I spent the Summer after high school graduation planting, then picking, cucumbers, corn, and other comestibles for a local produce farmer named Joey Garvey – a miserable fuck of a man if ever there was one. His son, Joe – don’t call him Joey – had graduated that year too, and was working alongside me and a few other local kids.
When we were younger, Joe and I often played together. At some point though, I got the feeling he wasn’t interested in being my friend anymore. For years afterward, despite living less than a half-mile apart and sharing a twice-daily 45-minute school bus trip, we’d learned to avoid each other. At school, we drifted into different groups. I was with the stoners and Joe was with everyone else. He was a gifted athlete, president of several clubs, and a straight A student. In short, he was everything I wasn’t and nothing I wanted to be. All of which made his father’s treatment of him, all Summer long, all the more puzzling.
His father berated and belittled Joe for the slightest perceived variance from his own way of doing things; the plant rows were not quite straight enough or there were too many or too few peppers in a basket. You name it. Nothing was too insignificant to escape his disapproval – especially where his son was concerned. As his father vented, Joe would carry on what he was doing, unmoved by his father’s histrionics. After he had played himself out, Joe’s father would drift off to find something else to be pissed off about.
“Just ignore him,” Joe would say. “It’s not worth it.” His tone when he said it closed down all further discussion. And so, we had ignored him all Summer.
As Joe and I sweated out those long, hot days together, stripped to the waist and bronzed by the sun, we got reacquainted. I remembered him being funny when we were little kids, but now his wit was more biting, his observations tinged with cynicism.
In the evenings, my girlfriend Raney, along with her friend Tammie, both home after their first year of college, would pile into my 68 Impala to spend the evening getting wasted while racing along the narrow dirt and blacktop roads that ribbon the western part of the state. Windows down, radio up, high as fuck, we were born to run.
Mostly though, we were killing time until an evening in August when the greatest rock band of the 1970s would take the stage in a city about an hour from where we lived. My aunt, who lived in that city, had stood in line overnight at the National Record Mart to score four floor-level seats near the stage.
My 18th birthday, several weeks before the concert date, dawned bright and clear. On the way to Joe’s farm that morning, I switched on the radio, but before the first song ended, the DJ cut in to announce that the concert we’d waited all Summer for was being postponed because the young son of the band’s lead singer had died of a viral infection.
We worked that day with heavy hearts and at the end of it, Joe approached me. He hadn’t been planning to attend the concert, but he knew how much it meant to me.
“Pretty shitty birthday,” he said.
“You’re telling me.” I shrugged. “What the fuck can you do?”
Then, to my great surprise, since he had begged off every other invitation, he asked if he could ride along with us that night.
Tammie’s boyfriend of the moment – competition for that fourth concert ticket had been fierce – was working in his family’s bar that night, so we had an empty seat. On the other hand, I hadn’t wheedled a blowjob out of Raney yet, and she’d been promising me a special birthday present for weeks. So, there was cause for hope in the fellatio department. Nonetheless, I found myself telling Joe I’d pick him up after dinner.
Later that night, with Joe and Tammie in the backseat, my chances for a blowjob were looking bleak. As we wound up and down those country lanes though, Raney slid across the wide bench seat until she was right up against me, then she slipped her left hand down into my pants, and started stroking my rapidly-stiffening cock. After a few minutes, she stretched her arms exaggeratedly, and said, to nobody in particular, “I’m tired.” She then flattened out across the wide bench seat with her head in my lap. A moment later her mouth was on my cock.
I checked the rear-view mirror just in time to see Tammie’s head drop to Joe’s lap. Lucky guy, I thought. I spoke from experience because Tammie had sucked me off once after we dropped Raney off and I could attest to her skills. But when I caught Joe’s expression in the mirror, he wore the same distant look he got when his father was going off on him.
Raney’s tongue brought my attention back where it belonged. She licked up and down the underside of my cock, before closing her mouth tightly around its head, and engulfing nearly it’s entire length in her warm, wet, mouth. Clearly, Tammie had given her some tips.
I struggled to maintain control, both of my senses and the car, as she continued her ministrations, and just when I could stand it no longer – we arrived at the end of her driveway.
Raney and Tammie practically sprang from the car, leaving me, Joe, and our raging hardons to fend for ourselves. It was clear from their conspiratorial laughter they’d planned this exploit together.
“I’ll ride back here,” Joe said.
“Good idea,” I said. Especially, since my cock was sticking straight up out of my pants.
Soon, I heard laughter from the back seat.
“What’s so funny?” I asked.
“Caught with our pants down – again,” he said.
My mind flashed back to when Joe and I were 8 or 9 years old and playing in the hayloft. I don’t recall who suggested it, but we had pulled off our clothes and taken turns mouthing each other’s stiff little pricks. When his father’s voice sounded below, we dressed in a panic and fled down the rope that was used to pull up the hay bales. We had never spoken about it and it had never been repeated.
“We didn’t get caught,” I said.
“You didn’t,” he said.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“My father saw – enough. After supper that night, he laid out the scene to my mother. Her son was a sissy, a queer.” He paused. “But there was one detail he was missing.”
“He didn’t know it was me,” I said.
Joe shook his head. “He asked me over and over, and every time I refused to answer he would slap the side of my head. When my ear began to bleed, my mother got between us.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.
“Why didn’t you tell him?” I asked.
“Because what my father said about me was true. I knew it even then, just like I knew you weren’t like me. My father would have told your parents and anybody else he could tell.”
“So, you pushed me away,” I said.
“Pretty much.”
The air seemed to thicken between us as I processed Joe’s admission. That explained our sudden falling out, his father’s hatred, and his lack of interest in Tammie’s oral attentions.
After a moment, Joe leaned forward over the back of the seat. I tensed.
