Malcolm
Chapter 4
Philip, Spring 1950
by Michael Peterson
Be advised that in the following one will find graphic sexual depiction between minors and minors and adults. The story is fiction but based on real characters, events, places and situations. There is no relationship between the names used and that of any real person.
Saturday, I let mother take me to the YMCA even though there were still discolorations on my rear end. From the locker room to the pool, several kids noticed. The counselor heard one mention it in the walkway to the pool and said, 'Keep moving and mind your own business.'
Desperate for companionship and, to be honest, motivated by the possibility of a closer look at his great cock, I made another try for good-looking Philip there in the pool.
'Teach me to dive like you do,' I requested of him. He'd been diving off the side.
After looking me over with a curious smile, he replied, 'Sure kid. Watch.'
He took three steps back then ran and launched himself out into the water. I knew how to do it but tried to be as awkward as possible.
When I came up he squatted at the side, his large cock dangling delectably nearly to the floor tile. 'Not like that. Make your body straight. Come on up and I'll show you.' He took my hand, sending a warm feeling up my arm, and pulled me out of the water. He dove as before.
I did it better but held my head up which I knew would put my chest in first.
'That was better but you gotta keep your head down.' He helped me out again and watched my next dive, this one performed correctly, head down, body straight.
He squatted on the side again. I stared at his dong, trying not to be too obvious as I enjoyed its beauty. 'That was good. Let's do it together.'
We hit the water side by side and turned to grin at each other under water as we headed back to the top. His blonde hair floated about his head like yellow flowers in a changing breeze.
'Race!' I called out as we surfaced.
We both stretched out and pulled hard for the far side. Naturally, he beat me but not by so much that he had to wait. After all, we only swam a few yards.
Hanging on to the side, he asked soberly, 'What happened to your ass?'
'My father beat me, the son-of-a-bitch.' The 'son-of-a-bitch' just came out. It wasn't planned but I wasn't bothered that I'd said it. It was how I felt.
'What'd you do?'
How did this boy I knew nothing about feel about Negroes? I was about to find out. 'Cause my best friend is a Negro.'
Philip grimaced. 'You had to do something else too. What'd you two do?'
'Nothing, my father hates all Negroes and told me I couldn't play with him. It's the second time he beat me for Freddy.' I choked up a bit when I said his name. Philip seemed to notice.
'That's too bad.' He appeared sympathetic.
'Where do you live,' I asked.
He mentioned an area along the streetcar line that ended near my house.
'We live near where the twenty-five turns around.' I said with a smile.
He said the name of my area.
'Unh huh. You been there?'
'My aunt lives near the train station just up from the lumber yard.' Expectation rose in my chest.
'Where do you go to school?'
He mentioned a public school I'd never hear of. 'Where do you go?'
I told him. He seemed a bit deflated. I rushed to reanimate him.
'How do you go home from here?'
'Number ten trolley.'
'Wanna ride with us? We can take you right near your house.' I wasn't at all sure that was possible but, what the hey.
'Sure!'
We swam together. He introduced me to his friends who didn't seem to mind my presence. They were closer to my age than his. Philip had been coming to the Saturday YMCA program since he was seven and knew all the kids by name.
This time, in art, we both painted swimming pools with a bunch of diving boards, which our pool didn't have.
Mother was quite happy to take my white friend home. She inquired about his family. His father was a wallpaper hanger, his mother worked for the telephone company. He had two older sisters. I sensed mother's initial enthusiasm slip as the information came out. Nonetheless, I wanted him for a friend even if he wasn't rich.
'Can he come to the house for lunch?'
'Oh, I don't know, dear, his mother wouldn't know where he was.'
'I can call her, Mrs. Lloyd. She's at the phone company.'
I leaned over the seat and whispered in my mother's ear. 'He's white!'
Mother sighed and agreed.
At the house, Philip called his mother who was happy he'd be having a decent lunch. Mother spoke to her briefly and promised to give him money for the streetcar and have him home before dinner.
The maid prepared vegetable soup and bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwiches. He ate it all and asked me if he could have more. I told Janet to prepare him one. She frowned but complied.
He didn't let the cold keep him from enjoying the expanse of our back yard, repeatedly rolling with me down the steep hill behind the house. I showed him the basement I'd almost finished cleaning. He thought it would be neat for hide and seek.
My father came home at three after playing squash at a private club. He stood in the back door and looked at the two of us sitting in
front of the barn where we were talking about building a tree house in an oak tree out in the yard. Philip noticed him.
'That him?' he asked.
'Unh huh. That's the son-of-a-bitch.'
Philip looked for a moment longer then turned back to me. 'He does look mean. My father beat me a couple of times but never made me look like you.'
'I could hardly walk for a day. The first time was worse.' I told him how I'd fought him and bashed his ribs with the baseball bat.
'Neat, but my father would've killed me right there if I did that to him.'
'He almost killed me. I couldn't breathe.'
We finished up the afternoon playing with toy airplanes in my room. He told me he made model airplanes that he and some of his local friends flew in a nearby park.
He asked me about Freddy.
'He's been my best friend since I was six. We used to play together down at the stream in the woods everyday unless it rained real bad. His mother was our maid but when my father found out I played with Freddy, he fired her.' I told him the story of what led up to the beating, Martha's protecting me and threat to go to the police and how my father waited until there were no more marks on me before firing her.
'I think I'd run away. Don't you got relatives where you can go?'
I shook my head. I almost admitted to my thoughts of murder. Still, it felt good to be able to tell someone what had happened. Philip was a sympathetic listener.
In the back of my mind, seeds of a plan were forming, a plan using Philip to allow me to get to Freddy. He sounded like he might be willing to go along.
'What do you do on Sunday's?' I asked.
