Since Joe had gotten killed it had become a common thing for me to end up sitting on the porch by myself in the evening. I was awfully lonely these days. Neil, my best and only real friend, who was Joe's son, had gone to live with his grandparents up in Albuquerque. I'd left Tom sitting at the kitchen table staring morosely at the big Longhorn bull's head hanging on the living room wall. Its glass eyes staring drowsily back at him. I don't know why the taxidermist made him look that way; he damned sure didn't when he was alive; his look back then had been alert and mean.

That night started off the same as every evening. I'd cleaned up from our supper, which I'd cooked, and had thrown most of the food on Tom's plate in the slop pail; I'd give it to the pig in the morning. Tom was still sitting at the table, hands in his lap, head bowed. I sighed and shuffled out to the porch to sit a while before going to bed. When I got tired of sitting by myself, I went in and pulled out a chair and sat down across from Tom. He had pulled out the bottle of whiskey which now sat open in front of him. He held an empty shot glass in his hand. Tom had rarely drank before Joe's death. He glanced at me, poured a jiggerful and slowly sipped it and went back to staring at the bull's head. He downed three jiggers while I sat across from him and silently watched.

"You going to drink yourself into a stupor again?" I asked.

He'd drunk until he passed out a couple of weeks ago and swore he'd never touch the stuff again. I guess the pain of his loss just got to be too much to handle. I figured he held himself responsible for Joe's death. It really wasn't. Joe was a grown man. He had known that bull was a killer. Besides, Tom wasn't even there when the bull got him. Tom ignored me. He glanced despondently at his glass and went back to staring at the bull's head, occasionally taking a sip of the whiskey.

Eventually, I got bored waiting for him to say something, got up and headed to bed. I shucked out of my shirt as I walked toward the stairs. I knew my pants were hanging half off my sixteen year old butt. I doubted whether Tom would notice and get a kick out of it. When I was younger he'd joke with me about wearing my pants like that, and stick his finger it the top of my crack making me squeal. But when I hit puberty he stopped. I know he still looked, because I'd caught him a couple of times. He'd just grin and shake his head. But that was before Joe's death. Now nothing seemed to delight him. I glanced back at him. He didn't even seem to have noticed that I wasn't sitting in front of him any longer.

It was a hot, still August night. I could feel the heat coming out of the walls. My window and door were open to let any cross breeze through. I was half way dozing off, lying on my stomach, bare-assed like I had slept my whole life, even in winter, but of course in the cold months I had a pile of blankets that I slept under. Now even a sheet was too much. I felt like I was being watched and raised my head to see Tom standing in the doorway looking at me. "Are you okay, Tom?" I asked.

He just stood there with his shirt in his hand, staring at my sixteen year-old body. He wouldn't look me in the eye. Over the last four years, since I'd started jacking off, I'd had lots of fantasies about Tom. Seeing the smoldering lust in his blood-shot eyes had me lusting after him even more. My dick was hard against the mattress. I really wanted him to make love to me. I thought the time had come even if he was drunk. I knew in my demented sixteen year old mind he'd never touch me, even drunk, unless I did something to push him over the edge.

I squeezed my butt cheeks making dimples and then made little fucking motions, clinching and releasing. I was very aware of Tom staring. I stared back at his hairy pecs, his brown nipples peeking through all that curly brown hair made my dick even harder as I rubbed it against the sheet.

Tom dropped his shirt in the doorway and moved to sit on the edge of my bed, down by my feet. He laid a big calloused hand on my butt cheek. I could see the lust in his red bleary eyes. He'd never touched me this way before. For the last six years the only physical contact I could remember from this big beautiful man was an occasional pat on my back or a ruffling of my hair.

At sixteen, I was still a virgin. I'd seen a magazine once with pictures of men having sex with other men, One of the boys at school said he'd found it. We all looked at the pictures and made derogatory comments about queers. I never let on that I liked what I saw. I figured I'd probably never get a chance to try any of it, anyway. I'd caught Joe and Tom in a passionate embrace once in the barn when they thought they were alone. They were kissing and rubbing their hands all over each other's body. I was only twelve and I got embarrassed and left before they saw me. But after that, I often dreamed that Tom was making love to me like that.

