AT THE RANCH When I was growing up, my family lived on a ranch where there was always a great deal of work to do. I always enjoyed my chores, although both of my brothers could hardly wait to grow up and move away from the ranch. Neither of them seemed attracted to that way of life. But all of us pitched in, and our spread was one the whole family could be proud of. Then, when I was sixteen, my father died. For awhile, it looked like we would have to sell the ranch. Both of my brothers had left home and were in college. I was still in high school, and with only Mom and myself, we never had enough time to get all the work done. She thought we should sell out and move to the city, but I kept arguing and pleading with her. I hated the idea that we might have to give up the family homestead. Mom felt the same way I did, I think, because eventually she let herself be talked into hiring a man to help us with the chores. His name was Derek and he was twenty-four years old. He worked a long and hard day, always being quietly efficient and always knowing what to do next without having to be told. He was as country-oriented as I was, and loved ranching. Mom quickly learned she could really count on him, and soon she stopped thinking about selling the ranch. Meanwhile, I grew closer to Derek than I had ever been to my real brothers. For the first few weeks, Derek lived in the tack room of the stable. But soon we came to feel so much like family that it only seemed natural to invite him to live in the house with Mom and me. Besides, summer was coming and the house was air conditioned. The tack room was not. So Derek moved his things into my room, making me feel like I had a new brother to share things with. From the first, Derek presented himself as a person who was sure of himself. He never hesitated, he never looked self-conscious, he never wavered in indecision, and he managed this self-control with one of the mildest attitudes I had ever seen. Derek was shy. But he was also bold. He taught me a great deal. The first night he spent in my room was a revelation in itself. I was bent over my desk, doing homework when he walked in, fresh from the shower. He was wearing his towel around his waist and his chestnut brown hair was still dripping onto his shoulders. I looked up, nodded, and went back to work. "What are you writing, Steven?" he asked in that soft voice of his. "Just a paper that's not very interesting" "What do you mean 'not very interesting'? What's it about?" And he walked over to stand at my shoulder, reading over it. He read silently until he noticed that his hair was dripping on me. "Sorry about that, kid," he said, taking the towel from around his waist and drying his hair more thoroughly while continuing to read. The proximity of his nakedness made me really uncomfortable. Knowing he was standing only inches away, I took pains not to look up at him. I bent lower over my work. He probably sensed my discomfort, because he moved away and lay on his bed. After a few minutes he spoke again. "Steven?", I swivelled in my chair to face him. "Are you going to take over the ranch next year or are you going to school?" It was a subject I had thought about for so many weeks. It deserved a good honest answer. But all I could think of at the moment was the fact that he still hadn't put on any clothes. I was careful not to look him in the eye, but my peripheral vision took in his whole body -- a great muscular tanned form lying on its back with a head propped up a pillow. "I want to stay here, and Mom needs the help," I managed to say, "but the teachers and counselor at school think I shouldn't put off taking a degree." He nodded understanding. "Besides, if I don't take the scholarship next year, I don't know if they'll offer it to me again." "Yeah, it's tough trying to decide." While we talked on, his eyes would move here and there, always returning to mine to make a point or listen closely to what I was saying. But my eyes stayed on his face. I think he noticed this and figured out the problem. "Tell me something, Steven. Does it bother you, my not wearing a robe or something?" "Of course not!" I think my face must have reddened, but my eyes stayed glued to his. "I've been in gym classes all my life. Why should it matter?" I feigned nonchalance. What I didn't tell him was that my brothers and I had never been naked around one another. I had never seen my father undressed. I never even saw my mother in a nightgown. His nudity was a shock to me. But I tried hard to appear cool. "I usually sleep in pajamas," I cracked. "Is that going to bother you?" "I'll get used to it." He smiled a warm smile. "Good night, Steven. Thanks for sharing your room with me." He pulled the sheet over