Uncle Billy is leaned back in the big chair in the family room with his feet up. It’s supposed to be my dad’s chair but ever since Uncle Billy arrived he spends all day in it. It makes my dad grumpy to have to sit on the couch. Mom says we all have to make allowances because her younger brother isn’t well. She won’t say what’s wrong with him, though.
Sometimes Uncle Billy reads or watches TV, but most of the time he just sits there. He says he is thinking, and if I ask what he is thinking about he says, “The past. I always think about the past.”
Watching him stare makes me think about the past, too. I think about how Uncle Billy used to babysit me every summer for as long as I can remember. About a week before school was out my mom would start to get nervous and moody wondering if he was going to come. Then he would arrive unannounced in a taxi or in a car he had hitched a ride with, always with a huge pack slung over his shoulder.
We would all run outside to greet him, amazed to see it was really him after not hearing anything from him since he left at the end of the previous summer. My mother would be angry at first, and then cry in his arms that he was safe.
I don’t remember the three of us ever being happier than when we hugged him and pulled him inside and made him tell us everything he had been doing for the last nine months. Even Dad laughed at his stories of driving earth movers, working on off-shore oil rigs, and in gold mines. “That sounds like a great job, and good money,” Dad would say. “Why did you quit?”
“To come home,” he said always looking directly at me “to the only place left on earth where there are people who love me.” That would always make Mom cry again, and Dad look awkward. Then he would reach into his pack and pull out a gift that he had brought me from far away. “For my favorite girl in the whole wide world,” he would say.
For the rest of the summer he watched over me while my parents worked. He was too busy reading to me, or taking me to museums or the movies, or playing games with me to sit in a chair all day, and too much fun to let sleep. After my parents left for work I usually got into bed with him. I liked to because he was warm like a campfire. He snored, wore only his boxer shorts, and his hairy body smelled like digging in the garden. His back was covered with stiff hairs like a cactus. I liked to brush my fingers through the bristles to tickle him until he woke up and agreed to play with me.
One summer when I was nine he brought me brick of dark chocolate from Central America. I wanted to taste it so when he wouldn’t get out of bed with tickling I threatened to grab his wiener. I laughed as he jumped out of bed with his shorts sticking out in front and ran to the bathroom. I had to wait a long time for him to come out which I spent unwrapping and just sniffing the chocolate. I couldn’t get enough of the exotic aroma.
Uncle Billy shaved off tiny slivers from the brick, heated the milk in a double boiler until it started to steam, then dropped in the shavings and stirred. After a long time stirring the white milk turned dark brown. The smell was delicious and he said I should only drink it straight, without whipped cream or marshmallows, just like the Aztecs did. They thought chocolate was a gift from the gods.
I remember it tasted so good I drank the whole thing and ask for another. He made me another one but said I had to be careful. “It’s an aphrodisiac, you know?”
“What’s that?” I asked.
“Oh, an aphrodisiac is worse than heroin,” he said. “Too much and you’ll want to do things that make you feel good all the time and never go to school or do your homework. Your mother wouldn’t like it if I turned you into a harem girl and you ran off to live with an Aztec king.”
“What’s a harem girl?”
“Girls who want to feel good all the time,” he said. “All of the Aztec nobles had lots of harem girls and they gave them chocolate all day long to keep them in the mood.”
I had hot chocolate every morning and all summer we would play made-up games where he was the Aztec king and I was his harem girl. He made me shave the hair on his back and paint his toenails to please him because the only job of a harem girl was to please the king. Sometimes I was the king and he was the harem girl and I made him do things for me like spoon feed me and scratch my back. Once he wore one of my mother’s dresses and he danced like a harem girl. We laughed until we cried, and secretly laughed again when Mom complained her dress had been mysteriously stretched out.
His long bushy hair waggled when he laughed and his big white teeth shown through his prickly beard. If I didn’t laugh at something he thought was funny he would tickle me until I felt like I was going to wet my pants and ran away. I always came back, though. “Don’t ever be afraid to laugh,” he would say. “The man you want to marry is the one who can make you laugh the most, and if you hold back your laughter, you’ll never know who that is.”
