Date: Fri, 22 Dec 2000 15:07:29 -0600
From: Feather Touch
Subject: "Jimmy and Frogger" 37K. Part 1. M/b NS in this part.

The following story is for the over-eighteen crowd. It is a total fantasy
involving minor television personalities, at least as far as screen time
goes, and should not be construed otherwise. The author has no knowledge of
any of the personalities involved, except for agreeing with the choices of
various casting directors.

Oddly enough, television does allow you to see me. There is a commercial
for "Rocking Instrumentals," a collection of oldies. Bunch of kids dancing.
At the right of the screen, about two-thirds of the way through, there is a
boy in a brown shirt on camera for three or four seconds. He looks exactly
like I did at his age. Exactly.

Jimmy and Frogger
Copyright 2000
Feather Touch


"You cleaned-up okay," Jimmy said, dealing, as boys will, in
understatement.

Frogger was just coming back from the shower . He'd been gone for over an
hour and eleven-year-old Jimmy O'Rourke had almost forgotten his sudden
appearance earlier in the afternoon; nut-cake parents laughing about all
the money being gone. ("Again?"  the boy had sighed to himself.) Renting
out half his room. Tape measure, for christ's sake. Frogger, for christ's
sake.

The boy was still in his extend double-take. The beard was gone. He looked
ten years younger and he was no gramps to begin with. Hair trimmed. Wearing
just a towel.

Tall. Six-three. Slim but no hint of bean pole. Solid torso power with no
hanging or jutting stuff. Perhaps one-third of an inch of softness over the
stomach. Jimmy was trying to haul his eyes away but they were twins and
neither wanted to go, anywhere. It was half a minute before he gained
control and clapped them back to the text on his desk.

Then his new roommate spoke. Completely different; as much changed as his
physical appearance. Now free of the DUDE punch-up; now low, gentle and
kinda smart sounding. He said, "Sorry about the goop act. I do it when I'm
looking for a place to stay. Makes me seem harmless, which I am,
underneath, to parents and other handicapped onlookers."

"Well, it worked," Jimmy said. "But it kinda scared me. I thought the olds
had lost their minds running around with a tape measure. I've lived here by
myself since I was five."

"That's a bummer," agreed the twenty-three-year old, and sketched his
background:. "I'm from Boston. My name is Paul Winston. I'm a musician -
backup - and I clear three or four thousand a week, taxes definitely paid -
I don't have to stay at all. It's one-hundred-fifty percent up to you, and
you alone. I gave your dad a thousand- dollar deposit, but, to paraphrase
the immortal words of Festus Hagen, `I've got enough money to burn a wet
elephant,' so I'm outta here, if that's what you want." He went on to
explain, "This is just what I do when I move to a new venue; or at least I
give it a try.

I've found really cool places and have some special friends as a result.
Once I batched it; liked that too, but its more fun to live with somebody."

"So how did you find us?" Jimmy asked, any thought of actually asking for
his room back being stuffed in abeyance as not worthy of the moment.

"Just cruised the neighborhood, mostly by parking near different bulletin
boards.

I picked you out a couple of days ago and was trying to figure out a way to
fix a crash, short of knocking you off your bike and becoming the
solicitous partner in an accident.

Yesterday, I saw your mom post a flyer after she'd packed you off for
something or the other."

"Yeah," the boy picked up, "She was acting weird even for her. She suddenly
wanted me to go pick out the produce. We didn't see you."

"Mostly I was in my car, with binoculars." Paul explained. " - I have an
old copy of Petersen's, full of notes; found it in a used-book store. Bird
watching is a pretty good prowling cover, as long as no one asks for a
handwriting sample." Then he added with a smile: "Boss, boys like you don't
grow on trees. I've been stalking this part of town for a week. The Frogger
gig, the beard, acting like a soap bubble. Tricky in these days of hyper
fear and ultra paranoia, but eminently worth it." The summation came with a
wink.

"Sounds exciting," Jimmy said, trying to discipline the double-trouble
flanking his button nose. "I've never done that. Like spied."

"I rationalize by saying I only do it every two or three years, when I
change gigs and have to find a new place. Actually, I've been going on my
little hunts since I was sixteen. I justify it because so far it's been
okay for everybody.

"So" the older male continued, "Do you think you want to be friends, or
should I go back to spying or find myself a respectable bachelor pad?"

