Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2002 12:47:25 -0600 From: Tom Emerson Subject: Hollywood Stories Michael Hollywood Stories - Michael (M/b,b, mast., rom.) by R. Forbes Emerson Nothing is implied by or should be inferred from the use of media figures in this story. "Mikey, you want to take a little walk and get a donut?" The voice from in back of the amateur video camera is mine. If the words seem familiar, that's because my nephew died in a wreck involving a drunken driver, and my video of him has been used to remind national audiences that friends don't let friends drink and drive. It's been two years now, and I can finally share his last little Mikey days. My name is Dan Roberts, I'm now 33. I stand six feet two inches, and, while I'm very much of the crowd as far as my face goes, I have a Rick Schroeder, Tim McVeigh style body. Why do I mention it in this memoir? Because Mikey died a very happy eight year old, and the fact I kept myself in shape is part of the story. For my job, I am CEO of The Smiling-Eyes Agency. The premise on which my fifty-man group was founded is that Hollywood is not only rough on the outside, but a little iffy on the inside. Young boys and girls get caught up in this, and their eyes stop smiling. Sometimes it happens on their first shoot, a few make it safely to ten shoots, but, sooner or later it almost always Happens. One day you have a fun little charmer, and the next a sullen antagonist of no more use than burnt bacon. Look at the older films, you can see it in the faces of the young and even not-so-young talent. That strained, wooden, mask-like look, rictus grins, mechanical eyes, and that's just the little square foot they show to the world. These days things are better; perhaps they have to be what with technology making the images on the television screen ever more intimate, or it might be a sign of our more liberal MTV attitudes, or perhaps its because of the agency we run, which has been quietly in the business of protecting young Talent for something over fifty years. How do we protect boys and girls, ages three to thirteen, you might ask? With knowledge and desensitization. Forewarned is forearmed; someone else wrote that, not me. Of course, our real secret is that we start with the best, search assiduously for the friendliest of young talent, pool their personalities and gifts, and wise them up gently, affectionately, and very, very successfully. Mikey was different. Blood. My sister, Dawn's, second little boy. I was nervous having him. All the great theories on controlled promiscuity and buffered philandering were well and good for dealing with Staff, Crew and Talent, it was their career choice, plus,, I'd been with Smiling Eyes since I was a two year old, myself. If you've seen the brief sequence of the tyke in sun glasses on an air mattress, that's some doctored footage of yours truly from out vault. Of course, I don't remember it, just a lot of fun and affection, but, I was in front of the camera in those days, and there is an hour of other film, definitely material for the Out Takes Hall of Fame, if you catch the drift of what might have happened to that little boy with his sunglasses, his arms behind his neck, and his torso slightly arched.. So, all the agency theories, over all the years, and with such success? It was not a question so much of would these paradigms work `at home,' but a question of should they? You can tell where I began with the boy by the few seconds they show of the Mikey in the public service spot; a quiet delight, thoughtful, very sweet and accommodating. Bland? Yes, you see it too, then. To get way ahead in this story, Mikey did not die bland. I might as well get those details out of the way, as they have nothing to do with Mikey in Hollywood, and I'm not using them to foreshadow. Mikey was not, in fact, killed by a drunk. A volunteer fireman, who'd been through a day of hell in a half-burned hog barn, suffered a heart attack on his way home. His truck rear-ended a car and sent it crashing into Dawn's car. The fellow in the car was fully stopped and waiting at the stop sign He was point one-two, and got blamed and charged for everything. Don't drink and drive. Bland? You can see it on the tape. "Mikey, do you want to take a little walk and stand on the freeway?" Don't you think his quiet, smiling nod would have been just the same? Looking back two years, I wonder this. If he'd been more the rugged tyke type, if I would have done the things with him I did. In other words, who is qualified, and who isn't? Qualified emotionally, psychologically, physically, and spiritually, if you want to call it that, for tampering. I like to call spades, spades, and this story is about tampering with little boys, okay? In any event, Mikey was not bluff and hardy; rambunctious and full of zoom. If imagined him up and about while I was working, the trace of warmth in my den chair would tell his little secret of bunkering in with a book, only springing to life at the sound of the power gate. (How alone? In this day of cell phones, and we have very reliable service because of the layout of the hills, it isn't the same as it once was. Mikey was literally one second, away, and, in a big-one quake, I couldn't do much, anyway, so we lived with it, very happily, I might add.) This state of affairs, me, out and about, Mikey curled up in my studio with something from my collection of, well, railroad fiction (takes up less space than cowboy fiction), was established in a single day and hardly varied during the work week. We'd `bother' each other every few hours, usually just smack, giggle and hang up. Oughtta try it with your own kids. This was our life together for a seven innocent days after his arrival from Davenport. The same technique, if it deserves such a lofty name, was use by Smiling Eyes with our young clients. Slow. As the navy says, take a steady strain. Life is long, and a lot longer if it's one slow day at a time, just as love is usually better if it starts one slow day at a time. That first week passed. Mikey often roosted with the books, but, as the days passed, seemed more and more eager to hang out with me as I went about my routine of offices, conferences, lots, stages, and locations. Some people would track my day, and not think anything particular of my schedule of friendly boys. Others may be forgiven for at least thinking, Hmm. Friday, my eight-year-old nephew spent the whole afternoon with me, and I wondered if what was going on might not be sinking in, just a little. Nothing specific, mind you, but rather a subtle increase in the boy's sort of `willingness,' if you know what I mean. More interest in me as a person, and not just a stovepipe bent to making dough; more interest in things in general, too. You know, The World Around Him. At the time Mikey visited, we were just losing a client. Gee, there's so much to tell you about Smiling Eyes, it's hard to know where to begin. We'll just have to fit bits and pieces into the story to as needs be. Two quick shots: we were losing a client, as I said, and, my CEO status included the title of Male Talent Manager. Female Talent Manager is a girl, a sweetheart, and named Linda Rice. We lost a lot of clients. As soon as one of our people signed a twenty-thousand dollar gig, we dealt them out to the big houses on Sunset. Our business was smiles, human happiness, not money. We also liked variety, and thus provided not only Talent, but Crew of almost any description from art direction to location scouting. While it's true we lost a lot of our youngsters to the big time, at least for awhile, we specialized in training all our boys and girls in theater craft, in general, so eight out of ten stayed put when there on-camera days were over. We didn't supply truck drivers, caterers, or cable pullers, but almost anyone else. The client just about to depart, that Saturday, was Fredman Reynolds. You've seen him doing a somewhat enhanced cannon ball in a network commercial. Fredman, eleven at the time of this story, is Mikey's opposite. He is rough cut, square about his way in life, barrel chested, with a