Shooting Matt Ch. 10

"I pray every night, every morning," he whispered. "I even pray in the shower but I keep thinking about you, lying in bed, the look on your face when something cracks you up, and my prayers get washed away. I thought you were watching me. I wanted you to watch me. The other day when I saw your, when I saw the sheet, it was like I lost my mind." He was quiet for several minutes. "When you touched me, when I did what I did, it was like someone flipped a switch in my head. I looked at the, at the, mess. At what I had done, what I had been doing and I was afraid I'd throw up before I could get out of the room.

"I walked around, cursing myself. I went to the chapel. No one was there. I knelt and I prayed and I prayed. I begged for forgiveness. God wouldn't listen. He knew in my heart I wasn't sorry. He knew in my heart I wanted to do it again, and again. I always feel at peace in church. It's better when there's no one there, for me anyway. The preacher, the singing, sometimes I think it distracts me more than it helps.

"Not yesterday. I felt no peace, only shame and disgust. My legs fell asleep but I stayed on my knees. I think someone came in at some point but they left me alone. I prayed and begged but I was all alone in that room. The Cross was just a couple of piece of wood that needed to be dusted. Someone, the janitor I guess, touched my shoulder and asked me if I was alright. I wasn't but I said I was. I could barely make my voice work. I hadn't eaten or had anything to drink. He told me he had to lock up. He had to help me to my feet. He kept asking me if I was sure I was okay.

"I was. I knew what I had to do."

My own heart was thudding now. I didn't really want to hear the rest.

"I walked through town, out by the grain elevators. Once I got past the street lights it was pretty dark. I knew the trains ran all night. You can hear them. My tee shirt, even with just the moonlight, seemed so bright. There's plenty of dirt and gravel along the train tracks. I laid down and rolled around. I rubbed handfuls of dirt over my shirt. Then I stretched out across the tracks. I laid my neck across one rail, my knees across the other. I watched the clouds drift across the sky. The moon was so bright there were hardly any stars. I wonder if it would hurt."

He was crying now.

"I wondered how long I would have to make myself wait, feeling the tracks vibrate under my neck before it would be over."

It no longer mattered if my moving would break the spell. I pushed myself up against the wall and worked one arm behind his back. When I urged him forward, he collapsed against my chest. I held him until he stopped crying.

"How long did you wait?" I asked. "Before you got up?"

"I don't know."

"Did you hear the train? Feel it?"

"No," he whispered after a hitching breath. "I don't know the times the trains go through but it seems like I hear at least a couple a night. I didn't hear any last night. Did you?"

"I wasn't paying attention to the trains," I replied. "I was worried about you."

His breathing slowed. The hitches and hiccups subsided.

"What changed your mind?"

"The old hobo."

"Old hobo?"

"Yeah," Leon whispered. "Despite how uncomfortable I was. The rocks were digging into my back. My neck and head hurt. I almost fell asleep. My eyes were closed. I nearly jumped out my skin when some old man asked me if I 'figured' that was the best bed I could find. I turned to look at him. He was sitting on the end of one of the railroad ties, his back against the rail. He wasn't looking at me. He was looking into the night.

"He was wearing old coveralls, not the kind farmers were, the kind railroad men wear, the striped kind. One of the galluses was unhooked and the bib on that side hung down, an old gray and ripped tee shirt, the kind people call 'wife beaters', was underneath. The hair on his chest was as gray and scraggly as his beard. Before I could say anything, he leaned away from me and spit a streamer of tobacco juice into the dirt.

"He asked me 'didn't I reckon my own bed would be a damn-sight more comfortable and weren't the rocks diggin into my back sumpin fierce'. Just mentioning it made my back start to holler from a dozen different places. I groaned. I couldn't help it.

"He asked me if 'didn't I reckon it'd be easier to chat sittin' on the soft grass'. I told him I was waiting for the train. It was weird. He laughed. 'No train tonight, sonny,' he chuckled. 'You'll be waitin' till mornin' and by glory won't your back and neck feel right smartly by then'.

