The Other Boy in Goodwell

Scott didn't care about rodeo. Didn't care about ranching or farming or none of that, neither. He was a freshman, and Dare was a sophomore, and they was both taking this class, this Spanish class, because you had to take a foreign language, and Spanish was easier than French. Well, that's why Dare was taking it, anyhow. Scott just wanted to learn. He wanted to go places, travel. Get out of Oklahoma. As far away as he could get.

Dare didn't know that yet, of course. Nineteen. He'd had his birthday over the summer, been back home and all. Mama cooked a special meal, and she made a pie, cause she knew he loved it, and he didn't care about cake. Went out later and got drunk with his White Cross friends in somebody's fallow field. Dryland farming, you got to let the land lie sometimes, when the rains ain't been what they should, and they hadn't.

The other boy was tall and dark, like his best friend back home. Like Dare liked them, if he would have admitted it to himself. Like his favorite country singer, Austin Hart. Taller than Dare, which wasn't saying much, him being just five foot ten on a good day. Cut his hair short, and he wore a ball cap, not a cowboy hat. Them canvas sneakers, converse all-stars, instead of boots, but he was a ranch boy alright. Dare could tell.

Wore his hat and boots himself, of course. All the time. Didn't have nothing else. Didn't need to, cause he wasn't ashamed of where he came from, who he was. Not that piece of it, at least. Silver cross around his neck, on a silver chain, outside his black t-shirt. Sleeves cut off so you could see his recent barb-wire armband tattoo. Tight jeans and rodeo belt-buckle. Can of chaw in his back left pocket, wallet in the other.

Well, they were learning about verbs, "to be," the different ones in Spanish. "Ser" and "estar". Working in pairs, and Scott and Dare got thrown together, like you do. Going down a list of questions in Spanish that you had to answer, "¿Cómo está el clima hoy?", "¿cuál es la fecha de hoy?", like that. Dare's accent was terrible, Scott's better. He was smart.

They got to "¿Cómo es tu padre?" meant to trip you up, make you think it was asking after his health rather than his characteristics, but neither boy had gone for it. Both had one-word answers.

Dare said, "muerto". Then they looked at each other for the first time, really looked. Scott's eyes were so brown, like chocolate pecan pie. Pretty much Dare's favorite thing ever.

"He's dead?" like Dare might have chosen the wrong word.

"Yeah." He wasn't offended if the other boy thought he was dumb. He was. "Two years gone."

"Sorry to hear it," Scott was sitting across from him. They were at the very end of a long table, far enough from everybody to speak without being overheard. He sounded unsure of what to say, but not like folks usually were, because it was such a sad thing. More like unconvinced he should be sorry, like maybe it wasn't all that bad.

"Cain't do nothin' about it," Dare shrugged.

"Guess not." He talked like an Oklahoma boy, like Dare, but he was trying not to. Sounded smarter.

"Well, what did you put?" changing the subject.

Scott said, "ask the question," all bossy.

"Fine," and he did, in his horrible Spanish accent, and the other couldn't put it off no more, looked down and muttered, "severo".

It was a word they hadn't learned, and Dare asked him, "what's that mean?"

Scott said, "he's an asshole," real intense. "I looked it up."

"That really what it means?"

"Well, not literally."

"Oh," Dare looked at him like he still wasn't speaking English. "What's the next thing?"

"That's it. We're done." Scott slammed his book shut. Voice all clipped and brittle.

They were the first ones finished, and sat in awkward silence for a bit. The class was almost over, but they had to stay until the end of the hour. This had always irked Dare about school. With ranch work, you could move on to the next job as soon as you were through with the last. In the classroom, it seemed like he spent half the time sitting on his hands, idle. Bored out of his mind, and just trying to stay out of trouble. Something he could rarely manage at the best of times.

Well, at least he was grown now. In college, and nobody-

"What was he like?" Scott broke his train of thought, probably a good thing. Been nothing he needed to dwell on.

"Who?" He had a pretty good idea, but didn't want to sound stupid, in case it wasn't what he thought.

"Your father. When he was, you know," everybody stumbled over the word. "Before-"

Your father? Who said it like that? The boy was trying to talk all fancy, like he was better than he was. Well, Dare had been accused of thinking the same thing. Not because he tried not to talk like a redneck, but still. Rodeo, wanting to even come here, to College and everything. Like he was somebody special. Like they didn't need him more back home.

"Daddy? I don't know." He'd never really thought about it. "Just like everybody else, I guess."

Scott looked at him hard. His mouth bunched, and it made Dare think about kissing, even though he knew it meant the boy was thinking he's a liar. Well, he wasn't. Just didn't have no words for what it was set his old man apart from other men. Reckoned it was maybe all in his own head, anyhow.

"Y'all get along?" There was the high plains twang, alright. It made Dare like him better, even though it was kind of sexy when he tried to talk the other way. Or because it was, and he didn't want to think that about another boy, even if he didn't have no more illusions it could ever be like that with a girl, either.

