My own fucking son calls me an old man. “Hey old man.”

Old man – at thirty fucking seven? Trouble is, I know it’s true. Or at least, getting that way.

We had Pete early – way too early. Me and his mother weren’t more than seventeen when I got her pregnant. Long time ago. We stayed together for maybe twelve, thirteen years, but by then we’d had enough of each other for a fucking lifetime.

I thought she was a bitch then, and I think she’s a bitch now. We could’ve stuck it out if she hadn’t been so set on a bigger house and bigger car and all that shit. Bigger fucking everything.

I stayed put – same house, same car, just no wife and no son. A couple of years later, no fucking job either. Old man seemed about right. I drank too much, I guess. Nothing much of a life really. Sitting on the porch, watching the world.

He said it again, “Hey old man.”

I’d seen him approach. Just another guy out and about, I’d guessed, heading for the bar. How was I to know it was him? It was a dark night, and my sort of neighbourhood didn’t much go in for street lighting. A few too many beers didn’t help either.

He shoved his face close up against mine. “It’s Pete, for fuck’s sake.”

A shake of his head. He tried again. “Fuck’s sake. Your Pete.”

And that was that. Pete meant to stay, it seemed. Bag over shoulder, he pushed in, storming from room to room, muttering to himself as he remembered the house. My house. Used to be his house, too. I dragged myself round after him. Just watching and wondering what the fuck was going on.

“OK old man. Let’s have a beer.” We did. More than one.

I remembered my boy. Pete looked nothing like me at all. Never had. If he took his looks from anybody in the family, it was the old bastard who’d threatened to cut my balls off if I didn’t do the right thing by his daughter. The old bastard who was exactly the kind of guy I’d spent most of my life avoiding.

Pete and I said pretty well nothing to each other. I was out of the habit of small-talk. He just sat, seeming content with the silence and the beer, sprawled in my favourite chair. Not a care in the world, it looked like. A tough guy, the kind of guy you wouldn’t want to cross. Just like his fucking granddad.

He’d been a skinny kid, but he’d filled out these past years. All grown up now, rangy and muscled with short cropped hair, taller than me by a full head. Somewhere along the line he’d got himself a broken nose, set crooked. A bruiser’s face – boyhood freckles and toothy grin long since gone. Pete would never win a beauty contest, that’s for sure. Never go short of women either, I’d guess. Just the sort of guy his mother left me for.

He looked at me. “I’m gonna stay for a bit.”

I cooked him up some eggs and bacon. It was going to be my supper, but I could do without.

“Place is a shit heap,” he said, as I sorted out some bedclothes. “Fuckin shit heap.” He looked me in the eye. “Fuckin hell, old man. Can’t stay in shit like this.”

Pete was in charge. No doubt about that from the start. And he expected me to work as hard as he did. As I fought my way through a hangover that first morning, he banged and crashed his way round the house, sweeping and scrubbing like a whirling fucking dervish. A dust storm of activity. Bad-tempered as fuck, he’d grunt out tasks for me to do, and then grunt out a couple of choice obscenities when I didn’t do them to his liking.

His eyes full of devilment, challenging me. “Jesus, old man, just fuckin do it.” I just fucking did it.

But I did something else too. Even then, right at the beginning, that very first day, I watched him. I looked at him. I could scarcely keep my fucking eyes off him. For eight or so years now I’d kept myself to myself. Kept the world out, kept me in. And here, suddenly, was some kid – my son – bringing a dazzling, flashing, blinding burst of energy and youth and sheer fucking animal excitement into my dead life.

The house began to feel and smell good again. He gave me cash, and I bought what he wanted – polishes, potions, lotions. The place was big, built for a family, and I’d pretty well left everything in place when they’d gone. Watched it decay, through a haze of beer and cigarettes and self-pity.

He had plans, my son. “The fuckin place’s fallin down,” he told me over his beer. “I’m gonna get some timbers in and put a new roof on the porch.” Pete didn’t ask me. He told me.

Pete sure as hell wasn’t a modest guy. Most mornings, he woke me at dawn – fucking dawn, for chrissakes – dripping wet from the bath, naked, towel round his neck. He didn’t much bother about closing doors either. Showering or shitting, Pete was there to see. And I saw. Whether he was dressed for a night at the bar or wandering naked around the house, Pete was absolutely, utterly sure and confident in his own skin. He simply didn’t give a damn. If I looked like him I figured that neither would I. Shorts and a battered pair of workman’s boots. Maybe a shirt, maybe not. That was Pete most days, just like when he was a kid.

