Easter Sunday. Another afternoon of cool blue sky and teasing breeze. Ryan Fox, finished with his big family dinner, was out on his bike, an electric-blue Schwinn Speedster still new from Christmas. Out exploring, up and down the neighboring blocks, cruising, enjoying the spring air. He came to Whitman Street and stopped several houses down from number 747. Jake’s house. Ryan had been inside only a couple of times, and only briefly, but he knew the neighborhood itself pretty well. The Huckfeldts across the street, three weird hillbilly brothers including that stupid Joey kid. They were in the same grade, Joey Huckfeldt and Ryan, both of them at Butler Middle School. Joey was a year older, already thirteen, but had flunked a grade at his old school in Missouri, holding him back. A few blocks west of here was Pepper Robinson’s house. Pepper was the kid who always hung around with Jake, who had come to one of Ryan’s swimming meets with Jake a few months ago, who might have been Jake’s nephew. Ryan wasn’t sure.

A car was coming. Ryan straddle-walked his bicycle over the curb and onto the cracked pavement of the sidewalk. He stayed there and continued his vigil. Anyone spying from a nearby window would have seen a boy in blue jeans and baggy orange sweatshirt and new Air Jordans, bare-headed, his yellow-blond hair cut into a perfect mushroom cap, bangs touching his eyebrows. A smallish boy, compact, cat-quick and cat-supple beneath his clothes, his body made lean and hard by swimming, by running track. Something cat-like, as well, about his face. Blue eyes widely set, moistly myopic, a natural bruisiness beneath them like bluish-green eyeshadow. Roundish, pushed-up nose. A wide mouth, slightly downturned, with a highly-curved feline upper lip. A certain redness, always, to the bridge of his nose, his cheeks, his ears—even to his lips, as if delicately rouged.

Someone watching him, spying, might have wondered what he was doing there on the corner. Waiting for someone? Expecting something to happen down the street? Finally, the boy made some sort of decision and mounted his bike and pedaled his way to Jake’s one-story clapboard house near the middle of the block.

Inside, Jake was finishing a frozen pizza. A quiet holiday for him. In the past, he would have been at Doc’s house for dinner, all his holidays spent with Doc, a safe and comfortable routine, some beer and cigarettes, watching TV, chatting, making each other laugh. Now, without Doc, Jake felt alone in a deep and unfamiliar way, a spy cut loose in enemy territory. Abandoned even, on this particular day, by his own boys. Frankie with his family in Stonerville. Pepper at his grandmother’s home in Joliet, where he spent every major holiday. The Huckfeldts gone somewhere unknown. Ryan, of course, with his family over on Tompkins Street, might as well have been Neptune.

Then, mysteriously conjured, Ryan himself came knocking at the front door. The least likely of all the boys to come visiting. The relationship between him and Jake always a tenuous one, Jake nothing but the Fox family’s mailman at first, then gradually something more, Ryan inviting him to swimming meets, Jake gladly accepting, the two of them forming a cautious friendship, Jake doing his best to crack the boy’s temperamental shell, to make him relax, to make him smile. Together, in early March, they had traveled to the Junior Olympics in Chicago and had stayed at a Holiday Inn where a bedtime massage had led to jerking off and Ryan’s first ejaculation, one aloe-clear, aloe-sticky drop of juice from the boy’s twelve-year-old cock. Nothing since then. No visits, no trips, Doc’s suicide (among other more trivial events) conspiring to keep them apart. Now, as an Easter surprise, Ryan was suddenly on the front porch.

Jake opened the door to him, expecting one of the Huckfeldts, pleased to find Ryan instead. Hello, hi, hello from both of them. The boy looked around at the empty living room. “So where is everybody? Are you alone or something?”

“Unfortunately,” Jake said. “Everybody’s spending Easter with their families. What about you? Shouldn’t you be home?”

“You want me to leave?”

“No, of course not, no!”

“We finished our ham already,” Ryan said. “We had a big ham. What’d you have?”

“Pizza. Frozen. Want a piece? There’s one left.”

“I’m full.”

“Soda? Twinkies? Oreos?”

“I’m thirsty. I’ve been riding my bike,” Ryan said. “You’ve never seen my new bike, I bet.” He grabbed the sleeve of Jake’s shirt and dragged him to the door and pointed to his blue Speedster parked at the foot of the porch steps. “You see, it’s the best. Do you see it?”

“It’s a beauty.”

“I’ve been riding all over.”

“And now,” Jake reminded him, putting an arm around his shoulders, “you’re very thirsty. Need a soda? Orange? Root beer?”

“I shouldn’t have too much sugar.”

“Want some water?”

“You always have Cherry Coke.”

“That’s true. For Frankie. It’s his favorite.”

“Who’s Frankie?”

“You’ve never met him.”

“The Cherry Coke is for him?”

“But you can have one,” Jake said, ushering the boy from the living room down the short hallway—bathroom on one side, Jake’s bedroom on the other—finally to the kitchen at the back of the house. Again Ryan said, “I shouldn’t have too much sugar,” as he helped himself to a Cherry Coke from the refrigerator. In his white-stockinged feet. Always took his shoes off when he entered a house, any house, a well-trained boy careful not to dirty the carpets. He chose a glass from the edge of the sink to use for his soda. A drop of water hit the red-and-yellow linoleum floor. Ryan wiped it away with the tip of his stockinged foot, like someone performing a delicate dance step.

