Sophomore Year 2
This is the second of a multipart story about my year boarding with a single dad and his two sons. It was a time of highly charged eroticism more than explicit sex, and led me to discover a lot about myself. This is my first submission to Nifty. Send your thoughts and reactions in an email, I attempt to respond to all.
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I was so nervous that I was shaking as I followed Buck through a screen door to the kitchen. He walked to the sink and started washing his hands with mechanics' soap. Looking out the window, he asked, "That your Plymouth out there, Sailor?"
"Yes, sir." I answered. I stood to the side as he lathered up, my attention caught by the thick fur that seemed to cover the man everywhere and the flexing muscles in his arms and his chest under the wife beater.
"Looks like somebody keeps it in pretty decent shape."
"I do my best, sir." I especially noticed the protruding girth of his nipples through the threadbare fabric, like pencil erasers poking through the forest of chest hair. My own chest wasn't that big, but the areolas, the dark circle around the nipple itself, always looked a little swollen. I had never thought much about it until in high school, a couple guys on the swim team started teasing me, calling me "Puffnips." When coach wasn't nearby, they'd stare at my nipples and make slurping noises and really lewd comments. Even when coach was talking to us, they'd look at them and lick their lips behind his back. I became so self-conscious that ever since I always wore thick baggy shirts to hide them. I marveled how Buck's were so much more prominent than mine, yet he didn't seem to mind how visible they were in his flimsy shirt.
Then he abruptly shut the faucet and barked, "No dirty dishes in the sink. Ever. You use em, you wash em, and leave `em in the rack. Got it?"
I resented his tone and started to doubt again whether this would be a good situation for me. "I know how to wash dishes and mop floors and clean up." I snapped. "That's what I do for work. Kitchen duty is one of my specialties." I immediately regretted repeating the silly expression.
"That right?" he chuckled, "Another specialty, huh? Well, you may be a first around here. Damned if I can ever get my boys to mop up worth a shit. We could use a fellah like that around here."
Drying his hands, he opened the refrigerator and started rummaging inside. "We can clear one of these shelves for your stuff if you want." I only half listened, transfixed as he bent lower and lower by the sight of the straps of his jock as more and more of them peeked out below the hem of his shorts.
"Bottom drawer here is where I keep my beer and you do not want me catching you stealing any. I will seriously whip that Boy Scout ass of yours until it glows like a Christmas tree, understand?"
I was speechless. Even though his words burned in my ears, I still couldn't take my eyes off the exposed straps of his jock. He suddenly turned, waiting for my response. Startled, I blurted "Yessir! No stealing! I don't drink!"
"Don't drink, huh?" He chuckled as he closed the fridge, a bottle of beer in hand. "Well, we'll see how long that lasts! By the way, Sailor, you got a name?"
"'Hank,' sir," I said, then added, "Well, it's really Enrique.' That's Henry' in Spanish. My mom's Mexican. She calls me Quique' but everyone else calls me Hank.'"
"'Key-kay,' huh?" He echoed bringing the beer to his lips and taking a pull. "Nice. I got all kinda nicknames for my boys, too. Funny how when you really care about somebody, the regular name's just not enough. But `Hank's a real good name. Suits you. Matter of fact..." he said, reaching to open a cupboard above my head, bringing his armpit within inches of my face and releasing a cloud of musk that dizzied me, "I think...hmpf...we might have...ugh" in between grunts he hunted for something amid the cupboard's contents while I gazed hypnotized at the forest of armpit hair almost close enough to tickle my nose, "...a little something...ungh...with your name. Here we go!" and he held up a green coffee mug with the words "Hank's Tanks" and an image of two tanks side by side. "Knew we'd find who that was for one day!" he crowed in satisfaction. "Stick around and that's yours, Sailor!"
"Uh, thanks, sir." I held the mug certain that whatever I drank out of it, it would bring back that technicolor close up of Buck's steamy armpit. I'd always thought the smell of sweat was kind of gross, but this seemed...different. I wasn't sure how. The sudden close contact with Buck was dazzling my senses in ways I couldn't yet understand or analyze.
"So, you speak any Spanish, Sailor Hank?"
"My Mexican cousins don't seem to think so," I laughed, "or the Mexicans at work, but I get by OK. Just don't ask me to write it or say anything too complicated."
"Well, that could come in handy around here," he said. "I'll explain when we get downstairs, if you're interested."
"Sure," I nodded. Next to the fridge I noticed a canvas bag hanging from a peg on the wall. Reading aloud from the small sign above it, I half whispered "Mr. B."
"That's our next-door neighbor, Bill Shea" he said, pointing out the window with his beer. "Everybody calls him Billy' and my boys been callin' him Mr. Billy' since they were kids, out of respect. Now's it just `Mr. B.' We get his mail and packages here."
