Contradictions

The Workshop

Dr. Jamison (Jay) Sherwood had known Matt ever since he was a little kid, but they did not become close until that fateful day four years ago. Matt’s father, Charlie Donovan, was one of the first men Jay’s dad hired when he started his business. Walt Sherwood, Jay’s father, was a master craftsman. He designed and made beautiful furniture by hand. He started his business with practically nothing, but in no time at all he was selling his products to some of the richest executives in the Silicon Valley as well as their Hollywood friends. Not able to keep up with the demand, he hired some workers, and then he hired more and more until he eventually had more than 40 employees. However, he continued to do all of the designing, and he supervised the work and personally inspected every piece before it left the shop. Walt was the artist in the family, but his wife Diane was the boss, which is to say that she managed the operation. Though the company was very successful, the Sherwoods were not exactly rich—at least not by Silicon Valley standards. They were what some people would call “comfortable.

Jamie, as he was known to his family and friends when he was a child, had just turned 14 when he started working in his father’s shop. His parents had worked hard for everything they had, and they wanted him to learn the value of hard work as well. At first, Jamie swept up after the guys, fetched tools, and ran errands. All the men took a liking to him immediately. They teased him, but never in a mean way. Sometimes they would give him tips for running errands, even though Walt told them not to.

The storage room was Jamie’s favorite room in the shop because it was isolated and quiet, being at the opposite end of the building from the work area and down in the basement. It’s where Jamie stashed the girlie magazines that Rick, one of the older teenage workers, had slipped him, and when the men did not need him, he would sneak into that room and jack off. He spent a lot of time in that room, sometimes three or four trips in one day.

Billy Macintosh, the son of one of Walt Sherwood’s workers, would stop by the shop after school when his mom couldn’t pick him up and wait around for his father to get off work and take him home. He was only a couple of months younger than Jamie was, but the two boys didn’t hang out because they really didn’t have much in common. Billy’s parents were very religious and sent him to a Catholic school. Though he was kind of cute, he was very shy and, Jamie cockily thought, less familiar with the ways of the world than he was. One day, when Jamie had slipped into the storage room to milk the lizard, he looked up and gasped when he saw Billy looking down at him with his jaw practically on the floor. “Billy, what are you doing here? You shouldn’t be in here!”

“Whatchya doin’, Jamie? And what’s that magazine?” As Jamie hastened to get up and stuff his half-hard dick back into his underwear and jeans, Billy reached over and picked up the magazine.

“Oh, wow, Jamie. They’re naked!”

“Yeah, Einstein. They’re naked. Now, give that back to me.”

“In a minute, Jamie. I wanna look at the pictures.”

“You shouldn’t be looking at these kinds of pictures, Billy.” As Jamie’s anger at having been caught in the act increased, his erection drooped.

“Why not? You’re looking at them. And you’re playing with yourself too.”

Billy had spoiled Jamie’s mood, but now Billy was rubbing his own crotch as he gawked at the pictures. Jamie didn’t know if he even realized what he was doing or if it was instinctual, but Billy was definitely responding to the snake growing in the pants of his school uniform. Whether it was looking over Billy’s shoulder at the pictures again or seeing him rub his bulging crotch, Jamie got aroused, and his dick stiffened again immediately. Hell, he was too goddammed horny to stop now. He had to get his rocks off, and he didn’t care if Billy saw him or not. He dropped his jeans again and continued to pound his pudd. Billy again stared at him.

“Wow, Jamie! It’s so big!”

“Yeah, Billy, and it looks like you’re getting pretty big too.”

Billy turned red with embarrassment. “It’s OK, Billy. Guys are supposed to get hard when they look at pictures like that. Only thing is, when it happens, your dick and balls ache somethin’ fierce, and you just gotta do somethin’ about it.”

“You mean like you’re doing right now, Jamie?”

“Yeah. You ever tried it, Billy?”

“No,” he gasped. “I couldn’t do that.”

“Sure you can, Billy. In fact, you better do it or you’re gonna have cream all over your underwear.”

