My grandparents' house had two attics, one on the north end and one on the south end of the house, with a bedroom and bathroom in between. The north attic was crowded with clothes hung on rods and many boxes of stuff, just stuff. It was a dark attic. It was crowded, and the only window faced north, and pressed close against that north window were several large old oak trees. That attic was mysterious and seemed to hold more than the eye could discern. It always felt like approaching gloomy twilight in the north attic, with night and its shadows coming soon. We kids didn't go in there much. I was slightly afraid of it as a very young boy.

The southside attic was superficially the same as the northside attic: it was the same size, and the flooring in both consisted of nice big pieces of plywood laid over rafters. But this attic was full of light. No clutter, and the sunny south-facing window overlooked the driveway, which was open and treeless. Not much stuff was stored in this attic, either; the Christmas decorations, some other miscellaneous boxes... And - at the heart of the mind and the eye of little Danny, his brothers and his friends - a large assortment of model trains and accessories: tracks, engines, train cars, transformers, signals...

That attic was not mysterious - it was a wonderful playhouse for us boys in the extended family, and our friends. It was never twilight in that attic. It always felt like Saturday noon. I was never afraid of that attic. It's still a warm memory.

The trains had belonged to my two youngest uncles. After they grew up and moved out, my grandparents kept all their old model trains in the south attic. They were available for all the grandkids and their friends to come over and play, as long as we put them back in the box when we were done. My brothers and I took advantage of this opportunity many times. We would spend hours up there. Although it was unheated, the attic wasn't usually too cold in the winter; and even in July, when it was hotter than hell, we enjoyed ourselves with those trains. I loved those things.

These trains were the big old Lionels, not the little HO-scale models. I can still smell the ozone-electric odor the transformers put off. If you've ever had those trains, you know what I mean. And one train had this working smokestack, and this ancient bottle of smoke-oil to put in it. One time my middle brother and I poured a little of that oil in the smokestack, to try it out. It smoked, all right. I guess the oil had gone bad or something, because immediately the whole attic started reeking. P-YEW!! We didn't know how to get rid of the oil stink, so we just put up with it every time we played up there, until the engine finally quit smoking a few weeks later.

Of course, there's a sex story associated with those trains, too. Not much of one, really - just that my friend Alex and I would go up there to play with the trains, and play with each other.It wasn't often. We did it four times, if I recall correctly. More often, we went up to the attic and just played with the trains. Two 11 year-old boys having fun, the "ordinary" way. Alex and I were close friends, and friends do many things that don't include sex. Sex back then was uncomplicated and free. It was just something else on the agenda, right after jigsaw puzzles and right before backyard soccer. Alex and I spent hours and hours immersed in backyard soccer, and nothing was ever more gratifying than those deep, sweet moments.

But I think most readers will want to hear about the sex, so let me describe one such incident. This was the time my grandmother came close to catching us.

Before I continue, let me say that she didn't catch us having sex. She never knew we were doing anything up there except playing with trains. I am thankful, for her sake more than mine. She was a sweet lady and I loved her, and it would've shocked her to know what we were doing, and especially if she'd found us doing it. Not a nice thing.

This took place in the spring when Alex and I were eleven years old. We had already been fellating each other through the summer and fall and short Southern winter, and we had become familiar with each other's likes and dislikes, sexually. And, as with all people, doing it in a different way, or in a different place, made it more exciting. I don't need to describe the first couple of times we had sex up in the train-attic. It wasn't much different than the third time, the subject of this story.

That spring afternoon, after school, Alex and I went over to my grandparents' house to play with the trains. After going through the proper visiting- rituals, we went up to the south attic. The train stuff was stored in three old battered cardboard boxes. One of them said "Campbell's Chicken Noodle Soup" in faded red script on the side, except that the last part was cut off, so the box actually read "Campbell's Chicken No". We kids got the giggles over that, a few times.

We usually set up the trains in a double ellipse, one nested within the other; and that's what we did this time. It took time to set up. The tracks were a little warped from two generations of boy-hands. Some wires were frayed. The trains were old and occasionally balky. It didn't matter.

It was a hot afternoon. In the South, summer essentially begins in April and runs through mid-October. By the time school was out in June, we kids had long since caught our June bugs and mentally escaped the confining educational walls, though our bodies were trapped.

Heat always makes me horny. And I was horny to begin with that day, as on most days that 11th year of my life, and after. So, after we'd run the trains around for about five minutes, I looked at Alex and said, "Hey... wanna do it?" He grinned. This was a familiar routine now. When it happened, the only variable was who said it first.