“I want to marry you,” I said, and then we both laughed together.
My friends all liked Uncle Billy but their parents didn’t let them come over in the summer very often. They didn’t understand why he didn’t have a job like other men his age. I heard one parent tell my mom it wasn’t healthy to let him spend so much time with me. It made my mom mad and she yelled at her, and then later she would ask me for the umpteenth time if Uncle Billy ever hurt me. She would never explain why she worried so much about that, though. Once I asked Uncle Billy why Mom worried and he cried. I had never seen him cry before and I felt terrible. I hugged him and never asked again.
One of the first games I remember playing with Uncle Billy was Jungle Animal. He pretended to be a lion by getting on his hands and knees, shaking his big fluffy hair like it was a main, and growl as he crawled toward me. I was terrified because he looked so mean and I ran away. He always cornered me in some part of the house, though, and I cowered until he was an inch away from me sure that I was going to die a horrible death. Then he stared at me, sniffed the air, reached out his tongue and licked my arm. “What’s two plus two?” he asked.
“Four,” I said.
“Hmm,” he said, turning over to sit against the couch, “You smell good, you look good, you taste good and you’re smart. Even a mean old lion wouldn’t eat a wonderful girl like you.”
I was so relieved to not be afraid any more that I sat facing him, straddling his legs and hugged as hard as I could. His big warm hands held me tight and I nestled in his hairy neck. After a few seconds he said, “But that doesn’t mean a crusty old crocodile with a big snout and a million teeth wouldn’t eat you.” He growled again and I shrieked and ran away. He always cornered me again, found I was too wonderful to eat, and I sat in his lap and hugged him. By the time he had gone through half a dozen jungle animals I was exhausted from the excitement of my rising fear, capture, and his calming embrace. Often he would get stiff under me as I sat on his lap and I wanted to know why, but I didn’t ask until much later.
It was January when Uncle Billy arrived this last time so we were all surprised to see him. The first thing I noticed was that he wasn’t laughing or telling stories. My mom kept asking what was wrong but he would wouldn’t say much of anything. He came into the house, let his pack drop to the floor, and sat in Dad’s chair. He has hardly been out of it since.
The first time I came home from school and my parents were gone he was standing in the kitchen staring out the window. I asked him what was wrong, why he came home in the middle of the year and why he didn’t laugh anymore? He didn’t say anything at first until I wrapped my arms around him and begged him to tell me. Finally he said, “I have a disease.”
“What disease?”
“Regrets,” he said. “It’s the worst kind of disease you can have because it festers and grows like a cancer that eats you up inside until you are an empty shell.” I cried when I heard that, but Uncle Billy didn’t try to comfort me like he used to. He just patted me on the shoulder as he looked out the window.
Now after school or on weekends I sit in the family room on the edge of the sofa reading a magazine or doing my homework. I look up at him in dad’s chair occasionally, and he is just staring out the patio window or at the walls. Sometimes, especially this last summer after I had started wearing a bra, Uncle Billy would look at me strangely. I had noticed that my girl friends dad’s and older brothers looked at me sometimes as if I was making them upset. Their looks made me feel attractive and bad at the same time. Mom said it was because I was pretty and had developed and some men couldn’t control themselves, and I should be careful around them. That made me afraid. I didn’t like that Uncle Billy looked at me that way because I thought I was doing something wrong. But he hadn’t done it once since he arrived this last time.
I miss the old Uncle Billy and I found myself wanting him to look at me, even in that strange way. At least then I would know I was still his favorite girl in the whole wide world. I feel like I did the summer I was seven and I had just seen the movie and I wanted him to play Sleeping Beauty with me. He played the queen who said “Mirror, mirror on the wall…,” and fed me the poison apple to put me asleep. As I pretended a deep slumber he was the prince who had to kiss me to wake me up. When he kissed me on the forehead I said, “No, you have to kiss me on the lips like in the movie.”
He looked sad and said, “I can’t kiss you on the lips.”
“Why not?’