A couple of days after getting here, Pete brought my dawn cup of coffee. He sniffed the air. “You smell like shit,” he grunted. “I’ve run a tub, and you ain’t getting out till you’re fuckin spotless.” He scowled, daring me to complain. “Jesus, old man, just get in.”

He didn’t leave me to it, either. Pete had decided I needed cleaning and that was what he was going to do. I crouched, red-faced and shrivel-cocked in the sudsy water, as he rinsed the soap out of my hair.

“You need a fuckin haircut. Jesus, old man, you need more sortin than the house. Bit of self-respect, for fuck’s sake.”

He lathered my back, then round and across my belly and chest. “You stopped eatin, or somethin?” He washed me as if I was some snotty-nosed kid. I don’t know when anybody, man or woman, last saw me naked. Far less touched me. His mother, I guess.

Pete scrubbed and manhandled me clean, muttering to himself rather than me, “Jesus, look at the state of you, for chrissakes.” Pete spared me no blushes.

Thank fuck I didn’t get hard. There’s not much to see when I do, but thank fuck anyway. I was raised shy. Always fast to redden, easy to embarrass. Even with his mother, I’d kept myself pretty much covered. I guess I didn’t feel I’d much to show off. Or so she said, before she left.

“You’re all shrunk up, old man.” He grunted a laugh. A quick swipe with the towel across my backside. His bed was strewn with some old clothes from when he was a kid. He chucked me a pair of shorts. “Remember these? They gotta fit you. Jesus, I used to wear them every fuckin day of my life.”

I stepped into Pete’s old blue cotton shorts. Faded, a bit threadbare, soft against my skin. Big and loose, like the ones Pete wore. They felt good, and I felt good. He didn’t offer a shirt, and I already knew better than to ask. Pete had inherited his granddaddy’s temper.

He looked me up and down, scowling, then a shrug, “A bit better, I suppose.” Grudging praise, more for himself than for me. “You gotta get some sun and fresh air. Some decent fuckin food in you.” Shaking his head, and scowling again, “You’re quittin smokin.” No doubt about it, Pete was a world-class scowler.

At first, we didn’t talk much. We sure as hell didn’t ask each other anything. He told me what he wanted to happen, and I tried my best to do it. My very best. I was in awe of this new presence in my life. Grunting, criticising and complaining – Pete took my fucking breath away.

We started a bonfire in the yard. “What you keep all this shit for? Jesus.” His stuff, his mother’s, mine – if he didn’t like the look or smell or feel of something, out it went. “That’s gotta go.” Face screwed up, he prodded my mattress, “Fuck’s sake.”

We stayed up late into the night, Pete and me, feeding the flames, dodging the fiery cinders sparkling through the air. “She used to hate us doin this,” Pete said, gleeful, remembering the mischief of it. Even after all these years I can see the fury in his mother’s eyes as smoky ash wafted into the house.

There was work to be done. Old roof timber to be cut out and cleared away, heavy lifting in the hot damp air. Side by side, bare-chested in the sun, dusty bodies streaked with sweat. The smell of him all around me, heady and dizzying. Side by side, work to do.

One day it rained – a fierce summer squall. Pete, hair plastered flat, sodden shorts low about his hips, complaining as I scurried for shelter, “Jesus. It’s just water. You allergic or somethin?”

On the rare occasion when he thought that I’d got something right, he’d tell me, “Said you could do it.” Usually he hadn’t. He’d ruffle my hair, arm slung over my shoulder. “Gotta cut that fuckin hair.” He came up behind me, holding tight around my belly, lifting me off the ground. Skin against skin. “Still a fuckin skeleton,” he whispered in my ear. The heat and contours of his body against mine stayed with me for the rest of the day.

At night, after Pete had gone to bed, I got in the way of wandering about the house. He’d bought some workout stuff and some weights. I sat on the bench and tried to figure out what each piece was. I tried a couple of weights, imagining him stretching and lifting, muscles straining, sheen of sweat on skin.

Hidden in the shadow of the half-closed door, I looked into his bedroom. A shaft of moonlight bathed him a washed-out blue-white. He was naked, sprawled out, sheet pushed aside, masturbating slowly, lazily, like he was in a dream. Or I was in a dream.

I watched him till he finished, till he came. Ribbons of silvery cum glistening and glinting in the moonlight. Softly grunting like some fucking animal. Some beautiful fucking animal. I watched him till, cock softened and cum dried across his belly, his breathing settled into the gentle rhythms of sleep.

Once, in the first few days, after a night at the bar, he brought a girl home. Shadowed again in my hiding place by his door, I listened to her moan as she took him in her mouth, licking and sucking. I watched my son’s big cock slide into her. I watched, mesmerised, astonished by it all. How could I not watch?

