Hot Valley

FOR TWO YEARS, BETWEEN MY 19TH BIRTHDAY AND THE outbreak of war, I dedicated myself to the art of fucking with an application that, had I brought it to my working life, might have made me a rich man. I grew stronger in my body, thanks to swimming and riding and running and the regular exercise I took in the bedroom. My body became harder. The hair on my head became, alas, a little thinner; at the age of 21 I already had a pronounced widow’s peak, and was receding at the temples. But the hair on my body spread and grew thicker, creeping up from my belly to my chest, around my nipples. It was never as thick and wiry as Mick’s, and it was several shades darker than the hair on my head—but there it was, extending down my thighs and over my ass, filling the crack that once, when Mick first tasted it, had been almost bare. I became a man—in my body, at least, if not in my mind.

I returned often to Mick at the White Horse, and he became my tutor, my mentor, and a more admirable moral guide than you might have thought. He taught me to observe the conventions of New England life, to behave like a gentleman, to take my pleasure discreetly and with consideration for others, to run no unnecessary risks. He had learned by painful example just how badly wrong things could go for the likes of us, and he told me, one night as we lay naked together after he had fucked my face, of how he came about that deep scar on his torso. A young man in another town, a jealous wife, an angry father-in-law, an ugly brawl in a bar, a knife, a desperate flight on horseback, still bleeding, infection, a fever, near death… Mick had learned the hard way just how dangerous the love of men could be.

It had not, however, put him off, and in the White Horse he’d found friends who would support and protect him. The barman shared his tastes, and on more than one occasion joined us for the night. I took them both, at both ends, alternately, together. One evening, when business in the White Horse was slow, the barman locked the doors with just himself, Mick, another rough laborer called Scott, and me inside. We fucked on the bar, on the tables, on the floor, upstairs and down. I took them all—and, that night for the first time, I learned what it was like to fuck another man, sticking my prick up the barman’s hairy ass as he leaned over a beer barrel sucking on the two hard cocks in front of him.

And it wasn’t just in the White Horse that I took my pleasure. With the confidence of extreme youth, I had my own adventures. I assumed, like a fool, that any man who took my fancy would be happy to accommodate me. I lay, shamelessly naked and erect, on the sunny rocks at my favorite swimming pond, daring other bathers to come and join me. I worked my way through several of the cleaners, engineers, and clerks at the Hydropathic Establishment. Seldom was I turned down, and even if I was, nobody would have dared say a word against the boss’s son. I even seduced family friends who came to visit, “accidentally” stumbling into their rooms after everyone had retired for bed, ready with some foolish story about looking for a book, and often stayed till dawn, tasting forbidden fruit.

But it was always to Mick that I returned, and I never tired of his loving. Our appetites matched perfectly. There was nothing I could dream of doing that he was not already expert at. His cock was always hard, always ready for me. And, more than that, we became friends. We talked. He advised me, warned me, encouraged me. When he wasn’t fucking me, he was like a father to me. In return, I helped him out with money when work was scarce, and, to keep him in town, I even found a job for him at the spa. He impressed my father with his knowledge of boilers and water-heating systems, and he replaced the old chief engineer, whose idea of modern technology was a coal fire. Mick moved out of the White Horse and took a cabin in the woods, where we could fuck as loudly as we wanted, with only the occasional moose or bear to hear us. I do not know if my family wondered about this unlikely friendship, or if talk reached their ears of my inappropriate associations; if it did, they were far too polite to mention it.

Reluctantly, I took a job myself at the Bishopstown Hydropathic Establishment and Mineral Spa Center, largely to silence the mutterings about “earning my keep” and “preparing for the future” that were becoming far too frequent for my liking around the family table. I was placed in the accounts department, apprenticed to Jasper Windridge, my father’s “right hand,” as he liked to call him, an unlikable man of middle age who took great pleasure, I thought, in pointing out my shortcomings. I suppose I cannot blame him, as I was an unwilling student, interested only in the clock, my mind on my next debauch. It was all I could do to add up a column of figures without error; the complexities of double-entry bookkeeping were a mystery to me. The only double-entry I was interested in took place in the White Horse, when I managed, with concentration and a hell of a lot of butter, to accommodate both Mick and the barman in my painfully stretched asshole.