“Because you are the most wonderful girl in the whole wide world, and only the real Prince Charming deserves to kiss you on the lips. I’m not Prince Charming, I’m… I’m Prince Alarming.”
“Who’s Prince Alarming?” I asked.
“He’s the prince that makes the all the girls run away when they see him. He’s like a fire alarm.”
“Why can’t you be Prince Charming and kiss me on the lips?” I pleaded.
“I can’t even pretend to be Prince Charming,” he said, “because his mind is clear, his thoughts are pure and his heart is true. Prince Alarming is none of those things. If he kissed you on the lips you would turn into a toad.”
“You’re mixing up the fairy tales,” I said.
Ever since I have wondered what it would be like to kiss Uncle Billy on the lips. For a long time I was afraid I would turn into a toad.
The summer when I was eleven there was a dance at the recreation center most Wednesdays. I went with my girl friends one night and came home miserable. I couldn’t even talk to Mom I was so unhappy. The next morning when I didn’t wake Uncle Billy he came into my room, saw that I was just lying there, and got into bed with me. I expected him to try to tickle me to get me up but he just laid there looking at the ceiling. Finally, I turned and cuddled against him as I had done lots of mornings in his bed. “I hate boys,” I said.
“Boys are the worst,” he said. “We should line ’em up and shoot ’em all.”
I started to cry, and he put his arm around me and said, “Tell me about him.”
“He called me a name,” I said. “in front of everybody.”
“What name?”
“He called me a cunt.”
“Alright,” he said with a sigh. “What’s his name?”
“Ryan.”
“Where does Ryan live?” he asked.
Confused about why he was asking, I described Ryan’s house near the school. He slowly got out of bed repeating the name and the location as if trying to memorize it. “Where are you going?” I asked.
“To get the axe,” he said.
I leaped out of bed and followed him out to the garage, him still in his shorts and me in my pajamas. “What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to kill him,” he said in a very serious way.
“You can’t kill him.”
“Oh, you can kill most anybody with an axe,” he said. “He’s not bigger than me is he? If he’s really big I’ll just chop off his legs so that he has to push himself to school on a skateboard with his hands.”
I grabbed his arm and pleaded, “Uncle Billy, you cant hurt him. I… I… I like him.”
Uncle Billy turned, his expression too angry for me to believe he was joking. “Well, that’s worse,” he said. “It’s one thing if it was just some dumb kid you don’t care about, but if you like him then he did it just to be mean.”
I was scared to death he was going to hurt poor Ryan. Mom had said something about Uncle Billy doing things without thinking when he was angry and how that got him into trouble with the police. I was afraid this was going to be one of those things. We were already in the garage and he had the axe in his hand and the big garage door was opening when I threw my arms around his hairy back and begged him not to hurt Ryan. He paused, and I moved around to hug him from the front so he couldn’t get out of the garage. I could see a couple of the neighbor women standing in one of their driveways and staring. I imagine we were quite a site, me in my pajamas with my face pressed into Uncle Billy’s plump, hairy, naked stomach and him holding an axe in both hands over my head.
“Then you will have to make him pay,” he said, “or it’s off with his legs.”
“Okay,” I said.
“It’ll be hard,” he said. “Maybe the hardest thing you have ever done.”
I was so relieved I would have done anything he asked. I ran to the button and closed the garage door. He put down the axe and I led him back into the house and back to my bed and snuggled up against him, shivering more from relief that I had saved Ryan’s life and kept Uncle Billy from getting into trouble than from the cold. I thought it was terrifying and wonderful that Uncle Billy loved me so much he was willing to kill for me. It wasn’t long before I was warm, relaxed and happy in his arms.
He said I had to pay Ryan back with an insult of equal nastiness and, most importantly, say it front of everybody to inflict the maximum amount of pain. He decided what I should say and made me practice saying it. I had to practice saying it loudly in different ways and in different positions with him poking me in the stomach so that I could say it flawlessly even while distracted. I said it standing on the kitchen table, in the closet and outside on top of the play structure. “The next place is the big test,” he said as we got on the bus. I got real nervous when I realized where we were going because unlike all the other places there were going to be lots of people present.