full boy belly that is about two ounces the right side of plump. Where Mikey is fox faced with a shock of black hair, and quiet eyes, Fredman Reynolds is crew-cut, broad browed, and looks about ready for anything. His current role in the diving-board commercial doesn't show his winsome smile; hell, he's not having fun, he's wiping the place out, bouncing off the water and crashing across the patio. That's Fredman, acting. Okay, Mikey's been in Los Angeles for seven days or so, Fredman has hit pay dirt, so he's off for a contract with people you've heard of, and it's Sat. morning. I shut off the video recorder (and it should be noted that the piece of Mikey you see in the drunk-driving spot is a third generation copy, the original is nearly flawless Beta) and we head down the hill. "Did you like hanging out with me, yesterday?" I asked, as his tiny right paw mated with my left hand. I itched his little palm and he giggled, friendly enough now to nudge me like the little boy being fetched by his dad, homesick on his first sleepover. (Not a client.) Same shy, contained giggle and inward smile I sensed rather than saw. "I like your clients," he said. "Guess what?" I replied, and he said, What? "They like you, too." He squeezed my hand, and we walked on. Yes, I live on the cell phone. When I said `they,' it was something like eighteen, mostly Crew and Talent, that had voted. I hadn't need a phone for the Staff vote, which was unanimous, even Linda Rice, my distaff associate, crossed our pretend Mason Dixon line and voted with the slobbering mob. Mikey was about as In as a kid could get, which was highly coincidental, because, in a normal year of biz, we turned over six or eight Talent, and maybe every three years a Crew. This is to say, blood, or no blood, my nephew was a quiet charmer; totally excellent company, and, in general, the cream of the cream of boyhood. Hollywood Hills is a separate little nation. You might as well be in foothills in Spain. Ignoring the streets and lanes, it is possible to drop directly down to Sunset through vacant areas, hardly trespassing so's anyone would notice. An amazing maze. Hell to get a pizza delivered, but just right for wandering off for donuts with an eight-year-old boy pixie with whom you want to have a long talk. We roosted in a seldom-used wrangler's shelter. When I said like Spain, I meant it. No hurry for the donuts. It was nine in the morning; we were fed, we-weed, and I think we both knew the pastries were just a ruse. Oh, we'd get them, but first we had to talk. Again with the morality thing. Blood. My sister's second boy. I desensitized clients for their own good. So they'd be likely to keep, not just their smiles, but the happiness that flowed from lips to eyes. If an electrician got them behind a scrim, they would survive. Yes, we not only taught, but drilled on the signs; eye signs, touching signs, suggestive signs; subtle signs, and obvious signs. We taught, and it's part of most any actor's repertoire, screaming bloody murder after two requests to Lay Off. The careers of these children, their family's welfare, and work, in general, depended on, a, b, c, and d, avoiding bad scenes, and, e, if something happened, giving it the fair weight of reason, rather than a ton of fixation. We sharpened both edges of the blade, as it were; preparation and precaution, and added perspective for good measure.. The smell of the lean-to reminded Mikey of Davenport, and he sneezed several times for the fun of it, before seating himself just to my left on a chair-high row of hay bales. We sat, sheltered from view and sound, high enough so a fair little breeze found us, even tucked away as we were for our little talk. Finally, my busy brain came up with an out; not a cop out, a philosophical and literary out. The essential question was whether or not it was appropriate to use techniques with a relative, bound for an ordinary, rural life, that I normally used to inoculate beginning professionals, who would be exposed to daily hazards until well into their teens, when another set of hazards gleefully took over. The answer turned out to be so easy it was glib. Thinking back, it was even glib for Hollywood. Simple. Hire Mikey. Follow the vote. Put aside fears of apparent nepotism in a modest organization, and cut the dude a check. Trouble with glib? It's light in the brain; so light, in fact, it lifts the head off the pillow, and to hell with the clock. Yes, I had a check in my wallet, and yes, it was for ten grand, but, if I handed it over now, how would I know how it had influenced the nature of the things I wanted to happen? I mean, go figure; an eight year old with more thousands than he had years – who knows how he'd act? Vastly more important, who knows how he'd feel about how he acted, a week hence? (On his deathbeds?) Much of my day was spent with S&S, which, in our shop, means Scripts and Storyboards. Ideas were the meat of the den. We didn't write entire screenplays very often, but we toyed with them. Smoothed, polished and more often than not lollygagged until midnight feeling dumber by the hour in our fruitless pursuit of a twist that wasn't there or a turn that wouldn't quite fly In short, it was an exhausting and often fruitless process, feeding the maw with familiar convention and hackneyed rote, especially when there were so much bigger fish to fry in the literary game. Dangerous fish, and now here I was, half a mile above the six thousand block of Sunset Boulevard, on a rare Saturday morning off, almost dizzy with near boy - and in the middle of trying to outline some coherent thoughts on a social epic with a wake up and smell the coffee stature.. Maybe I could try the rough life of a miner as an example of my little cultural dilemma: his isolated, rural existence, the miner's use of his daughter to save an exhausted wife and mother, the young female keeping the miner out of the bar and the money in the cookie jar. That was a work/home transference. There were others, many others, and it was a fulsome concept; just needed a hook, which, for viewers, is crackle and snap. Neat. Boy. Story. Morality play. Hay. Hollywood hill. Boy. That brought up Fredman, a/k/a Frederick R. Reynolds. "Mikey," I began, "did you get any sense of difference – of things seeming or being different – yesterday afternoon?" "Sort of," he replied. "If you want," I said, changing the subject, "we could race down to the Tower parking lot; I'd give you a full two minutes. See, you can see their sign if you peek just so." He stood, walked to the chink in the rustic wall, and indeed the yellow horror was visible by fluke of ridge and draw. "Don't you want to talk about yesterday?" he asked. "Yes," I said, a little quaver that had not, and I hoped never would, disappear from my voice. "But that's kind of mature stuff, and you may just want to hack around; get donuts, and we could catch a bus and ride into McArthur Park; it's a pretty famous route. "If you really want to," he said, eyes downcast. Kids! If I really wanted – what? To talk or ride? Our script doctoring was renowned for exquisite verbal byplay in which each character was held precisely before the audience in relationship to both plot and other characters. We did not, professionally speaking, like one answer to two questions. I mention it to illustrate the subtle difficulties of the household/professional paradox. In a script, the correction would take maybe an hour, ten minutes to word it, and fifty minutes to run back and forth in the story to be sure the change did not result in unintended consequences or inconsistencies. Mikey wasn't glowing off a screen, he was seated on a bale of hay, lacking Select and Backspace functions. As quickly as I'd formulated my dilemma, I was on its horns. Two different boys, six inches away on my left side. One might want to talk about stuff, the other might want to dash out in the sun and pelt on down the hill in a cloud of dust and pollen, leaving the smutty talk to fags. Talk the talk, or walk the walk. Stupid line. Here I was some kind of grand master of the lighter touch, according to Fox and Paramount, now