The Way to a Man's Heart

The odor of sweet perfume mixed with mothballs, choking a faint “Hello” from Anthony Valentine’s thirteen-year-old throat. Angered that his aunt's ample coating of cheap Avon had turned his normally smooth baritone into a bad Edith Bonker impersonation, he quickly withdrew from the hug, almost running across the plush white carpet to join his mother on the couch.

He needed so badly to sit beside her. He wanted to mimic her emotionless gaze out the living-room window. Maybe one glimpse at whatever it was she’d stared at all day would give him some clue of how to make her feel better. He certainly hadn’t been successful in the thirteen hours that they had sat there, not talking or giving in to their growling stomachs and parched lips, rarely rising to visit the toilet.

“Mama, Aunt Sharon is here!” He called out to her, as if the distance between them had been miles and not centimeters. With eager hands, he turned her flush and half-lifeless face to meet Sharon’s concerned gaze.

He prayed that Sharon would know what to do, and he wouldn’t have to resume the responsibility of consoling her any more. His best tactic, promising that his father would soon be back to fix whatever was causing her stress, only seemed to rouse her depression.

“Look at you!” Sharon, cooed, wiping streaks of blue mascara from his mother’s cheeks, “If I had known it was this serious I would have skipped work and been here earlier, but you and James always go through some shit. It'll be all over in a few days!”

“Anthony, get ready for bed!” His mother attempted to yell. Tears had her voice weighed down to a whisper.

“Do what your mama tells you, boy! Don’t worry sick people!” Sharon bellowed, completely disregarding the fact that his mother’s words alone had already sent him heading to hide at the top of the staircase. Didn’t she know he was just as eager as she was to hear the family’s new secret? She raised her meaty arms, swatting at his skinny bottom just slow enough for him to avoid the sting of her huge hand.

“What James done did this time?” She inquired, resting her double chin against her folded hands as she leaned in to devour any whisper that might escape her sister’s mouth.

“I received a letter yesterday, telling me that he wants out of our marriage”, Terry breathed, dapping at her face with the soaked handkerchief. Despite the situation, she was determined not to get too emotional. Sharon was already likely to over dramatize the conversation later, when she acted out the events, verbatim,

for their other siblings.

“A sorry mother-fucka!”

Seeing that Terry was more than content allowing the conversation to end with her nod of agreement, Sharon swallowed her tact and dove in for the kill.

“Did he say why in the letter?”

“The same reason men always want out of a relationship, Sharon!”

“I knew it! I knew it was somebody else! Margo and me were talking about the vibe he was giving off at Christmas dinner. Something was different about the way he looked and acted towards you.”

“Well, I Sure as hell would thank you and Margo for a warning next time, cause I didn't see no signs of any shit like this happening!"

“Oh, honey it aint that bad!” Sharon chirped, cradling Terry’s head, completely oblivious to the fact that her perfume was just as much a culprit to her sister’s tears as James's infidelity, “ I got the number to real good lawyer. Adina gave it to me last year, back when me and Martin was going through our shit. You guaranteed to come away with the house, every car in the garage, and way more than what the military is going to make his sorry ass give you each month anyway, So don't even worry about how you going to make it!”

" I ain't worrying about that, girl! I don't want anything from James anyway."

"Now, Terry, you thinking stupid now, cause you hurting. You more than entitled to something for all the years you sat here by yourself, for months at a time, thinking that he was on call from the military! No telling how long you been sharing that man, and it wouldn't surprise me none if the bitch you sharing him with turn out to have blonde hair and blue eyes!"

"She doesn't have blonde hair or blue eyes, Sharon! This is not waiting to exhale! This is a very serious time in my life, and I would thank you if you didn't make jokes!"

Sharon pushed herself farther back in the rocking chair. Her face struggled to decide on a frown or smile as she rubbed at her very pregnant belly.

"You mean, you seen the bitch? He had the fucking balls to bring the bitch around you?"

"No, I mean it aint no bitch! Not a female bitch anyway!"

"Ooh, girl are you saying that James is a ..."

"All day long! According to him, he always has been, and it’s my fault that we are breaking up, because I went nosing into his business instead of giving him his man-space. What the hell is man-space anyway?"

"Seems to me that man space is just enough room for another man to squeeze up in your man's ass, now don't it?"

