Date: Sun, 30 Nov 2014 08:43:41 -0800
From: Seth Kirkcauldy <seth-kirkcauldy@sbcglobal.net>
Subject: Weeping Willow 3

Weeping Willow - Part 3 of 4
copyright 2014 Seth Kirkcauldy
seth-kirkcauldy@sbcglobal.net

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This story is a work of fiction, and any resemblance to persons, living or
dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. They are a
product of the author's imagination, or used fictitiously.  This story
contains erotic situations between intergenerational males of differing
racial backgrounds.  If it is illegal for you to read this, or you just
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The morning sun peeked at James and Mud through the curtain of the willow
tree; and having been caught spying, blushed its embarrassment across the
dawn.  The new lovers had spent the hot, sticky night beneath the drooping
boughs, alternating their sweating, straining bouts of sexual frenzy with
sprawling, panting periods of rest.  They had come to their spot next to
the river in the darkest part of the previous night to search out a cool
breeze; but in the month of July, there was nothing cool to be found in all
the state of Mississippi.

Mud's thickly muscled thighs glistened like oiled mahogany in the early
light.  He lay on his back with his feet planted flat, knees bent and
thighs parted while James lay between them with his mouth around the head
of his very large member.  The crown barely fit within his suctioning lips,
but the stretch of his jaw felt oddly satisfying as he serviced the large
man before him.

His two hands grasped the thick shaft, squeezing it gently in an upward
glide and milking drops of fluid into his waiting mouth.  He suctioned them
up and laved the spongy head.

He loved doing this for Mud.  He loved the tangy musk of sweat hidden in
the juncture of his legs.  He loved the way the man's ridged stomach heaved
as he gasped for air, and how his thighs quivered and walled him in on both
sides.  But most of all, he loved the sounds Mud made.

With his eyes closed tight and his head rolling from side-to-side, Mud
provided rich, soft groans that seemed to reverberate in the deep well of
his chest.  It was the sound of abyssal need and profound satisfaction, and
it unraveled James completely.

Mud's long moans slowly gave way to staccato grunts as his hips started to
pivot and jerk.  James dropped one hand to the pendulous scrotum and rubbed
it gently as it drew up next to the man's body.  The sac tightened until it
was a knot; and James massaged it roughly as Mud began to gasp.  His large
muscles contracted as he spasmed, flooding James' mouth with his pungent
fluid.

James swallowed it down, and licked the cock clean while Mud twitched and
gasped for air.  The boy then launched himself on top of the much bigger
man and pressed his lips to Mud's in a sloppy kiss.

"Four!  Told you I could make you do it four times.  You're not too old,
Mud, see?  You just need practice.  Tonight we'll do five."

Mud cracked open one eye, squinted at the sun filtering through the
willow's leaves, and then at the smug boy atop him.

"Ya's tryin' ta kill me.  But I'll shore die a happy man."

James laughed joyfully. "I think I hit number five before you hit two."

"Yeah?  Well I ain't six years ole.  Or twelve, or whatever age ya is."

"Fourteen.  You thought I was six?  That would be having relations with a
child."

Mud rolled his eyes and looked uncomfortable, making James regret his joke.
"Please stop worrying about that.  It's not wrong, Mud.  It's just not.
You can't really be held accountable for your actions when I wake you up
the way I do."

Mud shook his head and said, "I knows better."

He squinted again thoughtfully and added, "But I also knows ta take
happiness whenever it falls atop me, an' ya shore fall atop me an awful
lot."  He squeezed James tightly and kissed him again.  His large lips were
soft as pillows, an odd accompaniment to the harsh scratch of his whiskers.

James sighed contentedly and nuzzled his face into Mud's sweaty neck.
After just a moment, his tongue snaked out to lick the dark skin
languorously.  Mud groaned and laughed, and then pushed the boy off him.

"Tonight!  Leave me be fer now, boy.  Ya's gonna kill me."

"I want you inside me again tonight, Mud.  Like you did before?  I'm ready
again."

"No.  Dat hurt ya too bad.  We ain't doin' dat again."

"We are," James said stubbornly.  "It only hurt because it was my first
time.  It'll be easier now, I know it.  It stopped hurting after a while.
And I know you liked it a lot.  Plus I got some whale oil from Aunt Mary's
lamp.  That'll help."

Mud was suddenly swallowing deeply and breathing shallowly.  "I - I dint
like hurtin' ya."

"You liked being inside me, though.  And I want you there so badly."

"JAAAAAAMES!"  The haunting call of his name floated to them on the morning
air, a disembodied ghost ship sailing across the fields.  They locked eyes,
and then scrambled quickly into their scattered pieces of clothing.

Mud vaulted onto the lowest branch of the willow and started to climb while
James cut through the bulrushes with the sharp blade of his body.

"Hello?"  He called back, clearing the tall cattails and wondering who was
hailing him.  It was not Aunt Mary's voice, he was sure of that.  There was
a boy's silhouette against the brightening eastern sky, standing next to
the open door of the barn.  "Davy?  Is that you?"