reduced to hackneyed banality because the freaking thing FIT. I'm sure Linda Rice would have some pert comment on even bottom feeders needing a break, but that would have to wait until Monday. Talk or walk, in the meantime. To cut through the little confusion, I said, "Mikey, you tell me what you'd like to do." "Talk," he replied immediately, rendering me, you guessed it, much ado about nothing. "Mikey," I repeated his name, "it's mature stuff. Big boys, only. Big girls, only, on Linda's side. And it will take awhile, and it may be either of two things, really boring, or really embarrassing, okay?" "When I was with you, on Friday," the child replied, thoughtfully, "it just seemed sort of lively. There's not as many nice kids in all of Davenport as we met in a couple of hours. The way they looked at you, the way they smiled; the difference in their smiles with you, and the other people around them? You know, if I had to pick a word, it would be `exciting.'" Hmm. Linda and I managed Staff, together; was there an opening in S&S for an eight year old? And this was my sister Dawn speaking, her devoted reading to her children – absolute minimum of an hour each night, often double that. Scrabble. Home-made phonics flash cards to the Britannica. Here it sat, quiet as a mouse, smart as a whip, and cute as a button. "I guess I'm kind of grown-up for my age," Mikey let on. "How about physical stuff," I probed, both the writer and creep in me alert. "That's been terrific," my nephew giggled, "three cloth dolls and a schoolmarm." I swear on a stack of bibles I physically, actually, started to reach for my phone to call my partner. Of course, I had other responsibilities and couldn't go rushing off to do a deal, right on the spot, but the thought was there. "You haven't been on sleepovers and stuff?" I asked, having recently regained my composure. "I read too much," he replied. At his age, I'd eschewed friends for books, too, so we were worms of a page. Then I had a bright idea. "Which was your favorite doll?" I asked. He paused, and I thanked god for it: still do. If he'd snapped back, my heart wouldn't have stood the strain, and our date would have been ruined. "Not the girl," he said, "and not the boy who isn't interested in the girl." See what I mean? Mikey is dead, mercifully, without knowing what hit him. Three loud, grinding bangs, heart attack into drunk, drunk into boy, boy into grave. (Dawn had been hurt, but not badly; was home with Hank and Allen, her eleven and seven year olds, doing remarkably well.) Had he been ordinary, his grave would be his resting place, his ending place, private to the last. He wasn't. He deserves a place, and I mean for him to have it. Michael is a lesson in dignity, in becoming a big boy at a young age, almost entirely through reading more reading. and good reading – NO Golding, Sallinger, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Faulkner, Tolkein, Nabakov, Vonnegut, Heller and the long list of rot merchants polluting the libraries of the young. Instead, because it's like totally important, he read Forester, Buchan, Shute, Cather, Christie, Marrayatt (to put hair on his chest), the short storied of O'Hara (for a little more hair), MacDonald, McMurtry, Irving, and dozens of nice men and women who wrote nice books for nice people. (Sorry to have to use the past tense, but there's nothing new out there, is there.) Literature is easy to measure: sick in, sick out, and the number of literary liberals with twisted kinder, a, proves it, and, b, provides enduring justice for those who get too clever in Brainsville.. Mikey went on, after I'd stopped trying not to laugh, laughed, and partially recovered, all in less than three minutes. "I've read in Abnormal Psychology about stuff," he said. "Worms of a slither creep togither," I responded, in attempting a droll prologue to my admission that that was just my style, at his age, the weirder and creepier the better, as long as it was shelved under non-fiction. He grinned, and I'm pretty sure it was at my stupid pun. Wish I could ask. "What do you like in the psych books?" I continued, thrilled I was actually probing after just these few minutes, with ample time to our next scheduled event. (NOT the zoo.) "Nothing way far out," he said. Odd, I just assumed, on the spot, he was talking about sexual dysfunction, as against all the other variances regarded by professionals as abnormal. "Like spanking and S & M?" I queried. "Exactamundo," he giggled, adding that he though mild, friendly bondage might not be too extreme. I decided on a bold step, at least from my way of thinking. For all I know he was thinking to himself, Get on with it, you creeping moron. I doubted it, but, still, didn't totally disregard the possibility, and so decided to go with my bold approach. "What if," I asked, "two guys, you know, who like to do stuff when they're alone together, pee on each other in a shower?" "That's a good one," he said, and thought a moment. "Okay," he replied in a matter-of-fact voice, "my opinion is it might be fun for them, but not in the mouth. I mean, that stuff's in the book, but I think you'd have to be WAY mature to like it." But could I actually retire? Just as I'd reached for my phone, on his last verbal foray, I now reviewed my portfolio, with a view to returning to town, signing my enterprise over to the better man, and booking for Belize with a fly rod. And not to get nasty, nasty we were and are not, speaking of rods, I get very hard when I talk creep with young boys. Not to put too fine a point on it, it's my job. If that smile across my ragamuffin desk is to last, I have to perform – like an artist, I have to love it to do it. With Fredman, or rather, from Fredman, I still imagined I ached, and that had been a month ago. With Mikey? I felt like an eagle brooding hot mountains. If there was anything abnormal about the psychology involved, there sure was a lot of it. Interestingly, Mikey's conversation was paralleling that I had with the two or three boys I desensitized, personally, each year (a task evenly divided amongst male Staff, of which we were three). These indoctrinations, never called anything else, started on statistics and psychology. One in five female juveniles, and one in seven male juveniles, is molested by a family member. That's good to say at the beginning, because then we know we aren't talking about some squirrelly roasted-eyeballs kind of sicko, perv, one-in-a-thousand freakoid zombie-ism. We talked about men and boys, and boys and boys, and I always pointed out there were probably millions of couples in California, alone, in fact, almost as many as in Saskatchewan . Like most knowledge and enlightenment, this made a big and immediate difference with the youngsters squirming under my Big Boss Man gaze. How surely they lightened up when they realized we were talking about lots of fish in big pools, not mutants in a tainted swamp. "Mikey," I said, "we really don't have to share any more, if you don't want to. A few secrets may be enough..." "At my age?" he interjected. "I was going to say that," I admitted, very glad not to be perfect. "I like it," he replied, distinctly. "and so far as I can see, you beat all the books and anatomically correct dolls in Christendom. I mean, I was with you yesterday, remember?" "Why don't you scratch that outstanding young head of yours," I suggested, "and come up with a few questions to ease your uncle on his perilous way." "Not a problem, the perilous thing" he said, "the cops are so haywire over being jolted by the big rods in Washington on security issues, they wouldn't have time for me if I showed up torn, bleeding and totally ticked off." He had a point, and, from the quiet little mouse who'd said Yes to going for a donut, he, just through talk, was becoming a more boy-like boy. Lot of bikers in his future, if he decided to sign with Smiling Eyes, so I was glad to see it. "Do you want to do something?" Mikey whispered. "Yes," I said. "Before we talk more?" the boy prodded, suggestively, I thought. I was glad for the subtle cue; I could go on for hours with a new child, always feeling