Baxter and Josh On the Run
Chapter 4.
“Dad, do you love me?”
Had this become some sort of a game or something for Matt? I didn't understand why he was asking me this, maybe a little thing he did with his Mom, but I thought it probably had more to do with concerns that I would leave him. We had driven all day and gotten roughly back to where we were when I made that foolishly hopeful decision to trust the cops. Night had fallen and we were in a small campground. The tent is pitched, but we both feel better sleeping in the truck, we mostly used the tent as storage. With the mattress it's comfortable, and it feels a bit more secure. Matt is pulled into my ribs, a place he seems to have claimed for his own now, and one I find somehow very comfortable as well.
“Yes, Matt, I love you,” I smiled down to him as I brushed his hair from his eyes. It was a bit greasy since we haven't had the easiest time finding normal shower facilities and were mostly taking sponge baths and washing from a bucket. He pulled up to lean across my chest as we lay on the mattress so he could more easily look me in the face. His fingers found one of the few hairs growing on my chest and he was alternately tugging on it and smoothing it back down. I could see him wrestling over something in his mind by his wrinkled brow and the intense color of his eyes that normally indicated the motor was running on high. Finally, he came to a decision and looked into my eyes.
“Dad, tell me about why you went to prison,” he quietly said.
“Matty, I think you already know. I'll tell you if you really want, but it's a long story and sort of painful. Isn't there anything else we could talk about?”
“Yeah, there are lots. But I think I should know.”
I sighed. This is going to suck. I really haven't allowed myself to think about the whole thing since I got out of the so-called group therapy. That's a laugh. Therapy is about truth: Telling it, getting to it, coming to live in it. Prison and parole therapy is about a controlled lie. You have to allow others into the most private of areas, but only a little. Don't you dare actually let the therapist know what really lives in there. After all, you want to be set free of prison one day. The funny thing is that you have to create another prison to do it, one that houses only one soul that's tricked to believe the lies he tells.
“Ok, Matt. As you know, I went to prison for what the police call molestation; I'd molested a boy. His name was Jerry. When I first met Jerry, he was just a bit younger than you. Jerry's brother, John, was my best friend. We weren't always best friends, but it just sort of grew that way as we went through middle school and carried over into high school. And, since it was just me and my mom, John would spend a lot of time at my house to get away from the chaos of his. He never admitted it, but I knew his dad was an alcoholic. He went to other people's houses too, but the more time we spent together the closer we got. He was older than me by about seven months, and his mind was older by a lot more than that. I guess he'd seen more. I looked up to him like no one else, a bit of hero worship or something. I think if he suggested I rob a gas station in the middle of the afternoon sitting right next to a doughnut shop filled with cops, I would probably see it as an excellent plan. My mom had to work a lot of hours then, just like your mom, and since she liked John and thought he was really responsible and a good influence on me, he was the only friend I could have over any time whether she was there or not.
“One day John came over with a magazine that had naked ladies in it. I was 13 and enjoying some of the new feelings that come with that age. You will understand what I mean by that when you get older. John had just turned 14, and the magazine was a gift from one of his older friends. He was staying over that night and had it tucked into his gym bag. Mom had just gotten home, so it was around 9:30, and sent us to bed because she was tired and didn't want to hear our noise. Mom's bedroom was on the other side of the house, so the noise we made in my room was well filtered by doors and walls before getting to her. John had been itching to show me something from the moment he came into the house and I guess now was the time to do so.
“ ‘Hey, check this out,’ he says in an excited whisper, and pulled out this magazine. He had it displayed over his forearm like a fine piece of art or like the way a waiter will present a fine bottle of wine. Let's face it, at that age it was on par with both.
“ ‘Oh, wow, dude, where'd you get that?’ I asked, then realizing that my door was still open I jumped off my bed to close and lock it so mom wouldn’t hear and come in. He took that opportunity to go from his sleeping bag on the floor to sitting on my bed.
“ ‘Andy gave it to me for my birthday,’ he said, a very energetic smile on his face.
“ ‘Dude, you are so lucky. Let me see.’ I sat down next to him, bony knees knocking together, both of us in our normal bed wear of underwear and t-shirts. I was in my tighty-whities, since I couldn't convince my mom to spend the extra on the more expensive but much cooler underwear. John was in boxers, which I clearly thought far more mature.
