Hey everybody – so with the looming #tumblocalypse, I’ve had to make some adjustments to some of the existing stories on the blog, if I want to keep them alive. Most of what I do here should continue to be fine on a text basis, but some of the imagery I’ve used to inspire and/or illustrate the stories is not. So I’m in the process of retooling some of the earlier stuff (particularly from the @a4f101 era…) to bring it into compliance.
What does that mean for you guys? You’ll be seeing some reposts of older stuff, reformatted for the new Handmaid’s Tale (hmmm… Handjobs Tale?) reality of Tumblr. Bear with me and the process, and enjoy revisiting some of the classics while I retool and prep new content.
Coming up, after all this fuckery is over: Part 2 of “From the Same Cloth”, and then it’ll be time for a new season of Xmas Tales. Not 12, that’s for damn sure, but still, a nice collection of stocking stuffers will be forthcoming.
Also, you can now follow me on Twitter @UnderYrMattress, for whatever that’s worth, and I am working on a backup home for all this stroke fiction too.
With the big tumblr shutdown coming I’m reblogging some old stories with safe art, just in case.
1.
There’s a lot you wouldn’t guess to look at him, like how Dan was a young prodigy at Microsoft, or that he was at one time a competitive weightlifter, because an ancient Greek philosopher named Socrates said it’s a tragedy for a man to grow old without seeing the beauty and strength of which his body is capable.
After he made his nest egg in software he quit programming in his 20s, left his job and moved further west, to Olympia. Even though it’s the state capitol it’s in a pretty rural area. “Olympia or Olympus, this piece of shit is the home of the gods,” he says. He means it too, and he doesn’t see the contradiction.
We lived off the land as much as possible, growing our produce and butchering chickens and goats from time to time. Dan was most of the time the general carpenter, electrician, mechanic, chef, veterinarian and doctor. He tutored the kids too, when he had time. I sat in when I could, supplementing my patchy education with his own spin on the classics and business.
We’d drive into Oly for the things we couldn’t grow. Even in a big lot store Dan would try to bargain down the price from a pimple faced sales clerk with no power at all. It used to embarrass me, but Dan always said don’t ask don’t get.
I’d been around for a while as the farm manager. I started a few years ago at 16, so that ought to tell you how much experience was needed for the job. I left my dad’s farm, which was not such a good place for me. That’s enough for you to know. I had under my belt just the things you pick up growing up on a regular farm, but Dan’s was where I learned about hogs.
Dan’s hogs weren’t for eating. They were show hog, not food, and thank God it wasn’t a real hog farm because that’s the most foul thing you’ll ever smell. Dan kept just a few breeding sows and his prize boar Sophocles, the stud. Before Sophocles he had Euripides and before that was Aristophanes, but Sophocles was without doubt Dan’s favorite.
Dan said that Zeus, the horny king of the Greek gods, took all sorts of forms to get at women, bulls and swans and whatever, but if Dan could do that he’d choose to be a boar. Boar orgasms last 15 minutes on average, but Dan had seen Sophocles clock in at a half hour. Scientists say no one knows what a boar is feeling when he cums, if it’s the same as when a man does or not. But Dan said just try to take a boar off before a sow he’s done cumming and you’ll have the fight of your life, so it must feel pretty damn good.
According to Dan, Zeus had over 90 kids with all sorts of goddesses and mortal women, but Dan set his sights on 12. That was the number of gods in Olympus and that appealed to Dan. He was at 8 so far, and had prospects for getting all the way to his goal. The kids mostly lived with their moms, and spent summers on the farm, which was handy because that’s when we had the most work and needed free labor. Paying off the moms and lawyer fees ate up a lot of Dan’s nest egg, and he made it sound like he was on the brink of poverty all the time, but he managed it so no one really knows how much there was in total.
Even though he was a crazy ass show-hog breeder on a shitty family farm, he had looks women liked and he could sweet-talk anyone when he set his mind to it. He wasn’t a competitive weightlifter anymore and he had gained a lot of weight since the days when he was, but he still lifted regular so he was built. Even with a big belly he had brawny shoulders and solid chest muscles, and biceps as big as a kid’s head. He was jowly and shaved only now and then, leaving him a half-grown mustache and beard most of the time. But he still had a handsome face with amber eyes, a blunt nose and thick hair the color of chocolate with honey in it.
You’d be surprised how many women saw him as some sort of challenge, and having a baby with him was the price of admission to play. But not a one of them stayed around long. His sweet side wasn’t inclined to last, and day to day he was a bastard who would tell anyone what he thought and did as he pleased. He didn’t pull his punches, not with strangers, not with those he knew well and not even with the kids. What’s the point in being a self made man, he’d say, if you can’t fart and burp and say what you feel to anyone you want. And I guess that’s how the farm could have been Olympus and a piece of shit at the same time.
Guys, dunno what I’m gonna do with it yet… but while I figure that out, you can follow me on Twitter (ugh I hate that fucking sentence…) at @UnderYrMattress.
Ugh fuck… I really don’t want to take this shit to Twitter. But you bring up a good point that I failed to take into account.
So… I think this blog will be safe, with some alterations to the way I present stories. Key word here: think. But I’m setting up some backstops (if anyone has an opinion on WordPress vs. Blogspot, hit me up!) where I can post stuff, and I will look into the Twitter thing as well.
Most importantly – I’ll still be writing, no matter what, and I’ll be sure to keep y’all updated on where you can read it, if you’ve been exiled from New Virtual Gilead here…
This is still very much a developing situation, but one all of us should be aware of. As it stands, I don’t think what I do here will be particularly affected, but I’m gonna wait and see what comes of this boneheaded decision by the roomful of chimpanzees chained to typewriters that apparently runs Tumblr these days…
In the meantime, this is a conversation worth having. What do you guys think, and what options are you looking at, if the worst comes to worst? Where else does our particular piece (and fuck, it’s a huge one…) of the Tumblr audience go, if Tumblr doesn’t want us here?
