Date: Tue, 15 May 2001 13:34:24 -0500 From: Tom Emerson Subject: Creative Camp 17 The writing style is pop-not. The sex is not pop not. The reader is responsible for the disclaimers on the title page. Creative Camp 17 (M/b, t/b) by Feather Touch I thought I'd never type the two preceding words. Fifteen and sixteen were the endures of endures, the most intensely exhausting writing experience of a very long career. As stated before, no final clean-read proof. Wish David luck, and I'm sorry if too many glitches got by. I hope they're only typos. I just wanted to say that the rest of this chapter is going to be John and Brad, only, well, not only, but you know what I mean, or, at least, I'm sure you hope you do. Plus short, under 10K, and that's almost a promise. From The Bone Collector: Do you know what asbestos is? Answer: Yes, something to kill hard working Americans. All brakes and all clutches are made of asbestos. Of course, there is a small miracle involved, because without clutches, there'd be little need for brakes. It would be interesting to try a few decades of the industrial revolution without the stuff. As a writer, I am enjoying this pap. It is difficult to picture the mental state of the author, collecting his ten million, and knowing he's a fraud. She stops the train, to the split second; in a crowded bookstore, the vital tome lands at her feet. The archetypal bonehead chief. A line, perhaps sneaking its way in, late of a long night, like Poe's raven, what a thrill it must have brought with it, actually reads, "He is a piece of work." Photography-wise, the picture is great, the latest example of exactly my sentiments back awhile ago, less is more in the lumens department. By-bye sunny Hollywood. I shouldn't promise anything, and I promise I never will, again, though, truth-to-tell, it's your fault. I promised Brad and John, but, catatonic morons that you are, I just learned that Mad Magazine has slipped to one-tenth its recent circulation. "The Producers" is the biggest Broadway smash in years, and instead of getting McVeigh dead, he's now a media ghoul for those of giant lenswear who practice at the bar, and their cousins who sell what those huge eye glasses find. "The Producers" was a piece of flap-around junk when it came out as a move. Mad Magazine was the last tenuous fingernail grip on any baseline of juvenile literacy. Forty percent of you think the FBI is significantly to blame because a box-o'-papers went astray; that it might mean something significant that over four hundred early report drafts were lost in Los Angeles, alone. There's a lot lost in Los Angeles. I lived on Wilshire for four years. I put 28,000 miles on my Magna, the first year. That's why I rarely mention it. So much is lost between Century and 190th Street, it will never be found, by anyone, and I left before the riots. I really am sorry about Mad. It's a connection with you thirty and forty-somethings, we don't have many; and should be a volt line to your guts that things are being Jewed down to an unsurvivable level. A common-denominator that has this hooded dude with a scythe over his shoulder as its Crown Prince. Let's see, David writes to give me a new name. I've never liked Feather Touch, I just typed it and kept typing, what, some hundred-odd thousand words ago. For awhile I toyed with Tawdry Falcon, a character name from "Ropeyarn." But David commented on the essay nature of my work, and it came to me; so one of these days I'm going to fine-tune everything and repost it under the name The Exxayist. With Mad down ninety percent, I better explain that it means X-rated essayist. Some of you might want to add a swastika; I'd proceed with infinite care. For example, just this morning I saw a 95-year-old Jewish woman defending her right to drive her vast Cadillac. Her mouth motored on and on about her rights, a variation on the saw that could be summarized You'll have to pry my keys from my cold, dead hands. The useless flimsy conducting the interview did not ask how she was going to feel when she crushed into someone, because the answer was obvious. Such was within her rights, and the little boy shouldn't have been near her car, in the first place. Talk to my lawyer. I'll allow you to pick between symbols. Granny Manheim in her Caddy, or the sign of rocket and jet and the rawest courage against both the Bolshevik hoards, endless millions of nasty Sipowiczes, and an insidious and utterly crippling fifth column, which had devalued the currency to four trillion, eight-hundred billion marks to the dollar. My tribe saved the world from sword-point communism; a process made bloody because of the cleverness of Marx and cadres of utopian crackpots. It was fun watching the Bolsheviks do with the socialists as an ape might do with a schoolgirl, but, fun though it was, it was a spectacle best observed from a distance. As to being an essayist, however spelled, it happens to be the family business. My great great grandfathers were, as alluded to previously, world-famous essayists and lecturers, two profoundly influential figures in world history, both of whom began with essays and short books, which sold precious few copies, but those, through Ticknor and Fields, to exactly right people, most of whom lived within fifty miles of Cambridge. I like this way better. Let the essays go to the mass audience; come in the back door - with a glance at the pool to see if there are any cuties loitering. Were I able to bend my talent to the preferences of the literary and political magazines, I would not submit, even for the big bucks. The reason is you need a beating, and they wouldn't let me beat you. I like to beat you. I like to set a dazzling array of fiction and non-fiction before you; protein and sauces mixed to a nearly Eastern deviltry of sweetnesses and sours; crunchy and syrupy, and make it so you can't share the toothsome yum-yum, with anyone. That's exactly what you deserve for your obesity and your socialism; to have a prince come amongst you, loud and clear with his message; a beautiful message, .and you can't share it because there's no way you can read the thing without one of two things happening. First, some kid in the story is going to lose his underpants. Never fails. Second, there is the Waltzing Matilda ego, sweeping this way, sashaying that, wishing the