"Yessir!" The boy laughed, closing the door and racing across the fields
toward James.  "I thought you slept in the barn like the animal you are!"

"Too hot last night," James yelled; he ran to meet the boy halfway, pulling
leaves and twigs from his short hair.

"It was surely a scorcher.  Daddy says the good Lord is punishing all the
niggers in the fields for Lincoln's nomination.  I figure a lot of them
will die this week if the heat stays up.  I'm all for that, even if it
costs those plantation owners a lot of money.  You know what?  Daddy says
there's a lot more niggers than real folk in Mississippi now.  They never
should have brought them to our country to begin with, right?"

Davy was so certain of James' agreement that he moved immediately to the
reason for his visit.  "You want to take a swim today?  I figure the only
way to survive the month of July is to stay submerged.  What do you say?"

James couldn't answer right off because his teeth were clenched just as
tightly as his fists.  He blinked a few times and took a deep breath so he
didn't knock down one of the few friends he'd been able to make.

"James?"

James unlocked his jaw and tried to be calm.  He was taking deep breaths,
but he knew it was making his nostrils flare.

Davy laughed.  "You look just like a nigger when your nose goes all wide
like that," he said.

James' fist against Davy's jaw was nearly as satisfying as all the things
he'd done with Mud the prior night.  It was a rush of hot emotion followed
by a sudden burst of release laced with pain.  His knuckles exploded with
distress, and then the other boy was sprawled at James' feet and spitting
blood out of his mouth.  Davy looked up at James with shocked eyes and a
battered jaw that was set angrily.

"You shouldn't have done that; I was just poking fun, and only an idiot
wouldn't know it."  He dabbed at his lips with one hand and looked at the
blood.  James merely glared at him, ready to knock him down again if he
tried to get up.  Davy took stock of his attacker and decided to retreat.

"Even so, what I said was mean.  I shouldn't ever have said you looked like
a nigger.  That was an awful thing to say, and I'm sorr...."

The resultant beating Davy received was quite thorough, bloody, and - as
Mud explained to James later - pointless.  Young Davy never understood the
reason James had done it.

"Ya cain't educate wid yer fists, boy," Mud told him angrily as he traced
his letters in the dark Mississippi soil.  They were sitting in the barn
after dinner, and darkness was starting to descend.  "Da only thin' fists
teach folk is how ta hurt.  Was dat da lesson ya was wantin' ta teach?  You
want dat boy ta know how ta hurt people more dan he do already?  How 'bout
I make ya a willow whip fer next time?"

Mud was angry, and James was sullen.

"He was spouting idiocy," James defended himself.

Mud laughed at him.  "Ah.  Ya's da punisher a idiots now, is ya?  Well, I
think dat be a full time job so no time ta teach niggers ta read or ta
torture poor grown men who just wanna live godly lives."

James flinched and looked hurtfully at Mud, who had the decency to drop his
eyes, curse at himself, and choke out, "I ain't sayin' I's one a dose men,
now..."

"I know what you're saying," James said hollowly.  "You really do want me
to leave you alone, don't you?"

"No," Mud said clearly.  "No, I'd be awfully sad and lonely if ya left me
alone.  I shouldn'ta said it, James.  I's mad at ya, dat's all.  I's mad.
Ya got in a fight over me, and I don' want dat at all."

"You don't get a say in what I fight for; and I'll fight for you as long as
I live," James replied defiantly.  He was trembling.

Mud's mouth dropped open and his golden eyes searched James' blue ones.
Finally, Mud pulled him in for a thorough kiss.

"I dunno what I's gonna do wid ya," Mud whispered, his forehead pressed
against James', and his breath puffing across the boy's lips.

"I do," James said.  "Get the whale oil."

* * *

"We need a place for you to hide," James explained a few days later.  He
was prying up another board in the floor of the barn while the sweat
dripped from the end of his nose.  "I want you to dig out all this dirt;
we'll haul it out to the river after dark.  It needs to be deep enough for
you to be able to lay there under the floor."

"Like a corpse in da groun'?" Mud asked, scowling.

"Please don't argue with me on this, Mud.  Davy made one thing very clear
to me: people are going to show up when we don't expect, so you need a
place to disappear.  I'm only doing this to keep you from being a real
corpse in the ground."

"I'll just hide in da hay," Mud replied darkly.  His irritation was
radiating through the entire barn.

James sighed and consigned himself to the fight.  He'd already warned Mud
that he'd fight for him, even if Mud, himself, was who he had to fight.
"You're bigger than would fit under all the hay in this barn; if you hadn't
noticed, you're about the size of Buchanan.  What is wrong with you?"

Mud's eyes darkened with anger, but then he shook it off.  It was a
conscious effort; James saw him do it.

"I's good.  Nothin's wrong."  The large man winced as he spoke.

James dropped the floorboard and stood to his feet, facing Mud squarely.
"Liar."

