Date: Fri, 2 Jun 2000 22:45:12 EDT
From: Tony Malone <B.Ricchone@verizon.net>
Subject: Treading Water

This story tells about sex between men. If this offends you, or if you're
too young to be reading this kind of stuff, please hit "Back" right now.

Treading Water

My last summer in high school I was invited to spend two weeks with my Aunt
Gladys at her farm in Maryland. Aunt Gladys was not a farmer, far from
it. She was not even my aunt at all, but my uncle's wife's mother. But we
got along, she and I, and she seemed to enjoy my company. She had a lot of
stories to tell. She had been a top debutante, presented at Court, the
whole works. Her husbands had been rich, upper-class, high-placed,
well-educated americans, and each one of them a thorough-going eccentric,
if not a maniac, which led to unusual situations at the Hotel Ritz, at the
Colony Club, in the Royal Enclosure and at other aristocratic hang-outs.
Each of her stories, naturally, placed her at the center of one of these
exalted settings; but swallowing this narcissictic subtext was not too high
a price to pay to hear some real dirt from someone who had really been
there.  My willingness to listen, and my willingness to play Canasta, was
why I was down on Aunt Gladys' farm.

The farm itself was quite small as farms go. Aunt Gladys had inherited from
the husband before last (a Senator) a herd of twenty or so Black Angus and
a farm to keep them on. These were show cattle. The main activity was
buying them, breeding them and grooming them for competition. The farm had
a few fields of feed corn which would be ground up for silage, but the
animals mostly ate expensive mixes of enriched and medicated grains.

The feeding, the grooming and the showing were done by Wilson and Rhoda, a
couple who had worked for the Senator. The field work was contracted out to
a neighboring farmer; this was the way it had always been done. During the
summer the couple's son Kevin would join the crew. He would mend fences,
re-dig post-holes that had gone loose, paint, mow lawns, garden, a mix of
seasonal chores and yearly maintenance that kept him very busy.

Watching Kevin at work was one of the few selfish pleasures I could enjoy
on Aunt Gladys' farm. Maryland is hot and humid in July; Kevin wore faded
blue jeans and worn work shoes, but, most of the day, no shirt. He had
tanned while working in the sun: his upper body was a deep reddish brown,
except for the underside of his arms and a small patch by each armpit,
which were naturally shaded when he was standing. Under that skin the torso
was nicely developed and sharply defined. Luckily for me, almost every day
some chore brought him close to the main house. I could look out the window
and watch the rippling in his back as he maneuvered the lawn-mower around
the flower beds, or see the muscles in his sides alternately popping and
subsiding as he spaded mulch under the rhododendron and the magnolias, or
raked new gravel into the drive.  Aunt Gladys had an excellent pair of
binoculars. Using them I could follow individual drops of sweat down his
shoulders. If he squatted to work facing away from me, I could focus the
glasses at his waist. He seemed to be wearing no underpants, and the
exposed wedge of butt-skin flashed lily white in the sun.  Every once in a
while he would give me a special treat by reaching down and shifting his
balls around in his jeans. I would blush with excitement and feel my cock
stiffen, as if it had been my hand in his crotch instead of his.

There was another time each day when I got to see Kevin, but that was quite
different. The drill at Aunt Gladys' farm on workdays was that everyone ate
dinner together in the kitchen of the main house. So Kevin and his parents,
Aunt Gladys and I sat at a large round table and were served by Aunt
Gladys' cook and upstairs maid. The meals were not very fancy, but they
were usually good.  The conversation was dominated by Aunt Gladys; it was
addressed mostly to Wilson and Rhoda and concerned the farm and farm
business. I was surprised when I first realized that Aunt Gladys actually
understood the fine points of breeding Black Angus. Almost every meal, she
and Wilson would get into what seemed to me interminable and erudite
arguments about strains and traits. Meanwhile Kevin and I sat in silence. I
would sneak a look at him now and then. He would have showered before the
meal, and his close-cropped black hair would still be shining with
moisture. He would be wearing fresh jeans and, usually, a faded
western-style shirt. I could have stared at him the whole time, except that
every time I looked his way I felt my cock twitch, and I was sure I was
starting to blush. I tried to keep my eyes on my plate as much as possible.
Every so often Aunt Gladys would try to involve one of us in the
conversation.  That was how I learned that Kevin was a college student, at
Dartmouth, no less. When I asked her about it later, she let me know that
she was helping with his tuition, but that otherwise he was "working his
way through." So Kevin was not the high school drop-out I had imagined, but
a college man! This made him even more irresistable and even more
inaccessible.