Back in the living room, in the broken-down La-Z-Boy near the front door, Ryan sat and sipped his Coke and told Jake about the new track season, about his meets, two events in particular, the hundred-meters and the 400-meters, his specialties. He could chatter on and on about himself, so talkative and sociable at times, so tight-lipped and grouchy at others. Jake asked him, “Are you better at swimming or track?”

“Both. Just the same. Or maybe swimming. Just a little.”

“Which do you have more trophies in?”

“Swimming,” the boy conceded. He was watching Jake with something like a suspicious glare, as if Jake might be trying to trick him or make a joke of him. Jake, recognizing that glare in the boy’s eyes, kept smiling and talking, smiling and talking. “Of course I’ll have to come see you,” he said. “Running track. I miss your swimming tournaments. They were fun.”

“You can come. It’s up to you,” Ryan said.

“You’ll have to give me your schedule.”

“We have lots of meets.”

“You know,” Jake said, on the edge of the couch this whole time, leaning forward, forearms on his knees, leaning toward the boy, “I haven’t seen you since Chicago. Since our trip. Our big night at the Holiday Inn.”

“The Junior Olympics.”

“That’s right. We had a good time, right?”

“Oh yeah, wow,” Ryan said, rolling his eyes, always sarcastic. Taking a sip of Cherry Coke. Cat-tonguing the amber foam from his top lip. “And then you disappeared. You always disappear.”

“Sorry. March was a bad month.”

“Why? Why was it so bad? It’s just an excuse, I bet.”

“No no no,” Jake said. “Not an excuse. My best friend died.”

“What best friend?”

“A man named Doc. Doc Wilson. He, well, he actually killed himself a few weeks ago.”

“No he didn’t.”

Jake had to put his head down and grin. An inapprorpriate grin. Discussing suicide. But the boy’s stubborn brattiness always amused him. “I’m totally serious, Ryan. I wouldn’t make up a story like that. About my best friend killing himself.”

“It’s stupid. Why did he do it?”

“He was sick.”

“Duh! I guess so! Sick all right,” the boy mumbled.

“Well, anyway,” Jake said, “that’s why I haven’t seen you recently. One of the reasons. So what’s your excuse?”

“What d’you mean?”

“You’re always welcome to come visit, you know. You didn’t have to wait so long.”

Ryan just shrugged. He had one foot up on the chair and was plucking at the floppy toe of his white sock. That sweatshirt he was wearing, the orange one, was from his school, Butler Middle School, and had the school’s snarling tiger logo on the chest. A strip of undershirt was just visible at the neck, white against the orange. Jake was watching him, waiting, a Cubs game on TV, music from a radio in the kitchen semi-audible in the deeper background. Just then, the phone rang. A startling noise. Jake grabbed it. Frankie’s voice was at the other end, cheerful, a little lispy from his braces and from excitement, his words racing, tripping. He’d been cooped up all day with his family and various relatives. “So boring,” he said. “I’m going crazy. Ben and Amy are hogging the Nintendo so I can’t even do that, you know, like amuse myself or whatever.” He was talking about his little brother and sister, rarely discussed, never seen by Jake in the flesh, known to him only as vague and faceless pests. A pause for laughter, and then Frankie added, more seriously, “I’ve been thinking about you all day, Jake.”

“That’s very sweet of you.”

“With Doc gone.”

“It’s been lonely,” Jake nodded with the phone to his ear, only Ryan there to see him, the boy listening to Jake’s half of the conversation, taking sips from his nearly-empty glass of Coke, staring boldly. Frankie’s voice said, “Dude, that’s what I mean. What I was thinking about. Lonely for you.”

“Well, I have some company now, at least.”

“The Huckfeldts?”

“No, not them.”

“Pepper? Dude! I thought he was in Joliet, you know, with his. . .”

“No, no, not Pepper,” Jake laughed, watching the golden-haired object of this discussion huddled in the La-Z-Boy across the room. “It’s Ryan. You know who Ryan is.”

“That blond kid? The one who swims?”

“Yep. Ryan. He came to visit.”

“Really? Are you guys, like, doing stuff together?”

“No,” Jake said, again with a headshake that only Ryan could see, the boy perking up when he heard his own name being mentioned. His glass empty now. His up-curled tongue playing across his top lip, tasting for dew-drops of cherry soda. “Not doing much. Just talking.”

“You should show him some dirty movies.”

“Oh sure.”

“Make him horny.”

“A little risky, I think.”

Ryan sat forward and said, “You’re talking about me, I know.” When Jake nodded, the boy jumped up and pointed at the phone. “So who is that? Who is it?”

“It’s Frankie Patallero. You know, the Cherry Coke guy.”

“Tell him I drank one of his Cokes,” Ryan said, then stepped closer and leaned toward the phone himself and called out, “Hey, I drank one of your Cokes!” Frankie laughed into the phone and said it’s OK, no problem, drink all you want. Jake relayed the friendly message to Ryan, then invited Frankie to come over and “join the party.” Ryan, listening, put both hands huffily on his hips. A moment later, with the phone call ended, Jake told him, “Frankie wants to stop by. If he can get away.”

“So what? I won’t even be here,” Ryan announced, for some reason displeased, impatient, hands still on his hips. Jake put the phone on the little wooden table beside the couch and flipped the cord away from his lap. “You’re leaving? Why? Stick around.”

“I can’t stay forever.”

“Do your parents know you’re here?”

“Not exactly.”

“You could call them,” Jake suggested, picking up the phone he’d just put down. “Would they be mad?”