Anthony pressed his ear harder against the rails to the steps. He definitely couldn't have been hearing this conversation correctly. He had stopped giving the conversation his full attention moments earlier, when the word divorce had sent his mind reeling.

"You know how couples take sexy pictures of each other, Sharon? Well, me and James had done some last year, and I noticed that he was very adamant in having me take pictures of his ass. Now, at the time, I didn't pay it no mind, cause he always in the mirror looking at his ass and checking to see how his pants fit. It always was my favorite part of his body too; so I thought maybe he was just ego-tripping!”

"...And you say he didn't give you no clues?” Sharon asked with a hint of sarcasm.

"Lots of men have big juicy asses, Sharon; we're black; that's what we are known for! Anyway, I noticed that one was missing the other day, when I was cleaning up our top drawer. If it were a picture of me, it wouldn't have struck me as strange. I mean, he is gone from me a long time; but why would he want to take photos of his own ass back to the military base with him, girl?"

"Oh, my lord!" Sharon quivered with disgust.

"I called him and asked about it and he got real upset with me. I came right out and asked him if it was another woman, and he called me every kind of stupid bitch God ever created! He said for me to watch the mail for an explanation. I received it yesterday!"

"Is that him?" Sharon demanded, almost snatching the picture, "He didn't have the nerve to send you a picture of the faggit, did he?"

"No. It's the missing picture, Sharon. At least I know what happened to it now. He was nice enough to send it back to me, complete with the letter he had written out to..."

"The Faggit!" Sharon finished for her, snatching the picture of James. Terry had purposely turned it so that only the letter on the back could be viewed, but James did have a sexy body, especially his plump ass and muscular back. Family loyalty had been the only thing that had kept Sharon from seeing him in all of his glory in person. Now that neither sister could have him, one peek at a picture wouldn't hurt.

"Don't you want to read the other side, Sharon?!"

"To Richard", she read allowed, trying to return her breathing to normal, "For giving me more joy in two years than I've known in my whole life".

"That's the shit that hurts!" Terry cried, snatching the photograph. Like a mad woman, she ripped it into pieces, sending them scattering throughout the room.

"Thirteen years of having babies for that man, and keeping up the house and making sure that his favorite meal was on the table every time he stepped back in from months of doing god knows what; and the two years he spent with Richard are the best of his faggit ass life! Oh hell no!"

"That's life, baby sister! It's 1996, everybody into this bisexual thing now; that's all you see on TV. Shit it wouldn't surprise me one bit if Martin told me he was picking up to move in with a steady piece of dick! I sure damn will be watching closer now, after this shit with you and James."

"You laugh, but you better! You spend your whole life baking and cleaning and scraping scales off some nasty ass fish he caught , even though the sight and smell makes you sick, because it is your duty as a woman to make sure your husband is satisfied in the bedroom and the kitchen!"

"That's some old shit mama used to say", Sharon laughed, "What you wont cook for him another woman will. I say let that bitch handle her business, she saving me time from standing on my swollen feet!"

"It don't mater though, Sharon, because the way to a man's heart is not his stomach...no, not in the nineteen nineties! The why to a man's heart is through his ass hole!"

"Mr. Valentine!" Dr. Humstone's voice boomed, making the living room walls crumble around Antonio's flashback, "Seeing as how I get paid whether I talk through this whole hour, as usually is the case, or you open up and attempt to aid me in helping you, I just thought it fair to tap you and give you a chance to join in and make this visit count before you started snoring.”

"I was thinking!"

"Of what?"

Catty green eyes peered past thick glasses as Humstone's purplish brown lips parted from their smug green with the slightest assistance from his tongue.

"Well, Mister Valentine, you may find that if we try my previous suggestion, these meetings will go by much smoother, and your mother wouldn't be wasting three hundred dollars a week!"

Either that, or you calling for a piece treaty between the British and Jamaican forces, battling to take over the territory that is your voice!

Anthony struggled to hide an erection as Humstone stood, pivoting on the heel of his hushpuppies and leaned across his desk in frustration. His plump booty stretched the material of his slacks to the limits, making his cheeks appear to be bursting out. With a deep sigh, he thrust his hands in his pockets, making the material cling tighter yet to his wonderful ass. Anthony couldn't resist placing his coat over his lap to manipulate his genitals.