I worked with an ill will, doing as little as possible, antagonizing Mr. Windridge to the point that he would threaten, once or twice a week, to “speak to your father.” I dared him to do it, and went back to doodling winged cocks on my notepad. Somehow or other I learned the basics of accountancy, but it was more in the way that a tree soaks up rain than by any positive effort on my part. In years to come, I would thank Mr. Windridge for that grounding he gave me in dollars and cents; at the time, however, I regarded him as little better than a troll from a fairy tale, barring the gate to the garden of delights.

And so I might have continued, wasting my youth in pleasure, heedless of the future, burying my head in a book (or a hairy crotch) every time there was talk of politics. When Abraham Lincoln was elected in 1860, the town was alive with talk of trouble to come, with cheers and boos and rallies and counterrallies; the papers carried nothing but stories of secession and abolition and constitutions and conferences. It meant nothing to me—a background hum, the wind in the trees, the gurgling of a stream.

Even Mick was shocked at my lack of interest in current events. “This is history in the making, Jack,” he said to me one Sunday afternoon when we had headed off for a walk in the mountains, looking for secluded places where he could fuck me in the open air. “You should pay attention.”

“There’s only one thing I’m interested in,” I said, hauling his half-hard cock into the dappled light of a forest clearing. The subject was quickly dropped as I sucked him to a full stand, and wasn’t resumed until his dick plopped out of my ass an hour later.

“There’s going to be trouble, Jack,” he said, as we washed ourselves off in a clear, fresh pond. “Not just for you and me, but for the whole country. Father against son. Brother against brother. Friend against friend.”

“Gloomy old man,” I said, splashing him. We wrestled ourselves dry on the forest floor.

But he was right. Trouble arrived one day in February 1861, and with it came Aaron Johnson.

At home, over breakfast, we read about the secession of six more states from the Union, the adoption of the Confederate constitution, the threat to military establishments in the South. There were dark looks, pregnant silences, and my father mentioned the word war.

“Don’t talk like that,” my mother said. “You’ll frighten the girls.” My sisters, in fact, looked far from frightened; they were much more interested in the troubles than I was, and found the prospect of war exciting.

“I’d go and fight for Lincoln right now if I was a man,” said Margaret, older than me by two years—and she looked as if she meant it.

“I’ll not have that talk at this table,” my mother said, fussing with plates and napkins. My father sighed and rubbed his eyes. I’m sure he’d have preferred it if the fighting talk came from his son, rather than his daughter.

“Jack,” he said, “I want you in the office early this morning. Remember?”

“Oh, father…”

“We have a new employee starting in the accounts department and I particularly asked you to look out for him. Or have you forgotten already?”

“Let Windridge take care of him.” I imagined another little accountant, a sort of miniature Windridge, crouched at his desk, scratching away at his figures. Perhaps I would have more free time for fucking…

“Mister Windridge,” my father said, “has enough to do sorting out your mistakes without having to take on extra responsibilities that I have already delegated to you, John.” I knew that whenever he called me John rather than Jack I had better act the obedient son.

“Yes, sir. I’ll get there right now.”

“Who is he, this new gentleman?” asked my mother; she was always interested in arrivals at the spa, hoping, I suppose, to find a husband for one of her daughters.

“His name is Aaron Johnson,” my father said, puffing out his chest. “He comes to us from Virginia. And he is a Negro.”

Time stopped for a moment, forks poised halfway to mouths, teacups held above saucers. My sisters’ eyes—and I suppose mine—were as round as dishes.

“A black gentleman!” Jane, my junior by two years, said. “Here in Bishopstown? Oh, how wonderful!”

“And we are not to treat him any different from anyone else, do you hear?” my father said. “He’s an educated man, he comes with the most impeccable letters of recommendation, and he will be, I hope, an important citizen in our community. A hardworking, honest, decent, and, I may say, a God-fearing man.”

We weren’t listening. All of us, including my mother, were intensely alive to the novelty presented by this newcomer. Black faces, if they were seen at all in Vermont in those days, passed through quickly, on the other side of the tracks; Negroes could not even afford a room in the White Horse. My sister Margaret, I know, longed to fight for the rights of the Negro, and would waste no time in taking Mr. Aaron Johnson under her wing. My sister Jane, fascinated as she was by Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin, would gawk at him if he walked into the room.

My thoughts focused on the piquant image of a black cock stretching my white ass. I had heard, in schoolyards and bars, of the legendary advantages of the colored races, and hoped they were not exaggerated.

“I’ll be off right now, father,” I said, more eager to get to the office than ever before. “Leave him entirely to me.”

Was it my imagination, or was that a look of distress, disappointment, disgust that flitted across my father’s face? What did he know? How much did he guess?