He continued "He's a funny old guy, never married, no kids, and loves coming over here. Pretty much family now. Helping Mr. Billy comes with the room. Just like my boys do when they're here, you'd mow his yard, clean the pool and other chores. And you'd do it when you're told, not just when you feel like it, understand?"
"I wouldn't mind. I like helping other people!" Buck's scolding tone had made me nervous again and my voice really cracked, producing a big smile across his face. He reached out with his free hand, now freshly washed, and affectionately tussled my hair. I felt warm in my chest and noticed how his frequent bursts of stern threats quickly melted into a smile or laugh.
"Well, you help him, he will help you. A lot. He can be very generous. Just ask my boys." He turned to the refrigerator door and straightened a photo held there with small magnets. It showed two smiling boys in matching wrestling singlets, one a foot taller than the other, standing with their arms around each other.
"Is that them?" I asked.
"Yeah, my two little shits, Jack n' Zack" he chuckled. "Older one's name is John, but we call him Jack, or Jacked or Jacker...and a lot of other things not near as pretty as Quique.' Never any peace when they're here but I sure do miss em when they're gone." He gazed fondly at the photo and sighed, "They're kind of my everything."
His tone brightened. "Hard to believe they were once bashful little kids. Then puberty hit. Now they love showing off to anyone who'll watch. I swear they're gonna get themselves in real trouble one of these days." He laughed, as though remembering episodes of mischief. I was touched by this unexpected display of tenderness and intrigued by the family dynamic.
He suddenly turned serious again, leaning close to look me in the eye. "Next rule: no girls, ever! Ya got that? Last thing I need is some girl getting knocked up on my property. Hell, that's how I ended up with son number two!"
"Yessir," I stammered, taken off guard. Truth is, I'd never had a girlfriend.
"Besides, I don't wanna have to worry about looking "decent" when I walk around my own house," he added, draining his beer, "makin' sure my panties are clean."
His turn of phrase caught me off guard and I looked at this face to make sure I'd heard correctly. We stared at each other intently for a few seconds before he burst out laughing, and I did the same. "I'll take that as another `Yessir!'" he said.
"Now, you can have your buddies over," he called over his shoulder as he led me into the living room. He paused at a sofa that faced away from us, toward sliding glass doors to a deck overlooking the back yard. "They wanna come watch a game or something," he gestured at the TV in the corner, "no problem." He pointed to large bookshelf on the side wall with carefully arrayed books and videotapes and on the bottom shelf, a large container marked "Bedding." "Your buddies stay too late, maybe drink too much, need to crash here, one can bunk with you, another takes the couch, another the recliner. Just toss the sheets in the laundry, ok?"
"Yessir" I said, trying to imagine having buddies to invite over for a game. I squinted to make out some of the video titles, skipping past the usual action movies and comedies to decipher the handwritten labels. Several that caught my attention had "Wrestling" or "Massage" or "Muscle" in the title.
I also noticed there were lots of magazines in tidy stacks on the shelf above the sheets, plus a few more sitting on the coffee table. I wasn't too surprised to see vintage cars on some covers, or even body builders on others, but I was a little shocked to see Playboy and Penthouse magazines so openly displayed in public. The only ones I had ever seen up to that point outside a dorm had been hidden under mattresses or discarded in vacant lots.
On the other side of the sofa sat a leather recliner with a side table. I suddenly did a double take. Right in the middle of the recliner sat a jockstrap. It looked out of place in the otherwise tidy room. I half expected Buck to grab it and tuck it away somewhere, but he didn't even seem to notice, rubbing instead at a small white patch on the seat of the sofa. Trying to appear nonchalant, I ran my fingers over the back of couch and said, "I'll bet this is really comfortable."
"I'll tell you one thing," he said, sounding angry again, "you gonna watch porn in here, put a goddam sheet on the couch! This is genuine leather and I'm tired of finding cum stains on it!"
My face blazed red at his words. I stammered, astonished at how openly he talked about something that had always been so private and, well, embarrassing for me. I quickly glanced back to the kitchen, calculating a possible escape.
"What?" he said, "Oh, you Boy Scouts don't jack off, is that it? Ha! I raised two boys in this house and was once a teenager myself. So don't try to tell me you never play with your dick! Listen, I have spent 9 months at sea on a ship with 300 other men. Guys in that situation get to be experts at strokin'. They turn masturbation into an art, into their specialty," he mockingly repeated the expression I'd used.
"I doubt you've done a single thing with that pecker of yours," and pointed directly at my crotch, further inflaming my shame, "that a billion guys before you haven't done. I just don't wanna find cum crust on the furniture, or slip any more on fresh spooge in the shower, got it?"
With that he turned and started towards a half flight of stairs at the other end of the room. "Speaking of which, up here'd be your bathroom."