"No, you don't have to," Jimmy said almost too quickly. "I mean I was
freaked, but that's the moms and the pops...

"So, how many boys have you lived with?" he asked, changing the subject.

"Four, and twice by myself."

"That must be really cool," Jimmy said.

"Well, I spent ten-thousand hours practicing the guitar and so far it's
been worth it.

"I am so right," Paul thought to himself, looking at the tall, willowy
eleven-year- old in front of him. They sat on their respective beds gazing
at each other. Jimmy was digesting. Frogger/Paul. An hour before he'd been
sitting at his desk doing long division; now he was talking to a studio pro
who made over one-hundred-thousand dollars a year. There. Here. Not five
feet away on the spare bed. Dressed only in a towel. Wearing a musk. He
could think of nothing to say and was relieved when Paul broke the silence.

"Have you finished your homework?" he asked.

"Yeah, it's done," the boy said.

"Do you get good grades?" the man asked the boy.

"Sort of; most of the time," the hobbledehoy muttered in modesty. " I mean
like about an eighty-eight average, overall."

"Oh, we'll polish that soon enough," said Paul. "It's amazing how little
effort it takes to go to straight A's. Spit and polish is all it amounts
to; an extra ten or fifteen minutes per assignment. And the first lesson
I've got to teach you is how cool it is to do absolutely well and make
loads of dough so you can live exactly the way you want.  From your level,"
Paul continued, "An extra hour a day - and before you know it you'll be the
one going around playing at. Frogger, and then there will be a devastating
boy sitting two-heartbeats away. Girl if you want, but the choice will be
from the best.

"I can give you an example," the musician went on. "Tim. He was younger
than you; only nine when I moved in. He stood out so bright they gave him a
roll in a commercial. Timmy and his little brother. Selling jam and
preserves."

"The one on television?" Jimmy asked, flabbergasted...

"That's my Tim," Paul affirmed. "I guess by now everybody's seen him.

Walking with his kid brother; playing at baseball. Totally awesome kiddo.
At least when I left. His smile looked harder the last time I saw his
work." (Too much time alone with the director; or, it could be anything.)
"Wow! Do you know any other celebrities?" Jimmy was about to ask, then his
young brain had a second thought. Like roads in the Michael J. Fox movies:
Celebrities?  Where I am, I don't need - celebrities. There was at once a
playfulness; and a focus about the musician. Perhaps a little of the lazy,
but nothing of the flake. Fun to a point, then take care of business. He
almost sensed Paul saying to him: "A-plus across the board; everything you
do, because at the end of the day it's the easy way out."  And was there a
bit of a wink that might have translated: "Especially in play?" Continuing
with the thought, he guessed the evidence was the exquisite boy in the
Orville commercials.

Jimmy was young enough to be spared love, but he was, from head to toe, at
the crush stage. "I'm a Pepsi can against Arnold's head," he thought.
"Crush, crushing, crushable and crushed." Then his witty little brain
flickered, "I'm a limestone cowboy: / Grind me up, / Any-old cowboy way."

They sat there for several moments.

"Do you have a girlfriend?" Paul asked.

Jimmy said that he didn't. Paul asked if he'd like to talk about stuff like
that. The boy reddened and the older male remembered how absolutely
fabulous it was to be scared and embarrassed, in the right circumstances.
Jimmy was thrilled as much as he was terrified - in his notion, the
circumstances were absolutely perfect. His parents were out, probably
trying to hedge Cabbage Patch dolls or some similar totally harebrained
stunt with Paul's deposit. They wouldn't be back until after midnight.
"Yeah, I guess so," the boy finally murmured, keeping his dynamic-duo on
his math assignment.

"Do we have privacy?" the young man asked.

"'Till midnight," the boy answered. "Plus, we can hear the garage door."

"Do you want to hang out here, or we could go get my car?" Paul asked the
boy, unexpectedly.

"I thought you had your car with you."

"No," Paul explained. "The old Volvo goes with the beard and binoculars; I
guess you'd call it my Froggermobile, though if you frig around with the
first o, you might be closer to the truth".

Jimmy struggled with a giggle for a couple of seconds before it came out
his nose.