loons down under would adapt Blue Bottle beer, and near-beer, for the kinder.. Here's to you and what you've done to English, mates. Anyhow, that's a little sampling of how we go along, if you happen to be joining in midstream. If you've just finished Chapter Sixteen, you're probably still waiting to catch your breath; a little noodling might be welcome, and I know you'd want to send a message to skeptical newbies to the effect that I will definitely get where I am going, and that the destination is worth the trip. After all, if I'm going to punish you for your greed and lowlife ways, not that you aren't punishing yourselves, enough, I've got to provide really good stuff that you really can't share. Otherwise, it might seem I have an agenda or wish to engage in empire building. I don't. I just want to beat you, and I don't mean off. Only the devil's work for me. The oldest story in the book; you've sold yourselves, and the price is a big void where Mad Magazine used to be, (or is there a wit and charm to faux sumo wrestling I'm missing?). Yeah, sort of a devil who'd like to point out that you don't have much left to laugh about; you know how it is; debt issues, and surely there can be no funny with no money. You needed Mad, but look what you did with humor. Let it go broke. So, I chose sex. That, you've got left, for the time being. You can contemplate meeting under these circumstances in a variety of ways, and some will no doubt see the irony of secret sex with the devil in a larger framework, while others simply accept it as the best in the world, without bothering with any metaphysical aspects. Since I dine happily on the human spirit, I would suggest leaving yours off the table. Clairvoyance is something like the malnutrition anorexics bring upon themselves; a powerful, disabling force. Saying this the short way, I call it desert. So, you came looking for sex and found a rich old bag with her car and her lawyers and her rights; you've got almost no more of Alfred E. Newman. Bing Crosby died, and you've been introduced to the very devil you contracted for, with your giant diets, huge houses, massive children, colossal debt, and all those decades of facial hair and now with the stupid, life-long tattoos - just to rub him the wrong way. Bright side? Root me out, and make it the cause of your generation to set me up. If you're rich, write a big check to Nifty, or the site of your choice. If you're not, write you own stories. Wear Nifty's logo. A neat line of graffiti in millions of toilets might be a vector. I mentioned Nifty to three tourists last week and they'd all heard of it. If you're in lit classes, give your instructors the heads up. Pass the stories on the Net. You go girl, `cause this jazzbo is here to tell you right now, you ain't gonna make it on your own, Hon; can't. It's a whole new way, or no way, Jose. Appliance computers and huge kids, just for openers, and you know who I'm talkin' about. One truth, and one source of the truth. You bet your life. When David commented on the essayistic nature of my work, he did not say Write more. The problem is, you deserve more. You want proof? Or would you prefer a calling off of the dogs and a dazzling display of what even a devil can do with English, by returning us, headlong, to an upstairs bedroom; the one with a six-by-four foot diorama of an 1860s shipyard, complete with a half-built bark, two feet long. "David's a great editor," John said, apropos of nothing His regard for someone who just did his job, allowing him to do his, was a relief that he almost had to verbalize from time to time. The mainstream was so consumed with its international business plan, they'd neutered themselves. John and Brad spent ten minutes dissecting their overnight and early morning television viewing, twin ninjas when it came to lacerating a ponderous and recalcitrant segment of society very likely to kill it, should any sustained adversity rear its ugly head. "I have an invention," Brad said. "It's the sharpest one in the universe, not to brag, you'll know I'm not when you see it. After I demonstrate it, maybe you can write him a story about it." John was a bit taken aback. Modelers weren't inventors. Two entirely separate mind-sets. He was right. "Actually," Brad acknowledged as John was about to comment, "Uncle Brad gave me the idea, and I just kind of worked on it. I've got a working prototype, but I've never been able to test it." "If there's anything I can do to help," John said. Did the boy blush? He'd seemed pretty sophisticated, talking about his uncle as if it were obvious there was a homosexual side to their relationship. Well, he hadn't blushed long; just a blush of a blush. After a few moments he said, quietly, "Later, you could really help, but lets go on our date now. I'll bring my contraption with me in my backpack; there's a special place we can try it. "Meantime, I vote for having lunch at the costliest place in a hundred miles. You know, for exploring." John visited with Vicki for ten minutes as Brad clumped around upstairs in the imperfect circles of an eleven-year=old in departure mode. "Feel free to keep him overnight," she said. "His uncle says he's quiet and comfortable company, and I doubt he'll be very different with you, except, well, if he hauls you to a fine restaurant; he has a playful side, but it's just a game and he doesn't get obnoxious about it, once he's off the premises." "The House of Tender Temptations," John said. "I looked for one in the book, but I ended up with reservations in Burlington, on the real steamer." "Perfect," she squealed, "he'll love it." With that Brad arrived unsilently in his big nine athletic shoes, burdened by a backpack. He kissed his mother, and Vickie said a quick second thank-you for the check as the couple boarded the bike and cranked it to life. If Brad double checked his watched when the arrived at the steamer that served as a restaurant he did it on the sly. Since it was the first real run for the bike in months, John had kept track and hacked his watch as the kickstand lifted and as it touched the asphalt by the steamer. He didn't do the fine math in his head but simply made a mental note of 103 miles in 38 minutes. He'd bring it up for something to scribble on the back of the placemat, if conversation lagged. Let Brad figure it out. As they