extra time the first time could and would make a difference for a lifetime. If a boy cued `enough' that was a perfect place to stop talking. "Yes," I replied, thus ruining the deal, but only in the most technical sense. I retrieved a worn wool saddle blanket from a nail on the wall, and, as Mikey rose, spread it on the hay behind him. He lay on his back, instinctively letting his left leg drop to the ground and thus opening himself to me as widely as possible. We were both wearing gym shorts and tee shirts. I got rid of my shoes and socks, and his, but otherwise didn't tamper with our clothing. When I was sure he was comfortable and ready, I lay fully, gently on his beautiful, slim young body, holding much of my weight, which is only one-seventy, on my tennis arms. His tender young hands found my flanks and he held me gently, speculatively, gaining experience with every second, and, so fast, that in a minute his hands had drifted low on my swimmer's waist, where he seemed very satisfied. With minor shifting, we were both soon entirely comfortable and breathing easily against each other. Mikey's head came to my neck, and he felt slim and lithe beneath me. "Uncle Dan?" he asked. "What?" I whispered back to him. There was the tiniest chortle in his voice when he whispered his silly answer. "I'm wearing Mickey Mouse underpants, and I think you're too close to me." "Oh, " I sighed in his ear, "a little Disney boy." Chalk up another one for Ped One. Walt had done it again, this time with a bookish eight year old. A happy boy perfectly dressed for the occasion. "Wait," I shuddered silently to myself, "until Linda Rice gets a load of this." We were vast friends over rough logs, something like that. She'd wowed the boy toy side of our organization with her little Cruise Director ( the precocious third grader with the drop-dead mom featured awhile back Disney cruise ship commercials), and left the entire male contingent of S.E. a bit nonplussed, cripes, for three years now. "If I were on ---- (I didn't watch it), who would you want me to be?" my little black haired beauty asked I told him I couldn't play, because the show was unfamiliar to me. Strange, but true. We did a lot of work with Eisner and company, always assiduous to kept in at under eight percent of our gross because of the organization's octopus-al nature, which became squid-like at any sign of dithering prey. We'd actually placed thirty or forty speaking extras, walk ons, day players, dancers, stunt athletes, and mic talent, plus the odd hundred technicians, all of which is relevant because it indicates how removed a top echelon manager must be from who's doing what and when and on what network. This is emphasized early in our story because readers will want to write asking about this child and that child, and I simply won't know. Can't stress Staff with it, either. Sorry. "Do you know any other sweet little games?" I asked, leaning to whisper against his incredibly cute right ear. "I just thought of one," he chortled, apparently very happy to be with his Rick Schroeder bodied uncle, even with the both of us in our tees. "What?" I prompted. "Well," he began, at least with the grace to quake gently beneath me, "I hate to be unkind, but, if it was just pretend, you could – come close, let me whisper." I was close, but leaned more to his famous mouth to hear what I was absolutely sure would be utter nonsense. "You could, if you did it with me just right inside my little underpants," and here he giggled outright, "drown Steamboat Willy." Fireworks went off in my head. We'd supplied talent and crew on Disney shoots, but never inked anything with them for scripting. Mentally, I threw the check for ten thousand dollars away and replaced it with one for three times the amount. Good, that got the day's business taken care of. (It takes the keenest of minds to quarter-back a gig like ours. Just a thought.) Like I was going to drown anybody. I laughed so hard I lost any trace of even feeling anything down there at all. Had to roll, fell off the hay, kept rolling, bumped into a shovel, which came banging down over my legs, and, in a Rube Goldberg sequence, I ended up with a tin bucket on my head. I sounded weird, laughing and howling and all, but Mikey laughed along, so I guess not too weird. What if I'd met a boy like this as a client? I mean, sure, impossible, because there was only one, but, say, for sake of argument, almost identical? Would I kidnap him outright, just tie and split, or would I put a hit on his parents, then make him mine through the justice system? He was blood. None of the above. Even if we were indifferent to each other, he was mine for the summer. I got the old milk pail off, and it was a good thing. Guess who was singing, very softly? "M – i – c, glub, blub, blub, k – e – y, glub, blub. blub, M – o – u – s – e GLUB. Wouldn't have missed it for the world. I gave it the absent-minded title of Ode to Old Steamboat. Like most of his childish witticisms, Mikey's doggerel had a message, and in a few moments I was gently back on top of him. This time, the little boy hands did not stop at my waist, but crept slowly between our man/boy bodies. It was beautiful, giving him command of us. How many job applicants actually get to do something demonstrative during their interviews? Probably not very many. As his hands neared me I whispered, "How do you know so much?" Again, he replied with his own delectable code. "Click, click, click," he whispered. "Nifty?" I whispered back. Mikey clicked back, with his tongue, this time not as a computer mouse, but in Morse; y – e – s. Man, did that ever beat The Mouse! We have come a long way, baby. "So you know about sperm?" I whispered, now hot and hard and wanting to lick his right ear, which I did. "Theoretically," he said. "I know there's usually a lot when a man's with a child, and that little boys and girls like to feel it on their tummies." "Do you want to see it?" I queried. Honest to god, at the time I thought we were whispering hot carnality; was so unprepared for his bright answer, I... well, you be the judge. "That would be way media," Mikey said, earning himself a doctorate in English, at least in my adoring eyes. "You know, show-offy. I want to feel it." A guy so easy to please might try his hand at marriage, but I wasn't going to bring the subject up, not with an eight year old. Fact of the matter was, I wasn't going to be bringing up any subjects, not for awhile. His gentle little right hand had found me. I'm a slim seven inches, circumcised, and get pretty wet when I'm excited. His right hand explored, while his left was tentative on the small of my back. He rocked underneath me, slowly adjusting his widely splayed legs so he could get at least his right heel against my left buttock. His little left foot inched away from the hay, spreading him wantonly beneath me. This rendered me speechless, half flogged to death with the child's sizzling wit, and halting maturity. Didn't matter much, because Mikey had things well in hand. I'm sort of the know-it-all type, jack of all trivia. It's annoying, but seems to help others in their lives. I was just about figuring it was time for Captain Mickey to valve off his boilers, or he was going to end up rodent burger. I didn't pass along my knowledge of the hot boiler arcane, hell, it was too late. How much steam could a captain blow, if a captain could blow steam? My wetness helped, physically, but not sensually. All my seminal fluid did was render the passage of my hyper-sensitive glans under the slippery leg band of the toy underpants the more gruntingly exquisite, and, imagine, to find his tender boyhood so soon after the experience, and ease gently against his young balls. We panted a half-moaned greeting as we found each other, and when Mikey was sure I was fully with him, his hands came back low on my waist, and urged me delicately forward. The tight little undies held me perfectly, and after some moments I developed a gentle surge against his little-boy body. "I'd like to do this bare-chested," he whispered. Whoever the moron of the world is that's against cloning, I