Decatur

This story is fictional and intended for adults only.

Copyright, Boy Mercury X, 2024.

Nifty is a free service that depends on your donations to survive. Please give generously at http://donate.nifty.org/donate.html

You can email me at boymercuryx@gmail.com.

I'm on Twitter @TheMercuryJones, and on Tumblr at www.tumblr.com/the-mercury-jones.

I hope you enjoy the story, and I'd love to hear from you.

DECATUR

After about 2 years together I agreed to visit my husband Will's family down south, the ones on his mother's side, the Syrians. Like so many things involving her, I hadn't been warned that his mother would be coming too. That was all part of my disinclination, but by the time I found out it was too late to back out without giving offense.

His two sisters couldn't come, so it was just the three of us. They were older than Will, and pretty much moved on with life by the time he was born, the last chance for a son to carry on the family name, or that's what Dolores expected.

She'd never cared for me, not from the first. Maybe if I'd been cautioned about some of her ways and, to put it most kindly, antiquated views, I could have done a better job. But Will never gave me a clue. He just smiled the whole time, and even afterwards when I asked what the hell was that, he smiled some more like it was the most normal thing in the world.

That was his solution to 99% of our problems, to just smile.

Sometimes I didn't know how we'd make it.

I wasn't always the easiest person to like, but I could turn it on. I worked as the deputy director for a legal aid for immigrants and refugees organization. Most of my job was talking with major donors and partners, and sometimes unruffling feathers. That took some skill. But somehow none of my tricks worked on Dolores. If anything, every attempt seemed to inflame her.

I thought if anything, as a first generation American I thought she'd value my work. Instead the things she said about immigrants just appalled me.

I'd never figure out how such a hard case had such a sweet son as Will. It might have been his father showing up in him, a descendant of a Mayflower family, which you'd think would make him the more uptight of the two. But for the brief time I knew him before he passed, he was mild and gentle as milk. His wife was more WASP than the WASP.

Will wasn't without his moments. It turned out he had a temper, though it showed only rarely. He'd kicked a trash can so hard once it was nearly useless from being bent. Another time he even took a swing at our cat, but missed. I told him if he did that again I'd do the same to something he cared about, and he never did again. I learned he got in a lot of trouble for getting into fights - physical fights - with other little kids.

Sometimes I thought I needed to get out, that I was wasting my one and only life, and wasting his too. He'd never communicate the way I wanted. I'd always have to live with uncertainty. At other times I thought he was the most handsome and kind man in the world and I didn't deserve him. I'd ask him at those times why he even liked me, and he'd say he just did. As if that told me anything.

All the back and forth of feelings, between adoration and exhaustion. I wondered if that was what marriage was.

We landed in Atlanta and went to Will's Aunt Ruth's house, in Decatur. I was shocked at how unlike her sister Dolores she was. Just a tiny gnome-like thing with a shock of puffy white hair. I asked politely what I should call her and she said "Oh, well, Aunt Ruth! That's what everyone else does!"

Like Dolores she was a widow. She had only one son because they never could have more children. She had a tiny house, but on a lot and a half, and over time she'd created a virtual wildlife habitat on it. There were trees she'd put in the ground before I was born that now were home to multitudes of birds and squirrels, and tiny flowers and huge shrubs of every kind. There were gurgling water features and rocky areas, and a little swing under a tree in dappled shade. Every morning she'd spend time refiling her various feeders, and her afternoons tending to the green growing things.

Unlike Dolores, who was always dressed and groomed impeccably - even I had to admit - Aunt Ruth's style was more happenstance. Her pants and flowery shirts looked to be pulled on at random, and she wore stubby boyish sneakers to amble around in her garden. Her home was filled with mismatched pieces, and there were half finished projects everywhere, puzzles she meant to get back to and needlepoint barely begun.

Aunt Ruth set us up in a room in the basement that had been her husband's study. He was a history professor at Emory and there were still stacks of his books and papers around the room and on his desk, as if he'd meant to get back to them all but didn't have a chance. There was an air mattress for us, for which she apologized, but there were only two proper beds.

As we settled in I saw something scurry against the wall near our mattress and moved on it. It was the biggest bug I'd ever seen in my life. It looked like a cockroach, but several times the size.

"Will! WILL!" I said, as I blocked its way with some handy books, cornering it, with a final book on top to contain it.

"There's no way I'm sleeping with that in this room," I said.

I devised a plan to get rid of it.

I went upstairs thinking Ruth and Dolores would be in their own beds, to get a glass in which to capture it. But Ruth caught me and asked what I needed.