Suddenly, Billy looked scared, like he didn’t think he should do what Jamie was doing but was now afraid of what might happen if he didn’t.

“Cream?” he asked. “Whaddya mean, Jamie?”

“You’ll see,” Jamie said. “Step away.” Though Jamie imagined that it would be really funny to shoot all over Billy, he knew he’d have a hell of a time explaining the stain on his clothes to his parents.

Jamie stood near the wall and picked up the pace of his pumping. Whenever he would gasp or moan, Billy would panic and ask, “Are you all right, Jamie? Are you having a heart attack?” Tears actually started to form in his eyes as he contemplated the thought of Jamie dying right there in front of him with his hand gripped around his boyhood cock.

“No, Billy,” Jamie laughed. “I’m not gonna die, and neither are you.”

More gasps and groans, louder and faster now. “Are you sure, Jamie? It looks like it hurts awfully bad.”

“No, Billy. It doesn’t hurt. It feels great. It feels soooo fuckin’ fantastic.”

As Jamie drew closer to his orgasm and began to shiver, Billy, perhaps fearing for Jamie’s life, threw his arm around him to keep him from collapsing. “Here it comes, Billy. I’m cummin’! I’m cummin’! I’m cummin’!” He was sure that Billy had no fuckin’ idea what he meant—at least not until he shot a couple of ropes of white cream onto the wall and a few more on the floor.

“Are you all right, Jamie? You sound like you can’t breathe.”

“It’s OK, Billy. It’s OK. I’m fine. Hell, I’m more than fine. I feel fuckin’great.”

“I felt it too, Jamie.” When Jamie looked at him incredulously, Billy explained, “When you cummed, I felt your whole body shiver. I was afraid you were having a seizure or somethin’.”

“No, Billy. That wasn’t a seizure. That was what we call ecstasy. That was heaven.”

“That was an awful lot of cream, Jamie. Where did it come from?”

“It comes from your balls, dodo. That’s why they ache the way they do. All that cum—that’s what we call the cream—when the cum builds up, you just gotta let it out or it’ll explode.”

Billy’s eyes bugged out of his head. Jamie started to say, “Not literally, dickhead,” but he was having too much fun with Billy, so he decided to play out the ruse.

“Yeah, Billy,” said Jamie, with all the seriousness he could muster. “Have you ever seen a balloon burst when you fill it with too much water? Well, you better whip out your little pecker and start pumping right now, or your balls are gonna burst in your shorts just like one of those balloons. Then they’ll have to take you to the emergency room, and how’re ya gonna explain that to your folks?”

Billy was so panicked that he couldn’t get his pants unzipped, so Jamie gave him a hand with that. As soon as Billy’s dick popped out, Jamie gasped, “Jeez, Billy, you’re as big as I am. Maybe even a bit bigger.” Billy looked at him as if he wasn’t certain whether or not that was a compliment, but when he saw Jamie gaping at his imminent manhood, he grinned with self-satisfaction.

“What do I do now?” he asked.

Jeez! Was I ever that stupid? Realizing that this was a landmark event in Billy’s life, though, he decided to give the kid a break.

“Just put your hand around it and grip it like you would a hose,” he said. “Not too tight. You don’t wanna squeeze the blood out of it.”

“Oh, my God, Jamie! Is it bleeding?” Jamie thought Billy was going to cry again.

“No, Billy. Relax. It’s just that when you get horny from looking at pictures like those, blood rushes to your dick, and that’s what makes it swell up like that. That’s called an erection, a boner, a hard-on, a stiffie. There are lots of names for it, but the important thing is that you gotta take care of it.”

“OK. Now what do I do?”

“Just slide your hand up and down the shaft slowly. That feels good, don’t it?”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“Damn right it feels good. You don’t have to be afraid to admit it. Hell, there’d be somethin’ wrong with you if it didn’t feel good.”

He grinned again and began stroking more confidently.

“OK. Now, from here on, it’s really a matter of what feels best for you. You can pull up on it, you can beat down on it, you can stroke it up and down evenly, or you can even twist it. Just do whatever feels good.”