Mud made a strangled sound, closed his eyes tight and shook his head.
"Lor' have mercy on me.  I swear I couldn't love ya any more dan I does.  I
run away from a white man just ta get myself more enslaved dan ever by a
white boy."

James was not at all pleased by that poetry, even if it was a love poem.
He opened his mouth to protest, but Mud continued.

"It's true; I's mad as a hornet... but ya gots nothin' ta do wid it.  My
mouth hurt real bad, boy.  I gotta tooth about ta do what da whip couldn't:
I swear it gonna kill me.  I's mad at everythin'."

James' anger went out of him in a rush and he went right to Mud's side and
touched his jaw lightly.  "You're in pain?  Why didn't you say something?"

"I's in pain," Mud said drily.  "Now what?  Ain't nothin' ta be done, so
why bother ya wid it?"

"Idiot," James said softly.  He pressed his face into Mud's chest and
hugged him.  "I heard you, Mud.  I heard you say you love me."

He stepped back, his eyes bright and shiny.  "I'm going into town now to
take care of some things.  Please dig out the hole I asked for.  For me,
Mud.  Please?"

Mud cupped his face gently and nodded.  "I'll do it."

James ran to the house and poked his head in the front door.  "I'm heading
to town for an errand, Aunt Mary; do you need anything?"

"You're restricted to the grounds, James.  No errands for you.  A boy who
can't control his fists needs to stay away from other people."  Her reply
was stated archly from the kitchen, and the fact that it was a fair
judgment made James flush with embarrassment.

"Aunt Mary?"  The tone of his voice got her to turn to him.  "It was stupid
and wrong, what I did to Davy.  It won't ever happen again.  Now, I need to
go to town.  I'd like your permission to do what I have to do.  It's to
help somebody and nothing more."

"Is the somebody you?"

James smiled.  She was more like his mother than he had originally thought.
"No, Ma'am."

"Is the somebody Mud?"

"Yes, Ma'am."

She considered him a moment.  "Don't think for a minute I didn't hear you
say that you were planning to go with or without my permission; but you
have it because you took the time to seek it out.  You're a good boy,
James.  I'm going to trust you to do what's right.  It's time to show how
smart you are and put your fists away."

James shifted uncomfortably, remembering that Mud had said the same thing
to him.  "My mother taught me what was right, Aunt Mary; I love her for it.
But you've shown it to me.  Since the day I arrived, you've shown me
exactly what it looks like."

He closed the door before she could respond to that, but still glimpsed her
wide-eyed look and opened mouth.  He knew he'd said the right thing, and it
was every bit the truth.

His walk into town was a slow trek through the thick heat.  It coruscated
off the cotton fields in distorting waves, making him see the crop in a way
he had not before.  The bolls had cracked open in the prior weeks, exposing
the fluffy fibers within; and the bracts had withered to tough brown claws.
James faltered to a stop to take in the sobering panorama, and an ache grew
inside him as he surveyed the hundreds of thousands of strong, brown
vegetal hands straining upward in the heat to hold the soft heads of white
aloft.

A hot wind moaned through the throng, giving voice to the misery of the
dark stalks, twisted in the heat from their labors, but resolute in their
destiny.

James gritted his teeth against the shimmering vision and stumbled on his
way.

It took Doctor Galen a few minutes to respond to the knock on his door, and
when he opened it to find James on his front porch, his eyes searched him
critically.

"I suppose you need patching, too?" He asked gently.

"Pardon me, Sir?"

"I ran into your friend Davy the other day as he was limping home from your
house."

"Oh," James weakly muttered in embarrassment.

"You know, James, you can't really - "

"Teach people anything with my fists?  Punish all the idiots in the world?
Show that I'm smart by acting stupid?"

The doctor laughed.  "I see your aunt is doing a marvelous job.  Come in
and tell me how I can help you."

James followed the doctor through the open door and into a front room that
served as an office and surgery.  A large table with no chairs was in the
center of the room, a desk was pushed into a corner, and bookshelves lined
all the walls overflowing with tomes and strange devices, the like of which
he had never seen before.

"Wow," James breathed.

The doctor chuckled.  "Boys always like the caskets I've built in the back
room and the medical equipment up here.  I suppose these look like torture
devices; so naturally, the boys are enthralled."

"I've never seen so many books," James gasped in reply.  He walked to a
shelf and touched the leather binding of a large volume, tracing the gold
tooling with a finger.

"You may look at it, if you wish," the doctor said, watching James
carefully, a thoughtful expression upon his face.

"Oh, N-no," James demurred, turning away from the shelves, but that placed
him in front of the desk where another pile of books awaited him.  His eyes
alighted upon one that was bookmarked and recently read, looking as if it
had been hastily covered by the others.  He managed not to touch this one
and give away that he'd seen it, but his eyes roamed the spine and
partially-hidden cover greedily.  He wrestled away from all the
publications and turned to meet the appraising eye of the old man.

"I'm here for a toothache.  My tooth is hurting fiercely."

