The Wicked Hot Wizard of Oz

Donny Windham slowly closed the barn door from the inside. His shoulders automatically tensed when the old rusty hinges squeaked.

The young man left the door just slightly ajar so he could peek through the crack. "I can't believe I slipped by Toto without waking him up. He's so cute on that little doggy pillow Aunt Em made for him." Adjusting his angle, he added quietly, "I don't see any lights on or any movement in the house."

"Why are you whispering?" asked Jay Bridgestone, his best friend. "Your aunt and uncle couldn't hear us all the way in the farmhouse, even if they were still awake. Which I'm sure they're not, since it's almost midnight. And damn, why don't barns have air conditioning?"

"I know. I checked the temperature before I came out here, it's still eighty-eight degrees. At this time of night! Can you believe—" Donny looked over his shoulder. The sight cut his thoughts in mid-sentence.

At that exact moment, Jay grabbed the hem of his tee and pulled it over his head, revealing his perfect farm work-toned upper body. The shirtless stud reclined on the hay bale. With his legs spread open, the rest of his manly equipment showed quite prominently beneath his tight jeans.

Donny had often noticed that straight guys were fearless when it came to their bodies. How he envied their confidence. If they only knew what they did to their closeted gay friends when they showed off like that.

The young man tried to force himself not to stare at his friend's buzzed, hairy pecs. Donny closed his left fist and dug his nails into the palm of his hand. He'd developed that automatic reaction to channel the energy whenever he felt the urge to run his hands all over Jay's chest.

He wanted so badly to feel that hair beneath his fingers, to kiss his friend's nips and... Snap out of it, he ordered himself.

Jay asked, "So, dude, now that you got me out here at freaking midnight, what's up that you couldn't text me about? Or wait until tomorrow?" While he waited for an answer, Jay's eyes swept over his friend.

Donny couldn't help but wonder what Jay saw when he looked at him. Did he notice the dirty blonde hair and the masculine stubble on his face which was on the verge of being classified as a light beard. How about his smooth chest showing through his top two undone buttons?

Those were the kinds of things Donny noticed about other men anyway. He hoped someday he'd find someone who paid attention to him like that too. He hadn't worked on a farm his whole life like Jay, but he had done farm work for the last two years. The daily farm chores as well as his participation on various school sports teams had given him a hot jock bod, even if he felt strange admitting it.

"Well?" Jay prompted. "What did you do? Break a nail and you want your old pal Jay to kiss it better for ya?" he asked with a smart aleck grin.

"You love getting me riled up. Do you just enjoy torturing me?"

"That could be fun – if you're into that sort of thing," Jay shrugged.

Jay delivered the line so naturally and casually that there was no way Donny could tell if the stud was serious, cracking a joke, or just plain making fun of him. It had always been that way between them since the first time they met when Donny came to live with his Aunt Em and Uncle Henry two years earlier.

* * *

Donny clearly remembered the day he met Jay Bridgestone.

Aunt Em had said to her nephew, "I won't have you sitting around the house all day after you finish your chores. You've been here two weeks already and haven't made a single friend yet."

"The nearest neighbors are a million miles away," complained Donny as he looked out the kitchen window at the seemingly endless Kansas prairie.

"They are not either," Aunt Em contradicted as she wiped her hands on her apron. "The Bridgestone family's farm is only a mile up the road. They have a boy about your age too."

"Aunt Em, I'm not a 'boy,' I'm going to be a high school junior in the fall."

"You're practically ready to retire," Aunt Em said with an eye roll meant to convey her sarcasm. "Fine, then, the Bridgestones have a 'young man' about your age. Better?"

Donny nodded his agreement.

Aunt Em slid a tray of freshly baked cookies into a basket which she covered with a fancy dish towel. "Here, take these cookies down the road and go introduce yourself. Boys, young men, old geezers, whatever age they are, none of them can resist my cookies! Share them with Jay Bridgestone and you'll have a friend for life." She handed Donny the basket. "Now, off with you!"

Donny surreptitiously grabbed his duffel bag hanging on the back of the chair by the door. He knew Aunt Em would never approve of putting food in what she called "that stinky bag that smells like every locker room you've ever been in and every dirty sports team uniform you've ever worn." Donny slipped the basket inside the bag and headed down the road.

An hour later, he and Jay Bridgestone sat under a maple tree by the stream in ninety-degree weather shoving the last of the cookies into their mouths.

"You've got melted chocolate all over your face," Jay told his new friend.

Donny wiped his mouth several times with the back of his hand. Each time, Jay shook his head to indicate that Donny had still missed some of the melted chips.