“Good-bye, girls,” I said, running out of the room.

As I raced down the hall, struggling into my jacket, I heard Margaret’s familiar cry: “It’s not fair! Why wasn’t I born a boy!”

My ass was twitching and my dick half-hard as I walked along the road to the spa. I had envisaged it all: Aaron Johnson, young and athletic, his ill-fitting clothes revealing the magnificent animal beneath, meek and respectful as I walked into the office, gratefully accepting my offer of friendship and guidance, shocked at first when I put my hand into his pants but then unable to resist the tidal wave of feelings as they surged through him… Lying back as I rode his massive cock to glory, as I’d ride our black stallion… Following me slavishly but at a respectful distance, waiting for me to notice him again, ready to fuck me whenever I gave the command.

As I walked through the gates of the Hydropathic Establishment, I was nearly knocked down by a fine white horse cantering down the path, obliging me to step quickly aside. Some wealthy customer, I thought, looking at the stylish cut of his clothes, the bright whiteness of his riding gloves. I swallowed the curse that was on my lips, remembering my father’s injunction to treat the customers at all times like little gods.

The horse stamped to a standstill, the rider jumped to the ground and turned to face me. Underneath the black riding hat, above the white collar, was a face of the most beautiful brown I had ever seen.

“Pardon me, sir,” he said, touching his brim. “My horse is a little too eager.”

My eyes were goggling out of my head, until I remembered that this was an employee, and I his employer’s son.

“I’ll thank you to take more care in the future, Mr. Johnson.”

“I am expected, then,” he said in a voice less friendly than before.

“You are. Stable your horse and report to the accounts office.” Oh, how prim and prissy my voice sounded! He rode off without another word, and I did not see him again until Mr. Windridge led him into the accounts office a half hour later.

“And this is our little home away from home,” Windridge said, his nasal voice more ingratiating than ever. “This is where the real business of the day is done, I like to think.” I tried to look busy, scratching in a ledger with a pen that seemed intent on blotting everything, the paper, the desk, my fingers and cuffs.

“And this,” Windridge continued with considerably less enthusiasm, “is Mr. John Edgerton, the proprietor’s son.”

I half-hoped that Johnson would cower respectfully before me, regretting his earlier insolence, giving me the opportunity to be magnanimous in my forgiveness. Oh, the fantasies that played around my mind! They shame me now.

“We’ve met,” he said, extending a hand. “Aaron Johnson. Pleased to meet you.”

I got to my feet and held out a dirty hand, which he grasped. Ink, still wet, stuck our fingers together for a second.

“I’m sorry,” I said. It should have been him apologizing, not me, I thought.

“Don’t matter, Jack,” he said—was that a wink? “It won’t show on my hands.”

I sat down, completely abashed, and listened as Johnson asked Windridge question after question about profit and loss, adjustments, discounts, offsets, and a thousand other things that I did not understand even after a year in the accounts office. It was quite clear that this was a man with a future, a man with ambition and drive and all those other qualities I so obviously lacked.

Windridge’s answers were long, droning, circumlocutory. I started to drift off into a daydream, largely inspired by the back of Johnson’s neck, the only part of his skin that I could really see. Occasionally his large, square hands with their pale palms and neatly trimmed fingernails would flash through the air, but apart from that, and the dense, closely cropped hair on his head, there wasn’t much to look at. But it was enough, and I was already imagining how good it would be to eat his big, round ass.

“And you will be working under young Mr. Edgerton, at least to start with.” Windridge’s voice for once commanded my attention, and I sat up. Johnson was to be my subordinate?

“How will you like that, sir?” Johnson said, turning in his chair to fix me with a penetrating stare. “Think you can handle me?”

“I imagine so, Mr. Johnson,” I said, suddenly pretending to be busy with a complicated calculation. “Forty, forty-three, at eighteen percent, over a period of seven months…”

“Well,” Windridge said, “I’ll leave you in young Mr. Edgerton’s capable hands. I have business to attend to in the director’s office.”

It was then that I thought my hastily formed plans would come to fruition; I imagined a furtive game of show-and-tell, a quick suck under the desk, a rendezvous made for later, when I would bend Johnson to my will.

“So,” I said as soon as Windridge was out the door, “you’re going to be working under me. That sounds like an interesting position.” I had used lines like these, and even cornier, to good effect with other Hydropathic employees.

Johnson, however, became suddenly businesslike. “Certainly. I want to learn as much about your father’s business as I can.”

“Why don’t I show you around?”

