"Never Fuck Your Small Town Best Friend". That's how I should have titled this story because that's how it all began.
Troy and I had been friends since childhood. We also started fucking and sucking each other as soon as we figured out how. In small town West Virginia it sure helped to pass the time, even if you weren't into it the way I was.
Anyway, we had reached our mid-twenties, still riding each other's dick whenever the need hit. Then, Troy suddenly began to get stand-offish and I discovered that he had himself a serious girlfriend. I didn't mind, we weren't in love, we were just fuck buddies. But I should have been more cautious about the whole thing.
I got along with Marcy, the girlfriend, alright at first. She soon seemed to take a dislike to me but I didn't really give a shit.
She belonged to one of the fundamentalist churches in town, the kind where they think if a kid beats off he's on a surefire chute to hell and he needs the devil beat out of him.
So, when Troy and Marcy invited me to accompany them to services one Sunday, I wasn't exactly looking forward to it but I went to be accommodating.
One of the features of the hick church was that anyone in the congregation could stand up, confess a sin and ask for prayers.
Marcy was out of her seat like a jack-in-the-box when the time came.
"I want you all to forgive and pray for Troy, my fiancé." she said. "He's been having an unnatural and demonic sexual relationship with his friend Bud here and he needs God to mend him."
I looked at Troy and I instantly knew that he'd been part of setting me up. Seeing red, I stood up and turned to walk out.
"Wait," Troy said, grabbing my arm. She's just trying to get you forgiven for our sin."
"What's she's trying to do is make sure that you're not getting any more cock up your ass after you and she get hitched." I told him.
I shook off his hand, harder than I'd meant to, and he fell down on his seat.
"You're a servant of Satan!" Marcy screamed at me and I said back, "And you're a dumb jealous cunt but I already knew that."
That set her free and it took three guys to pull her off of me. I turned once more to go and was confronted by the preacher, bible raised in his right hand, muttering some kind of gibberish.
"With all due respect, preacher, " I said, "If you don't step out of my way I'm going to be forced to cram that bible up your ass hole sideways before I leave."
He might have been an ignorant ass hole but he wasn't entirely stupid. He stepped aside and I walked out, followed by Marcy's banshee howls.
In a small town, the one thing you can count on is gossip. It seemed like most of the guy's I worked with had heard the tale before we started work the next day. The rest heard it soon after. I had 3 reactions that day. There were the guys who would mutter, "Queer" and "Cocksucker" after I walked by, the ones who would look at me and snicker and a couple of guys who asked if I wanted to stop by late in the evening.
In our little town, there was only one viable business, a foundry where practically everybody worked. I'd been working there part-time and full since I was in high school. The work was hard but it had built me up to where I was one of the biggest and most muscular guys in town so nobody tried any shit with me but I knew I had to get out of there.
By the time I got home that afternoon my dad, the town barber, had heard the full story, too, and he asked me to sit down and talk to him.
"I heard all about it." he began.
"If you're going to read me the riot act, just get it over." I said.
"I'm not going to do that." he said. "It may surprise you to know that when I was your age and in the army, I had a special male friend, too. If he hadn't died in the war, my life would have turned out a whole lot different. We're a lot more alike than you ever thought so I'm not going to try to shame you or make you feel bad."
"What about Mom?" I asked. My mother was out of town, tending to a sick aunt a few towns away.
"I already spoke to your mother before you got home. She knows all about my past and, truth to tell, we've known about you and Troy for quite awhile. We agreed that you need to get the hell out of this town and go someplace where you can be yourself."
"Mom thinks that?" I asked.
"Her exact words were, 'Tell him he's too good to be stuck in that shithole surrounded by shit kickers. He needs to move to a big town where he's got a chance to be happy. Just make sure he knows to come home at holidays.'"
My dad slid an envelope across the table and when I looked inside, it was filled with cash.
"It's only 500 dollars, it's all we could spare right now." my dad said. "But it should keep you until you find a new job and if need be I can send you more when the time comes."
I couldn't believe what I was hearing and I confess I teared up. I jumped up and sank to my knees and hugged my dad where he sat.
"You're my boy and I will always love you." he told me. "You're worth any ten of the lunkheads in this town and don't you ever forget it."
"What'll I do about my job?"
"I've known the old bastard who owns that place for the last 30 years." dad said. "I know a couple of stories that he'd do anything to keep from getting out. Don't you worry, when you get where you're going there will be a good reference all ready to be sent for you."
I went to bed with a heavy heart that night but I knew I couldn't argue with the wisdom of what my dad had told me.
The next morning, I was up and ready to go at sunrise. I had a Studebaker Lark in those days and I was able to fit the things I took with me in the back seat and the trunk. It was pretty tough saying goodbye and I may have even cried a little bit after I was on the road.
The freeways weren't really built back then so I had to use the state routes to get wherever I was going. It took me about an hour to hit Wheeling. By mid afternoon I was in Ohio and I decided to hop over to another route that went through Indiana. I had a road map that showed how I could drive across town and hit the route directly.