'Not much when it's cold like now. But when it gets warm, sometimes my father takes us out somewhere.'
'What're you going to do tomorrow?'
'I dunno. Maybe go to a movie. We got two theaters near us. Wanna go?' He agreed to come get me. I could get myself home.
I asked my mother. She spoke to my father then came back with a conditional reply. He had to know what theater I was going to and the start and ending times.
'But I'm gonna eat lunch at his house.'
Mother went back. 'You can leave after breakfast but you have to be back by three.'
I calculated the hours in my head. I'd be leaving at about ten thirty. That gave me four and a half hours. Plenty of time.
Philip bought into my plan immediately. I assumed one of my parents would watch to see if I got on the streetcar. We'd go to the theaters and choose the movie we could get the most information about without actually watching it. Then we'd come back and go up the stream through the woods to Freddy's house. Philip didn't seem to have any concerns about going to a Negro neighborhood. It probably helped that I had told him how great they were to me. And, he was curious, never having met a Negro before.
My father walked down the hill well behind us and watched as we boarded and left on the streetcar. Mother had given me forty cents to spend. The theater we chose cost ten cents to enter and showed three cartoons along with the Hopalong Cassidy film. Philip knew the usher and had him tell us all about the movie and which cartoons were showing.
Freddy didn't get home from church until one so had plenty of time before we had to leave. Philip took me to the brick row house he lived in. No one was home. Philip, like Stewart, had a key on a string around his neck. His bedroom was a third the size of mine but well stocked with model airplanes he had built with his friends. Two had small motors.
'I had another one but it crashed up in a tree. We never could get it down.'
'Does you father help you with all this?'
'Not much, but sometimes. He works a lot. He's workin' today.'
By one o'clock, we were approaching Freddy's settlement. I'd shown Philip where Freddy and I had played all those years. The duffle bag with the blankets and sleeping bag was in our tree house but I didn't mention that. At the settlement, the dogs knew me but not Philip. They barked loudly. One of the girls spotted us and called out, 'It's Maacum, Freddy!'
Freddy came charging around the corner of a house and jumped on me, taking us both into the dirt. I wrapped him in my arms, tears pouring off my face.
Freddy rolled on top of me and wiped his coat sleeve across my face. 'Shit, Maacum, don't let nobody see you doin' that.'
I sat up beside him, still hanging on, looking at his smiling face.
'Shit, Maacum, say somethin'.'
I couldn't so just hugged him again. The other kids patted me on my back.
Martha pushed through them. 'Come here, baby.' She pulled me up by one arm and hugged me harder than I'd hugged Freddy. 'You okay, sweety? Lemme see you.' She held me at arms length then hugged me again. 'He beat you again?'
Completely overwhelmed with emotion, I just nodded.
'Well, you jes come inta the house, and yo' friend too.'
Inside, finally able to speak, I introduced Philip and explained what he'd done to get me there. Half the community had crowded into the house. Everybody thanked Philip for his help.
Gradually, the crowd thinned leaving us with Freddy's family and Douglas. Martha fed us some of the chicken she'd prepared for midday meal. She had another job as a maid that was farther away but paid as well as my family had.
'I'm not allowed to leave the property except with permission. I get picked up everyday after school. They even got me in the stupid Cub Scouts Thursday nights. Saturdays I go to the YMCA downtown then I get picked up.'
'What about after school?' asked Freddy.
'I gotta stay in the house unless I'm working in the yard. When the grass starts growing, I gotta cut it all then rake it all up.'
I desperately wanted to be alone with Freddy but there were far too many people around the house. 'Let's go down the stream,' I suggested. Freddy knew what I wanted. He wanted the same. He whispered in my ear, 'The white boy know what we does?' I shook my head. He spoke quietly to Douglas who invited Philip to a marbles game. Philip smiled at me and followed Douglas outside.
It was near fifty degrees, cold but not terribly. Freddy and I ran down the path to our spot. He pulled himself up the side of the tree with the vine we'd suspended and tossed down the dufflebag. Within minutes we were inside struggling out of our pants.
'From the front,' I requested. I needed to hold my friend as much as possible.
I slid down inside the sleeping bag to wet Freddy's cock with my mouth. It felt so good against my tongue, I almost didn't let go. His entry was smooth and wonderful. Again, there were tears in my eyes as I held him tightly to me, kissing his cheek repeatedly. Freddy came quickly again.
'How come that white boy is helpin' you?' asked Freddy as he rested with his cock still stuffed inside me.
I knew what he was concerned about. 'I don't know but we ain't done no sex.' The vernacular was forced and couldn't be maintained. 'I think he's just a real nice kid. He saw the red on my ass at the YMCA pool and I told him what my father did. We swim naked there.'
'Naked? Nah, you lyin'. How come?'
'I don't know. That's just the way they do it. And there's men in there too with hair all over them.'
The second fuck was long and sweet. 'Cuz a you, Maacum, I might never wanna fuck no girls. Yo ass is so nice.' He giggled then said, 'an' I means that.'
I wasn't sure what he was telling me. Did he like boys as I did? He'd never wanted to do anything with anyone else. I hugged him and kissed him beside his mouth. He didn't kiss back. I didn't care. Happiness for me was having him in my arms, his cock up my ass pumping away, tickling my sweet spot. And it was so comfortable talking to him.
Freddy took hold of my stiff penis and worked it slowly. 'Go slow,' I pleaded.
We came almost together. I pulled him into me with my toes pressed against his buns.
As we dressed, Freddy asked, 'So when can we see each'n other?'
'Maybe just Sundays. I can leave a note for you behind the barn where we played.'
'When?'
'Check Wednesday. But the son-of-a-bitch has the maid watching me and my mother does too.'