"Sure," he answered, trying to keep it short, but then felt compelled to spill the whole, not-pretty truth like always. "Mostly. I mean, sometimes. When he wasn't having to whup my ass for something."

Scott flinched at the word, and Dare added, quickly, "I was a real bad kid," so the boy wouldn't get the wrong idea.

"Not me," Scott told him, voice all harsh. "Got plenty of that anyhow, though. My old man hates me."

"No, he don't," Dare said, in the kind of tone you use when telling a child who's just fallen down that he's alright.

"He does," the other insisted. "Told me so himself, so what the hell do you know, huh?"

"Shit." That information shocked Dare to the point of saying something he never usually did, "sorry, man."

"Well, fuck him, right?" Scott smiled through the pain, like he knew something about Dare no-one else did, and it didn't bother him a bit. "What're you doing after this?"

"Nothin'." Didn't know why he'd said that. Should be getting on with his studying, homework, in the rare couple hours when he didn't have no classes, rodeo, wasn't trying to squeeze in a day or two back home in White Cross for some kind of working. It was technically true, though. There wasn't nothing that he absolutely had to do in the next little bit here.

"You comin' with me, then?" All cool, just like nothing was up, and Dare could pretend whenever he wanted that this wasn't what he known it was. Something he'd never done before.

But he said, "alright," and looked the boy up and down real slow. He was skinny, didn't hardly have no muscle on him. Dare could've beat the shit out of him with one hand, the left one, but he had some balls, anyhow. Just stood up and gathered his things and walked away, not looking back, and Dare followed him, too. Like a calf going after his mama. That cross brushing his chest, swinging side to side because he walked with a swagger.

Scott had a single room, took him back there. Nobody around, cause it was the middle of the afternoon. He locked the door and started getting undressed right away. Dare just standing and watching, jaw dropped like a dumb hick.

When he was totally bare-ass, the boy looked at him and grinned, said, "how am I s'posed to suck your dick if you're gonna leave all them clothes on?" His own hard against his belly, looking so big compared to his thin body, but with him naked Dare could see the boy had some wiry muscles after all. Standing out under his naked skin, and Scott just waiting. Not trying to hide a thing from him.

Dare wanted it, too. Real bad, too bad to turn and go now, but he was afraid to strip in front of this boy. Dumb, because he'd been in all kinds of locker rooms in high school. Skinny-dipping and all, too. That was back home, though, and they knew about him there.

Well, Scott was an Oklahoma boy alright, and he curled his lip, taunted, "what are you scared of, Daredevil?" calling him the nickname that had somehow followed him from White Cross, that he hated.

"I ain't scared," and he started with his shirt, just shucking it off his head and his arms in one move. Turning it inside-out and throwing it on the floor with Scott's. The necklace snagging, then popping clear and bouncing off his chest. Light and sharp.

Dare unbuckled, and drew down the zip. Stopped, and sat down on the single bed. It had a blue and white plaid comforter drawn over it, and the mattress was real firm. Didn't sink much under him, even though he was heavy, built. Spent a lot of time at the gym at night, when he couldn't sleep, and it showed. He took his boots off, slower than he could have, because he needed time to think about how he was gonna play this. Scott standing there and watching with his fist on his hip, lifted like a girl's, but he sure as shit didn't look like one. Not with all that dark hair on him. That flat, sinewy chest and belly and them hard, long legs.

He turned and walked to the door, and his ass looked so good, it wasn't fair at all. Just high and round and pretty as anything, and he turned with his hand on the knob and said, "if you don't want none, you can just get out," and Dare sure wasn't going noplace.

"You know I ain't," he said, not loud, but like he meant it. "Just, look, man, just don't freak out, ok, when I-"

"Seen one before," Scotty smirked at him. "This ain't my first rodeo, boy." Like he known it was Dare's.

"No, not that-" Dare knew he was blushing. Always happened to him real easy. "I got some scars, huh? So don't be saying nothing stupid, that's all."

"Alright." The boy's tone went almost gentle then. "Like I care, anyhow." But he came back over, and he put his hand in Dare's and guided him to his feet. Undid the button on his jeans and pushed them down, and Dare was hard, too. For sure.

Scotty said, all breathless, "I don't see no-" and Dare shook off his hand, kind of mad and impatient to get it over with, turned his back and skinned the britches right off, and he seen them then alright. Just said, "oh," the teasing and all gone from his voice now. Dare felt ashamed, and thought, I was a real bad kid, so. Told you, didn't I?

He'd promised not to say nothing stupid, though, and Scotty hadn't lied. He asked, softly, "can I touch them?" and Dare said, "alright." So the boy did. Touched him real soft, with his long, slim fingers. Just one at first, the right index finger, and he ran it back and forth across Dare's ass, tracing those ugly bands of bulging, knotted skin. Then cupped his whole hand around, slid the left one over the other side, and rubbed down to his thighs. Back up. Callouses on his palms and fingers like all the ranch kids had. Dare couldn't move at all, couldn't believe this was happening, but he was letting it. Like in a dream, where you just can't help yourself.

