and quickly categorized me as beneath her notice, and that was that. One time a glass I was handing her dripped some condensation on her wrist close to the emerald tennis bracelet she always wore, and "incompetent oaf" was the mildest thing she called me in the next ten minutes. I was on her list of Top Ten Enemies after that, and every time she saw me after that she made sure that I knew it.
The rest of the boring summer was all the same. Day after day at the country club having to silently suffer the abuse of Melanie and her entourage. Night after night at home with my grandfather grumbling about me. Well, to tell the truth, it wasn't always that bad. Sometimes when Melanie wasn't around, the others treated me--- not exactly civilly, but with snobbish indifference, which was almost as good. The only friend I had made so far was Steve, and he usually spent his time away from work with his girlfriend. I was bored, and I was restless, and y’all know that in a teenager that is a dangerous combination, so as the start of school came closer, I was looking for something to add a little spark to my life, something fun and new, something out of the rut.
Now in August, I saw a talk show with a bunch of women talking about how coloring their hair changed their lives. I thought that might be just what I was looking for, that maybe if my hair wasn't as dark as Satan's heart, my life would be so much more fun. I could see myself as much more the platinum-blond type, but Mama wouldn't shake loose one thin dime for me to go to get it professionally done. "Oh, no," she always said, "You have your Daddy's raven locks," and then she'd start sniffling and get all weepy, and I'd feel so bad looking at her blotchy face, so I just went to Faber Drugs myself and bought a big ol' home dye kit in Norwegian Moonlight Blond. Well, I didn't know a damn thing about what I was doing and I knew Mama wouldn't lift a finger to help, so the resulting effects were not exactly what I had hoped for. I was less a Norwegian Moonlight Blond and more of a freaking Processed Cheese Orange. I was just purely mortified. Mama just about bust her side trying not to laugh when she saw me, but she refused to go to Faber Drugs herself to get anything to help. She figured if I had gotten myself in this far I could find my own way out.
Oh, shut the hell up, Rodney. It's not that funny! The day I believe there's nothing embarrassing in your past is the day the Baptists start performing oral sex as a part of Wednesday night prayer meetings.
So, anyway, I have to walk two miles to the drugstore, and I just know that everybody is staring and trying to figure out what the fuck that dimwit is doing with the orange hair.
I get to Main Street, and the earth hasn't opened up and swallowed me, so I have to go into that freaking drugstore where every damn rube with nothing better to do, which is only about half of the freaking county, just sits all day at the snack counter and watches the whole of Western Civilization pass them by without so much as a howdy-do-howzit-hangin. I walk in and the place goes dead quiet, and every one of those hicks is slack-jawed at the sight of me and my orange hair. Well, after about five different lifetimes of humiliating silence, after I stand there waiting for the hoots of laughter that would be twice as freaking bad as the freaking silence, old man Faber finally says, "That’s a mighty fine head of orange hair you got there, son." Huh? What the fuck? I think. Before I could make sense out of what he was babbling about, he asked, "You must be a really big Vol fan to dye your hair orange. You think they got a good team up there in Knoxville this year?" I still think he's a freaking lunatic, but I think, what the fuck, "Yeah, I guess so." When he slapped me on the back and said, "I think so, too," I realize that he is talking about the University of Tennessee football team, nicknamed the Volunteers, which ranks just below Jesus and just ahead of their own children in the moral schema of the yokels of Picador County. What you have to know about UT is that their school color is a gawdawful day-glow orange and that their fight song includes lyrics about casual sex, moonshine liquor and the assassination of government officials.
That's 'nuff said on that matter.
Anyway, they are all giddy about what a big fan I am, and start arguing with each other about the starting freaking left tackle. All of a sudden I saw my salvation, and it was colored Big Orange. If I was seen as a dues-paying member of the Vol tribe, I was not as such an outsider. I might not be in the rarified strata of Melanie Warburg and Josh Norris, but I was not likely to be tarred and feathered and run out of town on a rail, either.
Oh, here comes the waiter, so someone tie Timmy down I don't want him to start dry humping the boy's leg before I get another drink. Could you freshen this up for me a little? And could you put in just a wee splash more vodka this time? Thanks. Where was I? Oh, yeah.
Anyone who has spent any time in the South knows that they take their football seriously. If you took every man from Picador County to a nudie bar and left them there surrounded by nekkid women, about ten percent would get hard enough to do anybody some good. About forty percent would get a little freaking half hard-on, and the rest would just flap limply in a passing breeze. On the other hand, you start them to thinking about a state championship for the Picador Central High School Toros, and every freaking one of them would spring a stiffie that could drill granite. However, nothing puckers their sphincters like Hom-a-secksuals, and that hard-on was about to start ramming into that puckered ass in the person of a transfer student, one Bradley Baldwin.
The first day of school started off worse than I had ever feared. I knew that my newly-acquired status as a win-or-die supporter of the Volunteers was only going to take me so far, and then I would have to tough out the inevitable scramble for the scraps leftover in the pecking order once the cool kids had kicked everyone else out of the way.
I was standing in the hall outside home room trying to fly below the radar, waiting for the bell when up comes Joshua Norris with Melanie Warburg on his arm. When he got to the door, he glared at me and said, "What you staring at, Freakshow? Get out of my way or I'll hit you." He drew back his fist and menaced me. I don't think he really would have hit me, but in Picador County, a lot of the family trees didn't have too many branches, if you catch my drift. Melanie, always a model of decorum, is shrieking, "Teach him a lesson, Joshua. Show him who's important in this town." Suddenly we all three realized how quiet it had became in the hallway. We looked to the door and saw that the entrance of Bradley Baldwin had rendered everyone mute. Tall, broad-shouldered, an athletic build, almost painfully handsome without too much of that pretty boy thing. Hair the blond color I so ached to have and the most startling green eyes you can imagine.
Confident and serene, he swaggered down the hall as gaudy as the theme float in a Mardi Gras parade. Nobody knew what to make of him. He defied categorization. Fuck, he defied rational thought. It was as if a fabulous tropical bird was thrown into the freaking hen house. All the chickens hung back more gape-mouthed than usual, if that were possible, awed by this exotic creature. If some frail little Math Club geek wore anything that deviated from the Standard Approved Dress Code of jeans and a t-shirt, he would be freaking hounded mercilessly to the point of tears, but 240 pounds of muscle packed on Bradley's six-foot four frame strolled with impunity through school in surfing shorts and a tank top. No one said a word, not a damn word!
He sauntered up to our classroom and peered at the door over his sunglasses. "Is this Mrs. Sander's homeroom? Great!"
He looked at my orange hair. "Dude, this is fabulous," he said. He looked Joshua up and down and, I freaking kid you not, he purred like a cat. He eyed the letterman's jacket and asked, "Are you on the football team? Great! I am trying out this afternoon. You can point out all the naughtiest boys to me." Josh looked like he didn't know whether to shit in his britches or to bolt for cover. Bradley turns to Melanie and grimaces, "Oh, how cute! My grandmother has that same hair style. But the color? One word: Yuck!"
He went into the classroom, leaving us in stunned silence in his wake. We didn't know who he was, but we all knew what he was: a shift in the time-space continuum. The earth had shifted slightly on its axis and all the old rules were no longer on the books. There was a new sheriff in town and he was playing for the other team. He was a natural-born flirt if there ever was one, and he flirted with every boy he came across. Don't get me wrong... there was nothing sissy about Brad, no lisp, no mincing gestures, nothing that these hillbilly bigots held as the freaking Truth so dear in their hearts, and that is what threw them ass over head in confusion. That whole year nobody in Picador County said a bad word to him or even about him as far as I ever heard.