The doctor frowned and approached him.  "Is it?  Open your mouth, please.
Which side?"

"Uhhh.... Over here?"  James pointed vaguely to his left.

"Upper or lower?"

"Lower?"

Doctor Galen squinted at his answer-that-was-a-question, and then examined
the quadrant gently with his fingers.  James groaned at one point, so the
doctor carefully reexamined a couple teeth, eliciting odd noises from the
boy at what seemed to be random intervals.  The doctor bit the inside of
his cheek, looked at James searchingly and then went through a desk drawer
to bring out a small tincture bottle with glass dropper.

"One drop of this liquid on the tooth every few hours will kill the pain."

"What is it?"  James asked.

"It's a proprietary nostrum, which one should normally avoid.  However, a
colleague discovered this one is actually quite effective for pain,
especially in the mouth.  It works on contact."  The doctor wrapped the
bottle in brown paper and handed it to the boy.

 "If by any chance you should suddenly weigh more than a hundred pounds,
take three drops instead of one.  You understand?"

James stiffened under the doctor's intense gaze, and then looked down at
the floor guiltily.  "I understand that you're a very smart man," he said
quietly.

"And you have very nice, very healthy teeth.  Is there anything else you
need, young man?"

"That book," James said suddenly, pointing at Twelve Years a Slave which
peeked out from its poor hiding place.  "How much would it cost me to buy
that book?"

The doctor frowned in puzzlement until he twisted around and saw the book
in question.  He smiled; it was a slow thing that crept from his mouth to
his eyes.  "You may have this book.  I've read it a few times already.
Someone else should have the pleasure.  But it's not the sort of thing your
new friends would understand; it would be best for both of us if they did
not know you had it."

"I - I... I don't need it quite yet. May I come back when I'm ready for
it?"

"You may.  I'd like very much if you came back, James.  I've a feeling
we've much in common, and I could surely use a friend."

James grinned at the old man.  "I'd like that, too.  How much do I owe you,
Sir?"

"Hmmm.  I'm thinking that our patient with the real toothache probably
doesn't have much money.  True?"

"It's true, Sir.  But I'll find a way to pay you."

The doctor nodded.  "I could use some help building a few new caskets, if
you'd like to learn that skill.  After that, I think I could surely do with
someone to organize all these books.  I've rather forgotten what I have in
here, and a good inventory and organization would be appreciated."

James was elated at the opportunity, but then he thoughtfully frowned,
opened his mouth, but hesitated and didn't say anything.

The doctor laughed at his tortured expression.  "Yes?"

The boy sighed heavily, the weight of his new friendship suddenly an
uncomfortable burden, but he liked the doctor very much and would do the
right thing.

"The people in town..." he hesitated, but the doctor was already smiling at
him and nodding his head.

"Nigger lover?" the old man asked baldly.

James nodded, but ducked his head in embarrassment.

The man closed his eyes and sighed.  "I was aware, but I thank you for your
warning.  I have people here who need me, though."

James' eyes darted up to meet the piercing blue ones of the doctor.  "I
think it might be worse than you believe it is.  I've heard threats.
Please be careful."

The doctor blinked at him a few times and then nodded soberly.  "Thank you,
James; thank you very much.  You're a good friend."

* * *

"How did ya get these?" Mud squinted at the bottle suspiciously.

"I told the doctor I had a toothache."

"Ya lied."  It was not a question, so James did not answer it.  Mud sighed.
"I wish ya didn't do things like dat fer me."

"You'd take care of it yourself if you could.  You'd do it for me if this
was all backwards."

Mud scowled.  "Maybe, but I still don' want..."

"Three drops, Mud.  Please do it now so you can remember why I did this for
you; how I feel about you."

Mud finally met his eyes.  "Take more dan a toothache ta make me ferget
dat.  Ya do it, please."

He handed the bottle back to the boy and lay on their bed of hay with his
mouth open.  James suppressed the hormone-driven fantasies this pose
conjured, and opened the tincture bottle with shaky fingers.

His voice was steady, though.  "Which tooth?"

Mud gestured vaguely to the left bottom area, making James smile at his
lucky guess with the doctor.  He filled the thin glass tube, stoppered it
with his fingertip and then administered three large drops onto the
offending tooth.  He then accidentally administered five more in a rush as
he was removing the tube from Mud's mouth.

"Oops."

"Whadya mean, 'oops'?"

"Just a couple extra."

Mud frowned, but then said, "Be okay.  I's a big feller."

"I hope so."

"Wow, dat work fast!"  Mud's face split into the first grin James had seen
in a couple days.  "Feel real funny; but much better."

He took a deep breath, expelling all the misery he'd kept bottled within,
and then smiled warmly at James.  "Thank ya.  I been an ass."

The boy managed to throttle his smile and tried his best to look persecuted
instead.  "You have.  You are greatly indebted to me now."

"I always pays ma debts," Mud said huskily, cupping James' jaw.  "What can
I do fer ya, boy?"

"You know what I want."