"I asked him to leave me alone. He told me he couldn't 'rightly' do that. He stood up and offered me a hand. I was going to tell him to drop dead but instead I took his hand. He pulled me up and I almost fell. I was so stiff. My back felt like it was cut to pieces from the rocks. He told me he knew 'just the trick' and turned me around. He crossed my arms and lifted me up, then dropped me and caught me. I heard my back and neck pop and I felt a ton better. He held on to my arm as I walked down the grade. He pointed to a spot by a sad looking tree, told me he'd left what was left of his lunch and some coffee over there, to help myself. I realized how hungry I was. I stumbled as fast as I could without falling to the tree. There was a crumpled bag and an old fashioned thermos sitting on the ground. I grabbed the thermos, twisted the top off and let it fall. The coffee was warm but not too hot. It had cream and just a little sugar, as if I'd made it myself.

"I drank half of it before I thought about the hobo. I turned to thank him but he was gone. I sat down, ate the sandwich. Peanut butter and strawberry jam, without the crusts, just like my mom makes for me. By the time I was finished, my back and head had stopped hurting. I walked back here. You were sitting - well you know the rest."

"Roll over," I told him. He did. His back was smooth. There are no scrapes, no indentations, nothing to indicate he'd spent hours lying on a railroad bed covered with half-inch gravel. Could he have been lying? Anything is possible but I knew he wasn't. I heard the truth in his story, in his voice, in his being. His skin was so pale beneath the dark skin of his neck. His skin was so pale compared to the deep tan of his arms. I could see the outline of the tee shirts he wore, working his family's farm.

I shifted position, no longer concerned that kissing him seemed strange. He was lying half on his side. I stroked the pale skin, confirming it was unmarked. I traced the tan line at the base of his neck. He shivered. I licked my lips, wishing I had time to get a drink of water. I didn't want my lips to be dry and scratchy. The unmarked skin deserves better than dry lips but that is all I had to offer. My hand rested on his hip. I leaned over and kissed the far side of his neck, aiming for the sharp demarcation of light and dark, virgin and experienced, skin. I planted kisses along the line. As my lips journeyed across his back, he rolled away, on his stomach, offering me his back. I nuzzled his hair line. I brushed my nose through the fine, upturned curls that nestled beneath the close cropped hair on his head. I pushed my face into the bed, reaching as far around his neck as I was able with my lips.

When he rolled onto his stomach, my hand moved from his hip to rest in the small of his back. I propped myself up on my free hand and brushed my fingers as lightly as I could along the crest of his butt. As if my fingertips were alive with magic, the skin they passed over breaks into goose bumps. My fingers zigzagged their way up his back, across his shoulders, and down the arm pressed between our bodies. I leaned against him, stretching over his back to reach his other arm. As my fingertips danced over the skin of his far arm, their magic is intact, his skin, light and dark, ripple with goose bumps.

My lips found the hard crest at the top of his spine. I kissed it. I nibbled at it. My mouth was no longer dry. My body, understood that my lips, my mouth, my tongue - and my cock, have priority. I rolled onto my knees and leaned over the pale canvas of Leon's back. I used a single fingertip to draw on his back. I sketched his face. My magic finger tattooed his back with his own smile, warm yet somehow so serious. It faded as I drew his cock. I added my mouth, open and waiting. I wiped my palm across the skin and the images vanished. I drew the railroad tracks, Leon stretched out across the black cold steel. A tear fell and became a grey cloud, lit by the lights of the grain mill. My finger moved; the hobo appears. The sketch became animation. I see the impossible small mouth of the hobo moving and know he's speaking. They walk off the railroad bed. Leon walks to the tree. The hobo becomes more indistinct, fading into the pale innocent skin. My finger was no longer moving, hadn't been moving for some time. It hovered, unmoving, as much a witness to the scene as my eyes. It's just as well. I couldn't draw anyway. I've never been able to move beyond the stick figure stage.

My eyes were wet. That explains why the pale skin on his back seemed to glow.

I threw my leg over his, wedged my knee between his body and the wall. I was straddling his thighs. I stretched my body out to cover his. I pressed my skin to his. I wanted to feel that glow, wanted to be part of it. His skin was hot where our bodies met.

"What was that?" he whispered.

"Shh," I whispered against his shoulder. "I don't know. But it doesn't matter."