“I hated you for fuckin years after you and her split up.” Beers in hand, we sat on the half-built porch. I said nothing. What could I say?

“Week before we went,” he was talking softly, face sullen, “I’d swore at her, and she sent me to my fuckin room till you got home.” Pete took another gulp of beer. “I was fuckin stickin up for you, for chrissakes. She got real mad, and said you were a fuckin loser or somethin.” Another mouthful of beer. “You remember?” I shrugged, nothing to say.

“Sure you remember.” His eyes on me, now – face shadowed and closed. “You fuckin bastard. You came up to my room and shouted the fuck at me. And I was cryin and sayin it was me stickin up for you.”

I couldn’t look at Pete. Head down, I just waited. Probably I remembered.

“You grabbed me over your knee and gave me the hardest thrashin ever. And I was cryin and kept sayin it was for you, and you kept fuckin whackin me.” His fists were clenched. “Fuck’s sake, old man. You could have kept me. It wasn’t my fuckin fault.”

Pete looked at me. Eyes bright with tears, nothing more to say. We sat with our beers till late. I heard his whisper behind me as I left to go to bed, “I was takin your fuckin side. You shouldn’t have let her take me.”

I cried myself to sleep. I guess Pete did too. We were both drunk, but I had a lifetime of holding in the liquor and the misery. Pete didn’t. In the early hours of the morning, just before dawn, I went to his room, going right in for the first time, kneeling beside his bed, beside my naked son. Pete simply took my breath away. I drank him in, breathed him in. Just looking. Jesus. Just looking.

“Like, she was your first?” Pete asked. “She said you were just kids?”

Too many questions, all of a sudden. Slumped on the porch, as always, late into the night, with too many beers in our bellies. Pete’s money, wherever it came from, had treated us to a couple of steaks on the grill in the yard. The heat was still fierce, even this long after dark. We sprawled on the old armchairs he’d dragged out from the living room.

I told Pete that the first time his mother and me did it, we made him. He grunted, starting another beer. “Beginner’s luck.”

Pete lay back in his chair, easy and relaxed, eyes closed, humming a tuneless tune. We opened another couple of beers. For the next few hours, till he slouched off to bed, I looked across at him, remembering that first time with his mother, and what had come of it. Who had come of it.

The porch took shape. Methodical and painstaking, Pete built to last. Beams, posts and rafters carefully fashioned and fixed – no short cuts for my son.

“Look,” he’d say, a dozen times a day, “Do it like this.” Calloused hand over mine, guiding mine, showing me how. Where Pete learned his skills, God knows. I didn’t ask. I just watched, loving how he knew so much.

At first, there didn’t seem any pattern to his schedule of work. He’d tell me what to do, and I’d do it. After a couple of weeks, I began to get into his way of working. Just sometimes, I had the right tool, or drill bit, or nail or whatever ready when he needed it. “Fuckin old man’s a builder all of a sudden,” he’d shake his head, “Jesus!”

He’d say, “Get us a beer then, for fuck’s sake. I got to think of everything?”

Sometimes he’d say, “Can’t sit about drinkin beer all day, for chrissakes.”

I fetched, carried, steadied ladders, hammered nails, whatever the boy wanted. I was always close by, always watching, just waiting for Pete to say something, or to shout at me or curse me. Or, just sometimes, miraculously, to not curse me.

“Jesus. A straight line. You sickenin or somethin?”

Or, “Steak not burnt tonight. Not sure I can eat it this way.”

Sometimes, I’d turn and see him looking at me. He’d hold my eye for a couple of beats, then, scowling, he’d grunt, “What you lookin at? Jesus, old man.” I always reddened, and he always laughed. He’d grab me, squeezing me tight. “Skin and fuckin bones. Maybe I ain’t workin you hard enough.” He’d laugh as I dodged away, blushing. I couldn’t not look at him, couldn’t keep my eyes off him.

He’d say, “Left my bathwater for you.” Pete would shave, naked and dripping, while I soaked and watched, knees pulled up to my chest, hiding myself. He’d shake his head, “Bath’s supposed to be relaxin. Jesus, look at you.” Sometimes he’d shave sitting on the edge of the bath, telling me his plans for the day to come. “Hold the fuckin mirror still, for chrissakes.”

One evening, he said, “Can’t stay here for ever, you know.”

We were sitting on the porch, drinking beer, both of us silent as ever. Just sitting. Day over, exhausted and sweaty in the sultry heat, me watching him, sprawled out, watching the sky. No matter how often I saw, how could I not still look and look, wondering and imagining and needing? Pete filled my days. He filled my dreams.

After our beers we slept a couple of hours where we were, till he wakened me, “Time for bed, sleeping beauty.” It was what I used to say to his mother.

