– A Horny Short –

Derrick knew the first time he saw Simon Glass wear a pair of rubber Hunters to school that his life would never be the same.  All the other kids had worn puffy insulated boots with shiny material that made them whisper and whine against each other when they came trekking into the classroom, bringing intersecting paths of neatly molded slushy clods in soggy facsimiles of their various tread patterns down the aisles.  Though they came in an array of heights and colors, Derrick’s own insulated boots attempted to be understated, being primarily black with a few gray accents, since he felt self-conscious enough thrusting his exaggerated feet beneath his desk on a wintry day.  His mom always reminded him in that half-exasperated, half-helpful way she had perfected over the years that he could bring a change of shoes with him, but then he would be suffering a different type of humiliation by having to carry his sneakers in a grocery bag, swinging by his wrist like an old lady’s drawstring bag.

But Simon sported tall, olive-gray boots that day .  Neither loud, nor particularly colorful, they shone dully under the classroom lights except for the places around his feet where melted snow glossed the rubber like glazing on a donut.  Derrick felt himself staring at them as they thudded softly on the waterlogged carpeting and stopped at Simon’s desk, across the aisle from his but up one row.  He was spellbound by the way they rippled slightly as they climbed Simon’s calves to the place where his jeans bunched just below his knees.  The way they neatly encapsulated his legs and feet as he stood in the mounds of plowed snow at the ends of the playground during recess, while everyone else’s feet seemed heavy with cumbersome padding and velcro straps.

But perhaps the most defining moment for Derrick that day was as Simon clambered onto the orange plastic sled behind him and–wet rubber squealing as if in glee–he straddled Derrick, surrounding him on either side with his rubber-clad legs.  Derrick grasped the ankles and clapped the boots to his sides as they sped down the slope, Simon laughing over his shoulder.  But Derrick had barely noticed the trip when they came skidding to a halt at the ditch that separated the playground from the tatty remains of the Fletcher Farm’s soybean field.  It was the feel of the rubber that had enthralled him.  Smooth, but not slippery.  Soft.  Almost stretchy.  

It was only snowy enough for Simon to wear the boots to school a handful of days that year.  But even so, Derrick felt his eyes roam over the boy’s feet whenever he encountered them–even when their desks had been moved to opposite corners of the classroom and the spring melt slowly simmered toward the promise of a blistering summer.  It was exciting to know where those feet had been on those special, slushy days.  Exciting to know that those boots sat somewhere in a closet or mudroom, just waiting to be used again.

It was over a year before he had convinced his mother to allow him to purchase his own pair, having spent plenty of time in the wilderness surrounding their small farm to warrant the investment.  Even so, she had wanted to outfit him with the budget friendly counterparts found at the farm supply store, which were shiny black with orange toe caps, and not made of actual rubber.  But Derrick knew that he would only be satisfied once the “Hunter” label was emblazoned below his knee.  It was his good fortune to discover a gray pair, dusted with bloom and capsized under the coat rack at the local consignment shop.  Derrick shook with excitement when he tried them on, sliding his socked feet into the shafts and thinking they felt like giant, stiff balloons clamping to his lower extremities.  It was only because they were slightly roomy that his mom nodded her approval and reached into her purse.

Though it made him buzz with excitement every time he thought of them standing tall in the shadows of his closet, Derrick fully intended to wait until a wet, messy day to take the Hunters out for a maiden adventure. Now that the apple blossoms were out and warm breezes blew persistently enough that the gnawing damp of the thawing earth no longer lingered in the hollows, there wasn’t much to justify romping the countryside in tall rubber boots unless it was preceded with a solid dose of rain.  But this was bound to happen any day.  In the meantime, he had satisfied himself by cleaning them inside and out, wiping down the bloomed surfaces using a towel dampened with olive oil until they gleamed subtly like Simon’s had that day in the classroom. 