But, anyway, it was another miracle! No one would talk about the new kid with the freakish orange hair. All anyone could talk about with the transfer from California with the muscular thighs and the surfing shorts. The cherry on the top of the gossip sundae was the deft skewering of Melanie Warburg. By the time the story made the rounds, the ten-second meeting had escalated into some fantastic tale of Miss Head Cheerleader on a suicide watch. And I can guaran-damn-tee you that not a single student in Picador County Central lost any sleep over her humiliation.
All kinds of rumors swirled around about the football tryouts, and if even a quarter of what we heard were true, and probably not that even that much could have been , I would have paid cash money to have seen what really happened. In any event, Brad Baldwin was named as that season's starting quarterback to a bemused and awe-struck community.
The Friday night games were always sold out, and the opening game of the year was a hard ticket to find 'cause everyone wanted to see if the stories were accurate, both about Brad's skill and his, umm, "exotic" personality, and were they ever true! The opponent, never knowing what hit them, was quickly buried under an onslaught of dazzling talent, and after particularly spectacular plays, Brad would often blow flamboyant kisses to the crowd of Picador County Central supporters.
As the season progressed, anyway, one after another, the Toros' opponents were mowed down, Pittman High, Vonderlin County, McSwains Academy, Guntherville High, even the hated Red Demons of archrival East Picador County. After that win, the first in five seasons over East Pic, the yokels practically put up a statue to Brad Baldwin, 'cause he was the greatest quarterback anyone ever saw. There wasn't a defensive scheme he couldn't unravel; there wasn't a pass rush he couldn't evade. He could arc the ball forty yards down field to a receiver who just had to hold his hands out at a full run, and the ball just slipped in as easy as anything. By this time, his vast and enthusiastic fan club was willing to forgive Brad for any minor quirks such as courting eternal damnation for unnatural lust as long as he kept the team on the winning track.
The only dark cloud came when Jeff Schultz, our star receiver, broke his leg against Cochran High and was lost for the season. Everyone in town was considerably depressed, because without someone fast for Brad to throw to, the season could come crashing down. The mayor called an emergency meeting of the Town Council and practically declared a day of atonement and prayer he was so concerned.
The Monday after Jeff's injury, I was hoofing home from school, when Melanie Warburg's convertible pulls up beside me as I was waiting for the light to change so I could cross the street. Melanie, Josh Norris, Amber Lewis and Pete Ballard were in the car, the whole Gang of Four. It was a chilly afternoon, and I had my hands deep in my cords’ pockets trying to stay warm, and I hear Melanie sing out, "Ewww... I think he's playing with himself!" Well, I wasn't, of course, I'm not some pervert like Rodney, doing God-knows-what out on the street, but I turned about five different shades of red. Josh smirked at me and asked, "It that true, Freakshow? Are you playing pocket pool?"
Well, I had finally had enough of their bullying, so I looked him freaking square in the eye and said, "Nope, I'm playing Elevator."
"Elevator? What's kinda loser game is that?" he cut his eyes around at Pete in the backseat, looking for support in his little game with me.
"Well, it's up right now... maybe you'd like to go down on it."
His face dissolved from puzzlement to disbelief to shock to anger to rage in slow motion. As he jumped out of the car, screaming incoherently at me, I took off running with him hot on my heels. As I crossed Elm, Josh was about ten yards behind me. I ducked through the First Baptist cemetery and then whipped behind the Old Courthouse, and he had fallen back to thirty yards. I didn't want him to follow me all the way home, so I hung a left onto Northbridge Avenue which is just a long, steep climb up the hill. At the top, I looked back and he was about a block behind, and hoping that would be enough, I dove into some bushes to hide. He came by, panting heavily, but didn't see me, so I took every freaking alley and back yard shortcut I knew home, pumping enough adrenaline to light Las Vegas.
That night, Mama went to a church in Dawsonville to play bingo. She left me to look after my granddaddy, but he was not too much trouble since he was so loaded with painkillers most of the time. He was asleep, and I was studying for a history test outside the porch wrapped around from the front of the house and I was on the side, next to Granddaddy's bedroom, so I could hear when he woke up. After a few minutes I heard a knock at the door. I considered ignoring it, since it might be that nosy old biddy from across the street come over to snoop around and bend my ear for about four freaking hours about how I was going to hell if I didn't start going to whatever church she was shilling for that month, but I knew that she would not hesitate to come around to the side to peer through the window if no one answered her damned knock, and then there would literally be hell to pay, so I went to the door. Much to my surprise, it wasn't old lady Bishop leaning against the pillar on the porch, silhouetted by the late afternoon sun, but Brad Baldwin, giving me a wide grin that showed about twice the normal number of teeth.
"Hey, Shane!" he said.
"Uhh, hey, Brad."
"Can I come in? Are you busy?"
"Yeah, sure." I showed him to the porch swing, and sat in the wicker chair across from him. He stretched out his arms along the back of the sofa, the muscles of his chest and arms straining against the fabric of his shirt. It took every freaking smidgen of will power that my raging eighteen-year-old hormones allowed me to muster to not stare at the bulge in his shorts, since he had propped one of his size-fourteen Nikes up on the porch railing and pointed his crotch right at me.
"What are you up to?" he asked.
"Looking after my grandpa. He's kinda sick."
"Sorry to hear that. Nothing serious, I hope?"
I just shrug, not sure what to say. We sat there for a few moments in the freaking mother of all awkward silences, at least for me. Finally, I asked, "How did you know where I live?"
"Shane, bro, nothing sneaky, I assure you. In a town this small, everyone knows where the dude with the orange hair lives and is only too happy to point out your house."
"So. . ." I said.
"So
Uhh, the football team's doing really good. You play great.
Oh, that's so sweet of you to say. Bradley devastatingly mimicked the bumblefuck accent perfectly, so that it came out more like swate of yew.
Uhh. . . you like football, huh?
"Oh, dude, what's to not like? Manhandled by all those sweaty, meaty boys?" He gave me a conspiratorial wink and said, "And let's not even let our thoughts wander into the locker-room. Or the shower."
Oh, jeez, Timmy! Would someone throw some cold water on him? He's getting ready to hump the table leg now. What are you going to do when I get to the really hot parts?
Well, anyway, I couldn't stand the suspense any more, and I finally blurted, "What are you doing here, Brad?"
He flashed a big smile and said, "Oh, I just thought that you seemed like someone that would be fun to hang with."
"Hang with?"
"Yeah, and I need help with my math homework."
Now, I sat a row over and two seats behind Brad in class, and I had never seen any test or quiz returned to him with less than top marks on it, so that dog wouldn't hunt with me. I thought for a few seconds and said, "Well, I guess I could show you a couple of things."
With another big smile, he cooed, "I just bet you could show me something."
I bit my lip and swallowed a couple of times. "Can... can I... uhh... can I ask you something that's kinda weird?"
"Sure, Shane! That's what hanging out is for."
"When you say stuff like that, aren't you afraid that people might think you're, you know..." and I whispered, "Queer?"
He threw his head back and broke out in a peal of laughter. "Oh, you are the funniest guy! Listen, dude, no matter how great your product is, half the sale is good advertising."