Ryan shrugged and turned and started for the door, as if to leave, then made a show of changing his mind and came back. He walked—especially now, in his stockinged feet—with a dainty strut, up on the balls of his feet, almost on his toes. “I’ll call. If my mom answers,” he said, leaving the thought unfinished. What if his father answered? What then? Jake had met the boy’s father a few times. Big and blond, manager of a Ford dealership, Rotarian, Chamber of Commerce, a no-nonsense guy, aloof and brusque whenever he and Jake found themselves face to face—at one of Ryan’s swimming meets, for example. Both he and Mrs. Fox knew Jake as their mailman, of course, a lonely guy with an ex-wife and son he never got to see and several anonymous nephews and their various friends. All lies, but necessary ones. No ex-wife, no son, no nephews. And, somehow, Ryan’s father seemed to sense the truth, though vaguely, distractedly, just enough to make him stone-faced and watchful, a little unfriendly. Ryan, apparently, could see all of this as clearly as Jake, maybe wary of his own father anyway, intimidated by him, big bullying patriarch. If his mom answered the phone, OK. But not his father.

He moved next to Jake to use the phone, to make his call, bending forward to get a better look at the numbers on the illuminated pad. Jake slipped an arm around his waist, saying, “Here, have a seat, right here,” pulling the boy playfully onto his lap. Ryan sat awkwardly, surprised, more like falling than sitting. “Well god,” he said, “be careful.”

“Tiger boy,” Jake smiled. Ryan beep-bip-beeped his number into the phone and then waited, both hands clutching the white receiver to his cheek, his left cheek, the one nearest Jake. A voice came through distant and tinny, an insect voice, Ryan tensing when he heard it, but just for an instant. “Mom,” he said, like a sigh of relief, his shoulders relaxing. “Yeah, it’s me. I’m over on Whitman Street. Yeah, on Whitman. It’s not so far, it just took me a few minutes. At Jake’s house. Jake. Yeah, Jake. At his house. No, I’m not bothering him,” the boy said, glancing at Jake’s face as if to make sure. The man smiled, nodded encouragement. Ryan continued, saying, “I’m just telling you. I’m just calling. I know, I know. Not long. Yeah. I will. OK, OK, one hour.”

He handed the phone back to Jake, who asked him, “So. . . one hour? Is that your deadline?”

“I have to be home in one hour,” Ryan nodded. His ear was reddened, even more than normal, by the phone that had been pressed against it. Two tiny moles on his left cheek. Some light freckles across the bridge of his nose, noticeable only up close, like now, very close, Jake able to stir his hair with a puff of breath. Irresistible, that golden hair. Jake touched it, fingering a strand of it above Ryan’s scarlet ear. The boy flinched, but he didn’t get up, he didn’t move from Jakes’s lap. Cubs game on TV. Sammy Sosa taking strike two. Music, some pop tune, murmuring from the kitchen. Ryan finally said, “So what are we gonna do?”

“Anything you want.”

“Like what?”

“No ideas?”

“Like what?” Ryan asked again.

Jake pulled the boy tighter against his chest, Ryan still sideways, facing to the left, staring at the wall that divided living room from bathroom. “Oh, I don’t know,” Jake said. “How about a massage?”

“A massage?”

“Like in Chicago. Remember? Are you in the mood?”

Ryan just shook his head no and then asked, very quickly, “Where’s your camcorder? Did you sell it?”

“No, I didn’t sell it. The Huckfeldts took it.”

“They stole it? That stupid Joey kid?”

“No,” Jake said again, laughing. “JoJo didn’t steal it.”

Ryan repeated the nickname “JoJo” with a drawl of distaste. “Stupid name. He’s an idiot.” Jake squeezed the boy and kissed his ear, teasing little pecks on the ear that Ryan quietly allowed, no change in his expression. “Really,” Jake told him, “they didn’t steal anything. They borrowed it. The camcorder. Jimmy wanted it.”

“Jimmy,” with another drawl of distaste, contempt.

“I think,” Jake said, voice lowered to a conspiratorial mumble, “that they want to make a dirty movie.”

“Why?”

“They like to make dirty movies. You know.”

“With girls?”

“Don’t think so,” Jake said. “Don’t know, really. It’ll be a surprise. According to Jimmy.”

“Stupid,” was Ryan’s predictable conclusion. He turned his head to look at the ballgame. Jake could smell him—his clothes, his skin, especially his hair. The blond, new-grass smell of him. Can someone smell blond? Ryan did. He pointed to the Nintendo. “D’you have any new games?”

“Like what?”

“Extreme Assault?”

“No, sorry.”

“WCW Revenge?”

“Yeah, that one I’ve got. In fact,” Jake said, “it’s in the machine. JoJo was playing with it Friday night.”

“Spaz,” Ryan responded, getting to his feet. Jake let his hands slip down the boy’s body, held him by the hips as if he couldn’t bear to let go, Ryan twisting to free himself, Jake surrendering, releasing the boy with a backhanded swat to his blue-jeaned butt. Ryan crossed the room and sat on the floor, made the Cubs game vanish with a flicked switch, WCW Revenge garishly and noisily flashing onscreen to take its place. Jake was left to watch, to stare at the back of Ryan’s head, at his skinny neck, at his shoulders hunched and jerking as he worked the controls. The boy, now and then, glanced back, glad to have an audience, performing on Nintendo like performing in the pool or on the track, the same rush of competition, good to have Jake watching him, rooting for him. He never bothered to invite Jake to join him. Better to perform solo, just himself against the machine.