The mall was cavernous, loud, and full of shoppers. I didn’t think I could do it but Uncle Billy got that angry look, made a chopping motion with his hands and pointed to the skateboard shop. I took a breath, stood against the railing on the second floor overlooking the atrium and yelled as loud as I could, “You have a penis the size of a humming bird’s beak and testicles smaller than bee-bees.” Everyone in the mall fell quiet for a few seconds and looked at me, then laughed and started talking again. It was wonderful. I felt free and alive and I jumped around and hugged Uncle Billy as hard as I could.
I had my chance at the next dance to say it to Ryan, but I didn’t. I decided I didn’t like him any more and he wasn’t worth the breath. I never let anybody, boys or girls, call me names again without paying them back in kind, though.
I still wonder what Uncle Billy would have done if I hadn’t stopped him. He doesn’t look like he ever gets angry any more as he sits there. I think about telling him that some boy was mean to me just to see the old Uncle Billy. Would he get mad again and show me that he cares? What if somebody kidnapped and raped me? I imagine uncle Billy coming to rescue me with an axe, chopping off his penis, and carrying me home in his big, hairy arms and snuggling in bed with him until I felt warm and safe again.
Mom made Uncle Billy go to the doctor because she was worried about him. They gave him some pills but they don’t seem to be working because he still just stares. I wish he would stare at me. I know how to get my History teacher to stare at me. All I have to do is wear a skirt and let it ride up a little. I sit in the front row and he just stares until he sees that I know he is staring. He gave me a B- on an assignment and said if I wanted to bring up my grade to talk to him after school about extra work I could do. He is such a perv.
I throw my leg over the arm of the sofa which opens my shorts a little. I think if Uncle Billy looked he could see my undies. I kick my foot up and down to draw attention to my open legs. I adjust my bra. The boys at school always look at me if I adjust my bra.
Come on, Uncle Billy. Look at me like you used to. He just stares out the window. Maybe I should sit in his lap. I wonder if he would get stiff under me again like he used to. I asked him one summer a few years ago why he got stiff when I sat in his lap and he said, “Men can’t help it. When a beautiful girl sits in their lap they want to make her pregnant.”
“Ewe,” I said. “Why do they want to make her pregnant?”
“There isn’t enough beauty in the world, so they want to make more just like the one in their lap. That’s the greatest thing a man can do is make a beautiful girl like you.”
“But why does your wiener get stiff?”
“So the man can squirt his sperm in the right place.”
“Where’s the right place?”
“Inside,” he said, tapping my tummy, “where your eggs are.”
“If I sit in your lap will your penis get inside me and make me pregnant?’
“You have to be careful with boys,” he said, “because some penises are very sneaky and they can get in there before you know it. But you don’t have to worry about me. I’m too ugly to get someone as beautiful as you pregnant. When your beautiful eggs saw my ugly sperm coming they would punch ’em in the nose and send them away.”
“No, they wouldn’t,” I said feeling bad for him. “They would hug them and kiss them because they love you.” That made him smile. He always used to smile at the silly things I said. I wish I could make him smile again.
I can make my history teacher smile easily. I just have to pretend there is something on my shirt over my breast and scratch at it. I know he watches me as I finger right where the nipple is and when I look up, he smiles. I pretend there is something on my shirt over my nipple to see if Uncle Billy will notice. I don’t look at him at first, I just casually rub over my nipple as I read until it gets stiff and you can see it poking out under my top. Then I kind of squeeze my breast like it is sore a few times and look up at Uncle Billy. He is not even looking at me! I unbutton one button and slip my hand inside, even reaching under my bra with my finger to rub my hard nipple. My history teacher would have slipped and fallen in his own drool by now, but Uncle Billy just stares like I don’t exist.
I looked it up. Regrets means feeling disappointed about missed opportunities. I wonder what Uncle Billy regrets? Does he regret dropping out of college or quitting all those good jobs? Does he regret not calling or writing letters to my Mom so she wouldn’t worry about him? Was there someone he wanted to marry and he regrets not asking her? Did he kill someone for calling a girl he liked a name? Does he regret not kissing me on the lips?
