Author’s Note: I don’t even want to speculate how long it has been, but please understand, the delays are never by design. As some of you who have been corresponding with me (I adore you; it’s like having friends!) know, there has been a series of personal tragedies that have really slowed me down. Grief is like glitter: it seems to get everywhere and you keep finding it in the most unexpected of places even after you thought you’d cleaned it all away. I’ve tried not to let that bleed into these stories, but that endeavor is what has made these chapters—about fathers and sons, and family—so difficult to write. Chapters XI and XII are not particularly sexy, but, in my opinion, they are required to check in on character growth and my girl Violet needs her moment. I don’t believe in writing smut for the sake of smut. We fuck in purposeful ways with author-backed reasons around here! I hope you enjoy these installments, and continue to stay as generous and patient with me as you have so far. Let’s talk: [email protected].
Eli.
“I know you’re not giving your boyfriend a handy right now, right here on the fucking bus.” Violet’s teeth are so clenched, I’m wonderin’ how words are even comin’ out.
“Ridiculous!” Dag says while his hand squeezes my cock harder. I notice he doesn’t say anything about that word: “boyfriend.”
Feels pretty good. The boyfriend thing, not the cock thing. Okay, the cock thing, too.
Dag’s hand, wet with spit, is runnin’ up and down the length of my cock. We’re headin’ home. ‘Course we’ll see each other there but in Wolf’s Hollow it just takes a bit more plannin’ is all.
“Dagwood,” Violet says turnin’ around and whisperin’ through the gap between the seats. “I can see where your hand is, and I need you to stop jerkin him off right now!”
“She’s not wrong,” I say sadly. “At the rate you’re goin’, I’ll make a big ol’ mess in my pants. How do I explain that?”
We are about half hour from home. I had to do it now.
“So…?” I ask quiet. “Are we…I dunno…boyfriends?”
He looks up at me, eyes full of wonder and a wide smile across his beautiful face.
“If you’ll have me, Eli Remington.”
“I wanna kiss you so bad right now.” I whisper.
“I wish you could,” he says turning away from me. “You could if we were in Resilience…”
“You know I’ll find a way.” I assure him. Because I damn well will.
“Can you two PLEASE keep it down? Or do you want to be hate-crimed?” Violet says, teeth clenched again.
“Congratulations,” she says after a silence. “Feel free to thank me because this wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t said the b-word in the first place.”
“Thanks, Violet.” Dagwood says. I’m dumb about a lotta things, but I’m pickin’ up something deeper goin’ on here.
****************
Dagwood’s father is a terrifyin’ man. I ain’t scared of much, but Sherwood King’s stare when he saw me get off the bus with Dag and Violet made me want to run for the hills.
“I’ll see ya!” I whispered to Dagwood and started to sneak away.
“Eli,” Mr. King said. “Hold on a second, son.”
“Oh, fuck…” Dagwood whispered.
“Afternoon, sir.” I said as solemnly as I could.
“That was very irresponsible.” He said quietly, but he was pissed, I knew.
“But it was fun!” Dagwood blurted out.
“Dagwood—well, we have a long conversation ahead of us—can be impulsive, but I expected better of you, Eli.” Oh, he was *pissed* alright.
“Sir, I can’t hardly sincerely apologize for somethin’ I’d do again and again.” I didn’t care anymore. He was angry enough: what’s the worst that could happen now?
I thought I saw him fight a smile, but that scary neutral expression came right back.
“Daddy!” Violet’s voice was too damn high suddenly. “You really shouldn’t have! We could have made it home ourselves!”
“Get in the car.”
Dagwood.
Daddy didn’t say a word on the—thankfully short—ride home. Violet and I had, perhaps through our alleged telepathic twin bond, decided that we weren’t going to blink first. Once at home, daddy invited us into the study.
“You lied.” He said.
I don’t know how this man can sound so utterly terrifying without raising his voice.
“We didn’t, though,” Violet piped up. “We absolutely toured the school. Ask Clarence.”
“Violet, so help me…” Daddy began.