Douglas was worried my father might be watching to see me get off the streetcar. He knew a way past the turnaround to the other side of the area where I could get on the streetcar and ride in like I was coming from his neighborhood. It took over half an hour through the woods, out the back behind the Catholic Church and a block away from Philip's aunt's house, across the train tracks and up to the main road. Douglas and Freddy left us a block before the train tracks because the people who lived in the houses ahead would beat them up if they saw them. The streetcar didn't come for nearly twenty minutes. I waited hidden in a gas station behind a car parked there. I thanked Philip again and again and gave him the rest of my money. We had each other's telephone numbers and planned to call the next evening.
Mother tried to hide behind the Episcopal Church on the hill but I had already seen her as the streetcar approached the turn around. After making sure she saw me get off, I took the back way home so I wouldn't run into her on the way.
When I reached my room, my father looked in and said, 'I need you to get a broom and trash can and clean up the sidewalk in front and get all the trash and leaves out of the hedge.'
I obeyed. There was no maid so mother had to make the dinner. It was hamburgers, carrot sticks and potato chips. I wanted to watch some television.
'One movie is enough for today. Do some homework,' ordered my father.
'I did it last night.'
'Then do some more.'
Fuming, I stomped up to my room and read another chapter of 'Call of the Wild'.
Philip called me Monday night. He said he could come out Wednesday
afternoon if I wanted. I asked mother who asked my father who told my mother to tell me no because I had work to do. Philip said he'd love to help. I went back to my mother and told her so she could tell my father who had her tell me it was my work, not Philip's. He could come Saturday after YMCA if all my chores were done.
'The son-of-a-bitch says not until Saturday.'
We talked for a while about the tree house we wanted to build in the oak tree. My mother brought me orders from my father to get off the telephone and do my homework. Philip said he would call Wednesday.
When he did, mother told him I'd speak to him Saturday.
Thursday, my father left a message with the maid that I was to clean out under the porch. Our main porch ran all the way down one side of the house and across most of the front. It hadn't been cleaned up in probably twenty or thirty years. There was garbage from two former owners. By dinner time, I'd hardly cleaned out under the front porch stairs. There were even the rusted remains of a tricycle buried in there.
'You can have it if you want,' my father told me when he saw it, laughing. When I didn't react, he shrugged his shoulders. 'Well, you've got your work cut out for you. Get back to it tomorrow.'
Cub Scouts was boring, as usual. One of the teen assistants tried to interest me in 'trail lore', as he called it. What he was talking about was tracking animals in the wild.
'I'm not allowed in the woods,' was my response to his entreaty before walking away to the basement bathroom. I went into a toilet stall, closed and latched the door. I didn't have to poop. I just wanted away from what I found completely uninteresting. Knots and mottoes did nothing for me.
I sat sideways across the toilet with feet up on the toilet paper roll and my head in my hands against the far wall. It wasn't particularly comfortable but was something I'd never tried.
Boys came and went, mostly peeing. One of the two who went into the stall next to mine farted and stunk the place up. I left after him to escape the smell. Everyone was assembled to learn a new song. I went back to the bathroom. The teen assistant followed me.
'What's wrong, Malcolm? Not feeling well?' He looked genuinely concerned.
The answer I wanted to give was, 'No, I just need to jerk off again,' but I lost the nerve and said, 'I got diarrhea.'
That removed him as a bother. Minutes after returning to my toilet stall refuge, the Den Mother took his place.
'Malcolm, dear?'
I shook my head. My mother always called me 'dear'. 'Yes?'
'Are you okay?'
'I got diarrhea.'
'Oh.' Silence, then, 'Do you need any help, dear?'
Half a dozen nasty answers flew through my mind. 'No, thank you.'
Again, silence. She didn't leave. 'I'm Okay.'
She left. It was wonderfully quiet. I wished I had a watch so I could time my return to the end of activities. Perhaps half an hour later, my mother let me know, 'Malcolm, it's time to go. Are you okay?'
I walked out and past her, up the stairs, through the meeting hall and out to the car. Two other boys who were going with us were seated in the back. One, a chunky ten year old with a crew cut leaned up to my seat and said with a grin, 'You were jerking off the whole time, weren't you?'
I laughed since that was what I'd wanted to tell the teenager.
The boy poked his buddy in the shoulder. 'Told you.'
Mother took them to their homes on the far side of the woods from our house.
Saturday, Philip grabbed my arm as we went upstairs to the gym. 'I called you Wednesday and your mother wouldn't let me talk to you. Were you punished again?'
'Nah, that's just the way they are. I hope you can come today. Mother said she's gonna ask my father and tell me when she comes to get me.'
Philip stuck mostly with me the entire morning. It made me feel pretty good that an eleven year old would so enjoy my company. It also made me wonder why classmates like Martin O'Malley and Tommy Atkins didn't. The only thing I came up with was the likelihood that sports weren't that important to Philip though he did like and was good at swimming.
Mother told me I had a choice. Philip could come then or I could go to a movie with him the next day. I had to get some more work done cleaning out under the porch.
'But I can help him and he'll get more done,' said Philip.
'I'm sorry, Philip. Malcolm's father knows you two together will play more than work. Make your choice, Malcolm.'
Through gritted teeth, I said, 'tomorrow with Philip.'
'Mrs. Lloyd. Please let me come to the house and talk to Malcolm's father. I'm a real good worker. You can ask my father. If he says no, I'll come home on the streetcar.'
'I know he's going to say no,' insisted my mother.
'C'mon, mother, let him ask.'
She agreed but Philip should ask on the porch, not inside.
It sounded suspiciously like they considered Philip Negro too.
