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furniture, low table. A book case with some of Audrey's old books still there. The Book of
Knowledge, some copies of Adventure and Amazing Stories, and a stack of Little Blue Books. The
kitchen had a wood-burning stove and pine table with chairs.
Up the steep stairs on the second floor there were two bedrooms over the living room and a
smaller bedroom over the kitchen. There was a bathroom with running water and flush toilet and
bathtub. Water flowed from a two-hundred-gallon tank in the attic, which was filled by a pump from
the lake. There was a boiler that could be heated by a small stove to provide hot water. On the
back porch, which was also screened, there was an ice box and a wood bin.
Behind the house was a wood shed and an ice house and a long low building with a beamed
ceiling that had been his father's workshop. The tools were still there - some lumber, a drum of
kerosene, and a coil of rope. Audrey looked up at the beams and remembered an incident that had
occurred on his last stay here, when he was thirteen. His father and brother had rowed to the other
side of the lake to fish. Audrey had watched them go with a tingle of anticipation in his crotch and
the pit of his stomach. He was going to jack off. But there was no hurry now. He could take his time
about it.
He went out to his father's workshop, looking up at the smooth round beams. His father planned to
nail planks to the beams to form an attic and storeroom to the workshop, but this was never
accomplished. Looking up at the beams, Audrey suddenly felt a feeling of weakness in his chest.
He was starting to get a hard-on as he remembered something he had read in an old medical book
he found in a trunk in the attic of the family house in St. Louis. It was about death by hanging.
"Ejaculation in young male subjects during hanging is so frequent as to be the rule. This generally
occurs twice, once immediately after the drop when the neck is broken and once just before the
blood stops circulating and the heart stops. However, in some cases ejaculation may occur three
times and sometimes as often as five times. Full consciousness may persist for as long as three
minutes with the neck broken, and as long as twelve minutes in cases where the neck is unbroken
or lightly fractured. Ejaculation is thought to result from pressure on the vagus nerve."
Audrey was standing up at the attic window when he read this. He became quite dizzy, and silver
spots boiled in front of his eyes and he went off in his pants. Well, now was his chance to try it.
Heart pounding, breath whistling through his teeth, he fashioned a hangman's knot and threw the
rope over a beam. He stripped off his clothes, his cock hard and lubricating as he adjusted the knot
behind his left ear, reached up as far as he could on the loose end of the rope, and pulled himself
up on tip toe. Then he arched his feet, swinging a few inches off the floor. Blood pounded and sang
in his ears and the room blacked out and he went off.
He came to himself lying on the floor, his neck very sore and a taste of blood in his mouth. Hastily
he dressed and undid the knot and coiled the rope. He went back to the house and looked in the
mirror. There was a red mark around his neck. How would he explain it to his father? He got an
idea. He took a pail and went out to pick some blackberries. When his father came home just
before sunset and asked, "What happened to your neck Audrey?"
"Well uh I was picking blackberries and I fell and a branch got tangled around my neck."
His father looked at him speculatively for a moment, and Audrey felt himself blushing. But nothing
more was said. All this came back to him as he stood in the work room with Jerry and the Piper
brothers and glanced up at the beam.
Audrey picked up a shovel and a can. "Let's catch some fish for dinner?"
He knew exactly the spot to dig for worms. This was a compost heap of garbage and humus for the
wildflower garden at the side of the house. Violets and forget-me-nots and even some of the iris his
father had brought in still bloomed there. Every shovel of dirt turned up thick red worms. Audrey
could see the fish flapping on the pier, feel the jerk and vibrating weight on the line. Jerry and
Audrey got their fishing poles and walked down to the pier.
The Pipers were busy unpacking gear from the canoes. The sun was setting across the lake, and
three geese flew north in v-formation. Somewhere in the distance the laugh of a loon. The water
was smooth as glass. Audrey baited his hook and let the line slide into the blue water. Jerry was
fishing from the other side of the pier. Almost at once Audrey felt the tug on his line and pulled out
a one-pound rock bass. In twenty minutes they had six rock bass and seven yellow perch. They
cleaned the fish in the lake and carried the entrails in a pan and dropped them on the compost
heap. A fire was already burning in the kitchen stove. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]