I grew up in a small town in the Midwest, in a pretty tight-knit neighborhood, and my best friend growing up was Wally Craft, who lived two doors down from my house.
My family moved there when I was 8 and Wally and I hit it off right from the start. He watched us move in that summer, then came over and invited me to his house to play. From that moment until we graduated from high school, we were virtually inseparable.
Wally and I were part of a slightly larger group that was unusually tight. Besides the two of us, there was Bernie, Four-Eyes, Jackie, Runt, Goofy and Fast Eddie. There were a few others who drifted in and out of the group, but that was the main core of the gang. Oh, and Maggie.
Maggie was Wally's little sister, by three years, but she was part of the group as well. We didn't even think of her as a girl, because she was about as tall as the rest of us, and she liked to do the same things we did. You know, boy things.
We rode our bikes all over town in the summer, played backyard football in the fall, had snowball fights in winter, had mud-wrestling contests in the wet spring months, played army and shot BB guns year round. And Mags more than held her own in all of those pursuits.
Of course, the three of us – me, Wally and Maggie – were a little closer because I spent so much time at their house. It was a lot more fun than at my house.
Mr. and Mrs. Craft were a fun-loving couple who seemed to be the ones who always organized the neighborhood picnics in the summer and the Christmas decorating in the winter. And they always had a place at their table for me.
My house wasn't quite so welcoming. My dad was a Presbyterian minister, a rather solemn fellow who tried to be a strict parent, and my mom was a quiet, painfully shy woman who never seemed to be happy.
I have two sisters who are much older than me, one by 11 years and the other by seven. They were both cut from the same cloth as my dad – quiet, reserved and very studious – and they look like my dad.
On the other hand, I wasn't like either of my parents, or my sisters. Facially, I looked like my mom, but I had a rambunctious personality and I was always a little big for my age. People used to joke that I must have been some sort of throwback, because I was so different from my parents.
My dad was a fairly small man in stature, standing maybe 5-foot-8 and slightly built, and my mom was about 5-3 and also slight of stature. But I grew to be 6-1, 180 pounds and I was always athletic.
My mom and I were always pretty close, but my dad was always a little cool toward me, and that puzzled me until I was a freshman in college.
Dad got sick and had to have a blood transfusion. My mom wasn't a compatible donor, and while my sisters had the same blood type as his, there was some problem with the Rh factor for one sister and the other was pregnant at the time. That left me.
But when they tested my blood type, I learned that not only did I not have a compatible blood type with my dad, the type I did have could not have come from him. Which meant that he wasn't my real father.
I confronted my mother about it and she weepily told me that she had had an affair and that I was the result. It had been at a town where they'd been living before, the man had been married, and Dad had decided to move and raise me as his own, because he couldn't have endured the scandal.
That explained a lot of my parents' behavior patterns. It helped explain why Dad was never close to me and it explained why Mom quietly drank herself into an early grave. She drank gin day in and day out, because she thought it couldn't be detected on her breath, and she drank just enough to numb herself, I guess, to her inner torment.
At any rate, my dad never recovered from his illness, he died soon thereafter, and Mom committed suicide less than a year later by swallowing some pills and washing them down with gin.
After that, college didn't hold much appeal for me, so at the age of 19 I quit school and joined the Navy. The day after my mom's funeral, I went to the recruiting office, told them I was ready right then and I turned my back on the old town and the old gang, although Wally and I stayed in touch.
I didn't figure I'd ever want to go back home, at least not for any length of time. Too many bad memories. But fate had a different idea.
One day, while I was stationed at Groton, Conn., I got a call from Wally, and was he ever excited. He announced that he was getting married in six months, and asked if there was any way possible that I could come home and be in his wedding.
I replied that unless something unforeseen occurred – a nuclear attack or some other national security issue – that I'd be there.
Wally was going to marry Becky Welling, a girl from our town who was a year behind us in school. They had dated some in high school, but their relationship really blossomed when she joined Wally at the state university after two years at junior college.
I was happy for Wally and Becky, but I was a little down that I had no one in my own life. I mean, I'd constructed my life in the military that way, keeping potential relationships at arm's length and pouring myself into my service.
Still, everyone needs someone, and I wondered if I'd ever find my someone.