"Oh I was just looking for a glass," I said.

"Are you thirsty?" she asked. "There's cold water in the refrigerator."

I realized after the fact I could have taken the water, drank it and then used the glass for my own purposes. But I didn't have my wits about me.

"Well no," I mumbled, "there's a... kind of bug downstairs. I was going to catch it and put it outside."

"A BUG?" asked Aunt Ruth. She picked up her old kitchen broom, almost as tall as she was, and we went downstairs.

She took a look at the insect and told Will to lift one of the books that walled it in, and when he did she jabbed the broom at the bug hard, harder than I'd have guessed she had it in her. She did that until it was beaten senseless. Then she turned the broom around to jab at the bug with the end of the handle until it crunched.

"That's what you do with a bug in the south," Ruth announced to me, wrapping an arm around me and giggling like a girl.

Will smiled his smile without saying a word. Another thing I'd been unprepared for.

The next morning there was coffee, eggs, donuts, pita and hummus. Aunt Ruth had a middle eastern place she liked for her pita and some other goods. She and Dolores and their brothers had all been born in the US and were more American than American, but there were foods they held to. Good pita was one, even if only store bought, and kibbeh was another.

"It's a ground meat and bulgur wheat thing," Will told me. "It's Syria's national dish."

To be honest it was hard to keep in mind he was Syrian at all, with his pale creamy complexion, his Mayflower family name and suburban upbringing. His mother was much lighter skinned than her sister, and his father was blond, so I guess that's how that happens.

I mentioned it offhandedly to Aunt Ruth, that I forgot sometimes Will was Syrian. She said that when he was born his hair was so dark and curly that the black nurse at the hospital said he looked more like one of hers.

Dolores has a pinched face as the story was recounted, but eased up a bit and added "She said you could really tell by the nails. But I don't know."

With the family reunion the next day there'd be kibbeh made, and mujaddara, and hummus and baba ganoush and mountains of tabbouleh, as well as deviled eggs and potato salad and ham, and sliced tomatoes. Will said he'd make biscuits, and Dolores wanted to make her green pea salad.

Aunt Ruth put us to work on preparing the house, bringing up folding chairs from the basement, and cleaning the carpeting. Honestly I never knew there could be so much to do for having family over. My own parents split when I was young and neither were suited to parenting. I grew up slapdash, with a succession of family members, never knowing for how long I'd be with one, or why one day or night I'd be moved to another.

Maybe that was part of what Dolores didn't like about me. She'd made a prize of a son, smart, kind, hard working and, to be honest, pretty gorgeous. She ought to have gotten a pretty and demurring daughter in law out of it, one to domineer and train up in her image. Instead she had me: a long and lanky man, with divorced lower class parents, at turns too clever, too sarcastic, and sometimes too easily hurt for my own good.

Given my start I thought I'd done well, professionally and personally. When I became deputy director Will bought me a cowboy style deputy badge to mark the occasion. I was often happy, liked at work, and could navigate with moneyed donors with surprising ease. But I didn't meet Dolores's standards. Sometimes I thought she could see right through me to the darker seams that were twined in my pride and accomplishment.

I liked the look of Will working. Not for the sake of the work, but because he was so capable. He was always so fit, and I liked to see the flow of muscle in his arms and back. When he got sweaty and stripped off his t-shirt, tucking it back into the rear of his shorts I was hot and bothered about his chest and belly.

When his mother and aunt weren't looking I took chances to grope him, winking when he turned at me in surprise. He had reason. We hadn't been very physical for a while.

"That's what you get for going shirtless," I whispered.

That night in bed I could barely keep my hands off of him.

I loved his curly dark hair and how his barely visible veins traced under his skin like marble. And how when he got sweaty - or had a little to drink - how he'd get these arrow shaped patches of red on his jaw. But I had another priority.

"Tell me again who's coming to the reunion," I asked him. "And especially tell me the influencers."

I took his glasses off and put them on, shocked as I always was at how strong they were. I didn't know how he could see a thing without them.

"The influencers?" he laughed.

"Who are the ones I have to make a good impression on."

"I don't know," Will replied. "Just be yourself. Everyone will love you."

Ugh, as if my experience with his mother hadn't taught me that being myself with this family was the exact wrong thing to do.

Instead I planned the get-together like a work event with VIPs, prying details from Will about who the gossips were, who held sway, who would come off sweet as could be but would stab you in the back as soon as you turned away. For god's sake, it was Atlanta. They specialized in coded language and passive aggressive manners.

In the end I had my list. And for all my faults, when it was time to show up, even into a room of sharks, I didn't back down.