walked up the gangplank the boy looked content and merely commented that the trip hadn't taken long, and what was it with that seed truck they'd passed, how come it was going backwards at way over one hundred miles an hour? That was a time distance problem. As they entered the friendly confines of the eighty-foot steamer, another time conundrum presented itself, immediately. In summary, within three minutes John had dropped eighteen years, to age twelve, as he escorted his young male date to their table under the awning at the tafrail. It was the heartland, or, more accurately, the eyeland. By acclimation. And the boy didn't swivel his hips, posture, wink, pout, or throw languid looks. Just clumped along in his dual nines as if he did it every day. Though the place was a thousand miles away, it seemed the very eyes of Texas must be on this stripling as he made his way aft, and John felt as giddy as a school girl on Michael Douglas's doorstep. The waiter arrived with a plastic card from the hat check booth, a receipt for Brad's backpack. The boy thanked him with, was it? another blush. Something was up. But right now it was time for, let's see, piles of shrimp, any-old-way. That looked good, and the waiter brought two glasses with the Rhine wine. John was slightly taken aback at this, feeling any law enforcement officer who might happen to be present would certainly take advantage of any possibility of taking this beauty into custody. Nonetheless, they clinked very gently to themselves, and the little steamer would have run for a mile on the sighs. To John, it was dazzling; it was spectacular, it was transmitigating, or something like that; even to playing footsies, feeling twelve, and that hadda be the world's sexiest game even with the long boy legs and sexually explicate knobbyish knees and biggish feet hidden under the drape of the checkered tablecloths. Fortunately, the face, shoulders, and chest were in sight. So John made do. Was it the wine or was the brow a little broader and the eyes a little wider than he remembered? Brighter? Well, duh'uh, over a hundred miles in just over half an hour, anyone survivor's eyes would be bright. In any event, he was gorgeous for not being gorgeous, but rather a standard-issue kid who fed his brain more than his belly and let it go at that. The little steamer chuff-chuffed its lunchtime turn under bridges and in and around the piers, paddling its way home in just under two hours. With a bottle and a half of wine in him, and half a bottle in the kid, John eased the bike back onto the county roads and kept his speed five miles over the limit as they toured the scenery they'd blazed through at the end of the morning. Sixty miles upriver Brad took over the navigation and soon they were on amazingly pretty little paths and trails, a relief after the slippery marble-size gravel common on the country roads. At Brad's suggestion they left their helmets on a fence post, and burbled over open country after the boy had pointed out that there had been plenty of rain and therefore there was no fire danger. John was going to point out that the Yamaha sounded pretty good with mufflers, in other words, there was more to it than noise, and it didn't need little chrome stacks to impress, ergo, no fire danger, but he didn't want to sound like a know-it-all, so they ghosted along in silence for a few minutes until Brad squeezed his shoulder and pointed to a giant oak tree rising from a draw. In minutes more they were parked underneath it and Brad was busy retrieving a light sheet blanket from his stuffed backpack. The biked ticked and clicked as it cooled. Come to think of it, his future was looking on the cool side, too. Brad spread the blanket and lay back, his cut-off T riding high on his chest as he folded his hands in back of his neck. John dripped to his knees and crawled onto the blanket, coming to rest with his chin on his forearm. Hi, he said staring into the boy's eyes. They smiled back, and he lowered gently to the lips. The child giggled as they met and whispered, "I think we've got it backwards, doing the rice thing, you know, before the wedding." "It doesn't sound like a very promising start," John agreed. "We'll have to work extra hard, from here on out." "Ceaseless toil," Brad said, lifting an inch and igniting a torrent of fireballs all through John, which were re-ignited time and again as ceaseless became timeless for both of them. There was no advanced stuff, just strait kissing on the lips. After a time John paused, waited for the big eyes to open and peered into them from six inches distance. Brad could see a questioning look on his face. So in tune was he, he was able to answer, "No, it's Iowa," without having to hear the question about Heaven. Saved talk, and they went back to an almost girl/boy kissing . Wine, shrimp, boy, bike. What came next? Talk. "Do you like to whisper?" Brad asked between kisses. "Yes," John replied. "Cool," the boy responded happily. "I like it, too. I mean, it's okay not to; you know, just do stuff, if you want." "No," John said, falling beside the boy and pulling him gently until he lay on his right side, his cute boy nose just inches from John's. "No, I really like to, and we've got hours `till we have to be anywhere, or get hungry. Plus the wine. If you tell me ten secrets, I'll try to remember just one; come to think of it, cancel that; belay it, as your uncle would say: I'll remember them all. I might get fuzzy if you told me forty or fifty." "Yeah," the boy whispered brightly. "Like Scheherazade; a thousand stories or he'd be killed. But I don't have any thousand. Of course, then again, the ones I do have; well, if you think you know me now, just wait." "You're turning out to be a cave of mysteries," John said. "Your backpack and now secrets. Dozens of them. Maybe we should build a campfire." "You won't need any external fire when you year my killer and my killeroo, nor when you see what's in my pack." "Good," said Charles, "because I don't have a lighter." "Just a lighter side," replied the boy with a soft gurgle. Whoever thought up the word winsome sure had this child in mind. The guy with `charm?' would also be satisfied, more than. Even more than more than would have been Eros or Cupid. Nothing ungodlike in the influence of that dynamic duo; in fact, it was obvious