"Uhh, yeah, okay," I stammered.
"So, I heard that you worked at the country club during the summer. That must've been fun."
"It was a shit job." I blushed, having spoken more truthfully and forcefully than I intended.
Brad grinned, "Yeah, I guess several weeks at the beck and call of Princess Melanie and her court could be a little...hmmm... intense?"
I grunted in agreement. He continued, "You know, Jeff Schultz is out for the season, so the football team needs a new wide receiver. Coach Lewis saw you outrun Josh today and wanted me to see if you were interested."
"Interested in what?"
"In being our new wide receiver."
"Me?" I squawked. "I don't know how to play football!"
"Nothing to it! In the huddle before every play, I tell you exactly where to run, and you run there as fast as you can, and then... hold up your hands like this... dude, they're huge... How tall are you, anyway, about six-one?"
"Uhh, six-two."
"Even better! Gimme a huge target running as fast as you do and I'll drop that pigskin in as soft as a ripe peach."
"I don't know... I had a lead on Josh when we started... I may not be that fast."
"Coach was driving behind you and said that you were adding five, ten yards a block easily, and Josh is the fastest guy on the team now that Jeff is out.
'I've never done anything like that..."
"Coach thinks you can learn to play the position. And I agree that you would be.." he ran his tongue over his lower lip, "perfect for several different positions."
Brad grinned at me as he stood up to leave and placed one of his huge hands on my shoulder. “Think about it, Shane, and let me know tomorrow. The team could really use you.”
I agreed to consider the offer, but, boys, I gotta tell you . . . giving me that smile and squeezing my shoulder like that? Brad could have asked me to jam a pound of dried beans up my nose and I would have done it gladly, so that’s how I found myself four days later standing in the uniform of a Picador County Central Toro on the sidelines of the Friday night game against Jefferson High, waiting for either the kickoff or to puke my guts out, whichever came first, and smart money was betting on the puke.
Brad wandered over, took one look at my miserable face and smiled at me sympathetically. “Nervous?” he asked.
I swallowed a couple of times to keep the contents of my stomach from making a public appearance and shook my head. “No. Scared shitless.”
He laughed and banged his fist on my shoulder pads, “I won’t let you look bad. Understand? You gotta trust me on that.”
If there is anything more pathetic and boring than some yahoo reliving his glory days as a high school jock, I don’t know what it is, so I’m not going to tell you much about the game except this . . . it was the greatest game ever played.
I only caught a couple of short passes in the first half because the coaching staff kept to a conservative game plan since they didn’t have much more confidence in me as an inexperienced receiver than I did. In the second half, we were trailing 17-7 so the playbook was opened up a little more. Three times Brad looked at me in the huddle and laid out the play just as he told me he would on my porch... after the snap of the ball, I would angle to the sideline and run as fast as I could about thirty yards, then look back for the ball at full speed. All three times it worked to perfection, not from anything that I did, really, except to trust Brad Baldwin enough to do exactly what he asked me to do.
A sixty-five yard touchdown pass brought us to within four points. After Josh Norris and our defense held the Jefferson team deep in their own territory, a seventy yard pass gave us the first lead of the night. Late in the fourth quarter, Brad and I connected again for a forty-eight yard strike to give us a little cushion, and Picador Central won by a score of 28 to 17.
After the game I was still pumped up when Coach told me I had to go to the press conference. Well if you consider a pimply sophomore from the school newspaper and Mr. Manning from the Picador Weekly Shopper a press conference, then I guess that’s what it was. They asked a few lame questions, and as I held my hands in front of me to show how I caught the footballs, someone took my photograph. As soon as that was over, I had to sit in the coaches’ office in the gymnasium, still dressed in pads, cleats, the whole kit, while the Jefferson High coaching staff demanded to know where the hell I came from and why I was added to the roster in mid-season and what was up with that orange hair? I was antsy as all hell, wanting to get out of there, ‘cause I wanted to find Brad and thank him for all the help he had given me.
When they finally were satisfied that I was a bona fide student in good standing, I sprinted out of there, but just as I arrived at the locker room, Josh Norris was coming out the door. As soon as I saw him, I looked around the empty corridor, desperately seeking anyone who might help me if he decided to make good on his standing threat to beat me to a bloody pulp. Nobody around. I was on my own. He shuffled his feet awkwardly and stared over my left shoulder at a point about five miles away..
He cleared his throat a couple of times. “Uhh. . . yeah. . . good game.”
I watched him warily. “Yeah. You, too.”
We stood there for a few moments of silence as he looped his gym bag over his shoulder. “Uhh. . . about all the shit I been givin’ you.. . “ he trailed off.
“Yeah. No problem.”
He nodded, still not looking me in the eye. “See ya around.”
“Later.” I replied. One game under my belt and already I had the jock lingo down cold.
He trotted off as I went into the now-deserted locker room, the stink of sweat and testosterone thick in my nostrils. At the far end of the room, the arched entrance to the showers appeared dark, but I could faintly hear running water. After tugging off my jersey and shoulder pads and kicking off my cleats, I padded towards the shower, because I was, you know, curious. You can’t hold it against me that I was eighteen and about five different kinds of horny. Standing in the deep shadows, I could see that a single light bulb was illuminating the last shower along the opposite wall, spotlighting Brad Baldwin.
He was magnificent, standing there, eyes closed and head tilted back as the water coursed over his naked body, his bronzed skin flawless except for a bruise on his thigh. He had always dressed in fairly revealing clothes, shorts and tank tops and the like, but the whole was definitely greater than the sum of the parts, For the most part, he was as perfectly proportioned as a Greek statue, Parian marble made flesh, Adonis incarnate, but it wouldn’t have been a fig leaf protecting his modesty, but a whole fig freaking tree.
I’m talking Man-from-Nantucket-hung here, boys.
As I watched him, my heart was pounding, my chest tight, my mouth so dry you could strike a match against my lips. I stood there for a few moments and then turned away, confused by a feeling so far beyond mere desire that I didn’t have a name for it.
All of Brad’s clothes were still piled in front of his locker. I brushed my fingertips against his jersey as gingerly as if I thought it would burn me, then as I grabbed a fistful of the fabric, I heard the water turned off and his footsteps slapping wetly across the tiles. I froze in panic, although I had every right to be in the locker room and I wasn’t doing anything wrong, if you overlook the little matter of fondling his dirty laundry. I saw an open door to the storage area for the towels and stuff, and, no damn comments from the Peanut Gallery, jumped into the closet and pulled the door closed behind me as best as I could, but it wouldn’t close completely, leaving me a full view of Brad as he sat on a bench, a long, wide piece of wood bolted to metal supports in front of the door, lazily drying off. I could have kicked myself, because now I was stuck in there until he left, ‘cause I would look like five different kinds of idiot if I sauntered out of a freaking linen closet while he was still there.
I hid there watching him, his hair damp and tousled, and suddenly I realize that I am in pain as my jock and tightly-laced pants were straining to keep me from bursting out into the open. Part of me was silently begging him to hurry up and dress while part of me, mostly the part from the waist down, was content to let him continue his slow toweling off. Tossing aside the towel, his hand dropped to his crotch, and he began a tantalizing exploration, slowly fingering himself, his eyes unfocused. Almost unable to draw a breath, I was spellbound as his cock slowly thickened and lengthened more than I would have thought possible, given its already impressive size, until it was slapping hard across his belly. He lay back on the bench as he continued caressing himself, tugging and stretching his balls, lightly fingering the shaft, occasionally moaning softly as he reached up to tease his nipples.