Ugh I know. Fucking hell. Talk about committing platform suicide, jesus. I don’t have Twitter (uh, not for these purposes, anyway…) but am gonna be thinking on options. I think things will be OK for me here, given the exemption for written erotica, but I may have to change the imagery I use to illustrate the stories. Don’t worry, I’ll keep y’all in the loop about what, if anything, is going to change here at Tales.
Guess we all better buckle up, the next couple weeks are gonna be interesting…
Thanks man! I long ago gave up wondering about the whole “daddy issues” thing – I think for a lot of us gay dudes, the psychology behind it is pretty simple, as far as psychology can be, anyway. I guess those of us who fit under this particular kink umbrella are looking for the kind of supportive, affirming, encouraging bonds we probably didn’t get to experience IRL, coming up as young gay dudes, especially at that stage where our sexuality and our kinks really start to imprint.
Plus, when you add in the taboo/kink aspect of it, well, it’s just fucking hot.
I’ve made this point before, but it bears repeating here (and I suspect it’s true for a lot of you out there who are into this kind of thing, too): I have less than zero sexual/intimate attraction or thoughts about my own family members. The whole notion of that gives me an anti-hardon, in fact. But for reasons that I’m not fully equipped to explain, my crank gets particularly turned by the kinds of things I write about in my stories, and always has, as far back as I can remember.
So, nothing else for it, I guess, but to shrug and enjoy the debauched ride. And then open a fresh blank doc and start writing about it.
Thanks for reading, dude, and I hope you enjoy continuing to explore this psychologically complicated kinky thing we share. I sure intend to…
Heh, well thanks Dear Reader, I’m glad you’re enjoying the ride! I’ve taken a few too many days off from writing lately, so I am gonna get into something fun and exciting in a different way: a new story. Stay tuned… and thanks again.
The Squirt was genuinely excited for Thanksgiving.
The holiday itself didn’t matter to him, but it did to his dad, and for that reason alone he wanted it to be perfect. As a senior, this would be his last Thanksgiving living at home. Next year he’d be just another holiday traveler like his brother Trent.
His father, Sam, who always called him Emmett, not Squirt, took the whole week to prepare. No one would think to look at him, with his brawny shoulders and squared jaw with graying scruff, what a dedicated cook he was. He himself said before he became a single father to three boys the only thing he knew how to cook was a steak. The Squirt was a baby then, so he couldn’t remember it himself, but seeing his father prepare an entire Thanksgiving feast himself, he found it hard to believe. But his dad mastered cooking the same way he did his business, with the eye of a craftsman and a persistent heart.
Sam didn’t have much opportunity to show off his cooking skills these days. The family was dispersing, and there wasn’t much call for everything he was capable of. Trent lived in another city and was engaged to a girl they’d never met. Chris came and went, weaving in and out of their lives like an alley cat, so unpredictable. Sometimes Sam’s rugby buddies would come over for big pots of meaty chili or summer barbecues. But mostly it was him and the Squirt, living like an old married couple whose children had moved away, sharing the ordinary household responsibilities.
But this was not an ordinary week, or even an ordinary holiday. It was the last Thanksgiving before everything changed. Time was running out.
2.
To no one’s surprise, Chris never confirmed he’d be joining the family for dinner. His ways made it hard to plan, but when he did arrive he was so warm and engaging no one could remember being irritated. Then he’d vanish without a word, and after the spell of his company faded, those he charmed were left knowing nothing more about him than before. It might have been irritating in someone less gracious, but grudges just didn’t stick on Chris. And as Sam always said, you had to cut him some slack.
No one knew how Chris always knew just when Trent was coming home, but he showed up with his feline sixth sense just fifteen minutes or so before Trent. He slinked into Sam’s kitchen on his slim hips, poured a cup of coffee and hiked himself up to sit on a kitchen counter as if he still lived there and had just come down from bed.
“Good morning Christopher,” said Sam, flipping thick slices of challah french toast onto plates. “Did you forget something?”
Chris half rolled his eyes. He slid down to accept his hug and hair tousling from Sam and returned to his counter perch with a plate of hot syrupy french toast.
“Got some new ink there?” Sam asked, setting the rest of the french toast into a warming tray for Trent.
Chris held out his pale veiny limb to show some Celtic knotwork ringing his forearm, saying, “A little Irish heritage, Sam.”
Sam looked it over and made his Not-Bad face, and the Squirt felt warm inside seeing them interact like the old days.
The Learys were purportedly Irish, but Sam said they were just mutts with some Irish, Scots, Czech, and lots of mystery ingredients in some lost recipe of genetics. They were such a DNA stew that some of them looked hardly related at all. Chris was only Sam’s nephew, but shared more of the Leary dirty blond good looks than either boy he called son. And even with their shared coloring, Chris was slim and supple like his mother, whereas his father, Uncle Hank, and Sam were stocky men, thick with muscle.
It had frustrated the Squirt, growing up surrounded by obviously athletic guys — Chris with his panther build, brother Trent a solid wrestler, even his rugby player father and uncle — feeling lanky and pale. But he’d grown into his own swimmer’s build, and recognized he was handsome in his own way. The long line of girls at school who fell for him gave him ample evidence of that, and he befriended each in turn. But none of them were quite what he was looking for. That could wait till college, he decided, and was content with it most days.
Tales from Under the Mattress 