The Long Hunt

Here's the funny thing.

After Clair rather memorably took my virginity – and I mean, not that many 18-year-old boys lose their oral, vaginal and anal virginity in a single session with their 50-year-old aunt – I had to go back to work on her fucking yard.

And by the time I'd finished sling-blading and cutting back the rest of the scrub that had taken over that corner of her property, I was more than ready for another round with the curvaceous, blonde, middle-aged object of my sexual obsession. By which I mean to say, I spent the last hour of so of the job uncomfortably erect.

So I did what your average idiot 18-year-old would do. I finished up my job and went sniffing around her kitchen porch for seconds.

As I was about to learn, my Aunt Clair lived in multiple worlds, with clear boundaries between each aspect of her fractured personality. Which meant that when I walked up and opened the screen door without knocking, Clair wheeled around from chopping onions by the sink and flashed me a look that could have cut glass.

"Don't you walk in my house without knocking first, young man."

Did I mention I was 18 and stupid? Because you're about to see 18 and stupid in action right here.

"Well," I drawled – and I remember that I was smiling here, because I'd thought of this line as I approached the house – "seeing as how I've already come in your back door once today, I figured you wouldn't mind."

Aunt Clair smiled at me and dropped her eyes toward the floor as she sashayed over to where I stood by the screen door, shaking her head slowly with a wry grin on her face.

"You think you're a very clever boy, don't you, Will?" she said, coming to a stop right beneath my gaze. I lifted my right hand to fondle her breast, but I don't think it ever connected. That's on account of how Clair swiftly and accurately grabbed my testicles through the denim of my jeans and began to twist them into a something resembling a corkscrew.

"Now Will, honey, I know that you're young," she began, controlling my wincing retreat with more pain, "and I know how stupid young men can be. In fact, the only thing dumber than young men are young women. Because they let you idiots get away with it. They think it's cute. Can you believe that?"

"No ma'am," I wheezed.

"I told you what the rules were, didn't I?"

"Yes ma'am."

"But I guess I didn't make myself clear enough. So let me be plain, son. Don't you ever walk in my home unexpected or unannounced. Understand?"

"Yes."

"And don't you ever suggest that the two of us repeat any part of what we just did. You can jack off remembering it all you want, but if you ever want to have me again, it's going to be on my schedule, on my terms, by my rules. That's not because I'm a bitch, honey. It's because you're my nephew, and if other people here knew that I was fucking you... well, sweetheart, do I have to draw you a picture?"

"No ma'am."

"Alright then," she said, releasing my nuts. I collapsed backward against the door frame.

"One last thing, baby," she said, sauntering back over to her cutting board and picking up her knife. "I don't want you getting anywhere near my Julie."

I stammered something, and she cut me off.

"Look, Will," she interjected. "It's not some Mrs. Robinson thing from that movie with Dustin Hoffman. I ain't psycho or nothing like that. It's just that you're a sweet boy with a romantic streak, and Julie is an awful lot like me. I know she looks at you, and you'd have to be blind not to notice her. But y'all are cousins, honey. And I just don't think either one of you would be smart enough or controlled enough to handle what we're doing. You understand?"

I agreed, and that was pretty much that. We walked around while she inspected my work, ordered me to trim up a couple of small patches, and then paid me a crisp $5 bill. "Tell your mama I said thanks and that I'll call her later on," Clair said as she sent me off. "And remember what I told you about three days. Do you remember?"

"Yes ma'am," I replied, remembering her order that I abstain from masturbation for three days. Which is when I heard the sound of a car approaching up the long, winding drive, gravel crunching beneath slowly turning wheels. It was Julie, returning with her younger brother Paul. I turned to watch them approach, and Julie and I waved as she crept by and pulled into the yard.

"Thank you, Will," Aunt Clair said. "You do good work. If you learn how to follow instructions, I'll have plenty more for you to do around here. Bye now."

So I didn't stick around to talk to Julie, just turned and walked home, got in the tub, and immediately violated Clair's orders by jacking off into a wash cloth while the memories of the blow job, of the agonizingly still pussy fuck, of the spectacularly tight grip of her ass, remained fresh in my mind.

But after that, I felt my resolve returning. I wanted more of Aunt Clair, and if that meant letting my semen back up for three days, then by Gawd, it was worth it.