"I does.  But I wanna hear ya say it ta me.  Use dat word."  Mud's dark
pupils had expanded to swallow all the warm brown color.  The excitement in
his eyes turned them to bottomless wells, devouring James.  Their
experiments with the whale oil had gone well enough to replace most of
Mud's concern about pain, leaving only Mud's inhibitions about James' age
as the remaining hurdle to their pleasure.  While Mud usually lumbered over
that hurdle reluctantly, the current look in his eye indicated he was ready
to vault completely over it.

"I want you to fuck me, Mud.  I like saying it for you.  You like to hear
me say I want your big prick inside me, fucking me?"

"Oh yes, I shorely does. Dose words from yer pretty li'l mouth is right
wicked.  Good Lor' fergive me, but I loves it."

James pulled off his boots and tossed away his shirt, then peeled down his
trousers and drawers.  He could feel Mud's hungry gaze upon his skin,
licking his slowly-exposed flesh with wet heat.  The boy kicked the clothes
off his feet and, turning his back on Mud, bent to dig the whale oil out of
the hay.  He heard Mud's soft groan when his ass spread with the movement;
and James' lips twisted into a hidden smirk as he felt the heady
intoxication of the man's lust wash over him.

He dropped the oil where it would be easy to reach, and then he turned to
meet Mud's dark gaze.  He fell backwards on the blanket, rolling onto his
shoulders so that his legs arched over and behind his head.  He spread the
cheeks of his ass with his hands and let an index finger slide into the
cleft to stroke at his quivering hole.

"Please, Mud.  Fuck me.  Come bugger your boy.  Fuck me right now."

Mud actually choked for a moment, coughing at the wanton display, and at
the filthy words he'd taught his boy to say.  The sound of them pulsed in
his loins with the tempo of the blood pounding in his ears.  He felt so
very good; he'd never wanted anything more than he wanted to slide inside
that tight sheath.  His eyes were open so wide they looked comical; but
then the embers of his lust flared brightly, burning his surprise away
until only his throbbing need remained.  He couldn't seem to get his
clothes off fast enough, trying not to rip them in his haste, but so
frantic to be inside the boy that he could hardly think of anything else.

James did some groaning himself as Mud's large ebony prick bounced into the
air, dripping already from the large slit at the tip.

"Hurry," he urged the man, who was already scrambling toward him.

Mud's large, calloused hands ran gently up the boys thighs to his small
ankles.  His legs looked like thin pale willow branches in his big hands,
and seemed to be just as pliable. He pushed them down further, past James'
ears and into the hay so that the small, creamy ass of the boy tilted up
toward him like an offering.  In the lamplight, James' skin was the color
of a peach, glowing against Mud's own dark flesh, a flash of lightening
against a midnight sky.

"Ya look good enough ta eat," Mud rasped, staring at the rosy entrance to
James' body.  And it was true; the color and image of a peach made him
hungry to know the taste of James, and before he'd given it thought, his
head dipped down and his tongue pushed away James' finger so that he could
stroke that tight ring himself, but with a different, broader, and wetter
appendage.

He lapped gently for a few moments, experimenting with the sharp taste of
his boy and noticing that the tight muscle softened and relaxed while James
whimpered and groaned.  The taste was intoxicating, and Mud wanted more.
He worked his tongue against the opening, wriggling the tip inside his
body.

James went completely still and his eyes and mouth opened wide; but no
sound emerged.  He felt as if he stood balanced upon a fence rail, arms
wide to keep his balance; but then Mud's slippery tongue plunged deeply in
a powerful, sinuous slide, and James plummeted from his perch, tumbling
over and over into pleasure as Mud's tongue squirmed within him.  It was
due to his own silent, arrested state that he was able to hear the guttural
groans of the big man as he ravenously explored him.  James' limbs began
shaking with the wonder of being desired, and the need for more that was
catching fire inside him.

He was twisting in Mud's grasp, unable to comprehend the fullness of the
pleasure he was feeling.  He pushed up into the man's mouth, desperate to
be consumed by him, and was rewarded with a happy hum from the big man and
deep thrusts of the tongue.

That tongue.  It twisted and squirmed, digging fully within him, leaving
him panting with a depth of want he had not yet known.  His heart swelled,
as if it was as full and engorged as his adolescent prick.  He thought he
would go mad if this continued much longer.

"Mud.  Please.  Fuck me.  Please, Mud."  It was a gasp, a whimper, a
beggar's cry.

Mud's dark face rose from his ass, glistening in the lamplight with his
juices.  James watched wide-eyed as Mud's thick tongue circled his plump
lips, slurping every taste from himself before he grinned down at the boy
in a wide-mouthed smile.

"Say it again," he growled.

"Fuck me, Mud.  Please."

"Again."

"Please!"  James was hoarse with desire, and his legs shook like a colt's
within Mud's strong grasp.  "Fuck me."

Mud grabbed the oil and slicked his cock; but he did not hurry.  He watched
James squirm and pant while he held the boy's ankles in one hand, and
lubricated his own throbbing organ with the other.