"Come here, I'll get it," Jay said, leaning over. Jay's rough, farm-toughened fingers reached out towards Donny's face. He cradled both hands around Donny's chin and cheeks in order to provide stability when he rubbed the chocolate away.

Donny thought he would have automatically recoiled at someone he hardly knew holding his face and rubbing around his lips like that. However, Jay's touch sent tingles up and down his spine. He involuntarily shuddered, yet he didn't want them to stop.

"There, got it," Jay announced.

"Thanks," Donny mumbled.

Neither of the two young men moved. They looked into each other's eyes. Their breathing stopped for a second.

As if some unknown force pushed him forward, Donny started to lean in towards Jay. He closed his eyes.

So many thoughts raced through his mind. He'd never told anyone about "those" feelings he had – feelings for other guys.

First, Donny had grown up on the other side of the state in a little town. He'd gone to school with the same small group of people his whole life. He had no doubt that he was the only gay kid in the school. His classmates whispered that one girl's gate swung both ways, but that obviously didn't interest him in any way.

Now that he'd moved to the farm with Uncle Henry and Aunt Em, he turned out to be the only gay guy in a two-hundred-mile radius. (He'd checked the mobile apps!) Yet, somehow, he found this handsome hunk. Brought together by something so old-fashioned like chocolate chip oatmeal cookies, what were the odds?

Donny puckered his lips, ready for anything. Then... Nothing!

Jay's hands fell away from Donny's face. Even though they were gone, Donny could still feel their impressions against his skin.

"What're you doing, dude?" Jay asked. "You looked like you were waiting for me to kiss you or something!"

"Oh, I, um, I—" Donny stammered.

"Spit it out, man. Did you want me to plant a big smooch on your mouth or not?"

Yes. Oh, hell yes! Donny wanted to scream. Instead, he replied, "No, I—"

"I think you did. Donny-boy's got a crush on me," he teased in a sing-song voice. "Your lips were all ready – in position to go mwah, mwah, mwah!"

"I was just trying to get a piece of cookie out of my teeth with my tongue."

Jay leaned back against the maple tree. He crossed his legs in a relaxed manner. "If you did want me to kiss you, I can see why," he said pensively.

"You can?" Donny asked, in a way that didn't commit to or admit to anything more than simply questioning the other guy's last statement.

"Of course," Jay said with that dry, matter-of-fact tone that Donny would come to know so well as time went on. "I'm freaking hot!"

Donny just stared at him. What should he do? Agree? Disagree? Throw himself against Jay's sexy body and go for it? Say nothing and run away? Tell Jay he was crazy and he better not tell anyone else about his insane theories?

Then Jay did the last thing Donny expected. He burst out laughing! Jay gave Donny a playful punch on the arm. "Wow, dude, you need to lighten up. I really had you going there! I wish you could have seen the look on your own face. I'm gonna have serious fun driving you nuts! Come on, let's go back to my house for some cold lemonade."

Jay stood up. He offered his hand to help Donny off the ground. "Last one there's a rotten egg!" Jay yelled as he took off running.

Donny grabbed his duffel bag and the empty cookie basket. He ran off after his wild, new friend.

* * *

Neither Donny nor Jay ever spoke over the next two years of what Donny came to think of as their "almost kiss." Donny thought about it plenty of times, though! Anything minor could trigger it. A lingering glance. An accidental bump against the arm. Jay's perfect smile.

Since they met, the two young men had become inseparable best friends who could talk about anything. Anything but sex, that is. Sure, they joked about it. Well, Jay joked about it. Donny bit his lip and dug his fingernails into his palm.

Jay never had any long-term girlfriends, but he did go out on dates with different girls. He didn't offer any of the dirty details and Donny certainly didn't ask for them, that's for sure. He couldn't bear to think about someone else getting close to his friend in a way that he never could.

Donny would walk all over his family's desolate farmland, wildly imagining different possible outcomes if he did somehow manage to find the courage to tell his best friend the truth...

What if, against all odds, Jay somehow felt the same way?

"Wow, I wish you'd told me sooner," Jay would say with a huge smile on his face.

"You do?"

"Yeah, I've always had a thing for you, too!" Jay would grab his phone and snap a quick pic of the two of them.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm putting it online right now. What's a good caption? I know. Guess who's gay! Everyone you've ever met will know you like dick within the next five minutes. You think your aunt and uncle will want to start chaperoning our dates?"

What if Jay freaked out?

"So you've been like, in love with me, for two years?" Jay would ask.

"Yes. It feels so good to finally say it out loud. Now that you know, maybe we can—"

"There's no WE, dude. You're a freaking weirdo and I'm never talking to you again!"

