Exposure

by Todd Young

  Rafe nodded, his head on Jack’s shoulder. Then Jack was very aware of the fact that their cocks were hard and that they were pressed against each other. Rafe ground forward, pressing his cock hard against Jack’s. Then the bell rang.

  “Shit,” Rafe said. “Who the fuck is that now?” He walked into the laundry, but re-emerged a moment later in a button-down shirt, buttoning the buttons. Then he opened the door.

  25

  “Martha! Hi!”

  Jack had stepped into the hall to see who it was.

  “Hi, Rafe.”

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I came to talk to you about Sissy and some other things. The police were at my house yesterday. My dad says you’re a suspect.”

  “I don’t think that’s true.”

  “No. Anyway, I told them about the coke, how everyone’s doing coke, so I hope you haven’t touched any.”

  “You what?”

  “Told them about the coke.”

  “I heard you.”

  Rafe closed the door. Jack scuttled back to the kitchen and busied himself making coffee. When they came in, Martha was talking.

  “… don’t think that’s a good idea, Rafe. I tried—” She pulled up short when she saw him. “Oh, hi. Who are you?”

  “Jack,” Rafe said.

  “Jack? Oh, I know. You’re the guy who’s been pretending to be a detective. The police told me to look out for you.” She grinned. She was a young, hawk-faced girl with a narrow face. Despite her hawkishness, she was particularly attractive, and very thin. “You don’t look dangerous—or do you?” She frowned, staring at his scars.

  “I’m not dangerous.”

  “No. I believe that. It’s often the people you least suspect.”

  Jack glanced at Rafe unthinkingly.

  “Oh—Rafe. Not Rafe. He wouldn’t hurt a fly.” She turned to him. “I need to speak to you,” she said. “Now.”

  He nodded, turned and looked around, and then opened the wide glass doors onto the veranda. They walked out, closed the doors, and then wandered off the veranda and onto the lawn, Martha speaking all the while.

  Mike came in, dressed in the red shorts from last night, and said without looking up. “I’m never going to fuck you, so I don’t see the point of sleeping together.”

  “What?”

  “Oh, it’s you. Where’s Rafe?”

  Jack nodded at the back lawn, where Martha was wildly gesticulating at Rafe.

  “What is she doing here?”

  Jack shrugged.

  “Any coffee?”

  It was ready now, so Jack poured them both a mug, along with one for Rafe and one for Martha. Mike took a seat at the table in the family room, but Jack stood by the kitchen bench and glanced outside again. Martha looked angry. She turned, paced away from Rafe, but turned again and advanced upon him just as quickly.

  “That isn’t true!” he heard Rafe say, his voice strained.

  “Are they arguing?”

  “It looks like it,” Jack said. But what they were arguing about he couldn’t be sure. It was somehow connected to the drugs and to Sissy. She’d said that, but exactly what it was he didn’t know.

  “She’s his best friend,” Mike said. “She’s twisted, like he is, so they get on well.”

  Jack frowned, then realized he meant she was a lesbian, and felt unreasonably angry. He took a seat at the table. A minute or so later, Rafe and Martha stepped into the room from the veranda. Rafe was red in the face, angry or embarrassed, though it was difficult to tell which.

  “I’m going,” Martha said. She nodded at Mike and left the room. A few moments later the front door slammed.

  26

  “I can’t believe she said that.”

  “What?”

  “She said I was a little fool.”

  “Is she worried about Sissy?”

  “Sissy?”

  “Does she think you killed her?”

  “Mike, I’ve told you that isn’t true, that you’re thinking all wrong. I didn’t kill her, did I Jack?”

  Jack had become momentarily entranced by the light on Mike’s head, by his short hair and pink skull. He shook his head in answer to Rafe’s question, but didn’t know what he was supposed to say.

  “She says Sissy was an idiot.”

  “She wasn’t very bright. I know that.”

  “She was a bitch.”

  “Maybe, but fuck I loved her. I mean, I love her. Why are you talking about her like she’s gone again?”

  “Martha’s worried about the money,” Rafe said. “The money I’m spending.”

  “You have plenty.”