Philip put his case to my father. 'Summer time I always work at the supermarket cleaning up in the back and carrying groceries. Maybe I can even teach him how to do it faster.'
I was surprised when my father said, 'Okay, but if I hear any fooling around, he goes home and you work tomorrow too. Got it?'
It suddenly occurred to me that we were going to get very dirty and he had no clean clothes to change into. I tried to think of something I had that would fit him. My Christmas sweater was all I could find. Janet fixed us meatloaf sandwiches and vegetable soup. Philip didn't ask for seconds. He wanted to prove himself to my father. I knew that would be a fruitless endeavor.
The far end under the porch was filled with old latticework and cut lumber that must have been for something though I had no idea what. We stacked it outside on the walk behind the house. Under that were old bottles of different colors and jars partially buried in the dirt along with pieces of rusted metal and a rat skeleton.
By five o'clock, the entire front side of the porch was cleared and raked. I called my father to check our work. He squatted for a while looking over our work, then walked out. 'Okay,' was all he said.
'Can we go take a bath?' I asked as he walked up the back porch stairs.
'I said okay. And don't make a mess.'
'Son-of-a-bitch,' I muttered.
We rushed upstairs to my room and stripped. I got an immediate hardon. It must have been where we were as opposed to the YMCA pool. He grinned.
In the tub, soaking in delightfully warm water, I asked, 'Do you jerk off in your bathtub?'
'Oh, no. I never do that.'
It was my turn to grin. 'Everybody jerks off.'
'Not me.'
'Why not?'
'It's a sin.'
I shook my head. 'You Catholic too?'
'Unh huh. And you're one too so you know.'
'Everybody in my class is Catholic and they all jerk off.'
'It's still a sin.'
My dick went soft. Dreams of his fat cock up my ass disappeared
like a train in the distance.
'I thought you went to a public school.'
'Yeh, but I'm a altar boy and serve mass at least four times a week, and go to confession Thursdays.'
'You never, ever jerked off?'
'Never, ever.'
I washed myself. He washed himself.
What, I wondered would he think if he knew what Freddy and I did in our sleeping bag?
I had considered being an altar boy a number of times. The swishing robes were neat. If Stewart and I had been permitted to continue playing together, I might have tried it. But, if I had, maybe I wouldn't be allowed to have sex either. Wasn't worth it.
Sunday, we followed the same routine as the previous week. Philip brought some of his own marbles along, and left with more than he carried in.
In our sleeping bag, I told Freddy about my conversation with Philip in the bathtub.
'He's lying like shit. Ain't no boy in the world who gots hands don't beat his meat. An', if he don't got no hands, he prolly do it with his feets.'
There were some differences between Negroes and whites that even a nine year old could pick up. White people, even kids, would beat around the bush trying to say something, partly to avoid offending, partly to protect themselves against backlash should what they said anger someone. Negroes just came out and stated things as they were. In the end, it seemed less offensive and caused less confusion in relationships. Freddy never lied to me or held back a personal observation about anything concerning us. Whenever I tried, I felt ridiculous doing so and almost always ended up telling the truth. I'm sure that has been a major reason we have stayed such close friends. One night in bed, I tried to remember if the two of us had ever been really angry at one or the other, and
couldn't. When a difference of opinion got heated, we'd just flip a coin and the loser had to shut up.
I laughed at Freddy's remark and wiggled my ass to remind him where his cock was. We both got off twice.
A couple of times over the next few weeks, I tried to goad Philip into jerking off with me, but he insisted he'd never do that. 'What if something happened to me before I got to confession. I'd go straight to hell and burn for eternity.'
I wasn't sure hell, or heaven or Jesus for that matter, even existed. Nobody could be that mean.
March fourteenth, Freddy turned ten years old. The following Sunday, we celebrated the event as the year before with a birthday party there in his house then some hot and heavy in the sleeping bag while Philip increased his marble collection.
Easter Week arrived. Public school kids only got off Thursday and Friday. We Catholics were free the entire week. I was packed off to my grandparents while my parents went to Europe.
Before I knew I wasn't going to be there, I invited Martin O'Malley to come to my house one day during the holidays but he said he already had plans. A similar attempt with Victor Cibelli failed as well though his reason sounded even more of a phony excuse.
'I'm not allowed to go off the estate,' he told me. There was no way there were two fathers like mine.
So why did Philip like me and most of the kids in my class didn't?
The holiday week did, however, work out quite well. My grandparents
allowed me go to Freddy's every day and spend the night twice. Aunt Martha had to take his little sisters into her bed to make space for me in Freddy's. We fucked quietly off and on all night. By the end of the week, I yearned for a way in which I could live with Freddy. The physical deprivations of poverty were nothing compared to the richness of the emotional comfort, the love I felt in that humble little home.
The return of my parents was like being snatched from a warm bathtub and dunked in a barrel of ice water. The crap started immediately. The lawn needed mowing. My father bought a power mower in deference to my nine years, or so he said. Easter Monday afternoon, I started on the area in front of the house, which featured parallel short steep hills gradually diminishing out to the driveway entrance. I tried pushing it along horizontally but the heavy mower always slid to the bottom. Efforts to push it up and down from the bottom never made it to the top. Prickly sticker bushes prevented me from running it down from above.
'I can't do the tops,' I declared that evening before dinner as my father was reading the evening newspaper in the living room. 'It's too heavy.'
'Well, it's your job so you better find a way.'
'I tried everything. I can't.'
He ignored me.
'Can Philip come over tomorrow and help me?'
'I don't care how you do it. Just get it done.'
I ran upstairs and found his telephone number. We hadn't seen each other since the YMCA the week before Easter. He sounded happy to hear from me.
'Wanna come over here tomorrow? I gotta mow the lawn and I can't push the mower up to the top of the hill. And it's worse in back.'