"Now?" He taunted the boy.

"Now!"  James demanded.  He was at the end of his rope, and his heated gaze
met Mud's to let him know he could take no more.

"Whatever ya need, boy.  Anythin' at all."  Mud's lips descended on James'
and devoured his loud yelp of pain as the large, dark crown pushed inside
the young body.  The muscle clasped right behind the head, throttling Mud
in a choke-hold of pleasure.  He growled in ecstasy, and willed his hips
against their insistent desire to drive deep into that tight, molten heat.

James' whine grew until it was almost a scream, but he kept his head and
swallowed his pain.  He knew that if Mud suspected how much this hurt him
even with the oil, he'd never do it again.

"Just hold right there a moment, Mud.  Please.  I need you to stay right
there for a bit, okay?"

"Anythin' ya tell me, Sweetboy.  I'll do anything ya say.  I needs ya so
bad I cain't hardly think sometimes.  I never woulda known I could need a
boy like ya, James.  But God help me, I need ya so much I cain't stand it.
Ya's a bright, bright light in ma dark world."

And as those words penetrated the pain, James felt the red tide recede, to
be replaced by the growing wave of pleasure.

"Now, Mud.  Slide in slow, but go all the way.  I need to feel you deep
inside me."

Mud eased his hips forward in a heavenly glide, sliding deep in the slick
warmth of James' body.  When his pubic bone ground against James, they both
groaned into the other's open mouth.  The pure joy of being filled so
completely had James suddenly laughing with his happiness, an unexpected
expression that with lesser men might cause concern, but with Mud, it
merely caused his lips to curl with carnal glee from the unexpected clutch
of the young body milking him greedily.

"Lor' above.  Laugh again."

James could hardly speak; the cock within him seemed to steal his breath.
"I can't," he gasped.

"No?"  Mud challenged him, and then dug the free fingers of his right hand
into the unprotected landscape of James' ribs.

James rocked with mirth, skewering himself on the large cock within him,
and shaking with laughter and pleasure.  He gasped for breath and tears
clouded his eyes.

"Stop that!" he demanded, panting.

Mud stopped immediately.  "Anythin' ya tell me, Sweetboy."  He cupped
James' face and kissed him gently, soothing his fingertips down the ribs
he'd molested.  "Anythin' at all.  I'll do whatever ya command me."

"Fuck me," James pleaded.  "Please, Mud.  I want to be yours."

Mud withdrew slowly until the crown was again being choked by James' tight
muscle.

"Ya always be mine, Sweetboy," he said solemnly, and then slid forward
again, seating his prick fully inside, and watching James' eyes roll back
in his head.  He didn't really understand how this could be pleasurable to
the boy, but he accepted that whatever he was doing felt as good or better
than he felt himself.  And that was saying a whole lot.  Mud couldn't
remember ever feeling as much pleasure as he did in that moment.  It might
have been the extra drops of medicine, or it might have been the pleasure
of a body after such a long loneliness; but as Mud realized how much it
meant to him to make this good for James, he realized what it actually was.

He kissed the boy's lips again.  "I love ya," he said.

James opened his eyes and looked at him soberly.

"Not jus' what we's doin' right now.  Ya understand?  I love ya.  Ya hear
me?"

"I hear you," James whispered in awe.  He heard him so well, in fact, that
the words would reverberate within him in the future, echoing off the empty
walls of his chest during quiet, lonelier days ahead.

Mud grinned in gratitude.  "Now?"  He asked.

"Now," James agreed, his eyelids lowered with lust.  The wicked smile on
the boy's mouth twisted like depravity inside of Mud; a twist that felt so
very good.

Mud snapped his hips, plunging himself deeply inside the boy to the
accompaniment of a slap of flesh and the satisfaction of invasion.  He did
it again.  And then again.

A sheen of sweat covered Mud's muscular body, slippery like silk.  James'
fingers slid on it, stroking the strong, ebony thighs as they pumped
ruthlessly against his ass, giving him everything that he never knew he'd
wanted, but would now crave for the rest of his life.

The rhythm was like that of the trains he'd ridden: the thunderous pounding
against his body, the rocking comfort, the excitement of unexplored
territory, and the puffing hiss of steamy breath against his ear.

James reached his pinnacle long before Mud, but he was glad of that.  It
allowed him to be free of the selfish drive of pleasure and watch the dark
visage of the muscular man twist into a snarl of pure lust.  There was no
pain now, just the odd sensation of being filled and emptied by a war
cannon.  The fact that it might fire at any moment was part of the thrill
of battle; and James relished every thrust and bruise he earned in the
fight.

"I don' wanna hurt ya.  I don' wanna hurt ya.  I don'..."  Mud was
whispering his meditation to himself and to James, trying so hard to keep
his head in the frenzy.

James reached up to pinch one of his dark nipples, and pinched it HARD.

"Fuck me harder," he growled to the man.

