Date: Tue, 22 Aug 2006 23:20:17 EDT
From: Tommyhawk1@aol.com
Subject: Paris Versus the River

			  PARIS VERSUS THE RIVER
			   By Tommyhawk1@AOL.COM
		      WWW.TOMMYHAWKSFANTASYWORLD.COM
			WWW.TOMMYHAWKSROGUEMOON.COM

     You could hear the resentment in his posthole diggers as Zach tore
into the sod. At his feet lay a dozen dried, misshapen poles, at his belt
hung a hammer on one side and a cloth bag filled with staple-nails and tied
to his belt with its twine at the top. Zach's body was slick with sweat
that dripped into his eyes as he slammed the posthole diggers down, biting
into the dry, hard dirt. When the rains came, this dirt was deep black in
color, rich and fertile. But in the middle of that August dry spell we'd
had back in the summer of 1925...it might as well be rock for all it'd
grow!
     I called out when I got close enough; you don't sneak up on a old
Southern country boy if'n you can help it. Zach didn't have a gun with him,
and I was an old friend of his, but you still just don't surprise someone
like that. "Hey, Zach!" I called.
     Zach turned and his sweat flung from his sleek black hair as he
did. "Adam!" he called to me, an easy grin lighting his face.
     "Need some help?" I volunteered. Of course I'd help, that was
understood. If Zach had come upon me working on a fence, he'd pitch in
himself to help me. Part of that was the neighborly way of farming, the
other part of that was friendship.
     "Why, thank you." he said. "I reckon it's nearly done here. Just put
in the poles and tack the wire onto it, and that'll finish this stretch."
     "I'll take care of the poles while you're finishing up that hole." I
said and took up a pole, carried it to the end of the small row of holes he
had dug. With the grass yellow and the dirt pale brown, it can be hard to
spot a posthole if you don't know what you're looking for. I knew, so they
stood out like a row of tin soldiers.
     Stick the pole in, tamp the end down tight to set it, then kick the
clods in around it with your feet, stamping on it when you were done to
pack the dirt down tight around the post. I'd done this chore many times
before, it was easy work for a farm. Not as bad as haying. Zach's field
would need cutting before too much longer, even in summer, that tough grass
would keep on growing, making bursts at every drop of moisture, even the
little bit that comes with the dew at night, and though the top of the
grass was yellow, there was a small, sheltered bit of green at the bottom
of each blade that fed off this little bit of water and used it to grow and
grow. Grass in summer only looks dead, it's just sleeping away the hot days
until it can be rescued, is all. A couple days of rain, and every yellow
blade of grass would turn itself green once again.
     Zach met me halfway with the poles, and then I held the barbed wire in
place while he hammered the staples into place. A U-shaped nail with two
tails and no head, it bit into the old wood easily, clamping the wire to
the grayed, dry wood posts.
     Done, he wiped his forehead with the back of his hand and said,
"Thanks, Adam."
     "T'weren't nothing." I said, and I meant it. "I come out to see if
maybe you wanted to go fishing with me. Too hot to work in the fields."
     "That it is." Zach agreed with me. "Only when a cow knocks down your
fence, you get out and fix it anyhow. Dumb-ass critters, they got better
food my side of the fence than they do outside it, but they go after the
grass on the other side, anyhows."
     "Wanting what they ain't got." I agreed. "Lots of us got that
problem." Only I wasn't thinking of me when I said it.
     The idea of fishing this afternoon hadn't been mine, it had been
Zach's mom. Ever since Zach's dad passed away nearly two years ago, Zach
had been the man of the house, working the farm and taking care of
things. The land was his by rights, only his mother had lifetime tenancy in
it. Not that he would kick his mother off the land if he could've, but
still, you could see Zach champing at the bit like a horse wanting to get
the reins off and into the pasture again. His mother had seen it, and
fetched me to talk to him. If Zach up and left the farm, like he was pretty
close to doing, his mother wouldn't be able to keep the place up. The place
didn't pay enough to let her hire someone. She'd have to go move in with
one of her daughters, and leave the farm to Zach, who would then sell it.