By the time that he had tried all the variations that Jamie had mentioned, he was getting pretty close to cumming.

“D’ya feel your balls aching, Billy?”

“Yeah. What do I do about that?”

“Well, after you shoot, the ache will go away, but in the meantime, you can rub your balls gently with your other hand if you want. Don’t squeeze too hard; you don’t wanna crack your nuts. Just rub ‘em gently. Rubbing below the ball sac feels really good too.”

He tried both. “Feels fuckin’ good, huh?”

“Hell, yeah. Feels fuckin’ good.”

Jamie had never heard Billy cuss like that before, and he thought it was kind of funny, so he started to chuckle. Billy thought Jamie was making fun of him, so he stopped for a moment and glared at him. “Oh, no, Billy. I’m not laughing at you. I’m just getting a kick out of seeing you enjoy yourself so much. For somebody who’s never done this before, you’re workin’ it like a pro.” That was it. Billy beamed like a halcyon lamp and immediately went back to stroking and fondling his jewels.

“Jamie?” His voice rose a pitch.

“Yeah, Billy. What is it? Somethin’ wrong?”

“How do you know when you’re ready to cum?”

“Oh, don’t worry, Billy. You’ll know. Trust me. You’ll know.”

“I think I’m cummin’, Jamie. I think this is it. I’m cummin’. I’m cummin’. I’m cum….” As he shot his pent-up juice against the wall, he screamed a series of AHs and FUCKs similar to the ones Jamie had shouted out when he came. Jamie didn’t know if Billy’s exclamations were authentic self-expressions or if Billy was just emulating him, but either way, he gloated.

“Damn, Billy. That was one hell of an orgasm. I didn’t shoot anywhere near as good as that my first time.” He was lying, of course, but he was really starting to like the kid, so he said it to make him feel good and to make sure that he didn’t leave the storage room feeling guilty about what he had just done.

“Really, Jamie?”

“Really.”

“I did good, huh?”

“You were fantastic, Billy, and I bet it felt awfully good, didn’t it.”

“Fuck, yeah, man.” He said it again, and Jamie chuckled reflexively, but this time Billy didn’t take offense. Instead, he chuckled back, and pretty soon both boys were laughing their fool heads off.

They grabbed some paper towels and wiped off themselves as well as the wall and floor. Then they sat down to rest before going back up to the shop. Billy wanted to look at the dirty pictures again, but he was also full of questions. He asked all kinds of questions about sex, some of which Jamie couldn’t answer, but some of which he could. Jamie couldn’t believe how uninformed Billy was. His parents and teachers hadn’t taught him a damn thing about the facts of life!

Billy asked Jamie about his first experience and how many other guys he had jerked off with. Jamie told him that there had been about a dozen, which was a lie, of course; there had been only two. Then he asked Jamie how often he jerked off. It was not a personal question as much as it was a request for advice. What he really wanted to know was how often HE should jack off. Jamie told him that it was totally up to him. “Some guys do it once a week, some once a day, and some two or three times a day.”

“Two or three times a day? No shit!” (The little choir boy was really getting into the whole cussing thing.)

“Two or three times a day? No way!”

“Yes, waaay!” Jamie replied. “I’ve even done it four times in one day.” And that was the first time Jamie wasn’t actually pulling his leg. “Why, I’m even getting horny right now just thinking about it.”

“Really?” And when Jamie nodded in confirmation, Billy leaned over toward him and whispered, “I’m glad to hear you say that, Jamie, ‘cuz I’m startin’ to get another boner myself, and I was afraid there might be somethin’ wrong with me.”

“Hell, no!” Jamie exclaimed. “A boner is always a good thing. Well,” he corrected himself, “sometimes you pop a boner when you don’t really want to, like when you’re at school or out in public, and it can get kind of embarrassing. At school, I always make sure that I have a book in my hand just in case I need to cover up.” Billy took mental notes. “Hell, if you’re getting horny after that orgasm, I wouldn’t be surprised to see you popping boners in church.”