  “I know that, but still …” He paused for a moment and chewed a corner of his lip. “Perhaps she has a point.”

  “About what?”

  “About the money.”

  Jack wanted to ask. He opened his mouth, but hesitated.

  “You’ve spent what? Maybe a hundred k?”

  “About that.”

  One hundred thousand? Jack couldn’t help wondering what he’d spent it on, but stared into his coffee like he wasn’t there.

  “You know, if you keep talking about Sissy in the past tense, people are going to assume that she’s dead, and that you know something about it. You do know something, don’t you, Rafe?”

  “Oh, would you shut up? I’m sick of talking about Sissy, sick of thinking about her. It’s like you’ve got one thought in your head, and it’s Sissy, Sissy, Sissy.”

  Mike lowered his head, and then a car horn sounded from the drive. “Who’s that?”

  “Judge, by the sound of it.”

  It was Judge. He walked into the family room a few moments later with his brother Caleb in tow.

  “Beautiful day,” Caleb said.

  “We should have another swim, Jack.” Judge nodded at Rafe. He’d found it particularly funny the other day, or had seemed to, when Jack tapped Rafe’s foot and he cracked his nuts. “It’d be good to get in the water again.”

  “You want to?” Rafe said to Mike.

  “Maybe, but wait a moment. I was saying something.”

  “Yes. About Sissy. It was all about Sissy again, Mike.”

  “You don’t have to be so rude about it.”

  “Let’s go for a swim,” Judge said.

  27

  Rafe glanced at his underpants. They were gossamer thin. Not tighty-whities, but bikini briefs, a tight, white pair without the fly.

  “You’re dressed,” Judge said.

  Rafe nodded vacantly.

  They wandered over the hill and down to the water.

  “Skinny-dipping again?” Judge said to Jack.

  Jack nodded. He guessed he would.

  “I might as well,” Mike said, and slipped down his shorts. He wasn’t wearing underwear anyway.

  Caleb and Judge peeled their jeans off as Jack undressed. Both were wearing boxer briefs today. One had an orange pattern and the other a green, though they were both the same design.

  They climbed the tree. Judge first, followed by Caleb, followed by Mike, and then Rafe and Jack. The water was a shock, so cold after the heat of the morning. Jack came up and noticed for the first time the tang of smoke in the air. A forest fire was burning somewhere.

  “That’s a fire,” he said.

  The boys nodded, glancing this way and that. Rafe splashed Jack tentatively. He grinned as the water rained upon Jack’s face. Jack made a parcel with his hands and began spurting water back at him. Then Judge pushed a wall of water at both of them, and everyone was ducking and splashing.

  Rafe came up upon Jack suddenly from behind and tried to dunk him. He had an arm around his neck, his smooth, hairless body sliding like oily silk against Jack’s back. Jack went under, swam down to the bottom, ran his hand along the rocks and came up again. Rafe was grinning at him. Jack sent a wall of water toward him and then jumped. He caught him around the neck and pulled him down. A moment later they were under, their legs entwined, Jack twisted, caugh
t him from behind, and then his naked cock was stiff and butting Rafe’s asshole from in back.

  They came up together, Jack gripping Rafe from behind. He thrust forward once, twice, three times, the head of his cock in Rafe’s hole, and then came, his cum spurting into Rafe’s underwear.

  Rafe turned a moment later, a look of incredulous surprise on his face. He swallowed heavily, pouted jokingly, and then suddenly grinned. “We should climb the tree again, Jack.”

  Judge winked.

  Rafe climbed out, his bottom naked beneath his tight, white briefs. Jack climbed out lazily, his cock swinging now. He caught a jealous look from Mike, who seemed to be struggling in the water. Jack hadn’t noticed it the other day, but he wasn’t the strongest of swimmers. He was dog-paddling in the shallows, looking helpless.

  Rafe waited at the base of the tree for Jack, and Jack realized he wanted him to tap his foot again. He swallowed, and tried to keep his cock down, though the head of it was lifting again now. He glanced at it, and not for the first time, felt a little embarrassed.