'Sure. I'll come straight from school.'
Even though it was a bit cool Tuesday afternoon, he took off his shirt to push the mower up then let it drift back. I really enjoyed watching his arm, shoulder and chest muscles flex. He did the lower hill that abutted the driveway then went around back.
That turned into fun. It was the same hill we'd rolled down during the winter. We pushed the mower around to the top and chased it down, laughing as we fell and rolled. Once, the mower crashed into a tree and shut off. We were worried it had been damaged and we were in big trouble, but, it cranked back up and off we went. At five fifteen, the hills were done. I put the mower in front of the barn for my father to put away and headed for a hot bath.
'I'll bet Jesus jerked off when he was a kid,' I said lying at the opposite end of the tub from Philip.
'Don't say things like that, Malcolm. It's blasphemous.'
'I still bet he did. Every kid in the world who has hands jerks off. And Jesus did too. But he didn't have a bathtub.' I laughed. Philip smiled. 'What do you think he washed in back then,' I asked.
'I don't know. I suppose they had something, maybe like a big old wash tub like you see in the movies.'
'Bet he'd have a hard time jerking off in one of those.' I crunched up my knees and ran my hand between them and acted like I was trying to jerk off but couldn't.
Philip laughed.
'I got an idea. I'll do it for you. You can't touch yourself so I'll do it and you won't be committing a sin.'
'That's stupid, Malcolm. Then you'll be committing a sin.'
'But I do it all the time and I don't think it's a sin. Let me try it and you'll see how great it is.' I was moving toward him as I spoke. He made a weak attempt to push away my hand but then rested his arms on the edge of the tub and watched me.
His cock was hard almost immediately. I sat on my knees, straddling his left leg and masturbated him from the side with my thumb on the underside of his peter and fingers on the other. It was well over three inches long, easily the size of Mark's from camp whose balls were growing. Philip's were like peas tightly held in their sack against his perineum. After a few moments, his eyes left my hand and looked straight ahead. I felt his leg tense under me and saw his stomach muscles flex. The only sound in the room was the soft splashes each time my hand went down to his barely submerged pelvis. His lips pressed together. His cock stiffened. His mouth popped open. I felt the pulsing and wrapped my fingers around.
'Neat, huh?'
Philip was breathing like he'd just mowed the front hills again.
'You never did that before?' I asked.
He shook his head. 'We better wash,' was all he said.
Philip came to the house Wednesday and Friday to help me with the lawn. He was gone before my father arrived. I didn't mention his presence or help, or anything for that matter. There was still plenty to do on Saturday.
Philip didn't let me jerk him off any more that week. Friday, in the tub, I asked him if he confessed what we did Tuesday.
'Why, I didn't do anything. You're the one who needs to go to
confession.'
'I do once a month. The nuns make us. I just tell him I hate my mother and father 'cause Sister says that's against a commandment.'
'What's the priest say?'
'Three Hail Mary's and an Act of Contrition.'
'Do you do them?'
'I gotta do the Act of Contrition 'cause you do it right there but that's all. I don't believe in that crap.'
'You better watch out. Anything happens and you die, you'll go straight to hell.'
I grinned. 'I already live there.'
I wanted to arrange for Philip to spend the night with me Saturday but he had to serve Mass Sunday morning. I got to the theater at ten forty. The movie had just begun so we went in and saw The Wizard of Oz. Philip had seen it before but was willing to see it again.
We didn't get to Freddy's until a quarter to two.
Philip went to play marbles with another eleven year old named Struzzi for some strange reason I never understood. It had something to do with German food. Freddy and I took off leaving Philip with Struzzi, Douglas and a couple of other teens. It was mid April, not yet warm enough to have naked sex there by the stream. We did strip in the open then climbed inside the grungy sleeping bag. It stunk worse than the stream but the sense of feel quickly took precedence for both of us.
After getting off, we got out and sat still nude on the rocks back from the stream, the sleeping bag around us. I told Freddy about jerking off Philip in the tub and his not confessing it.
'Maybe he's telling the truth and he never did it before.'
'If'n he is, he's the onliest one. You tryin' ta git him to fuck you, Maacum?'
'Nah, well, I don't know. You're not gonna be mad, are you?'
'I ain't gonna be mad about you an' no white boy. You know I'm always gonna be better'n any a them.' He grabbed his cock and grinned. 'Want some mo'?'
I looked up and down the stream. 'Let's do it on the other side under the tree. We can use the blankets. They don't stink.' There was also more cover from bushes and small trees.
We grabbed the sleeping bag between us. Freddy went out onto our rock bridge first, skipping from rock to rock. We held the sleeping bag up in the air. As Freddy reached the other side, I slipped and fell into the icy water, dragging the sleeping bag in with me. Freddy roared with laughter and let the sleeping bag go. It floated with the current gaining weight rapidly as it soaked in the water. I had to struggle hard to get it to the side. Freddy grabbed hold and helped get us both out.
'Now we do gotta wash it,' he commented with a grin.
Freddy climbed the vine and tossed down the duffle bag with the blankets. We spread them on the side of the hill behind the tree house tree and lay between them, beside each other.
'Hold me tight, Freddy, I'm freezing.'
He squeezed me to him. It always felt so good to feel his bare flesh against mine. He pulled the top blanket more snugly around us. When he fucked me, it was from behind to maintain maximum body contact. Freddy masturbated me when he was close to orgasm. It felt so warm in there with him, like when we slept together in his house during Easter Week. I didn't want to leave him. I turned over to hold him face to face and embraced him. 'I love you, Freddy.' I'd never said that before.
'I love you too, Maacum.'
I pushed my upper leg between his and pulled us even tighter
together.