to both Bran and John that the millennia had treated them extraordinarily well. With a wince John remembered "The Lighter Side Of..." as a regular feature of "Mad." Corny and repetitious, but free of angst. Even the drawing was, or had been, clean and enjoyable. Quaint. "What are you thinking?" Brad asked after a few moments of just breathing at each other. "I guess I want to ask about your uncle, but, you know, I don't know what might be private, or if that's what you meant when you said you wanted to whisper." "He likes to do it," Brad explained, "so I was thinking about him, I mean indirectly. We talked and whispered a lot before anything physical happened; well, by a lot I don't mean days and weeks. Twice, then I was eight, and it was too late for any more talk." "Was he the first one you had a mature talk with?" John quizzed in a husky whisper. "No, that was Rusty Brown. I was six, I really liked the pool and he worked there. He was nineteen." "Did you tell you uncle about him?" John asked. "That's how we got starated. I told him about Rusty; all our secrets, then he told me some secrets. It was so, so cool knowing I'd never have to hide anything, or change stuff. That I could tell him everything and he wouldn't get up-tight, but, instead, tell me things he knew about that were sort of like the things that Rusty did to me when I helped him dry towels after the pool was closed." "Did you like telling him those things?" John asked "I was really embarrassed at first," Brad whispered, "but Rusty had told me stuff would happen to me as I got older, and that it would be embarrassing and uncomfortable at first, but that that was natural and actually part of the excitement. So, when Uncle Brad wanted to quiz me, I let him do it, and pretty soon I was just as excited as he was, and he was telling me stories about what had happened to him when he was a boy. Anyhow, I think it's keen, as the kingdomeers say, and I'm super glad you like to, too. Especially this afternoon, and you'll find out why. Deal?" "Where do I sign?" John asked. "Use your index finger on my tummy. Draw a heart with my belly-button at the center. I'll imagine you're using ink, so the deal will be done." John froze at the thought of molesting the child. It had been so absolute, just kissing him; was even more, lying like Greeks in a meadow, practically drowning in agape, and there was more? Brad wanted to be touched. Before it had been theoretical, even during the prolonged game of footsies that they'd never ceased during lunch. Abstract. A dream. A fantasy. John recalled that the only truly spiritual love he'd ever had was for Richard Nixon. A total non-physical, no-spiritual, non-romantic love of someone who just fucking deserved it. No agape with this kid, nor was there ever in the day-to-day world. If you loved somebody, you wanted them; if you didn't, that's why they called it friendship. On the other hand, stretching Platonic love to the absolute limit, just short of a totally abstract love, was like eating corn that was six hours old instead of six minutes old. So close to a mystic perfection was Brad, yet there he was, even new rolling on his back and returning his hands behind his neck, arching slightly, to receive his first out rightly homosexual touch from his biker partner. John signed, slowly, delicate, gently and in a lingering, dawdling manner that brought a gentle hiss from Brad. "You've molested boys before," he whispered. "Had your uncle molested other boys when he started with you?" John whispered back. "He worked in a hospital, through college. They had secret pool sessions for some of the kids that didn't have much going for them; cerebral palsy, retarded, some accidents and other stuff. He was freaked a little, at first, but he'd already done some stuff, so he went ahead with it, only on a carefully supervised basis, especially after he got his commission. He even requested transport duty so he could do it wherever he was stationed. It's become sort of a secret at maintenance hospitals; the Evans System. Mostly orderlies and male nurses; the docs don't have the guts, except once in awhile. "Anyhow, it's real simple. They get the kids together, socially, and try to figure out who likes who, naturally; you know, cake and games and stuff like that. Then they get the couples together in the treatment pool, or any comfortable, safe place, and experiment. I mean it sounds freaky, but at one time in history, the twist was pretty freaky. Anyhow, it's a double-barrel system. The kids love it, and the retention rate amongst orderlies and nurses goes so high they are able to weed out the kooks and have a really stable, year-in, year-out system. All done on a whisper here and a whisper there." "So then he was pretty experienced," John commented, and asked if he'd ever partnered with his uncle at one of the clinics. "We spent our honeymoon in one," the boy replied in a husky whisper. "When he was in Florida. I stayed with him the whole summer when I was eight. He had a month of leave, then when he was back in ops, he was doing some nine-to-five stuff, so we still had a normal life for all the abnormal stuff we did." "Yeah," John commented, "it sounds like they might want to try a remake of "Risky Business." "It takes guts. He could get caught; like an earthquake or an explosion, and suddenly someone could see what he and another man were doing with those little kids in the pool. Personally, even if I did suspect something, I'd rather carry a baked ham into a lion's den than mess with Brad." "He has a bad side?" "Oh, fuck!" the boy hacked, then reddened. "Sorry," he said. "But yeah, I watched him mug three guys. I mean, it wasn't Jackie Chan, but the bodies were just as flat. He found out through the kids at the hospital about all the freak stuff going on. Usually a letter or a phone call would set things right, but once in awhile he'd run into some guy who'd take his rights too seriously. That always set things straight, and to the police they were standard muggings. Once we got over two grand and we partied hearty for weeks. He even broke up a spy ring. All because he's one of those guys that listens. He can take three or four arcs and make a circle, then go after whoever is in the circle, or save their ass." "He sounds like he's worth his own comic book," John said with a