Comic relief had to be a good thing, or, in boy terms, he wasn't going to
last long.. On the other hand, it was not exactly the time for too much
funny business. Paul read his thoughts and they agreed on a truce. There is
teasing and torment, and the musician didn't like overly much of the former
or any of the latter. And he wasn't trying to tease the boy, just offer him
options.

These were about to narrow, very dramatically.

Jimmy asked his brand-new friend about his other car. "What kind is it?" he
queried.

"Chevrolet," Paul answered.

"What model," the boy went on. Jimmy loved Cameros; just loved everything
Chevy except the original Monte Carlo, which was almost as ugly as the old
frog-eyed American-Motors Matador.

"Know how you were embarrassed when I asked if you wanted to talk about
stuff?" Paul answered with a question.

"Yeah," said the boy.

"Okay," said the young man, "Now the shoe's on the other foot; I'm
embarrassed."

"Why?" exclaimed the boy. "I just asked about you car."

"Okay; I guess you're right," said Paul. "It is a small one; no big deal I
suppose."

"Oh, god, oh god, I'm glad I'm a boy!" Jimmy raged to himself. A girl would
have to have five-inch breasts to be thrilled over those two words. Small
Chevrolet. He had a barely-visible wisp, down there; was eleven, and he was
quaking to his marrow.

General Motors hadn't made Chevettes for years; besides Paul's Volvo was
better than that little car. Small Chevrolet.

"Spell it for me, slowly," the boy said, sticking his fingers in his ears
and looking intently at Paul. Paul looked back. What if he'd practiced
twenty-thousand hours; become rich, flamboyant and legendary? Was there any
likely scene to duplicate this boy, fingers in his ears, praying and
praying? He thought of the "Happy news" line from "American Pie." He
spelled carefully into the word, getting to the v of the model name, and
stopped.

"He's made it this far!" the boy anguished. His eyes pleaded. Then came the
magic e. He wouldn't have really minded if it had been an a, for Corvair;
those were classic dream cars in their quiet way. But e - meant vette.

"Corvette." He whispered it, pleading to be right. Paul grinned at him.

"We're peas in a pod, Jimmy," he said, looking at the boy for a full ten
seconds.

Then he added: "Do you want to go get it?"

Just for a second, long division looked good to the eleven-year-old. What a
choice! He wanted to stay and talk; but a Corvette. Paul was hairless and
boyish; just sort of sleek; in his towel he was a fantasy. Mildest pecs;
almost a six pack, endlessly small nipples, and absolutely white skin. Tan
might look good on a lot of dudes; but for the last touch of perfection,
milk white was the choice of the art world, and the two young males went
along, at the same time realizing that bronzed or tanned or black was far
better coloring for all but the smallest fraction of the population, and
even these only at a tender age, though, in rare cases, amounting to the
rarest of the rare, that age might range all the way into the fifties.
Jimmy never showered and never played skins at school, because he felt his
body was simply too developed, and too white, personal, and almost
obscenely perfect to display. He hated these conceits, the more-so because
he adored all peaceable cultures, but was stuck with them. Or at least had
been.

While Paul wasn't channeling him or anything, his thoughts were running in
almost exact parallel. Jimmy's neck was exquisite; long, delicate.
Beautiful. He was slim, tall. and lanky; so perfectly and quintessentially
boyish he made a tantalizing mystery of the sobriquet for the most
beautiful and alluring of young girls; also called boyish. It was a beauty
that might easily last for many decades. The boy's shirt was opened: "Wow,
two buttons." It had been one before his shower, even when he'd returned
minutes ago. Subtle child. A doggerel of his grandfather flicked through
the musician's head: "Shave and a haircut, two-bits." He'd shaved and added
in a half-hour of razor cutting. Two-bits; that was a quarter. From the way
Jimmy was responding Paul was already valuing his ministrations in the five
figures. In all of heaven and on all of the earth there was, there is,
there never has been, nor will there ever be, anything, temporal or
spiritual, more beautiful and tantalizing than the display of a young male
to an older male. Even the bible had scant words to say against this
beauty; proffered the mildest of cautions. (And a mild caution in the
burn-`em-up bible was something to lo and to behold.)  Perhaps man-and-boy
was the least of all sins. Like a sprained ankle or three- day cold. One
bead. "So," he said out loud, "What'll it be; hang and talk, or go see how
much gas is in the car?"

