Chapter 2

After he left, I’d hide in the bathroom and

jerk off real quick, thinking about him getting all sweaty and

dirty here, in my house, here. I thought of him with me, in

my bedroom perhaps, installing a new outlet or replacing a light

bulb, I didn’t care. I saw myself nude on my bed, waking to him in

my room, turning as the covers fell away to expose my slim, nubile

body, nude to his gaze. I would stretch, languid, like a cat,

innocently pushing the covers farther down the bed, showing taut,

pinked skin. Slowly I’d smile up at him, something witty on the tip

of my tongue, but I never found out just what it was I’d say

because I always got off imagining the look on Mr. Pierce’s face as

he watched me writhe naked on the bed.

* * * *

There was no Mrs. Pierce. Well, no, that

wasn’t quite true. There had to have been one at some point, or

Mikey wouldn’t be in the picture. But he didn’t quite know what had

happened to her—his story changed every time he told it, and each

year at school when he had to introduce himself to the class, he

had a different take on why he only lived with his dad.

The first time I heard it, Mrs. Pierce had

died in a horrific auto accident when Mikey was just a baby.

Somehow, miraculously, he’d managed to escape, a death-defying feat

that left the whole first grade class breathless and the teacher

close to tears. The next year, Mrs. Pierce had died in childbirth,

taking with her Mikey’s unborn sister. Third grade, she’d been

offed by the measles, and fourth, the plague. By the time we

reached middle school, I figured out she must still be alive

because I saw a Christmas card in Mikey’s locker signed Mom.

But I didn’t mention it and each year he killed her off in more

gruesome, horrific ways. I figured he must’ve had his own reasons

for doing so and never let on that I knew otherwise.

Without her in the picture, though, I was

able to fantasize about the husband left behind. I was too young, I

knew, but I was growing fast and in my daydreams, Mr. Pierce

noticed. As I hit puberty, my fantasies involving him grew bold. In

my mind I was flirty, sexy, and fun, witty, capturing his heart

with ease. In one of my favorites, he begged to touch me but I

refused, standing before him gloriously naked and making him hunger

as I jerked off on him. To see such a big, strong man kneeling in

front of me, groveling to take me, to love me, was heady indeed. I

came in such a heated rush after thatdream, and I had it so

frequently, that I took to washing my own bed sheets so my mother

wouldn’t notice.

The only problem with my crush was I grew

embarrassed to be around Mr. Pierce. Now when he came by our home

to do the occasional odd job, I hid in my bedroom and snuck glances

of him from out the window. When I visited Mikey, I kept my head

down, my cheeks blazing hot, my words mumbled if Mr. Pierce spoke

to me. It was an awkward time, made worse by the fact that just

seeing Mr. Pierce gave me a raging hard-on. Being under the same

roof with him, in the same roomeven, made me want to

burst.

Mikey didn’t notice. He wouldn’t—he was too

obtuse. He’d recently discovered girls and spent all his time

talking about tits and ass. Because I didn’t want him to know I

liked dick, I faked an interest in his porno mags and pixilated

print-outs of naked chicks. More specifically, I didn’t want him to

know I liked his father, of all people. So I pored over the

Playboyshe stole from somewhere, and if he managed to steal

something a little more hard-core, I looked at the naked men who

fucked the girls Mikey liked. It was win-win for both of us.

* * * *

By my senior year of high school, I began to

suspect I’d never date as long as I stayed near home, where

everyone knew me only in relation to Mikey. I couldn’t come out,

not when we were so close, because it’d cast our friendship into a

different light; everyone would nod and say they’d known all along

we were queer, when Mikey was as straight as they come. It wasn’t

his fault he couldn’t score with the ladies—he was a big-ass bully

who hung around with me all the time, who salivated whenever a

pretty girl walked by, who stared at jiggling boobs and offended

women without even trying. I knew I was in a different league—I’d

had guys checking me out ever since my balls dropped my freshman

year—but as horny as I was, I couldn’t diss Mikey like that. I just

couldn’t.