Thirty minutes later, Frankie came bounding through the unlocked front door. Tie-dyed and flannelled sixteen-year-old, his blondish hair loose and long against his neck, jeans ripped at the knees, black combat boots noisily thud-thud-thudding as he crossed the living room to give Jake a hello hug and kiss. Ryan paused in his game to watch the two of them hugging, the two of them kissing, then found himself shaking hands with Frankie, who came right over and introduced himself and grinned and said, “Dude, hey, is that your bike outside? Very cool!”

“It’s a Schwinn. A Speedster,” Ryan said, nostrils flaring as he sniffed for ridicule. Then he smiled, flattered, when Frankie asked permission to ride it around the block (a smile that showed his gappy teeth, especially the four front ones on top, not quite grown together, big gappy boyteeth.) He left the Nintendo game and tiptoe-strutted to the door where he stooped, then crouched, to put on his shoes. Frankie stayed behind him for a good view of his butt as he did his stooping and crouching, Jake also enjoying the view, pantomiming a sneaky grab-ass move that had Frankie stifling a laugh, Frankie himself giving Jake a look that said, “Wow, he’s so cute!”

Together outside, the two boys chattered over Ryan’s new bicycle parked on the cracked sidewalk. Jake stayed in the house and observed through the jalousie door, through the dirty glass of the closed louvers. The boys seemed comfortable together, what you’d expect from Frankie, always a friendly kid, but not so from Ryan, always difficult for him to let down his guard. Standing shoulder to shoulder with Frankie, nodding, pointing, showing off his beloved Speedster, enjoying himself. Lively April breeze lifting and mussing his hair, also Frankie’s hair, that breeze in Frankie’s face as he finally mounted the bike and headed down the block, his combat boots not the best footwear for the job, awkward on the pedals, but off he went anyway, once around the block, then once again. Ryan stood and waited with his fingertips in the front pockets of his jeans. He looked to his right, at Jake watching from the house, and he shrugged, and then he smiled.

By the time the boys were finished with the bike, Ryan’s hour was up and he had to go home. But first he came back inside to use the bathroom, Cherry Coke filling his bladder. On his way out, still adjusting his zipper, he stopped when Jake touched his shoulder to say goodbye. Stopped and faced Jake and seemed to be waiting for something, expecting something more than a simple goodbye. He had seen Jake earlier hugging Frankie, kissing Frankie. And now he seemed to be waiting. Jake quickly got the idea and wrapped both arms around him for a tight hug, half expecting a squirm of resistance that never came, not even when he gave the boy a kiss on the mouth. The boy kissed back cautiously, second time he’d done this with Jake, kissing goodbye like this, first time had been after their trip to Chicago. He was still waiting to see, perhaps, if any mockery or teasing might result. From Jake. Or from Frankie standing witness just a few steps away. But no one said a bad word, no one joshed him, nothing wrong with hugging or kissing at Jake’s house.

Frankie waited until Ryan was gone to say, “Whoa, dude, he’s really hot. For a little kid.”

“He’s pretty young, that’s true.”

“But old enough to mess around.”

“Definitely.”

“You’ve done it?”

“That weekend in Chicago,” Jake nodded. “I gave him a massage. You know. Naked. Jerked him off.”

“Excellent.”

“He even came a little. One clear drop.”

“I love that!”

“He seemed to like you.”

“You think?”

“Hell, he smiled once or twice.”

Frankie was taking off his flannel shirt. Sitting to unlace and remove his boots. Getting ready for sex. “That’s a big deal for him? Smiling?”

“You bet it is. For Ryan? You have no idea what a grouch he can be.”

“He was friendly outside.”

“Exactly. He liked you. You complimented his new bike, made a fuss over him.”

“And I liked him all right, oh yeah,” Frankie said, trying to say it with a lewd expression, not very convincingly, squinty-eyed and round-cheeked and round-chinned, like a leering chipmunk.

He and Jake ended up in the bathroom, in Jake’s extravagant new tub and shower combo, extra large with tiled benches along the inner walls and a steam generator for turning the whole thing into a cozy sauna. Frankie had an erection as soon as he finished undressing. Six and a quarter inches by his own measurement in December, slightly upturned bellywards, blood-red and frankfurter-slender. In the shower, shampooing and rinsing, he asked Jake, “What color is my hair, d’you think?”

“I’d call it blond.”

“Honestly?”

“Dark blond.”

“When I was little. . . dude, my hair was just like Ryan’s. Now it’s almost brown.”

“Dark blond,” Jake insisted. He waited until the boy had finished rinsing away the pepperminty shampoo, then moved against him, boner to boner, to begin the serious foreplay. “In your bedroom, we’ll finish,” Frankie muttered beneath the hot spray. Always keen to choreograph and direct the sex between himself and Jake. Not in a bossy way but cheerfully, one friend to another, eager to enhance his pleasure and the pleasure of his partners whenever possible. Like a thoughtful host at a dinner party. “In your bedroom,” he said, “we’ll finish. It’s more comfortable. On the bed.” Jake, kissing him, agreed.

Naked and not quite dry, still carrying their towels, they hurried to the bedroom a few minutes later to carry out Frankie’s plan. The TV was still yakking from the living room, monotonous voices, the baseball post-game show. The radio in the kitchen still providing its distant and discordant background of musical noise. Then another noise, soft knocking, Frankie the first to hear it as he and Jake were already beginning their sex, maybe the front door, then louder, definitely someone at the door, Jake impatiently grumbling, “Must be the damn Huckfeldts. Should we ignore them?”