One of my hands was kneading my crotch, my aching cock quivering and jumping inside the tight pants, while I clamped the other across my mouth to muffle my ragged breathing from Brad’s ears. Pressed back deep in my hiding place, I was looking through the crack in the door with a clear view of his crotch nestled between his muscular thighs. I held still as he sat up and rolled his shoulders, loosening a kink from the game, and reached into his equipment bag to remove a small tube. I was afraid to even blink my eyes for fear that I would miss something as I saw him squirt a clear gel into his palm and then resume massaging his cock. Brad lay back again, cradling his head in his other arm, languorously jerking off, while I would have given anything to have my hand around my own dick, or even better, around his.
Just as I thought things couldn’t get any more erotically charged, he dropped his cock and slipped his hands between his thighs and his long fingers began rubbing his pucker in slow, tight movements. I had never even imagined seeing any guy do anything like that, and I’m sure my eyes were bugging from my head like a frog’s as I watched him rhythmically slide first one and then two fingers in his hole. Judging from the look on his face, and his low, groaning sighs, he was really enjoying himself, while my tightly-constricted boner throbbed in about five different kinds of agony.
In order to access his pucker more fully, Brad lifted one foot onto the bench with the unfortunate result that my view of the action was cut off. Foolishly and with no more thought than you give to taking a breath, I shifted my weight, angling for a better perspective, but ended up losing my balance and crashing through the closet door, spilling to the floor in a sweaty, panting heap at Brad’s feet. He sat up and gave me a drowsy, erotic smile.
Blinking my eyes rapidly and swallowing hard, I croaked, “Hey!” just as though I had run into him at the supermarket or somewhere totally casual.
“I was hoping you were still around, “ he smiled. “I didn’t think to check the broom closet.”
My face was burning. “Yeah. That’s where I was, “ I said lamely.
He leaned closer to me, scrunching up a fistful of the damp, grey T-shirt I had worn under my jersey during the game and sending a shiver though my body, and whispered, “Now that you’re here, I think you’re a little overdressed for this party.”
I was nobody’s fool. . . I didn’t need an engraved invitation, and I was ripping off clothes as fast as I could. As I kicked out of my pants and peeled away my sweaty jock, Brad eyed the dark bush at the base of my cock and smirked at me, “So it’s true . . . you don’t have naturally orange hair!” grabbing for the evidence. His big, meaty hands slowly caressed me, covering my cock with the lubricant he had been using on himself and with the pre-cum that was dripping from me. I was throbbing and twitching in his hand, moaning softly as I stood there, scarcely able to believe this was happening, waves of pleasure washing over me.
He reached behind me and cupped my butt with one rough hand, and his gorgeous green eyes locked on mine, slowly took me between his soft lips, his tongue swirling around, washing me as he continued shoving his fingers deep into his own pucker. Brad took all of me deep in mouth, grinding his face against my crotch, alternately lightly licking me and plunging me into his hot, wet throat. I was lost in the wonderful feeling until he pulled away and groaned huskily, “I want you inside me.”
I just stared at him, unsure if I could trust my voice to answer, prompting him to ask urgently, “I want you to fuck me, bro.” I nodded eagerly, and Brad rolled back onto the bench and pulled his thighs to his chest, exposing his rosy hole to my greedy eyes. As I positioned the head of my cock against the tight ring of his pucker, I felt a shiver run through his body, and I held my breath as I pushed against him, the amazing sensation of his yielding unlike anything I had ever felt. Brad pushed against me so that I slid quickly in him, the warm, silky walls expanding around me. As he slowly stretched to hold me, he clamped the muscle tightly on my cock, his face twisted in mingled desire and pain. He lifted his heels to my shoulders and as I found a rhythm of long, hard thrusts, I pushed against the resistance of his legs on my chest. I felt as if every nerve in my body were focused on the point where my cock was centered on Brad’s ass, and the harder I slammed into him, the more intense the feeling was.
Our bodies were slicked with sweat, our moaning was echoing in the empty locker room. My balls were smacking against his ass, his were slapping against my belly. Electric jolts slammed me as I looked at his hard, tight body beneath me, at his beautiful face, his eyes closed, his soft lips parted in rapture. Finally, unable to hold back any longer, heat boomed out of my belly, and with a soft cry, I pumped my load deep inside him, thick ropes of cum that slicked his chute and slid out of him, dripping onto the floor as I collapsed in a sweaty heap against him.
As we recovered from the exertion, we kissed a little, the stubble on his jaw rasping my neck as he nuzzled me, then we took a long, lazy shower, soaping one another hungrily.
Boys, I wish I could tell you that was only the beginning. . . damn, how I wish I could tell you that, but it was the only time that Brad and I ever hooked up. Just never seemed to work out for us again. We were so busy with the state playoffs, and of course, we won the Tennessee state championship that year. It just about broke my heart when we came back from visiting relatives at Christmas and I found out that Brad’s father was transferred and they had moved away.
I dragged around for weeks feeling like someone had stomped my heart flat, and only snapped out of it when I took up with my first boyfriend, the center fielder from the school baseball team, but y’all are gonna just have to wait until another time to hear that story, because I’m too dry now to tell you how I stole Josh Norris right off of Melanie Warburg’s arm.
The summer before my senior year in high school my mother tells me that we are moving to her father's house in the Tennessee mountains, some bumblefuck town that was the capital of The Land That Time Forgot. It was perpetually, like, 1950 there. Mama fit right in, of course. She always wore a house dress and knee-high stockings and had her hair up in curlers when she went to the grocery store, may she rest in peace, but. . . Shut up, Rodney, I know she isn't dead, no thanks to you, all three hundred pounds of your ass showing up in your Scarlett O'Fuckinghara ball gown last Halloween, like to a given her about five different kinds of stroke. It's just a figure of speech.
The reason we had to move was that my granddad was sick and needed someone to take care of him, and as the only relatives living or dead that could stand the old coot, we were the ones that had to do it. Mama kept saying he was suffering from a weak constitution, and that may be true since I'm pretty sure any constitution would be weakened by two packs of unfiltered cigarettes and a quart of corn liquor a day. He was a mean ol' sumbitch under the best of circumstances, and bad health and a houseful of annoying relatives would try the patience of a saint, so after only a few days the atmosphere in the old homestead was pretty tense.
One day, when Doc Mitchell came to make a house call, Granddaddy was yelling at me about some damn thing he thought I had done or not done or something, and the doctor offered to see if there was a summer job for me down at Mountainview Country Club, where he was on the membership board or some such hoity-toity garbage. Well, Mama like to have knelt and kiss his ring with gratitude at how nice he was treating us, but I was thinking that my granddaddy's union health insurance was likely paying the freaking quack's dues, anyway, and a summer of serving rich jackasses wasn't my idea of paradise, so I wasn't exactly joining in kissing his old shriveled hindquarters in gratitude.
However, of course, I wasn't going to turn down the chance to get out of that house every day and go somewhere to earn a little hard cash, so a couple of days later I present myself all squeaky clean and shiny at the club, and they hire me to work at this rinky-dink snack bar out by the swimming pool. Most days out there it was just this other guy and I doling out soda pops and ice cream. This was Steve's second summer working there on his break from the university, and he was pretty cool about cluing me in on the local social scene, which in such a small town was as rigid and convoluted as the Court of Versailles.