Mud's pupils were so wide that there was no color left at all.  They
swallowed his eyes, and they swallowed James.  His mouth set into a feral
grin, and he slammed his hips forward so that James cried out.

"Like dat?"  he hissed.

"Harder," James whimpered back at him.

"Lor' have mercy on me.  I gonna bugger ya into da groun'."

And he tried.  His hips slapped hard against the boy's, stinging like the
harshest punishment and most generous of gifts.  He plunged again and again
into the tight young body, claiming it as his own.  He'd been so worried
about hurting James that he'd held back from showing him how much he needed
to be inside him.  No more.  He took what he needed, and let the boy learn
a bit about natural consequences.

And it was the best experience they'd had yet, the strongest of Mud's whole
life and the one against which James would measure everything.  It was
exquisite pleasure, and carnal heat.  It was power, strength, and emotions
that burned them, melting them so that their bodies melded into one form.
When Mud reached his climax, his eyes were flowing with tears he could not
explain, and his hips continued to thrust, unwilling to end their moment.
He panted against James' neck, biting and kissing him in gratitude.  The
wet from his eyes and mouth soothed the burn that his teeth and whiskers
left on the tender flesh.

"I loves ya.  God help me, boy.  I loves ya."  And still he plunged into
the depths of James with his softening member, afraid to end; afraid he
might never feel so much again.

"Please don't stop," James whispered fervently.

"I cain't keep..."

"Please, Mud.  Please don't stop..."

Mud fucked him until the sensitivity was driving him crazy and he had to
cease.

"I'm sorry," he muttered.

James swallowed the apology with his hungry mouth, devouring the man's lips
and tongue.  And when Mud's organ fell free from his body, he knelt and
kissed the tip reverently.  They were outside the bounds of all normal
rules and decency.  In this sweaty barn of sweet hay and sour mule, they
made their own rules.  James lips caressed Mud's balls and sucked them
gently.

"I dunno what yer doin' ta me, but I's gettin' so I cain't think a nothin'
but ya..." Mud whispered hoarsely.  "Smooth an' gentle.  Suck dem gently
now."

James' diligence was rewarded with a second coupling; one that lasted
longer and moved slower than the first.  Where they had earlier been just
frenetic need and pain, they were now slow comfort and tender pleasure.
When Mud finally released deep inside James, he already had two more of the
boy's ejaculations coating his rippled stomach.

"It hardly seems fair I always get two for every one of yours," James
laughed quietly, nuzzling into Mud's neck.

Mud's voice was solemn.  "I wish ya always ta have more.  If it was up ta
me, ya'd be many times happier dan I ever been... an' I ain't ever been
happier dan now."

James' sigh against his sweaty skin was like a cooling breeze, and it made
Mud yearn for the wind on his bare flesh.  Mud felt an itch inside him to
give James something to remember this night, not realizing that he'd just
finished giving that exact thing.

"I wanna show ya somethin'."

"What?  Now?"

"Yes.  Gotta hurry or we miss it.  C'mon."

He roused them out of the hay and blanket and into their clothes and shoes.
James took the lead out of the barn to ensure the way was clear, and then
whistled softly for Mud, who came quickly to him in the dark.

"Is I well-trained?" the big man whispered wickedly, and licked quickly
behind James' ear, eliciting a bright giggle that James tried to turn into
a manlier chuckle.  The attempt made Mud's chest seize, and he nuzzled
again behind the boy's ear, planting a gentle kiss.

"Where are we going?" James asked, nervous for Mud to be in the open.

"C'mon."  The man grabbed his hand and led him toward the town, but they
stayed off the road in the fields, along the edge of the cotton where they
could not be seen in the dark.  As was common for this time of night, a
ground mist curled around their feet, moisture stolen from the river but
then squeezed from the thieving air so that it coalesced into an eerie fog
that hugged the ground.

James' fear that Mud was leading them into town dropped away forgotten, as
a green-yellow light began to brighten the area around them.

"What is that?" he whispered, intrigued.  He'd never seen anything light up
the night like that except a fire.  But he'd never seen an emerald flame.

Mud's smile was shy, and that did more to elevate James' curiosity.  The
man stopped, and took the boy's other small hand, too, so that they faced
each other.  The expression on his dark face looked like a grimace to
James.

"I ain't so good wid words.  I cain't give ya anythin' at all to show ya
how I feel.  I gots only da things I like, an' I like dis one da best.  I
seen it da other night an' it's almost as purdy as ya.  So I want ya ta see
it."

His expression was so earnest that it made James realize the sincerity
embedded within the words.  All he could think in that moment was of the
delicate willow sculptures he hoarded under the bed in the room he did not
use.  There was a train, mule, star, church, fish, snake, bathtub and
barn. Each represented something to him, a symbolic timeline since he'd
arrived in Mississippi.  And then he thought of Mud moving inside him,
leaving the fluids of his own body deep inside James'.

"You've already given me the best gifts I've ever received," he managed to
say, with the unique conviction of a fourteen year-old.