Long division. As they said it on "Who Wants to be a Millionaire," by
definition meant dividing the six remaining hours of privacy. He giggled
when he realized it was short division, then realized it might get long,
after all. But they'd sworn an eyeball truce on baby witticisms so he
scolded himself to can it. And went back to his short division.

"Let's stay here until eight; that's two hours, then get the car."

"Okay," Paul said. "That's my choice by one-tenth of one percent, chad."

"A new joke," the boy thought. He must make up his own. Jimmy O'Rourke knew
musicians hung with comedians, and that some stand-ups had a funny box;
index cards of jokes. The best could probably play them for weeks. But it
was nice to know this young stallion could make up his own. They called
that spontaneous.

"So, are we back to a totally embarrassing situation?" Paul asked, letting
a little husk into his voice and yawning to show he was as scared as the
boy, which he was.

Long moments passed. Both mouths were dryer than dry. Every second ticked
like a finger numbing through almost-frozen slush. Seconds. More seconds.
Paul put them into thought. Seconds. How would I cope with them at his age?
What would I say? My first took me with graceful lust and a good deal of
rapidity; I hardly had time to think.

That had been so close to perfect, yet even so had left questions. Should I
bother him with the same? "Do you want to start by asking questions?" he
finally asked .the stripling male on the opposite bed.

"I kind of know about some of the stuff," Jimmy answered across the few
feet separating them. "But it's been a really long time."

"No surprise there, that's for sure," the musician thought as he looked at
the white throat; alabaster, yet with a just a few small moles to heighten
focus. Somebody almost surely would have pursued such a willowy and funny
boy. "How long ago?" Paul asked.

"Can we whisper?" Jimmy responded, his voice trying to hide his urgency.

"Yes, I like that, too," the older male replied, letting more lust into his
voice.

"Can I sit beside you?" the boy went on.

"Yes," came the whisper back. A few seconds passed.

"How long?"

"When I was eight," Jimmy said in his whisper.

"Was it okay?" the man asked.

"Yes," replied Jimmy.

"How okay?"

"Well," the boy replied in a more conversational tone, "You remember how
you're going to get my grades up by making everything just perfect; what
did you say, an extra fifteen minutes per err subject? I guess it was that
okay."

"Lucky dude," Paul said.

"Well, I was then," the boy responded. "But nothing has happened since."

"Has that bothered you?"

"No," said the boy. "With my `rents I get to do without a lot of stuff. But
I've got more than a lot of kids, so I try not to worry about anything more
complicated than long division." The boy took a breath and his voice
dropped to his whisper. "Jeremy was a really good teacher."

Paul leaned close to the boy's delicious ear. He loved short fuzzy-chick
hair and slightly imperfect ears. "Where did it happen the first time," he
asked, his voice now coming in a husky whisper.

"In the bathroom," the boy whispered back.

"Was that part okay, too?"

"More like totally awesome," the boy said, then asked,. "How about you. Was
your first time okay."

"I think we're identical twins, once removed," Paul quipped.

"And what happens if we remove the removed," the boy parried with a stifled
giggle. He wanted the hoarse whispering to continue.

"You're the mathematician in the audience," Paul said. "If we remove the
removed, what does happen?"

"I get to tell you all the details," Jimmy replied, "Because we'll be
completely identical, which my English teacher wouldn't approve of because
of the redundancy, but which fits in context, if context equals present
company."


"Okay," Paul responded, "But we're no longer identical, completely or
otherwise, when it comes to driving the car on the public highway when
there is heavy traffic at night, during blizzards, or any time that might
overtax a sprite like yourself."

With him, who needed whispering? Jimmy wanted to scream! His mind flew out
the window, out the driveway, and out of town. There were countless miles
of open road in their part of Wisconsin. The thunder of the two huge pipes,
the hard rise of the tach, the three-second scream from the tires as the
tranny was power-jacked from second into third. All this vanished as Paul
sidled next to him on the bed, his right arm just touching Jimmy's left
arm.

"Is this okay," he whispered.

"Yes," the boy responded in kind.

"You were eight?"

"Yes."

"How old was Jeremy?"

"Seventeen," Jimmy answered.

"Was he cute," the older male quizzed the boy.

"To me he was brilliant," Jimmy acknowledged, continuing, "He had really
bad acne. Like that kid in the TV commercial for prescription medicine -
the one with the little sis, and his mom wants to take pictures. Jeremy
could have been his brother.