The weather stubbornly refused to cooperate.  After slew of fair days, Derrick’s resolve crumbled.  It had been a particularly striking afternoon—the kind with pale cloudless blue skies and a light so golden and warm that the shadows cut purplish black across the lush stretches of newly awakened grass. Derrick had been watching his own silhouette glide and dance soundlessly over the tufts of fleabane along the roadside as he biked home one afternoon when he drew up alongside the ball field.  Baseball practice was underway.  A gaggle of boys, each one virtually indistinguishable from the next for their identical uniforms, moved about the field. Derrick scanned the scene for a recognizable face when who should he spot but Simon Glass, having just made it to first base?

He stared through the chain link at his classmate.  Simon was resting on his hands on his knees as he panted with his exertions, a beam of sunlit glaring off his helmet. Derrick’s eyes made their habitual journey down the boy’s legs, taking in his crisp white knickers and the navy blue stirrups that disappeared into dusty shoes. He felt a lump in his throat form as he watched Simon’s left cleat press into the quilted base.  He mentally superimposed the drab green Hunters over the his feet, the same ones he had clapped to his sides on the indelible sled ride. Derrick knew as he began to pedal home that he needed to feel his own Hunters on his feet, rain or no rain. 

Fortunately, his mom wasn’t home that afternoon, and Derrick was free to set off across the backyard and into the fields beyond, his boots slapping against his calves as they plowed through the tender grass. There was a special thrill to the way the Hunters were roomy, how his heel slid up the back of the boot slightly with each step.  He was surprised to find the exhilaration grow from a tightness in the his throat to an ache between his legs.  It was slightly uncomfortable, as if he had suddenly outgrown his jeans—they bunched at his crotch and pulled at his waist.  

Yet the sensation was not unpleasant.  Nor did it relinquish its hold on Derrick as he watched his rubber clad feet flex over field stones and scuff along fallen trees, their rotting carcasses slick with moss.  But when he found himself standing in the piles of grass clippings and yard waste, which his dad routinely deposited along the north pasture fence, the feeling was no longer a mere curiosity.  As the smooth slopes of the Hunters’ insteps sank beneath mounds of the rotting vegetation, the stringy masses pulverizing to slime beneath his squeaking treads, Derrick became aware of an unfamiliar urge.  Without conscious thought, he pressed a fist into the crotch of his jeans.  It was like a feather tickling an angry mosquito bite—it wasn’t exactly the wrong thing, but it wasn’t nearly enough to quell the acute insistence. 

He leaned into a crooked fence post, letting his body weight push the rounded surface of the weathered wood firmly between his legs.  There was a dull throb in the pressure, like pain, yet gratifying. Derrick lifted one of his feet and watched a tangle of gooey reeds slide from the slick rubber.  He shivered with delight and found that leaning harder against the post deepened both the throb and his excitement. He began to grind against the post.  Derrick watched the rumpled legs of his jeans rocking back and forth inside the shafts of the Hunters as his feet dug deep dimples into the mound of compost. He imagined they were Simon’s legs, stretching down into those beautiful wet rubber boots.  The mystifying feeling of intense longing became palpable. 

He didn’t recognize that sound of his own panting or notice the beads of perspiration running down his shirt, nor did it seem to matter that the crotch of his jeans was slowly getting soiled from the wood post or that he was nearly to the tops of his new boots in decaying grass.  The first romp in his coveted Hunters had somehow become an earnest search to answer the newfound sensation that was now all but screaming inside him.  

And he found it. 

He clasped the post as his body was wracked with deep pangs of a foreign pleasure.  They were fleeting, but unforgettable, like a bewildering and elusive itch from deep within him had finally reached and scratched.   When they had subsided, he stumbled from the refuse pile and sank to the grass, his heart fluttering in his rib cage. He stared at the toes of his boots, glistening with moisture. Of course, he couldn’t have fully understood what had happened at that moment. He just knew that it was frightening, and beautiful, and probably forbidden.  

And it had something to do with rubber boots.  And Simon Glass.