A boy's voice called my name.
'Shit!' I grumbled. Our clothes were on the other side of the stream.
Freddy understood. 'You wait heah. I'll git the clothes.'
Philip called out again. He was close but I still couldn't see him.
Freddy jumped up and stepped agilely and rapidly rock to rock, snatched up our clothes and shoes and was back as fast as he went. I already had the blankets behind the tree. We dressed.
Philip, Scruzzi and Douglas appeared on the path nearly across from us. Douglas tried to block Scruzzi's view until he saw we were clothed. I wondered if Philip had seen Freddy crossing the stream.
Philip called out, 'It's after two thirty. You gotta get home.'
I told him I'd meet him at the bridge a couple hundred yards down the stream. I no longer expected my parents to be watching the streetcar turn around but was still being cautious. Philip, Douglas and Scruzzi ran across the bridge and joined us in the walk back to the train station. From there I could walk up another street, coming up behind the streetcar turnaround.
As we walked, Douglas whispered in Freddy's ear. Freddy pointed to his eye then at Philip. Douglas thought Philip had seen Freddy naked. I started working up an excuse using the stream.
Freddy, Douglas and Scruzzi left us at the train station since the rest of the walk was through a white area. Philip and I sat on the steps of a closed barbershop waiting for the streetcar.
'What were you two doing back there?'
'Fixing our bridge across the stream.'
Philip was silent then told me about winning most of Scruzzi's marbles then giving them back. 'He's a neat kid. I like him.'
Philip was the only white boy I knew who didn't hate Negroes. He was also the only white boy I knew who knew any Negroes. 'How come you don't hate Negroes like everybody else?'
He shrugged. 'I don't know. Why don't you?'
'I've known Freddy since I was six, almost three years.'
'I was kind of afraid of them before you told me about Aunt Martha and Freddy. I was scared that first time we went there. But now I know they're just like us, except I'm better at marbles.' He volunteered to come over the next day to help again with the grass and cleanup.
The streetcar came. I ran up and around it like I'd just gotten off. As usual, there was no one watching. Still, another beating like the last just wasn't worth the risk.
Neither of my parents was home. The house was locked so there was no way to get inside. I'd eaten at Freddy's so I wasn't hungry. I walked around the back of the house. There was the lawn mower with a can of gas. The message was clear. Get back to the lawn until my parents came home.
I thought about just sitting on the front steps and saying I hadn't
seen the mower but it was getting cool and work would keep me warm. So I
cut grass.
Monday afternoon. Philip was at the house before me, cutting grass near the bottom of our property. He'd had no school that day. I raked and hauled cut grass for a while then we switched places. We were finished by five fifteen and headed for the warm tub. I sat staring at the smooth lines of his neck and shoulders. I imagined what it would be like to lick the soft flesh under his chin.
Philip broke into my reverie. 'What were you and Freddy really doing down there yesterday?'
'I told you, fixing the bridge.'
'Naked?'
'Yeh, in case we fell in like I did.'
'Then why did you have that big blanket?' The question was asked shyly.
I decided that some of the truth wouldn't hurt, might even help. I slid my left leg over his right and played with his hardening cock with my toes. 'Why do you think?'
'You had to get naked to jerk off?'
I was stiff as a rake handle. 'We did other stuff too.'
'Like what?'
'You better not tell anybody.'
'I'm not gonna tell anybody. Who'm I gonna tell?'
'Okay. You're sure?' I was being coy like a cat, playing with his obvious curiosity.
'C'mon, Malcolm.'
'If I tell, we gotta do it to.'
'No, we don't. Just tell me.'
'You gotta promise to try it.'
'Why, that's stupid. Just tell me.'
'It's neat. Promise.'
'Okay, I promise to try it.' He was grinning. 'Now tell me.'
'He put his thing,' I ran my toes over his cock, 'up inside my behind.'
'You're crazy. He didn't do that.'
'Yes he did and now you gotta try it.'
'Not me. That's gotta be a sin.'
'Who says? Anyhow, you promised.' His cock was hard as mine. I knew he wanted to try it.
I rolled over and got up on my hands and knees and pointed at my ass. 'In there. It really feels neat. C'mon, you promised.' I tugged at his leg.
'It's dirty in there.'
'Not it isn't. C'mon. A promise is a promise.'
He sat on his knees, his hand around his stiff penis, his eyes on my ass hole. I held my hand behind me and waved him forward. He raised up. I moved back until I felt his cock touch my buns. I was a bit concerned just being wet wouldn't be enough lubrication for him to get inside. I dripped saliva into my hand and wiped it on his cock.
'What are you doing?'
'Making it go in better. C'mon. Put it in me.'
Philip arched his hips forward, hands on the sides of the tub. The tip of his cock entered my crack. I was getting impatient. 'Fuck me, Philip! You promised!'
I grabbed his dick and put the head against my hole. 'Go in!'
He pushed. His cock went right to my prostate. I grabbed his ass and pulled forward. I wobbled my ass side to side. His cock went from side to side inside me. It was incredibly good.
'Now go in and out.'
His hands still gripping the sides of the tub, he pulled back half
his cock length and pushed back in, then did it again, and again. He was
fucking. I continued to move slightly side to side. His cock was all over
inside me, rubbing across my sweet spot from every direction.
He let go of the tub and took hold of me. He was now thrusting, going for maximum depth, each thrust a little harder than the last. I was going to cum without touching my dick. Just a few more times. He rammed in hard. I felt his thighs tremble, his cock pulse. I reached for my cock. Two quick pulls and I throbbed with him.
He held my buns tight against him, then fell back, his cock pulling out as suddenly as it went in. I turned and looked at him. He smiled back.