himself, turned out the bedside light and rolled on his side to sleep. I went back to work. That set the pattern of our nighttime conversations. We would always discuss my future and what I thought I wanted out of life. Somehow, during these talks, Derek became my idol. He never said anything profound or did anything superhuman, but the quiet consistency of his work and his ever-smiling attitude became attributes that I wanted to acquire. I even became easy with his nudity. As the days progressed, I felt comfortable enough to let my gaze wander over him as he lay prone on the bed. His physique was really remarkable and I'm sure, added to my hero worship. The long hours working at ranch routine gave him muscular arms and a powerful chest. His waist was thin, and his stomach had a washboard effect. He had long legs with especially strong thighs from many hours in the saddle. All in all, it was a body I could wish for myself. Derek never seemed to mind that I spent long moments looking at his body. Most of the time he didn't seem to notice. And when he did, it was just in passing and he never called my attention to it by word or glance. Ours was a nice easygoing relationship. I did feel like a voyeur every morning, however. I would always wake ahead of Derek and the alarm clock. In the first light of the sun, I would lie in bed and watch him sleep. He slept in every possible position. And every morning, without fail, he had a huge erection. I had never seen a man's erection before. Except my own, of course. Derek was built much bigger than me, and the sight of his cock, erect and bobbing in pendulous hugeness, always filled me with sort of a vague envy as well as a vaguer stimulation. Sometimes I got hard just looking at him. One morning I awoke to find Derek lying on his back, sprawled half off the bed with his top sheet strewn off the footboard. His cock was stretching and waving toward the ceiling. I had awakened with a hard-on of my own, and found myself grinding it between my stomach and the mattress, looking at his body across the room. Unthinking and not fully conscious, I continued rubbing against the sheet until I was very near coming. Then I saw that he was awake and watching me. I froze. Our eyes met. I hopped off the bed and aimed for the door to the hallway bathroom. He hopped up at the same time and grinned. "Good morning. I see you woke with the same idea I did." And he gestured toward my pajama bottoms, which were tenting outward. He quickly stepped into a pair of underwear and jammed his erection into it. Wrapping a towel around his waist-- I'm sure for my mother's benefit, in case she was up-- he pretended to wrestle me toward the door. "I'll race you for the cold shower." And he half raced and half pushed me down the hall to the bathroom, both of us laughing and feeling good. "You go ahead first," he said as he closed the bathroom door behind us. "I'll shave." He turned to the sink and started getting out the lather, blade, and so on. I stripped of my pajamas and got in the shower. I always a take hot shower, no matter what. I did that morning too. As the steam started to fill his shaving mirror, he called to me. "Hey, I though you needed a *cold* shower." And he laughed. I could hear the squeaking as he rubbed the mirror. I lathered all over and looked down at myself. My erection had softened a little. "Hey yourself," I called, "I thought you needed a cold shower." I splashed water over the curtain at him. Before I knew what had happened, a hand came through the curtain and turned the water setting to the coldest temperature. I howled and grabbed at the faucet with one hand and at his hand with the other. We fought with the faucet until the curtain was half-open and water was all over the floor. As we wrestled, I got him into a headlock and forced his face under the shower's stream. He was laughing. "I give up. I give up," he said gasping. With that, he stepped into the bathtub and closed the curtain, straightening up under the gush of water. I had released my hold on him and my arms were sort of sliding down from around his neck. He was still wearing his underwear, now soaked, but by his closeness I could feel that his erection had not subsided at all. It pulsed again mine. I dropped my arms and moved a step away from him. Derek turned into the spray of water and stripped off his jockey shorts. "I guess I don't need these in here," he laughed. As he stood with his back to me, I looked closely at his muscles, his tan line, the smooth roundness of his ass. I wanted to touch him badly. Without turning around, Derek spoke. "Wash my back?" he asked in a low voice. I hesitated and then reached for the soap. Working up a lather, I stroked his shoulders and the backs of his