“Here, Dad,” I say, handing my dad the bag of pain meds.

He grunts as his way of saying thank you.

The TV is blaring the sounds of guns and cannons blasting. All sorts of weapons making a shit load of noise.

“Sit down, son,” grunts my dad.

This is rare. He usually doesn’t like to talk. It’s rare that he asks me to sit down with him. I can’t remember the last time he did this.

I sit down on the couch. He doesn’t turn off the TV, but he turns down the volume a little.

With a lot of effort, he turns in his chair to look at me.

He glares at me, squinting, his thick eyebrows coming together. He used to be a handsome guy, big and strong, back in his military days. That was before his accident, before his life turned to shit, as he says.

“What the hell are you going to do?” he says. He doesn’t just say it, though. He barks it at me.

“What do you mean?”

“You’ve been 18 for a year now. You’ve been a man for a year now. What the hell are you playing at?”

“I don’t want to go to college,” I say. “I want to do my own thing. I want to make a difference. If I’m going to college, then it’s going to be on my own terms. No one’s going to be telling me what to do all the time… That’s just not my style, a coach barking commands at me all season… all school year.”

I get enough of that at home, I think to myself.

“I’m not talking about fucking college,” spits out my dad.

He looks even meaner than usual. Maybe he doesn’t like the movie, or maybe the pain’s really getting to him tonight. It’s hard to tell.

“Why don’t you take one of those pills, Dad,” I say, suggesting it in the gentlest way possible.

He grunts, and ignores me.

“You don’t need to go to college to do something with your life. But you’re smart. I’ve seen your test scores. You’re no normal meat head football player.”

I sigh. I’ve heard it all before. Yeah, I get OK grades, but I’m not exactly living up to my academic potential. That was according to my counselors, at least.

“Look, son,” says my dad. “I’m not going to tell you what to do. I don’t give a shit, really, what it is. But if you say you want to make something with your life, just go fucking do it. Don’t wait around.”

“Thanks, Dad,” I say, a little sarcastically. “Is that all?”

He doesn’t look at me. His attention is turned back to the TV movie. The military guys in the movie are rushing a beach, firing their guns as they run. One of them gets hit and goes down.

I walk slowly up to my room.

How can people tell me I’m not living up to my potential when I was the king of the school, captain of the football team? I even took college courses in my last year of school. That was partially what convinced me I didn’t want to have anything to do with college. Everything was so abstract, and not related to the real world at all. I mean, I did fine, acing all my courses.

Honestly, I only took the courses to meet college chicks. Laid a few of them, too. At 18, I was the same age as a lot of them. And I look a lot older than I am, with a beard that grows in thick and coarse if I don’t shave every day.

Lying on my bed, my thoughts turn to that gorgeous curvy chick from the pharmacy.

I’ll fuck her tomorrow, there’s no doubt in my mind. It’s just a matter of where I decide to do it.

My cock starts growing, just thinking about her. I’ve got a high sex drive. Very high.

I sigh, knowing I can’t ignore this erection. It’s the slow burning intense kind that pushes uncomfortably against my jeans.

I look over to the door, making sure it’s closed all the way.

Unzipping my pants, I pull the flaps of denim aside, letting my cock free.

My breathing is going a little ragged.

I close my eyes and picture the girl from the pharmacy counter. Her tits were so perfect.

My hand grips my hard cock, forming a fist around it. I move my hand up and down slowly at first.

But as I picture her, imagining that she’s here on the bed with me, pulling off her shirt, my fist begins to speed up substantially.

She’s climbing on top of me, her shirt off, her pants on the floor. She’s wearing a bra that’s slightly too small for her. Her tits are practically spilling out of them. She whispers something to me, telling me that she wants me, that she wants my cock. She unhooks her bra, moving her hands behind her back to do so.

Moving her arms like that cause her breasts to squish together a little. Now the bra comes off, and those beautiful, huge globes spill out.

She leans down and I take one of her nipples in my mouth.

She’s closer to my cock, closer than ever.

Her pussy is wet. She slides it down onto my thick cock. The feeling is incredible, almost unimaginable.

My hand is moving faster and faster.

In my fantasy, she begins to ride me, hard and fast. Her tits are swaying in my face and her hips are thrusting wildly, quickly, sexily.

She starts to come, screaming about my cock. The look on her face is priceless.

Suddenly, my cock erupts. My warm come shoots out, blasting all over my chest.

I’m back in reality. The fantasy fades away.

A real shame. Because she looked incredible.

But I know she’s going to look even better in person. All I have to do is wait until tomorrow. That’s going to be hard, though.

But at least I know that I’m going to have her. She won’t say no to me. I saw right through that little shy girl façade. She craves cock like everyone else. Deep down, she wants me, and she’ll admit it to me in some private discussion while we stare at the stars together.

Grabbing a tissue from my bedside table, I clean myself up.

I’m halfway through pulling my pants back up when there’s a knock on the door.

“Just a minute,” I call out.

“I need to talk,” says my dad, speaking more softly than usual.

“I’m a little busy in here,” I say.

My dad’s a guy, and he usually respects my privacy. He knows how things are.

“I need to talk,” says my dad. “I don’t care what you’re doing. Just come to the door.”

Grumbling to myself, I zip up my pants and find the difficult button of the jeans and get that done. Normally, I’d enjoy lounging around a little after a session. Talking to my dad immediately after that release is about the last thing I want to do be doing.

Sighing, I open the door.

My dad’s face surprises me.

His normally grim expression is gone. Instead, it’s replaced by a look of extreme sadness.

“What happened?” I say.

“It’s your cousin.”

“My cousin?”

“Chris…”

I don’t say anything for a moment.

I know by the tone of my dad’s voice that something awful has happened.

Chris and I were best friends growing up. We did everything together. Of course, he was a few years older than me, so by the time high school came along, we didn’t spend quite as much time together. He had his own older friends.

But despite being older, Chris still would let me hang out with him and his friends from time to time. He was really cool about it. He never made me feel like I was the younger kid, just tagging along. He always included me.

I looked up to him like no one else.

Chris joined the military right after high school. I haven’t heard from him much, unless you count the occasional brief emails he’d send me, telling me that things were pretty tough over there.

“What happened?” I say, looking my dad right in the eyes. “Is he dead?”

My dad shakes his head.

“He stepped on a land mine,” he says. He pauses, a long pause. “He lost his legs…”

I’m speechless. Chris without his legs? Before me, he was the star quarterback all through school. He didn’t get a college scholarship, like the one I turned down, but he was good. He was an athlete, tall and muscular, and surprisingly nimble.

Picturing Chris without his legs is like… picturing a cheetah that can’t run. Chris was his body.

“He’s coming home on Thursday,” says my dad.

“Thursday,” I repeat vaguely. “So this happened… when?”

“He’s coming home,” says my dad. “That’s what’s important.”

I nod.

“He wants to see you.”

Facing Chris without legs? He’ll be lying in bed, unable to even walk…

I shudder at the thought.

How can I bare to face my hero, down and out, mutilated and bedbound?