My parents are gone for the evening and it is starting to get dark. Uncle Billy and I used to make popcorn in the evenings and sit together sharing a big bowl while we watched a movie. I made popcorn hoping the aroma would make him want to have some and sit with me like before. I put lots of butter on just the way he likes and held the big bowl in both hands and stood in front of him but he said no when I asked if he wanted some. I set the bowl down and crawled into his lap and put my arms around him. When I was curled up on top of him, he said, “What are you doing?”
“You used to like me to sit in your lap, Uncle Billy.”
He looked at me blankly and said, “I remember. You’re too big for that now.”
I was so hurt I almost cried. Instead, I hugged him with my chin in his warm neck and wiggled on his lap. I remembered sometimes when I was younger that it felt good to sit on top of his stiff wiener so that it was pushing right on my vulva. I used to climb on and wiggle trying to make him stiff. Now I understood why it felt good and I thought it would feel even better. I wiggled and squirmed and hugged and nuzzled in his neck trying to make him stiff. I was so disappointed when he didn’t get stiff at all after a long time of wiggling. I stopped and looked at him trying to figure out what was wrong with him. He looked at me. There was no affection in his face for me like before and his eyes were nearly closed with sadness. It was almost like he didn’t know me.
I wanted to make him feel better and I thought he might if I kissed him. I’m pretty and almost a woman now and men like to kiss women with breasts. I hesitated wondering if I would turn into a toad. It was a silly thing to worry about, I know, but before I could do it he pushed me off his lap. “You’d better do your homework,” he said.
I thought maybe Uncle Billy didn’t like girls anymore. Once I overheard my dad ask mom if the reason Uncle Billy didn’t ever have a girlfriend for long was because he is gay. Mom didn’t think so because he dated a lot in high school and he always seemed interested in girls. “Maybe he is a lousy lover,” Dad said. Mom didn’t say anything for a long time until my dad said, “What?”
“I don’t think that’s it,” she said. “The girls in high school had a nick name for him.”
“What nickname?”
“Beer can Billy,” she said.
“I don’t get it.” After a pause my dad said, “You mean his… equipment is… shaped like a–”
“As thick as a beer can,” Mom said.
I had seen his shorts poked out by it, and I had felt it swell under my lap, but I had never actually seen Uncle Billy’s dick. I had seen regular dicks on the internet and I tried to imagine one shaped like a beer can. I couldn’t reconcile the two images and I wondered if Uncle Billy’s could really be that big. I had never had sex, but I thought about having sex a lot. Naturally, I wondered what it would feel like to have a dick the size of a beer can inside me. It seemed scary and fascinating at the same time. I would like to see a dick like that just to know if it really exists. I despaired at the prospect knowing I had tried and failed to make Uncle Billy stiff. Uncle Billy must not think I am sexy.
My History teacher thinks I’m sexy. He looks at me in the strange way men do when they think I’m over-developed for my age. He smiles at me all the time, and he watches when I want him to, and lots of times when I don’t. I can’t tell if he gets stiff, though. I’ll bet he would if I sat in his lap and kissed him. I’ll bet he would hold me tight, close his eyes, stick his tongue in my mouth and get so stiff I could masturbate on his dick right through our pants. It might not be like a beer can, but maybe a water bottle. I’ll bet a water bottle would feel almost as good as a beer can. I fall asleep wondering what I could do to bring back the old Uncle Billy.
Last summer when Uncle Billy arrived Mom told me I couldn’t get into bed with him in the mornings any more. I didn’t think she even knew I got into bed with him every morning, and I was angry. “Why not?” I demanded to know.
“Because he is a man and you are a young woman now, and young women don’t get into bed with men unless they are married.”
It wasn’t my fault my breasts had grown like balloons all of a sudden. I didn’t see why that meant I couldn’t snuggle with my best friend in the mornings. Sometimes it looked like he wanted to get me pregnant, but all we did was talk. Mornings were the time when Uncle Billy told me about all the places he had been and the things he had seen. He had a million stories that he only told me when we were snuggled together in bed. The summer before he told me about the singing dogs of Papua New Guinea. He howled so I could hear the sing-song trill they made every night high up in the mountains.