gentle tease in his voice. "The Adventures of Fruitflyerman," Brad responded with a giggle "Are you in love with him?" John asked. "No," the child responded, "Not like with you. I super like him, but he's a little high mission for my taste; I'd rather build models and read than be out all the time stalking child molesters and watching him beat them. I mean, I respect it, and his overall love of kids, but I'd rather lie here kissing you than spend a whole night with him. Weird, isn't it." "How about the Brown boy, the one who was at swim camp with you?" "He made it clear that was just a summer fling.. Kid's stuff." "Did he seduce you?" John quizzed. It was definitely fun whispering to this kid. He was spending the whole day as a twelve-year-old, a twelve year old with wine, bike and lover. "We both worked at it," Brad said. "He was real honest. He told me I could stay an hour after class, `till four, to help him with the towels and stuff, but I had to be real mature and keep the things we did together private." "Did you know what he was talking about?" John asked. "Sort of, I guess. When he said `mature' I got really excited." "What did he look like?" John quizzed. "Big and muscley, with short hair, like those Olympic swimmer you see on TV. Not buff, no phony stuff like pecs and a six-pack. Not chiseled, more like sleek like a grown up boy, not a man." "Did you think he was cute?" "More like exciting," the boy explained. "I didn't know much, but I really liked being close to him, and when we fooled around after the lesson was over I really liked it when he touched me That first afternoon was the most exciting day of my life," the boy continued. "I did pretty well in the lesson; all the kids did, so we knocked off with the boring stuff and we played tag and diving. "I piggybacked him a lot, and he stopped trying to throw me off because he could tell I wanted to stay on him. Some of the other kids giggled when they saw me riding on him; they'd been there the previous seasons and knew what he was going to do to me when he got me alone. Even two of the girls whispered I was really lucky,. That got me even more excited and I got my first total boner, right while I was riding on his back. I was embarrassed but he reached in back and pushed me against him and whispered that it happened to other boys and it was okay. "So pretty soon everyone was running out of the place. A lot of the kids didn't know what was going on, but a few did and sort of escorted the others out to buy ice cream. So it was just Rusty and me. He kidded me about making the remora hall of fame; those are the little fish that attach themselves to bigger fish. I couldn't help it. If my mom had been looking, I couldn't have let go. Feeling his muscles move against my chest and legs was so awesome. Like riding a powerful animal. You could have embalmed my pee-pee and I would still have been excited. It was more like a boy riding a tiger than anything to do with sex. But it made me curious. Real curious. "Finally, or, pretty quick, actually, though it seemed long at the time, everyone was gone. He climbed out of the pool with me and put me on the ladder and told me I could run if I'd do diving sprints. So I dived and ran to the top and dove again and again while he went around the pool area to be sure we were alone together. "Then, he stood half way down the pool and had me slow down and he coached me through some basics off the low board. I did six, then, on the seventh, when I got to the ladder I pulled my bathing suit down; it was one of those baggy ones, and I went out on the end of the board and looked at him." "Did you have a boner," John whispered. "Totally. It was so big it hurt." "What did it look like?" The males were now nose to nose, breathing of each other, their whispers very soft. "I'm circumcised. Kind of slim, but almost as long as a frank (it's a little longer than one, now). My penis was bent a little bit to my left, and it was just the smallest amount a concave arc when I looked down on it. The head was almost purple. It just seemed so huge; I couldn't believe it was part of me. I was six, thinking, if I thought about it at all, I'd remain a kid for years; that all the weird stuff was for kids at least twelve or thirteen, whatever the weird stuff was. And there I was; naked, with a huge boner and my eyes downcast to look at it, and out of embarrassment, and my hands hanging at my sides, almost instinctively trying to reach in front of me, but I was too excited to let them move. I don't know what Harry Potter gets into; his glasses are so patently offensive they represent the doom of mankind, but whatever he's into couldn't have ever scared him half as scared as I was, standing there waiting for Rusty to yell at me, or tease me, or just send me away, or even somehow kill me by remote control. "Finally I looked up real slow. He was standing by the pool, not moving, staring at me. Then it was my turn to stare, because there was a giant bulge like a whole ear of corn in his Speedos. My boner got even bigger. "We stood there looking at each other for like five whole minutes. He said it was the best part, and not to hurry. So we just stood there and I thought nothing in the world could be cooler. Being a virgin, and knowing, unless there was a meteor, or a really bad earthquake, I was about to get totally laid. "Finally, he broke the silence by asking if I was okay. I nodded my head. He asked me if he could ask me something personal and I got really red, but I said he could. He asked me if I wanted to see his penis. I nodded again. He came over to the ladder, and I backed off the board, and climbed down." "Slowly, I'll bet," John whispered with a chuckle. "It was a year or two, now that you mention it," the child respond, with his own breath of a giggle. They kissed more, still with no trace of passion. John did use the fingers of his right hand to ease Brand's chin up off the sheet-blanket, then licked across the boy's mouth as if his lips were a row of stamps, glue-side up. But he only did it twice, easing the chin back to the blanket with the nose an inch from his own and the warm whisper of their mingling breaths. "Where did he touch you first," John asked. "Do you want me to show you?" Brand responded. "We could go over to the tree and I could hang off a branch, like I