     Zach wasn't a bad son, he was as good to his momma as he could be. But
you can't be good to the point of burying yourself on a farm you didn't
want, and that was Zach's problem.
     Zach and I went back to his house and he washed up some at the
pump. His momma came out with a cloth wrapped bundle, some hoecakes for us
to eat for a lunch, so it was just get the fishing poles and head for the
river. The river was nearly two miles away, but it was all on a forest
path, with the heavy head of leaves over us, cutting the anger out of the
summer sun, we sauntered easily, not talking, eating the hoecakes while we
walked, so we wouldn't waste time on it at the river.
     When we got there, we did some looking until we found a rotting tree,
and pulled the bark down to fetch off some of those fat white grubs for our
bait, them grubs are better for catching fish than earthworms in the
summertime, when the worms dig themselves deep and get scarce to find. But
those worms get all fat and round eating away in the cool shade of the
forest and they are tempting as hell to the fish who find the bugs hard to
get in the summertime themselves.
     The only-est problem that we had was that we were on the south side of
the riverbank, and that meant that we didn't get a lick of shade if we
stood where we could cast our lines into the water.  We didn't have those
fancy reels and rods that city folks had, we just had a couple of sturdy
bamboo poles and a length of fishing line with a hook, a piece of lead a
couple inches above the hook to make it sink, and a bobbin at about two
feet over that to make the whole thing stay the right depth in the
water. The trick to fishing was to set your bobbin so the hook would get
right down to where the fish were. Zach and I knew this river well, we got
those grubs right down to where the water would be cool and the fish were
waiting for sundown and would eye that fat dinner just dangling there
nearby.
     But the lack of shade in August can be a problem. "You want to cross
the river?" I asked Zach. "We could carry our clothes over our heads for
it, I reckon."
     Zach shook his head. "Naw. Fish won't bite till a bit later in the
afternoon, anyways. Let's just set the poles and watch them until then."
     "Fine with me." and we got some rocks and put our fishing poles in
them so that they would hold up until some fish struck the bait. Then
they'd fall over, but if a man was quick, the fish wouldn't have time to
drag his pole away before he could catch it, and even if he didn't, the
pole would float and the man could swim out and fetch it back, fish and
all.
     The trees around us were mostly oak and acorn trees, fine squirrel
hunting if we had been out chasing squirrels. But we'd come to fish, the
squirrels chattered at us until they got bored and then went back to hiding
nuts for the winter.
     Zach stretched out under the oak tree and I laid my bones nearby. Zach
looked so natural laying there, his black hair atop his white body, his
arms and chest well muscled from all his farm labors, so that the old
overalls clung to his body in a long sweeping arc down to the junction of
his legs. He looked pretty as a picture there.
     "One of them there French fellows of yours would love to sculpt you
lying like that, I bet."  I said to him, by way of joshing him.
     "You think so?" Zach said. "Maybe when I get over there, I'll look one
of them up."
     "You really going?" I asked him.
     Zach nodded soberly. "We can sell a couple more cattle this fall if
the price is good. I figure half of that for Mom to let her run the farm,
and the other half for me to go see Paris." And Zach reached in and pulled
out one of his French postcards.
     Those weren't the kind with the naked women on them, the
postcards. Zach had postcards that showed Paris, the Eiffel Tower, the Rue
De La Pais (or whatever they call it), the Arc De Triumph and I don't know
what all else. "Look at this." he said to me.
     I looked, and it was a picture of Paris at nighttime, taken from on
top of one of their taller buildings. Just a load of lights and you could
see the Eiffel Tower at one side, all lit up. "Looks like a Christmas
tree." I commented as I passed it back to him.
     "Damn, Adam." Zach groaned. "You want to stay out here the rest of
your life?"
     "I reckon so." I admitted.
     "There's a whole world out there." Zach said to me, like he'd said
plenty of times before. "All these wonderful things just sitting there,
waiting for us to see it. Don't you want to see what that kind of life is
like? Don't you want to see how other people live? Maybe you don't have to
get up at dawn and feed the chickens and pigs and cows, and then walk a
plow behind a horse's ass all day long. All that work and you barely keep
yourself fed, and God help you if it don't rain or there's too much rain or
if there's locusts or a hell of a lot of other things, can leave you broke
and hungry. My Daddy died when he was forty-two, and he looked like an old
man when he died. I don't want to die like that.  Hell, I don't even want
to live like that!"
