Southern Fried

Chapter 1-2

I finished my biscuit and drank my milk. It went down cold and satisfying. Then I washed my plate and glass and turned again to Pearl. “Mind if I go and have a look around?” I asked. “Been a long while.”

She shrugged. “Suit yourself, boy. Place’ll be all yours soon enough, I reckon.” She smiled, her eyes softening. “I missed you, Trip,” she added.

I moved in and placed a warm, wet kiss on her cheek. “Same here, Pearl. Same here.”

And then I excused myself and started my tour. So strange to be back after so long a time. And yet, it felt like I hadn’t left at all because Granny never, ever moved anything or bought anything new. The furniture had been around long before any of us where even glimmers in our rebel ancestors’ cotton-pickin’ minds. Still, it did my heart good to run my hand across the smooth, wooden banister, to sit on the sofa, to touch the lace that draped over it. It was like feeling my past. Her past, too, I suppose. Generations of pasts all piled high.

I stared at her portrait over the mantelpiece as I sat there. It was Granny when she was in her thirties. Less dour, if only by a hair. There was a scowl on her face as she stared down at me, as if to say, get your filthy jeans off my sofa, boy. In other words, I jumped up and off. “I was done sitting there anyway,” I said to the painting, turning away as I stuck my tongue out, just in case she really was hanging around up there.

I walked back into the hallway, staring up the winding staircase, massive chandelier hanging high overhead, dripping with crystals, ancestral portraits arranged along the side of the wall, older as you made your way up. I touched the picture of my mom and dad. She was pregnant with me, smiling big and broad. I echoed her smile as I made my way past, instinctively heading for my old room.

The door creaked open. Granny never oiled it. Said she liked knowing when I was up to no good, which was often enough. My room, like the rest of the mansion, was just as I’d left it. It was all teenage boy, posters on the wall, glee club trophies, debate plaques, comic books neatly stacked. Nerdy chic, I called it. I sighed as I hopped on the bed, smaller than I remembered it to be. Ironically, my bedroom in New York wasn’t any larger despite my staggering rent.

I stood up and walked to the dresser, staring at the pictures, me when I was a teenager, Granny still old, barely a meager smile, if any at all. I touched her face behind the glass, a chill riding shotgun down my back. “Hope you’re in a better place, Granny,” I whispered, then realized that where she had been wasn’t too shabby. Not by a long shot. I giggled at the thought. Then my eye caught the light twinkling from outside.

I moved to the window and stared down, the pool off to the corner of the yard, the sweeping lawn cascading over and down, trimmed with magnolias and loblolly pines, water oaks, Spanish moss hanging down off the branches like grayish green locks of unkempt hair. A white egret took flight off the lake in the rear of the property. “f**k it, Granny; you were in a damn fine place already.” Again, I laughed, once more noticing the sunlight as it reflected off the pool. Only this time, I spotted movement, as well.

It was hard to see him from my vantage point, too far down and off to the side. Still, it was a man, shirtless, tan arms, his body rife with hair. Then I saw the fluid motion of a net swiping the top of the water, retrieving leaves and debris. That was my job as a kid, but now the hired help’s. I gulped when he came into view, at the sight of his broad hairy chest, etched belly, love trail disappearing into tight work slacks. Handsome man, super tan, short hair, graying at the sides. Early forties with the body of a twenty-year old’s. My jeans bulged at the sight of him.

“Who are you, I wonder?” I asked, aloud, craning my neck over, cheek against the cool glass, trying and failing for a better shot of him. “Better view from Granny’s sewing room,” I added with a snap of my fingers. “That’ll look straight down on to him.”

I left my bedroom and hot-footed it across the hall and around the corner, flinging open the sewing room door. I stopped dead in my tracks. “Oh, uh, f**k, sorry,” I yelped, frozen to the spot. As was he. He had his pants around his ankles, hand at mid-stroke. Obviously, whoever this guy was, he’d had the same thought as I did. “You, uh, you want to put that away?”

His face went beet red, then an even deeper crimson. “Come in, quick, before Pearl hears us.” I jumped inside and shut the door quietly behind me. “She doesn’t like the help in the house,” he informed as he reached for his shorts and then stuffed his rather fetching stiffy inside. Dude was my age, or near about, shorter than me by just a couple of inches, handsome as all get out, with eyes a startling blue, blue as that pool outside, of the sky on a hot August day. I gazed out the window at what he’d been staring at. He followed my eyes downward. “Jake,” he told me.

“Jake,” I echoed with a nod, my heart beating hummingbird-fast. “And you are?”