was coming down the ladder." John agreed and the two males scrambled to their feet and walked to the oak. John provided ten, and Brad sprung to an eight-foot branch that obliged by bending so his feet were just off the ground, about as they would have been on the bottom rung of a diving-board ladder. John came up behind him and the eleven year old guided the bikers hands to his flanks, almost lewdly low on his hips. When he was in the right position, John touched the boy and ran his fingers slowly up and down the few inches of nakedness between the short-shorts and the cut-off Tee. "Did he do it like this," John whispered, and the boy responded that he'd gone higher, "Because I was naked." Returning to the blanket, John and Brad resumed their whispering positions and the boy went on with his story. "He asked me if I was sure while he was touching me, and I said I was. He asked if I'd ever been molested before, and I said I hadn't. Then he lowered me to the ground and held my hand and we walked around double checking that everything was okay. He asked me a lot of questions, and I told him about Uncle Brad. He was really happy to hear I had someone that might be special to me, and reminded me that we, he and I, could only have the summer together and that he would be a teacher but I would have to find a lover on my own, if one didn't find me first, and if I wanted to, in the first place. "Then we went in and did the laundry stuff, together. That was so cool. Just working with him, like any two guys, but I was naked, with a huge boner that about seemed to want to drop off me and go its own way at every step, and Rusty had that big bulge in his swimsuit and there we were talking about stuff and acting normal, until we came to the Greeks. "He asked me if I'd seen the A&E program on Love in the Ancient World. I said I hadn't and he said he'd seen it, and he wanted to take me in the Classic Greek way, where the man and boy masturbate each other in the frontal position. I didn't know what he was talking about, but I was dying to find out. "It took about half an hour to get everything finished. By then I felt I'd known him for years. He kept reminding me not to fall in love, and once in awhile he'd pet me and say if I did, it was okay, he did once in awhile, himself, and, if it did happen, just to consider it a preview of what it would be like when the right person came along; one that I could spend lots of time with, like my uncle. "I told him I understood, and he said he did, too, but it didn't make much difference. If Harry Truman could have loved Stone Mountain Bess, than there was absolutely no accounting for the emotion and the only thing was to be for-warned. In his case, because of his job at the pool, he had made a rule of xix-year-olds, only, and he said it was a special age because at six Masai children were sent to sleep in the village hut with all the older kids. But with him, it was more. His one-season policy both eased the process of parting, and gave a gentle lesson in the reality of relationships ending, as they often did, and, ultimately, always did. He explained about emotions; puppy live, crushes, being in love; lust, perversion; a whole lot of stuff, and no baby-talk and saccharine Fruit Loops commercials like the teachers make come out of their mouths at school." "I asked him if he taught girls, and he said yes and asked if I was curious about them. He could tell from looking at me I was, it's hard to keep secrets when all you're wearing is a gold necklace. I forgot that. He pretended to find it while we were making our last inspection. It was heavy and nice and he told me all the boys and girls he'd molested had worn it, then he gave them another one to keep. "How did I forget that? I didn't when I told the story to Uncle Brad. It must be the wine; either that, or I've gone and done it; fallen in love with a craggy biker-type who doesn't freak out when I mention Bess Truman. Rusty's premonition coming true, and with a guy eight years older than my mom." "Your mom's twenty-two?" John asked, surprised. Vicki had looked impossibly young for even twenty five, but the child was hers, and eleven.... Brad, too close to see, still sensed John's confusion. He leaned into him and kissed his lips very, very softly, hardly whispering a promising shhh. They lay silent for a few moments, and Brad went on. "Anyway, as I was saying, it's hard to keep secrets when all you've got on is a gold chain, so I didn't need to answer about the girls, or at least answer by saying anything. Rusty said later in the summer we could stay after with him as couples or even in groups of no more than five. Once in awhile he even bent his rule about six-only, and had some older kids come over to help teach us. Plus a friend of his from college." "It sounds like a rather boffo summer," John commented. "It was okay, for six," the boy said, and John could sense him grinning through his fingertips which he traced lightly over the child's face as they lay together, practically breathing the same air. His whispers sagging with lust, Brad continued. "As the last dryer-full of towels finished, Rusty's voice got really husky. I could tell from it and the big bulge in his suit that he was getting ready to do the thing he'd talked about with me. The Greek thing. The one where the man and boy stood very close to each other, front to front. "Finally the machine clicked off and he had to haul me back from opening the door and starting to yank out the towels before the drum stopped. He told me I was going to be needing my right arm and hand, very soon, plus, they gave my body balance and a pleasing symmetry. Then he laughed and told me I wasn't the first child to be in a hurry. He reminded me we had over an hour before we had to even begin to think about the evening shift, so that nothing had to go fast. "Then we folded the towels, working side by side, touching all the time. I was still tingling all over from when he'd pulled me back from opening the dryer, and feeling him, just in his Speedos, so close, kept making my boner get bigger and harder. He said I was extremely well developed for my age which meant I probably would grow up to have an active sex life with young males, who, in his mind, were god's absolute and total, one verifiable, gift to each other. "Then everything was