I pressed myself against him, not stealing but sharing his heat and bathing in the glow of his skin. It seemed unbearably sad that this is the closest I can get to him, to anyone, skin on skin. It wasn't enough. I wanted our bodies to melt into one another. Mr. Henry, my high school physics teacher, told us that our atoms are almost entirely made up of empty space. If true, why couldn't my body mingle with Leon's? I envisioned our bodies beginning to buzz, vibrating so fast we became a blur, and fell into each other, until nothing remained on the bed but a soft glowing cloud that hums with the sound of the universe.

I waited, one ear pressed to his back, listening to the ebb and flow of his breathing and the steady lullaby of his heart, but the oneness I imagined is not possible, not for the flesh of mortals anyway. I lifted my head and kissed his bony spine. I bent, crunching into a tight ball, and kissed my way down his back. When I could bend no further, I scooted lower on his legs and kept kissing.

I was kissing the hollow spot above his ass crack. I didn't hesitate. There was not even the question of waiting. Kissing Leon's ass was the furthest thing from an insult I can imagine. I kissed the hollow places that appear on the sides of his ass checks when he tightens his muscles. I kissed the top of his crack. The thought of actually kissing his asshole didn't occur to me, not now, not that morning. I kissed the creases where his ass meets his thighs.

I bit, softly, his right ass cheek then rose, standing on my knees. A line of precum stretched from the head of my cock to the back of his left knee. The strand broke and I watched it recoil lazily toward my cock and then hang there like a tear drop.

"Roll over," I whispered.

He did. His eyes were closed. I walked on my knees, moving up his body. It was my turn to shiver as his erection slipped between my legs. When I leaned over to kiss his eyes, his erection sprang free and rested against the back of my leg and ass.

His eyes tasted salty. I used my lips to draw a portrait of his nose in my head. It was a nondescript, ordinary nose, neither sharp and narrow or broad and flat. There were no humps or bumps or angles to it. I kissed the very tip and then turned my attention elsewhere. Not long before, I had been embarrassed at the thought of wanting to kiss him, not then, however.

I turned his head to the right with my cheek. When I kissed behind his ear, he tensed. His hands reached up and grab at my sides. I moaned softly against his neck. I kissed my way around his tan line, completing the circle I had begun from his back. I kissed behind his other ear. I kissed in front of his ear, stopping to press my tongue gently into his ear. And that, I'm prepared to say, is the first time the idea of doing the same to his ass entered my mind.

I kissed along his jaw. His beard was not as heavy as mine but the feel of his whiskers against my lips elicited another moan from deep inside my chest.

Now, I hesitated, not from fear. I cupped his face in my hands.

"Open your eyes, Leon," I requested.

He did. His eyes were the clear vivid blue that should only be achievable with contacts but somehow he managed.

We stared at each other as I lowered my mouth to his. When our lips touched, his face was a blur but his eyes were open, so were mine.

We kissed the morning away; marveling at the texture of each other's teeth, the way it felt to pull at a lip, to nip at a tongue. I didn't have a lot of experience with girls and I didn't think Leon had much, if any, experience at all, but kissing a guy is different. It's not just the whiskers. Lips are lips, tongues are tongues and teeth are teeth but not when it comes to kissing. Maybe it's all mental, I don't know, but I do know kissing a guy is different than kissing a girl.

It isn't that I grew tired of his kisses; I don't believe that was even possible. I grew impatient. I kissed his Adam's apple, only wondering later if I could turn that act into a metaphor for my own fall. I liked the way Leon's dick felt against the back of my leg and I was reluctant to move.

When is moved lower on his body, it felt just as nice nestled beside my own hardon.

I kissed the hollow of his throat. I leaned to the side and kissed the groove where his arm meets his shoulder.

It had been a day since he'd showered. I couldn't pretend it was the first time I've smelled this smell. I'm not sure what to call it. It's not body odor, if by odor you mean 'stink'. He didn't have that sharp, unpleasant tangy smell of someone who has gone days without bathing. That odor truly is a stink. At times I've gone a few days without a shower and when I caught a whiff of myself - wow. This was different. It was simply the natural, non-perfumed, smell of a man's body, rich, musky, earthy - fuck you pick the adjective.