Frankie was a little breathless, a little jittery from getting sucked. On his back with his knees spread. “Dude, you sure it’s them?”

“Oh yeah, pretty sure.”

“They’re still knocking.”

“Such bad timing they have.”

“Should you check?”

“And what if it’s them? Then what?”

“They can join the party,” Frankie smiled, showing his plastic braces. Jake said, “Well, yeah, I don’t know about that,” as he got up and put on his robe—gold corduroy—and headed for the front door. Always a momentary tremor of fear, not knowing who might be waiting there, friend or foe, boy or cop. But, on this Easter Sunday afternoon, Jake had nothing to fear. Two of the Huckfeldts were at the door, Dewey knocking, JoJo doing some clumsy acrobatics on the porch railing, straddling it, lifting one foot and then the other as if performing a fancy stunt, arms outspread, breeze ruffling his messy brown hair.

Jake let them in, JoJo stopping in the doorway to point at Frankie’s red Honda and ask, “Don’t that belong to that guy? That there car?”

“Yeah. It’s Frankie’s.”

“We know Frankie,” Dewey said, his too-large John Deere cap tipped back slightly on his round, crewcut head.

“Of course.”

“Is you guys havin’ a party?” Dewey asked.

“An underwear party?” JoJo also asked. He and his little brother were referring to a so-called “underwear party” from January, Frankie’s turn of phrase, when all of the Huckfeldt boys and Frankie and Pepper had stripped to their undies after a wet and slushy snowball fight and then gathered in Jake’s living room for hot chocolate and noisy horseplay. Nothing sexual, just boys being goofy and crude, having fun. “Yeah, sort of an underwear party,” Jake confessed. He closed the door and locked it and asked about Jimmy. The boys said, almost in unison, “He’s with his stupid girlfriend.” Then Dewey announced, as if Jake might not be aware of such things, “Today is Easter!”

“Sure, big holiday,” Jake smiled. “Happy Easter, happy Easter,” he said, a vigorous hug and kiss for little Dewey, then for JoJo, both boys with that faintly pissy odor about their clothes, their skin. JoJo, always hyper and flighty, turned his hug into a wriggly grapple and then, as he stepped away, reached out and tugged the exposed hair on Jake’s chest. He asked, “Why ain’t you dressed?”

“Took a shower before,” Jake said.

“It’s the best shower there is,” Dewey said, having used it with Jake once or twice in the past few months, the only Huckfeldt brother to do so and proud of it, something to make him feel more special than JoJo, than Jimmy.

“You know what?” JoJo said, ignoring his little brother. “You know what, Jake? Y’all is havin’ an underwear party for sure.”

“Not even underwear,” Jake said.

“A naked party,” JoJo corrected himself, pronouncing it “nekkid.” He was plucking and poking at the crotch of his own jeans, not unusual, a familiar habit for him, a nervous little fidget. Now he made a swipe at Jake’s robe, a quick gesture as if to grab it and open it, but only playfully, missing by several inches. Jake pretended to be spooked and surprised. He crossed his hands in front of himself and said, “Don’t you dare untie this robe! Don’t even think about it!” The brothers grinned as if challenged to an easy dare. Dewey grabbed Jake’s arms from behind and pulled them apart, pleased by his improbable feat of strength. JoJo gladly did his part and yanked the belt loose and watched as the robe fell open. “So embarrassing,” Jake pretended to whimper, his dick about half hard. JoJo asked, “Is that your boner?”

“Sort of.”

“Sort of a boner?”

“It’ll get harder if you don’t stop looking at it.”

“Guess what, I done seen it before,” Dewey bragged. He moved around anyway in front of Jake to get a fresh look. “Ain’t I seen your boner, Jake?”

“A couple of times.”

“We done jacked off together,” Dewey continued to brag to his older brother. JoJo didn’t say anything, but he did suddenly grab the shoulder of Jake’s corduroy robe and pull at it, yanked at it to remove it, not quite successfully, so he grabbed and yanked again, almost aggressive in his excitement, his curiosity. Jake said, “Ouch, wait, take it easy, OK now,” dropping the robe halfway from his shoulders so that JoJo could do the rest, stripping him all the way naked. JoJo appraised his handiwork and then bent forward in one of his fits of squirmy laughter. He finally asked, “Hey Jake, hey Jake, ain’t you embarrassed?”

“Extremely.”

“Is that a real boner now?”

“That’s the real deal,” Jake said, staying where he was in the middle of the living room, letting the boys stare at him. Dewey thought of a naughty joke and took off his cap and hung it on Jake’s erection. Jake laughed along with the two boys at the silly sight of himself. He captured Dewey with an arm and hugged him to his side. “I thought this was going to be a naked party,” he said. “Anybody going to join me?”

Dewey immediately nodded and started to undress. His elbow hit the John Deere cap and knocked it off Jake’s erection. He glanced up at Jake and grinned his funny lopsided grin—the same expression he often got when concentrating on something, or when listening intently—a cute way of squinting his left eye while clenching his teeth on the same side. Like a ten-year-old Popeye. Or like someone biting down on a wedge of lemon. Jake smiled back at him and helped him out of his shirt. JoJo stayed put and kept watching them. Still plucking at the denim crotch of his pants with one hand, gnawing the fingernails of the other as he asked, “Where’s that Frankie guy at? Where’s he at now?”