He never got dates, which goes a long way toward proving something about
girls; so he became my babysitter." The boy stifled another giggle. "That
absolutely and completely solved his dating problems."

"Lucky Jeremy. Lucky little Jimmy O'Rourke."

"Were you really lucky, too?"

"Not as much as you, but lucky enough, I guess," Paul said.

"How old were you," the boy questioned.

"Same as you," said Paul.

"That's part of what makes us twins, maybe. Was it one of your friends?"

"No," Paul said, "It was a male just about my age now."

"Then you were lucky, too."

"Yes," Paul replied, "But I only went in the woods with him three times, so
it wasn't a complete relationship; but it was nice enough, for all of
that."

The boy asked for more information. "He was a Harvard guy;" Paul said,
"Very literate, too much of the bard for a music-box like me, especially at
that age. But I kind of liked him, though, to speak frankly, Harvard is not
a source of puns I'd wish on my worst enemy."

"But he tried," the boy spoke up in counterpoint, and Paul admitted it, at
least to himself, and added the ten points that were due, not that Jon
L. needed them. Then Jimmy's voice returned to the lower register of a
nervous rather than a sultry whisper.

"How did you start talking about mature stuff?" he asked.

"As far as my memory goes," the young man said, "I brought it up. I was
precocious, curious; enigmatic and plain-old nutty. Practically a dead
ringer for the kid in `Empire of the Sun.' A strange child; terribly nice,
but awfully strange. "But I don't really remember," Paul continued after a
pause. "He might have hit on me, so to speak, but if he did it was with a
feather from fifty feet. All I really remember is using the term `frank' in
our first conversation, which seemed very grown-up to me at the time. That,
and feeling totally excited in a curious way. I'd read, even at that age,
about picking the fruit before its ripe; stuff like that. Those rules
seemed like signs on the highway.

They're guidelines, but they can be partially ignored some of the time,
which is a truism you'll be gaining perspective on as we thunder o'er the
highways and byways of your beautiful state with six-hundred-fifty
horsepower, thanks to twin turbos."

"God! And he's funny to boot!" Jimmy screamed to himself. He'd seen the
very car on "Motor Week" and "Car and Driver TV." Heard the ghastly whistle
it howled as it slammed by the camera and ripped under the bridge, crushing
itself to a dot in three seconds. Two-hundred-twenty-five miles an
hour. Zero to sixty in three point five.

Stopped from sixty in one-hundred-fourteen feet, ten feet longer than an
all-out Porsche.

Massive stability system. But two-hundred-twenty-five miles and hour. The
f-word surged and ricocheted through his entire being. And if you crashed,
the thing was a monster - with any luck, a thousand dollars worth of corn
would stop it. No more than frayed nerves and detailing. There was only one
thing short of a house fire that could pull his mind from that bonkers,
screaming-yellow `Vette. That the two were connected was awesome beyond a
thousand-foot wave and hundred-foot surfboard.

"Jeremy talked about that stuff with me" The boy was done whispering for
the moment. "You know, good and evil, morality and immorality. I was too
young to understand, but I read a lot so I got it at least half-way
organized, I think. I mean, you see how much cruelty, strife and misery go
on in marriage and it seems there might be some room for tolerance when it
comes to comparing mores and all those psycho things."

"I've got a bet with myself, do you want to hear it?" Paul asked Jimmy.

"I don't want to hear about anything but you know." The boy let this race
through his mind, but then, Paul was a guest; partly a stranger. So he got
polite and asked, "What's the bet?"

Paul said: "That you so greatly please me that starting out at around eight
we are going to make a certain twenty-five mile drive in my Volvo and I am
going to return here in it.

"Poky, poky car!" thought the boy to himself. The meaning of Paul's words
took less than a second to penetrate. But he was-only-eleven. Tall-ish;
played massive ball, co-ordinated as much as could be expected; but big
feet. Well, they weren't too big. He couldn't bear any diversion, and yet
had two: Solo with enough horses to stretch a country mile; this arm
feather light and burning hot against him. He wanted to be two things at
once, but, barring that, was fabulously happy to be the one. Jimmy giggled
at a phrase Jeremy had taught him. "Eight is too late." Yet he had to be
honest with himself; how would he feel if they were out on the country
roads, and the diversion was to return to this bed and sit side by side,
arms lightly touching? He remembered the boy from the movie Paul had
mentioned. "Try not to think, so much!" Again, their twinship, coronary
rather than fraternal.

