Typography Note: Sentences in [brackets] represent the narrator's unspoken thoughts.
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Coming of Age in Texas: Chapter 5: November
"I've got good news," I announced to the Andersens one Saturday at their house. Mike's coming home for Thanksgiving."
"Really, can I meet him?"
"Heck, no!" I teased. "I'm keeping him as far away from you as possible." Johnny pouted while his parents chuckled.
"Actually," I corrected myself, "Mom and Dad would like for all of you to join us for Thanksgiving dinner."
Johnny was so excited that I thought he would start turning cartwheels right there in the family room.
"Please thank your parents for the invitation, Rick, but we're planning to have Thanksgiving dinner—"
"Tell your parents that we accept," interrupted Mrs. Andersen.
"But I thought you wanted to—"
"Why cook when I don't have to?" Mrs. Andersen explained. "Besides, all the ladies in the garden club say that Faith Murphy is the best cook in west Texas, and you can always take me out for a fancy feast the day after."
Johnny looked like had just gotten a pony for Christmas.
Mrs. Andersen cooked anyway. Mom made the main dishes, but Mrs. Andersen brought a casserole and a couple of pies. Johnny fawned all over Mike, who took it graciously. I'm sure he was used to over-exuberant fans, though I thought I'd have to throw a bucket of ice water over Johnny. After we watched a football game on TV, Mike said, "Well, team, why don't we go outside and toss the football around a bit?" I thought Johnny was going to tear out the hinges as he bolted through the doorway.
After a few warm-up drills, Mike announced, "Scrimmage. Shirts versus skins. I call shirts." Johnny and I wasted no time ripping off our shirts. Even though it was late November, it was a pretty, sunny day, and we knew that we would both be sweating pretty soon anyway. We would have played the rest of the afternoon and well into the night had Mr. Andersen not announced that they had to take Johnny home.
Mike had beaten Johnny and me by one touchdown, and I'm sure he was going easy on us.
Walking back to the house to shower and change clothes, I asked Mike, "So what do you think of Johnny?"
"He's good," Mike drolled.
"Good? He's fucking fantastic!"
Mike raised an eyebrow at my language. The fact is that we had not grown up using that kind of language in our house.
"If that kid is corrupting you," Mike mocked, "I'll beat the shit out of that goddam little motherfucker." Of course, I couldn't help but laugh at the farcical contrast.
All the way back to the house, I must have sounded to Mike the way I had sounded to Mr. and Mrs. Andersen when I told them about Johnny's first game of the season. Mike listened politely and smiled at the change that he had witness come over me since he had gone away to college.
When we got upstairs, I went to my old room to dump my shirt, and Mike went to his old room, now my room, but his for that weekend.
"You decent?" I called through the cracked door of his/my/his room.
"No, but I'm dressed," came Mike's reply. It was a running joke we had worn out years before.
As I entered the room, Mike was sorting his clothes on the bed, and I walked around and hopped up on the foot of the bed.
"You know, champ, this is your room now," he said. "You really didn't have to give it up for me."
"I know, but you're taller, so it makes sense for you to have the bigger bed."
"Well, at the rate you're growing, pretty soon you're going to be as tall as I am, if not taller."
He was right, but he had always been my idol, so I couldn't imagine myself being as tall or as fit as he was.
As we chatted about school—his and mine—and, of course, about football, Mike carried his clothes from the bed to the dresser where he began to undress. When he pulled off his pants, I gasped involuntarily. Mike turned to see me gaping at his red underwear, briefs with a built-in cock ring to make his junk look bigger, not that he needed any help in that regard. He chuckled at my reaction. "Pretty snazzy, huh? And the girls really love them."
"The briefs or what's in them?" I asked.
It was a bold question coming from me. Given the difference in our ages, Mike and I had never really talked to each other like that before.
"Oh, my! Somebody really has corrupted you," he giggled. "And speaking of girls, are you seeing anybody now?"
"Nah," I replied.
"How come?"
"You know what it's like when you live on a farm. You just don't have a lot of free time."
"As I recall, I managed to date a bit when I was your age."
"When you were my age, you were probably shagging every girl in school," which elicited a quizzical look from my big brother. "I'm sorry," I hastened to add. "That was out of line."
"If you want to talk about my sex life...or yours...I'm wide open, but that's not what gets under my craw."
"What do you mean?"
"You just don't get it, do you?"
"What?" I asked.
Mike just stared at me like he was about to explode.
"What?"
"Come over here, bro!" he commanded, with his hands firmly planted on his hips as if he were getting ready to attack.
I just sat there with a confused—and frightened—look on my face.
"Get your ass over her right now," he demanded, indicating the space right in front of him.