     He was detemined, then. "So you really are going to go away?" I said.
     "Yep, I am." Zach said. "If you can get the money together, you can
come with me."
     I shook my head. "Pa needs me on the farm. I couldn't take off and
just leave him like that.  Like you'd have to leave your Ma." There, I'd
said it.
     "Ma can go live with Ada or Elvira." Zach said. "Both of them would
love to have her, and she could take care of her grandbabies and talk all
day long. She'd be happier there than she is here, all alone in that house
all day while I'm out in the fields busting my hide to make a crop out of
the dirt. I been eating dirt behind a plow ever since I can remember. I
want to see what else there is out there." He paused. "You could come with
me."
     "What would I do in Paree?" I said. "Ain't nothing there for me that I
want. Bunch of fancy buildings and fancy people. They'd just look at you
and me and laugh at the two hicks. Then they'd come up with a way to steal
all our money from us, and we'd be broke and across an ocean from our
home."
     I looked at Zach and his face was yearning something terrible. "It
wouldn't have to be like that." He said. "You and me could look after each
other over there. And even if something did happen, we could work something
out together. I don't want to go over there all by my ownsome.  But if I
have to, that's what I'll do."
     I saw that he was determined. "Well..." I said. "I reckon if you go
over there, I could come by and take care of your animals for you, so your
Ma wouldn't be stuck with all the work. Pa's been talking of taking on a
hired hand anyhow, to help us out. He could get one a bit earlier than he
planned, is all."
     "You'd do that?" Zach asked me. His face lit up. "You'd do that for
me? If Ma isn't going to have to pay for someone to watch the place, I
could go to Paris right now, I got enough to get there and stay for three
or four months, anyhow."
     "Sure." I said. "What are friends for? You go to Paris and take a good
long look at it. Maybe you'll find what you're looking for over there and
can write to me now and then and tell me about it."
     "Thanks, Adam." Zach said, and put his hand on my shoulder. "You're
the best friend I ever had."
     "That just leaves one problem left." I said. "How lonesome I'm going
to be until you come back. If you ever do."
     "Come with me." Zach offered again. This time, his voice was as soft
as a kiss.
     "Stay with me." I countered. My own voice was only a whisper.
     "I can't."
     "And I can't go."
     "So what can we do?" Zach's voice was barely audible. I wouldn't have
heard him if I hadn't been right up next to him, barely two inches
separated our faces.
     "Just be my friend." I said to him.
     "Always." Zach promised.
     I'm not sure who reached for who, I just know that we were kissing,
then. I know it was me who scooted over to press our bodies together, lying
on the ground like we were, the grass (lush and green here by the river, at
least) slick under me as I moving up against him, and his arms came around
me. We knew each other so well, so completely, a lifetime together, that it
just felt so right, even though we had never done it together, even as
children, now it was exactly what we both needed just then.
     My hands were trembling as I slid them over his arms, feeling those
magnificently broad shoulders, moving over them to the rippling back, his
strength was within my grasp, and I felt him take a shuddering breath as he
released my lips and pressed his chin into my collar-bone.
     "Oh, God, Adam!" Zach gasped. "I can't bear it, not having you with
me. It's going to be so lonesome out there without you."
     "It's all right." I soothed him. "Anytime you come back, I'll be
here. I've always been here."
     "I know." Zach said. "You're the only thing making me want to stay."
     "Let's not talk about that." I said. "Let's share this afternoon. You
and me. Best friends."
     "Best friends." he said and this time he didn't hold me as much as he
possessed me. I was pulled up against his massive chest and he thrust his
lower body at me, and I felt the hard rod of his manhood pulsing there
against my leg. Zach groaned and he rubbed himself upon my leg like that,
by a twist I was able to push my own organ up against his stomach and now
we were both rubbing and moaning like a couple of tomcats that smelled a
puss in heat, oh-oh-oooh-oh!