The David family descended on Aunt Ruth's tiny house - or the Daoud family, as they'd been before their surname was Americanized. They filled her home not only with their bodies but even more with their clamorous talk and bounding laughter.

There were five of the elder David siblings, Dolores and Aunt Ruth and their three brothers. Each married non-Syrians, and except for Dolores all their spouses were southerners from various states. They had children, who in turn had more children, as well as various in-laws, exes, cousins and hangers on. The house was like an auditory museum of southern accents. I never realized quite how different they could all be.

I made sure to pay my respects to each of the elders, and more importantly to the brother's wives. I was asked more questions about myself in the first hour than I had been by Dolores in the decade plus of being with her son.

Will had nearly a dozen first cousins, but of them only four were boys. They all looked more Syrian than Will.

The oldest, Aaron Junior, had dirty blond hair and a beard, but darker skin. He was portly but carried it handsomely. He'd made his money behind the scenes in Hollywood and then came back home. He looked to me like he'd learned a lot there, all warmth and honeyed charm, not revealing too much about himself but in dribs and drabs, and watchful. I'd want to watch out for him.

There were the twin brothers, Tom and Tim, swarthy with glossy black hair on their muscled forearms. They were the tallest people there, and sharply dressed, ladies men. They spent half their time razzing each other, at least partially for everyone's entertainment.

And finally Jim, Aunt Ruth's son. In looks he was the most like Will, about 5'9", curly haired, but not with Will's muscle. He was the most amiable and dry witted of them all. In looks he was the most "Let me know when you've had enough of Ruth's overcooked green beans," he said, "I'll take you guys out for a rescue meal."

To my own surprise I found myself enjoying the day. It turned out there was almost nothing I couldn't ask that someone - or multiple someones - weren't happy to tell a story about, pulling it from what I imagined to be their shared catalog of well trod tales, knowing precisely when to pause, which details to hold, when to drop a punchline.

I did regret asking once of the elders if growing up they'd felt any stigma from being Syrian, the children of immigrants.

"We didn't think about it that way," said Aaron Sr., Dolores's eldest brother. "That was a different time. We just tried to fit in as best we could, to get by."

But they knew what I did for a living, and I trusted they understood my interest.

Ruth did volunteer that she was detained at an airport right after 9/11 on a trip to visit her sister, and they went through her bags. "They said it was a random check, but I didn't believe it. And all I had in my carry-on bag was a container of tabbouleh I was bringing to Dolores."

"Jesus, Ruth," groaned her son Jim. "You brought tabbouleh on a plane right after 9/11? And you're surprised you got detained? Why didn't you just wear a bomb vest?"

He put his face in his hands and everyone laughed, including Aunt Ruth, who swung her legs back and forth in her seat.

I picked up bits of stories all around the house, like when Aaron Sr. graduated medical school and stayed out all night, sneaking back home at the crack of dawn. His father had been sitting up all night waiting and when he spotted him he said, "Oh good, you're up early for church," and then made him endure morning mass.

And more than once I heard Aunt Ruth recount to some new circle, "He was going to put it in a glass! To put it outside!" followed by a round of howls. From anyone else it might have hurt my pride, but instead I was flattered I'd made it into the family lore.

I'd never seen Dolores herself look so amused as on that day, sitting there with her siblings, being doted on. I noticed at one point as the day went on that her wig had come askew. She'd had chemotherapy some years ago, which left her bones brittle, and her hair never did come back in a satisfying way.

I went looking for Will and found him in the kitchen with Aunt Ruth, whispering and noshing and giggling.

"Will," I said, "Your mother's wig is... crooked. Go help her."

He shrugged and said she was fine, but I insisted. "Be discreet," I urged him.

He went to sit next to Dolores and wrapped an arm around her, and then ever so gently at the most opportune moment tugged her wig into place. I suppose if anyone was watching closely they'd have noticed, but in the end she looked right, which I knew she cared about.

It broke my heart a little to see him do it so ably and tenderly that even she didn't realize what had happened. I wondered, if we made it to that age together, would we prop each other up in that way?

"I'm sorry I never met your husband," I said to Aunt Ruth, feeling shame for having been so distant. I could be a real asshole.

"Oh well, me too," she said. "He was a nice man."

We stood there in silence for a moment together, and then she suddenly busied herself, moving empty food trays and pulling out full ones.

"Y'all want some more kibbeh?" she called out, prompting a round of Yes ma'ams.

That night, after everyone left I was too giddy to sleep, though Will was exhausted. All that talking took it out of him, in the same way it invigorated me.