hope he reads this. One could write, several could work in front of the cameras as Talent, then, with four or five more to recruit new boys, well, I'd be the king of Tinsel Town. Nah, too time consuming. We were having intercourse. Slowly, gently, delicately, intimately, very intimately, and affectionately. We were intense with each other, probably both fantasizing about how we felt against our lover. Occasionally, my penis would slip past his little sack and run along his hard three inch boner, slim, graceful and sexy. This made him pant out loud and his fingers dig me with excitement. Somewhere in the recess of my mind I'd heard his comment about being naked with each other, and the thought of his bird-like you breast arching against me as I had my languorous, delicate fuck with him was a hot turn on. But not now. We were being perfect with each other, our tender thrusts mating in perfect cadence and sublime harmony. Yes, there was probably a lesser sensation because we were both still wearing tee shirts, but that, a, gave us something to look forward to, being naked and a little wilder in our needs for each other, and, b, it made what we were now doing with each other last longer. It was strange for me to be looking for the good in a situation, probably good for me, too. My normal day was spent finding the bad in things; any reason not to admit a new child to our roster, any defect in personality that would lead to sullen or demanding behavior over time; any laziness that would keep a kid at videos instead of hard at it in our studios and rehearsal halls. We were not quite the grinding mills of Shirley Temple and Mickey Rooney's era, but we did like at least three focused hours a day for sport dancing and martial arts. Not many of the wanna-bees were up for that kind of worker-bee reality, so nitpicking and naysaying had become a way of life. Making love almost fully dressed was something that had never happened to me before, but I was learning to look at the bright side and get what I could from the imperfect experience. Besides, it gave us time to... "Can we talk?" Mikey asked, now that we'd settled together in a way that might last awhile if nothing exciting happened. "Ask questions," I panted gently in his right ear. "What do you call it at the end?" he asked, "you know, when you start getting me wet." "What would you like to call it?" I whispered in response. "Sperming," he said. "Or cumming-off. I don't like it when I read about jizz or goo or shooting a wad. Sounds more like having a sinus condition than making love." "Us, too," I whispered back. "We don't use the f-word, don't talk about cocks dicks and cunts and pussies. There are lots of people who talk like that, so we don't need to worry about preserving endangered idiom." "So," he whispered, "what's going to happen?" "I'm going to ejaculate my semen, very rich with my sperm, inside your Mickey Mouse underpants, and cover your penis with my maturity." "You have my permission," he panted gently, "as long as you promise to do a very thorough job." Me? I was worried about getting the tyke home with a sopping front. Even in hill country there are limits as to how a little boy is meant to appear when escorted by a man. But then, that's just me, the doom and gloom, Chicken Little, worry wart – personified. For example, I think the physical size of modern kids, Mikey and many others excepted, of course, was harbinger of the last lap on the track of civilization. Along this line I thought of Adam Gillespie. S.E. had just cast him as The Big Kid, who says, Hi, I'm new, wanna be friends, to The Little Kid, who has just been threatened by a bully on the school bus. Adam was five-eight and one sixty. Could have found a dozen like him, for every boy Mikey's size, which would be the normal size for the way our homes, cars, and work places are built. And not only was Adam big, and heavy, he was very, very fully mature, another story. Meantime, I was gently and happily approaching completion of Mikey's `thorough job.' In all my life, this was simply the friendliest experience I'd ever had. Two buddies just being extra good buddies, and letting it be gentle and last and last. "Are you going to be inside me tonight?" Mikey whispered. "No," I said. At Smiling Eyes we patterned our sexual activity on the ancient Greeks. They rarely practiced sodomy, considered it novel, frivolous, and perhaps a bit de classe. Their preferred method of mating was for males to stand or kneel, breast to breast, hunched cheek to cheek, and masturbate either themselves or their partners, or both, while talking. I explained this, and when I emphasized sharing through talking and whispering, he responded by asking me to tell him what I did with another young boy. Hmm. A pedophile at eight. Cool. Since Fredman Reynolds was laid on for lunch, and presumably hard about various and sundry private tasks, I used him. Plus, he'd been my latest conquest. "He's only been with us a month," I began, and this was almost unique in our history, boy indoctrinated, boy admitted, boy makes good off the blocks, boy moves on to name agency. Odd that I'd just thought of Adam, as he was the other heavy-bodied child in our stable. Like young Mr. Reynolds, had hit his first national exposure just weeks after signing with us. In a way I was glad; after all, a world full of perfect twinks, even cute as Mikey, would be a bland and boring place. I knew the beauty of what the frogs call la difference, because I'd loved feeling the solidness of Fredman and the heaviness of his pubescent eleven-year-old belly sheathed in the same tantalizingly delicate baby skin as the most delicate of our super juveniles, aged three to five.. Since Mikey knew what Fredman looked like, bare chested, from the cannon-ball commercial, I was able to cut to the chase. As I said, it happened in late May, 2000, a month before Mikey had arrived. I'd had several tips on Fredman, and, cutting myself a little slack in the daily routine of scripts and business, I'd fired up my restored Mitsubishi and flown to Utah, where Fredman's drama coach had gotten him a walk-on in a dude ranch documentary, you know, the new kind with lots of dramatization. It was a somber story, boy goes to camp, camp goes on trail ride, no one likes boy, boy dies of malnutrition and exposure, mom sues camp, cries on camera, everyone agrees what happened on the trail was for the best, mom goes away, if not exactly happy, at least reasonable, and, of course, blameless. Fredman was not the star, starving him out of the picture would have taken too long to play, but as a fellow camper with twenty lines. My indoctrination speech is informal, can occur anywhere and range over a variety of subjects and issues. In computers I think they call it fuzzy logic. Naturally, I tailor the rote for the individual, and, with Fredman, it was mostly about his weight. Several aspects. First, arbitrary. Too fat? Go home. Absolute. There were plenty of other agencies in town, piled on top of each other, in point of fact. Fat? They'd get you fat roles, there were always some. Not us. Fat was unhappy, and, not that we were giddy children, or living in some kind of boffo Victorian Pollyanna world, we just wanted slim to normal to maybe very slightly chubby clients, for the good of all concerned. I'm making a short story long, here, but it was a delight whispering with Mikey, and I was in no special hurry. Of course, that would probably change, since everything else does. Dude ranch, horses, the spectacular but vapid scenery of The Place. The uninteresting Mormons made my skin crawl, but I never said anything. Biz. Anyhow, it was more than worth the trip to meet Frederic R. Reynolds, age eleven. Farrell Gains, his drama teacher from a rural school in Montana, handed me off to his protιgι, pointing us to one big horse. I love clip-clop. It's hard to see ugly framed by the ears of big trail animal, and that's what Fiendish was. (Dude ranch names for horses, like Snake Dancer, always amuse me. If the animal snorts, lawyers will congregate in far off cities, but Widow Maker the Eighth brings guests like