IWOKE UP THEnext morning feeling like roadkill and not the kind that was only hit once, more like the poor critter that ended up dead in the middle of the lane and cars couldn’t avoid running over it again unless they wanted to swerve and play chicken with oncoming traffic. I felt pulverized and was certain my skin was marred with tire treads from head to toe.
I hadn’t been able to fall asleep until after 3:00 a.m. and even then my brain wouldn’t shut down and let me truly sleep. It chose to fill my dreams with memories of my happy youth with Maverick interspersed with images of the distant, terse man that reappeared in my life as suddenly as he left it. What had happened to Maverick to make him so distant, for I could see almost nothing of the boy I loved in him.
He’d always been more reserved than I was, but what I saw in his eyes wasn’t reservation. He was closed off and guarded – defensive even. I saw it in the lines of his face, the way he pressed his lips together, and his posture, but it was his eyes that affected me the most. They were the same sapphire blue that they had always been, but they had lost all of their vibrancy. The only time I saw a spark of anything other than unhappiness was when I caught him staring at my crotch. Maverick had been hurt badly and my instinct was to reach out and help him, but he made it very clear that he was unwilling to tell me what had happened to him.
So, I woke before dawn with a mind cluttered with regret and misery. I got up and made myself a cup of coffee and worked on my laptop until the sun began to rise over the ocean. I changed into running shorts and shoes before Madge and I set out for a long run on the beach. Running always helped clear my mind of any turmoil so by the time I returned back to my house I was covered with sweat and feeling a lot better.
Unfortunately, I was also horny as hell. I stepped into the shower knowing that I didn’t have much time to rub one out before the crew showed up. Turned out it didn’t take me long. Seriously, all I had to do was think about the lust I saw in Maverick’s eyes when he checked out the way my wet shorts clung to my cock and balls. My body had started to react to his nearness and the way he still reacted physically to me, so I excused myself quickly before I embarrassed myself.
I slid my hand up and down my shaft as I thought about how sexy he looked in those worn, holey jeans. For fucks sake, did he wear those on purpose to tease me? I wanted to explore and tease his skin through the holes, especially the one beneath his crotch. Did Maverick still have an aversion to underwear or had he outgrown it? I had loved that he often was commando beneath his clothes and just the idea of unzipping his jeans and reintroducing my hands and mouth to his cock had me coming in record time. I might’ve been embarrassed for how quickly I came had I not felt so good afterward.
My personal life had been a sad state of affairs long before Justin and I broke up. It said a lot about my relationship with him when a brief jerkoff session while thinking about Maverick sent fire racing through my blood faster than during sex with Justin. I had always been a sexually charged man and I didn’t feel there was anything wrong or unhealthy about my appetites. I liked to fuck and be fucked hard. Often. It wasn’t that I couldn’t or didn’t want to be gentle, because I loved those times too. I didn’t have a sadistic need to harm anyone either. I just loved the sounds of flesh slapping hard against flesh and the animalistic sounds a partner would make at the height of his pleasure.
I tried to change for Justin, I truly did, but every time I held back from taking him the way I needed to or I jerked off because he rejected me and I needed the release, I lost a piece of myself. Justin made me feel like a deviant with an unhealthy sexual appetite and needs. I realized after we broke up that the only unhealthy thing about me was the relationship I had with him.
My inner musings had me lingering longer in the shower than I should have and I was literally caught with my pants down when they arrived. I had just stepped into my jeans when I heard the knock at the front door. My traitorous heart started to beat faster in my chest at the thought of seeing Maverick again. I pushed all thoughts of him aside and focused on throwing on some clothes so I could let the guys in.
“Mornin’,” Mack said when I opened the door to him.
“Good morning, Mack.” I liked his southern, easygoing charm. “I’ll make you guys a pot of coffee and then I think I’ll get out of your way.” I tried not to be obvious as I searched the group of men for the one who’d held my fascination for more than half of my life.
“The coffee is mighty nice of you, Noah, but you don’t have to leave on account of us. This is your home and we’ll try not to be too intrusive.”
The dejection I felt at not seeing Maverick was ridiculous and I wondered if he decided to stay away because of my behavior last night. I shouldn’t have challenged him when I saw how hard he was struggling with his emotions. He had come by to make amends and I behaved badly. If given the opportunity, I wanted to apologize. I meant what I said when I stopped him from leaving. It had been good to see him, even if it stung a bit too.
“It’s no problem, Mack. I got my work done early and I want to spend some time with my aunt.” I patted him on the shoulder and retreated to the kitchen.
I found myself feeling uncertain about how to proceed with Maverick. I didn’t want any tension between us. I didn’t really expect us to pick up where we left off, but I wanted us to at least be amicable. Maverick probably didn’t know it, but he was the best part of my childhood and teen years. I just wasn’t sure how to let him know how I felt without giving him the wrong impression. Conversation from a couple of the crew members drifted into the kitchen and it made me wish I hadn’t offered to make coffee before I left.
