Date: Sun, 09 Jun 2002 13:36:27 +0930
From: andrew staker <mallowisious@hotmail.com>
Subject: "Lolito"

LOLITO

Exams were done. High school had come and now gone. I had the whole of the
South Australian summer before me. It was in all honesty quite exciting.
There was now to be a month or so of waiting, so see if indeed I would enter
university. I thought I had done okay, as did most people who knew me. I
mean, I was not the genius who would end up on the Everest percentile. I was
not the beaming, study-obsessed 'young achiever' with an IQ of 175. But
things were well. The exams were quite good, the only point of hesitation
arising from the Mathematics one. O well.

So, my parents said I deserved a treat. Living up in Clare, the small town
had been a harbour of boredom for all my schooling years. My folks were not
opulently wealthy, but were not financially uncomfortable either. Clare is a
lovely town, some 200 and something kilometres north of Adelaide. Several
wineries are in the region and hills and all that too. We live in an old
stone cottage. In fact, my room happens to be the coldest. I need two quilts
in winter, for even though snow seldom occurs, frost is a well-known friend.

"Peter," my mother said. "Why not go to your Auntie's house? I'm sure she
wouldn't mind?"

"Aunt Becky?"

"Yes," she confirmed. "I mean, she'll be off to Europe in a few weeks. You
could house sit for her." Well, it was an interesting prospect. And it would
take me away from Clare! "You have to go to Adelaide next year anyway, once
uni starts..." she said, her utterance sequential in my train of thought.

I thought about it all day, by evening deciding that yes, of course I would
go. She was on the phone, chatting to Auntie. Somewhere along the
conversation, when I emerged from the lounge room, to get a drink during the
commercial break on the TV, I heard mother, or Mumsie as I liked to call
her, say, "And maybe he'll find a girl he likes down there..." I rolled my
eyes. (Not that she saw!) Yeah right! The male form any day!

By the time Saturday rolled itself into the present, I was sitting in the
car, Mumsie driving, countryside zooming. We didn't really have much to talk
about normally, but today was different. There was so much she told me
about. Be good, don't be bad, listen to Auntie and make sure that once she
left, I would be a "sensible young man." I hadn't learnt to drive. I was
nigh on eighteen years. Considering that from age sixteen it was legal, and
that most 'country lads' knew from about age twelve, driving was yet another
exposition of my differentness to those around me.

We arrived in Adelaide in the Northern Suburbs. For those alien to little
old (not so old really!) Adelaide, it is like a long, flat cake, stretching
from North to South bordered east by hills, west by the sea. Check an atlas,
I lie not. We drove straight through the damn city, until we were out of it
again. We kept going for a short while, turning of Main South Road into
Maslins Beach.

"I wonder if she's added that swing?" I asked, a touch of sarcasm in my
voice. Poor abstract Auntie. She could never install a swing. It was too
much for her. Unless she had asked someone...

"We'll soon see," Mumsie smiled back.

Mounting her driveway, I noticed that the twin palms had grown since Easter,
which was the last time we had gone down. Family time for the McMacks; the
whole family had come, including us. What follows is a bit of a cliche, but
believe me, though Auntie looks like one big copy of everything hackneyed
and overdone, she probably does so in order to mock everything under the
sun.

So anyway, my mother and I walked together up to the porch. The house was
quite quaintly dilapidated (charming!) and a humble cousin of our stone
residence back in the country. O well, charming! The flyscreen door had a
curious flux of cake odour and vigorous tenor singing. "Becky!" my mother
repeated awkwardly, progressing through the house. The recorded music grew
louder toward the studio. And there she was. Curly auburn hair unbrushed and
everywhere, paint on her arms and hands, she was splotching paint on a male
nude a la Michelangelo. The music was The Magic Flute. "Re-bec-ca!" Mumsie
said quite loudly.

Auntie turned. Her eyes beamed at the surprise. "You made it!" She was about
to hug my mother. Mumsie pulled away. "Wet paint!" she told Auntie. So that
was that. She put her work on hold and coffee followed. We discussed this
and that. Rather boring. I then took out the two suitcases from the car. I
was here for the long haul. Until uni would start, or thereabouts. "Peter
will then move into shared rent with some friends from up in Clare."

"Is that so?" Auntie asked.

"Yes," I replied. "It's all organised." I laughed slightly. "I just need to
get in."

"You will!" Mumsie jumped in, my ever-ready second voice. Auntie iterated
Mumsie's statement, though less zealously (thank God!). I excused myself and
said I'd be off to the beach. I would not be back til she left (or so my
slick plan!).

So I wafted like a poet drunk on love across the sand. The water was lovely.
I had known for a long time that Maslins Beach was a nudist beach. So, one
can possibly appreciate my excitement at spending the summer there. The
water looked so lush, so cool. It lulled to me through the motion of its
gentle waves. The sun, bright and high, high above, oppressed me. It was Ra;
he played the role of Pharaoh, and I the role of Israelite. Escape into the
water! But I was not in the mood. Perhaps a little nap.

