He was sitting on the sofa across from Andy, who was sitting in an armchair by the window, and after a short lull in the conversation, Andy leaned forward in his chair, looked at Ferguson for a long moment, and then asked, apropos of nothing: Do you ever jerk off, Archie?
Ferguson, who had been a dedicated onanist for close to a year and a half, answered the question promptly. Of course, he said. Doesn’t everyone?
Maybe not everyone, Andy replied, but almost everyone. It’s perfectly natural, n’est-ce pas?
If you’re too young for real sex, what else can you do?
And what do you think about, Archie? I mean, what goes through your head while you’re jerking off?
I think about naked women and how nice it would be to be naked with a naked woman instead of jerking off into the toilet.
Sad.
Yes, a little sad. But it’s better than nothing.
And has anyone ever jerked you off? One of your high school girlfriends, maybe?
No, I can’t say I’ve had the pleasure.
I have — a few times.
Well, you’re older than I am. It makes sense that you’ve had more experiences.
Not many experiences. Just three, in fact. But I can tell you it’s a lot better when someone else does it to you than when you do it yourself.
I can believe that. Especially if the girl knows what she’s doing.
It doesn’t have to be a girl, Archie.
What’s that supposed to mean? Are you saying you don’t like girls?
I like girls very much, but they don’t seem to like me. I don’t know why, but I’ve never had any luck with them.
So you’ve been jerked off by boys?
Just one boy. George, my friend from Stuyvesant, who never had any luck with girls either. So last year we decided to experiment — just to see what it felt like.
And?
It was great. We jerked each other off those three times, and we both decided that it doesn’t matter who does it to you. A girl or a boy — the feeling is the same, and who cares if it’s a girl’s hand or a boy’s hand wrapped around your dick?
I never thought about it that way.
No, I hadn’t either. It’s what I would call a major discovery.
Why just three times, then? If you and George liked it so much, why did you stop?
Because George is at the University of Chicago now, and he’s finally found himself a girlfriend.
Too bad for you.
I suppose, but George isn’t the only person in the world. There’s you, Archie, and if you’d like me to do it to you, I’d be happy to jerk you off. Just so you’ll know what I’ve been talking about.
But what if I don’t want to jerk you off? Maybe George liked doing that, but I don’t think I’d be interested. Nothing against you, Andy, but I really do like girls.
I would never ask you to do something you don’t want to do. That would be wrong, and I don’t believe in pressuring people. It’s just that you’re such a nice boy, Archie. I like being with you, I like looking at you, and I would love to be able to touch you.
Ferguson told him to go ahead. He was curious, he explained, and Andy could jerk him off if he wanted to, but just this once, he added, and only if they turned out the lights and pulled down the shades, for a thing like that had to be done in the dark, so Andy stood up from his chair and one by one turned out the lights and pulled down the shades, and once he had completed those tasks, he sat down on the sofa next to the anxious, slightly panicked Ferguson, unzipped the younger boy’s pants, and dug in.
It felt so good that Ferguson started to moan, within seconds his soft and nervous penis began to stiffen and grow progressively longer with each stroke of the older boy’s hand, which was a skilled and deeply knowledgeable hand, Ferguson thought, a hand that seemed to know precisely what a dick needed and wanted on its journey from slumber to arousal and beyond, the exquisite back-and-forth between rough and gentle manipulations, so good, he said, when Andy asked him how it felt, and then Ferguson unbuckled his belt and slipped his pants and jockey shorts down to his knees, giving the wondrous hand more room to operate, and suddenly the other hand was on him as well, playing with his balls as the first hand worked on what was now a full-scale erection, Ferguson’s fifteen-year-old cock at the very limit of where it could go, and once again Andy asked him how it felt, but this time Ferguson could only grunt forth a wordless response as the pleasure spread through his thighs and up into his groin and the journey to beyond was done.
Now you know, Andy said.
Yes, now Ferguson knew.
Just two and a half minutes, Andy said.
The best two and a half minutes of his life, Ferguson thought, and then he glanced down at his shirt, which was visible now that his eyes had adjusted to the dark, and saw that it was splattered with the stains of his ejaculation.
Damnit, he said. Look at my shirt.
Andy smiled, patted Ferguson on the head, and then leaned over and whispered into his ear: D. H. Lawrence comes in torrents when his Balzac with desire.
Ferguson, who had never heard that old college ditty, let out a long squeal of surprised laughter. Then Andy recited the dirty limerick about the young man from Kent, another classic that was not yet familiar to Ferguson, and the young innocent, who was rapidly losing his innocence, burst out laughing again.
When calm was restored, Ferguson pulled up his pants and rose from the couch. Well, he said, I guess I should rinse out this shirt, and as he started walking from the living room to the kitchen, undoing the buttons as Andy stood up and followed him, he explained that the shirt was new, a birthday present from his mother and stepfather, and he had to get the spots out or else find himself in the unpleasant position of being asked questions he would prefer not to answer. Strike fast, he said, remove the stains before they settled into the fabric, and destroy the evidence.
As the two of them stood at the sink together, Andy asked Ferguson if he was a one-and-done sort of guy or someone with the staying power to go an extra round or two. Ferguson, who had forgotten all about just this once, asked him what he had in mind. Something good, Andy said, unwilling to reveal the secret, but he assured Ferguson that it would surpass the pleasures of the living room sofa and make him feel even better than he did now.
The stains were concentrated on the bottom part of the shirt, from the midpoint of the shirt tails to an area between the second and third buttons, and Andy washed them out for Ferguson, quite quickly as it happened, with little scrubbing required, and when the job was done, Andy carried the wet shirt into his bedroom and put it on a hanger, which he looped over the knob on the closet door. There you go, he said. Good as new.
Ferguson was touched by the sweetness of that small gesture, which showed how thoughtful and considerate Andy was, and Ferguson enjoyed being doted on in that way, cared for by someone kind enough to wash out his shirt and put it on a hanger for him, not to mention the kindness to jerk him off without asking to be jerked off in return. Whatever qualms or hesitations Ferguson might have felt in the beginning were gone now, and when Andy suggested he take off his clothes and lie down on the bed, Ferguson happily took off his clothes and lay down on the bed, anticipating the next good thing that was about to be done to him. He understood that most people would have frowned on what he was doing, that he had entered the dangerous territory of forbidden, deviant impulses, Faggot-Land in all its corrupting, lascivious glory, and that if anyone found out he had traveled to that wicked country he would be mocked and hated and possibly even beaten up for it, but no one was ever going to find out because no one would ever be told, and even if it had to remain a secret, it would never be a dirty secret, for what he was doing with Andy didn’t feel dirty to him, and what he felt was all that mattered.