“What’s up with Maverick?” I heard one of them ask.
“What do you mean?”
“Come on,” the first guy said with exasperation, “didn’t you notice how distracted he was yesterday? I mean, normally after he takes Lola to Charlotte for a weekend of fucking he comes back looking like a new man. Lucky bastard.” The guy’s words were accompanied by a snort. “He was really out of sorts yesterday. Maybe he and Lola need to go every other weekend instead of once a month.”
It felt like someone punched through my chest and ripped out my heart.Lola? Who the fuck was Lola?In all the ways I had imagined Maverick over the years, a woman had never been included. I saw the way he stared at my dick the night before and remembered very well how happy he was to use it for his pleasure. Was he bi or maybe in the closet?
I was sick with jealousy over this Lola woman who took weekend trips with Maverick, who laid beneath him and was worshiped by his beautiful body. Maverick was a hot lover when we were in mid-teens so I couldn’t imagine what he would be like in bed as a man. I knew in my gut that he would fuck as long and as hard as I craved. I had the boy and Lucky Lola got the man.
I beat a hasty retreat once the coffee started percolating and Madge and I headed out to track down Aunt Minnie. I was certain her eccentricities hadn’t lessened over the years since I last saw her and for that I was grateful. I’d had enough surprises since returning to Beaufort, the last thing I needed was to find my aunt doing something practical like knitting or working in a flower garden. Tending her pot plants was a strong possibility.
Minerva McKinney was older than my dad, Art, by two years and was the polar opposite of him. Minnie protested the very war that my dad was drafted to fight in. She was a free-loving hippie where he was every bit the gunnery sergeant he was trained to be in the Marines. Minnie didn’t want to follow any rules where my dad adhered strictly to them. No matter how different they had always been, there was always so much love and respect between them. They had always agreed to disagree.
My dad was not an easy man to grow up with and we butted heads often. He wanted to run our home like a military base and I rebelled. We were often at an impasse when I was in my early teens and I had thought it was because I hadn’t measured up to the Gunny’s high expectations. I had worked so hard to be held in high esteem and it never seemed to be enough. I told my Aunt Minnie how I felt when I was thirteen years old.
“He loves you very much, Noah,” she told me as we rocked on the porch swing late one night after Maverick had gone home. “I think he pushes you because he wants you to have the best possible life. Vietnam changed him, Noah.” She looked off into the night as if she had been transported to another time. “He used to be as rowdy and rebellious as you are at times,” she said wistfully. “Then he was drafted, sent to basic training, and straight into hell. People did unspeakable things to each another in that war and you can’t witness those things and not be affected by them.” Minnie sighed deeply and her voice cracked when she spoke again. “I didn’t agree with the war when the first mumblings began, but once my baby brother was drafted my disagreement turned into more terror than I had ever experienced before in my life. Grandma and grandpa were afraid to answer their door or phone for fear that Artie was killed in action.
“He came home to us alive, but a part of him died over there and he wasn’t the same. In time, he got better and met your mother. For her, he tried to function as normally as he could, but there were times he would stare off into space as if he wasn’t there.” I saw her shake her head in the darkness. “There were times he’d get so depressed or angry and we weren’t sure how to help him. He and your mom tried to have a baby for years and years before you were conceived. He once confessed to me that he was afraid that something happened to him during the war that prevented him from fathering a child. It was so hard for him to confide in me, but I guess he needed to talk to someone. I talked him into smoking a joint to calm down.” She burst into laughter over the memories of my dad getting stoned. “Nine months later you were born.”
Minnie always told me that my dad was strict on me because he was afraid of losing me. “You and your mother put a smile on his face that I never thought I’d see again. He’d sit and stare at you while you slept, as if he couldn’t believe you could belong to him.” She turned and looked at me then. “I don’t always agree with how strict he is with you, Noah, but I also know where it’s coming from. I also know that he sends you here for the summer so that you can have a break from his rigidness and live a little. Do you have any idea how it makes me feel that he trusts me so?”
I didn’t see it until that night when she explained things to me. It made me see my father in a different light and instead of fighting him at every turn; I talked to him man to man. We learned to discuss and compromise. There wasn’t a person on earth I respected more than my dad and he was the reason my psychiatry practice specialized in the treatment of PTSD. My work was emotionally draining at times, but extremely fulfilling.
Madge and I found Aunt Minnie sitting on her back porch painting her toenails. I was surprised she was doing something so average until I saw the horrible mess she was making. She had five different bottles of nail polish open and her big toe had brightly colored polish all over the toe, not just the nail.
“What are you doing?”
She pointed to a video playing on her smartphone. “These damn nail art videos look so fucking easy. Dab the polish on the sponge, transfer to the nail, and then clean the extra off with a Q-tip dipped in polish remover. Look at that,” she pointed at the model who only wore a little excess polish around her nail. “I have it nearly halfway up my foot. I wanted rainbow toenails for Pride month.” There was a little pout in her voice that I found endearing.