We always made our sex quick and dirty in the attic, because we didn't want to get caught. Immediately we stood up and stripped naked, fast. I remember that Alex was wearing a red T-shirt that day. Both of us had shorts on, and boxers underneath, of course. Quick and dirty sometimes meant the boxers stayed on. But bare-assed was fun; and anyway, it was hot.

I usually sucked him off first. We both liked it that way. Alex sat on the floor, leaning back with his palms on the plywood, with his legs straight out and spread wide. He already had a stiffie as usual, lightning rod small but charged, electrified. I got on my knees and bent down (the plywood was too rough to lie prone), and closed my mouth over his hairless weenie, and felt my senses fill up with the hot slickness of that initial contact.

I sucked, and bobbed my head, the old familiar rhythm, wanting to absorb him into me. With Alex it was always a perfect fit, always. I wanted Alex to feel my penis while I was sucking his, as we usually did, but the positions were wrong; so I played with my own instead. For some reason, I recall vividly the way his stomach began moving as his breath grew ragged, that hot still afternoon. After several minutes he reached orgasm. Dry, completely. Alex never ejaculated anything during the time we were together. Too young to leave any trace of his fiery passage inside me, too young.

As soon as Alex finished coming, I got up and we reversed positions. I was already aroused, of course. He got down there, opened his mouth, made the coupling, started. I wanted to put my hands on him, but I had to lean back on my palms, grounded. So instead I looked out the window at the puffy white cumulus clouds against the blue, light upon light. I was drowning in a sea of heat, under the surface, looking up through the sea into the air at the ordinary world of woods and birds and sand and life, while I again died the slow, familiar death in that soft sucking whirlpool of heat, loving it. The excitement built, down there between my legs, and the familiar red haze overlaid my senses, and my mind frayed and unraveled around the edges, and the cloudscape went kaleidoscopic, and the center cracked, and the blue sparks shot and swirled, and then the violet electric tickle pierced everything, and I rode the lightning, all the way back to earth.
Light, so full of light...

I would estimate our BJs took about 6-8 minutes, start to finish. Boy-sex was usually a quick thing, in my experience. And this was very quick even by our standards.

Afterwards, the world settled into place, as it always did. The attic looked normal - ceiling beams, cobwebs, bare light bulb overheard. Below, the trains were still there, waiting for us to finish. Our big itch was scratched, white- hot explosion. But fun comes in other colors.

We had gotten hot - just plain old up-in-the-attic hot - by this time. So both of us put just our boxers on, and Alex got his engine up and running on one ellipse, and I set my train on the other, and we went around and around. No ending-point, no climax. Going nowhere. But loving it despite that. Or because of that.
Love...

About ten minutes later, I'm guessing, we heard the thud of footsteps coming up the stairs. I thought it had to be my grandma; she was on the heavy side, and my grandpa was skinny. Alex and I looked at each other. Is she gonna ask why we're in just our boxers? But there was nothing to do about it by this point. And anyway, the heat was a very plausible (and honest) reason for stripping down. We had done that before, Alex and I, and my brothers and other friends, just because it was hot.

Grandma opened the attic door, and saw us sitting there cross-legged in our underwear with the controls in our hands. I was closer to the door. I smiled at her, a little uncertainly, or so it seems today. She looked at us both and frowned a little, and said, "My goodness, you boys shouldn't be playing up here, if you're so hot you have to take your clothes off." That was the reaction I was expecting, although in the back of my mind I was worrying she'd say something like "WHAT have you two been doing??" Relief.

I said, "Yes ma'am, we'll be down in a few minutes." She said, "Well, it's a hot day, and you don't need to be getting heatstroke... come down when you get dressed." She smiled at us and turned and left, leaving the door open. Her footsteps receded steadily down into the warm, cluttery front hallway.

The attic-spell broke. It was the end of the trains that day - we knew that. We put the trains away, got dressed, and went downstairs. Grandma was in the living room, knitting of course. She smiled again when we appeared, all flushed and perspiring. "There are Cokes in the fridge, boys. Help yourselves... Danny, close your mouth, you're panting like a dog. I really think it's too hot up in that attic for you to be playing up there. Why don't you play in the other attic? At least you won't get that noontime sun."

Alex and I looked at each other. We'd been in the north attic only once together. We knew why we didn't play there.

After the Cokes, we went out in the back yard and looked at the squirrel's nest. It had been in the tree-fork all winter, and we were betting on when it would crumble and fall apart - or when it would be refurbished by this year's furry tenants. Eventually the nest fell apart.

And eventually we went home, that afternoon, riding our bikes east back to Alex's house (mine was farther on), sun on our backs and shadows getting longer before our wheels, leaving behind the two attics, the northern well of darkness and the southern cascade of light. And three or four months after this hot afternoon, in the middle of the scorching Southern summer, Alex and his family moved away.