***

Clair actually dropped by the house the next night after dinner and spent a couple of hours on the porch with my mother and Diane, drinking beer and gossiping. She was polite enough when I stood in the doorway and chatted with them, but showed me no special interest. I went up to my room and fantasized about Aunt Clair on her back, her hips rocked back to receive me, begging to have her pussy filled with salty, warm goo.

But I didn't touch myself, and the pressure just continued to build. By the next afternoon it was beyond uncomfortable, and by the morning of the third day, I couldn't think about anything but Clair. The way the soft blonde curls of her hair came loose from her pony tail and tickled my skin and she took me and out of her mouth. Those heavy breasts. The hourglass curve of her figure. The thick strength of her thighs. The slight, soft curve of her belly. The way she held my penis still inside her pussy and how that made time expand into an infinite horizon. How her eyes flashed at me as she controlled my orgasm just inside the opening of her butthole, extending pleasure to the verge of pain.

And all day I waited. I fiddled with the VW. Took care of the chores my mother had set for me. Watched a little TV with Amy. Tried reading a book. Normally I'd have gone looking for some work, or walked up some hill somewhere. But I figured Aunt Clair was just up the driveway, with a house all to herself, and the call could come at any moment.

So I waited. I waited until the summer sun began its evening descent, until my mother returned from her new job at the county hospital, pecking her on the cheek as she walked wearily up the steps to the front porch. Amy had supper on the stove, Diane was off somewhere with Julie, mom was in a good mood, and other than the fact that I was carrying around a loaded erection with the safety switched off, everything felt surprisingly right with the world.

Which is when I heard Aunt Clair at the door.

"Knock knock! Hello!"

My mother called for her to come in, and Clair swept into the kitchen with a basket of tomatoes and zucchini from her garden, hugging my mother around the shoulders, kissing Amy on the cheek as she passed her at the stove, then smooching me hard on the ear where I sat at the kitchen table.

"Everybody doing alright?" she asked as she pulled up the chair next to me and sat down.

And don't quite remember what we all talked about, but it was small talk, the kind of talk you get with family when you're happy to see each other. About the zucchini fritters that Clair was going to make. About how Paul would be down in a bit, but how he wouldn't eat any proper food. About when the girls would be getting home.

At some point, the conversation turned to mom's day at the hospital, and Aunt Clair suggested that she go plop herself down in the tub for a few minutes while the rest of us got dinner ready. "After all, you're the working woman in the family," she said. "Least we can do is give you a few minutes to yourself."

And so as Amy stood over the stove singing along to Bob Welch's "Sentimental Lady" on the radio, Clair drew my mother a bath, kissed her on the cheek and closed the door to the bathroom behind her. I looked up hopefully at her down the hall, and she gave me an enigmatic smile.

"Will, honey, come give me a hand over here?" Aunt Clair called to me.

"Sure," I said, grateful that Amy wasn't looking my way, since my erection in those jeans restricted my ability to stand up gracefully.

As I approached her, Aunt Clair turned away and walked ahead of me into the back room where we kept the washer, dryer and linen shelves. No sooner had I stepped inside than Clair shut the door behind us and popped the button above the fly to my jeans.

"Did you do as I asked?"

I mumbled a yes.

"Then this won't take long, will it?" she said as she freed my penis.

"No it won't, Clair," I whispered. She was stroking my dick with both hands.

"Will," she said quietly. "If you want this blow job, you call me ma'am."

"Yes ma'am."

"Yes ma'am what?"

"Yes ma'am please suck my dick," I whispered.

Aunt Clair didn't say another word, just turned on the oscillating fan on the ironing board, dropped to her knees, opened her mouth and took me in. There was no slow, swirling build up, no long, exquisite tease. She just took me in her warm mouth, stroked my shaft in properly coordinated rhythm, and quickly, efficiently built me up to orgasm.

I don't know how long it took, exactly. Certainly less than a minute. Maybe not more than 30 seconds. But with that much semen built up, plus all my agonizing anticipation and her expert ministrations, it all happened quickly, and exploded powerfully.