Unacceptable! Some part of having Jay in his life had to be better than none at all.

What if Jay's tastes lie elsewhere?

"Yeah, sure, I'd date a dude. Why not? Could be hot!" Jay would say.

"That's great, then you and I, we could..."

"We? Um, no. Gross! I said I'd go out with a guy. I didn't mean you! Come on, man, you're so not my type. But that bodybuilder who works at the gas station, now that's some manly hotness right there..."

Despite constantly thinking about it, Donny had kept his feelings locked up inside. At the same time, how could Jay not know? Couldn't he read it on Donny's face every time he looked at his friend?

All these confusing and contradicting thoughts had swirled through his head earlier when Donny had texted Jay, asking him to come to the barn right away.

Jay had texted back and asked if it could wait until morning, but Donny said no.

With Jay lying back shirtless on the hay bale, looking like a model at a photo shoot, Donny finally blurted out the reason he had asked Jay to come over that night. "I'm leaving Kansas."

"What? Why?" Jay asked with a dumbfounded look on his face.

"I just decided tonight, right before I texted you."

"So, what, you're running away from home? Did you have a fight with your Uncle Henry about curfew again?"

"No, nothing like that," Donny answered. Already, the conversation had veered off track from the way he planned it ahead of time.

"I don't understand. What's going on?" Jay patted a spot next to him on the hay bale.

Jay grabbed his shirt and mopped the sweat from his forehead. Then he swiped the shirt over his chest and under his arms. "Damn, it's seriously hot in here."

"Yeah, sure is," Donny gulped, meaning it on multiple levels. "So anyway, I got accepted to NYU. I'm gonna go."

"To New York?"

"That's what the NY part stands for," Donny laughed nervously.

"When?"

"Day after tomorrow. I'm going to tell Aunt Em and Uncle Henry in the morning."

"Day after tomorrow?" Jay repeated. "Why? That doesn't make sense. The semester doesn't start until after Labor Day. It's only mid-August. You've got like two or three weeks."

"There's a student-job program on campus. I can start now."

"You've been planning this and you didn't even tell me! Your best friend! Dude, what's up with that?"

"Do you want me to stay?" Donny asked.

Jay paused. "What kind of question is that?"

"The kind we've been avoiding since the day two years ago you almost kissed me," Donny said and instantly regretted.

Jay jumped off the hay bale. "Whoa! Where did that come from?"

Talk about it being pointless shutting the barn door once the horse was already in the pasture! "Oh, hell, I didn't mean to..." Donny kicked the hay with his heel.

"Well, you did! Now what?"

"Now we forget it ever happened – then and now. It doesn't matter. I'll be gone in two days. Look, it's late. I shouldn't have texted you and asked you to come over tonight. I have some of your stuff in the house. Your baseball glove. Some computer games. I'll put everything in a box. Just come by and get it tomorrow."

Donny's heart raced as he ran out of the barn. Leaving Kansas was the right decision. He had to get away. Start over somewhere else. Figure out how to deal with who he really was. Forget about Jay somehow.

"Donny, wait," Jay called after him in the loudest whisper possible since he didn't want to wake up Donny's aunt and uncle.

His friend had already disappeared into the house. Jay pulled out his phone. His thumbs flew over the screen. The system told him that Donny was offline, but the texts would be stored in his inbox. "Damn!"

Jay left the barn and headed home. He didn't know what to make of everything that had transpired, but he knew one thing for sure – nothing would ever be the same between him and Donny Windham again!

The next morning, the sky suddenly seemed grayer than usual, something Donny hardly would have thought possible if he hadn't noticed it himself. It provided a nice distraction for him from trying to figure out how to tell his uncle that he'd essentially decided to run away to college in New York.

"I think there's a thunderstorm coming," Donny said.

Uncle Henry looked up from the hole he was repairing in the wire fence around the chicken coop. He stood up and removed his straw hat. The older man wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand as he looked across the great Kansas prairie.

The low wail of the wind reached the two men's ears. The long grasses bowed down in waves in advance of the rapidly approaching weather front.

Donny imagined they did so out of respect and fear, considering the nasty thunderstorms he'd witnessed since moving to the farm.

The two men heard a sharp whistling in the air from the other direction. They twisted around and saw the ripples in the grass coming from that way too.

"That's no ordinary storm!" Uncle Henry shouted as he peered into the distance. "That's a tornado!"

Donny instinctively held Toto tighter in his arms. The puppy's ears perked up and he growled at the quickly darkening sky.