“He’s here.”

“In the bathroom?”

“The bedroom.”

“Is he sleepin’?”

“Could be,” Jake said. He helped Dewey out of his jeans and his Superman Underoos, pale little-boy body peeled clean, Dewey still grinning his funny Popeye grin, cuddling against Jake, snuggling, Jake’s erection pressed against his bare chest as they hugged. JoJo, meanwhile, had wandered down the hallway to Jake’s bedroom. He found Frankie, nude of course, standing at the dresser, putting away the porno and X-rated Polaroids that Jake kept in the top drawer. The two boys looked at each other and said “hi” and “what’s up?” JoJo rushed forward in his usual herky-jerky fashion before Frankie could shut the drawer. Magazines, photo sets, books. From Germany, Denmark, Holland, Portugal. Soft-core Polaroids of Pepper. Hard-core Polaroids of Frankie himself, about a dozen that showed him masturbating, four cumshots in glossy close-up. He let JoJo have a look at them. “Jake’s old camera,” JoJo nodded. “Before he done bought his camcorder.”

“Here’s some of you guys,” Frankie said. “Here’s Jimmy. Here’s you.”

“These are from the fuckin’ underwear party.”

“Yeah, dude, no doubt. Your Batman underpants. That was a funny day.”

JoJo brushed at his bangs with the back of his hand. “We done made that fuckin’ snowman with the big boner.”

“Awesome, yeah, I remember.”

“Had us that fuckin’ underwear party.”

“Are you here alone?”

“Dewey’s here,” JoJo said, pointing a thumb over his shoulder. “He likes Jake, man, a lot, they’s always together and shit.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“Jake likes to do this stuff here,” JoJo said with a rapid jack-off gesture. “With other guys. That’s what Jimmy says.”

“Jake’s the best.”

“Was you takin’ a shower?”

“Me? Yeah. Before.”

“You and Jake,” JoJo said, not a question, looking around at the wet towels. Also at Frankie’s pecker, which had been soft, pretty much, when JoJo came in, but was getting harder as they talked, as they looked at the pictures, quickly getting much harder. Frankie said, “So, dude, what’s goin’ on?” He closed the drawer, no more Polaroids to look at, JoJo not very interested anyway, short attention span, glancing around the bedroom, fidgety, biting his nails, brushing back his bangs, plucking and pulling at his denimed crotch. He said, “Me and Dewey just came over.”

“Jimmy’s not here?”

“He’s at his stupid girlfriend’s house.”

“What’s Dewey doing?” Frankie asked, then laughed at the repetitive “oo” sound and said it again. “Dewey doing.”

JoJo took no notice, his pale greenish-gray eyes staring in their strange and unsettling way from his gaunt face. “Him and Jake is nekkid,” he said. “Jake had hisself a boner.”

“No shit, bro, so do I.”

“You gonna do somethin’ or what?”

“Sure, yeah.”

“Y’all havin’ a nekkid party,” JoJo said. He sat on the edge of the bed and started bouncing, noisily bouncing, a great squeaking of mattress springs as he trampolined on his bottom, up and down, up and down, once more saying, “Y’all is nekkid, you fuckers.”

“Dude,” Frankie said, late afternoon sunlight bright on his left side from the window as he faced the bed, “what about you?” Left arm, left hip, left leg all white with sunlight, dust motes floaty in the glare, five o’clock, JoJo still bouncing. “You should join us. I told Jake before, when we heard you knocking.”

“That we oughta join y’all?”

“Yeah, that’s what I told him,” Frankie said. He needed to do something with his hands, so he was playing with his own hard-on, pulling at it, keeping himself busy while he talked. His pubic hair was a bush of gilded fluff in the streaming sunlight. “You should take your stuff off, dude, seriously.”

“Yep, like this here,” JoJo deadpanned, up quickly on his feet to undo his baggy jeans and let them sag to his knees, then to his ankles as he paraded to the window and back. Wearing the very Batman underpants that Frankie had mentioned just moments earlier. Holding up his brown pullover sweater and his undershirt to show himself. Frankie laughed, backing away to give the other boy room for his promenade. JoJo getting into it, performing, entertaining his audience. Goofy burlesque. “Like this here,” he said once more, giving his blue Batman briefs a shove to his knees, like a cinch around his legs now that made his Chaplinesque shuffle even sillier, the underpants soon slipping free to join his jeans in a wrinkly blue puddle around his feet. To the window he shuffled, then to the door, then back again with the slanty sunlight on his face and on the bare front of his legs, long and knobby-kneed. On his bony white hips. On his almost hairless groin and that meaty pecker of his that always appeared slightly stiff. Definitely now. More than slightly. Big dick and big balls for a thirteen-year-old, something about all of that plump and dangly but mostly hairless equipment that seemed precocious, raw, indecent.

JoJo kept parading until Frankie nudged him, sort of bumped him, an excuse for them to push at each other. Playful touching. Frankie lightly slap-slap-slapping at JoJo’s sweatered shoulder. “You still have clothes on,” he pointed out, continuing with his free hand to pull and squeeze at his own boner. JoJo responded by tugging the brown sweater and the undershirt free from his arms, but no farther, leaving the sweater and the shirt hanging from his neck, down his back like a ratty cape. “There,” he said, as if he’d finished undressing. Then he laughed in one of his wriggly fits and spanked with both hands at the white cheeks of his own ass. His stiffish dick bouncing as he spanked, like a toy on a spring. Frankie lowered his voice to ask, “JoJo, you want to jerk off or something?”

