Date: Mon, 1 Dec 2003 09:31:08 -0800 (PST) From: Illusion of Conformity Subject: Inappropriate Emotions, Part 1 DISCLAIMER: This story contains themes revolving around a consensual loving/sexual relationship involving an adult male and a minor. Reading such a story may cause you to think differently about that concept and experience open-mindedness. You have been warned. NOTE TO THE READER: I hope you will enjoy this story. If you have any questions or comments, I truly appreciate feedback. Please e-mail me at illusionofconformity@yahoo.com "Inappropriate Emotions" by Illusion of Conformity (illusionofconformity@yahoo.com) I am unsure as to how to go about telling you my story but I will try my best anyhow. My name is David McLeod. I am 20 years old. I am a creative writing major at New York University in NYC. There you have it: all the information you need to know about me - at least all the information that would matter in society other than perhaps my social security number. Sadly, even in the most individualistic of societies, we are still invariably relegated to a number which ultimately corresponds with what we have accomplished during our tenure on this planet - in dollars and cents. My story is not about that sort of rubbish, but about the higher things in life. "Higher" is rather subjective but no other word would suffice. At any rate, I am going off on a tangent here when I should be telling you about my story. Thus, without further ado, the tale awaits... It was the summer of 2003 (a rather generic beginning, but what did you expect? "Once upon a time"?). My family had decided that we would be going on vacation for a couple of weeks to Lake George, New York. Ah, vacation. The relatively miniscule fraction of time which creates within the subject the asinine notion that one is not a member of a cookie-cutter workforce slaving away their existence for the almighty dollar. The great irony of this trip was that my dad, obviously the bread-winner of the family unit, would be unable to accompany us on this trip - his boss did not think that a two-week vacation was compatible with the company's bottom line. I guess there would be no asinine notions entering Daddy's mind. The rest of us, though - mom, my sister Diana (13), and I - would be going to Lake George for a couple of weeks to celebrate our pitiful middle-class status. Lake George was not exactly Disneyland. Yet, for the parental units, the bottom line was that it was not exactly Brooklyn, Either. Thus, the trip was booked - signed, sealed, and delivered. It's not like I had much of a say in things. I was just grateful that, at age 20, my parents were willing to provide me with free rent as long as I keep up my scholarship at the university. They even provided me with an allowance - yes, an allowance - despite the fact that almost all of my peers were either stock boys at supermarkets or otherwise engaged in meaningless minimum-wage endeavors. Ah, education. The process of legally mandatory brainwashing and indoctrination an individual must go through. I guess I should make distinction between that and "higher education", which is the process of sleeping your way through irrelevant classes on your way to your ultimate goal: a piece of paper certifying that you have made enough tuition payments and accrued a satisfactory amount of hours daydreaming through lectures that the school is finally able to grant you its seal of approval. This piece of paper is highly valued by employers in selecting those who they will pay to sleepwalk through their days on the job. My scholarship status put me in a different category, however. I was part of the advertising class the university would use to justify the astronomical tuition costs for prospective students. If so many "intellectually advanced" students chose to attend NYU on scholarship, clearly the university was doing something right - and who was to argue? Of course, the school conveniently forgets to mention that we choose to attend this particular institution because it was the most prestigious and/or convenient establishment offering us a free ride. It is, at times, rather entertaining to consider the notion of myself as a poster-boy of anything relating to this society. Would they be as inclined to pay me to graduate as one of their sons if they were aware of me beyond the numbers? GPA, social security, and other statistical descriptions really fail when it comes to manifesting who I really am. But who am I exactly? The answer beckons a label which I am not sure exists. Spare me the rant about the value of labeling oneself. In a world ruled by language and words, labels are convenient and necessary. I am just not particularly certain if an accurate label exists to describe my innermost being to the public. It is interesting how at the innermost core of a being is always the self-ascribed sexuality of that person. Sigmund Freud would certainly agree and, regardless of the denial present, the actions of human beings can all too often be attributed to making oneself a more desirable partner for copulation. Denial is, after all, the most predictable of human responses. I am a pedophile. I can almost see the gravitation of stigma that word automatically commands rising forth and being pulled to inspect this new red flag revelation. But, what can I say? My sexuality is only aroused by prepubescent boys. Of course, there are exceptions here and there, but, predominantly, the boys I am most attracted to range from age 8 to 12. I would not have any problem with such a label if it did not conjure up all sorts of unfair assumptions from the herd. Pedophiles tend to be labeled "child molesters". This is interesting since such nouns - taxi driver, heavy drinker, child molester - seem to imply that the prerequisite to acquiring such a label is to commit