“Daddy, I know what you’re annoyed about and that’s justified!” I spoke up. “Yes, there was some, um, selective truth-telling on our part, but…I couldn’t not go! He showed me his hometown! And, sir, respectfully, you have no idea how suffocating and small this town has started to feel since I met Eli.”
“I understand, son,” Daddy said not unkindly. “That’s why—exactly why—I asked you to end it. I don’t often find myself repeatin’ things to you, Dagwood, but you have to end it.”
“I can’t,” I said lowering my gaze, unable to look my father in the eye as I defied him. “I simply can’t.
“I can’t afford to send a disobedient child to Auburn,” Daddy decreed. “I will not reward bad behavior under my roof.”
Violet gasped.
“Daddy!”
“Act up, Violet, and you—”
“I can’t imagine what you’d take from me,” Violet guffawed cruelly. “We never talk about my future under your roof: I’d just assumed that I was going to live in the background cleaning and keeping an eye on Mama when she gets…the way she gets.”
“Violet…” Daddy looked abashed. I’d be lying if I said that that didn’t thrill me just a little.
“Let’s talk when the dictatorial spirit has abandoned you, yes?” She spat before storming off.
He turned his attention back to me. We stared at each other in silence.
“This is just cruel.” I said finally.
“So you’ve chosen the preacher’s boy over a world-class education.” He assessed. “I’m disappointed in you.”
“That’s…no…you don’t have to be disappointed in me just yet,” I said fighting back tears. “But please let me see him one last time? Please let me tell him in person. Please?”
Daddy looked pained, but he nodded his assent.
****************
The sermon was, because this shit writes itself, on parenting. The preacher was on Proverbs 22:6.
“We are exhorted here to “train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it,”” he pronounced with a smile. “Seems simple enough, brethren: raise your kids correctly, with sternness, discipline and godliness, and they will neither rebel nor stray. Do we agree?”
No one said a word, obviously. These sermons are not, never have been, interactive sessions.
“We shouldn’t,” The preacher said after an appropriate pause. “It is too simplistic an interpretation.”
Huh. We’ve sure come a long way from that almost parodic first sermon about the woke mind virus or whatever.
“Recall, brethren, that the Proverbs is not a book of promises. Our Lord does not guarantee virtuous children if we do everything right. Your children are your children. They will go their own way. But that should never stop you from doing right by them.”
What was happening here…
“Some children are simply born wicked.” There it is. “You can do everything right but The Devil will have what he is owed. But, again, don’t let that deter you from trying your best to save them.”
I rolled my eyes hard enough to be transported to a different timeline for a few. Eli looked positively fretful. I’d been avoiding him, truth be told. Part of me felt like if I stuck my head in the sand and didn’t tell him what had to happen, it would simply go away. He’d taken my unanswered texts in his stride. But he also hadn’t looked at me once today, and that fucking hurt.
“Eli—” I hissed reaching for his suit jacket as we exited the church.
“Young Mr. King!”
Jesus, fuck.
“Sir.” I said stopping before the preacher. Eli turned and planted himself there, too, his expression stoic.
“Did the sermon not agree with you, Dagwood?” The preacher grinned venomously. “Don’t think I didn’t see the eyeroll, young man.”
“He didn’t mean nothin’…” Eli started.
“Do I address you, boy?” The preacher snapped. “Why are you even standing here? Idle hands make…”
“I wanted a word with him,” I suppose we are all just interrupting each other today. “But I agree with the sermon.”
“Do you?” He seemed genuinely surprised.
“You’re right: Proverbs is not a collection of promises. That’s important. But it’s deterministic and weird to say that some people are just born wicked. People have free will. The should in that verse could refer to natural inclinations. Good parenting could mean giving a musically inclined child every opportunity to hone his talent.”
“Deterministic and weird…” The preacher looked apoplectic. “Tell me, does your father approve of your natural inclinations, Dagwood?”
Now Eli looked enraged.
“He does,” I said confidently. “He thinks I’m a talented writer and should study journalism when I go to Auburn.”