JoJo wrinkled his nose and shrugged and kept spanking himself. Suddenly he yelled, “Hey Jake, Jake, y’all oughta come here, look at us! Jake!” He stepped in front of the mirror above Jake’s dresser and saw himself and went spastic with laughter all over again, the laughter itself like quiet hissing or gurgling at the back of his throat, hardly loud enough for anyone to hear. Like someone doing a comical ha-ha pantomime. He turned himself backward and looked at himself over his shoulder, at his own ass. Wiggled it. Spanked it again. Spread the cheeks to see his own anus. Frankie pressed beside him, what the hell, play along with JoJo, goof off, perform in front of the mirror. He bumped JoJo with his hip. Pretended to hump the dresser and then the side of JoJo’s leg. Did his own funny sex dance that really, as he watched himself and JoJo in the mirror, was just a good way of jerking off, which he was doing eagerly now with his left hand. Masturbation as slapsticky horseplay.

That was how Jake found the two boys when he responded to JoJo’s call. Dewey was just behind him in the doorway. They’d been hugging and petting in the living room, Jake and little Dewey, standing like naked dancers, when Dewey had bent forward and taken the purply knob of Jake’s grown-up cock into his mouth. Such a surprise for Jake—but not really shocking, Jake long having surmised that Dewey probably gave blowjobs to his older brothers, the little boy all but admitting it at times, even sucking Jake’s thumb in a childishly coquettish way now and then as if rehearsing for fellatio. And then today, in the living room, wow, no more rehearsal or simulation, the boy doing it for real, holding Jake by the hips for support as he leaned forward to perform his job. No fumbling or hesitation. Good at it. Enjoying himself. A happy ten-year-old cocksucker.

Then JoJo had called from the bedroom and Dewey had interrupted himself and straightened and stood peering at Jake with that one eye squinted and his side teeth clenched in a sweetly expectant grin, an inquisitive grin. Jake, addled and sex-bleary, finally managed to say, “Well, damn, I don’t know, I guess we should find out what JoJo wants.” Dewey nodded and softly said, “Guess so,” and followed Jake to the bedroom, where they discovered JoJo and Frankie performing in front of the mirror. Jake said, “My oh my, it’s boylesque! Sexy, sexy.”

Both boys looked around and laughed, both of them red-faced from excitement, exertion, from dancing and fooling around. Frankie said, “Jake, dude, amazing,” bouncy-bouncy on his toes as he masturbated, not even slowing down, too far gone to be distracted or deterred. JoJo was mostly observing, toying with his own dick to keep himself occupied, the reflection of himself and Frankie still providing amusement, like watching TV. “Hey Jake, hey Jake, y’all like this here dirty movie?” he shouted, always too loud. “Y’all oughta use your camcorder!”

“Jimmy has it. At your house,” Jake reminded him. “You guys promised to make a movie for me, remember?”

“That’s right, we will,” JoJo said. He spanked again at his own ass cheeks. “Is this how y’all celebrate Easter?”

Jake crossed the room to him, laughing. “Oh sure, it’s a tradition at my house. Every Easter Sunday.”

“You and Frankie?”

“I didn’t know Frankie last year,” Jake said. Right next to JoJo now. “Look at you guys!”

“Jake, you know what?”

“What, JoJo?”

“This here ain’t my real boner.”

“It’s pretty big.”

“This ain’t the whole thing,” JoJo said, flicking it, waggling it. Jake nodded and then took a moment, just for his own satisfaction, to remove the sweater and undershirt from around JoJo’s neck. He’d never seen JoJo completely naked before, completely without a stitch, and he wanted that pleasure now. “Step out of your pants,” he told the boy, helping with his own foot to hold the jeans and underwear against the floor as JoJo obeyed and kicked free. Frankie was watching. Dewey had crossed the room and was on the bed, on his back, apparently sleepy, sucking his thumb and not paying much attention to the other folks in the room, any slight curiosity focused on Frankie, someone not very familiar, a new body and a new pecker to look at, sort of interesting.

Jake crouched in front of JoJo and took off the boy’s smelly white socks. JoJo never protested as the man undressed him. He kept talking instead about havin’ an Easter party and then said look at Dewey he’s takin’ hisself a nap and I was watchin’ the Cubs game before and, you know what Jake, I can see you and me in the mirror right now. His body was a gangly and ungraceful assemblage of long arms and long legs and bony shoulders and broad bony hips with that rude hound-doggish pecker right in the middle. Directly in front of Jake’s face as he finished removing the boy’s socks. Now or never. Only Frankie in the room, and Dewey, friendly witnesses, allies. Now or never. JoJo keeping still for a change. Jake ran his hands up the boy’s bare legs and over his hips and onto his butt and then moved his head forward and opened his mouth and put it around JoJo’s penis, letting the thing just find its way naturally into his mouth and nestle there in the moistness and the warmth.

JoJo finally stopped talking. He watched the reflection of himself getting sucked. Somebody said, “Jesus Christ,” in a shaky mumble. It was Frankie. He had come around to where Jake was kneeling and he was stepping from side to side to view the scene from every possible angle. It didn’t take long for Jake to notice him, to figure out what he wanted. Difficult to do, a real sacrifice, but Jake forced himself to stop, to release JoJo’s penis. “Definitely a total boner now, JoJo,” he said with an upward glance at the boy’s face. JoJo looked down at his own thing sticking out big and red and straight. “Jake, I ain’t sure, y’all might be right,” he said, poker-faced and nodding.