There was already pre-cum glistening the tip of my dick before she even took me in her mouth, so it wasn't like she got much warning. The first blast caused Aunt Clair to gag, and she came off my dick spitting back the results of the initial contraction just as the second spurt launched an even larger load of semen right into her face. It missed her eyes but most of it splashed across her cheek, with the rest plunging into her cleavage. Gathering herself, she closed her eyes as the third pulse erupted, covering the 18 inches between my glans and her lips in milliseconds.

After that she was back on my penis, which continued to convulse, basically providing a warm place for my orgasm to occur. And when it finally finished, she resumed her sucking, until every last drop had been extracted, tasted, and consumed.

"Spectacular," she said as she pulled away, using her fingers to wipe the sperm off her cheek and collect it from her cleavage. Each bit she found went straight into her mouth. "Now hand me one of those towels from that stack," she said.

I helped her clean up, and other than a suspicious wet spot on her shirt – the recipient of a glob of sperm about the size of an oyster – she returned to the dining room looking none the worse for wear.

All told, we'd been gone for not more than two minutes, and I helped her clean off the table and spread the red-and-white table cloth across it. Amy was finishing up the green bean casserole and putting it into the oven alongside the mac and cheese, oblivious to what had just taken place in the other room. She chatted with Clair about helping out with our aunt's plan to make zucchini fritters.

"Honey, you've done enough," Clair said to Amy. "I'll get Will to help me."

Once Amy wandered off to the living room, and with my mother in the tub down the hall, Aunt Clair and I stood side by side at the counter, cutting up tomatoes and onions and zucchini from her garden, talking about sex like we were talking about the TV schedule.

"Didn't know you were coming to dinner," I whispered.

"Just talk in your normal voice," Clair said. "They'll hear the sound of voices, but not the words."

"I didn't know you were coming to dinner," I said aloud.

"Well, I didn't call your mother and offer to come over until this afternoon. Sure are some nice looking zucchini, aren't they?" She held up a massive green squash. "Kinda reminds me of someone."

"Thanks for the... uh..."

"Blow job, honey. And of course! Don't mention it." Clair chopped the ends off the zucchini, and I squirmed involuntarily. "It really was my pleasure. Isn't that kinky of me? I've just got this thing about cum. Or semen. Whatever you want to call it."

"So is this how it's going to be?" I asked, like I was asking if I should set the good china at the table. "You're going to show up at random times and take me in the laundry room?"

"Did you like that? I thought of that last night. Been trying to think of ways to get my hands on you without attracting notice. Can't have you up at my house every afternoon doing 'chores" without somebody around here connecting the dots. Honey, pass me that cheese grater."

"I go for long walks in the woods sometimes. Nobody around here takes any notice. Maybe you could sneak out the back sometime."

Clair started grating the zucchini into translucent strips. "Sweetheart, let me explain something to you. The men in this family are wanderers. But the other thing is, they all hustle for money. Some better than others. And so long as you're picking up money, whether you're working a regular job or not, nobody around here is going to pay any mind.

"But here's the thing. You're a grown man. And nobody has said anything, yet, because you've just been here a few weeks. But the truth is, Will, that there ain't much more time left for you to hang around the house, walk around the woods and picking up the occasional day labor job. Not before your grandmother starts talking. Not before the men show up and start asking when you're going to start pitching in around here."

She wasn't wrong, and I knew it. I just wasn't sure where to start. I didn't exactly have that many marketable skills.

"Which brings me to an idea I had the other night," Clair said. "You remember that Ray Ross? The one who was fucking me out back?"

I almost sliced my finger off.

"Yes."

"Ray's a handyman. Does a little bit of everything. And since he owes me a few favors, I was thinking maybe I'd ask him to take you on as an assistant. Pay wouldn't be much, but he'd have you up to journeyman before you know it. Would you be interested?"

I flashed back to the image of Ray Ross, the burly, black-bearded mountaineer, rage-fucking my sweet Aunt Clair from behind, only to watch her spin around frantically to drop to her knees and drain his balls down her throat when his time came.

"It's not like I've got better options," I said.

"Well that's just great!" Aunt Clara said brightly, her eyes sparkling as she reached up, grabbed my neck and pulled me down into a sudden and warm French kiss. She released me with a jolt as we popped back into faux normality. "Because Ray does a lot of work for me, and nobody really cares. And if you should show up at my place on a job with Ray, I don't think most people would have a word to say about it. See what I'm saying?"

