Warning: the following story contains graphic descriptions of sex between consenting adult males. If you are underage or do not wish to read such materials, or if reading this sort of material is illegal in your jurisdiction, then read no further. If you have any feedback or encouragement, feel free to drop me a line at niftystoryteller@yahoo.com.
Lying in bed that first night, my being inextricably intertwined with my once-again-young-and-alive uncle's, lying next to the rhythmically breathing form of my second cousin, cozy under the ancient quilt, knowing that my grandmother was asleep down the hall, that my newly-married future mother would soon celebrate her first Christmas up North with the man who would one day be my dad, I was afraid. Afraid that I would never again inhabit my own body. Afraid that I would never again laugh with my good friends. Afraid that my unfinished book would never find its way to its final page. Afraid that I would not fall asleep that night.
It was, after all, my first night in a very peculiar state. I had no idea what the rules were. So many questions, so few answers. How could I know whether I would be able to sleep in a body that wasn't even mine? I could sense that this young, strong body was tired from what had been a very eventful day, but I did not know what that would mean for me, for my spirit. As soon as we burrowed into the bed covers, Russell and my uncle quickly gave in to the calm and slipped into a deep sleep without even so much as a backward glance. I was not confident that I would, or could, immediately follow.
Listening to the even breathing that filled the room, my thoughts drifted back over the evening. In my mind's eye, I could see the four figures seated at the heavy mahogany dining table, passing steaming bowls and platters of good food back and forth. My widowed grandmother and her cousin Loretta sat at opposite ends of the table, while my uncle and Loretta's son Russell were both stationed to Grandma's right. That was always her rule: boys on her right, girls on her left. She was adamant that her right eye was better than her left, and she wanted to keep it on the boys, whom she just didn't trust.
A secret witness to the dinner, I once again heard talk of living, breathing relatives whose names I hadn't heard spoken for decades. I once again tasted the pickled vegetables and buttery biscuits of my boyhood visits to Grandma's house. I once again heard the chime of the old clock in the hall. Did it continue to report the hour, fifty years in the future, where I had left it? I wasn't sure I would ever know.
Russell spent most of the dinner charming my grandmother, keeping her in stitches with jokes that were just barely inside the limits of her high-collared decorum. He was maybe a year or two older than my uncle, with a nice, easy smile that sparkled along with his bright blue eyes. As the conversation got more animated, his cheeks flushed crimson. Through my uncle's eyes, I saw the dense, golden-blond hair that covered his wiry forearms, which were still shadowed by the remnants of his summer tan. I wished that I could reach out and touch him, run my fingers through his fur. My uncle's feelings and desires were no different than mine, and I could sense his excitement every time Russell turned and winked at him.
It was strange, to experience the feelings of another. Even if we had both tried, I don't think that we could have hidden our confusion, our excitement, our fear, our hunger from each other. I wonder if that is what it is like for twins, as they float in their mother's womb, entwined together and sharing a warm sea of life, currents of thought and feeling flowing between them. Neither my uncle nor I could quite read the other's mind, but we could both feel the emotions that bled across the indistinct boundary that separated us.
That is how I knew that his nervousness was vibrating at a steadily increasing frequency as the evening wore on. Dessert came and went, cards were dealt and played, stories were told and compared. All through it, my young Uncle Ed became increasingly agitated, even if under his outwardly calm demeanor. I could feel him shiver every time Russell's knee touched his, every time a hand brushed against someone's pant leg, every time he allowed his eyes to linger. I could also feel the unmistakable message of a spontaneous erection, that beautifully simple male response to nothing more than hope and desire. It had been a while for me, but my bizarre union with my uncle was enabling me once again to experience what it was like to be a young man, recently released from adolescence and at his sexual peak.
As soon as the clock chimed half past nine, my grandmother announced that it was time for her to retire. "You boys will probably be awake half the night talking about girls and sports and I don't know what else," she said, arching one eyebrow, "but I'd better not hear any of your carrying on."
With that admonition, all four of us climbed the stairs to our respective rooms, the men in the front of the house and the ladies in the rear. I could sense my uncle's uncertainty about what to say or do once he was alone with Russell; he resolved it by opting to go immediately to the bathroom to brush his teeth and wash his face. Seeing his face in the mirror, through his eyes, I knew that what he wanted was to feel the sensation of another man's body against his own. I wanted to feel the same thing, and I wordlessly communicated that desire to him. We were kindred spirits.
