Date: Sun, 24 Aug 1997 22:39:58 -0600 (MDT) From: Boy-writer Subject: John Allen (M/b) - part 1/8 JOHN ALLEN (M/b) This is the first part of the story. There's no sex in this one, but it's not quite family viewing. If you're not into this sort of thing, or too young, why are you reading this newsgroup? Chapter 1 ----------- The old Johnson house had stood silent for many years, overgrown with vines. It was a ridiculously huge house, one of those ostentatious mansions of the late nineteenth century with far more rooms than a sensible person would know what to do with, or even visit in a well-conducted lifetime - built not to live in, but to impress. Looming above a wealthy suburb of an Eastern city on a 5-acre lot, it seemed gaudy even among the pillared porches and stuccoed walls of country-club America. Old Heather Johnson had died recently, leaving no children, nieces, or nephews, and even a paucity of second-cousins. As she lay on her deathbed, the family lawyer searched the country frantically for an heir to keep the Johnson legacy out of the hands of the state (and to keep himself employed). Finally successful, he had old lady Johnson sign a will with her last fading strength, witnessed by paralegals. John Allen had never met old lady Johnson or visited the house before. Replying to the lawyer's phone call, he simply came. He was tired of Costa Rica anyway, and the stir from the boarding school incident had died down a bit. There had been talk of prosecution, but such problems can be solved with money - and although he wasn't from the wealthiest branch of the family, he was comfortable. It had even been arranged that John would get a good recommendation from the school where he had previously taught - as long as he never set foot on its campus again (and provided an appropriately large endowment was made). John was an average-looking man, about six feet or a little more, in his early forties with slightly thinning auburn hair. He was solidly built and very tan from the Central American sunshine. He didn't work out but had built his own house in Costa Rica, not because he couldn't afford to buy one, but to have something to do. Having something to do is always a problem if you're rich - particularly if you're not really inclined toward anything (or at least toward anything legal). He had always had an attraction toward boys younger than himself. When he was 14, that had meant boys of 10 or 11. Now it meant boys of 13 or 14. He had gone into teaching as a way of being around them, not planning to act on his desires - simply to be near them, to see their sweet smiles and smooth skin. His grades in college and graduate school had been excellent. Yet in each of the three schools where he had taught, some boy had stood out, made happen what should not have. Not that John minded. In each case the school and the boy's parents had been persuaded (by sufficient amounts of cash) to let him leave his employment by resignation, with a good recommendation, and without an arrest record. And, in a way, the recommendations were warranted. For John was truly good at dealing with boys. He understood them, he empathized with them, he taught them well - it was just that sometimes he strayed from the curriculum. In Costa Rica, John had all the boys he could want, with no strings attached. They were there for the picking, and at ridiculously cheap prices. Even the bribes for the police were cheap. It was an embarrassment of riches, but it had palled. John felt that his desire had been quenched; he would never want boys again. John brought his Costa Rican help with him; he had had staff from his family but had let them go long ago. Jorge, his butler, was a tall, strong man of Indian blood, over six and a half feet, heavily built. He was fiercely loyal to John and never spoke unless it was absolutely necessary. He acted as translator for John with Maria and Carlita, his maids (John had never bothered to learn Spanish). With Jorge running his household, John never had to worry about things getting done. Maria and Carlita spoke no English but jumped at the chance to come to America. Jorge and the girls knew John well and, like good servants, never gave a sign that they considered his behavior in any way extraordinary. But this new house posed a problem; it was far too large for Maria and Carlita to clean alone. John simply decided to close off the outer wings of the house. The part that he lived in was then surrounded on all sides by unoccupied wings; a small nuclear bomb could have gone off inside and no one in the surrounding neighborhood would hear. As for the furnishings, the old lady had left the house well-appointed, and if anything seemed to be missing, it always turned up in one of the unused rooms. Still, there was that old problem of finding something to do. Old lady Johnson had done needlepoint, which adorned nearly every room of the mansion, but that wasn't John's thing. After some thought, he took out an ad in the local paper, got a listing in the Yellow Pages, and hung out his shingle: JOHN ALLEN, Ed.D. Child and Adolescent Counseling It made him his own boss, he didn't need a license for it, and, best of all, he was actually good at it. John didn't see any danger in his new choice of profession. He figured his urges had been sated in Costa Rica, and if they emerged again, he could deal with it as he had there, using street boys in the city. Of course they were much more expensive in America, but he could afford it. Chapter 2 ----------- John's life went on uneventfully, days spent counseling pregnant girls, teens hooked on drugs, children who wet their beds, chidren who failed in school, or just kids whose parents didn't know how to deal with them and didn't want to try. He charged appropriate fees - not, of course, that he needed them. It was expected, and in this neighborhood people equated quality with cost. Jorge answered the phone when John was in session and managed to clear away the vines from the front of the house. Maria