Steve had warned me on the first day, "Most of the members aren't too bad, and they tip pretty good, but you really have to watch your step around that bunch of high school kids that always sit in the corner over there."
"Why?" I asked. "Who are they?"
He pointed across the pool to an underweight, pretty girl with about three times as much make-up on as she really needed. "That's Amber Lewis, her folks own the Ford dealership out on the highway. The guy she is pretending to ignore is Pete Ballard, captain of the basketball team, and the goon flexing his muscles is Josh Norris, our very own local football star."
Shut up, Rodney! This story isn't about Josh, so, no I won’t tell you how big his dick was.
So anyway, Steve tells me, "Those are the only ones you need to worry about except for their ring-leader, the worst one of the bunch, but she's away on vacation now. That's why it's so peaceful around here."
I asked, "What does she do?"
He just grinned. "Wait until she's back. You'll see!"
And then a couple of days later, here comes little snotty Miss Melanie Warburg, the reigning Kudzu Queen of the Picador County Fair, all dark roots and fake smiles. Everybody pretended to just love her to death, but she was mean as a freaking snake and twice as dangerous. She thought she was hotter than forty miles of Georgia asphalt, and treated everybody like dogshit that was clinging to her pumps. As God is my witness, I can say without a SPECK of malice in my heart that I hope she has to shove her tits aside to scratch her knees after all these years.
Anyway, Steve was right when he said I would have no trouble figuring out what Melanie was all about. As soon as she emerged into the summer sun, it suddenly felt ten degrees hotter as everyone scrambled to keep her happy. She had to have the coldest drinks, she had to have the deck chair with the best angle when she wanted sun and the deepest shade when it was too hot, and everyone danced to her tune while she was there, including Josh, Amber and Pete.
The first time I had to serve her at the snack bar, she gave me the once over and quickly categorized me as beneath her notice, and that was that. One time a glass I was handing her dripped some condensation on her wrist close to the emerald tennis bracelet she always wore, and "incompetent oaf" was the mildest thing she called me in the next ten minutes. I was on her list of Top Ten Enemies after that, and every time she saw me after that she made sure that I knew it.
The rest of the boring summer was all the same. Day after day at the country club having to silently suffer the abuse of Melanie and her entourage. Night after night at home with my grandfather grumbling about me. Well, to tell the truth, it wasn't always that bad. Sometimes when Melanie wasn't around, the others treated me--- not exactly civilly, but with snobbish indifference, which was almost as good. The only friend I had made so far was Steve, and he usually spent his time away from work with his girlfriend. I was bored, and I was restless, and y’all know that in a teenager that is a dangerous combination, so as the start of school came closer, I was looking for something to add a little spark to my life, something fun and new, something out of the rut.
Now in August, I saw a talk show with a bunch of women talking about how coloring their hair changed their lives. I thought that might be just what I was looking for, that maybe if my hair wasn't as dark as Satan's heart, my life would be so much more fun. I could see myself as much more the platinum-blond type, but Mama wouldn't shake loose one thin dime for me to go to get it professionally done. "Oh, no," she always said, "You have your Daddy's raven locks," and then she'd start sniffling and get all weepy, and I'd feel so bad looking at her blotchy face, so I just went to Faber Drugs myself and bought a big ol' home dye kit in Norwegian Moonlight Blond. Well, I didn't know a damn thing about what I was doing and I knew Mama wouldn't lift a finger to help, so the resulting effects were not exactly what I had hoped for. I was less a Norwegian Moonlight Blond and more of a freaking Processed Cheese Orange. I was just purely mortified. Mama just about bust her side trying not to laugh when she saw me, but she refused to go to Faber Drugs herself to get anything to help. She figured if I had gotten myself in this far I could find my own way out.
Oh, shut the hell up, Rodney. It's not that funny! The day I believe there's nothing embarrassing in your past is the day the Baptists start performing oral sex as a part of Wednesday night prayer meetings.
So, anyway, I have to walk two miles to the drugstore, and I just know that everybody is staring and trying to figure out what the fuck that dimwit is doing with the orange hair.
I get to Main Street, and the earth hasn't opened up and swallowed me, so I have to go into that freaking drugstore where every damn rube with nothing better to do, which is only about half of the freaking county, just sits all day at the snack counter and watches the whole of Western Civilization pass them by without so much as a howdy-do-howzit-hangin. I walk in and the place goes dead quiet, and every one of those hicks is slack-jawed at the sight of me and my orange hair. Well, after about five different lifetimes of humiliating silence, after I stand there waiting for the hoots of laughter that would be twice as freaking bad as the freaking silence, old man Faber finally says, "That’s a mighty fine head of orange hair you got there, son." Huh? What the fuck? I think. Before I could make sense out of what he was babbling about, he asked, "You must be a really big Vol fan to dye your hair orange. You think they got a good team up there in Knoxville this year?" I still think he's a freaking lunatic, but I think, what the fuck, "Yeah, I guess so." When he slapped me on the back and said, "I think so, too," I realize that he is talking about the University of Tennessee football team, nicknamed the Volunteers, which ranks just below Jesus and just ahead of their own children in the moral schema of the yokels of Picador County. What you have to know about UT is that their school color is a gawdawful day-glow orange and that their fight song includes lyrics about casual sex, moonshine liquor and the assassination of government officials.
That's 'nuff said on that matter.
Anyway, they are all giddy about what a big fan I am, and start arguing with each other about the starting freaking left tackle. All of a sudden I saw my salvation, and it was colored Big Orange. If I was seen as a dues-paying member of the Vol tribe, I was not as such an outsider. I might not be in the rarified strata of Melanie Warburg and Josh Norris, but I was not likely to be tarred and feathered and run out of town on a rail, either.
Oh, here comes the waiter, so someone tie Timmy down I don't want him to start dry humping the boy's leg before I get another drink. Could you freshen this up for me a little? And could you put in just a wee splash more vodka this time? Thanks. Where was I? Oh, yeah.
Anyone who has spent any time in the South knows that they take their football seriously. If you took every man from Picador County to a nudie bar and left them there surrounded by nekkid women, about ten percent would get hard enough to do anybody some good. About forty percent would get a little freaking half hard-on, and the rest would just flap limply in a passing breeze. On the other hand, you start them to thinking about a state championship for the Picador Central High School Toros, and every freaking one of them would spring a stiffie that could drill granite. However, nothing puckers their sphincters like Hom-a-secksuals, and that hard-on was about to start ramming into that puckered ass in the person of a transfer student, one Bradley Baldwin.
The first day of school started off worse than I had ever feared. I knew that my newly-acquired status as a win-or-die supporter of the Volunteers was only going to take me so far, and then I would have to tough out the inevitable scramble for the scraps leftover in the pecking order once the cool kids had kicked everyone else out of the way.
I was standing in the hall outside home room trying to fly below the radar, waiting for the bell when up comes Joshua Norris with Melanie Warburg on his arm. When he got to the door, he glared at me and said, "What you staring at, Freakshow? Get out of my way or I'll hit you." He drew back his fist and menaced me. I don't think he really would have hit me, but in Picador County, a lot of the family trees didn't have too many branches, if you catch my drift. Melanie, always a model of decorum, is shrieking, "Teach him a lesson, Joshua. Show him who's important in this town." Suddenly we all three realized how quiet it had became in the hallway. We looked to the door and saw that the entrance of Bradley Baldwin had rendered everyone mute. Tall, broad-shouldered, an athletic build, almost painfully handsome without too much of that pretty boy thing. Hair the blond color I so ached to have and the most startling green eyes you can imagine.