I wonder, lying on my mattress in a bare room, is that why I crave that scent? Leon? But this isn't a memory. This never happened. I never shared a room with Leon. I try to recall if he may have smelled this way during one of our threesomes. Is there a true memory of that scent buried deep inside my skull that my brain as tapped into? I don't care, not enough to allow myself to be distracted from this fantasy or dream or whatever the fuck it is. I let myself fall back into whatever place I've found myself. The room, the sounds of the street, don't fade, they vanish.

I pushed my nose into his armpit. I used my hand to push his arm up. I kissed along the blonde thatch of hair, inhaling, trying not to sound like a sniffing dog. I was moving to the other side of his body when my gaze was trapped by his nipple.

It was hard. Against the pale skin of his chest it seemed very dark, very red, like wet clay. I few thin, nearly transparent hairs circled the areola. I pursed my lips and puffed air over his nipple. It tightened, growing even harder. The magic of my breath was akin to that of my fingers - his flesh rises in goose bumps. I touched the nipple with my tongue. I was surprised by its firmness. I could feel the bumps of the areola beneath my tongue. My lips touched it. His back arched. Some primal instinct caused me to pluck at it with my lips, maybe I'd seen something similar in 'Penthouse'. His hips came off the bed and he groaned, which caused me to groan back. I experimented with various maneuvers that came to mind - kiss, nip, flick, nuzzle with the tip of my nose. They all seemed quite excellent to me.

Left nipple, left armpit and then it was time for me to scoot lower still. His dick was pressed against my upper belly and then chest as I kissed my way down his sternum. His chest sported only a few fine hairs, more peach fuzz than hair. The same was true of his belly. His belly was flat taut. It was the belly of someone who does hard physical work, not the belly of someone who worships himself in a gym mirror. His belly made me think of his hands.

I reached for his right hand, pulled it toward me. The nails were short, clean. The palm, callused, beneath each finger and the side of his hand. I kissed each callus, then held his hand and rubbed it over my face, imprinting its texture into my memory. I turned my face to his left side, did the same with that hand. I took his hands and put them on my head.

His hands followed as I tongued his belly button. My lips followed the valley between his lower abs. His dick touched the underside of my chin. Somewhere, beneath all I'd been experiencing, all I'd tried to etch into memory, I'd been working toward this moment. I'd never done this before, except in jerk off fantasies. I tilted my head and took the head of his dick in my mouth.

It felt as natural as breathing.

The first thing I noticed was how soft the head was. I could compress it with the tip of my tongue. It was spongy. The second thing I noticed is the slickness of his precum. As with everything else that happened that morning, that too was a revelation. It wasn't as if I'd never felt precum but feeling it on your hand and feeling it on your tongue are worlds apart. The third thing I noticed is the taste.

I can't describe it, so I won't try. If you don't know what it tastes like, there's an easy enough way to find out. I do know, and am happy to report, is it doesn't taste bad. In fact, the taste of his body lit a deeper fire. I scooted back a little further, careful not to sit too heavily on Leon's knees. I moved my head up and down, letting the spongy head glide past my lips. The shaft was another new sensation, hard but smooth. The underside was softer. I could press against it with my tongue.

That's what I was doing when his fingers pulled at my hair. His back arched. His dick was forced deeper into my mouth. I had to pull back so I didn't gag. I felt a bulge in the soft area beneath my tongue and my mouth filled with cum. It was a more intense taste than precum. The consistency was strange, part watery thin, part thick as milk gravy. He pulled harder at my hair. When he pushed his dick into my mouth I'm prepared. I couldn't take the whole thing but I let him thrust in my mouth, let him work the orgasm out of his flesh and into my mouth, where I swallowed it. My body was on fire, not from the sex, but from the intimacy of taking such an integral part of him into my body.

I crawled up beside Leon. He rolls toward me and lays his head on my chest.

***

It's morning. I don't open my eyes and realize - hey, it's morning. It's simply morning. I don't feel sleepy. I don't feel fuzzy headed. I must have slept at some point, my fantasy morphing into a dream so completely I can't feel the seam. My balls ache. The hair on my stomach and belly isn't matted. I didn't jerk off or have a wet dream then. I reach for my cock but as my fingers wrap around the shaft, I stop. My balls groan in protest. Why shouldn't I jerk off? I don't have an answer for that but I don't. I roll off the mattress, trying not to notice it's harder to stand up from a mattress on the floor than I remember it being.