Paul interrupted Jimmy's whirring thoughts. "So you're okay with it?" he
quizzed the boy.

"Yeah; I mean its nothing for the pulpit, but it goes on almost everywhere
and almost everybody does it or wants to." Then Jimmy went on about what
Jeremy had told him. From the older boy's point of view, it might work out
this way: If a thousand men were snowed in for a weekend with a thousand
boys, nine hundred of the men would do something if the boys were friendly,
reasonably cute, were the aggressors, and were experienced. Secrecy and no
payment of any kind. This boy had made a study of it and come to the
conclusion that ten percent of men would do nothing and ten percent of this
group would fight the boy off. Another ten percent would put substantial
pressure on the boy, if necessary, and ten percent of those would rape the
boy, outright. Jeremy had wondered which of these one-percents would be the
weirdoes, but assumed the answer would depend on who was asked. Before
dropping the subject he had given a few moments of thought to who would
suffer the greater hurt, the boy done over by force, or the boy whose
longings were rejected. Since boys willingly stepped in the ring and
drubbed each other halfway to oblivion, for sport, he knew how he would
answer if the question ever came up. Jimmy looked at Paul and pegged him as
a guy to whom a whispered no would last a month and an angry no would last
five years. Two angry no's would last forever. And that in itself was
interesting; because Paul would tend to be committed and very durable; if
he wanted somebody he'd likely still want them after twenty years. "Kids
rule," the boy concluded; "I can turn him on and off like a faucet."

This made Jimmy feel safer than ever, and his voice dropped to its scared
whisper, once again.

"What kind of words did the man use when he taught you?" he asked.

"His name was Jon." Paul replied, "And he was from Harvard, as I said, so
we kind of used the Victorian words. It makes the taboo stronger of you
don't use the c word and f word and all that other stuff. Does that sound
sicko to you?"

"Yeah, like the sniffles." Jimmy giggled while Paul thanked somebody for
Jeremy. He put his thought into words. "What kind of words did you and
Jeremy use,"

Paul quizzed his understudy.

"Once the c word, my first time, but never the f word because I was too
small for him to do that to me."

"Do you want to stick with that, or do you want to try new words?" the
boylover asked the eleven-year-old beauty. "I like the good ones," the boy
stated simply. Once again, they were identical twins.

"Jimmy," Paul said, "I know we're talking about the same thing, but since
I'm older I want to put you in charge, and I want you to, you know, sort of
invite me. You know, I don't want to embarrass you but just to be
completely sure we're talking about the same kind of thing. For example,
what word did Jeremy use with you as a general word for the things he did
to you?"

"He made me use the m word," Jimmy said. "Is that okay?"

"Yes," whispered Paul. "Can you remember the first time he made you say
it?"

"It was on the sofa in the den. We were watching videos of those movies
about the priests; the ones HBO shows. They said it a lot and he asked me
if I'd ever said it.  Wait a minute!" the stripling interrupted himself,
"We waited `till we were in the bathroom.

"Yeah;" Jimmy continued, "They said it on television during those programs,
plus I'd heard it other places. He asked me if I wanted to go to the
bathroom and say it so he could hear me. So that's the first time I ever
said it out loud."

"So he asked about the word to desensitize you, and made it into an
invitation?"  the older male asked the eleven-year-old, checking and
double-checking..

"Yes," said Jimmy.

"Then we're triplets," Paul said to Jimmy.

Jimmy's brain sizzled.

Quads.

Jimmy O'Rourke. Jeremy Pedro Allen. Paul Winston. And a car that ripped the
very atmosphere with its whining howl. S was not always in the p. It could
be all through a boy, and through and through and through. It dropped his
voice very low.

"Do you want me to say it to you in the bathroom?" he whispered through a
shaking groan.

Paul yawned twice and asked, "Is it still embarrassing for you to say it
out loud?"

"Yes," Jimmy said, in his slightly quaking whisper. "You're kind of a
stranger."

"How do you want me to lead you?" The sleek young mustang asked the gangly
colt.

"If we go into the den, I can show you how we were sitting when we started
getting mature," Jimmy said. Paul let Jimmy rise first; it was his house.
The boy approached and held out both his hands. Paul took them, rising, and
said, "Hi."