It was at that hour of the night when the darkness seems most absolutely black. Kneeling by his bed, I waited, impatient now, for the first ray of dawn to light the room. We’d had a bellyful of beer the night before, and Pete was deep in sleep, lost to the world. I tried to imagine my way into his sleeping mind, trying to spy on his dreams and thoughts. I tried to imagine being him. The thing I needed most in the whole world was to know what it was like being Pete.

At last, the first faint morning glow washed across his naked body. Squinting, I could just make out the flat hard planes of his chest, the ridges of belly muscle swooping down to the ghostly shadow of his cock, rooted in its dark patch of sweat-tangled hair.

Tonight I just had to know. Know and feel and touch. I simply fucking had to. Slowly, scarcely breathing, terrified now beyond life itself, I leaned over my son’s body. Gently, amid the silence and dawning light, I touched Pete’s cock. I ran my finger along the length of it, the mysterious, heavy length of it. Jesus.

Perhaps I closed my eyes, storing the memory of it, the shape and size and smell of it. Every contour and every fucking inch of it. I must have closed my eyes. Jesus. I’d closed my eyes.

“Chrissakes, old man. What the fuck you doin?” It was Pete, now clear in the watery light, looking down at me, swinging his legs past me as he sat up. It was Pete, on the edge of his bed, feet firmly planted on either side of my kneeling body, one hand on my wrist, the other locked tight on my shoulder, trapping me firm and in place. I could see the growing rage in his eyes, furrowed across his brow. No escaping now. “Fuck’s sake, old man.” Again, “Fuck’s sake.” Pete spat the words out. This storm of anger had been a long, long time brewing.

I guess I was crying just a little, eyes down, face flushed scarlet. His cock and balls hung, languid and heavy, just inches from my face.

Then, with the ease of a man lifting a child, he pulled me up, off my knees and over his lap. Hands on the waistband of those threadbare old shorts, dragging them off, jerking them past my jutting erection. I was sobbing now, pleading with him. I had no idea what I was asking for. Whatever Pete wanted, I guess.

I hadn’t been physically hurt in years, but Pete hurt me now. No gentleness and no mercy - Pete’s anger filled, cascaded through the room. With each slap I cried out, sobbing his name. He was strong, and he held me tight and smacked me harder and harder, over and over till the pain sang through my entire fucking body. With each blow, my cock slid back and forth, slippery between his thigh and my belly. I came with a juddering spasm, gasping and dazed with the pain and need and shock of it.

Pete swung his legs, and me, onto the bed. Handling me like some old rag-doll, he dragged me up alongside him. Squirming and snivelling, red-faced and wide-eyed, I tried to cover my cum-slicked cock, to keep it hidden from him.

His anger flared again, voice hard, “Stay fuckin still, for chrissakes. Just do what I fuckin say for once in your fuckin life.” Shouting now, “You never fuckin listen.” Arm roughly over my shoulder, he pulled me close into his side.

He spat on his palm, smearing it along the length of his cock. He grunted a laugh in my ear, cupping his balls, stroking himself, thick and hard in front of me. “This is what you want to fuckin see. You should have fuckin kept me, old man. Seen it all you wanted then.” Pete watched me, as I watched him spurt his cum over my belly and chest. He turned his body towards me, pushing his cock hard against mine. “Got you well fuckin beat, old man. Jesus. Just fuckin look at you. Pathetic fuckin cunt.”

We just lay, side by side, tight against each other. I watched his face, haloed in the dawn light, as it slowly, slowly relaxed, anger and pain draining from him. His eyes now half-closed, his voice low and tired, “Just let me get some fuckin sleep.” A moment later, a second thought. Taking my hand, he pulled it down his belly, pressing it against him. With his cock, my son’s cock, warm and thick and heavy in my fist, I watched him fall asleep.

No morning coffee, no banter or bear hugs now. Eyes down, silent, we went about our work. Tidying up, clearing away, just finishing touches left.

My hand on his arm, taking the broom from him. I could do it later.

I brought us a last beer. Him in his chair, me in mine. The sun warm on us, the smell of fresh cut timber hanging in the air.

He had held me closer than I’d been held in all my life, and now he was leaving. Speaking at last, “Said I couldn’t stay.” It was time for him to go.

Over his shoulder, a last long look at the new porch. “Fuckin thing needed fixin.”

I sit in his chair, lie on his bed, remembering him. Jesus, how I love Pete.

 

© 2008 John Stewart

John Stewart lives in London, where he works as a designer, occasional short-story writer, and pretty well anything else that helps keep a roof over his head and food on his plate. Contact him at contractout@hotmail.com.