The start of that summer was no different than summer's past, same old, same old. Every day pumping gas, every night driving around the southern Illinois night, drinking beer and occasionally visiting the make-out grounds at the old mill.

When we heard that my brother Billy was killed in Nam, everything changed. My home became a house of sorrow, filled with the dirge-like cries of my mother.

And when I couldn’t take it anymore, I headed out onto the Interstate and stuck out my thumb. There I was just another sixteen-year-old with my long hair blowing in the wind with my destiny on the line.

My first ride was comedic. A Volkswagen slowed to a stop and once I saw the driver, a pipe-smoking fancy, Yankee dandy with a mustache, my immediate sense was that he was going to try to pull the wool over my country boy eyes. I got into the car anyways when he told me that he was driving to the West Coast.

Right away he directs me to look through the stack of magazines that were lying between me and him. The top one was Life magazine. The cover had a picture of Vietnam.

When he saw me recoil he probably thought I was a pacifist. He said something like don’t worry the good ones are underneath. He was sure right about that. There were a bunch of porn magazines filled with big tits and killer beaver.

I was sporting six hard inches, when suddenly he reached over to feel it. I remember his exact words.

“Want me to take care of that for you. There must be some corn fields around here we can go to.”

I hated to lose the ride but I just said, “No way, mister,” and got out in the middle of nowhere.

The rest of the day I did a lot of walking and a lot of thinking. I was fantasizing about what it would have been like to go to a cornfield with that dude, and getting jerked off or sucked off with a cob of corn up my ass.

I had to admit that the unknown and the novelty had an attraction all of its own. However, I just couldn’t see that guy as the person I would want to be with in that way.

It was dusk when a motorcycle pulled over. It was an Indian brand and the driver had a black leather jacket, black boots and an earring in his left ear. He was middle-aged and when he took off his helmet I could see some grey hair.

“Where you headed, son?”

“West Coast.”

“Well, I’ll be, just where I’m going tomorrow. Tell you what, if you like, you can stay at my cabin tonight. It’s about a hundred miles from here. Then you can come with me tomorrow, first thing. What you say to that?’

Truthfully, I was kind of nervous and suspicious but I told myself I couldn’t afford to pass up another ride going right to where I was going, so I said yes.

He gave me a helmet to put on and we were off.  I was sitting right behind him with my arms around his waist. The engine vibrated me the whole time and after a while, I had an erection. Occasionally, when Jim applied the brakes I would be jammed up against his butt. He seemed to apply the brakes a little too often for my taste.

Eventually, he pulled off the main highway onto a tree-lined, dirt road. The moon and stars gave light to the long and winding route. Finally, we came around the bend and I saw the cabin on the lake. It was picturesque. We walked across the screened-in porch and Jim opened the door to the dwelling. It was somewhat small, but it did have a kitchen sink, bed, sofa and fireplace.

Jim could see the where the hell am I going to sleep look that was featured on my face. He nonchalantly mentioned that we could sleep back to back. We had some bread and sardines and went right to bed because it was late. I was thinking how it would be if we spooned front to back instead of back to back but Jim was true to his word and my fantasy didn’t happen.

When I woke up I heard the water spray of an outdoor shower. I went over to the kitchen window to take a look. There he was, soaking up the sunshine with the water running off his broad-shouldered, muscular body. Jim had a thick waist which his beefy backside supported fully. His thighs, in turn, were as sturdy as fence posts.

In the midst of my contemplation, he dropped the soap and I saw his package, balls and all, hang down between the V-shape of his legs. I caught my breath. His dick was as big and wide as a truncheon. In this exact moment, he caught me peeking and he motioned to me to come outside.

“Care to share a shower, hombre?”

I stripped down, entirely too embarrassed at having been discovered, not to have done so. I could tell Jim liked what he saw. He was kind of staring at my dog when he told me I could be a model as soon as I got to the Coast. I blushed. Jim began to use the soap on my body, saying it would help loosen the road dust from the day before. He stopped just short of soaping up my dick and ass-crack. I kept thinking about what I would do if he had not.

As my cock was starting to stiffen, Jim suggested a swim. We raced down to the lake and out to the raft which was anchored down. We climbed up out of the water and I truly got stiff watching Jim’s magnificent body mount the pontoon. Jim rotated back towards me while halfway up the ladder, revealing some tumescence of his own while taking note of my increasing admiration. Jim asked me if I would like to spend an extra day hanging out. The awkward unsaid part was that that meant I would be spending another night as well. I was scared yet excited by his proposition, so I said sure, whatever.

Then Jim suggested we wrestle to determine who would be king of the raft. I felt Jim’s strength as he wrapped his muscular arms around me. We were face to face as he did so­, causing our dicks to mash together. For Jim, I think this wasn’t meant to be sexual, but for me, afterwards, I just couldn’t get the euphoric feeling out of my mind.

Jim threw me off the raft and yelled something like let’s swim the lake. Follow me. I stayed very close behind Jim as he led the way across. The lake was clear and I could see up Jim’s hairy crack. At times, I was so close that I could almost kiss it. Midway, Jim suddenly stopped swimming, causing me to bump my nose into his ass. Jim spun around and we shared a good laugh and a hug.