Donny's eyes went wide with amazement. It was one thing to see the wind twisting violently in a movie or in a YouTube video. It was quite another to actually see a monstrous whirlwind whipping its way across the cornfield towards the little farmhouse.

Experiencing the phenomenon in person, he couldn't believe that people actually stood there with cell phones and filmed the storms heading straight for them.

The young man actually froze for a moment. He knew he had to move, but his feet seemed heavy and bolted to the ground.

"There's a tornado coming, Em!" Uncle Henry yelled through the open kitchen window to his wife as she washed dishes in the sink. "I'll go check on the livestock," Uncle Henry told her as he ran towards the barn where the cows and horses were kept.

Aunt Em immediately put the dishes down and ran to the kitchen door. One glance at the sky and she knew the danger was close at hand. "Don't just stand there, Donny!" she screamed. "Run for the storm cellar! And take that little munchkin with you!" she yelled, referring to Toto. Aunt Em ran outside and shooed the agitated chickens into the barn.

Uncle Henry and Aunt Em reacted like teachers in a fire drill. They knew exactly what to do. Donny knew they must have told him in the past, but now he just stood there dumbfounded. He wasn't sure how long he'd been standing there immobile when Toto's barking snapped Donny out of the shocked state he had been in.

The wind whipped through Donny's hair. He blinked to clear the flying dust particles from his eyes.

"Get in here, boy!" Uncle Henry yelled from the open doorway of the storm cellar.

"Storm cellar" was a fancy name for a big hole in the ground. From the outside, it looked like a wooden "trapdoor to nowhere" stuck in the earth. Inside, a rickety wooden ladder led down to a bare-earth small hole where the family could ride out a storm.

Donny had once asked why they didn't just go in the regular basement of the farmhouse. Uncle Henry had explained, "The shelter was purposefully built away from the main house. That way, if you're hiding in it and the house is ripped off the foundation, you're not suddenly exposed to the open air of the storm. Also, if the house caved in and you were in the regular basement, you'd be buried in the rubble of the collapse."

Donny felt someone give him a shove from behind. He almost lost his balance as he took several awkward steps forward. The young man held onto Toto with one hand and readied the other arm to break his fall if he hit the ground.

Once he steadied himself, he spun around to see who had pushed him. Nobody there! A blast of wind in his face explained it. It had been the force of the wind that almost knocked him off his feet!

A loose board on the nearby picket fence rattled until a gust of wind ripped it free. It flew across the garden with its nails sticking out like some kind of crude weapon. Donny ducked just in time to avoid being attacked by it.

Aunt Em had already disappeared into the storm cellar. Uncle Henry stood on the ladder with half his body underground and the other half visible above ground. He held onto the trapdoor's interior rope handle with both hands. The strain showed on his face as he fought the wind for control of it.

As Donny finally approached it, Uncle Henry shouted to be heard above the rising din of the storm. "Give me Toto," he yelled as he reached out with one hand.

Donny started to pass the puppy to his uncle. Just then, Toto spotted Old Sally, the calico cat, running towards the house. She leaped through her kitty door. Toto jumped out of Donny's grip. The energetic puppy made a beeline for the feline!

"Toto! Get back here! Toto!" Donny yelled wildly.

The naughty puppy followed Old Sally right up to the kitty door. He was just small enough to still squeeze through it himself. He disappeared into the farmhouse.

"Stupid dog!" Donny screamed rather pointlessly.

"Come on, you're gonna have to leave him," Uncle Henry ordered.

"I can't do that!" Donny objected.

"Get down!" Uncle Henry cried. "Cover your head!"

Donny obeyed instantly, dropping to lie flat on the ground.

Aunt Em's favorite rocking chair tumbled through the air as effortlessly as a chicken feather. Uncle Henry ducked behind the open trapdoor. The chair crashed into the door and broke into several pieces. A chunk of wood banged against Donny's arm and flew off into the wind.

"Are you OK?" Uncle Henry called out.

"Yes," Donny yelled as he rubbed his arm. "I'm going back into the house to get Toto! I'll go as fast as I can! Close the cellar door for now so you'll be safe!"

Donny ignored his uncle's protests as he pushed the door shut with all his strength, forcing Henry to step down the ladder and into the safety of the storm cellar.

The young man ran back to the house as fast as he could. The wind gusts threw him back and forth in several directions. He burst into the kitchen, fighting the air currents as he tried to close the door.

He found Old Sally on the kitchen counter with her hair on her back standing straight up, partly from the storm and partly from Toto's barking. Toto stood on his little puppy-sized hind legs and leaned against the cabinets. He hadn't grown nearly big enough to actually get his paws on the edge of the countertop, but that didn't deter him from trying.

