I grew up in a very rural place at a time when kids were free to run around unsupervised as much as we wanted. It was before the time when kids' freetime was micromanaged and coordinated by well-meaning but dysfunctional parents with playdates and approved extracurricular activities.
My best friend and I were always together either at his house or mine from an early age and we always enjoyed either playing sports or chilling out at his house. Now that we were both eighteen and I had gone through puberty I was also happy to be there to get a glimpse of his hot dad whose masculine aurora had started to excite me.
My friend's father, Bill, was about six feet two, two hundred pounds, dark complected, with a high forehead and prominent nose. He was always clean shaven and his black hair cut short and slicked back with Brylcreem. The only clothes I ever saw him in were his blue work uniforms. At home, the blue work shirt was unbuttoned to reveal a white wife beater and a busy patch of black hair on his chest. His tanned arms were covered with a pelt of black hair.
After work, he came home, pulled his work boots off in the back room and walked to his recliner where he sat, chain smoked unfiltered Camels and watched TV. I never saw him any other place than between the door and his recliner. He spoke rarely and communicated with monosyllables and grunts. He wasn't unpleasant, that's just the way he was. He was somewhat of an extra in the cast of their family. I don't think the others paid much attention to him, but I was always sneaking glances at him. I don't think he ever spoke one word to me.
As we got older, my friend and I were always out at school, in town or hunting in the woods. At his house we were in and out the door so there was little time to see his parents. His father was always in his place - the recliner. My pulse would quicken just passing by him and stealing glances at his macho body and I would deeply inhale the secondhand smoke of his Camel.
During our senior year in high school, my friend and I played football and on Fridays if we had a home game, I would sleep at his house as after the game there was a lot of beer drinking and celebrating if we won and at least beer drinking if we lost.