"I talked last time!"

Something between a grunt and a sigh leapt from Humstone's throat as he turned to address Anthony, "So, this is all fun to you, eh boy? Is that what this is, you enjoy attention? Is that why you passed out on your mother's living room floor? You wanted someone to find you, to see the bottle of pills beside you and know just what to do, huh?"

"Fuck you! That's the dumbest shit I've ever heard!" Antonio screamed, thinking back to that day.

He wandered why he didn't tell Humbstone about that days events: that his girlfriend had found the scrap of picture he'd retrieved from his mother' trashcan when he was twelve, that she had seen the tiny strip, with nothing visible but the arch of his father's back and his smooth booty tooted up, and accused him of having pictures of other girls under his bed. Why didn't' he tell Humstone of the embarrassment that hiding the truth of the picture's origin had caused? Why didn't he say anything to Humbstone about the many times he had masturbated to his father's image since he was twelve? Even now, after he had grown up and was expecting a baby of his own, the image of his father's smooth, caramel ass had occupied the majority of his sexual fantasies. The act of masturbation then had caused him to feel like he was betraying his mother, and now that his fiance' had found the picture, he had felt even cheaper and longed for death.

“ I hate to cut this visit short, Doctor, but I have a fitting for my tuxedo at three o’clock. You can put down in your book that I left at four thirty, as usual, and my mother will send you a check. ”

“Like that, eh? Not even going to attempt?”

“Like you said, Doctor, you get paid either way; right?”

“Fair enough!” Humstone agreed, turning once more, giving Anthony the opportunity to gather one last

peek at his fabulous ass, the only sexy feature he possessed. He bent, almost breaking the seam along the ass of his pants, as the thread dug deep into his tight valley.

“You read much, Mr. Valentine?”

“When I get the chance. It’s not my favorite pastime”.

“Well, when you get the time, I want you to read this book. You may find that you and the Main character are very similar, almost one in the same. You’re both spoiled and longing for attention!”

“I’ll do that”, Anthony lied, accepting the tattered paperback copy of the catcher in the Rye.

Using the book to hide the monstrous bulge in his jeans, he quickly headed downstairs to use the bathroom of the second floor, the one reserved for staff only. People rarely ventured down the steps, finding it easier to use the public one in the lobby, and he would be alone to release the tension he’d withheld the entire thirty minutes he’d spent staring at Humstone’s ass.

Like a man possessed, he ripped the waist of his baggy jeans down to the floor, heaping his boxers on top. His breathing sped with excitement as his memory of the torn photo danced through is head along with his recent view of Humstone’s buns. The two images lingered on either side of his mind while he caressed the hard flesh in his hand, then they both joined and met up with him in the center, where his imagination allowed him to lick and finger the tight, smooth flesh of his fathers ass and fondled Humstone’s. .

“You have to know there is something very wrong with what we are doing, Mr. Valentine!” He imagined Humstone moaning as he dug a finger knuckle length between his shiny, black cheeks.

His father rose from his steadfast position, causing Anthony’s tongue to slip up the distance of his smooth cheeks and graze the curve of his back as he reprimanded Humstone.

“There is nothing wrong with my boy! He’s studying me, getting to know me, bonding with his Papi!”

He stroked his dick faster, imagining Humstone finally at a lost for word as his father straddled his lap. His fingers still probed at Humstone’s hole as his father kissed up and down his face, assuring him that there was nothing wrong with him, or what they were engaging in.

“Nobody understands you but Papi!” He imagined his father moaning in his ear with a deep bass voice that always made him feel inferior as a child, “Papi knows exactly how you feel inside, Ant!”

“I love you!” He cried almost aloud. His eyes rolled back in his head, and his fingers tightened as he watched his penis stretch its way into the makeshift anus he’d made, by pressing his thumb and index finger tightly together in the form of a circle.

In his daydream, his father moaned out in pain, and his fingers were snatched from Humstone’s hot hole to spread the cheeks enough to permit farther entry.

“Fuck him!” He heard Humstone chant, “there's nothing wrong with it!”

He stroked himself feverishly, imagining the feel of his father’s hole around his cock and the weight of his plump cheeks against the palms of his hands.

