One night that spring, a lost tropical wind strummed the valley and hillside campus, but with final exams looming, the dining hall at breakfast remained muted. Then in morning assembly the portly headmaster surprised everyone when out of the blue he announced a school holiday, laughing heartily as we cheered, whistled, clapped and stamped for what seemed like a full minute.
Box lunches were available in the kitchen, he continued, because buses would carry the whole school, by the way, to opening day, at Yankee Stadium. More cheering erupted, and when that rowdy celebration finally died down, the headmaster added that boys who chose not to go to the game would have access to the gym, the pool and the library: of course we could use the free day to study, he said, to a raucous communal guffaw.
After assembly as boys were gaily dressing down banging open the door noisily exiting the dorm, Jamie and I, college-bound, hung back in our room having made our own gay plans.
By mid-morning almost everyone had dispersed. Casually aroused, we took forbidden showers, dressed in boxer shorts, tee shirts and sneakers, and with wet-combed hair basked like mountain climbers in the sun on the warm cement steps of the dorm.
After the young English teacher who lived at the end of the hall drove off with his wife, we discreetly lowered elastic waistbands to liberate hard penises and potent sacs. Like permissive parents we pretended to ignore the vernal erections – it was their first time catching rays together.
Way across the lawn, two shirtless boys were lobbing a lacrosse ball with languid sticks, in open defiance of the rules. Someone must have been in charge in the main building, but for the time being it seemed the whole administration had abdicated.
Erections temporarily disciplined, awkwardly covered angling down, we picked up two of the remaining box lunches and returned to the dorm where I pulled the army blanket from my bunk. Luxuriating in the premature summer weather, the overwhelming sense of freedom on the quiet, abandoned campus, we strolled up across the wide sloping field behind the dorm, joking and carelessly bumping each other.
After holding its breath for months, the ground exhaled warmth redolent of decomposing vegetation reborn.
The blanket around my neck, I felt like a pack mule. Carefree, Jamie girlishly swung the box lunches forward and back in alternating arcs. Past the tennis courts, increasingly short of breath we entered the far woods, pausing eagerly to kiss and grind. With both hands I groped for the concealed cocks.
"Come on," I breathlessly urged. Erections now protruding from our boxers, boldly pointing the way, we blazed a trail through gray hardwoods, dead leaves, dangling vines, refracted sunlight, spindly shadows and spider webs as fine and sticky as pre-ejaculate. The woods opened to the corner of a large neglected steepening pasture bisected downhill by a line of trees, jumbled stone wall and barbed wire fence drooping between rotting posts – probably an old property line – on the other side of which the grass really was greener.
"You want to stop here?" I huffed, glancing down at both flagging erections.
"Fuck no," Jamie said, placing hands on knees. "Let's go across. All the way."
So we plodded through bunches of blanched grasses and weeds, invisible nettles scratching our ankles. Breaking a sweat we took turns gingerly stepping with stubborn partial erections bobbing over the rusty fence.
Both distended penises waggling obediently with our every step, we diagonally crossed the remaining section of verdant pasture, at its center a small oak leaning uphill toward a granite boulder.
"Are we there yet?" Jamie asked.
"Almost," I said.
At the tree line on the far side of the pasture I spread my blanket over uneven ground, the Promised Land. Jamie placed our box lunches on the blanket. Side by side, arm in arm we faced a distant school, catching our breath. The central tower and turrets of the miniature main building poked above tree tops, but the rest of the campus nestled invisibly.
Half a mile south village rooftops congregated around a white steeple. Beyond the valley dormant geometric fields surrounded by pastel budding woods climbed to the gently rolling horizon of the Berkshire foothills crowned by cumulus. Scattered cloud shadows crawling north dappled the whole vista; silage and muck from a nearby dairy farm sweetened and soured the breeze.
In his mock paternal voice Jamie said, "one day, my boy, this will all be yours." With my hip I nudged my friend.
"Ours," I corrected him. Ignoring me he pulled off his tee shirt, waving it daringly over his head at the school. "Don't!" I scolded. He turned in a flash of anger.
"I am just fucking sick of hiding," he snapped.
"I am too," I said, "but it's the only way." I pulled him into my embrace, kissing his hair. "Let's just pretend we own this whole place," I suggested. "Then we won't have to hide."
Dropping to my knees I kissed Jamie's wide warm shaft lifting the big swollen cock pinching up a generous dribble of clear viscous lubricant onto my tongue, tasting, smacking my lips smiling up at him. Mollified, he grinned down at me grabbing a handful of my hair pulling me up then crouching, aiming my erection, pursing his lips around the tip of my cap squeezing out a full slug of my own emission while gazing up at me.
I pulled him up by his ears. We kissed sloppily, our slick tongues sampling the same oily flavors. Swallowing breathlessly, we just hugged for about twenty seconds letting the fully revived erections mingle.
Sitting on the blanket we removed our sneakers. Jamie flung his one at a time into the pasture. I pulled off my white tee shirt. Rolling backward I hurled it futilely against warm woodsy wind propelling minute spores and winged seedpods spinning like little whirligigs.
Jamie placed his hand on my warm belly.
"You handsome fucker," he said. Propped on elbows, I smiled, tipping my head back, closing my eyes to burnt-orange, until Jamie tweaked my hard cock. "Come on, lover boy," he said. "Let's eat first."
I sat up, lightheaded. Again pretending to ignore our persistent erections, we opened the box lunches, examining their contents: a sandwich and a cookie wrapped together in cellophane, a bag of chips, a small carton of purple bug juice, paper napkins, little squeeze packets of mustard and mayonnaise, a wrapped pat of butter.
"Waiter!" Jamie called. "I didn't order this!"
We laughed, mocking and nibbling institutional lunches we were both too aroused to finish. A loose napkin scooted, cart-wheeling away until snagged by thistle. Incredibly the day had warmed even further.