The boy stretched on his toes and leaned gently against him. "Hi," he
whispered. They loosed one hand each, and headed for den; Paul in his towel
and Jimmy in his school slacks and partially unbuttoned shirt. "I've still
got the HBO tapes; but I guess the FBI wouldn't approve if we watched
them," the boy giggled.

"Good point," said his boyish older partner with a nudge; "That keeps it in
perspective. We're not doing anything for money so its an infraction
instead of a violation. That could apply to what I'm going to do to you in
the bathroom, or watching a copyrighted tape, if not equally, then within
five percent of equal. And, truth be told, that's stretching it. If I drive
five miles over the speed limit I might knock a school bus off the road
hard enough to break a gas pipe. If I duplicate tapes I might cause
economic loss. If I break every law in bible and book with you, only the
penalties of taboo come into play. We may be stoned and pilloried, but
nobody else will raise a scab so long as we go safely on our private way."

"Jeremy is going to eat this man-fox for breakfast, lunch and dinner,"
Jimmy thought.

It wasn't legal, it wasn't moral, any more than automotive speed or
weed. The law was good and the law was great, but like most good and great
institutions, it had its imbecilic and asinine, and, more kindly,
antiquated sides. And that added to the pleasure.

Millions and millions of boys knew that and so did about the same number of
girls. It was a secret game without refs or score; its limits depended
strictly on how you played it, and its outcome went vastly beyond any
contest of court, field, rink or diamond, good or bad. No pregnancy, no
diseases, no getting caught, no displays in public. Those were a few of
Jeremy's lessons. "And just a few," the boy giggled to himself. How you
played, year in and year out. There was nothing more to say except to morn
Jeremy, for in his case the year-in had not preceded a year-out, or had
amounted to many years way out.

The two males sat side by side on the couch in the den, Jimmy's right arm
now inflaming Paul's left arm. "Do you want to watch the tape?" Jimmy
asked. Boy, was it ever neat to be host and man of the house.

"I like the scene where they're in the confessional and the priest helps
the boy out of his shirt. Even though its acting the boy can't help look
enthralled as he cuddles bare- chested against the older male and receives
his first touching."

"That's the best scene in either film," Jimmy agreed. He added, "Jeremy's
second favorite part is right at the end of the one were the priest starts
by taking the boy in his tent. At the end, even after a lot of people have
started to raise a stink, he invites the boy to a retreat. The boy gets
real nervous, and says he doesn't think he wants to go. Then the priest
mentions that they have a computer at the camp, which, granted, was a
novelty in the early nineties. Anyway, poof, as the scene ends the boy is
walking toward the rectory where the priest, who had been with him several
times, is going to give him a special physical. I mean, that's it!" the boy
emphasized, speaking for his friend: "For the mere promise of using a
computer, the boy was willing to go with the older male. I mean, what if
you'd tried to stick a pin in his butt or made him eat a spoon of cat food?
The kid would have screamed bloody murder."

Paul answered with his own story. "I read an account," he told, "Of a boy
about Jeremy's age when you were friends. Seventeen. He worked in a big,
and, I gather, casually supervised, summer swimming camp. He was in charge
of the littler kids; five, six and seven. He was a nice teen, and every
single one of the dozens of boys played touching games and came back for
more. He took many of them into the shower with him."

"That's like the Masai," Jimmy said. "They're one of the few cultures on
earth in which adults are perversion and adultery-free. They stash all the
kids in a communal hut from age six until they're married. No weird
Masai. No pregnant ones, either. Kids really know how to behave when adults
treat them right."

"The Masai also castrate their young females," Paul reminded the boy. "I
think," he added, "the obono are a more salient example." He grinned and
added: "More salacious, too."

"Where do they live?" Jimmy asked.

"In the very wildest of the African rain forests," Paul answered. "They're
not humans; they're primates, very closely related to the chimpanzee. They
weren't even discovered until the seventies. But what a discovery! The red
chimps are nasty animals in the bush; amongst themselves, and all over
their territory. They rape, torture, kill, and cannibalize. I've seen
pictures they should never have put on television. The black obono, on the
other hand, are nothing but tenderness, harmony and good-will. And
touching; all members with all others, from birth to death. `Happy monkey
is smart monkey.' Old saying."

Jimmy giggled. No one had to tell him about happy monkeys. Happy anything.