  He put a hand on Rafe’s shoulder and pushed him toward the tree a little jokingly, as though he was marching him there. Rafe put a foot on the bough and then leaned forward, gripping the tree with both hands. He straightened his legs, and began to climb it.

  Judge elbowed Jack from behind. He grinned at him, and then nodded at Rafe. Jack started up the tree. Just as Rafe was lifting his right foot, when he didn’t yet expect it, Jack tapped his left. The boy fell with a cry, landing heavily on his testicles and rolling back over them. Jack reached forward and plunged his hand into the cleft of Rafe’s ass. He pushed forward with all his might, and Rafe’s body rolled over his testicles again.

  “Oh, man!” he said. His thighs tensed, and Jack realized he was coming. When Rafe got up, there was a dollop of cum on the branch of the tree.

  Jack climbed to the top just as Rafe jumped. He stood tentatively, looked down and saw Mike climbing out. He had erection, his cock a stub. Rafe was watching him, but as Jack was about to jump, he looked up at him and smiled. His eyes were locked on Jack’s cock, which had stiffened.

  28

  “Wow, Jack! That was some swim,” Judge said, as they were making their way up the hill again. He elbowed Jack and nodded at Rafe, who was walking ahead of them, his gait a little pigeon-toed. He had a hand in his groin, in his underpants, and was adjusting his genitals. Perhaps Jack had hurt him. He didn’t know.

  They crashed into the family room in their wet underwear, Jack and Mike still naked. Rafe said, “We need to eat.” He glanced at Mike and then at Jack, and then back from one to the other of them.

  “Are you going to put some clothes on?” Caleb said, glancing at Mike’s cock with a nod. “Not everyone wants to see what you’ve got.”

  “When he does,” Mike said, with what might have been a tinge of jealousy in his voice.

  “You’re not going to compete with that, Mike,” Judge said, and nodded at Jack’s cock.

  Jack blushed.

  He reached for his underpants and pulled them on. Mike’s hands flailed for a moment, but he didn’t reach for his clothes. Rather, he tossed his shorts onto a chair and turned toward the kitchen. “Make some toasted sandwiches,” he said to Rafe, and then folded his arms. Rafe glanced at him, and then at Jack again. His face was a little flushed from the heat, from the sun perhaps, his blue eyes bright. He grinned at Jack.

  “If you’re going to make toasted sandwiches, can you make mine with simply tomato? I’m not in the mood for ham.”

  “Well, you could help me, Caleb,” Rafe said.

  They ate at the table in the family room. Mike missed out on a chair, and stood beside Rafe, munching on his sandwich. He leaned his hip against Rafe’s shoulder. After a minute or so had passed, Rafe turned his head and took a long, close look at Mike’s cock. It was soft now, and cold, and had retreated into his body like the head of a turtle. Rafe turned to Jack and smiled, as though at a joke.

  Jack swallowed awkwardly. He thumped his chest with a hand.

  Rafe turned his attention back to Mike’s cock. He looked at it with disdain and then turned his eyes on first Caleb and then Judge, daring them to look back at what he was taking so much interest in. Caleb looked stupidly back at him, but Judge followed his eyes, stared blankly at Mike’s cock for a moment and then guffawed.

  “What?” Mike said.

  Rafe puffed with a sudden laugh, a smile.

  And then Mike said, “Why don’t you get up, you fuck?” He clocked Jack in the side of the head with the heel of his hand. “Get up!” he said, all control lost.

  “Just put your shorts on,” Judge said.

  “There’s nothing wrong with me,” Mike said. “It’s this big-dicked fuckhead who’s the freak.”

  Jack rubbed his head and pushed his chair back. He glared at Mike, but got up, taking his sandwich with him. Mike plonked onto the chair, and then stared sulkily at the table. He locked one hand between his thighs and began to pluck at his cock.

  “I might get going,” Jack said. He swallowed the rest of his sandwich and nodded at the boys.

  “Oh, Jack,” Rafe said. “We’ll probably watch a movie.”

  “No, I’ll get going.”

  He reached for his shorts and his T-shirt and pulled them on. Rafe followed him to the door. “You can come by any day, Jack, any day you like.”