"I loved hearing all their Southern accents coming out of those Syrian faces," I said.

"The elders look like they're right out of Disney's Aladdin," Will joked.

"But they talk like Foghorn Leghorn," I piled on. "I swear to God, your one uncle called me `son' half a dozen times."

On that note I added that I looked more like them than he did. If you'd asked anyone to guess which of the two of us was a David, they'd have picked me, with my olive complexion and generous nose. In fact I looked a lot like them.

"You never told me they were so much fun," I told him. "They're so lively."

"When we'd visit when I was a kid," Will told me, "they'd dump me with the boy cousins. They were so wild and rough, and competitive. At my house we were supposed to be quiet and behave. I was terrified half the time."

"And the other half of the time?"

"Turned on," he chuckled. "They were all older than me and were at least halfway through puberty as I was just starting to get funny feelings about boys. Aaron - my cousin, not his father Aaron Sr. - he was so handsome. He had this blond chest hair and arm hair, and he was so fit - not like now."

"He doesn't look bad now either," I interjected. In fact of all the cousins he was the most appealing. He exuded confidence.

"Tim and Tom, the brothers... they were like testosterone machines, always trying to beat one another at anything physical, wrestling, smacking each other. It all had this sexual... frizzante about it. Or I thought it did."

"And Jim?"

"He wasn't like the others, but he was sweet and charming and clever, and knew how to get along and manage the others by being funny, maybe because he was so small, he had to."

I looked at the bedsheet to see it tented where Will had an erection.

"Look at that," I said with a grin. "Still a little turned on?"

"Mmm, more by the memory," he said. "I used to jerk off thinking of them sexually... experimenting on me. You know, horny teenager stuff."

"Oh, I do," I said, wrapping my hand around his dick, causing him to sigh.

In fact it turned me on too, to think of those untamed musky boys manhandling Will's body, their darker skin and hairy bodies against his smooth creamy flesh, and the unspoken secret of how he'd wanted whatever they might do even more than did.

"You want to do some sexual experimenting now?" I asked.

When we were first together we were both vers, and I guess still were, but over time Will gravitated to bottoming more and that left me necessarily topping. Well, having a good looking muscle bottom husband wasn't a bad deal, was it?

Even though we hadn't had sex in some time there was still a little travel bottle of lube in our toiletry bag, which miraculously hadn't dried out, like an White-Out bottle you'd sometimes find in an old desk, a relic from an earlier age.

I retrieved it and squeezed some out on my hand, running it between his cheeks and into his hole as I got my mouth on his handsome cock. He had a beautiful cock and it was almost a shame he didn't care to top more with it.

I worked his hole with my fingers, wondering what boyhood fantasy might be running through his head, of big blond cousins with summer tans and golden treasure trails running into their cutoff jeans, or supple handsome twins fighting over access to turns at his holes and which could get him to cum with just their dicks. Or even bookish sweet boys to cuddle with on sleepovers.

I thought of pulling his legs up and onto my shoulders, but I knew he liked it best on his knees, and I didn't think we'd have a long go at it. I was too fevered for him and we'd gone too long without.

I turned over and slid up into him. I heard his sweet gasps and immediately thought How did I ever not want to do this? All the time? Because of how good it felt, and because of how his response played at my heart.

I rode him with a good even pace, feeling his insides ease around my erection, each thrust smoother and easier. His face was on the air mattress, turned to the side, his mouth open and his glasses askew. I leaned against the wall near his head and pounded harder into him, watching his lips part with his deepening breaths.

"Oh keep at it," he groaned.

I could see the muscle in his shoulders and back, white as marble, as he pushed against the mattress for leverage, thrusting his hips back to meet my thrusts.

"Who are you thinking of there?" I asked slyly. "Aaron Junior? Some horny twins wanting to get off in you?"

He snorted but didn't say no, didn't say anything at all in fact.

I reached under him to hold his pec and squeeze at a nipple. "I know they wanted hands on you, to get inside you. You're so fucking irresistable even those hot boys want a piece of you."

He groaned and I fucked him harder and could tell we were both getting close. He started working his cock with a lubed hand, grinding against me, drawing me even further into him as he seemed to flower open, until I was tapping some deep tender spot in him long neglected.

He made a long animal sound, loud enough to be heard, and I clapped a hand over his mouth, but didn't stop plowing his hole.

"Shhhh," I laughed, and he did too into the palm of my hand, but only for a moment, as he groaned again, louder, and he again made animal grunts as he contracted around my cock.

He came in his hand, with loud shudders, as his insides drew a load out of me, pumping it into him until I was drained.