I strolled over cautiously as if I were walking into the lion's den. He grabbed me by the shoulders and positioned me between himself and the mirror atop the dresser. Pointing at our dual images, he asked, "What do you see?"
"I see you and me," I stammered.
"And how tall do you look compared to me?"
"You're taller," I said.
"By how much?"
"Several inches," I ventured.
"More like two," he snapped.
"Now, make a muscle," he commanded, flexing his arms to demonstrate.
I did as told.
"Look at those shoulders. You inherited those broad shoulders from me," he quipped.
We both laughed, but I could see what he meant. Dad had broad shoulders too.
"How big would you say those biceps are?"
"I dunno. Twelve, thirteen inches maybe."
"I didn't ask you how big Johnny's biceps are," he snapped. "I asked you how big yours are."
The suggestion that my biceps could be bigger than Johnny's left me speechless.
"At least 16, I'd guess. Maybe more," he continued. "Now, how many 15-year-old guys do you know with 16-inch biceps. Not many. Not damn many."
Moving around to face me, he punched me a couple of times in the chest. "Those pecs are rock solid, champ. They're not as fully developed as mine, but you'll get there sooner than you think."
He ran his hands down the sides of my torso and across my belly. "Look at those abs. You're gonna have a six pack in no time."
Then he grabbed me by the chin. "Chiseled jawline. Your friend Johnny has a cute baby face that I'm sure the girls just love at this stage, but this jaw...this is a man's jaw. This is your ticket to heaven, champ."
Next he dropped to the floor and rubbed his cupped hands up and down my legs. "Fucking quads, man. Johnny hasn't got quads like these, and you're just getting started."
With his face almost in my crotch, my dick started to tent in my sweat pants.
Getting up off his knees, he grasped my shoulders again and drilled his eyes into mine. "Rick, I know you think your friend Johnny is some kind of super hero. Sure, he's a hot jock, smart, good looking, and he seems like a nice kid. I like him. But trust me. He ain't got nothin' on you. You are all those things and more."
"But—"
"But nothing. And don't interrupt me when I'm ripping you a new one, OK?"
I nodded.
"Rick, I also know that you have always looked up to me, and I'm flattered. No, I'm honored. And humbled. But Rick, you are not Johnny, and you're not me, and you don't need to be. Bro, you're a fucking Captain America. You just don't see it yet, but I can tell you who will see it if you'll just let them." Seeing the puzzlement on my face, he explained. "I'll bet you that every girl at that goddam high school is dying to get into your pants, and from what I can tell," as he glanced at my crotch, "they'll be damn thrilled when they do."
Once he broke his grip, he said, "I'm gonna take a shower now, and while I'm doing that, you're gonna stand right here and stare into that mirror until you see what I see. You're going to stare at it until you see Patrick Captain Fuckin' America Murphy." And with that, he dropped his sexy red briefs and headed for the bathroom.
Trying to overlook my beet-red face, I surveyed my body in the mirror from head to toe and took stock of what I saw. Mike was right. I had been too hard on myself. I was really starting to come into my own.
Having caught a glimpse of Mike's dick when he pulled off his briefs, I pulled down my sweats and compared mine to my recollection of his, and I'll be damned if I wasn't convinced that mine was bigger.
I reached down and picked up the red briefs he had left on the floor and sniffed them. As I had done with Johnny's jock strap. Mike's underwear had a much stronger musky aroma than the jock strap, but, then again, the jock strap had been fresh. [Should I or shouldn't I? Oh, what the hell!] As I began to put them on, I discovered the built-in cock ring. So that's why Mike's junk had stuck out so much. Marveling at the way they looked on me, I modelled them in the mirror and strutted around the room, occasionally fluffing my package. I flexed my muscles and boldly announced, "Patrick Captain Fuckin' America Murphy to the rescue!"
That night, I jacked off in front of the mirror, visualizing myself in those red briefs and imagining girls swooning all over me. When I came, I made quite a mess on the mirror, but if I do say so myself, it was a sight to behold.
After my morning masturbation routine, I ran downstairs for breakfast and was delighted to find that Mike had not left yet. He stayed for dinner, and between doing my chores and watching more football on TV, we tossed the ball around some more, and even though I knew he would beat me, I played with a confidence that I had never felt before.
When I went to my room to go to bed that night, I discovered something on my floor: Mike's sexy red briefs. Had he simply forgotten them, or had he intentionally left them for me? I couldn't decide whether to wash them or keep the manly, musky smell. I eventually decided to wash them but not before a week's worth of jacking off with them. To this day, that red brief has an honored place alongside Mike's note about the "old oak tree" and, of course, that legendary bandana.