I returned to the house and 'dismissed' my mother. Freedom from what I
(lovingly) like to call 'maternal oppression'.

Later, when night's warm summer blanket perched on the beach, Auntie said
bye-byes to me. She was off to some writer's thing or whatever. Who gave a
toss? She was gone. Maslins Beach was quiet at night, especially with the
absolute lack of any sort of breeze. Perhaps the waves... but one heard only
their ever so soft 'phonoprints'.

*

The ensuing morning, I awoke fresh. It was as if during sleep, some resolve
had crept over me and firmly rooted itself in my mind. It was a strange
feeling... one quite difficult to articulate. Ever had the feeling of
wanting to do something, and somehow knowing it will be achieved, yet at the
same time not knowing what exactly that thing is? Well, that was I that
morning.

I could not get dressed without inspecting myself in the body length mirror
affixed to the wardrobe. Not too shabby, methought. Not exactly athletic,
but then again, I am not one predisposed to broiling under the 'squelching
Aussie sun'. I can't even remember what I ate... but knowing me, it might
have been either eggs or cocoa. Well, not plain cocoa, because that hardly
fills one up... it usually takes some biscuits in it or some bread. I
suppose it's something stuck over from when Mumsie would feed me and treat
me as her little boy.

I could hear the waves somewhat more loudly. There was more wind in the air
that morning, though it was shaping up to be a stunning summer's day
nonetheless. Taking in about enough ocean view as I cared to, I walked over
to the front. Somehow, I was still in the noose of suburbia. Even this far
out of Adelaide, the houses were arranged per block. It was not Clare
though, so it was good. I could do with some city living.

The house opposite was anything but a house. It was a semi-dilapidated,
semi-detached, semi-rustic shack. A cheap and nasty looking human sized box
where 'holiday-makers' came to 'get away from it all' and 'lap up the
sunshine'. O, it was all so cliched. In fact, the dwelling to the left was
like that to the right like that one across the street. Come to think of it,
Auntie's was just one of those done up over the years by restless owners
(including herself!) who had nothing better to do.

Across the road, number 23, seemed unused. For one thing, the grass was not
exactly passing aesthetic examinations! Because I was in comfy jeans and a
thin t-shirt, I felt light and airy. Feeling positive all over and willing
to do something (that unidentified motivation I spoke of earlier) I went
into the house, put some shoes on and walked into town.

Along to the way, I listened to 1960s rock on my Walkman. Nothing else makes
me feel so damn 'pumped' as it were. I broke into a slight jog, oddly to the
rhythm of the music. The houses and trees and people and dogs and whatever
else drifted past without a sound. I was enjoying myself.

Town was hardly town. It was a kiosk and a cafe and this or that shop. It
was seaside, so that was good. I bought myself a "delicious, energising ice
confection" (according to the wrapper) and sat there, watching.

The air was crisp up in Clare, be clear of that. Yet here, by the seaside,
it had a different aroma... texture... feeling. I could tell I was somewhere
else, and that somewhere else was the sea.

During my meditative gazing at the sea, a few yummy creatures just happened
to walk past. They carried their surfboards and the fabled Australian
'footy': a grotesque leathery ellipsoid that had caused me so many pains
whilst a lad, largely because no matter how much I tried to kick it or pass
it, its direction was much like me: hardly straight.

(Un)fortunately Speedos were not that popular. Depending on one's
preferences, this is either a blessing or a curse. They hardly looked at me.
They were in their magical, exclusionist world of youth, beauty and
heterosexuality. Hey, I was only seventeen myself, but I hardly surfed, so
my body could never mirror those sea-washed, sand-polished boys and lads,
whose blonde or black hair would glisten in the sparkling water, innocently
at play and all the time unaware of the spell they cast upon lewd onlookers.

I finished my ice-cream dessert and headed to the beach. I stopped the music
and decided Nature could step in for a while. It was a stunning blue. I
tried to peep into the hazy distance at the nude section of Maslins Beach...
to see if anyone was around. A few fleshy spots were my confirmation. The
boys were tossing the footing in the water, and a couple were playing with
their surfboards on the juvenile waves. Come the arvo (Aussie slang for
"afternoon," which has its phonetic charms: ar-vo) the waves would no doubt
get bigger and more powerful.

There was a not so subtle contrast between my attire and theirs. I slyly
walked past them, eyeing by trying not to. I could hear their laughter and
their snickers, no doubt directed at me. Upon hearing the word "faggot," all
my hope of saying "hi" disappeared. So many times had this scenario hit me
straight in the face... so many fucken times! What the hell was wrong with
me? Am I not even worth talking to?

Upon my return, Auntie's front porch was in the sun. It really brought out
the charming colours. Number 23, opposite, was still quiet. I decided to
walk over and have a look. Through closer inspection, I decided that No,
this place was not so uncared for. Nothing had cracked, no paint had peeled
and there was only the morning's junk mail in the mailbox. Having an urge to
piss, I rushed across the road home.