arms, his strong shoulder blades and the small of his back. There I stopped. I let my hadn't rest at his waist and slowly I leaned my forehead in against his neck. "Don't stop, Steven," he murmured as the water splashed down about our heads. "Keep going. It feels good." I worked my hand slowly down to his hips, rubbing in small circles. He twisted his head to speak right into my ear. "You've wanted to touch me for a long time. It's okay." At those words I felt something release inside of me. I knew what I wanted and I knew that what I wanted was really okay. I let one hand move around to Derek's stomach, circling just above his pubic hair. My other hand circled onto his ass an felt the hard muscles packed into those orbs. My hand drew the line of the fold in his ass many times, working deeper and deeper with every pass, until my hand was reaching between his legs, tickling the bag that contained his testicles. Derek moved his legs, spreading them. I responded, pressing my stomach along the length of his side. Derek put one arm around my waist, as he submitted to my touch and curiosity. My own cock stretched across Derek's stomach. As one hand fondled his balls from behind, my other traced the line on the horse cock stretching out before me. Both of us watched my fingers run up and down the cock, pressing it this way and that. Then I grasped it, first exerting pressure and then releasing it. Derek moaned and closed his eyes. I had never felt this for a man before. Never even fantasized about it. But as both of my hands kept busy massaging and stroking, I leaned my lips to his cheek and kissed him lightly. He smiled and moved his head, making my next peck an off-center mouth-to-mouth. I leaned forward an inch more and we kissed for real. As the water splashed about our bodies, our arms brought us into an embrace. Our erect cocks were pressed between our bellies. We kissed deeply and ground our stomachs together, breathing heavily. Hands found asses. Tongues found tonsils. Cocks found stimulation until we both shuddered in orgasm almost simultaneously, clutching at each other's bodies there in the shower. It took several moments for us to recover. Smiling broad smiles of contentment, we splashed each other's stomachs and hurried to complete our showers and shaves. We could smell breakfast waiting. Derek and I settled into a routine of sex. Almost every night we would discover and re-discover each other's bodies. And he would let me look and touch, to my heart's content, even when neither of us was really in the mood for a heavy session. When summer came and I was out of school, Derek and I found lots of time to explore each other out of doors. I'll never forget the first day I ever tried oral sex. We'd been herding a few strays back into their pasture and had finally completed the task. Derek suggested a quick dip in the pond before we went back to the house for supper. Under the blue of a clear sky, we tethered the horses and exhilarating in the feel of the breeze on our naked skin. As always, just seeing him excited me. Watching him stretch his legs and arms, bending this way and that. my cock grew erect immediately. He noticed and smiled. We walked down to the pond and dove in. After a few minutes of energetic swimming, we both settled on a little grassy area nearby. Derek stretched out on his stomach and I lay on my side next to him. I stroked his back from his neck to his thighs several times before he responded by gyrating his hips slightly. Then he turned over to expose his fully aroused cock. I' put my head on Derek's stomach and watched my hand at close range as It played with that giant tumescense -- probing, stroking and teasing. "Use your tongue on me, Steven," Derek said. The tone made it a request. I continued playing with his cock, thinking. Then I shifted a little closer and let my tongue play out and lick the very tip of his cock. Mmmmmm, I couldn't tell what I was smelling or what I was tasting, but I knew I liked it. I let my tongue lick around the blood-engorged head. Derek moaned and his hips began a gentle rocking motion. Trying it out, I rose above him and let the end of his cock find its way into my mouth. He rocked and moved it slowly in and out, while I balanced above, accommating his movements as best I could. Almost immediately he pulled my head away from his cock. I could see he was about to come. Instinctively, I pulled my head free from his hand and went down on his cock as far as I could go, sucking his cum in spurts. Derek gasped, his legs spasmed, and his hands grasped my head to him as he climaxed more powerfully than I had ever seen him do before. And so Derek and I added a new element to our lovemaking, as eventually we added so many others.