“Want to get high?” he asked.
Relief washed over me. “Fuck yes,” I said.
“Let’s go up the hill,” he said.
After a few miles of winding asphalt road, I turned into a narrow, overgrown lane. The car bumped back and forth as we navigated the rutted path. We’d climbed two circuits of the hill before the trees ended, and by the time we reached the top, we had an unobstructed view of the hills rolling away in all directions.
Joe got out of the car, then climbed up and sat on the car’s hood. He flamed up the joint, took a long drag, then extended it towards me.
I joined him on the hood where we lay back side by side staring straight up at the sky with our backs against the slope of the windshield. The night was clear, and high above us the stars wheeled in the limitless black void. The Milky Way was a bright, diffuse, cloud stretching from horizon to horizon. A million peepers sang into the warm spring air.
I took a long pull on the joint then exhaled slowly.
As I relaxed, my curiosity got the better of me.
“So, have you ever, you know, done it with a guy?” I asked.
He turned to face me. “Just you,” he said, and we both laughed.
As we lay there passing the joint back and forth, Joe unburdened himself of a lifetime endured under the lash of his father’s petty and vindictive reign. His father seemed to feel that his son’s “perversion” was a reflection on him and he left no doubt of his disapproval in anyone’s mind. Through it all though, Joe had protected me, at a time in my life when, suffice to say, protection was severely lacking.
“Why tell me now?” I asked.
“You’re leaving soon,” he said. “I just wanted you to know how I feel.”
How he felt? What did that mean? Until that moment, I’d never really considered my sexual persuasion. I liked girls and took great pleasure in having sex with them. But there had been incidences since that childhood one with Joe, where I had shown a decided flexibility regarding the gender of sexual partners – the casual teenage blowjob by a friend’s goofy younger brother or the “hitchhiking incident”. Stories for another day.
Joe and I lay in silence for a while before he propped himself on his elbow. His face hovered above me. His eyes were two bright stars amid the vast firmament above. His hair brushed my cheek as he leaned down and placed his soft lips against mine. In the moment, whether he was male or female was irrelevant. I placed my hand lightly on the back of his head, tangling my fingers in his thick brown mane, and drew our lips more firmly together. When I felt his tongue, I opened my mouth to let him in.
We kissed passionately for several minutes, our tongues entwined, breath coming in gasps. He placed his hand on the front of my pants and slid his hand up and a few times before popping open the buttons of my Levi’s 501s, and sliding his hand inside. He played with my now rock-hard cock through my underwear before reaching inside to grasp it firmly. His hand was like fire against my tender skin.
I lifted myself off the warm hood and kicked off my shoes, pants, and underwear. In the meantime, Joe shimmied out of his own clothes. He stroked my cock a few more times, then without warning, slid down between my legs and took it into his mouth. He licked up and down until my cock was drenched with his saliva, then he straddled me and looked down. “Is this okay?” he asked.
I could only nod.
He positioned my cock between his legs then lowered himself until its head pushed against his anus. He rose up and down in short strokes, until he’d engulfed the head, then bent down and kissed me again before slowly lowering himself until my entire cock filled his virgin ass. As he rode me up and down, I stroked his cock with both hands, matching his rhythm.
After only a few minutes of fucking his tight, teenage hole, my balls tightened and my stomach muscles clenched.
“I’m gonna’ come,” I breathed.
“Come inside me,” he said, riding me even harder.
An instant later I groaned as my cock spurted jet after jet of hot liquid deep inside him. When I stopped, he collapsed on top of me.
“Thank you,” he whispered, trying to catch his breath.
“What about you?” I asked, grasping his cock.
“You don’t have to.”
“I want to,” I said.
I maneuvered him until his hips hovered over me with his cock inches from my face. I reached behind him with both hands and pulled his dick into my open mouth. As I worked it in and out, Joe grasped both sides of my head, and began thrusting harder and harder. At one point I gagged as the head of his cock hit the back of my throat.
He pulled back. “I’m so sorry,” he said.
In answer, I pulled his hips forward and resumed sucking his sweet cock.
After a few minutes, his entire body stiffened and his cock grew even larger in my mouth.
“I’m going to come,” he groaned. He attempted to pull his cock from my mouth, but I held him firmly and was rewarded when his hot come splashed against the back of my throat. I swallowed every drop, then licked him clean, before allowing him to flop down on the hood next to me.
“Wow!” he said.
“I know.”
We lay there for a while before Joe finally stirred.
“I should get home,” he said.
“Me too.” Although I was reluctant to part.
When I dropped him off at home, the living room lights were still on. No doubt, his father had waiting up. Joe paused on the porch, as if preparing himself, then opened the door. He was briefly silhouetted by the blue T.V. glow. That was the last time I saw Joe.
Within a week, I’d accepted an invitation from my aunt to live with her in the city. Within a few years I had moved to another state, gotten married and divorced a couple of times, and had two children. After two decades though, I returned to the area, taking up residence in the city again.
On a whim, I Googled some former classmates, including Joe. I discovered that he had moved to the city, learned hair styling, and eventually opened his own shop. For many years, it was the “in” salon for the city’s cultural luminaries and visiting celebrities.
Sadly though, I learned most of this from Joe’s obituary. He had passed away several years earlier after a long battle with cancer – which I suspect was code for HIV/AIDS. I also learned that Joe and I had been born on the very same day, and I wondered why he hadn’t told me that it was also his birthday on that long-ago night.
Sometimes, when the insomnia is winning, I slip out to the deck to smoke a joint. The skies in the city aren’t as bright as the one Joe and I shared on that far away spring night, but his presence is as vivid as ever. For an instant, we are boys again, lying on the hood of my car, with all of life’s triumphs and disappointments, its joys and sadness, yet unknown.