the act associated with the noun, be it cab driving, heavy drinking, or molesting a child. Yet, this wonderfully intelligent society seems equate the complacent individual who simply possesses attractions to children to the compulsive rapist that kidnaps children and forces himself upon them. That is like equating a person who keeps a gun at home to the maniac that brings one to school and kills dozens of innocent people. It's always nice to see that the level or rational collective discernment is making progress... These were the thoughts that meandered through my mind as what amounted to the family car stuttered its way into the bungalow colony we were staying at. Out of the six cabins, five had air conditioning and, of course, my parents had rented the runt of the litter. It wasn't really a surprise considering the fervor with which my father preached against overusing the AC. My parents would sooner endure a sweltering that would make Death Valley seem cool rather than commit a dollar towards the goal of attaining temperatures conducive to human life. This did not sit well with my natural inclination to prefer cooler temperatures. Needless to say, I didn't have a lot of fun that day. At first we unpacked all of the stuff. Then, we did one of those family togetherness things and went out eating together at the local Pizza Hut. That was pretty enjoyable. The food was pretty good and the sights were even better. I spent most of the time transfixed at this boy who looked to be 12 who was at the pizzeria with what seemed to be his father. The boy had short brown hair and a really magical smile that kept pulling my attention so much so that my mom asked me if I was alright. "Sure Mom, I'm fine" I said as revealing to my family that I am a social monster did not rank very high on my "to do" list at that time. After lunch, we went back to the bungalow colony and took a dip at the pool they had there before I had enough and decided it was time for exploring. I went back to our shack of a cabin and crammed some money in my pocket and headed off to town - if you want to call it that. I'm not sure if this is true of the entirety of Lake George but the part we were staying at consisted of a main street with some shops and not much of anything else. Sure, there was the lake itself if you are into swimming in water that a polar bear wouldn't dream of entering. There were a few back streets with some nice little houses. There even was an elementary school, which brought onto me the realization that there are people who actually live in this middle-of-nowhere year-round. While wandering about, I finally came across an arcade. One of my all-time favorite games caught my attention and I simply had to play it. It was one of the X-Men series - I don't remember exactly which one - but it's the one where I use Dazzler to wreak some serious havoc. What caught my attention even more, was the boy playing the game. I would guess him to be 10 or 11 years old. Long blonde bangs were visible from the back as they flirted with the collar of his light blue t- shirt. He had grey cargo pants on with the bottoms rolled up a bit - probably more for his personal style than anything. His calves, which were visible, were stunningly toned and his butt occasionally made interesting impressions in his pants as he jerked about while playing the game. I went and stood by as he played. I gazed at his clever fingers maneuvering the joystick and pressing the buttons and I paid careful attention to all of the curious faces he would make as playing the game. He really had a beautiful face. His thin red lips particularly stood out, as did his crystal blue eyes. He had a cute button nose and his cheek bones seemed slightly accentuated - like Russian boys tend to have. The icing on the cake, though, was the adorable little beauty mark he had right under his left eye. This boy was truly a treasure. As for the game, he was decent at it, I suppose, but it wasn't long before one of the bosses gave him a hard time and he had to put more money into the machine. "Aww shoot I'm out of quarters!" he said. His voice sounded wonderfully angelic. "No problem, here." I said, handing him a coin. "Hey thanks!" he said, flashing me a smile. "Do you wanna play too?" "Sure!" I responded. I fed the machine fifty cents and then proceeded to choose my character. I hadn't played that game in ages but I soon rediscovered my old talents and really began to bring it. We were quite the team, actually, and soon a small crowd of kids was developing as we played the game. After a while, he died again and I had no more money so he just watched me play. I was then presented with the quandary of paying attention to the screen or his gorgeous face. I chose the latter and that resulted in me shortly being faced with my own "game over". "Hey, you're pretty good!" he chimed. "Thanks," I replied "You're not too bad yourself. What's your name anyway?" "Jonathan" "Hey, that's cool. I'm Dave." "Cool. Are you from around here?" he asked, brushing aside some hair that had ventured across his face. "Me? Heeeeell no I said. I'm from Brooklyn." "Really? Oh, way cool! I'm from Manhattan!" "Hey that's pretty awesome. Are you here on vacation?" "Yeah I've been here a week now. I'm here for another week." "Cool. Maybe I'll seeya 'round." "I hope so!" His face beamed as we spoke. I could hardly believe that here I was conversing with an absolute angel. "Hey I gotta go. My parents are gonna want me back at the hotel. It was nice meeting you, though." He said. "Oh alrighty. Seeya later" Jonathan darted off, looking at his watch like he was going to be late for something. I really hoped I would see him again. I don't know how likely that would be but I could tell he already had me hooked. Maybe this vacation wouldn't be such a bad time, after all.