It took quite a long time to swim to the distant shore and back.  On our return, we napped on the raft. I was completely tuckered out and it was quite pleasing to lie together (especially with Jim naked) in the afternoon sun, absorbing the rays. Jim’s body was on display. His limbs were splayed about and his penis seemed less threatening as it lay soft and relaxed. It occurred to me that it might be quite lovely to suck if I was into that sort of thing.

At a certain point, as the sun’s light started to wane, Jim stood up and dove into the lake and swam to shore. Again he waited for me to follow, and then he got out of the water and sauntered back to the cabin. I could only admire the sway of his behind as he did so.

Before going into Jim’s place, I decided to take a brief detour in order to gather myself from what up to this juncture had been an extremely pleasant yet demanding, and in some ways, overwhelming and difficult day. Specifically, I felt I was being pulled by Jim’s sexual magnetism in a powerful, strange way and I wasn’t sure I should allow it. It was all quite confusing.

 By the time I opened the cabin door, it felt like an eternity had passed. Jim had started a fire in the stone fireplace and lit some candles as well. He sat on a white bearskin rug that covered the floor in front of the burning branches. There he was in all his naked glory. His eyes shone with the reflected light of the burning candles. He welcomed me into the room and beckoned for me to lie down.

 Once I was lying down, he murmured in my ear that it was now important to receive a massage so that I wouldn’t be sore on the motorcycle the next day and not to worry because he wouldn’t do anything that I didn’t want him to. So I guess he was trying to make it clear that it was my decision on what would be happening next. Yet it certainly didn’t feel that I had that sort of power.

Jim rubbed my back gently, and then harder and harder, and then deeper and deeper. Then he knuckled the tissue in my butt until the muscles felt like taffy and I thought I was going to cum.

“As good a place to stop as any,” he said. “Let’s watch some film.”

Jim set the projector up and used an unrolled sheet for a screen. We moved to the sofa in front of the fireplace and Jim started the film. We were still naked when Jim put his arm around my shoulder and pulled me close.

The film was an old-time porno in which James fucked Sally from behind, while she licked Daisy’s cunt, while Daisy sucked Wilbur’s cock, while he sucked Joe’s cock, while Joe licked Sinbad’s ass, while Sinbad fucked Nick’s ass, while Nick licked Lucy’s cunt, or something like that. It was called Daisy’s Chain.

Jim had the sound on very loud. In that cacophony, I spurted a little geyser. I had never seen or heard anything like that film before. That night Jim and I slept in his bed again. He spooned me and I felt his hard mushroom up against my private eye much of the evening. Even though he used restraint, it was an overwhelmingly intimate experience. I found myself very much craving the embrace, yet at the very same time, secretly trying to avoid it.

In the middle of the night, Jim kissed my neck and shoulders from behind, nibbling, nipping, and biting as well, over and over again. He went on to tongue and suck on my ear lobes. I turned and kissed him back, letting my tongue suck on his while I put my legs around his waist.

Jim said, “Easy tiger, take it slow.”

I remember waking up the next morning feeling shaky and floaty.

Jim just smiled a good morning to me and said let’s get going, princess.

So we hopped on his Indian motorcycle and we rode hundreds of miles with my arms around him before we stopped for brunch at a truck stop in Iowa.

I kind of felt hollow and dizzy as we walked in. At first, there was complete silence and then I thought I might lose my balance and fall over because of the sudden uproar. It was as if we were walking through the county jail with catcalls, taunts, and insults coming at us from every direction. I was doing my rendition of the walk of shame, scared out of my mind. I thought this is the end. Jim kept walking, unperturbed by the bedlam.

We were hearing shit like:

“You two married?”

“How does she fuck, how does she taste, maestro?”

“Did you save me a taste of that milkshake”?

At one particular moment, it all stopped. Jim had given the Airborne claw of death sign and everybody just shut up. It registered with me that, holy shit, Jim had been in been in Nam and, apparently, so had a lot of these Bubas. I sure as hell appreciated having Jim there to protect me. Of course, I never would have been there if Jim hadn’t brought me.

In the aftermath of Jim’s gesture, the place went from sudden silence to the new normal of mutterings mixed with noisy chatter. We got a table and got ready to order. Evidently, Jim didn’t want to talk about Nam and neither did I, so we sat quietly until the waitress came over.

 She hung her tits over our table like they were covered with Christmas wrapping paper. She appeared a little raggedy in her slutty uniform but I thought I would take her any day.

“Well, what will you gents be having here today?”

Jim spoke right up, “Okay, Maggie, we will have two steaks with fries, and bacon and eggs, and Tom, here, would like a piece of you.”

“Well, well, isn’t that just lovely,” she said with a smirk, “I’ll tell you what, for a Benjamin, I will meet you out back in half an hour when my shift ends, sugar.” She said it while looking me right in the eyes.

 Thirty minutes later, Maggie showed up out back by the red brick house. She was wearing a purple Afghan with nothing underneath. It was exciting to feel her bare squish beneath the wool.

Maggie unzipped me and sucked my flower to the stem. As I shot my cum into her mouth, Jim held my gaze.