flies. Anyway, Fiendish was up to the job and mild enough that we rode off with just an oversized saddle blanket and string bridle. "Nice plane, they don't make `em like that any more," the boy said, as we passed into the first arroyo on our ride up Shoot First Canyon. "It has reversible props," I said. "It can land in twelve hundred feet, take-off, too, if it's light." "Do you ever take it to the mall?" he deadpanned. Gentle, funny boys are such a turn on. Why they make picture after picture with snarling, stinking polecats is a mystery I will probably never solve. Hardly anyone goes; the theaters make more off the popcorn than the rental; a film is dubbed Blockbuster Supreme if ten percent of the population plunks down their ten dollar bill for a ticket. Shouldn't a good film get ninety percent? You know, allowing for those too old, those too young, and the disabled, most of whom could view it, somehow. I attributed it to the foul personalities and general ambience of the particular dominating group, to their crass, sleazy loathsome love of recalcitrance and gratuitous adversarialism, which barely exceeds their tacky obsession with froth and fabric and paint and posture. Max Factor has a prominent star on Hollywood Boulevard, and that about says it all. "Yeah," I replied over the big boy's right shoulder, "especially in rainy weather. I can taxi right up to Sears' shipping dock, and trundle my stuff aboard without having to fuss with an umbrella." This was funny because the Mitsubishi has a high wing, like a small Cessna. Of course, unlike a light Cessna, it has two modified-for-the-mountains, one-thousand horsepower turbines. Fredman obviously knew this, as any healthy boy would. (Does this imply that he would be unhealthy if he knew the tattoo tally for the latest camera rocker? Yeah.) :Fiendish was kind of a trail eating cayuse, and in ten minutes of idle chat, we were working our way along a ridge of Shoot First. The boy and I agreed on the banality of the Mormons, but both of us were amused that they'd had the temerity to name this canyon as they had. Shooting first is even more of a disgrace than the salamanders, tablets, and ranting malarkey of their years in the East. In modern times, they'd developed interesting little speech cycles. Polygamy, no polygamy, with just the right facial stuff to sort of indicate, Yes, we were naughty, but that was then and this is now. Never mention the salamanders at the core of their cult, for good and obvious reasons. Anyway, considering their history with the American infidel, it was cute of them to name our valley Shoot First Canyon. We talked more about weight, and I brushed on the sensational results S.E. had achieved by rewarding its clients who trod lightly the scales of spring and balance beam. "Do you want to see me with my shirt off?" he asked. "How do you feel about that?" I replied. "I want to see you," he whispered back over his powerful right shoulder, "and I want you to see me." This was great. We make no distinction when it comes to our client's previous homosexual experiences. Nice is nice, and lout is lout, period. "I'd like to be that way with you, too," I whispered. The youth settled slightly back against my chest, and I hitched a little forward on the thick wool blanket that was doing a sensational job substituting for a saddle. I'd noticed Fredman kept his heels down, from the beginning. Extremely good sign. Lowering one's heels, while astride, with, or without saddle and stirrups, keeps the rider's center of mass a fraction lower; hardly seems worth the discipline necessary to master the technique, nor the effort required to maintain it, versus just letting your toes droop. Thing is, sometimes it's just that fraction that keeps you from getting thrown an animals sees a blowing gum wrapper, and goes fully nuts in half a second. It looks awkward, and it is difficult to master, but it is simply how a horse is always ridden. Heels way down. Since we'd met on business, we were both wearing ordinary street clothes; shirts and slacks; I had on loafers, he had on the requisite two hundred dollars worth of wear, half on each of his nice, big feet. No socks, either of us. That was kind of interesting. As we rode on, I asked him a long, complicated question. "Fredman," it went, "in the movie, "Shane," think of Patrick Swayze, at his age in "Dirty Dancing," playing the lead. Remember what happens when Shane rides into town? Good Montana boy, as I said. "He stays with the widow," Fredman said. "Where," I whispered. I felt him stiffen, beautifully, as his mind searched the first reel and he remembered. "In the other bedroom, not with the widow," the boy said, his voice now faltering and husky. "And," I prompted gently, my voice doing no better than his, "Shane comes in with a lamp, after the widow has gone to her bedroom, and when they cut, he's going to get in and sleep with the boy." "Do you think anything happened, you know, if Shane was a twenty year old Patrick Swayze and Billy was an eleven-year-old McCauley Culken?" "Why'd you pick eleven?" the boy asked, and, gee, he sounded happy. "To make handsome boys ask questions," I whispered.. "Do you think a lot of stuff happened with the cowboys," Fredman asked, keeping our conversation going. We'd communicated with our bodies that, yes, we'd like to be bare chested together, and had decided without needing words that a scrub thicket half a mile ahead looked like a nice place to dismount and spread the rich wool blanket for awhile. "Touch me under my shirt," the boy asked as we covered the last distance. "You'd better take the reins," I responded, leaning against his sturdy back. He took them and shook in a knot so they'd trail properly. His hands went like rocks to the base of our animal's mane, and seemed to congeal. Hmm. How would a horseman feel about molesting a boy with low heels and quiet hands? At home on the range. "Who was the first man that did this with you?" I whispered as I began working his crisp white shirt from under his belt. "It sort of happened differently," Fredman said. As I'd told Mikey, one of our peculiar little creepy weirdnesses as an Agency was that we chose loquacious boys. The strong, silent type was great almost all the time, but not all the time. When it came to the bedroom, talking together, and especially whispering secrets, could be highly erotic. For example, there was the story of Fredman and... best leave that for another day. For the present, I'm having very slightly modified sexual intercourse with my eight year old nephew, while I tell him of my last time with a child, who happened to be Fred Reynolds. While the Montanan's most special story was too long and involved to be included here, his first time was very typical of the nine year old he was at the time. Baby sitter, accidentally-on-purpose forgotten bottle of shampoo. Gentle hands, lather; then rinsing and the bar of soap for the rest of his sturdy young cowboy body. The new-hired wrangler had been selected by the boy's father, based on the boy's happy smiles anytime he was near the new hand. It had gone on gently for several hours, yes, with the nineteen year old `babysitter' freely answering the child's questions and telling secrets of the short cattle drives still a part of ranch life. "Do you think that kind of thing happened on the real trail rides?" I asked. "Always," Fredman said. "It's like we have religion, or the Royal Navy. We have religion, because it gives monks and priests legitimate opportunity to be with boys. England congealed a wild and woolly world, because mates had unlimited access to cadets. We eat beef, because in months on the trail, with five or six boys riding along, something was bound to happen." Laugh all you want, my new little boyfriend had just hit three nails, one dead center, i.e., the passion behind conjuring gods, rituals, and superstitions,, and two to do with ships and cattle. at least well enough to drive them a little and bend them not at all. In a word, True, and damned-straight true for an eleven year old. Boys are attractive. Pedophiles marry women they have little sexual feeling for, and