and Carlita cooked the meals, made treats for the children, and kept the place spotless. One afternoon, John got a frantic phone call. He'd gotten them before, but not like this. "Hello, is this Dr. Allen?" the desperate woman said. John heard screaming in the background, something breaking. "Yes, how can I help you?" "My son, Jeremy, I ..." she paused. John heard her scream, "Stop that! Put that down!" Something shattered. The woman sniffled. "I can't control him. My husband can't. We don't know what to do. We tried putting him in a home, but we can't afford it." She was crying hard now. "I'm afraid we'll have to give him up. We don't know what to do." "Well, I charge $300 an hour. One hour a week." "Oh, God, we can't pay that," the woman cried. A man's voice came on the phone. "We'll do it. We'll find a way. Can you help my son? My boss gave me your name and said you helped his daughter." The man was gruff, too gruff - he was holding back tears himself. "All right, how's Wednesday at 7:00 PM sound?" "We'll bring Jeremy by then." "No, don't bring him. I want to talk to you first. Both of you." The man sighed. John heard discussion in the background, something about, "Where can we put Jeremy?" "Aunt Susan." "She said no more." "Look, one of your cousins." "Marcus? Would he?" "We'll find someone." More, but inaudible. The man came back on. "We'll be there at 7 on Wednesday." Chapter 3 ----------- Jeremy's parents were fine, respectable middle-class people. His father worked at an accounting firm owned by the father of one of John's other clients. His mother was a housewife, a real old-fashioned girl - the kind of woman you would expect to marry if you dated her. Their faces were drawn with worry and exhaustion. They told a harrowing tale. Jeremy was violent, deceitful, loud, and manipulative. He had tried to drown a younger child in the city pool and had beaten another to a pulp at school, putting him in the hospital. He had set his homeroom in school on fire. He accused the pastor at the church of molesting him, then walked into the police station and accused the investigating officer of the same. He had accused his father and mother of engaging in satanic ritual abuse, and had coerced other children into corroborating his story. Jeremy's parents were about to lose him to the state when he accused the HHS worker of the same ritual abuse. The case was dropped. Jeremy could no longer attend public school and had been placed in a school for troubled children, which his parents could no longer afford and which had done little good anyway. John was intrigued by the case, which seemed to be more interesting than the others he had. He told the parents that he would see Jeremy on Fridays at 6:00, and they would work out the payment. They sighed audibly in relief. Chapter 4 ----------- His mother brought Jeremy by promptly at 6:00 PM on Friday. He was 13 years old, not skinny but not fat, with well-formed features, brown hair and green eyes. He was wearing a blue short-sleeved shirt, jeans, and sneakers, all very clean, and was well-groomed. He appeared quite well taken care of, decently fed, and, John thought, cute as a dumpling. Jeremy stood nonchalantly as his mother and John made small talk. He looked at the books in John's bookcase but didn't take any out. Eventually she kissed him goodbye on the cheek and left. "Well, Jeremy, why don't you take a seat and let's talk a bit," John said in his standard counselor's tone. Jeremy didn't sit. He didn't speak. He wandered around the room, picking up objects on John's desk, looking out the window, touching the back of John's chair. "Okay, stand then," John smiled. "Sometimes I'd rather stand than sit. I just get all wound up. Do you get wound up like that?" Jeremy still didn't say anything. He looked out the window at Maria weeding the small flower garden. Then, with no warning, he yanked the curtain down. John started to get angry, but checked himself. "Hey! Calm down! It's okay to be angry, but you can't destroy things. Tell me what you're angry about." John seemed to see a smirk on Jeremy's face but couldn't be sure. Jeremy walked away from the window as if nothing had happened and began looking at the books again - fat tomes on child psychology. John tried again. "Those are kind of boring books for a kid your age, I think, but I have some others over here you might like. Do you like to read?" Jeremy went to the side of the bookcase and with one push it came crashing down. The antique bookcase was shattered, books scattered everywhere. There was hardly room to walk in the office any more with books all over. That was enough. John leaped forward to grab the boy before he could do more damage, but Jeremy was faster. Jorge opened the door to see what was the matter. John said, "Leave us alone!" and Jorge closed the door again, his face expressionless as always. Jeremy went behind the desk. John was in front of it. When John moved right, Jeremy moved left, and vice versa. A Mexican standoff. Jeremy pushed the blotter and pen set off the desk - John was sure he saw a smirk on his face this time. Finally, John reached over the desk at the kid. Jeremy pushed the desk over on top of John, who, off-balance, was bowled over. Jeremy smiled at John lying under the desk and went nonchalantly back to the window. John hurriedly pulled himself out from under the desk. The boy tried to pick up John's chair but couldn't. John chased him as he went back around the toppled desk to pick up a smaller one. The man grabbed the boy as he was picking up a chair. He forced the chair back to the floor and held Jeremy tight. Jeremy kicked him. John dragged the kid over to an overstuffed chair in the corner as the boy kicked him and bit his arm. Sitting in the chair, the man put the boy over his knee and pulled his shoes off - at least it wouldn't hurt so much being kicked. John the put Jeremy in his lap. The boy's arms were pinned to his middle, and John crossed his legs to keep the boy from kicking. Jeremy