Shy (34 page)

As it was, Stanley was lucky to be able to tag along on the old man’s dime, dangling from his father’s funereal coattails, as it were. If it had been a solo affair, meaning Stanley’s funeral alone, there wouldn’t have been more than three mourners present, and two of those would probably have been there for the air conditioning. As it was, Stanley got a packed house, even if every single person who signed the guest log had come to pay their respects to Joe instead of him.

I considered inviting Jerry to Stanley’s funeral, what with him being Stanley’s ex and all, but I was afraid he might actually accept. So I didn’t.

With Stanley gone to his maker, Frank not only inherited the farm in its entirety, he also got the twenty grand that their mother had put aside. But even that wasn’t the big news. The big news, and the shocker to beat all shockers, was that, since Stanley had died intestate, and since Frank was his closest living relative, Frank also came into more than thirty thousand dollars that Stanley had socked away in a savings account out in California. If Stanley wasn’t roasting in hell already, I’ll bet that burned his ass plenty, knowing that Frank ended up with his thirty grand.

Frank, being the sweet guy that he is, used a big chunk of his inheritance to buy Stanley a burial plot and a nice tombstone, which to my way of thinking was pretty much a useless extravagance as well. There was so little of Stanley left after Samson got done with him that we could have buried his ass in a flower pot on the front porch and saved five or six thousand dollars, but no, Frank wouldn’t hear of it. The gravedigger buried Stanley with a garden trowel like a tulip bulb, patted the hole down afterward with the heel of his boot, and that was the end of it. And the man still charged four hundred dollars to plant him. I saw the bill.

And speaking of Samson, you’ll be pleased to learn that Samson survived the ordeal. We thought for a while that the bellyache he came down with after gobbling up Stanley might do him in, but in the end he prevailed. (Which is more than one can say for Stanley). Two weeks after Samson fully digested Frank’s brother and eventually pooped him out into a mudhole, in increments, of course, not all at once, thank God, Frank sold Samson to a carnival impresario known in the carny business as the Midwest Barker Baron, his business being sideshows and carnival attractions. The Barker Baron put Samson on display at the Indiana State Fair and made a fortune. Labeled as the Yorkshire Maneater, Samson is still touring in county and state fairs up and down the Mississippi and as far north as Canada, eating like a king and being pampered like a queen. I mean a
real
queen. He must have turned into an insufferable ham, if you’ll pardon the expression, because we never did get so much as a postcard from Samson telling us how much he enjoyed being in show business and how appreciative he was that we hadn’t ground him up into three-quarters of a ton of pork sausage, which was my suggestion.

Some people never appreciate anything.

So with Joe dead and buried, but certainly not forgotten, and Stanley dead and buried and forgotten every chance we got, life on the farm went on.

Eventually, there came a day when decisions had to be made.

T
HE
cows were milked, the eggs gathered, the chickens and pigs fed and watered, and the last ball of August sunshine was just about to slide down the sky into September. Frank and I lay back on the pond bank, with our pant legs rolled up and our naked feet sloshing around in the cool muddy water to relax after another long, exhausting day of tending the farm.

Pedro was on the other side of the pond chasing a frog. He probably wanted to hump it. Off to the east, nine hundred chickens were settling down for the night, and a little farther down the hillside, the cows were milling about, all facing west, plucking up wildflowers, mindlessly chewing their cuds, and pooping all over the place. The setting sun hung so low on the horizon behind us that the shadows of the trees we were lying under stretched out all the way across the pasture to the fence line.

I was squishing my toes through the mud and piddling around with Frank’s belt buckle while Frank watched me with a dastardly smile on his face.

“So how many people are interested?” I asked, pushing his T-shirt up out of the way so I could pluck gently at the little trail of hair which led from his belly button down to my favorite spot in all the world. “What’s the latest tally?”

“Two firm offers for the whole shebang, a couple of semi-interested parties who would prefer we chop it up into parcels, and about six or seven friends and neighbors who are just nosing around and wondering what we’d settle for.”

“They think you’re desperate to sell,” I said.

Frank nodded. “That’s exactly what they think. They’re hoping to get a bargain price from the sole remaining son of a tragic Indiana family, who happens to be a fruitcup, and who undoubtedly wants to get back to California and reconnect to the fruitcup way of life he had been leading before he and his boyfriend, who they say has a really big pecker, were forced to return to the homestead to care for his dying father, which was just before his asshole brother got devoured by a pig.”

“Nice sentence structure,” I said.

“You stole that line from me.”

“Yes, I did. Thanks for the pecker comment,” I said.

“You’re welcome. I’m getting excited, you know.”

“Good,” I said, pressing my lips to his fly. He was right. Unless that was a hammer in there, he
was
getting excited.

Silence reigned for a couple of minutes while I waggled my tongue around inside Frank’s belly button and loosened his belt a little more. Reaching down to stroke my hair and watching me like a hawk, he said, “Do you think Pop knows what happened? Do you think he knows Stanley died because of that silly prank of his?”

I gazed up past the smooth expanse of Frank’s chest into his incredibly green eyes. “Naw,” I said. And I said it not because that was what Frank wanted to hear, but because that was what I truly believed. “In the first place, who would ever think that Stanley would be dumb enough to actually do what he did? And in the second place, your dad loved that damn hog so much that I don’t think he could see the meanness in him. He would never have pulled that prank on Stanley if he thought any harm would come of it. Your dad was a funny guy. He was just trying to be funny.”

Frank seemed satisfied with my answer. After a couple of ticks, he said, “That’s what I think too.”