Face washed and teeth brushed, we returned to my uncle's familiar bedroom. By that time Russell had shed his jeans and flannel shirt, and he was sprawled on the bed, wearing flannel boxer shorts and a waffled, long-sleeved undershirt. A hip flask had materialized from somewhere, and Russell took a swig as my uncle began to get undressed.
"You want some of this?" he asked, rubbing his left heel over some real or imagined itch on his right calf.
My uncle reached out to take the offered flask. The harsh whiskey mixed strangely with the minty taste of toothpaste, but it also produced a pleasant warming sensation that traveled down our throat and emanated outward from our stomach. He tilted back for a second drink before handing it back. Russell took another drink before putting the flask on the night table. Leaning back with his fingers laced behind his head, he watched as my uncle folded his trousers and hung his shirt over the back of the desk chair.
"So, Eddie boy, you likin' being away at college?" he asked.
I could feel my uncle smile. "Sure as hell beats stayin' here. No way I'd ever trade Durham for Dumont."
Russell grinned. "No argument here. I couldn't wait to get out of Aidell. And no way I'm going back when I'm done at Tech. You couldn't get me out of Atlanta for nothin'." He reached down and scratched his crotch. "So, you made a bunch of new friends?"
I could feel my uncle's guard go up ever so slightly. "Yeah, I suppose a couple."
Russell lightly brushed his hand across his crotch. "Anybody who lets you do what you like to do to me?"
I could feel my uncle's face turn red. I could feel my uncle's excitement growing. And I could feel my uncle's twinge of guilt, or maybe more accurately his twinge of regret at the betrayal he knew he was committing.
By this time Russell had pulled his cock through the fly of his boxers, and he was slowly stroking it to full erection. I could feel the bottom fall out of my uncle's stomach as he watched the blunt, fat organ harden. I could feel his breath quicken. I could feel his longing for the taste, for the touch, for the smell of the totem of pure animal lust that was there for him to capture. My own desire mixed with his and goaded him on, persuading him to bend down, to take Russell's glans between dry, chapped lips, to flick a rasping tongue left and right, to breathe deeply as he took every bit of flesh that his distant cousin had to offer.
Despite my distinctly incorporeal state, existing in a borrowed self, my enthusiasm encouraged my Uncle Ed, convinced him to push beyond, past the boundaries he had previously known or assumed, to slide his hands up Russell's strong legs, to push the confining boxer shorts down, to luxuriate in the golden blond fur, to pull on the heavy ballsac, to grip Russell's prick tightly in the vee of his scissoring fingers, to suck with greater abandon than he had ever dared before, to nip at every patch of exposed flesh. For maybe the first time, he completely gave in to his passion, he indulged his innermost feelings, he allowed his hands to roam farther and wider than had ever been the case. Following my example, he experienced his lust and pleasure and desire as an unalloyed good. Following my example, he experienced the thrill of discovery. Following my example, he experienced joy.
Before too much time passed, breath was coming fast and ragged, and the pressure on my uncle's confined dick was extreme. He craved, I craved, we both craved the feeling of contact between our flesh and Russell's, and I visualized what that contact would mean, how it would look, and my uncle understood, and he pulled down his neat, white briefs, and he gripped his thick, curved penis, and he pressed it up against Russell's shorter, blunter, fatter organ. Our cousin shuddered at the feeling of flesh on flesh, cock on cock, and his hips spasmed a little as he tried to add to the friction with his own movement. My uncle squeezed the two shafts together, and everyone involved whimpered at first, and then just groaned, as the two cockheads rubbed against each other.
"Oh fuck," Russell whispered. "I'm fucking gonna cum."
My uncle didn't answer with words so much as stifled, indistinct sounds, as he joined his cousin in an intense, toe-curling orgasm. Through the same eyes, we watched my uncle and his cousin's cocks squirt jet after ropy jet of milky, musky semen over Russell's rough undershirt. Through the same lips, we tasted the sticky juices that coated our fingers. Through the same ears, we listened to our breathing slowly return to normal. Through the same skin, we felt the sweaty warmth of our cousin's body against ours. Those feelings, and that experience, and that body, were what we shared.
And yet we remained our own selves.