Confident and serene, he swaggered down the hall as gaudy as the theme float in a Mardi Gras parade. Nobody knew what to make of him. He defied categorization. Fuck, he defied rational thought. It was as if a fabulous tropical bird was thrown into the freaking hen house. All the chickens hung back more gape-mouthed than usual, if that were possible, awed by this exotic creature. If some frail little Math Club geek wore anything that deviated from the Standard Approved Dress Code of jeans and a t-shirt, he would be freaking hounded mercilessly to the point of tears, but 240 pounds of muscle packed on Bradley's six-foot four frame strolled with impunity through school in surfing shorts and a tank top. No one said a word, not a damn word!
He sauntered up to our classroom and peered at the door over his sunglasses. "Is this Mrs. Sander's homeroom? Great!"
He looked at my orange hair. "Dude, this is fabulous," he said. He looked Joshua up and down and, I freaking kid you not, he purred like a cat. He eyed the letterman's jacket and asked, "Are you on the football team? Great! I am trying out this afternoon. You can point out all the naughtiest boys to me." Josh looked like he didn't know whether to shit in his britches or to bolt for cover. Bradley turns to Melanie and grimaces, "Oh, how cute! My grandmother has that same hair style. But the color? One word: Yuck!"
He went into the classroom, leaving us in stunned silence in his wake. We didn't know who he was, but we all knew what he was: a shift in the time-space continuum. The earth had shifted slightly on its axis and all the old rules were no longer on the books. There was a new sheriff in town and he was playing for the other team. He was a natural-born flirt if there ever was one, and he flirted with every boy he came across. Don't get me wrong... there was nothing sissy about Brad, no lisp, no mincing gestures, nothing that these hillbilly bigots held as the freaking Truth so dear in their hearts, and that is what threw them ass over head in confusion. That whole year nobody in Picador County said a bad word to him or even about him as far as I ever heard.
But, anyway, it was another miracle! No one would talk about the new kid with the freakish orange hair. All anyone could talk about with the transfer from California with the muscular thighs and the surfing shorts. The cherry on the top of the gossip sundae was the deft skewering of Melanie Warburg. By the time the story made the rounds, the ten-second meeting had escalated into some fantastic tale of Miss Head Cheerleader on a suicide watch. And I can guaran-damn-tee you that not a single student in Picador County Central lost any sleep over her humiliation.
All kinds of rumors swirled around about the football tryouts, and if even a quarter of what we heard were true, and probably not that even that much could have been , I would have paid cash money to have seen what really happened. In any event, Brad Baldwin was named as that season's starting quarterback to a bemused and awe-struck community.
The Friday night games were always sold out, and the opening game of the year was a hard ticket to find 'cause everyone wanted to see if the stories were accurate, both about Brad's skill and his, umm, "exotic" personality, and were they ever true! The opponent, never knowing what hit them, was quickly buried under an onslaught of dazzling talent, and after particularly spectacular plays, Brad would often blow flamboyant kisses to the crowd of Picador County Central supporters.
As the season progressed, anyway, one after another, the Toros' opponents were mowed down, Pittman High, Vonderlin County, McSwains Academy, Guntherville High, even the hated Red Demons of archrival East Picador County. After that win, the first in five seasons over East Pic, the yokels practically put up a statue to Brad Baldwin, 'cause he was the greatest quarterback anyone ever saw. There wasn't a defensive scheme he couldn't unravel; there wasn't a pass rush he couldn't evade. He could arc the ball forty yards down field to a receiver who just had to hold his hands out at a full run, and the ball just slipped in as easy as anything. By this time, his vast and enthusiastic fan club was willing to forgive Brad for any minor quirks such as courting eternal damnation for unnatural lust as long as he kept the team on the winning track.
The only dark cloud came when Jeff Schultz, our star receiver, broke his leg against Cochran High and was lost for the season. Everyone in town was considerably depressed, because without someone fast for Brad to throw to, the season could come crashing down. The mayor called an emergency meeting of the Town Council and practically declared a day of atonement and prayer he was so concerned.
The Monday after Jeff's injury, I was hoofing home from school, when Melanie Warburg's convertible pulls up beside me as I was waiting for the light to change so I could cross the street. Melanie, Josh Norris, Amber Lewis and Pete Ballard were in the car, the whole Gang of Four. It was a chilly afternoon, and I had my hands deep in my cords’ pockets trying to stay warm, and I hear Melanie sing out, "Ewww... I think he's playing with himself!" Well, I wasn't, of course, I'm not some pervert like Rodney, doing God-knows-what out on the street, but I turned about five different shades of red. Josh smirked at me and asked, "It that true, Freakshow? Are you playing pocket pool?"
Well, I had finally had enough of their bullying, so I looked him freaking square in the eye and said, "Nope, I'm playing Elevator."
"Elevator? What's kinda loser game is that?" he cut his eyes around at Pete in the backseat, looking for support in his little game with me.
"Well, it's up right now... maybe you'd like to go down on it."
His face dissolved from puzzlement to disbelief to shock to anger to rage in slow motion. As he jumped out of the car, screaming incoherently at me, I took off running with him hot on my heels. As I crossed Elm, Josh was about ten yards behind me. I ducked through the First Baptist cemetery and then whipped behind the Old Courthouse, and he had fallen back to thirty yards. I didn't want him to follow me all the way home, so I hung a left onto Northbridge Avenue which is just a long, steep climb up the hill. At the top, I looked back and he was about a block behind, and hoping that would be enough, I dove into some bushes to hide. He came by, panting heavily, but didn't see me, so I took every freaking alley and back yard shortcut I knew home, pumping enough adrenaline to light Las Vegas.
That night, Mama went to a church in Dawsonville to play bingo. She left me to look after my granddaddy, but he was not too much trouble since he was so loaded with painkillers most of the time. He was asleep, and I was studying for a history test outside the porch wrapped around from the front of the house and I was on the side, next to Granddaddy's bedroom, so I could hear when he woke up. After a few minutes I heard a knock at the door. I considered ignoring it, since it might be that nosy old biddy from across the street come over to snoop around and bend my ear for about four freaking hours about how I was going to hell if I didn't start going to whatever church she was shilling for that month, but I knew that she would not hesitate to come around to the side to peer through the window if no one answered her damned knock, and then there would literally be hell to pay, so I went to the door. Much to my surprise, it wasn't old lady Bishop leaning against the pillar on the porch, silhouetted by the late afternoon sun, but Brad Baldwin, giving me a wide grin that showed about twice the normal number of teeth.
"Hey, Shane!" he said.
"Uhh, hey, Brad."
"Can I come in? Are you busy?"
"Yeah, sure." I showed him to the porch swing, and sat in the wicker chair across from him. He stretched out his arms along the back of the sofa, the muscles of his chest and arms straining against the fabric of his shirt. It took every freaking smidgen of will power that my raging eighteen-year-old hormones allowed me to muster to not stare at the bulge in his shorts, since he had propped one of his size-fourteen Nikes up on the porch railing and pointed his crotch right at me.