"Let's go, you. You're in big trouble, mister," Donny scolded Toto as he scooped the pup into his arms. Well, he wanted to use a scolding tone. However, his voice barely had an edge to it because it showed the relief he felt that the debris flying around outside hadn't hurt the puppy.

Freed from her barking nemesis, the cat jumped off the counter. She bolted through the kitty door again and headed for the barn.

"Come on, Toto. We've got to get into that storm cellar before it's too late." Donny opened the kitchen door effortlessly. In fact, too effortlessly! The gale-force wind ripped the door right out of his grip. Then, it ripped the door right off the hinges!

Donny watched helplessly as the kitchen door flipped through the air and across the yard like a playing card tossed in the breeze. It disappeared in an upward spiral of wind gusts, joining numerous other debris. Donny thought he noticed one neighbor's mailbox and some spare tires from another neighbor's junkyard pile.

A gust of wind roared through the now open kitchen doorway, tossing him around like a ragdoll on a puppet master's strings. It sent him flying headfirst into the side of the microwave. He heard the crashing sound as his head dented the metal.

Donny staggered backwards and fell onto the floor. He felt Toto licking his face. The young man knew he had to get up and do something, but what?

Doorframe! He remembered seeing something once on TV about standing in a doorframe if you couldn't get to a basement during a hurricane. Tornado, cyclone, hurricane, typhoon, whatever – the doorframe idea seemed as reasonable as anything else.

Donny struggled to his feet. The wind suddenly shrieked its loudest yet and the entire farmhouse shook. A strange jolt caused Donny to lose his footing again. He fell back, grabbing the counter for support.

He felt the floor moving under him, like being in an elevator that sprang into action unexpectedly. Donny looked out the window. The barn was moving! Had the tornado ripped the barn right off the ground?

Then he saw the cornfield go by the window. Then the giant oak tree. Wait, there was the barn again, but now he could only see its shingled roof.

Then the realization hit him! "Everything else isn't moving. We are!" he said to Toto. Donny was right. The entire farmhouse had lifted off its foundation. It twirled around as it rose into the tornado! The great pressure of the wind on every side kept pushing the house higher and higher until it reached the very top of the twister.

Donny eventually lost track of how long the house had been essentially surfing the tornado's air currents. He knew that hours must have passed.

It got extremely dark and the wind howled terribly all throughout the house as well as outside of it. A couple times, the housed tipped very badly back and forth like a seesaw before leveling out again.

Donny sat on the living room couch with Toto sleeping in his lap. The young man realized that the length of time and relatively smooth ride (all things considered, once he got used to the constant twirling motion) had lulled him into a false sense of security.

At first he'd been afraid that the winds would rip the wooden farmhouse apart. Since that obviously hadn't happened, the next logical concern was what would happen when the house landed?

"Are we going to get thrown down against the ground? Or into the side of a mountain with a terrible force that will shred the house – and us – into a million pieces?" he said aloud as he patted the sleeping puppy's head. "What if we land in the middle of the ocean? Whatever is left of the house after the impact will surely sink immediately. We'll drown long before anyone comes to our rescue."

Something suddenly changed. Donny knew it right away. He'd become so used to the consistent roar of the wind that it had faded into the background. All of a sudden, that was no longer the case.

The whining pitch of the wind changed. The house spun faster and faster. The increasing centrifugal force caused objects to start moving again. A large potted plant slid across the counter. The grandfather clock that had heretofore miraculously managed to stay upright finally lurched over and crashed to the floor.

The noise jolted little Toto awake from his nap. He buried his face in the crook of Donny's arm. Donny braced himself against the couch, hoping it would help absorb any impacts the house might endure. "This is not going to end well," he predicted aloud.

The couch slid across the room. Donny felt a dropping sensation, like the house was falling out from under his feet. "Hold on, Toto!" he said as he protected the little dog as well as he could.

Donny saw some kind of lightning bolt streak by the window. "What the hell-" was all he managed to say before he felt the jarring thud of the house landing. Everything shook and rattled. The couch bounced on the floor and several dishes shattered in the kitchen.

Donny gripped the arm of the couch, afraid to breathe or move until he knew what would happen next. Were they about to topple over and go rolling a few miles down a mountain into the valley? Was water about to come pouring through the windows?

A few seconds passed. Neither of those two things happened, but the house had definitely stopped moving.

Donny stood up with Toto in his arms. He carefully stepped over the mess of broken household items on the floor.

The young man opened the living room door to the outside. His eyes blinked. His jaw dropped and he mumbled, "OMG..."