Mud smiled, understanding.  He'd been fourteen once, but it was a misery
ago.

Then he shook his head fondly.  "Ya might think dis one is stupid.  I
jus'... I jus'... It's rare an' beautiful."

He cupped James' face to complete the circuit of that thought, and then
turned them back toward the eerie green glow emanating from the open field
of the Hanging Tree.

James' trepidation had grown in the increasing glimmer of the malignant
light.  It was as if a cauldron had seeped over its rim, spilling a
bubbling fog upon the ground and an eerie verdigris pestilence across the
landscape.  The color came from no natural fire that James had ever seen;
and the Hanging Tree crouched as a dark shadow against that gleam, its
twisted limbs reaching through the murkiness as if blindly trying to find
them.

Mud walked beside him in the dark, unconcerned and grinning happily, even
humming a bar or two of a spiritual with which James was unfamiliar.  The
gangrenous glow seemed to not worry him; not even a little.

James did not like Mud to be anywhere near that tree.  His young heart was
accelerating and just before they broke into the open field where it
hunched in ambush, he dug in his heels, stopping them.

"Mud?  I don't think..."

"Hush now, boy.  We's here.  I truly hopes ya like it."

With that, Mud pulled him into the clearing, and James' world tilted.

He stood with his mouth hanging open, unsure for a long time what he was
seeing.  Mud wasn't even watching the tree; he watched the green light
shining in James' eyes, and he laughed happily at the wonder he saw
reflected there.

"I take it all back," the man whispered.  "Dis ain't nearly as purdy as ya
are."

But he lied, James knew.  There was nothing more magnificent than the scene
before him.  It was a confluence of natural phenomena that took on the
appearance of the supernatural.

The ground mist that had seethed around their ankles ascended within the
open field, draping its soggy cloak across the clearing so that small
droplets of water hung in the air like suspended rain.  Dazzling frozen
gemstones glistened all around them as if they'd entered a crystal
cathedral.

But it was the fireflies that provided the light.  It was not hundreds, nor
thousands, but rather millions of tiny fireflies wrapping the dark tree in
a shroud of chartreuse, transforming it into a holy place that seemed to
pulse rhythmically as the tiny lights flashed in cadence to an angelic
song.  Its grotesque, twisted limbs suddenly seemed graceful as they moved
in arboreal dance.

The fireflies' eerie green lights were caught in the suspended moisture of
the air and then diffused and mirrored by thousands of droplets so that the
glade glimmered with an otherworldly radiance.  It seemed as if the two
humans spied upon a celestial court dancing in a heavenly bower.

It was a soundless choreography.  The fog insulated the meadow against the
outside world so that within this magical place the dancers could move to
their silent tune.  James clapped his hand over his mouth to stifle his cry
of amazement, but his gasp could be heard against the rest of the mute
night.

Mud chuckled warmly and it sent shivers across James' skin, damp from the
iridescent fog.  The man draped his arm across his shoulders, sharing his
body heat in the unexpected chill.

"Oh, Mud," James managed to whisper.  "It's wonderful."

Mud agreed with a quiet hum and then sank into the grass, pulling James
into his lap.  He wrapped both his arms around the boy and continued to hum
in his ear, rocking them as they watched the insects' ritual slowly darken
over the next hour.  Finally, only occasional flashes could be seen through
the mist, and the dance was concluded.

They rose and walked hand-in-hand back toward the Willett farm, sticking
closely to the shadows along the line of cotton fields.

"Why do they do that?"

"Mamma used ta tell us dat it was how dey found each other in da dark.
Dey're tryin' ta find a mate.  Dey frantically flash and flash until one a
dem flashes back."

"You said I was your light in a dark world."

The large hand squeezed James' in response.

"Why do you think they'd choose that tree over all the others?  I hate the
Hanging Tree."

"Da Firefly Tree?  I think it's beautiful.  Ya always has a choice twixt
beauty an' ugliness, James.  Choose what ya wanna see."

* * *


James woke abruptly the next morning, finding a willow-sculpture of the
Firefly Tree next to him, and a strange, bearded man with a stern,
assessing gaze standing beside the blanket-covered hay bed.  Although the
hair on the man's head was very dark, his mustache and beard were threaded
with silver strands, bordering a mouth that was firm with displeasure.

"You're James?" He asked in a challenging tone, daring the boy to deny it.

"Yessir," James mumbled in confusion, wrestling himself into a sitting
position and reaching for his shirt.

"I'm Commander Willett, your uncle.  You will sleep in the house from now
on; you are neither an animal nor a nigger.  When you've managed to put
clothing on your body, you will meet me outside the barn.  If I'm going to
house an orphan, then he's going to work for the assistance he receives."



* I appreciate hearing from people who are reading my stories.  Shoot me an
email and let me know what you think.  Your feedback is the only way I know
you're reading and whether or not it makes sense to continue.

I have other stories, too.  Look up Seth Kirkcauldy in the author's
section.

seth-kirkcauldy@sbcglobal.net