By the time of the events in this story, I had been in the Navy almost four years, my commitment was almost complete and I was considering my options.
My commanding officer was urging me to re-up and go to Officers Candidate School, saying I had everything the Navy wanted in an officer. But I was also considering going back to college, and I was also weighing the idea of taking a job in the working world.
I was almost 23 and approaching a crossroads in my life. I had no significant other, just a few casual girlfriends, past and present, scattered all over the globe.
The wedding was scheduled for a Saturday evening in late May, but I wanted to get there a few days early and visit with my old buddies.
By then, I'd about decided to take the Navy up on its offer of four more years and a spot in OCS. But I wanted to wait until after the wedding, after visiting my past before I made a final decision.
So on Tuesday, I flew into the airport nearest my old hometown, rented a car and drove back to the town I'd largely turned my back on nearly four years earlier.
Of course, there was no question about where I was going to stay. I may have been gone all these years, but I was still family as far as Mr. and Mrs. Craft were concerned. Wally's grandparents had the "official" guest bedroom, but there was a day bed in the basement where I could bunk, and that was good enough for me.
The first person I saw when I pulled into their driveway was Wally's little brother, Matt, who wasn't so little any more. He was 15 now and a strapping young man. Wally's mom came out to greet me with a very warm hug.
"It's so good to see you, Nicky," she said, with just a little tear in her eyes. "You look good. The Navy's been good for you."
"Well, it's helped me forget," I said. "If I'd stayed here ... I don't know, I just needed to get away."
"I understand," Mrs. Craft said. "Still, you left a lot of people behind who love you and miss you. In fact, I know someone who's dying to see you."
"Well, where is he?" I asked.
"He?" Mrs. Craft said. "I was talking about Maggie. It's all she's talked about for a month. I can't tell you how excited she is that you're coming home. She's still at work, but she'll be home soon."
That puzzled me a little, but I didn't give it much thought. I mean, Mags and I had been good friends and I figured she was eager to relive old times. I had basically left home when I was 18, and I hadn't laid eyes on Maggie in almost four years, at my mom's funeral.
At the time, Maggie had been 16 and she was still a tall, kind of gawky kid, still more of a tomboy than anything else. She'd even had the same boyish haircut she'd always had. As far as I was concerned, she was what she'd always been, Wally's little sister, nothing more, nothing less.
I sat in the little breakfast area in their house and chatted with Mrs. Craft for awhile, while she worked on dinner, getting her caught up with my life. I learned that Wally wouldn't be coming home until the next day, that he needed to tie up some loose ends at his work before he took a week and a half off.
I told Mrs. Craft about the Navy and the fact that I was considering another four years. I was surprised when that drew a frown from Wally's mom.
I guess I'd been there about an hour when a car pulled into the circle in front of their house. Seconds later, the side door by the kitchen opened up and Maggie Craft – or at least someone who claimed to be Maggie – burst through the door.
"Nicky! God, it's soooo gooood to see you," she said as she wrapped herself around my body in a hug that sent shivers all the way up and down my spine and ended up at my cock.
"Ah, um, thanks, I think," I said jokingly, then I sort of held her out as I tried to digest what my eyes were telling me. "Mags? Is that really you?"
Gone was the tomboy – and the gawky, slightly insecure little girl – replaced by one of the most beautiful women I'd ever laid eyes on. I guess I should have expected it, because their mom is very pretty, but still I was shocked at the change in Maggie.
She was still tall, right at six feet, but she'd filled out into some most enticing curves, even to the point of adding some rather pendulous – dare I say juicy? – breasts, and one of the most succulent butts I'd ever seen.
But that was nothing compared to the changes in her face. I mean, she'd always been cute, but now? Now, her face had filled out, she'd let her light brown hair grow out into thick flowing waves that fell about her shoulders, and she'd discovered make-up, which she had always disdained when she was a kid.
And the best part was her eyes. They had a deep blue sparkle to them, and they were giving me a look that had my groin on fire.
Something else that was different, too, was her attire. She was dressed in a professional-looking suit, complete with skirt and mid-sized heels, which fit in with her summer job at one of the town's banks. Before, she'd always been strictly a jeans and T-shirt type.