     I fumbled with the latch of Zach's overalls, if I could get them
unlatched, I could dig into the shirt underneath, I could touch him, I
could touch his body without the clothes! I had to do it, I had to!
     With a click, the first one came undone, and then the other, low down
and hard to reach, succumbed even easier to my touch. I was pulling the bib
down and that shirt under taunted me, a second line of defense, laughing at
my efforts.
     With a sound that was almost a snarl, I rolled Zach over onto his back
and me on top and now I sat straddle of him and that freed my hands to work
the buttons upon his prostrate body, the shirt flew apart and I had it
opened. Now, God, now! His skin was a sleekly shining brown mass of muscle,
that danced as I ran my fingers upon them, for Zach moved in languid,
sensuous, writhing motions, squirming under me, and then his cock was
pressed against my body and he was grunting and worming it up against me
again.
     I skinned Zach like we'd skin those squirrels if we was to catch them,
with the centerline open, it was a matter of peeling back the rest to
display the softness beneath, and Zach sat up and I shucked the shirt off
of him, only his wrists and hands were trapped, then a pair of tugs
released them entirely. Now Zach was bare to nearly the waist.
     I wanted to keep undressing him, but the clothes wouldn't let me, it
was too awkward, with the shoes and the metal buttons on the overalls on
the sides and all. I broke away, gasping, "Let's get out of these clothes,
hell!"
     I fought my own clothes off in a hurry, and when I was at last
bare-naked as the day I was born, I turned and saw Zach standing before me,
in all his natural glory, and I was struck by the way he resembled a Greek
god standing in a glen over there in Europe or wherever Greeks lived (my
geography was weak, though I remembered those pictures in the books with
the Greek myths in them), and I said, "God damn, Zach, it's no wonder you
want to go over there. You belong there.  Me, I'm just a clod-buster like
my father, and never will be nothing else. But you...." I didn't have the
words. Everything those classical artists tried to paint or to sculpt or to
write, it was here, before me now, looking at Zach naked in this pastoral
setting.
     Zach smiled the benevolent smile of an amorous deity on the make. His
arms stretched out and beckoned me, and something of the rowdy country boy
caught me then and I whooped and I dove for him rather than the sedate
embrace of a romance novel.
     But Zach just laughed as I took him down, us two naked young men in a
shaded glen near a river, it would have made that Bullfinch guy wipe a tear
from his eye to see us wrestling about in our good-natured way. I bet those
Greeks had looked much the same as us, way back whenever it was that they
were killing snake-haired women and riding feathered horses.
     We ended up kissing again, and this time Zach's cock was unencumbered
and it burned against one of my thighs, and I felt it seeping stickiness
all over me; I couldn't protest, for mine was doing much the same into his
hairs just below his navel. "Aw, hell, Zach, let's quit whizzing on each
other and get to it." Zach sighed. "We got to make this good enough to last
me while I'm over in Paris. I don't know when I'll get a chance to come
back if I end up staying over there."
     I didn't want to talk about it all of a sudden, even though without
the ghost of Paris hanging over us, we would never have been doing
this. But I reached down and grabbed hold of his cock and I said, "Sounds
good to me. I heard tell Mary Sue can take a man's dick in her mouth and
make him scream in no time. I reckon that's the best way for you and me to
make this happen." It must sound naive, me saying and thinking that,
admitting that I had little understanding of how two men can make love. But
remember where I had grown up; how I had thought little on this before I
ended up kissing Zach; I was eager to begin but had only this tiny store of
knowledge to tell me how. Zach was little wiser, I think, otherwise, I
would have learned it from talking to him.
     As it was, Zach grunted his agreement and he pivoted over us so that
we ended up nose-to-tail to each other, and he dangled that huge pud of his
over my face and I felt his tongue gingerly kiss my glans as he considered
how to best proceed.
     No such daintiness was available for me, I pulled his hard rod over to
my mouth and when it went in, it went in all the way, I could only suck on
it like a peppermint stick from the grocery store. Zach moaned and he took
mine down the same way.