I pulled my tongue out of his belly button and scooted up a little so I could lay my ear on his chest and listen to his heartbeat. I loved listening to Frank’s heartbeat. Especially when he had a boner. It had a different rhythm to it then. Like Ricky Ricardo pounding on bongos. “The pigs are going to be ready to sell soon, Frank. If they get much bigger they’ll be taking over the farm.”

He nodded. “They’ll bring a good price. The market is up right now.”

“The chicken prices too,” I said.

He nodded. “Yep. The chicken prices too. It’s going to end up being a good year.”

Frank made that comment more calmly than he would have made it before the deaths of his brother and dad. Frank had money now. Not a lot of money, but enough not to have to worry about every little bill that came along like he did before. He didn’t have to worry if the hog prices or the grain prices or the egg prices were up or down or in-between. It gave Frank a sense of freedom he had never known before, having several thousand bucks in the bank, not to mention being the sole owner of a pretty fair chunk of real estate, and it was a joy to watch him savor that freedom.

I smiled at the look of contentment on his face, and then, out of the blue, Frank asked the question I had been dreading for weeks.

“When do you want to head back to San Diego?”

“I’m assuming when you say ‘you’ you actually mean ‘us’.”

“Yes. Us.”

I thought about it. “When do
you
want to head back?”

Frank shrugged and looked up into the branches above our heads. They were gently shifting around in the evening breeze, dappling Frank’s face with shifting splotches of shadow. “I suppose we could sell right now and be gone by October.”

I thought about that. “Or we could wait until winter’s over and sell in the spring.”

Frank looked down at me. His belt was undone, and I was dragging his zipper slowly open with my teeth. “If we wait until spring” he said, “it’ll be planting season and time to buy nine hundred new chicks.”

I spread wide the flaps of his jeans and let his pubic hair tickle my nose. “Then we’ll wait until they grow up and go to college. What the hell’s the rush?”

He hooked a finger under my chin and dragged my face up to study it. “What are you saying, Tom? Are you saying you want to stay here?”

When he said it like that, I wasn’t so sure. Being the kind of person who usually says what he’s thinking, I said, “When you say it like that, I’m not so sure.”

A smile played at the corners of Frank’s luscious mouth. I caught a glimpse of snowy-white teeth and a scrumptious pink tongue. “You like the privacy,” he said.

“Yes, I do.”

“Neither one of us has had a bout of social anxiety freakiness for months.”

“No, we haven’t.”

“I don’t remember the last time you had to breathe into a paper bag.”

“Me either.”

“You’re even starting to enjoy the company of chickens.”

“I wouldn’t go that far.”

“Do you miss the city at all?” Frank finally asked.

And I didn’t miss a beat. “No,” I said, truthfully. “I have everything I want right here.”

Frank smiled. Then he laughed. It was a beautiful carefree sound that made Pedro come running. He plopped himself down beside us, panting like a steam engine, tail thumping, tongue dangling. One happy dog. One happy
farm
dog.

“What about all your stuff?” Frank asked. He was looking pretty happy too. His tongue wasn’t dangling yet, but it
would
be by the time I finished fiddling around with his crotch.

I shrugged. “We’ll hire movers to empty out the apartment and drive the stuff here. No sweat.”

“What about Jerry?”

“He’ll have more room.”

“No, I mean what about Jerry and you?”

“There is no Jerry and me. There’s only Frank and me.”

He stroked my cheek. “Good to know.”

And since the fates never get tired of screwing with people’s heads, that was the very moment my cell phone started chirping.

Disgusted, I spat out Frank’s zipper tab and yanked the phone out of my back pocket. While I was checking the number on the readout, Frank began to shrug himself out of his clothes. I guess he couldn’t wait any longer.

“It’s Jerry,” I said, reading the numbers.

“Well, whaddya know.”

Naked as the day he was born, Frank wadded his clothes up into a ball and tucked them under his head for a pillow. He lay back down in the grass and watched me, idly stroking his rock-hard cock and grinning that dimpled grin that promised all sorts of wonderful things to come.

He nodded toward my phone. “Better tell him then.”

I reached out to lend Frank a hand. His cock filled my fist perfectly.

“I’ll write him a letter,” I said, and flung the phone into the pond. It gave one tiny pathetic gurgle and sank like a rock.

I shrugged quickly out of my own clothes and when I was finished, Frank pulled me naked into his arms.

“I thought you were shy,” he said.

I scooted south to warmer climes.

“That was the old me,” I said. “The city me.”

“So now I guess you’re a farmer,” Frank said, arching his back as I nibbled at his groin.

“Yep,” I grinned. “That’s me. Farmer Tom.”

And oh so slowly I took him into my mouth, just to hear him moan.

About the Author

J
OHN
I
NMAN
has been writing fiction since he was old enough to hold a pencil. He and his partner live in beautiful San Diego, California. Together, they share a passion for theater, books, hiking and biking along the trails and canyons of San Diego, or if the mood strikes, simply kicking back with a beer and a movie. John’s advice for anyone who wishes to be a writer? “Set time aside to write every day and do it. Don’t be afraid to share what you’ve written. Feedback is important. When a rejection slip comes in, just tear it up and try again. Keep mailing stuff out. Keep writing and rewriting and then rewrite one more time. Every minute of the struggle is worth it in the end, so don’t give up. Ever. Remember that publishers are a lot like lovers. Sometimes you have to look a long time to find the one that’s right for you.”

You can contact John at [email protected] or on his website:

http://www.johninmanauthor.com/.

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OHN
I
NMAN

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