He was number one on the planet, in that regard. His blood was boiling with
it. He'd watched lots of diving shows, so he added to himself, "I'm sure
not getting the bends."

"'Nuff para-psychology and conveniently-eclectic anthropology?" Paul asked
Jimmy, with a smile.

"I guess so," the youth said. Then he added, back in his whisper, "You
know, there are two m words."

"Did you say both of them to Jeremy?" Paul quizzed the boy sitting next to
him.

"In the bathroom," the boy acknowledged in his whisper, adding, "And the p
word and the s word. Not the one with i-t " And then Jimmy added: "We said
the e word, too. The one that goes with a-l-e, not a-i-l.. Where would the
world be without that?" he giggled once again.

Paul got to sixty; about three-and-a-half seconds, before Jimmy's
anagramatic quiz kicked in. Let other write stuff about elephant organs.
What's gray and comes in quarts? Gross. Too much of that stuff around for
his preference, though he really worked at being inclusive and non-
judgmental. In a way it was weird, because in his albeit limited experience
in bath houses and at gay bars, Paul had never been subjected to any hint
of that kind of activity. S/M. Spankings. Animals. Water sports.  Scat.
Even only about one male in ten he'd talked too had expressed any interest
in juveniles. Or maybe that was just a fear factor, and Jimmy's friend was
right; ninety percent would "do it" under comfortable circumstances.
Whatever. He was eternally glad he'd been introduced early and introduced
gently. If some thought his almost poetically tender approach was cloying,
accessible or ordinary-old sleazed out, he figured their devices,
chemicals, and harness-maker trappings were hard-edged and no indication of
happy camping.

Pale English boys in shady glades along with any of a hundred poets. That
was, generally speaking, more lasting a heaven than most males and females
achieved under similar circumstances. How handy that global population was
at such a point reproduction -multiplying - was off the table. That brought
up a brief argument about the world needing more good people. Help make
someone else's kids good. It was the good that counted, not the paternity.
"How long did it take for Jeremy to get you in the bathroom?"  Paul asked
the young boy.

"We fast-forwarded a lot of the tape, so I guess it was half an hour,"
Jimmy answered.

"And you were sitting just like this, side by side?" Paul continued with
his inquest.

"Just touching like we are, now," the boy said..

"Was he on this side?"

"Yes," Jimmy whispered.

Paul did the simple math. He was twenty-three, Jimmy was eleven. Jeremy had
been seventeen and the child had been eight. Close enough for discoverment
work, he figured, wincing inwardly at the tackiness of the play on
"experimenting." A nine year difference at eight, and now twelve years,
would separate the young males. The matchings seemed almost duplicates,
allowing for a bit of extrapolation. He wondered which he would rather be?
Himself with the eleven-year-old, or seventeen, with the eight-year-old. No
choice so no coin toss, but he had no regrets about the tail gracing the
sofa beside him. That butt was a lot of things, but too-old wouldn't be on
the list for many years.

"Do you want to ask me about the other s word?" Jimmy asked, and the more
mature male detected an invading tone of urgency.

"The one without i-t?" the young man asked the boy with a gentle teasing
tone.

Jimmy grinned bashfully. "It has m-e-n."

---

[Part Two on request and if the NASDAQ provides us enough slack to allow
electronic life to continue.

I would like to thank the many talented and sincere contributors of stories
that try to make a bit of sense; the s word slightly less mind-bending.
There are a number of you and you do a great job, especially the pops of a
boy named Wishus.

This is my first electronic post of any kind, so I don't know about asking
for feedback. I guess I might be inclined to include any input as I go
along, and if I go along, but that will depend on what you write, and if
you write. The letters I would be interested in would ask for more politics
or more sex. Might also emphasis opposing viewpoints, though this is
probably not the right place to seek any such input.

I am not a cop but I live offshore so please don't send lots and lots of
photos because we pay by the hour here. Thanks again to the very fine
writers who have inspired me, and I hope casual readers will take the time
and effort to cut an immediate and generous check to Nifty, Boylinks,
assgm, asstr, or your significant e-other. They surer than hell treat a
writer better than Doubleday.

Finally, if you do not agree, wholly and absolutely, that Bill Gates and
Jackie Chan are the greatest human to date, we may not have too much to say
to each other. - TE writing as Feather Touch.]