He actually talked to me once. "Why don't you tell my nephew what life is
like at Dartmouth," Aunt Gladys had prompted. Kevin put down his fork,
looked over at me and began to speak. He had very dark eyes, so dark that
you could barely distinguish the iris from the pupil. I had never looked
straight into them before, but he caught my glance and held it. As his
voice went on in a friendly, matter-of-fact way about dormitories,
requirements, sports and examinations, his impassive gaze never wavered
from my eyes. The other three at the table had resumed their bickering
about chromosomes, I could hear silverware scraping against china as they
ate, everything was outwardly normal but inside I was standing in a rushing
wind looking over a precipice. I felt that turning away would be cowardly,
but I was sure that my shameful longing for his body was screaming out from
my face, even though of course I was politely nodding or shaking my head as
appropriate and uttering the standard banalities: "Really!" "I didn't know
that!" "That must have been fun!"  My penis had gone beyond twitching and
lay hot and rigid against my leg. I could feel my neck starting to
redden. I thought of staging a coughing fit, anything to stop the tension,
but at the same time looking into his eyes was delicious and I wanted it to
go on. Suddenly I heard him say: "Well, I guess I've told you all I know."
With that he looked down at his plate, retrieved his fork and went on with
his meal. I said "Thank you very much," and went back to mine.


After dinner Wilson and Rhoda would go back to their cottage (actually a
good-sized house) and Kevin, who had his own car, would drive to Kingsport
to hang out with his friends. At the table there had been some mention once
of a girlfriend, but the conversation took another turn and the topic never
came up again. When Kevin and his parents had left, Aunt Gladys and I would
head upstairs for a couple of hours of Canasta.

Each working day here was a rest period after lunch when all activity on
the farm came to a halt. I had noticed a small pond, just a long stone's
throw from the main house, tucked behind a thick stand of trees and
shrubs. The pond looked over the main pasture, but it was out of sight of
the cottage or of any of the barns.  An old rowboat was moored to a
weather-beaten dock; where one would row to was hard to imagine, the pond
was so small. A large cottonwood grew to one side, so close that its roots
were almost in the water. I found I could sit comfortably and read, leaning
against the tree, and that was where I would spend the daily siesta-time.

I did not lack for interesting things to read. Aunt Gladys had a lively
interest in deviant sexuality (another surprise!) and in her library I
found books I would never have found at home. I knew that my fascination
with men was not "normal" but I had never dared discuss it with anyone.
Here were weighty tomes on the subject!  I was so ignorant that Kinsey and
Kraft-Ebbing became my tutors in homosexual practice. There I learned, not
only what "fellatio" meant and what the prevalence of fellatio was, but the
very existence of the act. There I finally understood a joke I had heard
about the number sixty-nine ("67, 68, Vive la France, 70").  Anal
intercourse, bondage, homosexual foot-fetishism, it was an undiscovered
continent for me. And my companion in this mental exploration was Kevin.
Each new wrinkle I learned I visualized with him and me. He was sucking my
cock, I was fucking his ass, I was licking his feet, he was trussing me up
and torturing me with pinches and love-bites. Has anyone else ever
masturbated to Psychopathia Sexualis?

So the two weeks went by.  Towards the end, the weather got even hotter and
even more humid. Sitting under my tree I had thought about taking a dip in
the pond but I was put off by the water. It was cool but very murky. When a
sunbeam hit the surface you could follow it for a foot or so: it started
off yellow but darkened quickly through shades of green and brown before
dispersing completely.  On the way it lit the hazy dance of thousands of
particles. The surface itself was heavily strewn with the leaves of tiny
algae, bright green and almost circular, like split peas. Over this soup
scurried boatmen and striders, what we kids called water spiders. It was
not very appetizing. But it happened on my last day that the book I was
reading began to seem meaningless, that sweat was trickling down my spine,
and that I decided to give the water a try after all. I looked around to be
sure I was alone, left all my clothes by the tree, walked to the end of the
dock and jumped in.