"What are you up to?" he asked.
"Looking after my grandpa. He's kinda sick."
"Sorry to hear that. Nothing serious, I hope?"
I just shrug, not sure what to say. We sat there for a few moments in the freaking mother of all awkward silences, at least for me. Finally, I asked, "How did you know where I live?"
"Shane, bro, nothing sneaky, I assure you. In a town this small, everyone knows where the dude with the orange hair lives and is only too happy to point out your house."
"So. . ." I said.
"So
Uhh, the football team's doing really good. You play great.
Oh, that's so sweet of you to say. Bradley devastatingly mimicked the bumblefuck accent perfectly, so that it came out more like swate of yew.
Uhh. . . you like football, huh?
"Oh, dude, what's to not like? Manhandled by all those sweaty, meaty boys?" He gave me a conspiratorial wink and said, "And let's not even let our thoughts wander into the locker-room. Or the shower."
Oh, jeez, Timmy! Would someone throw some cold water on him? He's getting ready to hump the table leg now. What are you going to do when I get to the really hot parts?
Well, anyway, I couldn't stand the suspense any more, and I finally blurted, "What are you doing here, Brad?"
He flashed a big smile and said, "Oh, I just thought that you seemed like someone that would be fun to hang with."
"Hang with?"
"Yeah, and I need help with my math homework."
Now, I sat a row over and two seats behind Brad in class, and I had never seen any test or quiz returned to him with less than top marks on it, so that dog wouldn't hunt with me. I thought for a few seconds and said, "Well, I guess I could show you a couple of things."
With another big smile, he cooed, "I just bet you could show me something."
I bit my lip and swallowed a couple of times. "Can... can I... uhh... can I ask you something that's kinda weird?"
"Sure, Shane! That's what hanging out is for."
"When you say stuff like that, aren't you afraid that people might think you're, you know..." and I whispered, "Queer?"
He threw his head back and broke out in a peal of laughter. "Oh, you are the funniest guy! Listen, dude, no matter how great your product is, half the sale is good advertising."
"Uhh, yeah, okay," I stammered.
"So, I heard that you worked at the country club during the summer. That must've been fun."
"It was a shit job." I blushed, having spoken more truthfully and forcefully than I intended.
Brad grinned, "Yeah, I guess several weeks at the beck and call of Princess Melanie and her court could be a little...hmmm... intense?"
I grunted in agreement. He continued, "You know, Jeff Schultz is out for the season, so the football team needs a new wide receiver. Coach Lewis saw you outrun Josh today and wanted me to see if you were interested."
"Interested in what?"
"In being our new wide receiver."
"Me?" I squawked. "I don't know how to play football!"
"Nothing to it! In the huddle before every play, I tell you exactly where to run, and you run there as fast as you can, and then... hold up your hands like this... dude, they're huge... How tall are you, anyway, about six-one?"
"Uhh, six-two."
"Even better! Gimme a huge target running as fast as you do and I'll drop that pigskin in as soft as a ripe peach."
"I don't know... I had a lead on Josh when we started... I may not be that fast."
"Coach was driving behind you and said that you were adding five, ten yards a block easily, and Josh is the fastest guy on the team now that Jeff is out.
'I've never done anything like that..."
"Coach thinks you can learn to play the position. And I agree that you would be.." he ran his tongue over his lower lip, "perfect for several different positions."
Brad grinned at me as he stood up to leave and placed one of his huge hands on my shoulder. “Think about it, Shane, and let me know tomorrow. The team could really use you.”
I agreed to consider the offer, but, boys, I gotta tell you . . . giving me that smile and squeezing my shoulder like that? Brad could have asked me to jam a pound of dried beans up my nose and I would have done it gladly, so that’s how I found myself four days later standing in the uniform of a Picador County Central Toro on the sidelines of the Friday night game against Jefferson High, waiting for either the kickoff or to puke my guts out, whichever came first, and smart money was betting on the puke.
Brad wandered over, took one look at my miserable face and smiled at me sympathetically. “Nervous?” he asked.
I swallowed a couple of times to keep the contents of my stomach from making a public appearance and shook my head. “No. Scared shitless.”
He laughed and banged his fist on my shoulder pads, “I won’t let you look bad. Understand? You gotta trust me on that.”
If there is anything more pathetic and boring than some yahoo reliving his glory days as a high school jock, I don’t know what it is, so I’m not going to tell you much about the game except this . . . it was the greatest game ever played.
I only caught a couple of short passes in the first half because the coaching staff kept to a conservative game plan since they didn’t have much more confidence in me as an inexperienced receiver than I did. In the second half, we were trailing 17-7 so the playbook was opened up a little more. Three times Brad looked at me in the huddle and laid out the play just as he told me he would on my porch... after the snap of the ball, I would angle to the sideline and run as fast as I could about thirty yards, then look back for the ball at full speed. All three times it worked to perfection, not from anything that I did, really, except to trust Brad Baldwin enough to do exactly what he asked me to do.
A sixty-five yard touchdown pass brought us to within four points. After Josh Norris and our defense held the Jefferson team deep in their own territory, a seventy yard pass gave us the first lead of the night. Late in the fourth quarter, Brad and I connected again for a forty-eight yard strike to give us a little cushion, and Picador Central won by a score of 28 to 17.
After the game I was still pumped up when Coach told me I had to go to the press conference. Well if you consider a pimply sophomore from the school newspaper and Mr. Manning from the Picador Weekly Shopper a press conference, then I guess that’s what it was. They asked a few lame questions, and as I held my hands in front of me to show how I caught the footballs, someone took my photograph. As soon as that was over, I had to sit in the coaches’ office in the gymnasium, still dressed in pads, cleats, the whole kit, while the Jefferson High coaching staff demanded to know where the hell I came from and why I was added to the roster in mid-season and what was up with that orange hair? I was antsy as all hell, wanting to get out of there, ‘cause I wanted to find Brad and thank him for all the help he had given me.
When they finally were satisfied that I was a bona fide student in good standing, I sprinted out of there, but just as I arrived at the locker room, Josh Norris was coming out the door. As soon as I saw him, I looked around the empty corridor, desperately seeking anyone who might help me if he decided to make good on his standing threat to beat me to a bloody pulp. Nobody around. I was on my own. He shuffled his feet awkwardly and stared over my left shoulder at a point about five miles away..
He cleared his throat a couple of times. “Uhh. . . yeah. . . good game.”
I watched him warily. “Yeah. You, too.”
We stood there for a few moments of silence as he looped his gym bag over his shoulder. “Uhh. . . about all the shit I been givin’ you.. . “ he trailed off.
“Yeah. No problem.”
He nodded, still not looking me in the eye. “See ya around.”
“Later.” I replied. One game under my belt and already I had the jock lingo down cold.
He trotted off as I went into the now-deserted locker room, the stink of sweat and testosterone thick in my nostrils. At the far end of the room, the arched entrance to the showers appeared dark, but I could faintly hear running water. After tugging off my jersey and shoulder pads and kicking off my cleats, I padded towards the shower, because I was, you know, curious. You can’t hold it against me that I was eighteen and about five different kinds of horny. Standing in the deep shadows, I could see that a single light bulb was illuminating the last shower along the opposite wall, spotlighting Brad Baldwin.