raise whole families, at every kind of expense entailed, on the chance they may get their fingers on the tender thighs and birdlike chest of a juvenile. About twenty percent of men are so afflicted, though probably not to the extent of raising hothouse children for secretive usage. `Fiendish' made short work of the trail, and we arrived at the thicket. I dropped off from the rear, and helped Fredman dismount. I hadn't more than half pulled free his shirt tails, so I came up close behind him as he tied the horse to a branch, hmm, not so quick with his hands as he was a few minutes ago when he'd shortened the reins. Breathing harder, and getting less done. I went in very low on his soft belly, and that brought his hands to a stop. His breathing went hot and delicious in moments. "Finish with the horse," I prodded. He giggled softly and completed his well-crafted slip knot. No wolves for years, but old habits die hard on the range. No wolves, no outlaws, but we were still ready to loose the reins on the fly. [I drafted this a bit facetiously, but let me tell you this. If liberals keep interfering with wildlife management, all wilderness and semi-wilderness will become active bear country; always dangerous, never safe. A yarn like this will soon be a corporal fantasy, not an erotic fantasy. Yes, it's a pretty place, and I hope you get the picture.] By now Fredman was openly panting. His skin was almost surreal in its salacious delicacy and puerile heat. He responded instantly to each lingering, carnal trail of my fingers over his boy tummy and up to his youthful chest, which he arched for me. He must have had a beautiful teacher, and I hoped it wouldn't be long before a night of pillow talk, and sharing. In the meantime, I was curious about a couple of things. "Has Farrell done this with you?" I asked. "I think he's getting interested," the sturdy young rider replied. I had both hands really on him now, and was experimenting with fingering him under his tight inny. "He has a cute wife that's totally after his bod so nothing has ever happened." "How would you feel if it did?" I quizzed. Funny how being creepy lead to smiling eyes, in the end, while being normal led to confusion, frustration, neuroses, breakdown, addictions, starting with food, and even mutilation and suicide. Smiling Eyes had recently declined involvement in a show documenting precisely this It was called "On Thin Ice, The Dark Side of Skating." Figure skating. The reason we declined to work on the script was as follows: one champ went on and on, and, if you listened long enough, you learned that the molesting coach had also intruded, even violently, in other ways, stalking ways, and threatening ways. The presentation was stereotypical and damaging In every film produced, in Hollywood's most sacred mantra, the predatory male is, as is perfectly exemplified in "Chinatown," obese, old, hairy, nasty, and drunk. If it's an attractive Mel Gibson with a blond cutie, then nothing sexual occurred, or no favorable mention is made of any relationship that did happen. For example, HBO's two films of pedo piriests. Good looking couples, but it's all taunting school mates, foaming parents, cops and lawyers. (Poor kittle guys.) This, of course, is gravy for S.E. As we've gone from Annette in crinolines to the Olsen midriff twins, we continue. These themes are there, and they are important. The church, which deals in the black and white of printed tale, embodies a culture with sixty percent obesity, and can thus be discarded, outright. Could our teams at S.E. do better? Linda and I both thought so, but I have to admit we were comforted by the fact that we couldn't do worse. "I really like him," Fredman answered my question about his young drama coach, moaning softly as my supposedly creepy fingers found him very low in front. `'Has he seen you bare chested?" I asked. "Just half in some Greek thing we worked on; you know, toga." "Did you get a sense his eyes were on you?" I asked, so low now I was actually tampering with him under his belt. "Yes," Fredman said, "but he was way cool about it. I don't even really know, but I think so." "He was," I said. Sometimes common sense acts as a sort of truth telegraph, one on which you send messages you know to be accurate. I continued with my probing. "Do you think he knows I'm doing this with you?" I quizzed. "Probably praying for it," the boy answered, direct as Montana, itself. "He thinks you're boss beyond gnarly, and that's way over cool. I mean, duh'uh. Plus," he added, "how many horses did he give us out of the forty-four the ranch has." "You know what I think," I responded. "What?" "That you are a seriously lucky young drama student. He's a wonderful looking guy, was more interesting, just on the phone, than most men his age. Lucky, hear?" Fredman whispered something incoherent. I'm good enough at what I do to bear no trace of modesty, so I think what the child said was: "You don't know the half of it." Blush. I continued my gentle fondling. The blanket would soon be tempting, but I liked taking young males in the classic way, from behind and over the shoulders, when possible, and, for bigger boys, from a position at their right hip so they're free to my right hand. Getting naked. Men had done it several ways with me when I was an S.E. sprout. Only rarely, was that part as special as it might be to a young heterosexual couple. Best was some advanced fondling, then a break, and a return to each other just dressed in underwear and appropriate footwear. In fact, the anticipation of stripping for a lover in private was sometimes the highlight of an affair. This would not be the case with the boy in my arms, but it had been a time or two in the past. Of course, bottom line, I'd leave it up to Fred, because at S.E. the boy ruled the love nest. (Linda's hard rule, too.) "Try to imagine Farrell is with you," I whispered. "Yes, coach," he replied, a trace of fun in his horse and choking voice. "It's going to happen with the two of you tonight," I prophesized in a special husk of a voice laden with permission and the best of good wishes.. "All night. He's loved you for years, and you can plan on his proving it, repeatedly." Now you may be getting some insight into the enduring success of The Smiling Eyes Agency. If we'd had a logo, it might have read The only thing we love more than love is sharing it. At least a dozen times in the past couple of years we'd sent children back to explosive nights with coaches and teachers who'd loved and worried over them, often for years. Such clients generate the warmest imaginable phone calls. It often seemed stupid to net seven hundred thousand dollars off a business I liked so much, but I was born with some kind of screeching IQ, and the only thing I knew to do was use it in everyone's best interest. That this left me single was a nuisance, but Linda was adamant stuff; fine for the office, and, hey, that was pretty good of her, not fine for home and hearth. She was wrong, but I was single, nonetheless. Of course, doing what I'd been doing for a gentle half hour with Mikey while I answered his question, wasn't being quite as single as Robinson Crusoe, but, ultimately, there is a potential in women, however vague and inconsistent, and they can be downright fun to live with. See, it's like this. For all my sophistication, my supposed ways of the libertine, and my penchant for philandery, I'd never actually slept with a boy. Okay, technically, I'd shared bunks when occasion demanded, and I mean demanded, but that was two guys on bunk, no hands, no talk, no nothing. The thought of a male humming over the laundry and fussing in the garden was repulsive to me; the very world turned upside-down. Public display between any males other than Scandinavian twinks was like a needle in the eye, and I'd broken off a session or two with a few needles back to their tender doe eyes. I'm ready with my fists, and have served time for enforcing, physically, my desire to live in a world that did not include much sexual activity, and none between males, except as noted, in anything resembling a public place. I was very