“How wonderful.”
“Thank you.”
“Of course.”
“May I speak to my classmate, please?”
The Preacher gave me a watery smile and moved on.
“Hi.” I said finally that we were alone.
“Give me a fuckin’ second, here, Dag,” Eli said exhaling. “I think I sweat all through my shirt! That was…”
I practically licked my lips imagining the wet translucent white fabric easing into the grooves of his muscular back where my nails often dug through.
“I actually think your dad likes me,” I said confidently. “But imagine having an eighteen-year-old as your frenemy.”
“I been tryin’ to talk to you.” Eli said pointedly, clearly in no mood to be charmed.
“I know,” I said sullenly. “I’m sorry. Daddy…uh…I mean, things…”
“I’d kiss your stupid babblin’ mouth right now if we weren’t out here,” he said in reference to the people on the lawn outside the church. “I want to do that more than hear about whatever you’re gon’ tell me. It don’t sound good.”
“It’s not.”
“Rectory?”
“No,” I say regretfully knowing exactly what will happen in the rectory and I don’t need that right now. “Church basement. Where y’all keep the chairs.”
He nodded and immediately went inside. I swanned around for about ten minutes making inane conversation with the adults. It was a painful ten minutes but, well, we must keep up appearances. I finally slinked back into the church and ran downstairs. He was waiting for me, leaning against the wall, arms crossed around his chest. He wasn’t lying about the sweat. His white shirt clung to his rounded shoulders—pumpkin delts, as the fitness industry calls them—and accentuated that perfect chest I’d caressed and kissed possessively and, apparently, taken for granted.
“Okay, Eli, so daddy—”
But he’d reached forward and pulled me against his chest.
“Later.” He murmured before he kissed me full on the mouth. My hands traced his jawline as I sucked on his lips with urgency and hunger. I jumped as he struck my ass while sticking his tongue into my mouth. God, I wanted him so much. There I was, trying to avoid the rectory, but I’d let him bend me over one of those cheap chairs (which would inevitably break; we have not had luck with chairs and desks as that one night at school proved) and take me hard and fast. That’s when I made my decision: I was not going to give him up.
“You have idea how much I wanted to do that!” He sighed after we’d exchanged sufficient saliva. “You asshole!”
“That was unnecessary!”
“Would it kill you to answer a text?”
Fair.
“There have been some…tense discussions at home,” I shared reluctantly. “But, actually, none of that matters anymore. It’s all peachy!”
“But, actually,” Eli said in an uncanny imitation of me. “You’re gon’ tell me what happened. Baby, I’m a redneck, I know, but I ain’t stupid.”
“Daddy said he wouldn’t pay for Auburn if I didn’t stop seeing you.”
Eli’s jaw tensed but then he broke out into a radiant smile. “We been here before, Dag. Only this time, we don’t sneak around. It’s less than a year and I’ll come see ya in Alabama.”
“I’m going to tell him to stuff it,” I said resolutely. “I’m not giving you up: we do not negotiate with terrorists.”
Eli pressed his lips together, suppressing a laugh. “This ain’t the time for your little jokes.”
We stood in silence.
“Auburn’s your dream, Dagwood.” Eli said somberly.
“But you’re the dream I was too afraid to dream,” I said looking him directly in the eyes. “And you’re here. You’re real. I’d be a fool to walk away from a dream come true.”
Before I knew it, Eli had pulled me into a hug. His hard body pressed to mine somehow felt more intimate than anything we’d ever done before.
“Baby, I know you want to be a writer,” he said and kissed my forehead. “But maybe don’t do poetry.”
“FUCK. YOU, Eli Remington!” I shoved him off me as he doubled over in laughter. “You’re going to jerk off for the rest of your life, you sonuvabitch! No hole for you!”
“Okay, okay!” He said smiling broadly once again pulling me towards him.
“Wanna go to the rectory?” He whispered into neck causing my whole body to tingle.
“No,” I said with herculean effort. “I should get going before daddy starts to wonder and, besides, there’s an important conversation I need to have with Violet.”