done, and we carried the bundles of towels to the linen room. Once that was done he said we were off the housekeeping clock and all we had to do was hang out and guard 485 towels. Since the challenge did not sound like it would be outside my skill-set or beyond my experience level I agreed to stay, if just to keep him awake amongst those hundreds of soft, white towels. "We talked about boylove; historical, contemporary, overt and secret. It was so shocking, hearing someone tell the truth. I asked him about marijuana. I mean, how lame is a government that lies to six year olds about pot? He went over to his locker and pulled out a two-inch roach, and gave me a couple of hits. I mean, I thought they were puffs, put then I had limited notions about suck, blow, head, come and a lot of words like that. He explained them all as we got stoned, then put the little joint away in his locker. He had a tiny bottle in his hand when he came back, and he said we'd both take a sniff of what was in it, me a little one, and him a big one, before I pulled his Speedos down "The bud and the poppers made me suddenly feel a lot more mature. I asked him what the word he'd said before was, about the thing a man and boy did when the were standing close to each other. He said it was `masturbate.' He made me say it and it took some tries, until he said maybe I should whisper in his ear, and frame it in a question if I wanted to ask one. "I reached up to his big shark's shoulders with my little minnow hands and pulled him down to his knees in front of me. Then I braced myself on him, and moved really close to his left ear, then I whispered as softly as I could, `Rusty, can I masturbate you? By that time I was feeling awesomely mature. Not like a kid, but like a real boy who really wanted special things to happen. I made him stand, and he did, putting his hands behind his head, and stretching, and letting me really see him. I just kind of knew what to do, I went up to his front and looked up at him. He nodded, so I put my hands on his waist, right where he had when I was on the pool ladder, and moved them down and down and down. It was almost as exciting as first standing on the end of the board so he'd know what I wanted, and then looking up at him. But it wasn't," and here John could again sensed a grin, "so I didn't linger as long. I pulled this Speedos down. "But with my eyes wide shut. "He balanced himself by leaning on my shoulders as I got them away from his feet. When I stood up, he saw my eyes were clamped shut and he laughed. Said he'd never seen it before, and that it was totally cute and very flattering. I was embarrassed, but I remembered how I'd felt looking down at my own boner on the end of the diving board and watching it get bigger and bigger. So I did the same thing. Looked down at myself when I opened my eyes. "He caught on really quick, and let me take my time. I could see a little of the floor, and I saw him take two bundles of towels off one of the storage shelves and place them, side-by-side on the floor. They were about six inches high, and I got extra excited because I knew what they were for. Then it was quiet for a few moments, and I was just going to look up when I heard a really soft sound. It was the plastic cap coming off the little bottle. I heard him take a big sniff, and I took a bigger one than the first time. He put the cap on the bottle and dropped in on the work table he was leaning aginst, then he exhaled and told me to hold my breath for five seconds, then look up, if I wanted. "Well, I didn't have any other ideas, so I did. The amyl nitrate made me feel super mature in about three seconds, and by the time I looked up at him, I almost felt like I might be older than he was. "His boner was huge. Eight inches. It looked really, really big on him, and it was like a little boy's. No hair. He whispered to me that he hated beards, too. I thought it was really funny, later, but at the time it made him look amazing. Like a little leaguer that was huge and big. He was leaning against piles of towels on a shelf, and the two small bundles I'd seen while I was looking at my feet were exactly where I wanted them to be. Right in front of him, and spread wide apart. "That got me really excited, and he held out his hand and helped me get up. My legs were spread really wide, and the bundles were tall enough so we were perfectly matched in height at our waists, because his legs were spread really wide, too. "When I was comfortable he asked me if I was okay. I said I was and he told me never to go as far as we had gone with someone, unless I wanted to go all the way. One of his little cautionary tales that made my heart beat faster because of all the love, and faster, yet, with impatience. He whispered to me to slow down and relax. Some of me did. Some of me didn't." "I'd have a hard time completely relaxing, too," John said. "It's funny now, a little," the boy replied, " but at the time I was desperate. The poppers and the pot were in my head; one taste of wine, and no way, but I made it. I stood, arms at my side, about three inches from his penis, just looking, like I had, twice, already. I tried to imagine what it would feel like when it touched my own boner and my tummy. Mostly, what was going to happen. I looked up into his eyes; I knew we would share the moment in both our eyes. So I looked back down and thought about perfidy; about pretending to fall against him, so we'd touch. But it was the biggest thrill of all. Feeling the heat of his penis against the tip of mine, which would be absurd, unless he'd been running a fever, but, what with the pot and the Rush, it felt bit and hot and even closer than it was, and I stared and stared, knowing, and having lots of time to know, due to his lovemaking, that this was going to be the most exciting thing that had ever happened to me, and I'd would remember every moment all my life. "Then he asked me if I remembered our special word. I nodded gently, really scared now, because I knew he'd want me to say it in is ear again, and it made me blush, but I was wrong. This time he wanted me to whisper it into his mouth while he was teaching me to kiss. I had to kiss him five times, each time wider and longer, then say it after the fifth time onto his lips while they were open." "Sounds like graduate school, to