knew he had changed too, I thought.
“Olsen.” He greeted my mother first, almost shyly, and then bounded up the wooden steps to grab her roughly in his arms.
“Welcome home,” she said with a break in her voice. “Welcome home, Kenny.”
I’d probably have been jealous before, in the vague way I had always been when I knew that he was her favorite. We were her children, Ingrid and I, and he the boss’s son, but he had always been her pet, and she his.
“Ingemar.”
It didn’t register at first. I was staring right at him, waiting for him to greet me, and I saw him look at me and hold out his hand—but I’d never heard that name from him before, and it sounded foreign and strange, like he was talking to someone else—so much so that I almost turned to see who was behind me.
“Mar,” he corrected himself, grinning from ear to ear.
I took his hand then, and returned his shake, but I felt a little of what Pete must have felt. “Welcome back,” I said, smiling and trying to show no feelings except pleasure at seeing him. I must not have succeeded altogether, because I saw Ingrid’s face over his shoulder and for a brief instant she looked pale and—frightened almost. Kenny didn’t notice anything, though. In the past, Kenny had noticed everything. He’d always known just what everyone was feeling or thinking.
“It’s good to be back,” he said to the three of us at once. He put an arm around each of the women, squeezing again as though to assure himself that it was real. He sniffed, wrinkling up his nose in an exaggerated manner as he turned his head back and forth, like a hound on the scent.
“I’m starving,” he declared. “And you’ve been baking, Olsen.”
“Apple pie,” she answered, beaming with motherly pride.
“What’s the occasion?” he asked, his eyes twinkling with mischief.
“Oh, you,” she said, poking him and freeing herself from his embrace. “I’ve a mind to let the hogs have it, they always were more grateful than some.”
He’s afraid, I thought again, seeing him glance in the direction of the screen door. He’s got the worst yet before him, and he wishes it didn’t have to be done.
Olsen—I’d picked up that name from Kenny, and she had always been Olsen to me too, never “Mother”—Olsen had seen the glance too, and they grew sober together.
“She didn’t come out,” he said bluntly, looking straight into Olsen’s eyes.
She flushed slightly under the frank gaze. “Your mother’s not been well,” she said. “There’ve been times of late when I thought…” She left unsaid what she had thought, but he understood.
“She knows I’m here?”
“She knew you were coming. Lands, I’d think the whole county would have heard Ingrid’s yelping.” She twisted the dishtowel nervously in her hands, but she did not look away from him, or back down before his stare.
“Will she see me?” It must have been a hard question to ask, especially when you had to ask it about your own mother.
“I think she will. I think she wants to. But she’s been sick, awful sick. If she doesn’t see you just now, you mustn’t think…well, she might not be strong enough just yet.”
“I understand,” he said quietly. She seemed relieved by the answer.
“I’ll tell her you’re here,” Ingrid offered, moving toward the door.
“No.” Olsen stopped her. “No, I’ll do it. You take Kenny into the kitchen. I’ll bet he could use some coffee. And Mar, too.”
“I’m starving, and she offers me coffee,” he protested.
“We eat at six.” No amount of excitement was likely to cause a change in the schedule by which Olsen ran her kitchen. Not even Kenny’s return would change that.
“Still plug up the holes with cotton, I see,” Kenny commented as he held the screen door open for her and poked one of the white tufts that filled the holes where the screen had rusted out.
“Keeps the flies out,” she said, talking over her shoulder as she went in. “Not the oats bugs, though. They was worse than ever this year, like to ate us alive.”
“It’s your cooking draws them,’ he said, letting Ingrid go in before him. He gave me a wink as he followed her, a wink that was just as devilish as it had ever been, five years or no.
For a moment I was left on the porch alone, staring at the screen door and its cotton tufts. Kenny was back. Whether he would stay or not depended upon what happened inside, upon the meeting that was still to come. I didn’t even want to guess what it would be like. I hoped it would be easy and more pleasant than their last one. I hoped that for her sake, that frail old creature waiting inside, knowing, surely, that he was here, and perhaps as frightened as he was. I hoped it for his sake as well—and for my own, too, although I tried not to think about that.
It seemed as if I had a lot that I was trying not to think of just now. I was trying not to remember what it was like to hold a naked young man in my arms. I was holding back the memories, a threatening flood of them, of those times with him, of the feel and taste of another man’s cock, of his ass with the springy cheeks, and what it felt like to be in there, fucking him. Even the smell of him, clean but not spicy, an honest male smell of sweat and hot flesh and muscle—I was trying to forget that, too.
It was pretty silly for me to remember any of it. Especially those times Kenny; and I had shared, when the emotional and physical merged to fill us both with an overwhelming passion. It hurt now to remember, yet the call of the past was strong and sweet and I tested it, feeling my cock stir in response as my mind skittered over many scenes, then settled on one.
Kenny and I were stretched out naked by the swimming hole. The day was hot and we had splashed and played for an hour. Kenny’s body sparkled with droplets of water. I stretched on my side and looked at him as he lay on his back, eyes closed, his hard, lean body bare. I could see the sun drying his skin, tiny bubbles bursting and disappearing as a larger expanse of dryness started at his chest and moved across his flat belly.
I loved looking at him. My eyes traveled downward to his cock and it was as if my own erotic thoughts had become his. He grew hard. His cock rose as I watched it. Our thoughts had been transferred. We were that close, that deeply bound to each other in mind and body.
Kenny stretched his arms over his head, and turned and faced me. He grinned. For some reason, I was suddenly embarrassed.
“It’s good, isn’t it, Mar?” Kenny asked
“What’s good?” I asked, already knowing he was going to say something about us, and how we were together.
“It’s good we’re so damn close,” he said.
“Yes, it is,” I answered. I looked into his eyes, but I still carried a half-vision of his risen cock.
Neither of us said anything more. It wasn’t necessary. In a moment, and in a manner that was quite spontaneous, Kenny hiked his body closer to me.