"Well, I do wish you'd explain a bit more."

"It's like this, sugar," Aunt Clair said. "I've had this idea that you and Ray could double team me and put me right over the moon. I just can't stop thinking about how good your dick felt when you came inside my ass, baby. I think about it all the time. Pass the flour, Will – yes, that kind, the all-purpose. Anyway, I just lie around, thinking about it, and it just gives me ideas. So will you go to work for Ray if I arrange it?"

"Yeah, sure."

"Will Messer, you speak politely when you talk to your elders or I will twist that ear right off."

"Yes ma'am."

"Yes ma'am," she said. "I do like the sound of that."

***

I still remember that dinner almost as clearly as if it were last week. My mother, my sisters, my Aunt Clair and her kids, Julie and Paul, all seated around that big farm table at the Apple House, which is what the family called the old place where we settled after moving down from the District of Columbia. Everyone was in a good mood, and it was one of those warm summer evenings when everything stretched out long and slow.

The McRaes were a big name clan around Trotter's Mill, and almost all of them attended Bethel Baptist Church just down the road. Up there where we lived back in the 1980s there were about 20 members of our closest kin spread out across 200 acres and about a half-dozen homes and trailers – some beautiful and classic, others downright tacky. But we'd barely met some of them in the first weeks since my mother moved us down, and even the ones we'd spent some time with seemed a little stand-offish at times.

Obviously Clair was friendly, and my grandmother Alice was nice enough. By my great-grandmother Ethel – who lived with Alice in a house called Willa's Place – was a glowering troll of a woman in her 90s.

Uncle Jim was the oldest and the most accomplished – he had been off to school at the University of North Carolina and had a private law practice in town – but he was also one of those people who took an extra second to look you over before he'd respond to your question, and I didn't appreciate the way he looked at my sisters. A handsome man, well-groomed. I'd yet to receive an invitation to The Hedges, his house up at the intersection with McRae's Farm Road.

Aunt Jenny was the youngest of my mother's siblings, but had started putting out babies at 16 and lived with her husband, Tom Stevens, down by the hard road, which is just what everybody called the two-lane county highway. Tom did earthmoving work and kept pigs – not the most fragrant of jobs, but it paid the bills for Jenny, who had never worked a day in her life and spent much of her time watching television with her daughters.

It was, for the most part, a property strangely dominated by women, with not that many patriarchs around. I seldom heard about my grandfather Rick McRae – Ethel's boy – but I picked up enough to know he'd spent some time in prison for moonshining.

Looking back, I understand now why these family people didn't sop us up like a biscuit in red-eye gravy – we were family, yes, but strangers, too. And McRaes don't do well with strangers.

Still, that night seemed to be the beginning of our casual acceptance into the clan. I always remember it that way.

My mom looked as happy as I'd seen her in months, laughing and leaning into her older sister as they sat on the porch swing. The resemblance was obvious – Lisa was just the willowy variation of the same genetic template, with Clair representing the curvy, buxom, lush version. And as different as they were – mom's voice was ethereal, Clair's down-to-earth, bordering on bawdy – you could still tell that both women were somehow singing out of the same hymnal.

My younger sister Diane and Clair's daughter Julie bore some resemblance, too. Both were blonde with long torsos that made them look almost boyish, and though I didn't know it at the time, both were recovering in their own ways from secret wounds. Diane's made her occasionally wild and self-destructive. Julie simply dove into church and tried to sink her anchor there. She tended to her withdrawn brother, Paul, as if he were some personal penance, and for that night, at least, the 13-year-old seemed almost social.

But the person who had always been my confidant was acting strange that night.

Amy was a year my elder, and like me, she took after our father. She was lean and tall like me, with the bronze-and-olive sheen of his mixed-blood line, her hair long and dark and shiny and straight, her demeanor naturally grave and inward. Growing up with our father coming and going and our mother looping in and out of something akin to depression, we had formed an attachment that was almost twin-like. We routinely completed each other's sentences, and our mother loved to tell the story of how, as a toddler, I'd once tattled on Amy for something she'd done to one of the other girls at nursery school – which was miles away.