     In a joy of discovery, Zach and I learned how to please each other
then, I'd do something to him and he'd do it to me, and we soon found that
the best thing to do was to grip the other's pud in our lips tight, and
then bob our heads like crazy. Zach doing that for me was heaven on earth
and I think he liked it, too. Zach's mouth kept a sizeable suction on me
and that felt so damned great I tried to do it for him as well, with lesser
success, though Zach's groans of appreciation were sincere.
     We weren't in any hurry, we had the entire rest of the day, we
wouldn't be expected back home until near sundown and that was hours away
still. We heard voices from others on the river, but they were all far off,
barely identifiable as human sounds, nothing that dared impinge upon our
blissful exploration of each other's bodies. I knew enough about sex to
know that once we were done, it was odds against being able to do it again
that same day, and then after that...Zach would be gone. It made me want to
stretch it out, even though the joy raced through my body now in a
ceaseless, eternal wave, even though my balls were tight against my shaft
and my dick was pulsing almost angrily as Zach wove his magical touch upon
it. This was all I was going to get, no, let it go on and on, let it last
more, let the joy take me and let my heart burst from holding it within,
but don't let it go, don't let it go!
     And climax, when it came, it came like a robber, slipping up on me
even though I was fending it off, it struck me like a man hitting me with a
cosh, I felt my body surging up into orgasm and I groaned, no, no, not now,
not now, not ever, never, no, not now, no!
     "No-oh-oh-OHH-OHHHH!" I gasped as I exploded up into Zach's mouth and
he sputtered, coughed, surprised by the raw volume of it, for I felt my
cock awash in my jism within his mouth, and yet still more came out.
     Then, suddenly, Zach was in control and he was sucking, he was
drinking me down, his throat throbbed with his swallowing and each swallow
took down a huge load of my jizz, and I finished my climax and was wrung
out, completely out and I could only feebly take Zach's throbbing dong back
into my mouth and try to give him the attention he deserved once again.
     Yet I guess Zach had been waiting for me, for when I started on him
again, he was soon bursting out with his grunts, and his sobs, "Oh, yeah,
oh, yeah, oh, GOD, OH, YEAH, OH, ADAM, OH, GOD, OHGOOD, OOOOOOOH!" And my
mouth was drenched with his spunk.
     I had the mercy of foreknowledge, I knew he would cream in my mouth
and I had decided what to do, when he burst out into my mouth, I
immediately began to siphon him down, his cock was a straw holding his
magnificent nectar, I swallowed it like so much sweet honey and it filled
and warmed me all the way through, and I knew then that Zach and I had
shared a bond that could never be broken, not by time, not by distance, not
ever. This was ours, now, completely!
     Zach sagged down and landed on the ground beside me with a "whoof!"
and a chuckle of raw happiness. I spun around on my left buttock and got my
face up next to his where it belonged, and I looked at his angelic face,
the kind they would carve on those town halls of theirs over in Europe, the
kind they would put on statues of heroes, the kind they would immortalize
in a way I never could.
     So I reached down and cupped his cheek with my palm and I said, "So
you're leaving tomorrow?"
     "That or the day after." Zach said. "I've been waiting so long, I
can't see no reason to wait any more. I should have just cut out right
after Dad died, and I could have sold all the cattle and handed Mom some of
the money and...."
     "I know, I know." I said.
     "Maybe that's what I should do now, anyhow." Zach said, and his eyes
now turned far away, towards Europe, towards Paris, towards those lights
that gleamed in orderly rows upon their boulevards on postcards they sold
to us on the other side of the world. Zach would go and live among those
lights.
     "Whatever you want to do," I said, "is fine with me. Just let me know
when you're leaving, so I can set it up with Pa to come over and feed your
stock."
     "Hey, I got a fish!" Zach said and he jumped to his feet and caught
his pole, which was still erect, though leaning over precariously. He
grabbed it and reeled in the fish, a nice, large one, and he laughed as he
moved to land the fish, his naked body in delightful harmony with nature,
looking to me to share in his joy.
     Seeing that, I felt serene all of a sudden. Zach might belong over
there in Paris, just like he'd always dreamed. But a part of him also
belonged here, on this river, with me, and that was something Paris could
never take away from me. Zach would return here, maybe for good, maybe only
for visits, but Paris would have to share Zach with me from now on.

				  THE END
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