“He opened to the first layout and I just gasped. I didn't gasp from the eroticism of the picture so much as from the nakedness as a whole and the naughtiness of it all. It was more than enough to get my little guy lifting his head to peek at the world, and I moved closer to John to see better. I had my arm out stiff behind him to support my weight and was looking around his shoulder a bit to get closer to the magazine on his lap.
“ ‘Wow look at those tits (that was my new word for the year - well, that and 'dude'). Man, I'd like to rub my face in between those.’ ”
“ ‘That's not where I want to put my face,’ John said and pointed out his choice. ‘Look at the lips on that pussy. Uumhm.’ His groan was accompanied by an adjustment to a substantial bulge in his boxers, and that caught my attention far more than the book. He continued to rub for a bit, finally stopping only when it was time to turn the page. ‘Uhhmmm, look at that,’ he groaned at the next girl.
“ ‘Oh, wow,’ was my response. I was looking all right, just that I was splitting my attention between the new girl and the new toy that was showing in the gap of his boxers. He flipped the page and it was an article and advertising. What a waste of paper, but it was a prelude to the centerfold layout.
“ ‘Oh, man,’ he moaned, pushing down on the bulge sitting proud in his lap. A little mouse was peeking out the gap in his boxers now, and I was mesmerized. He suddenly pushed the magazine into my hands. ‘Here, hold this, I gotta rub one out,’ he declared and slipped his boxers down to his knees. ‘Oh, yeah,’ he sighed as he started rubbing his cock.
“I don't think I had ever seen this before. I was pretty immature. Oh, I had gotten myself hard before, and rubbed on the sheets to make it feel good, but I never did what he was doing. I recovered from my shock a bit and, giggling, I danced away with the magazine. He chased me around the room with his dick in this hand calling, ‘Come back Tracy, come back.’ I thought it was the funniest damn thing I'd seen in my life, and the hottest. He finally got me cornered, but I guess if I couldn't outrun a guy jacking off with his boxers around his knees then I wasn't really trying.
“He told me to turn the page and fold out the centerfold. When I did and held it up so he could see, he started to make out to the picture, pressing it all into me. He had one hand on my shoulder, his face in the face of the poster, and his chest and belly pressed into the rest of it. His hand continued to pump on his cock, and I didn't know what sort of monster I'd cut loose. Before I knew to run, he grabbed my hand and put it on his hard 5” cock and told me to hold tight. His other hand went around to my butt and squeezed me with his fingers buried in my crack as he passionately fucked my hand and made out to the picture. We both blew our wads together – he in my hand and me in my tighty-whities.
“I guess that was the start of it, Matt. John and I got together for something every day. Mostly at my house, but as the months wore on, we would do things at his house, too. He had to babysit his little brother a lot, and when it was time for Jerry to go to bed, John and I would jack each other off or I would give him a blow job.”
“What's a blow job?” Matty asked, looking up at me from my chest. I hadn't really meant to get so graphic with him, but the story sort of took me over a bit. From the feeling on my lower thigh, it had gotten to Matty a bit as well. I guess I was in too deep to back out of the story now.
“Um, well, it's basically when one person sucks on the penis of another. It's also called 'oral sex'. The guy sucking goes up and down on the penis and uses his hands, lips, tongue, throat and sucking pressure to make the other feel really good. Just don't use the teeth, which will hurt.”
“Oh, that’s weird.”
Yeah, it’s a bit weird, but some really like it buddy, and you will too as you get older” I said to him as I rubbed his hair. I do love to rub this kid's hair.
“So, what has this got to do with you going to jail?”