me," John commented. "If it stand for Perfect Diction," Brad answered wryly. "I had to repeat it until I got it so he could understand it without using his ears. It was a dumb game because every time he couldn't understand he'd kiss me, and I wanted him to kiss me, like forever." "What did you have to say into his mouth." "Tell him what I wanted to do to him," the boy replied, suddenly shy. "You're still a little embarrassed, aren't you?" John quizzed. "Sorry," Brad said. "Hey, it was really private. You don't... "No," Brad broke in. "I want to say it. I was totally embarrassed with Uncle Brad, too, but I whispered it to him." "Okay," John whispered, and he moved closer to the tender lips of the eleven year old. There was a long pause, then the boy's whisper came breath-soft. "I want to masturbate with you, I said. He said he wanted to do it with me, too. I looked into his eyes and saw it was time, so we moved together so we touched just a tiny bit. That was even better than the looking. We both started shaking and he asked me if I knew about sperm. I shook my head and he told me to make it come out. Somehow I knew what to do. He kept his hands behind his neck and pushed more to me. I took his penis, really slowly and gently in my right hand, and cupped my left hand down under where his legs were spread, then I pushed my boner against him really gently. "By this time he was getting wet all over. It was really exciting to see how much his skin stretched and how purple it got, especially when I started rubbing around it with wet fingers. He whispered it was going to be really messy when he started cumming, and not to get scared, and not to stop masturbating him. We were both really sweaty. He pushed me away for a second, and got the bottle, then we got close again and I leaned my damp hair against his chest. I heard him sniff, just a couple of seconds, and he gave me just a little, too. "He held is breath, then asked me if I was ready. I said yes and he started getting me wet. Then my hand got wet and - - " here the boy gulped and gasped out his nose with a harking, hawking snort. John was taken aback, a state-of-mind not improved as the boy began shaking with suppressed giggling, trying, at the same time, to gain control. He didn't know what was so funny, so his expression didn't change as he continued fingering the face of the writhing child. In a way, he wanted to laugh just at the charm of the whole thing; also, because he was sure it had to be a good one if this model-building sober sides was on the brink of collapse. Patience was called for and patient John was. The giggling dissolved slowly into blushing gasps. John went in and licked up some tears. "What? he whispered hoping thirty was old enough to have been inoculated against infectious kiddie moronity. He actually wished to join in, but felt he might possibly be laughing at the child, since he was clueless. Patience, tears, a few fading squalls and fits, and finally the circus was over. Brad brought him back to the point he was standing in front of Rusty as the nineteen year old swimming instructor began ejaculating. He described the purple head of the big, swollen penis, described sliding his wet fingers over the stretched purple tissue of the glans, getting them gleaming wet and slippery. In the meantime his left hand had been openly fondling the balls of the big spread-eagle swimmer against whose chest his wet hair was sticking. "My whole hand got wet, and suddenly, like magic, I just knew what to do, so I made a tight fist as much as I could, and wet the inside with lots of his fresh sperm, then slid it down on him, kinda slow and tight. At the same time I gripped the base of his boner, real gently, with my left hand to see if I could feel anything. He grunted again and then started splashing it all over both of us. It sounded like minnows landing on a deck, sort of a slapping, slurping sound; I could almost feel it more than hear it, all over my chest and neck and face and all up in my hair. I kept masturbating him slowly up and down, getting my hand wet with some spurt each time at the top. Then I leaned against him harder and started nipping him, and brought my two hands kind of together. Then, in my left hand I felt like four little electric snakes suddenly run out of him, and I knew that was his climax, so I leaned to him and kissed him so I could feel it spasm through my left hand then jet on the tip of my tongue. "I swallowed some and let a lot run down my chin, getting him wet all over again when he eased my mouth off his penis. Then I made my right hand go all they way down on his boner, and squeezed it gently against my left fist. That made his head drop on my shoulder and made him spray more. I thought he was done. Then he was. I could tell. He passed out. I mean, not quite, but it would have been a bad time for the place to catch on fire. "He revived in a few minutes and lay me back on the shelf he'd been leaning against, then I got totally laid. I was wet all over from him, so he molested me with his sperm, then masturbated me with his fingers, then sucked me and made me cum five times in half an hour. After that, we licked each other like cats, and not just because we had to wash the towels." John fondled the child's neck and kissed him on his normal looking boy lips. Staring into the out-of-focus eyes that were staring back at him, he asked, "What was so funny?" "Well," the boy said, still blushing, "I was just thinking back to when Rusty started cumming, and I did all the right things by getting my hands all wet with the first semen and holding him tight and still at the end..." "And that was funny because..." "It was on-the-knob training." People marry up in all kinds of ways. This couple became intimate during fits of giggles that lasted almost two hours. Chapt. 18 Or almost did. They talked, they laughed, they had stupid-joke contests and accused each other of losing on purpose. They kissed, twined, and fooled around while stripping to their underpants. At this point, the play became more tender and urgent; the kisses lasted longer, their hands went below each others' navels and to the white elastic of their briefs. It was then that Brad would become secretive; move and push gently away; slowing and calming, yet on the verge of going Posted by Thomas@btl.net. xxx