Much of that day was uneventful, much like the present (attempt at a) story.
I masturbated sometime in the afternoon, when the mellow rays' grip melted
all my resistance to the activity. I had taken some pornography from home (I
only really had one ratty-tatty 'porno' since about the age of twelve or so)
and so, it was by looking at a threesome with some guy's cock up another
guy's arse, whist the third was being sucked off by the second that I
ejaculated. I cleaned up the horribly sticky, smelly aftermath and continued
my watching TV.

By early evening, sadness had descended. Sadness perhaps because it was only
the first day and I was already bored. No Internet. Auntie considered it a
preventable evil. I knew no one around, and reading and TV could only charm
so far. It would be a long, long break. What to do?

I must have fallen asleep, for only thus could I have been wakened. It was
not too late... close to ten o'clock or so. The windows had been left open,
and Poseidon's zephyr (how's that for a corny classical allusion?) had
chilled the whole dwelling.

Knock, knock, knock. I hurriedly strolled over to the door, and opened it.
What sight should befall me but that of a sleepy eyed little boy, enquiring
as to the state of my sugar supplies. "And so mum made me come over, 'cause
she just can't have coffee without it."

"No, that's quite alright. I understand," I said. The little button of a boy
followed me like a sniffer dog, acting somewhat like a restrictive mechanism
because I sure felt uncomfortable and also unable to look directly at him. I
handed him the cup and was ready to send him on his merry way.

"No..." he protested. "I don't have to go yet... mum said I could stay a bit
longer."

"Gees, your mum sounds rather free-spirited..." I said sarcastically.

"What does that mean?" he smiled, somehow winding his way onto the couch in
front of the TV. I told him that his mummy seemed to do what she wanted and
did not act responsibly. "O yeah... she and dad might go riding they
said..."

"At night?"

"Yep," he said, by now engrossed in the late-night trash on the screen.

"You've brought horses with you?" I asked, somewhat surprised at the thought
of a night ride.

"No! But they'll end up riding something..." Could it be? An innuendo from
one so young and innocent looking? "And Katie's at home, talking to her
friends."

"Who's Katie?" I asked.

"My big, dumb sister who didn't want to come, that's who!" he said with an
air of dislike. I asked her age, whence ensued a queer exchange. He got up
and pushed me into a nearby seat, consuming all his boyish strength in doing
so. "O no you're not," he yelped almost pleadingly.

"I'm not what?" I asked in a startled state.

"You're my friend. I found you first! It's not fair... everyone always runs
over and becomes hers. No one ever wants to be with me..." and with that,
the poor lad entered such an emotional stupor and looked so fragile and
abandoned, I simply had to give him a hug.

"No, it's alright. It's all right. I'll be your friend. Call me Peter," I
said, lightly embracing him.

"My name is Brad," he said. He then became very embarrassed at his outburst.
He pulled away from my clutch and asked, "Where's the loo?" I told him
where, and he left.

Now I hope the present reader is sufficiently indoctrinated with my
sexuality, and my hinting earlier about how reactive the youths on the beach
had made my body and mind. So one could therefore have empathy for the
dilemma I was facing: having a cute little lad all to myself. Auntie would
not return until the following day. Yet somewhere in my mind (somewhere
deep) I knew it would be wrong and expressly forbidden by the stifling
cordon of Judeo-Christian mores around us all.

When he came back, he sank once again into the couch. I felt a great unease
and wished he would vacate that dwelling as soon as possible. "So," I asked
in a pathetic attempt to remain casual, "is you sister across the road right
now?"

"Yep. Why? You wanna see her?" His voice seemed to indicate unhappiness.
Perhaps his sister had won me over. "She's ugly you know..." he said,
enveloped in self-sympathy.

I walked over to him and looked at him. Perhaps I could be meaner to the
poor boy. "And you're not?"

"I wouldn't know that, mister! If you say I am ugly, I must be. I don't
know... but I couldn't give a shit..."

He certainly possessed zest. "Wow, that's some language young man... and
there I was thinking your mouth was nice and clean.

He did some surprisingly alluring contortions on the couch, half-conscious,
I think, that my reaction was not the standard one he would get from guys my
age. I looked motionless for a while... then staggered to regain
self-control.

"What?" he snapped, then smiled naughtily. "Haven't you ever seen blue
shorts?"

"Yeah..." I struggled, "but those are really short shorts!" I said,
stumbling back to linear speech.

"My mum gets 'em... so I wear 'em. I really don't care... as long as no one
laughs at me." (He was so honest, that in itself was charming.)

"Oh, speaking of your mum, don't you think she'd want the sugar?" I asked,
increasingly eager to remove the great and pressing distraction from the
house.

He moved with an almost artistic fluidity off the couch, picked up the cup
of sugar from the bar and unhappily said, "I know when I'm not wanted" (he
said this in an ironic manner that hinted explicitly that he was well aware
of the cliche status of that utterance) "so I'm off!" He stormed out the
door... leaving it ajar.

For the remainder of that humid night, I wondered in amazement at the little
jewel of a boy. Could a twelve year old seem so innocent, yet be so mature?


http://www.geocities.com/adonipolis