[Note that this GM novel is completed and will post in twelve chapters by the middle of February 2016.]
Matt Henderson stopped on the border between what was now his property and that of Dashad Wilson. It had been Matt's back acre they'd plowed and sowed to lettuce and spinach today, Matt's now because of the auto accident that had taken his parents late in the spring, just as he was finishing exams.
Dashad had gone ahead to his barn in the old tractor that only he could keep going. Matt could see the big black man walking out of his tumbled-down barn—more a shed than a barn—and stripping off his dirt-caked clothes as he approached his outdoor shower. That's the only thing Matt's parent's weather-beaten bungalow had over Dashad's place. It had running water inside. But it also had a hole up through the rafters in the bathroom from the same hurricane that had swept his parents' car off into a swollen creek, and the place was unsafe as it was. If Matt was going to go back to living there, he'd have some improvements to do. Dashad had told him he'd help—and the black giant had already helped in so many ways—but it seemed he was dragging his feet on this one project. Matt suspected it was because Dashad liked the arrangement of Matt staying with him.
Matt, exhausted from his first-year university exams and in shock over the sudden deaths of his parents, had willingly agreed to move over to Dashad's house during the funeral and visiting period. Dashad lived on the neighboring farmlet at the foot of Mount Rogers north of Whitetop in southwest Virginia on the border with North Carolina. Two months later he was still shacking up at Dashad's.
Dashad had really been good about it—better than Matt had deserved. Matt's father had been pretty open about what he thought of a black man taking over the neighboring acres when the Chalmers left and went into a home together. Matt's father had coveted that land for himself, although they'd never had the money to buy it—especially when Matt started at the University of Virginia up in Charlottesville. But beyond that, Matt's father had said that he couldn't help it, but that a black man owning as many acres as he did and right next door somehow diminished him and the rest of the family. For Matt's mother's part, she was just reserved about the man next door—intimidated by his size and blackness and what she'd been raised to think about black men.
Matt wondered what his parents would have thought about Dashad fucking him even before they had died. He'd been doing it since late in the previous summer. Not being able to keep away from him anymore Matt had walked into Dashad's barn one afternoon, sunk in front of his magnificent, sweaty body to release and suck his jaw-dislocating cock, and then been laid on his back on the hood of an old Ford pickup with his ankles on Dashad's shoulders, and fucked to heaven, Matt panting and writhing at the thickness and hammering vigor of the massive black man. No proposition had been given or received. They coupled by silent, mutual consent. During the first months of Dashad's tenancy next door, Matt had watched Dashad take young men from town and the surrounding farms into his bungalow and fuck their lights out until he could take it no more. He then had made sure he was working shirtless close to Dashad's property until he knew that Dashad had taken notice—and shown interest.
Thinking about what his mother had conveyed in her fear of black men, what they had and were anxious to do with it, without really saying it, as Matt watched the naked black man move under the pipe in his outdoor shower stall and pull on the string opening a stream of water on his body, Matt half smiled and murmured, "And it's all true, Mom."
Matt turned his head and looked at his family home. He spent a few minutes assessing just what needed to be done, in what order. He tried not to consider whether the work would be worthwhile or whether he'd want to live in it after it had been reconditioned. He knew he wouldn't
want
to live in it, but he couldn't see how he was going to avoid it. He hadn't realized how run-down it was before he went off to the university. It was all he'd known before that—other than what he'd seen in those architectural magazines he collected. But they showed residences and skyscrapers that were far beyond the reach of his rural Virginia environment. He had seen two separate worlds then, with no thought to jumping from one to the other. But the world of the architectural magazines had impressed him so much that that was what he was studying at the university—or had been studying up to this summer.
After a year at the university, working with the world of designing and building magnificent buildings—and living on the beautiful, manicured grounds of UVa—coming back home was suddenly a shock that transcended his parents' death and the closing of the door on his continued studies.
At least his year in the other world had given him the ability of knowing what had to be done to make his house habitable after the hurricane that had gone through—and an idea of what the cost would be, even though he had no idea how soon he'd be able to get that done. At least he'd have Dashad to help him, even though there had been no reason to believe that the black man would do that for neighbors who had not been neighborly themselves when they'd had the chance. Well, Matt had been more than neighborly to Dashad now.
The thought of what he and Dashad had done with each other caused Matt to look over at Dashad's place. It was smaller than his own, but it was being kept up. It was certainly in better shape now than when the Chalmers had lived there. It was a pity it didn't have indoor plumbing yet.
His eyes went to Dashad, soaping up his powerful, muscular body under the stream of water flowing down on him from the pipe. He was built solid. He must be at least 240 pounds, Matt thought. But all muscle. An honest, hard worker. And clean. That had been a surprise for Matt. The man was clean and tidy, always showering well when he'd come from the field, clean smelling, with a hint of musk, when he lay with Matt. And his house was spotless—better ordered than Matt had remembered his mother being able to do.