The thought of having an erection in church stunned Billy for a moment, but then he laughed. “A boner in church! That would be funny, wouldn’t it? I can just see the faces on the sisters right now.” They continued to laugh as they traded wisecracks about having a hard-on in church.

“Jamie?”

“Yeah.”

“This doesn’t…. I mean…. What we just did. This doesn’t make us queer, does it?”

“Shit, no,” Jamie scoffed. “There isn’t a guy in the world who hasn’t done this at one time or another. I’m sure our dads did it when they were our age.” The very thought of his dad jerking off, with or without girlie magazines, was too much for Billy to bear. “Hell,” Jamie added quickly, trying to get Billy’s mind off that image, I bet one of your priests is jackin’ off right now as we speak.” Billy’s initial reaction made Jamie think he had only compounded the irreverence, but seconds later, Billy started giggling, and that set off another round of raucus laughter.

“Jamie?”

“Yeah?”

“Can we do this again? Together, I mean?”

“Well, you really should be doing this at home,” Jamie said. “I only do it here ‘cuz I’m never home much except to eat, sleep, and do my homework.”

“Yeah, but see, we’ve got a very big family, all girls, and I really don’t have much privacy.”

 “Hmmm. Well, I tell you what. We’ll play it by ear and see how it goes.”

“I’d really like to jack off again right now,” Billy said, getting up from the floor, “but my dad will be finishing his shift soon, and I know he’ll be looking for me.”

“One more thing before you go, Billy. Let’s just keep this little secret between the two of us, OK?”

Billy tried to corner Jamie every time he stopped by the shop, which was once or twice a week. Sometimes Jamie was busy and couldn’t really do more than say hello to him, but on many occasions, they convened in the storage room and jacked off with the girlie magazines.

Everyone called Billy’s father Mack, partly because his last name was Macintosh and partly because he was built like a Mack truck. He was easily the brawniest man in the shop. About two or three months after Billy and Jamie had started their “relationship,” Mack pulled Jamie aside one afternoon after all of the other guys had left for the day and said he wanted to talk. With his arm around Jamie’s shoulder, he said, “I’ve noticed, Jamie, that you’ve been spending more time with Billy the last couple of months.”

Jamie felt the blood suddenly drain from his face. Oh, my God! He’s found out about Billy and me, and he’s gonna slam my ass up against the wall and beat the livin’ crap out of me, and there ain’t nobody around to save me.

With his beefy arm still firmly clutched against Jamie’s shoulder, Mack looked him straight in the eye and said, “I don’t know what you’ve been doing….”

Oh, my God. Here it comes. I’m dead meat!

 “…but whatever you’re doing has worked wonders for Billy. I’ve never seen him this happy before. His shyness has given way to a world of self confidence. Hell, sometimes I think he’s even getting to be a little cocky. Why, he’s even started asking girls out on dates, and they must like him ‘cause they keep calling the house all the time. It’s driving me crazy, but at the same time, I’ve never been so proud in my life. My little boy is becoming a man.”

Jamie was awestruck. He couldn’t believe his ears. Of course, he was relieved that he was not about to get ground into sawdust, but he was also gratified, and more than a little surprised, that Mack thought he had done so much for his son. To this day, Jamie doesn’t know if Mack really didn’t know what was going on with him and Billy or if he secretly did know and approved.

After that, Billy and Jamie continued to jack off together occasionally, but as Billy developed a stronger interest in girls, their sessions dropped off—except when Billy got turned down on a date and just had to get his rocks off. He would come by the shop, and they would go into the storage room, talk about girls, whip out the magazines—and their dicks—and jack off. Though they saw each other less and less frequently, when they did run into each other, they always greeted each other warmly and brought each other up on their latest conquests. Jamie came to think of Billy as a real buddy.

Later, when Jamie went off to college, Billy joined the Marines. His dad was so proud. Jamie was devastated when he learned that Billy had been killed when his helicopter was shot down over the Middle East somewhere. Mack was never really the same after that.

(to be continued)