I could see that if something was going to happen I was going to have to be the aggressor. Tom was not going to do more than what he was doing. I raised up and knelt beside him. It was then that he finally looked me in the eyes. Mixed with the lust in his eyes was a faraway lost look. Like he was reminiscing, maybe about Joe. I ignored it and smiled at him as I moved toward him. His expression didn't change; he didn't move away either. So I placed a hand on his chest and ran my fingers through the thick curly hair. Tom closed his eyes and moaned. I moved up closer so I could rub against him and placed my lips against his. I was hoping he'd respond 'cause I'd never kissed anyone before. I didn't know what to do from there.

I felt Tom's arms come up and embrace me. With one hand behind my head he commenced to kiss me, forcing his tongue between my lips. I automatically opened my mouth and allowed his tongue to explore. God, what a turn on. My other hand came up of its own volution and clasped the back of his head as I took over the kiss, forcing my tongue into his mouth.

Suddenly he pushed me away, wiping his hand across his mouth. "Stop it, Billy. I'm more'n twice as old as you. This isn't right. You're a minor. You want me to go to jail?"

I was crestfallen and feeling like a fool. I knew it was wrong. I knew that Tom could get into bad trouble letting me have my way with him if anyone ever found out about it. As I looked into his red bleary eyes I felt like a turd for having tried to seduce him. Still, if he would've given in I'd have gone through with it. I've loved Tom for as long as I can remember. Tears dribbled down my cheeks.

"I'm sorry Tom. I know it isn't right. I just love you so much. And it hurts me to see you so sad all the time since Joe died. I want to love you like Joe loved you."

"What do you know about that?"

The hostility in his voice hurt. I sat back on the bed and pulled the sheet over my nakedness. For some reason I couldn't look at him.

"I may be young, but I'm not dumb. I could see how you two felt toward each other."

Tears leaked from his eyes. I had made him cry now and that made me feel even worse.

"I'm sorry Tom, I didn't mean to make you cry. I only wanted to love you."

"Com'mere, kid." His voice was gruff with emotion. He grabbed my arms and pulled me into a bearhug. I wrapped my arms around his thick neck and buried my face against his shoulder. He hadn't cried for Joe but once, until now, and that was right after he was killed. His body shook as he clung to me.

At sixteen I had only just begun my growth spurt. A couple of years down the road I'd be taller than Tom. But I'd most likely be a bean pole like my dad. Tom was just over six feet tall, wide shoulders and narrow hips. He weighed around two hundred pounds with very little of it being fat. I was still only about five eight and a hundred and twenty pounds. So you can kind of guess what I felt like with him hugging me and crying uncontrollably. Kind of helpless, wanting to console him, but all I could do was rub the back of his head and neck and mumble soothing sounds to him while he clung to me.

When he finally pulled himself together a little, he let go of me and I sat beside him leaning into his side with his arm around me.

"The worlds a darker place without his smile," he sighed.

"Yeah, Joe smiled more'n any one I know."

"I sure do miss him, Billy. I sure do."

"I do too. And I miss Neil just as much."

"I know you do. Maybe we could drive up to Albuquerque to see him some time. Haven't been up there since Joe and I were in college."

"That would be nice, Tom," I said, knowing it would probably never happen. Getting away just wasn't something that happens on a ranch like ours.

"We'd better get to bed. Cows don't like to wait for their morning milking." He stood up and stretched. I was embarrassed to be looking at his fine body, admiring his hairy chest, after just failing to seduce him, but I looked anyway. I always did a little hope type prayer that when I grow up that I'll have a hairy chest like his. He ran his fingers through my hair messing it up more'n it was. Not like I kept it combed or anything. I love for him to do that.

"Thanks, Billy. You know I love you. Don't you?"

I looked up at him. His eyes were red and puffy, but that terrible sad look was gone, at least for the moment. "I love you, too, Tom."

"I know you do, Son. Good night."

That gave me a hard knot in my throat. I couldn't reply as he walked out of my bedroom. In the twelve years I had lived with him he'd never called me son. Yet he was the only father I had ever really known. I sat there for a long time after I heard him turn out his light, thinking about my life up 'til then.