He laughed, nervously, his zipper rising up, shorts now buttoned. “Zebulon. But everyone calls me Zeb. I take care of the horses.” Zeb looked a bit like Brad Pitt around the edges, all smoldering good looks and a lean, tight body. Folks say I resemble a young George Clooney. So maybe it was kind of destined that me and Zeb would become friends. In any case, his eyes stayed locked on mine, boring down deep, a smile wide on his tanned face, cheeks sprinkled with a day’s growth of hair. “And you are?”

I gave him the quick rundown. He’d heard of me, of course, then apologized again, pleading with me not to tell Pearl. As if, I thought. She was scarier than Granny when she wanted to be. And she usually wanted to be. Besides, I loved having the upper hand. “Does Jake know you’re watching him?” I asked, an inch closer now, then two, both of us staring longingly down at him.

“I reckon not, not if I want to live to tell about it,” came the reply, hand pushing down at his still hard prick, now sadly encased in denim. “Promise not to tell?”

I grinned, that upper hand quickly put into play. “But Pearl doesn’t want you in the house,” I said, all smiles, again staring down as Jake emptied the net, his chest flexing, biceps massive, sweat trickling down between his bulging pecs, which looked like boulders after a morning rain. “Not smart to go against Pearl’s wishes. I learned that the hard way.” Emphasis on the hard.

He gulped, eyes wide. Like a deer caught in the headlights. “Oh, come on now; I was just having me some fun. Nobody needs to know nothin’.” His smile made a forced return, nervous if not downright adorable. My heart went thump, thump, thump inside my chest.

I paused for effect, hand rubbing my chin as I pretended to think it over. “I suppose so,” I relented. “Fun is fun. Too bad I spoiled yours, though.” Now it my turn to stare, drilling home the point. “I mean, you should always finish what you start, right? Granny always told me that. Nothing worse than a job half-finished.”

“Nuh uh,” he replied, nearly breathless at what I was implying. “I mean, by all accounts, I do work for you now, but I, uh, I couldn’t.” He blinked. “I mean, I could, but I shouldn’t.”

By all accounts, he was probably right. The thought, not to mention the close proximity to him, made my d**k throb. “Well then, Zeb, I insist.” I pointed to his shorts, nodding and smiling as I did so. When he didn’t move, I unbuttoned them for him. Again, he locked eyes with me, followed by another gulp, sweat glistening off his smooth forehead. Then he stared down, eyeing my hand as it grabbed a hold of the zipper for a tug, his bush coming into view, curly, black, trimmed. “Kick your boots off,” I told him. He did as I asked. They landed with a dull thud off to the side. Then I pulled down his shorts, his c**k springing out, arcing to the side, the wide head dripping, shimmering in the light that poured in through the window. He lifted his feet up and kicked the shorts to the side as well. My hands then held the bottom of his T-shirt, which I lifted in one fluid jerk. He raised his arms, and the shirt came off, leaving him in nothing but his sweat socks. His taught chest raised and lowered, hard tummy in sync as he rapidly inhaled and exhaled. “Come on now, be quick about it,” I told him. “Before Pearl comes on up and finds you in here.”

Slowly, he gave his d**k a stroke, a tug, balls swaying, legs trembling a bit. “What are you gonna be doing, Trip?” he squeaked out.

“Good question,” I replied, reaching for a chair, which I leaned against the wall, placing it beneath the window. “You watch Jake down below; I watch you. Seems fair enough. Now, please put one foot up on the chair, Zeb, face to the glass.”

Again, he did as I asked, leg up, hand stroking as he stared at Jake, who was still busy with the pool, clueless as to our shenanigans. I stood behind him and crouched down, face to glorious ass, his cheeks parted a bit, two mounds of alabaster with a line of fine hair down the crack, balls swaying on the other side of things. “You ever see Jake like this?” I asked, fingers stroking down his crack. Zeb jumped, but remained in place, spitting down into his hand as he jacked away.

“Jake likes the ladies, Trip,” came the raspy reply. “Doesn’t give me the time of day. Better to, uh, to admire him from afar, I suppose.”

I unzipped my fly and whipped out my prick, which was hard as granite by then, eager for release. I started a nice, easy stroke on it as I tickled Zeb’s hole, fingers running rings around the soft halo of hair. “He does give good afar,” I agreed, spitting into both my hands, lubing up my d**k and then his hole.

Zeb pushed out his ass for me. “Yessir, that he does.” He moaned as a spit-slick finger wormed its way inside of him. The man was tight as a drum, too, sucking me in like a Hoover.

“Who knows,” I said, sliding my finger in and up and back, wiggling around inside of him as the come rose steadily from my balls. “Maybe someday you’ll get to see the up close and personal side.”