After, Jim said, "I can do it a lot better than her, you gonna give me a chance, right?"

“Maybe. Let’s see how it goes,” I said coyly.

We rode all the rest of the day until we made our camp in the high desert. Jim had one sleeping bag, so we shared it. I was fully vibrated from a day’s ride by the time we lay down. Jim started kissing me and pinching my nipples. I really got turned on and by the end of the sunset, I was really hoping he would go down on me and he did just that. Jim told me I tasted nice and sweet. Jim began to finger my anus and honestly, I thought I might be ready for a little more once he was done. But Jim told me I was a little too tight for what I was thinking about and that he would have to stretch my ass hole out first and that it might take as much as thirty days or so to get me ready for his big shlong.

By the end of the next day, we made Big Sur. We camped at Sand Dollar beach and slept in a little cave. We built a fire to keep us warm. I was on Jim’s sleeping bag, lying with my legs spread, watching phosphorescent creatures ride the surf-line, while Jim licked my bud, prying and stretching it with his tongue. He keep licking and fingering my bum hole until I was ready to cum. He twirled me over at just the right moment and he caught a stream of my cum in his mouth as a result. Soon my cock was in his mouth and that’s the way I fell asleep. When day broke, we took a swim and worked out on the beach, racing and doing push-ups and sit-ups.

We made it to Frisco the following night and rented a room in the Castro district for nearly a month. We settled into a routine. I got a job pumping gas every day. Jim went surfing every day. At night Jim would play with me in the shower, suck my cock, stretch my ass hole, kiss me and feel my nipples. I liked that.

He would also give me a daily massage once all the dirt and grime that would accumulate during the day was washed off. He would use his elbows to get deep into my ass muscles.

The night I sucked his cock for the first time was memorable. Jim told me he was my lord and master and it was time to serve him by sucking his cock, but first, he wanted me to prove my loyalty by taking the collar. I did so. He took me for a walk around the Castro. I walked on all fours while Jim and I traveled around the district. We brought a lot of smiles and laughter to those who encountered us.

When we got back to the room Jim removed the collar and we both lay back on the bed. On command, I unbuttoned him and released his pet snake. Jim told me to allow him to have his royal scepter in my mouth since I was his royal subject. He hardly fit, but I wet him down with my saliva. Jim bucked like a horse and then came in sudden spurts, bursts and starts against the back of my throat. To me, he tasted like cinnamon. Jim cupped my mouth with his warm hand and told me I was almost ready for you know what. He swiveled my body so my ass was right against his deflated cock, and he told me that the next time he did this I would be ready to take it and I knew that I would be.

The following evening when I came home from pumping gas, Jim said we were going for a spin. We rode naked and nearly froze but we made it to the shore. We rounded a bluff and saw the famous baths that were carved out of rock and filled with seawater at high tide. Some baths were heated, others were not.

We frolicked, especially in the warm baths. Jim floated and rocked me in the bathwater. He was gentle and kind. After we finished playing in the baths, we approached a main building which was made of stone and covered with a ceiling made of stained glass.

Jim led me down a long tunnel and we opened a door at the very end. The room was filled with colorful pillows and foam wedges. Jim pushed me down onto a wedge. Apparently, while I was face down he put on robes that featured decorative stars because when I turned his way that is what he was wearing.

Jim anointed my anus with oil and gave my ass a few smacks. He stepped in front of me, parted his robes, and had me suck his cock. His crown and shaft swelled. His expansion puffed up my mouth.

Jim circled back to my ass. He spoke words I had never heard before.

“Yo binaka sofi suma bengadin ipso minage.

"Ee ii ohhh calima dobinca.

"Mayesoca iwa nima soca.

"Obensibotoc ca.

"Amen."

I was later to come to know what this chant meant.

I shall tell you now,

"I, High Priest, Binaki, come forth to honor the dead in Nam and to bless all living beings.

"I take the virginity of this young man and offer it up to all the souls of the dead.

"So that by doing so, I may bring joy to this world.

"Now and forevermore.

"Amen."

With that, he plunged his rod up my anus. Or, at least he tried, only the mushroom tip would fit.

I, subsequently, rocked my ass back as he pushed forward. I started to feel the rapture and the lightening in my body as I did so.

He panted the breath of fire, "Huh, huh, huh, huh, huh, huh, huh, haaaaah."

Jim flipped me over to come face to face. He pushed a little harder and plunged a little deeper.

I spied the warm, soft love in his eyes in the midst of all his lust.

I squeezed my anus around his cock-head and I spurted out sperm across my chest while Jim simultaneously splashed his sperm across my belly and into my open mouth, until strings of pearl-like cum hung from my mouth like holiday decorations. It was our celebration that glued us together in the swamp of sperm that flooded our bellies. That prescient night, we blissfully slept as brothers with our arms entwined with each other.

The succeeding morning, Jim was gone. In coming years, I was to learn that he ran off with a young surfer lad. Yet I have only gratitude for Jim, who opened the door to a new life for me.

I left that room and walked through prisms of light down the tunnel, out to the ocean and washed and bathed in a sea of wonder.