He was magnificent, standing there, eyes closed and head tilted back as the water coursed over his naked body, his bronzed skin flawless except for a bruise on his thigh. He had always dressed in fairly revealing clothes, shorts and tank tops and the like, but the whole was definitely greater than the sum of the parts, For the most part, he was as perfectly proportioned as a Greek statue, Parian marble made flesh, Adonis incarnate, but it wouldn’t have been a fig leaf protecting his modesty, but a whole fig freaking tree.
I’m talking Man-from-Nantucket-hung here, boys.
As I watched him, my heart was pounding, my chest tight, my mouth so dry you could strike a match against my lips. I stood there for a few moments and then turned away, confused by a feeling so far beyond mere desire that I didn’t have a name for it.
All of Brad’s clothes were still piled in front of his locker. I brushed my fingertips against his jersey as gingerly as if I thought it would burn me, then as I grabbed a fistful of the fabric, I heard the water turned off and his footsteps slapping wetly across the tiles. I froze in panic, although I had every right to be in the locker room and I wasn’t doing anything wrong, if you overlook the little matter of fondling his dirty laundry. I saw an open door to the storage area for the towels and stuff, and, no damn comments from the Peanut Gallery, jumped into the closet and pulled the door closed behind me as best as I could, but it wouldn’t close completely, leaving me a full view of Brad as he sat on a bench, a long, wide piece of wood bolted to metal supports in front of the door, lazily drying off. I could have kicked myself, because now I was stuck in there until he left, ‘cause I would look like five different kinds of idiot if I sauntered out of a freaking linen closet while he was still there.
I hid there watching him, his hair damp and tousled, and suddenly I realize that I am in pain as my jock and tightly-laced pants were straining to keep me from bursting out into the open. Part of me was silently begging him to hurry up and dress while part of me, mostly the part from the waist down, was content to let him continue his slow toweling off. Tossing aside the towel, his hand dropped to his crotch, and he began a tantalizing exploration, slowly fingering himself, his eyes unfocused. Almost unable to draw a breath, I was spellbound as his cock slowly thickened and lengthened more than I would have thought possible, given its already impressive size, until it was slapping hard across his belly. He lay back on the bench as he continued caressing himself, tugging and stretching his balls, lightly fingering the shaft, occasionally moaning softly as he reached up to tease his nipples.
One of my hands was kneading my crotch, my aching cock quivering and jumping inside the tight pants, while I clamped the other across my mouth to muffle my ragged breathing from Brad’s ears. Pressed back deep in my hiding place, I was looking through the crack in the door with a clear view of his crotch nestled between his muscular thighs. I held still as he sat up and rolled his shoulders, loosening a kink from the game, and reached into his equipment bag to remove a small tube. I was afraid to even blink my eyes for fear that I would miss something as I saw him squirt a clear gel into his palm and then resume massaging his cock. Brad lay back again, cradling his head in his other arm, languorously jerking off, while I would have given anything to have my hand around my own dick, or even better, around his.
Just as I thought things couldn’t get any more erotically charged, he dropped his cock and slipped his hands between his thighs and his long fingers began rubbing his pucker in slow, tight movements. I had never even imagined seeing any guy do anything like that, and I’m sure my eyes were bugging from my head like a frog’s as I watched him rhythmically slide first one and then two fingers in his hole. Judging from the look on his face, and his low, groaning sighs, he was really enjoying himself, while my tightly-constricted boner throbbed in about five different kinds of agony.
In order to access his pucker more fully, Brad lifted one foot onto the bench with the unfortunate result that my view of the action was cut off. Foolishly and with no more thought than you give to taking a breath, I shifted my weight, angling for a better perspective, but ended up losing my balance and crashing through the closet door, spilling to the floor in a sweaty, panting heap at Brad’s feet. He sat up and gave me a drowsy, erotic smile.
Blinking my eyes rapidly and swallowing hard, I croaked, “Hey!” just as though I had run into him at the supermarket or somewhere totally casual.
“I was hoping you were still around, “ he smiled. “I didn’t think to check the broom closet.”
My face was burning. “Yeah. That’s where I was, “ I said lamely.
He leaned closer to me, scrunching up a fistful of the damp, grey T-shirt I had worn under my jersey during the game and sending a shiver though my body, and whispered, “Now that you’re here, I think you’re a little overdressed for this party.”
I was nobody’s fool. . . I didn’t need an engraved invitation, and I was ripping off clothes as fast as I could. As I kicked out of my pants and peeled away my sweaty jock, Brad eyed the dark bush at the base of my cock and smirked at me, “So it’s true . . . you don’t have naturally orange hair!” grabbing for the evidence. His big, meaty hands slowly caressed me, covering my cock with the lubricant he had been using on himself and with the pre-cum that was dripping from me. I was throbbing and twitching in his hand, moaning softly as I stood there, scarcely able to believe this was happening, waves of pleasure washing over me.
He reached behind me and cupped my butt with one rough hand, and his gorgeous green eyes locked on mine, slowly took me between his soft lips, his tongue swirling around, washing me as he continued shoving his fingers deep into his own pucker. Brad took all of me deep in mouth, grinding his face against my crotch, alternately lightly licking me and plunging me into his hot, wet throat. I was lost in the wonderful feeling until he pulled away and groaned huskily, “I want you inside me.”
I just stared at him, unsure if I could trust my voice to answer, prompting him to ask urgently, “I want you to fuck me, bro.” I nodded eagerly, and Brad rolled back onto the bench and pulled his thighs to his chest, exposing his rosy hole to my greedy eyes. As I positioned the head of my cock against the tight ring of his pucker, I felt a shiver run through his body, and I held my breath as I pushed against him, the amazing sensation of his yielding unlike anything I had ever felt. Brad pushed against me so that I slid quickly in him, the warm, silky walls expanding around me. As he slowly stretched to hold me, he clamped the muscle tightly on my cock, his face twisted in mingled desire and pain. He lifted his heels to my shoulders and as I found a rhythm of long, hard thrusts, I pushed against the resistance of his legs on my chest. I felt as if every nerve in my body were focused on the point where my cock was centered on Brad’s ass, and the harder I slammed into him, the more intense the feeling was.
Our bodies were slicked with sweat, our moaning was echoing in the empty locker room. My balls were smacking against his ass, his were slapping against my belly. Electric jolts slammed me as I looked at his hard, tight body beneath me, at his beautiful face, his eyes closed, his soft lips parted in rapture. Finally, unable to hold back any longer, heat boomed out of my belly, and with a soft cry, I pumped my load deep inside him, thick ropes of cum that slicked his chute and slid out of him, dripping onto the floor as I collapsed in a sweaty heap against him.
As we recovered from the exertion, we kissed a little, the stubble on his jaw rasping my neck as he nuzzled me, then we took a long, lazy shower, soaping one another hungrily.
Boys, I wish I could tell you that was only the beginning. . . damn, how I wish I could tell you that, but it was the only time that Brad and I ever hooked up. Just never seemed to work out for us again. We were so busy with the state playoffs, and of course, we won the Tennessee state championship that year. It just about broke my heart when we came back from visiting relatives at Christmas and I found out that Brad’s father was transferred and they had moved away.
I dragged around for weeks feeling like someone had stomped my heart flat, and only snapped out of it when I took up with my first boyfriend, the center fielder from the school baseball team, but y’all are gonna just have to wait until another time to hear that story, because I’m too dry now to tell you how I stole Josh Norris right off of Melanie Warburg’s arm.