got quiet for a minute, seeming to stare into space. "There. You got that out of your system. Now calm down, it's all right, I won't hurt you," John said. Jeremy turned his head and bit John's earlobe off. John yowled in pain, releasing the boy and putting his hand to his ear. Jeremy leaped out of his grasp, flew across the room, and pushed down another bookcase, smiling at John as he did it. John jumped up and, tripping over books, went after the boy again. He chased him around the office several times, finally trapping him in a corner. John ran forward with his head down as if he were an NFL lineman, knocking the wind out of the boy. As Jeremy gasped for air, John grabbed his head with one hand (not making that mistake again!), pinning the boy's hands on his chest with the other, and dragged him, kicking as before, back to the chair in the corner. He put him in his lap once more, again crossing his legs so the kid couldn't kick. "I'll tell what you did to me," Jeremy said. "Tell them what? That you destroyed my office and I tried to stop you?" John said, trying to hide his amazement. "I'll tell the police that you molested me and put your hands all over me," Jeremy said. "One look at this office, and they'll know what happened," John replied. "I'll say that you were attacking me and I did it in the fight." John looked at Jeremy. He was obviously intelligent and quite devious. His parents had been right. But John was ready for that gambit: "You said that before about your parents and the reverend. They won't believe you again." Jeremy exploded in anger, twisting every which way, trying to bite John, to kick him, to hit him. It was all to no avail; he was tightly held. John was surprised to find himself getting aroused by this and tried to concentrate. Jeremy screamed the loudest scream the man ever heard. Outside the window, Maria looked up from her gardening. But no one else in the neighborhood would hear. Jorge glanced up from his desk outside, then went back to paperwork. "No one can hear you scream, not here," John said. "The next-door neighbors will hear, and they'll call the police," Jeremy said. "No, they won't hear. No one outside this house can hear." "Well, the lady outside will hear." Jeremy screamed again. Maria shook her head and went back to the gardening. Carlita, in a distant wing of the house, heard nothing. Jorge continued his paperwork with nary a flinch. "Maria works for me, she hears kids scream all the time. So does the man in the office out front. So if you want to scream, go for it." In fact, although many kids had cried in John's office, mostly girls but some boys too, none had screamed. But John had complete faith in his servants - they has seen too much and said too little not to be trusted. Jeremy started to cry, but tried to hide the fact. He stared at the opposite wall and sniveled. John felt like they were finally getting somewhere. His ear hurt like hell, and blood was running down, staining his shirt and Jeremy's shirt, but he lived for these moments when a kid would finally break down and say what was wrong. "Tell me what you're so mad about. It's okay, I'm not mad." "My mom's not my real mom," Jeremy said. "Neither is my dad. I'm adopted. They stole me from my real parents when I was seven." Jeremy cried openly. That was something John hadn't heard. "What do you mean they stole you?" he asked. "They kidnapped me. I was playing in the park and they kidnapped me. They didn't have any kids so they took me. I want my mom." Rivers of tears were coming out of the boy's eyes, but John wasn't letting go of him for a minute. You're supposed to hold a child when he's crying, anyway. "What did they do?" John asked. "I told you. They kidnapped me! They put me in their car and took me away. In the brown car they have." Aha! John realized the boy was making it all up. What an imagination! John has seen Jeremy's parents' car, and it was brown, all right, but it was a newer model - no more than a couple years old. He decided not to let on. There was something here the kid was trying to tell him. "What happened then?" "They locked me up in their house and didn't let me go outside. I wanted my mommy and daddy - my _real_ mommy and daddy," he cried. "What are your real mommy and daddy like?" John asked. "They are nice, not like those people. He is a big strong man though, not like that _accountant_." He uttered the word like a curse. In child psychology, there's almost always a problem with the parents. Psychology, after all, is about relationships, and there is no more important one in a child's life. "What's wrong with the other man, your new father?" John asked. "He's not my father!" "Well, what's wrong with him?" "He's a weak little accountant, people push him around. I hate him," the boy said. "He's a wimp." John gave the boy a hug. "Am I a wimp?" he asked. Bad counseling, but he couldn't resist. Jeremy was silent for a moment. "You're a counselor. That's a girl's job." "But am I a wimp?" "Well ..." "I got ahold of you, didn't I? Can he do that?" Jeremy laughed. "He can never get ahold of me if I want to get away from him. If he catches me it's only because I want him to." John looked at the clock. The hour was nearly up. He called Jorge in and asked him to get some gauze out of the medicine cabinet and bandage his ear. Still, John did not let go of Jeremy - he wouldn't do that till his mother came for him. Jorge did his work as if he were merely cleaning cobwebs out of a closet and left. John and Jeremy sat silently for a while, John holding the boy's head on his shoulder. Jeremy decided not to bite his neck. When Jeremy's mother came, John and Jeremy met her in the outer office. She was somewhat surprised at the blood and at the fact that Jeremy's shoes were off. John said he had fallen against the desk and Jeremy had helped him; he said he had rubbed Jeremy's feet to relax him. She acted as if she believed it. She wanted to. They made an appointment for the following Friday. More later - maybe :-).