I pulled out, and dropped my weight next to him, the air mattress practically throwing us both off and on the floor.

"Oh my God," I said, kissing him and laughing. "Right in Aunt Ruth's basement room."

"Now how do we wash off?" he asked, his face flush and dewy..

"Oh boy," I sighed, realizing the nearest bathroom was upstairs off the living room. I'd been caught once this trip looking for a glass to catch a bug in, and I had no intent of one-upping that mistake.

"You put on shorts and go wash up," I said. "You need it more than me. I'll tidy up down here and I'll go after you."

We did as I suggested. While Will was gone I thought with admiration for how amazing he was. So athletic at sex, such a great cook, intuitive at anything mechanical or physical, and a voracious reader of history who could tell you what happened, where, on any date. He did everything with a sort of fearlessness.

When I returned he was curled up on the air mattress and I curled up behind him.

"I missed you horribly," he whispered.

"I'm right here," I said, snuggling against him and kissing the smooth skin of his back.

Where else would I be?

The next day we left the sisters to themselves and we went on a city hike, making our way to a cemetery to poke around. These older states than ours had such fascinating cemeteries, and it was hard to not read the headstones, look at the glorious sculpted angels, and not make up stories.

We walked down the paved areas and held hands, found a shade tree to sit under and make out. I gave Will a handjob as we kissed and felt like teenagers again.

Some might have thought it was disrespectful, but I thought it was lovely. I hoped that when we were dead and buried some young couples would walk by our grave, wonder briefly who we were, and then forget us again five minutes later as they made out.

Back at Aunt Ruth's I offered to help her in the kitchen with preparing our dinner, which was leftover from the get-together the day before, and a fresh salad. She asked if I'd had a good time and I almost fell over myself saying yes. I felt right at home, and I thanked her for everything.

"Dolores has her ways," she said, trading carefully. "You should try not to mind them."

"I will," I promised. It has been 12 years, and we seemed at a balance, if not a peace.

"I remember when she was born, I was barely more than a baby myself," Ruth went on. "Our mother died not too long after that. The women said later it was a bad abortion, that she'd had enough babies. That was hard for her, growing up without her mother, and our stepmother wasn't kind. She wanted her own babies, our youngest brothers, and didn't care for raising someone else's. I think Dolores always felt she never got her share of what she deserved, that she was cheated."

"I never knew that," I said. "Will never told me."

"Well, she wouldn't like anyone to talk about it. You know how she likes her appearances, not like some of us!"

Aunt Ruth waved her hands around at her chaotic kitchen and laughed at herself.

"And when she married Will's father, that didn't go so well. They didn't like him marrying a Syrian. She was so pretty too, she looked like Lena Horne. That's why they moved across the country, I always thought. To be away from everyone." She bunched up her face a little bit. "I was sorry I couldn't be there more, to help out."

Will had intimated that she'd been more than just a hard mother. He never said exactly what had gone on in their home, and maybe he couldn't. But it seemed keeping the peace was the most important thing he could do. And I thought that was what Aunt Ruth meant by help out, to take the pressure off of Will, to be a buffer between him and Dolores.

I felt like such a heel. Not so much for anything I'd said or thought about Dolores, but for all my bad faith in Will. Maybe there was a reason he just smiled when I needed him to speak. Maybe he'd learned that saying the wrong thing - saying anything - could bring a rain of wrath on him. Maybe it was his way to get by.

"But I saw what you did," Ruth whispered. She pulled up next to me and wrapped an arm around my waist. "About her wig. You didn't have to, but you did. That was real nice of you, watching out for her like that."

I felt a little choked up. "Sometimes I think I'm just the worst, and I don't know why Will even likes me. But I love your nephew, Aunt Ruth. I truly do."

"I know you do," she said, patting the small of my back. She stood full upright, all five feet or so of her. "Let's get that leftover tabbouleh out."

We had a flight home the next morning. I took a last sit by myself to enjoy the consonant songs of the birds and the play of dappled light and shade in Ruth's garden. And then it was time to go.

I took the aisle seat, Will the middle, and Dolores the window.

The whole plane trip I drowsed in and out of sleep, and every time I woke I'd turn to Will. I'd tap his arm with my knuckle, just to say hi. There was nothing more to say than that. Just hi.

Sometimes it seemed we were only just meeting, again and again, every time, though we'd been beside each other the whole time. Hi. Hi. Hi.

And every time I said it, he'd smile back.

• END -

Thank you for reading. Please share you thoughts, suggestions and ideas with me at boymercuryx@gmail.com.