“Mr. Windridge has already done that.”

“Did he show you the stables?” He could fuck me over the saddle rack, I thought, with the smell of horses and straw rising around us.

“I have seen the stables. They’re very fine.”

“How about the hot pool? It’s under maintenance at the moment, but if I ask them they’ll fill it for us.”

“I’d be more interested in the books, Mr. Edgerton.”

“Please. It’s Jack.”

“How old are you, Jack?”

“Twenty-one. How old are you, Aaron?”

“Thirty-one. But not too old to learn. Perhaps you’d like to explain this complicated calculation you’re undertaking. What was it? Forty-three at eighteen percent over a period of seven months. Oh—” He looked at my notebook, perhaps expecting to see calculations, perhaps not. What he saw was my usual doodles, fortunately a little less blatantly phallic than usual. “You like flowers and birds, do you, Jack? And what’s this? A railroad train, perhaps.”

“They’re just notes.”

“And I’m sure they mean a great deal to you. Now, if you would just hand over the ledgers, I’ll make a start.”

I had a smart riposte on my lips, and was ready to make it, but one look at Johnson’s serious face, his furrowed brow, killed the words in my mouth. I handed over the book.

“That’s a good fellow. Work for work time, play for playtime. Let’s get cracking, shall we?”

Oh, he would pay for that, my fine Mr. Johnson, my supposed subordinate. I planned out the witty things I would say, the clever strategies for undermining his confidence, all with the purpose of bending him to my carnal purposes. I wanted to put him in his place—and that place was up my ass.

But somehow it didn’t work out like that. In private, when we were alone in the office or when I engineered an “accidental” meeting in the remoter corners of the building, Johnson was polite, professional, and distant. In company—when Windridge or my father was in the office, or when paying social calls at the house—Johnson was much friendlier, treating me as a pal, a buddy, the butt of his jokes (how my father enjoyed his remarks about my professional expertise!), and leavening his mockery with just enough flirtatious humor to keep me from protesting. It was the exact reverse of the situation I wanted. I would have preferred him to be formal in company, but friendly in private—very friendly, and very private. If Johnson had set out deliberately to keep me at arm’s length, he could not have done a better job.

His visits to the house, at first duty calls, soon became a regular Sunday occurrence, and after he’d been in Bishopstown for a couple of months he was as much a part of the family as I was. My sisters made no secret of the fact that they were both in love with him, and he was able to talk to them on exactly the right level. With Margaret, he discussed politics and the Rights of the Negro. He entertained Jane with stories of his Virginia childhood, whereby we learned that he was the son of a slave woman and a white plantation owner; there was little doubt from whom he inherited his complexion! His mother had died, and his father, stricken with conscience, raised the boy as part of his own family—or as much a part as his wicked legitimate sons would allow. They put him down constantly, landed him in trouble, told lies about him, and did all they could to persuade their father to disinherit him. Aaron kept his head down, did well at school, and finally left home at the age of 18 to make his way in the world. Since then he had plowed a lonely furrow, without home or family, welcomed by neither his black brothers nor his white peers. By the end of one of these recitations, my mother and sisters had tears in their eyes, my father was pacing up and down huffing and puffing about social injustice, and I was fuming about how this charming cuckoo was ousting me from the position of favored son.

“So why did you leave your last job?” I asked one Sunday afternoon, as the table was cleared. “You seem never to stay anywhere very long. Are you going to leave us in the lurch as well?”

My father frowned, and my mother tutted, but Johnson just smiled. “Oh no, I’m in no hurry to leave Vermont,” he said. “Believe me, Jack, compared to the South, this is an earthly paradise. Where else would a man like me find a welcome at the family table, the respect of his brothers and sisters”—here he gestured toward my family, who positively squirmed with delight—“and the love of comrades?”

His eyebrow was cocked, his head to one side. I could have cursed him out loud.

“But surely more good can be done in the South, by setting an example to these secessionists we hear so much about?”

“Ah, yes, there’s no doubt that that’s where my duty lies, Jack.” Johnson looked serious now.

“Then why are you here? Why hide yourself in the North? What are you running away from?”

“That’s enough, John,” my father said. “It’s none of our business.”

“Have you ever been to the South, Jack?”

“No, of course not, but—”

“Do you know what a lynch mob is?”

My sisters gasped in excitement.

“Of course I do.”

“I left Virginia hotly pursued by one. So far, Vermont seems a lot less dangerous. Give me a chance to catch my breath and maybe we’ll go back and face them together, Jack. What do you say?”