“Why do the dogs sing?” I asked.
“They sing to say they are lonely and they want to find a mate,” he said. Then he would howl the words, “I-want-someone-to-love,” as if he was a singing dog. I laughed and laughed as he sang, “Please-come-and-love-me.”
“How come you haven’t found a mate?” I asked him.
He looked very serious and said, “I’ll never find a mate. I’m too spoiled.”
“What do you mean?”
“You remember the brick of chocolate?” he asked.
“Yes, it was so good.”
“Imagine living on that chocolate milk all your life, and then someone says, ‘Here’s some lemon juice. That’s all you get from now on.’ Me finding a mate would be like settling for lemon juice.”
I had to think about what he was trying to say for awhile, then I asked, “Who’s the chocolate milk?”
Uncle Billy gave me a odd look, like I should know the answer, then he touched his finger lightly to my nose.
I felt flattered, and uncomfortable, and sad all at the same time. I didn’t know what to say. He started singing again, and he made me try and then practice so I could sound just like the dogs. We laughed and howled and sang our conversation to each other all morning.
I decided I would get into bed with Uncle Billy anyway and make him tell me about something he has seen. It was a weekend so I set my alarm for before Mom and Dad got up and I got out of bed and sneaked into Uncle Billy’s room still in my pajamas. I was excited anticipating how good it would feel to snuggle against his warm, chubby body. I didn’t wear my bra in bed so if my new breasts pressed through my pajamas against his naked chest when I was snuggling, it couldn’t be helped.
When I pushed open the door, Uncle Billy wasn’t there. I knew he had trouble sleeping and Mom had said he wandered around sometimes at night. I looked everywhere for him and I couldn’t find him until I looked outside in the back yard. He was sitting at the top of the slide on the old play structure, wearing only his boxer shorts. He had his knees up and his hands clasped staring at the sun just starting to come over the hills.
“Uncle Billy?” I called to him as I stepped outside into the cold morning air.
He didn’t answer. I called a few more times and when he didn’t stir I ran back in and woke my parents. Dad finally coaxed him inside and we sat him in the big chair in the family room and wrapped him in a blanket. He drank a little instant hot chocolate I made him, but he wouldn’t talk. He just stared like it was too painful to move.
Mom cried after that and they took him to the doctor again and got him some new pills. They said if he didn’t get better he would have to go to the hospital. All of their worry made me worry too.
That night I dreamed that I sat on Uncle Billy’s lap and he got stiff under me. I asked him if I could see his dick. He said okay and it was smooth and shinny with writing on the side just like a beer can. “Can I touch it?” I asked. He nodded and it felt ice-cold and slick with moisture that rubbed off on my hands. “You can pop the top if you want,” he said. I pulled the tab and it sprayed his sperm all over me and I laughed and laughed. I wanted to stick it inside me but he said it wouldn’t work because all the sperm was gone.
I awoke all trembly and I felt wet between my legs. I slipped my finger over my bump and enjoyed the smooth, slick feel of it. I thought about sitting in Uncle Billy’s lap until he got stiff and watching his sneaky dick wind its way out of his pants and into mine. I came when I imagined his dick pushing inside me and his sperm filling me until it leaked out like beer can foam.
I awoke the next morning to the sounds of laughter coming from the kitchen. When I got there Mom and Dad were sitting at the table and Uncle Billy was standing at the stove. Mom said, “Billy is making pancakes,” and she smiled for the first time I could remember since her brother had arrived.
“How’s my favorite girl in the whole wide world?” Uncle Billy asked me.
He sounded just like the old Uncle Billy, and I was so happy I ran to him and threw my arms around his big belly and held him tight. I let go reluctantly when he told me to sit down and eat my pancakes. We talked and ate like he had just come back from nine months on a fishing boat with stories of terrible weather, smelly fish and a smellier crew. When Mom and Dad went to work I wanted to get into bed with Uncle Billy, but he said we should get dressed and take the train to the city. There was an exhibit there he wanted me to see.