“Fuck Papi’s pretty, brown ass, Anthony!” His father begged, competing for his attention with Humstone, who had now straddled his face, spreading his cheeks and giving Anthony the perfect view of his dark brown Pucker.

“Fancy a taste, eh, Mr. Valentine? I read your thoughts our last visit”, Humstone moaned with a wicked cackle.

Anthony’s hands departed his father’s smooth mounds of flesh to caress the circumference of Humstone’s round ass and walk up the slope of his muscular back. It was scary how similar his father and Humstone were built. A slap on the right cheek made Humstone’s back arch even more as Anthony imagined his father reaching up and joining in the probing of Humstones anus.

Together, father and son worked, meticulously, father fingering the tiny hole hard and fast, while son licked the outer rim and lapped the sweet, acrid taste of ass from his father’s fingers.

Humstone moaned and screamed, biting his tongue, and occasionally reaching back to aid in the spreading of his bodacious cheeks. Soon, the sounds of pain transformed to utter ecstasy. Humstone rode the digits inserted into his ass like a cowboy, and begged for more.

When Humstone was able to swallow three of his father’s thick fingers, Anthony, pushed his hand away, admiring the huge gape they had caused. Humstone’s hole throbbed in and out with swollen pink moisture, begging to be filled with something hard, long and black.

“Get up for me, Papi!” Anthony demanded, returning one hand to his father’s round mounds. The other hand still kneaded the velvety smoothness of Humstone’s hills.

“ I want to watch you fuck the shit out of Doc. Do that for me, Papi? Let me see you fuck him!”

His hand slipped farther down on his dick, and with a blink of an eye the three figures of his imagination had adjusted positions. He sat, stroking his penis much in the same fashion he was using in reality. Humstone’s muscular ass spread across the foot of Anthony’s childhood bed. Anthony was able to admire it and watch the puckered little hole flex for only a short time before his father’s plump, reddish brown ass blocked the view.

“Awe! AWE!” He imagined Humstone screaming as his father’s penis burrowed between the depths of his Chocolate mountains. The image made him so hot that he had to stop and spit in his hand to avoid burns of friction from the fast pace he stroked.

“Fuck him Daddy!” He chanted below his breath as he watched his father’s muscular cheeks tighten and release over and over again, forcing his cock in and out of Humstone’s bountiful buns.

Thick welts of sweat oozed from his father’s face and neck as his back arched, wrenching him faster and faster into Humstone’s cavity. The sweat fell unto Humstone’s dark cheeks and cascaded down to his muscular thighs, leaving glistening streaks as they rolled, and making Anthony long to trace them with his tongue.

Slowly, Anthony walked up behind his father, his eyes fixated on the dimpled sides of his muscular ass. His hands walked down the sweaty torso and glistening back. Still, his father wrenched in an out of Humstone’s ass, making him hum, like a car in need of a tune up. At the feel of Anthony’s slick tool, spooning up and down the steep length of his sweaty crack, he began to shake and grumble inside. His fingers locked tight around Humstone’s slinky waist, preventing him from moving and speeding up his approaching explosion.

“I’m going to cum son!” He screamed, withdrawing and beckoning for Anthony to join.

Anthony blinked again, and then he and his father were side by side. Their hands walked up and down the curve of one another’s back and fondled the firm flesh of each other's ass as they stood over Humstone’s spread cheeks, milking their loins into his gaping pucker.

“I love you, boy!” His father whispered, giving him a fatherly kiss on the forehead.

“I love you too, Pop!” He breathed, opening his eyes to observe the mess he’d made on the bathroom floor.

To his surprise, it wasn’t as hard a clean up job a he’d expected. Only one lone squirt oozed down the side of the sink. The rest had splattered on the seat of his boxers, and streaked the book he’d so hurriedly dropped into the seat of his pants.

“The catcher and The Rye”, he laughed, watching three jets of his juices slide down the book as he lifted it from his pants. He turned the book to and fro for a few seconds, laughing as the three streaks of semen slid up and down the smooth cover. Then, with very little regard to the fact that Humstone may come down to use the bathroom and find it, he dropped the book on top of the trash, and pulled his pants back up.

This would be his last visit to Humstone’s office anyway; he vowed that as he jogged off to make his tuxedo fitting. There was nothing wrong with him. His father had confirmed that, and with the three stripes on the book, he was healed.