I said nothing. My father laughed. “Show your mettle, Jack! Make us proud!” He marched around the table whistling “Yankee Doodle Dandy.” “Oh, no fear, not our Jack! Always with his nose stuck in a book, or running around town with his fine college friends!” This was the convenient fiction that had been established in the family to explain my nocturnal ramblings. “But if it comes to war with the South, what will you do? Eh?”

“Please, let’s not talk of war at the table!” my mother said.

“Do you think it will come, Johnson?” my father said.

“Of course. As sure as rain and snow.”

“And will we be safe here?”

“We’ll be safe nowhere, sir.”

“Oh dear,” my mother said, suddenly busy with a duster. “Let’s not frighten the girls! Come on, Margaret, Jane. You can help me in the…er…in the parlor.”

“I’m not frightened,” Margaret said. “If it comes to war, I’m ready to fight for what’s right.”

“I believe you would, Miss Edgerton,” Johnson said, “but God forbid we should ever see ladies reduced to the bestial condition of men. Jack, let’s take a walk and leave your family in peace.” He stood up, folded his napkin, and led me out of the dining room with a heavy arm around my shoulders.

We walked through the hall, out of the house, and onto the road at a striding pace, not saying a word. It was only when we had reached the stream, some 100 yards from the house, that he slowed down. The arm remained around my shoulders.

“You don’t like me very much, do you Jack?”

I was unused to direct questions like that; in our circle, things were expressed in much more roundabout ways.

“Of course I like you.”

“Then why do you torment me?”

“I don’t.”

“Let’s cut the crap.”

I had never been spoken to like that before, even by my conquests at the White Horse, who were a rough-mannered lot.

“How dare you?”

“Ever since I arrived, you’ve been buzzing around me like a horsefly. If you weren’t my employer’s son I’d have swatted you down so hard your ass would have made a hole in the ground. Now tell me, Jack, what’s your problem?”

“I don’t have a problem. If anyone has a problem, it’s you.” I tried to sound authoritarian, but it came out as pompous.

“You’re full of shit.”

“Oh!” This was too much, and I was about to say something that I would very much have regretted. Fortunately, Johnson didn’t let me get a word in edgewise.

“You’re a spoiled little mother’s boy, you ain’t never done an honest day’s work in your life, and, God damn it, I want you to be my friend not my enemy. Why does that make you so damn mad?”

“It doesn’t. I just—”

“You do everything you can to get me in wrong with Mr. Windridge. You make your smart little comments and I bite my tongue, every time. You make out that I’m some kind of criminal, or worse. You needle me, Jack, at every turn. What have I done to you? Don’t you like this big black face?”

He stuck his face very close to mine and grinned in a parody of the Nigger Minstrels who came to town on fair day.

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“So why can’t we just be friends and drop all this bullshit?”

The time had come for me to answer that question, both to Johnson and to myself. I knew the truth, of course; I was angry with him because he hadn’t fucked me, and I was acting like a child deprived of a coveted toy. I was angry because I thought of him as my natural subordinate, yet it was clear he was my superior in every respect. I did not like this reversal of what I had always thought of as the natural order. God, what a shameful admission! I could barely acknowledge it even to myself. Instead, I dressed the truth up in fancy costume.

“I want to be your friend, Aaron. I would like nothing more. But you have kept yourself at a distance. You have spurned my offers of companionship. Is it any wonder that I react with wounded pride?”

He looked me in the eye, his face still close enough for me to smell the coffee on his breath, and frowned. “Pride, is it?”

“Yes.” Oh, the shame.

“Not something else?”

“Like what?”

“Wounded vanity, perhaps? Or disappointment? Frustration?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” I said, furious that he’d read me so plainly.

He walked to the water’s edge and stared into the trees.

“You and I are not so different, Jack.”

I stood beside him, searching the darkness of the opposite bank as if it held the answer to some great riddle. “Are we not?”

“Pigheaded and stubborn.”

“Granted.”

“I was very much like you at your age.”

“I doubt that,” I said, thinking of the delights of my ample leisure hours.

“But I learned…restraint.”

This reminded me of the sort of lecture Mick would sometimes give me about “safe conduct in public” and other subjects dear to his heart.

“Damn restraint.”

“Very well. Damn restraint.” He turned and faced me. “Let’s do whatever we want to do. Let’s forget the consequences. Let’s not think about our families, our friends, our future, our safety. It would be so easy, wouldn’t it, Jack?”