He had seen it before in another city. It was called The Bodies Exhibition and it was full of dead people with no clothes, their skin peeled off and frozen in positions like they had been doing normal things, such as dancing or running. There were women doing gymnastics on balance beams, men playing soccer, and several sitting at a table playing cards. You could see all the muscles inside including the women’s breasts, and the men’s dicks. One of them was even stiff and I had to keep from giggling because Uncle Billy said the people were very brave to let their bodies be put on display with all their flaws exposed. The bodies were gruesome and fascinating at the same time. I held Uncle Billy’s hand all though the exhibit and asked a hundred questions. He knew one of the people running the exhibit and he shook hands with him before we left. Then we shopped and ate and walked around and ate some more. We took the train home and arrived late. I wanted to watch movies with Uncle Billy and sit in his lap and do all the things we had done before, but I was so tired he insisted I go to bed.
When I had my pajamas on and I had brushed my teeth I asked him to tuck me in like he used to when I was little. He sat on the edge of the bed as I snuggled on the pillow and I told him how much fun I had with him that day and that I wanted him to stay with us always.
“Oh, I have to hit the road again,” he said. “I can’t sit around here like a useless slug all the time.”
“But you’ll come back, right? To watch me in the summer?”
“You’re all grown up now,” he said. “You don’t need me to watch over you any more.”
I could see that was making Uncle Billy sad, so I said, “Yes, I do. I need you more than ever.”
“Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ll make sure you can see me whenever you want.”
“Do you promise?”
“Yes,” he said. “And I could never break a promise to my favorite girl in the whole wide world.”
“But that might not be for a long time. I’ll miss you.”
“I’ll miss you more,” he said. “You’re the one thing that makes it hard for me to go.”
“Kiss me,” I said. I don’t know why I said it, but I wanted uncle Billy to kiss me. He leaned over and I put my arms around his neck and he kissed me on the forehead. “Not there,” I said. “On the lips.”
“It’s late,” he said. “Come get in bed with me in the morning, and we’ll do anything you want.”
I smiled, both frightened and delighted at what I might ask him to do. “Good night, Uncle Billy. I love you.”
“I love you, too,” he said.
I woke up early the next morning and climbed in Uncle Billy’s bed. I snuggled against him and was surprised to find he wasn’t warm like before. He didn’t wake up when I shook him. He didn’t move when I hit him and yelled his name. Mom and Dad came in to see what was the matter. Dad held Mom. Mom held Uncle Billy’s empty bottle of pills and cried. I cried, too.
There was no funeral. Uncle Billy had made arrangements to donate his body to the traveling The Bodies Exhibition. My mother didn’t understand, but I did. He was brave, and he wanted to be useful, and he wanted to keep his promise to let me see him whenever I wanted. I hope I’ll recognize him without his skin and bushy hair. I’ll be looking for one with a dick shaped like a beer can.
I’m sitting in class listening to my History teacher yak. He messes up his words if he looks at me, but I am not listening anyway. I am thinking about all the things Uncle Billy and I did, and even more about the things we didn’t. I wish I hadn’t felt uncomfortable when he looked at me in that strange way. I wish I hadn't been afraid of being turned into a toad and kissed him before he pushed me off his lap, or at least made him kiss me on the lips all those times instead of the forehead. I wish I had been a real harem girl to him and pleased him enough to make him want to stay around. I wish I had grabbed his wiener that morning and kept him from running to the bathroom to jerk off. I could have held it in my hands like a beer can and made him squirt his foam all over me like in the dream. I wish I had sat on his lap, made him stiff, and rubbed on his dick with my vulva until I came. I wish I had gotten into bed with him one morning naked and pressed my new breasts into his bearded face until it made my nipples stiff. I wish I could have felt what it was like to have his fat dick sneak out of his boxers and inside me. Most of all, I wish someone had told me Uncle Billy’s disease was contagious. Fortunately, I know how to prevent getting it in the future. I have an appointment with my History teacher after to school to see about bringing up my grade.
∞
Tell me how you liked the story: Send A Comment To Fabula