'Neat, huh?'
'You and Freddy did that?'
'We do it all the time.'
'Since you were six?'
I nodded with a smile.
We washed each other's backs. I washed his cock, carefully. It was very sensitive at the tip.
'Yours is going to be really big when you get big.'
'You think so?'
My father drove in the driveway as Philip was leaving. He made no acknowledgement he'd seen him. I went up to my room. I heard my father go out the back door onto the porch. There was a huge pile of cut grass in the middle of the gravel drive down to the barn. The mower was parked by the back porch. I heard the door close and my father come back inside.
At the dinner table he said, 'Good evening, son' and later, 'Eat your asparagus'. I didn't like asparagus.
He didn't mention the cut and raked two and a half acres of lawn so I said, 'Lawn's done.'
'Good.'
Philip arrived Tuesday, minutes after I was dropped off. No work had been assigned so we could do whatever we liked as long as it was on the property. Philip suggested we play in my bedroom. It quickly became obvious what kind of play he had in mind.
He sat beside me on the bed where I was changing from my school uniform. 'Does you maid ever come up here?'
'Not while I'm here, why?' I hoped I already knew the answer. I pushed off my school pants and waited in my underwear.
He seemed to be debating with himself about what to say next.
I couldn't wait for him. 'You wanna do something like we did yesterday?' I put my hand on his fly and felt the hard on underneath.
He said nothing. I massaged him through his pants. He slid against me, putting one arm behind me. He whispered, 'Let's get naked.'
I was nearly there. He hurriedly untied his shoelaces then, as he pushed off his shoes one with the other, he began unbuttoning his shirt. I undid his belt and opened the button of his pants. He stood to let me take them off while he removed his shirt, then his undershirt. I pulled his pants and underpants down together and held them to the floor while he stepped out, turning his pants inside out in the process. The moment I stood back up, he embraced me and flung us both onto the bed. We landed side by side.
He began kissing me repeatedly on the both cheeks, gradually rolling on top of me. I was anxious to go along with anything he wanted. I hugged him back and made my mouth available. He kissed it briefly then looked into my eyes.
'I love you, Malcolm' He opened his mouth on mine and moved his lips over mine then sucked in my lower lip. I pulled him tighter to me and sucked on whatever was available. Frantic and erratic are the only words that can describe our kissing. Neither of us had done it before and were just allowing our bodies to seek what our minds craved.
Our tongues became involved with each other's lips then each other. Our mouths opened wider. Faces were pressed harder together. Tongues crossed the divide, intertwining, reaching. My head was spinning. I struggled to breathe through my nose. Finally, I had to pull away for a second to catch my breath. After filling my lungs, I pulled his head to mine and continued. He loved me.
I felt Philip's hand slip between us and take hold of my stiff penis. He ran his fingers up and down it, then over my balls and between my legs and back, again and again.
He lifted his face off mine, stared into my eyes again, kissed me twice and turned himself again so his head was in my crotch. He looked at my cock for a second or two then put his mouth full over it, right down to my balls. I gasped as a completely new feeling shot clear through me, one that caused every muscle in my body to flex.
Without moving his head, Philip sucked and twirled my cock around with his tongue. I filled my mouth with his thick penis. It went clear to the back. I cupped my hands around his ass cheeks and squeezed. They felt like water balloons filled with Jello. His cock thickened, hardened. I pumped into his mouth but too late. His entire body jumped when he came. He stopped sucking as he throbbed inside my mouth. I continued to pump. His mouth relaxed then opened.
'Philip, don't stop, I'm almost there.' I pushed his head toward my cock.
He closed his mouth. With rapid pumping, I reached my orgasm.
Philip sat up and said, 'Let's go outside and, uh, look at where we're gonna build our treehouse.'
I was ready for another go. Freddy always did it twice. 'Let's do it again.'
'Nah, I'm tired. Let's go outside.' He was already reaching for his underpants.
We finished up the afternoon calculating the lumber we'd need for the steps up the tree and the platform and roof. Philip figured the wood we found under the front of the porch, now stacked up in the rear near the stairs, would be about enough.
He wasn't sure if he'd be able to make it the next day.
Wednesday, though, my mother stopped to pick him up near the bottom of the hill as we returned from leaving off her car pool charges.
As I was changing clothes, he asked, 'Does your mother come up here in the afternoon?'
'Nah, just at night to see if I'm doing my homework.'
'Let's get naked!'
We were slightly more effective kissers. I wanted to be sure of getting off, and I wanted his big dick up my ass, so I was very gentle with his cock when it was in my mouth. He was better with mine, sucking hard, his entire mouth seeming to wrap tightly around my little shaft and circumcised glans.
'Fuck me, Philip.'
I rolled over and poked my rear up at him. He straddled me on his hands and knees. I guided his dripping wet cockhead to my pucker. 'Now,' I said. He pushed in. I wiggled back to get more of him in me. I moved my ass around to feel his cock rub everywhere inside.
'Go in and out.'
He pushed up on his arms, pulled out to the tip and pushed back
inside, right up to and over my prostate, sending a tingling sensation up
into my gut.
'All the way in, hard,' I ordered.
He complied. I had to put my hands against the headboard to keep from being pushed forward with each thrust. He dropped his face to mine and kissed my temple. I turned to him and opened my mouth. It didn't work. We couldn't hold our kisses due to the force of his thrusts. We just slobbered over each other. I didn't care. I felt my passion rising. I dropped my head to the bedspread and I came. My rectal muscle clamped down on Philip. Two more entries and I felt him throb too. He collapsed on top of me as Freddy generally did, breathing heavily.
Then, unlike Freddy, he quickly pulled out and started talking about the tree house again as he quickly dressed.