Then the boy's touch was slipping around front, him standing so close behind Dare he could feel Scott's hard-on brushing the places where his finger was a minute ago, that hand closing around Dare's cock like it was his own. Jacking it a little, and he still didn't try to stop this, knowing it was wrong and all, just let his head go back some and kept silent.

Scott wouldn't stand the silence, though, and he demanded, "how does that feel, Dare?"

"Good," Dare told him, voice catching some, but he said it again. "Real good."

"Yeah, it does." The boy was so sure. Knew what he was doing, alright. Not a bit shy. "Show you something else, too." And he turned Dare loose, pushed him down on the bed, but this time he didn't stop 'til Dare was laying on his back. He could have stopped Scott any time. Of course he could, and he had to admit to himself that he didn't want to. The silver necklace hanging to the side.

And that boy got down with his head between Dare's thighs, body rubbing his on the way, too, and put his mouth tight around his cock and started sucking it, like one of them girls in a porno would.

Dare ground out, "shit fire," all low and reverent. Couldn't believe how good that felt, something he'd tried so hard to not even think about, ever, but it was happening now. Boy, was it. Scott laughed around his prick, and it felt nice, like riding a motorcycle. The way the engine hums and you can feel it through your pants, kind of tickling.

Then Scott was swallowing him down, actually taking his piece right down his throat. A thing that shouldn't even be physically possible. He never really believed it when guys bragged that their girlfriends could. Kind of reckoned it was fake when you saw it in a movie, yeah, he was that innocent. Nineteen, and he'd never even kissed a girl, let alone done nothing more. Something like this, though. Shit. Some first time.

Probably lasted all of eight seconds, too. That boy's throat was so tight, kept squeezing even harder when he swallowed. Lips going up and down a little bit, and there was some friction where his beard and mustache was coming in, five o'clock shadow like fine-grit sandpaper. Scott didn't pull off when Dare shot a load in his mouth, neither. Not right away, and when he did, he wasn't spitting it out.

Wiped his lips on the back of his hand, said, "you taste good."

Dare was still out his mind with the come, and he asked, "oh, yeah? How's that?" like it was a normal question.

"You really wanna know?"

"Sure I do," not about to take it back now, too proud by a country mile for that, so when the boy scootched up and kissed him on the mouth, he opened up for it and let Scott spread the residue of his own come from his tongue onto Dare's. It tasted good, too. Salty and bitter and meaty, like greens with vinegar and bacon-rind.

The kiss felt real nice and he didn't stop. Liked how firm and soft Scott's lips were against his, liked their tongues sliding around each other. Liked it when Scott shut his mouth over his and sucked. Pulled Dare's bottom lip into his mouth and bit down, gentle, but still stinging just a tiny bit. Mighty fine.

He was rubbing all up on Dare, too, his prick still hard as fuck, and Dare wanted to do something for him, but those hands were tight on his shoulders, Scott's body holding him down. Couldn't move, and his mouth was too full of the other boy's tongue and lips to say so.

His hands and arms was free, though, and he realized he could touch Scott if he wanted to, put his hands wherever he liked, and that boy most probably wouldn't care a bit. So he did, shyly at first, he run his hands right down the other's back, over shoulder-blades so prominent and sharp they felt like the start of wings. The kind little birds have before their feathers come in, and Dare wondered, absurdly, if it was the same for angels.

Then his fingers on the spine like a fence-post, all straight and level and jagged with vertebra like the studs you string barbed wire through. Palms grazing Scott's ribcage, and it felt too close to the surface of his skin. Insufficient protection, really, for the boy's already-damaged insides.

Forgot all that real quick when he made it down to that butt, though. Fit right in his grasp, a perfect double-handful, like it'd been made for him to hold. Dare squeezed, and Scott didn't push away or ask what the fuck was wrong with him, far from it. He made a little sound in his throat, instead, muffled by the kiss, lifted into Dare's touch and ground his hips down again, even harder. Dick so hot and smooth, crushed up between their bellies.

The boy didn't stop until his prick was fluttering against Dare's body, Scott moaning real soft, and everything got slick and hot and wet down there. Pulled his head back and looked into Dare's eyes for just a second, his just about all black right now, then rolled smoothly off him and onto his feet. Crossed the room, silently, and Dare watched him until he disappeared into the bathroom and slammed the door. A second later he heard the toilet flush, then the shower start up.

Dare sat up, swung his legs down and just stayed there, on the edge of Scott's hard, narrow bed. Shit. He should go, not look back, avoid the other boy next time he seen him, but Dare couldn't move. Told himself he'd wait 'til Scott came back, tell him they had to keep this quiet. Tell him it couldn't happen again, not ever, that it'd been wrong and a sin and- the shower cut off in the next room.

Then the boy was in front of him again, looking taller and skinnier than he had ten minutes before, his dark hair damp and wild. Sticking to his face in some places and standing straight up in others.