“Frankie, how about it?” Jake asked the desperately hovering boy behind him. “You want to do this? You want to take over?”

“No doubt, bro, move,” Frankie monotoned as he impatiently took Jake’s place on the floor and then actually sniffed at JoJo’s penis as if savoring the aroma of some rare and spicy sausage. Sniffed and then licked at the head and then greedily devoured the whole thing with his mouth. JoJo objected to none of this, to being sucked by Jake and now by Frankie, his pecker being used like a sex toy. He said only, “Frankie, you got braces,” able to feel them on his penis, causing Frankie to nod and to exhale a brief laugh as he continued sucking, making slurpy suctiony noises in his excitement.

Jake sat on the edge of the bed and tickled the tummy of the little boy beside him. Dewey responded with an agreeable but very drowsy smile, Jake deciding to leave him undisturbed, to let him drowse and thumb-suck in peace while he himself finished masturbating and concentrated on the X-rated show in front of him. Frankie feverishly giving head, using his right hand to fondle JoJo’s balls and JoJo’s ass while jerking himself off with his left. JoJo, at first, might have been getting a shoeshine for all his enthusiasm. Chewing his fingernails, absently bongo-ing his belly or picking at his belly button, shadowboxing with his own reflection in the mirror. But gradually he started looking a little more tense and agitated and even sort of confused as he stood there getting sucked, something strange was happening now, no more goofing around, Frankie’s eager mouth doing its job and JoJo surrendering to it, you’d swear this was his first time from the look of him, the totally befuddled look of him, maybe Jake was wrong about him and Dewey, maybe JoJo was still a virgin at this and hadn’t realized until just this very moment how wickedly excellent a blowjob could feel, look at him standing there, this skinny kid, slowly frogging his legs now, slowly flexing them up and down at the knees as if to pump the overabundance of semen from his own tightly swollen nuts, almost ready now, almost ready, shivering, hips thrusting finally as he squeezed and squeezed the pubescent juice of himself into Frankie’s mouth.

Jake also ejaculated now into a crumpled handful of Kleenex as he watched Frankie continue to suck and swallow, suck and swallow, JoJo suddenly wincing from the raw after-sex soreness between his legs—too much, too intense—pulling back and stepping away and then looking down at his own cock all wet with spit and inflamed, holy fuck, so funny, the obscene sight of it actually making him laugh. At the same time, glancing up, he noticed what Jake was doing and stepped quickly toward the bed. But not quickly enough for what he wanted. “Shit, Jake, you done spermed without lettin’ us see!”

“I didn’t know,” Jake said. “Damn, I’m sorry.” Dewey also sat up now, also disappointed apparently, shaking his head at Jake’s thoughtlessness. But wait, Frankie wasn’t finished yet. He was standing behind JoJo and masturbating himself to a frantic orgasm. “You guys, you guys,” he called in a croaky voice, his hand pistoning faster and faster. “I’m gonna cum, like right now!”

“This time we’ll get us some,” JoJo said, he and Dewey rushing into position in front of Frankie where they crouched, both of them, jostling each other, hands cupped as if to catch water from a fountain. Frankie was nodding yeah, yeah, that’s right. Aiming his boner at the boys’ hands. His legs trembling. Arms trembling. Belly concaved. Balls tight. Then his jizz came spurting and both Huckfeldt boys squealed giggly as they caught drippy gobs of it, Frankie thrusting and pressing point-blank against their grabby hands. He just kept moaning “shit, shit, shit” as he spurted.

JoJo and Dewey inspected the cum they’d collected. Eyeing it. Sniffing it. Dewey even touching his tongue to it. A taste that made him scrunch his nose and shake his head. And then they both smeared it slippery onto their own dicks, JoJo’s still fairly stiff, a bobbing jack-in-the-box as he touched it with his spermy finger. “Hey, Jake,” he wondered, “if Dewey fucked a girl right now can she get pregnant? With this stuff?”

“Maybe.”

“Don’t y’all know?”

“Sperm doesn’t live long, JoJo.”

“That ain’t fair.”

“Anyway,” Jake said, glancing at the clock, “maybe you boys should clean up. Clean your dicks. In the bathroom.”

“What’ll happen if we leave it on?” Dewey wanted to know.

“It’ll get dry and, you know, crusty. Like dried snot.”

Dewey said, “I’m leavin’ mine on. See how long it keeps.”

“A science project,” Jake smiled. Frankie stayed standing in the middle of the bedroom, still holding himself, groggy and speechless from today’s impromptu little party, his first taste of a younger boy’s semen. Jake put an arm around him and kissed his cheek. “Happy Easter,” the man said. “Enjoy yourself?”

“Jake, dude,” Frankie managed to mumble, grinning. “Happy Easter for sure.”

“Yeah, you guys, Happy Easter!” JoJo suddenly called out, his Batman underpants in one hand, a sock in the other. Dewey echoed the sentiment to make it unanimous, then wandered back to where Frankie and Jake were standing to join them in a group hug, all of them still naked as they embraced and cuddled, nobody in any hurry to get dressed. Jake held out an arm for JoJo. “Room for one more Easter bunny,” the man invited. JoJo smiled and dropped his pieces of clothing to the floor and hurried forward, happy to accept.