'Don't you wanna take a bath first?'
He stopped, looked at his cock for a few seconds. 'Yeh, I guess so, a quick one.'
And that's what it was. He couldn't have been in the water for more than five minutes. I was still scrubbing when he was drying off.
As we dressed, I asked, 'What's wrong, Philip?'
He chuckled, 'Nothing'.
'Are you mad we did sex?'
'No, it was great, just like yesterday. Let's go outside.'
I knew there was something bothering him. Both days, when he reached his climax, the frantic passion went out of him like air from a punctured tire.
Under the porch, I tried again to get him to come straight with me. He laughed that phony laugh of his again and insisted everything was fine. I didn't know how to handle this. Freddy and I were always completely honest with each other. Any problem between us was dealt with immediately and quickly. Nothing was left unsaid, nothing withheld.
I sensed a serious problem building between Philip and me. Maybe sex with him had been a bad idea.
Thursdays, Philip didn't come came. It was his day to go to confession.
Friday, he didn't show up either. It would have been helpful, as I was required to sweep up the walks and driveway.
Saturday, the first time since I started going to the Y in January, Philip didn't come. Even my mother seemed surprised at that.
'Maybe he's sick,' she suggested.
The moment I got home, I called his house. There was no answer. Later, in the middle of scrubbing the porch floor, I tried again with the same result. At around five, he answered.
'What happened? You didn't come to YMCA. You okay?'
I was afraid of his answer.
'Nah, I got up late. I'll be there next week.'
'We going tomorrow?'
'I can't. I gotta go somewhere with my father. We'll do it next week. I gotta hang up. See you.'
And that was that. Did he tell the priest in confession? If he did, what did the priest tell him? What was I going to do about Sunday? That was simple, just go like always.
That night in bed, I worried that everything Philip said about sex and sin was true. What if God was putting a black mark on my soul every time I had sex or jerked off? I shifted between concern about hell and a conviction that none of the stuff the nuns taught about God and sin was more than a way to keep kids in line.
Sunday morning, I went straight to Philip's house. His big sister answered the door. Philip was in the park with a couple of friends and his airplanes. I needed directions. It was eight blocks away. I got lost a couple of times but asking directions finally got me there.
I spotted him immediately. He was with two boys about my age. All three were squatting around a model airplane.
Philip tried to act happy to see me but the truth was in his eyes. I saw fear rather than anger.
'My father couldn't go, so, I just came over here. Watch this.'
I'm sure I didn't look very happy.
He twirled the model's propeller. It let out a muffled squeal. One of the other kids grabbed up a metal handle attached to the two thin wires that connected to the plane. Philip released it and the tiny craft shot skyward. The boy guided it in circles, diving and climbing. The other boy wrestled the control from his buddy and ran in circles himself.
I just watched Philip, standing with his hands stuffed into his pockets, his attention only partially on his model. I walked up to him.
'Philip, we don't have to do sex any more. Let's just be friends.'
He bobbed back and forth on his feet then said without looking at me, 'I can't'.
'Why?'
'I just can't. I'm sorry. I just can't.'
'Did the priest tell you that?'
'No.' He hesitated. 'If I go with you...' He paused again. 'I just can't. I'm not going any more to the YMCA either. And you shouldn't. And you shouldn't see Freddy either. You need to go to confession and tell it all, and stop doing all that. It's a really bad sin.'
He ran after his friend with the handle. The plane had run out of fuel and was gliding to the grass. I stood and watched him, unsure if I should follow him or what. He said he couldn't play with me any more. If we didn't do any sex, why not?
I walked toward him slowly. He was refueling the model with a small can he'd pulled from his pocket. Once again, he cranked it up and one of the boys took it off. I stepped in front of Philip.
'If we don't do any sex, how come we can't be friends?'
'Because you're an occasion of sin for me.' I knew what that meant
from catechism class. Being around me would make him likely to sin.
'Not if I don't wanna do it.'
'Malcolm, I just can't.' There were tears in his eyes. 'Just go
away, please.' He walked quickly toward the others.
'You can call me. We can't do anything on the telephone,' I shouted
after him.
He didn't turn. I sat in the grass, ready to cry myself. Stupid
priest, I thought.
After two more flights, Philip led his friends out of the park well away from me. I found my way to the streetcar line and went to Freddy's. I had to wait almost an hour and a half for the bunch of them to get back from church. Everybody asked about Philip. I told them that he couldn't come any more but I wasn't sure why.
Freddy produced the sleeping bag, thoroughly washed and dry. His mother had done it. He told her that we had used it to keep warm which was the truth.
As we walked to our spot, I told Freddy what had happened, including the wild sex I'd had with Philip and how he seemed to turn off suddenly the moment he had his feeling. And, I explained 'occasion of sin' to him.
'That's jes stupid. First, ain' nothin' wrong wi' sex. Second, them priests don' do it so how they gon' know anythin' 'bout it. Jes stupid. You shouldn't be doin' no sex wi' white boys. They don' know nothin' 'bout it like us Negroes.'
'I'm a white boy.'
'I don' know 'bout that, Maacum. We ain't sho you ain't got some nigger mixed in you somewheah.'
'What about those boys at camp? They were white.'
'Mebbe so, mebbe not so.'
Inside the sleeping bag, I asked Freddy if he'd suck on my penis. 'Unh uh, Maacum. You like ta do that 'cause that's the way you is. I'll jerk you off but that's all.'
Mopping up the porch that afternoon, I considered the possibility that I actually did have some Negro in me and that's why I liked sex and Freddy so much. But what really occupied my mind the rest of the day was Freddy's remark that I liked getting fucked and sucking because that was the way I was. I wondered if I'd ever change like Freddy said I might do when I got older.
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