“Well, Matt, John got a steady girlfriend that summer we were 17 and he wasn't into having much to do with me after that. We were still really good friends and still hung out together a lot, but he sort of left me behind as he moved on to having a girlfriend to do all those things for him that we had been doing. I didn't have a girlfriend. I didn't find them all that sexy. One day John and I were at his house watching a football game as he babysat for his brother. His parents were both out of town for the weekend, some funeral or something. Jerry was on the floor in front of the TV having just come from a bath. He had on a pair of yellow pajama pants and no underwear. Looking at him as I played like I was watching the TV had me hard as a nail. I wasn't proud of perving on the kid just a couple of weeks into his 11th year, but I wasn't leaving either. John got a call from his girlfriend who, it turned out, was home alone for the next few hours and horny. Before I knew it, I had agreed to stay to watch Jerry and John was showing me the dinner he had prepared for us. I came back to the couch and lay down to watch the rest of the game. Jerry changed positions so that he was sitting against the couch with his knees up. I guess I just started to rub his hair. I have a thing for hair. Come to find out, Jerry has a thing for having his hair rubbed and was really getting into the whole thing. I noticed that he was getting a substantial lump in his pajamas, but I guess I didn't quite realize the consequences of it all. I was just enjoying petting him, for lack of a better description. After a bit he turned to me and said something towards the order of, ‘I like it when you do that.’
“ ‘You do?’ I asked him. I smiled at him, an odd feeling in my stomach, and just continued what I was doing.
“ ’Yeah.’
“ ‘Well, good. I like doing this, too.’ I fondled his ear, stroking along the ridge and giving the lobe a slight pinch and tug. He turned his head into my hand, sort of snuggling into the whole thing in a way I thought very nice. It felt good to see him enjoy what I was doing. I can't help but to wonder just how much attention the kid got with a mother who worked so many hours, a father that was an alcoholic, and an older brother who really had a lot of his own life just opening up in front of him and needing to focus there. In truth, it wasn't at the time that I thought this, but later, after everything sort of hit the fan and I couldn't get away from my thoughts.
“But after that, Matt, he pulled right up and lay down on the couch with me, laying his head on my chest and sort of hugging me. I should have stopped what I was doing then, I know, but I didn't. I continued to rub his hair and moved down to rub his back and bottom. It felt nice; well, I mean, it made me feel nice, loving. Ya know?”
“Yeah, Dad, but so far I don't understand what put you in jail.”
“Are you sure you want to hear about all of this? I'm not real proud of myself here.”
Matt looked up at me from down by my chest. “I need to know, Dad.”
I hadn't realized it, but I had been stroking his hair as I was telling him this story. It just felt sort of natural, and even though I now felt a bit strange about doing so, I didn't want to turn a nice feeling into something automatically bad. I loved this boy and vowed to let nothing further bad happen to him, not even my own guilt coloring his feelings about a natural action.
“Well, Matt, it really started with a kiss to the top of his head. He looked up at me and the next kiss was his and it was to my lips. I felt such an electric surge go through me. Feelings I didn't know were there; feelings of hope, loneliness, longing for someone to love, someone who would touch me, someone who looked up to me. I kissed Jerry back and that boy went a bit wild. He had one hand around my head and another in my pants before I realized what was happening, but I didn't object. I not only let it happen, I participated and encouraged it to continue. We soon had each-other's clothes on the floor and made love. Ok, well, without the penetration part. We just went through the motions, but it was love and it was fabulous.
I just laid there with those damn tears falling again. God, I missed that boy. A few minutes later I heard Matt's voice calling to me.
“Dad? Dad? Dad! Hey, Baxter!” and then he hit me.
“Ow. Matt, why did you hit me?”
“You were crying, Dad.”
“Yeah, sorry about that, buddy. I guess tears will sometimes come to my eyes a bit when I think of Jerry.” Matt looked deeply into my eyes for a long time.
“What, Matt? You're giving me the creeps.”
“I mean you were crying. Like for a long time. You were gone, man. You've been crying for like 20 minutes and wouldn't speak to me. You were just crying and crying. Why were you crying like that?” he asked, concern in his voice.
“Matt, I.... oh, shit, kid. I don't want to tell you this. Leave this alone, would you?”
“No.” Damn, this kid is a bit of a bulldog.
“Buddy, please …”
“No. Tell me.”
“The day I was sentenced, …”
“What, Dad. What's so bad you can't tell me?”
“On the day I was sentenced, Jerry walked up to the courthouse and …”
“Say it, Dad. What was so bad?”
“Oh, God! Matty, Jerry, he ..., he came up to the courthouse, pulled out his father's gun and shot himself. Oh, Matty, my Jerry … he, he kil… Oh ...”
I don't remember going to sleep that night. I only remembering wanting to die. Again. And somewhere during that torture I remember a little boy holding me tight as I lost my mind.
TBC