The pond is surprisingly deep. My jump takes me down several feet without
my touching bottom. Below the surface the water is even cooler, cold in
fact, and I shiver slightly from my plunge. There is nowhere to swim to so
I stay where I am, treading water. The murkiness is still very disturbing.
I cannot see beyond my elbows and I wonder if anything lives in the dark
depths below me. I feel slightly panicky as I do swimming in the ocean
whenever I think of the possibility of a shark. Just then something large
brushes against my backside. I whirl around kicking and sculling and there
is Kevin's head, wearing a huge grin, bobbing in the water before me. The
adrenalin rush has me speechless; all I can think is, "Is he naked?" It is
very unlikely that he would have come down to the pond with a bathing suit,
but maybe he is swimming in his underwear. The thought of those white loins
is making me dizzy. My question is answered quickly.  "Okay, city boy,
let's see what you've got!" says Kevin as he puts his hands on my shoulders
and vaults up, pushing me under with all his weight. As I flail around
blindly, one of my hands strikes what can only be a penis, and an erect
one. I fight my way up to the surface, gasping frantically. So Kevin is
naked, and Kevin has a hard-on! My own cock is immediately stiff and
throbbing, even in the cold water. I feel myself blushing, and curse myself
for it. Kevin keeps grinning.  He reaches out, takes my hand and wraps my
fingers around his penis. I have never touched another man's cock before,
but it feels perfectly natural, and even more perfect and more natural when
he puts his hand around mine. By now we are chest to chest, both treading
water so as to keep afloat. "What about you do me and I do you?" he says.
"Let me show you." He reaches down with both hands. One cups my balls from
below, with the thumb and forefinger circled around the root of my cock
behind them.  The other starts moving the skin forward and back along my
shaft, the classic jerk-off. At each forward, my foreskin is pulled over
the tip of my glans; at each back my glans is naked in the cold water.
Kevin's hand at the base of my cock is pulling me down, so I have to kick
in place even more vigorously to stay afloat. The cold shocks on my glans,
Kevin's fingers pinching my testicles and caressing my cock, my own thighs
working hard against the water, and Kevin's beautiful smile all combine to
put me over the top. I feel my seed spurting into the water, and wish I
could see it go. A few million more little creatures joining the life of
the pond.

I am supercharged. I have the energy of a cyclotron crackling in my body
and my brain. I pull Kevin's head to mine and kiss him on the lips. I
wonder if he can feel the electricity. "Now it's my turn," I say. I figure
it will be more natural for me if I turn him around and work from the
back. Just like jerking myself off.  I still remember from Junior Life
Saving how to safely turn a struggling swimmer who is facing you. You take
his left arm with your left hand, and pull. It works.  But instead of
segueing into the under-the-chin carry I reach around and grab his cock. I
press my other hand against his abdomen, holding him against my body. Just
as happened with me, the extra weight is forcing Kevin to kick harder. But
now each kick sends one or the other of his muscular buttocks kneading into
my groin. My cock, dangling in the water between his thighs, is whipped
this way and that by the motion. I am in seventh heaven.  But I want to
make this good for Kevin, as good as I can. I think of all the tricks I
play with my dong and do them to him. "The acorn:" I cup my fingers around
his foreskin and swirl it back and forth over his glans. "The jackhammer:"
I work the base of his penis, crashing my fist onto his balls with each
stroke. "The tiger's claws:" I let my fingernails trail up and down against
the thick vein on the underside of his shaft. Kevin groans. I know I'm
getting to him. I switch to straight pumping and milking. Suddenly my other
hand feels his stomach muscles knotting. He's coming. I slide my head up
and bite his ear, hard. He howls and bucks and the sperm comes roaring out
of him in five, six great pulses. I hang on tight and ride my naked
stallion to the finish. Afterwards he hangs in my arms for a moment. Then
he twists around and grabs my head. He is still panting from the orgasm but
he crushes his lips against mine, rubbing our mouths together as if he
wants some indelible mark to be transfered between us. He pulls back, still
holding my head, and looks into my eyes.  I let our gazes lock together and
I feel I am back on the precipice.  Except this time I have him in my arms
and there is nowhere to fall. And another difference: he is grinning from
ear to ear and so am I.  We are still both treading water.