Placing Out Read Online Free

one. I cocked my head at her.
    "Why would I want to do that?"
    "You're a boy, ain't you? I'm a girl. Boys an' girls do that all the time."
    I'd heard Jacob and Joseph talk about girls in our school. They'd sneak out after lunch and light up their stolen cigarettes. They only let me join them when I said I'd tell their pa if they said no. I also stole them some Lucky Strikes from Old Man Wiley's general store down the street from our school. We'd stand out behind the privy and smoke and Jacob and Joseph would talk between puffs, mostly about what they were gonna do when they growed up. Jacob was gonna marry Annie-May Poulson down the road at the Poulson farm. Poulson was the neighborhood swell. He not only ran a successful ranch on his thousand acres, he ran the local John Deere franchise.
    Whenever either of them mentioned a girl, they'd talk crazy about what they done with them, and what they gonna do someday. Jacob had gone to war in 1916 when he turned eighteen. He told us wild tales of what he'd done in France and Germany. How he'd killed a hundred krauts and fucked two hundred German whores. I learned Sue Amity, the redhead from across the tracks put out. What she put out they never said and I knew I'd get my ears boxed if I asked. But it was something got them all excited. Once Jacob grabbed his crotch and I was fascinated to see the thick bulge between his legs. Had he always been that big? Then I realized his cock was stiff, like mine got in the early morning or sometimes at night when I'm trying to sleep in the hot, airless attic in the dog days of summer.
    The first time I'd touched myself when I was like that, I was shocked at how good it felt. There had to be something wrong with me, but I didn't dare ask Missus or Mister Chatterfield about it. Even I knew those were private parts and no one ever talked about them. But most nights I'd go out to the privy before bed and stroke myself until I filled my hand with the creamy stuff that came out of my dick.
    I wondered if Jacob or Joseph ever played with themselves. I wondered if Caleb did. Just the thought of that made me hard. I thought of him some nights while I lay on my cot, and whenever I did I had to stroke myself until my hardness went away.
    Now, standing in front of Becky, with her eager eyes and flushed face I realized what she meant. From her look it was clear she expected me to get excited over her words. So why didn't I? Was there something wrong with me?
    I backed away from her. "Your pa would kill us. Kill me, for sure."
    "He don't need to know, do he?"
    There was a high-pitched baying from Mister Chatterfield's hound and a wagon rattled into the yard. Becky whirled around, forgetting all about me. She bolted for the barn door. I followed her and stopped in the doorway, watching her race into the house just as the Chatterfields pulled into the yard, their team of mules, Oscar and Bill, tossing their heads, eager to get out of their traces and back in the paddock they shared behind the barn.
    I unhooked them, leading Oscar while Caleb took Bill. They were hot, so we walked them down the lane and back before brushing them down and putting them out. We walked shoulder to shoulder to the paddock behind the barn. Once we released them we put the harness away. We both went back to the paddock and leaned against the fence, watching the pair roll in the dust. They shook themselves off and stood head to tail, swishing flies off each other's face. I looked over to find Caleb watching me. He'd lit up the minute we were outside. His pa would kill both of us if he caught us smoking this close to the barn. I shrugged, and lit one of my own.
    Over the cigarette smoke I could smell him and, unlike Becky's, his scent was doing things to my insides that scared me almost as much as it excited me. A look at his crotch told me he was hard, too. My throat was suddenly so dry I couldn't swallow.
    "Do you want to touch it?" he whispered, half turning to face me, his hip