“What would?” Things were moving too fast; I was not in control.

“To kiss you.”

Silence between us. The light was fading, the birds were no longer singing, even the stream seemed to have slowed its usual rush to a meek trickle. Nature was holding its breath.

“So do it,” I said at length, closing my eyes and parting my lips. “Do it now.”

And he did. With one hand on the back of my head, the other over my heart, he kissed me full on the mouth, his lips pressing into mine, his tongue finding mine, locking together, struggling, slipping, caressing. My knees went weak, and my cock sprang to life. I could feel from the pressure at his hips that his had done the same.

When I opened my eyes, the world was still the same, the stream still flowed, but something inside me had changed. It was like that time in the White Horse when I first discovered cock. What had I discovered now?

“What happens next, Jack?”

“We go somewhere.”

“And we…lie together.”

“Yes.”

“I want to.” For the first time, he sounded uncertain. “I’ve thought of nothing else since the first day I arrived, when I nearly ran you down with my horse. I’ve dreamed of you, your naked body, your skin against mine. Of all the things we could do together. I’ve watched you in the office, your tongue sticking out between your lips as you scratch away at the ledgers. I’ve seen you daydreaming, wishing I could be there with you in your dreams…”

“You can. We can be together.”

He kissed me again, briefly this time, a mere peck on the lips. “We can never be together, Jack. You know that as well as I do.”

“Why not? I want you more than I’ve ever wanted anyone.”

“And what you want, you get, huh?”

“Why not? What’s to stop me?”

“The world, Jack. The times we live in. God in Heaven himself. I don’t know. How could we ever be together?”

“I know a place in the woods…”

“Where we could go now and I could fuck your white ass.”

“Yes. Please.”

He thought for a while, and I could see that the idea was not repulsive to him. “And then, for an encore, I could ride into town, throw a rope over a tree, hang myself, maybe tar and feather myself, maybe cut my cock off. And what would happen to you, do you think? Well, you’d have to leave town, of course. You’d drift around. Maybe you’d end up in Boston or New York, in rented rooms, watching your life run down the drain, wondering if it was worth all that pain and trouble for just one fuck with the black man.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. Nobody needs to know.”

He laughed out loud. “Nobody needs to know? You think things like that can happen without people finding out? Wake up, Jack. Wake up and face reality.”

“Nobody knows what I get up to,” I said, thinking myself very fine and clever.

“You mean what you get up to with Mick?”

That took the wind out my sails.

“And the other fellows at the White Horse? You’re mighty popular down in that part of town, Jack. I’ve heard that there’s very little you won’t do. And what a fine, generous young man you are.”

“You don’t know—”

“I know plenty. People do, Jack. I imagine even your father knows more than he’d like to.”

“But what’s that got to do with us? You wouldn’t tell. I wouldn’t talk.”

“You think we live in a world where every man is his own master, Jack. Where nobody minds anyone else’s business, and everyone can live and let live. But I tell you, we’ve already done more than is safe. If I didn’t believe that your family is indoors right now, that the light is failing, and that nobody has trespassed on your grounds, I would never have come within three feet of you. I would never speak to you in this way. I would never have kissed you.”

“But we can be alone together, far from everyone.”

“Like you were with Mick in the woods? Up at the ponds?”

Had Mick talked? “Who told you about that?”

“You were seen, Jack. People have eyes.”

“But who…”

“Nobody’s done anything—so far. They hate what you do, they would kill you if you weren’t the son of the wealthiest man in town, and Mick would be run out of the state if he weren’t under your protection. And he knows how to look after himself. He doesn’t tell you about that, does he? About the fights and the abuse and the threats that he gets. You think all those men in the downtown bars are just there for your pleasure, Jack? They’d cut your throat if they thought they could get away with it.”

I was shaking now.

“But that’s nothing, nothing at all, compared to the hell that would be let loose if they found out that a black man had been sticking his big nigger dick up your ass. Ooooh, my soul! Dey chase dat boy all de way to de nigger-hangin’ tree! Dey burn yo’ house down! Dey take yo’ sistah and yo’ muddah and dey throw dem in de rivah!”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I’ve said too much.” Suddenly he was Mr. Aaron Johnson again, formal, distant, polite. “Please forgive me, Jack. I hope I have not alarmed you. Now there are business matters that I must discuss with your father. Good evening.”

He turned on his heel and walked back to the house.

I sat on the riverbank and stared into the gathering darkness, imagining the twinkle of 100 pairs of prying eyes staring right back at me.