  29

  Jack walked into the kitchen and heard Susan’s laughter spilling from Em’s living room.

  “Oh, shit,” he said to himself.

  Em called out. “Is that you, Jack?”

  “Yes, Em.”

  “Would you come in here for a moment?”

  He paused on the threshold.

  “You know Susan, don’t you?”

  Susan was Carol’s sister. They’d met once before, at Carol’s place. Susan had been drunk, but now she looked more than drunk. She was sitting on the center of the couch, wearing what amounted to a tent—a frock with a blue and orange pattern. Jack thought it utterly tasteless. She’d been crying. Her makeup had run, and her face was smeared.

  “Susan’s looking for some coke,” Em said. “Her supply’s run dry.”

  Some coke?

  “She wants to get in contact with your ‘friend’.”

  “My friend?”

  “She says someone you know sold it to her, but she doesn’t know his name. The other girl’s gone missing, apparently.”

  “Sissy.”

  “Oh, you mean Sissy?” Carol said. “You’ve been buying it from Sissy?”

  Susan nodded, her lips pressed bitterly together.

  “We’re having something of an intervention,” Em said. “She’s not getting any coke.”

  “But I need it. The boy said I could have as much as I like.”

  “What boy?”

  “The boy on the phone. There’s a new girl. He said I had to get in contact with her.”

  “Does she mean Aaron?” Jack said.

  “Do you mean Aaron Templeton?”

  “No. He’s looking for the new girl too, but he doesn’t know Rafe.”

  “Rafe?”

  “The one with all the money. He’s financing the operation.”

  Financing the operation. Would Rafe be that stupid? “I don’t think he’s financing anything.”

  “Little Rafe?” she said.

  Jack nodded, his lips a tight line.

  “Mike told me he was—on the phone.”

  Mike! That sounded like the sort of dumb-fool thing Mike would say.

  Susan got up, swayed, and fell backwards again. “Help,” she said. She thrust her arms toward Jack, expecting him to help her up. He crossed the room, gripped her hands, and pulled her to her feet. She swayed again.

  “Look,” Carol said, “you’re not just high, you’re drunk.”

  “I need to call Rafe. You have his number, don’t you, Jack?”

  Jack shook his head determinedly.

  “You’re not
calling anyone,” Carol said. “You’re getting clean.”

  “Yes,” Em said. “Sit back down.”

  Susan looked lost for a moment. She turned one way and then the other, and then, as stiff as a broom, fell backwards. She landed on the couch with a whoomph!

  She sat still for a moment. Then Jack said, “You’re wrong about Rafe. Rafe’s a friend of mine and there’s no way he’d have anything to do with drugs, let alone with financing them. You’ve got it all wrong.”

  “It sounds like it,” Em said.

  “Oh, you bet she has. She’s always getting people mixed up.”

  “He might have some friends who are into them, but he doesn’t touch them himself, and he certainly wouldn’t finance them.” Jack surprised himself, and then remembered Mike saying something about one hundred k, and how that was all they needed. One hundred thousand dollars! Would Rafe be stupid enough to spend that on drugs, when his friend, Mike, had a mouth as loose as he did? Did he really tell Susan that Rafe was financing the operation, or was she making it all up? “Did you really speak to Mike?” Jack said.

  “The one with the bald head.”

  “Bald head?”

  “He doesn’t have a bald head.”

  “Really?”

  “No.”

  30

  Jack left the room after making it very clear that Rafe had nothing to do with drugs. He walked through to his bedroom and slammed the door. Then he threw himself onto his bed. Women had an uncanny ability to get him riled up. Susan had done it the first time they met with comments about his sexual orientation. She said something stupid like, “My sister’s one too. Perhaps you could get together with her.”

  He wrapped his arms around his head and lay for minutes. He thought about Rafe, and what Mike had said about the money. Perhaps Rafe really was financing a drug operation. If he was, then he was being very stupid. With Sissy’s death on top of that, it looked as though he was in a lot of trouble. He considered Rafe’s situation from all angles, and then began to remember today. The river. The sunshine. Rafe’s smiles. Cracking his nuts had been so mad. And the way Judge acted!