reasonable and did not go around searching laundry rooms, boat houses, and alleys, but I did keep my eyes open, especially around my employees. (I was known, company wide, as the tiger with one tooth. I liked the description. Too bad it's acronym was TWOT) My voice took on new urgency and heat. I leaned into Fred's left ear and whispered very low. "How many men have sprayed with you?" I could feel him shake, in response. "My babysitter when I was little," he said, "and one of my teachers. One more. I'll tell you about it sometime when we don't have Mr. Gains waiting for me." See why I think I'm so smart? Absolute victory. So absolute we could throw the blanket back on the big cayuse, and I could deliver eleven-year-old Fredman Reynolds back to his rightful master, literally, untouched. I suggested this, and the child in my arms flinched. "I didn't meant it that way," he said. That was the good news and the good news. A, he wasn't overly emotionally attached to either Farrell or me. This is an always frustrating and often debilitating syndrome for homos and often seems to get worse with age. B, he was sticking around, saving me an agonizing ride home. With little boys, you have to be infinitely careful; they change like breaking glass, kiss to chaos in ten heartbeats. But here was a powerful adolescent, both right in his mind and sure in his mind. Lovely combination. Guess what? Farrell Gains was still waiting. "Are you ready to go all the way?" I asked. "Yes," the boy grunted. "How long has it been?" I needed to know. "Months," so I could groan, myself. "Do you do it in bed, by yourself?" "Almost never." That was a big variable. About a third of our crew masturbated occasionally, another third frequently, and another third, mostly in Crew and Staff, had this kind of sex several times a day. Maybe five out of all of us satisfied themselves Rarely, and I'd never heard of Almost Never. As in the case of the level of previous experience, it appeared to make no difference how often any of us happened to do it; nice was nice, and anything else was not. "When's the last time you came off?" I continued with my hot probing of the muscular young boy. "Sleeping, last week," "Do you remember what you dreaming?" I questioned, loving his panting response to my voice. "It was confused," the child said, "but mostly it was standing by a cattle pond with a boy from the next ranch; kind of weird, because he's like about six." "We have boys at S.E. as young as three," I said, and he gasped and begun to pant more feely. Pretty good secrets in our little shop of horrors, and the tape of what had happened to me, when I was all but a toddler, was way favorite "Can we get naked?" my young lover finally asked. I assumed he wanted to be with me that way quickly, so I eased him into the brush, and found my own clear spot. "I'm taking my underpants off, too, is that okay?" his voice came through the foliage. "Yes," I husked back, stripping off mine so I would meet him the way he was. It took him longer to get ready than it took me, because he was a craftsman. Once he was naked, he sat in his thicket, putting his big sneakers back on. I don't know if you've ever seen a pre-teen with a huge boner, wearing a pair of size seven sneaks, but, if you have, there would be no way to forget it. I was a few years short of his young male glory, so didn't try with the shoes, just walked out into our little clearing naked, and as aroused as I'd been in a year. We stood slightly apart, staring each other up and down. Fred was a generous, thick, un-circumcised five inches. I was like I was now, with Mikey, hugely swollen to seven inches, slim, cut, pretty good looking in the department, if I may say so, myself. "Let's just touch tips," the youngster suggested. We took our time looking up and down on each other. I'm a tall swimmer, hairless, thirty-two inch waist. You've seen Fredman on his diving board, but I guess you'll have to imagine how a normal size man's penis looks jutting up hard against that softy child belly. We were so perfectly matched for each other no words where needed, at least not for those couple of minutes. When he came to touch his tip to me, he didn't complete his intimate little mission, but rather sank slowly to his knees in the ferns. "No," I whispered, getting him to stand. We did touch now, and the tender shock of it wobbled us both like leaves in a wind. "I want to," he said. I wanted him to, wanted that tender, sweet almost little boy mouth on me, but I had a suspicion, and I wanted to clear it from the registry where such things congregate and complicate matters. "Have you ever had sperm in your mouth?" I asked. Fredman shook his slowly in the negative. I don't know how I knew, but I did. "I want you to save that for your coach," I whispered firmly. "He deserves to be the first, and you deserve to have your first time, that way, be very special." "Just what I was thinking," he murmured, but obeyed me and remained standing on shaking legs as we experimented in touching each other, surging gently, getting each other wet in as intimate a manner as two males can do it. I continued with my minimalist domination of the scene. Nothing special allowed. No kissing, nothing oral, no attempt at anything anal, no deliberate sharing of fluids. These might or might not come over the years, sometimes they did with other boys, often two or three experiments was the sum total, after that we might as well have been strangers, as far as having sex together went, though we might hang out frequently in the course of business and pleasure. Grand, grand mystery. Hope no one tampers with it. Then again, if I can't, probably no one can. "I think I'm cumming," Fredman whispered in a gentle, almost surprised whisper. I reached to him, pivoted him gently, encircled him with my left arm, looked down over his right shoulder, and found him with my right hand. He was wet enough that I could lather his boyish seminal fluid, back along his hot hardness, and I stroked him slowly and deliberately five or six times. We were leaning against branches, otherwise we would have been on the ground. The boy started shaking all over, as I held him hard in my left arm, and firmly and fully back with my right hand. "Now I'm sure," he managed to gasp. "Was he cumming?" Mikey whispered. "No," I whispered," just baptizing Shoot First Canyon. That made Mikey giggle. Mikey giggling made me cum. I panted my description of the boy's first spurt jetting into the brush, and the watery spray that had pulsed for a minute, covering leaves with their splatter and splash, and I pumped slowly and surely into my child's little Mickey Mouse underpants. Fredman had made me cum, his hand wet with his sperm in spite of my injunction against his cumming on me, and I'd cum almost immediately and with at least half the splendor now raging through my body as I did Mikey's will upon him. You know how if they show whipping cream on The Discovery Channel? It means the half hour is almost over (they're whipping up desert). Well, that's my writer's way of indicating my half hour with you is almost over. S.E. is always looking, so e-mail a pix. If you don't get a contract, you may get a story, so give right names and ages to make it that extra little bit exciting. There will be more. Mikey is alive and well on these pages, and as we say bye for now it is with the kindest thoughts for his life. Note: This story will include females as it develops (depending partly on the pictures you send). Further episodes will likely appear in Nifty's Bisexual Adult/Youth index. [Note for urban readers. Len Berman, cable sports personality, is at the Olympics. He looks, actually, twenty years younger than the last time I saw him, a few days ago. He looks like his son. That, readers, is why the savagery against certain ways of life that permeates my Feather Touch manuscripts. Proof. I am an eye witness. Sorry about the annoying know-it-all thing, but, hey, it's your city. Whatever the city, the city's a pity, and what a pity it is.] Boys make love like puppies, but men don't make love like dogs. Posted by Thomas@btl.net xxx