From: an191944@anon.penet.fi Reply-To: an191944@anon.penet.fi Date: Mon, 17 Jul 1995 23:26:42 UTC Subject: The Man in the House 1/3 (teen/M) Warning: This story is about sex between a man and a teenage boy. If you are too young for this kind of story, or if it turns you off, all you need do is go on to the next one. This story is written from the boy's point of view; it is an ex- ploration of the thoughts of a boy who desperately wants to have sex with an older man. I have written it as realistically as I can, but it is a fantasy, nonetheless. I never had sex with a teenage boy (teenagers don't interest me), and no older man ever had sex with me when I was a teenager (drat!). The obligatory sex scene is here, but readers looking for porn are advised to look elsewhere. Moralists may at least be mollified to find that it has a sad ending, although probably not one to their taste. The Man in the House: Part 1 This is the story of how, against all the odds, I knew what I wanted; how, against all the odds, I found it; and how, against all the odds, it worked. It begins the same way as thousands of other such stories: I must have been eight or nine when I realized that I found older men attractive. I didn't know why they attracted me; they just did. When you're a kid and you have these feelings, you can't analyze them. I couldn't, at any rate; it was not until early in my teens that I realized that my interest was sexual. But I remember that when I would see a man with a pronounced bulge in his pants I would wonder what his penis was like. I repressed these thoughts, because I thought they were "dirty," but you know how much good that does; they kept coming back to me. Then at some point I heard something about men who abused children and about child molesters. I must have been nine or ten, and I had no idea what they were talking about. I got the notion that abusing a boy meant beating him up, and when I looked up "molest" in the dictionary, the only meaning that made sense to me was to injure. I made up my mind that I would never let that happen to me. I may have been innocent about that, but I wasn't innocent about much else. People talk about protecting the innocence of young boys, and I'm always amazed to hear this. I can only assume that they've forgotten what their own boyhoods were like. We were reasonably well brought-up middle-class boys, but although we were ignorant about sexual matters, we certainly weren't innocent. Innocent was the last thing we wanted to be. We all talked about sex, all the time. I don't think many of us had any clear idea of what sex was for or how it worked; it was just something "dirty" that people did. I'm not even sure we thought of it as something that grown-ups did. As I gradually got the details of sex worked out, a lot of the things I had heard fell into place, as they do at that point in one's life. One of the things that fell into place was my attraction to older men; I realized that I was gay and that my interest in them was sexual. I don't know how it was, but somehow I never had any sexual encounters with boys my own age. Perhaps it was just a lack of opportunity--but it must also have been that I wasn't looking for an opportunity; the opportunities must surely have been there. It wasn't that I worried about being gay; for some reason that never bothered me. It was that grown-up men were the ones who fascinated me. I would still sneak looks at their crotches, and now that I knew about sex and how it felt, I wondered what it would be like to play with them, or better, to have them play with me. And when I masturbated, I always imagined men, not girls. Older men, not boys. I would think about some man opening my pants and fondling my penis, or about opening his pants and fondling his, and I would get a terrific erection. I imagined meeting some older stranger with whom I could do these things, and for a long time these fantasies coexisted with my fears about being abused or molested. I finally got that straightened out, and when I did, I could only think, Where were all these abusers or molesters of children, and why didn't I know any? These thoughts combined with my daydreams about some man fooling around with me, and finally, when I was ten or eleven, they crystallized into a decision: I wanted to make these dreams a reality. I wanted to find some nice man and get him to molest ME. But who? I thought about the older men I knew, who were mostly relatives or neighbors. I never even considered my dad. I know that some gay guys have gotten off on the thought of having sex with their fathers, and some guys apparently have actually had such an experience; but for me, parents and sex partners inhabited different worlds. There were a couple of unmarried uncles that might have been a possibilities, but I never gave them any serious thought, either. I instinctively shied away from rela- tives, or even men in the neighborhood: too dangerous. Suppose they got mad and told my folks! That meant big trouble, and avoiding trouble was high on the agenda. * * * * * * * I don't know what would have happened eventually, except that when I was 12 we moved to a different town. The junior high school was an easy walk from our new home, but the interesting thing, which I discovered a few weeks after the beginning of the school year, was that there was a house right next to the playground and that in that house there was a man who always seemed to be watching us from a window that looked out onto the playground. When we were out for recess, or for lunch, or playing after school, he was always at his window, looking out at us. It was light out- side, and there were no lights on in the house, so I couldn't get a very good look at him, especially because he wasn't right *at* the window, but a little bit back from it--as though he wanted to see without being seen-- but I could usually make out his figure and as far as I could tell he was looking out. Sometimes I thought he was using binoculars. Was this just coincidence? There was no view from that part of the house, other than the school and the playground, so why else would he be there? With my interest in older men, and being constantly on the lookout for what I now knew was called a pedophile, I hoped he was watching us. But was he watching the boys or the girls? I was pretty sure he was watching the boys. As far as I could tell, he seemed always to be looking in the direction where there were the most boys, and I hoped that wasn't just my imagination, or wishful thinking. I worried that he might be married, in which case, I assumed, there would be no chance for me. But I never caught sight of a woman in the house, so I decided that he couldn't be. But then this was replaced by a new anxiety: if he was a pedophile and was looking at the boys, did he ever notice *me*? Or was he looking at some other boy? I remember once, the next Spring, when the weather had turned warm and we were all wearing shorts, looking at the other boys' legs and trying to decide whether they were better looking than my own. Most of them didn't look as good, I thought, although there were two boys with stunning legs. One of them was an ugly kid, but the other was attractive and I hated him as one can only hate a rival. I came to think of my watcher as The Man in The House. I began to make up all kinds of ridiculous fantasies about ways in which I might meet him. Maybe I would run into him at a shopping mall, or downtown, so that we could meet and somehow strike up an acquaintance. What if I suddenly keeled over in a faint as I was walking past his house, so he would have to come out and rescue me? The problem with that was that home was in the opposite direction. Once I went around the block the wrong way, so I could walk past his place. As I passed in front of his house, I looked furtively up at his windows, hoping I would see him there watching me, but he wasn't. And I didn't pass out. After a while I made this my normal way of going home, until one day a kid in school asked me why I did this. I was in confusion; I couldn't think of an answer; and after that I went home the short way to avoid further questions. Kids would use the playground in the Summer after school was out. I had never done this where we used to live, but now the magnetism of that house drew me, and I began to join the other kids in games. I imagined that if I was always there to be seen, The Man in The House would be more likely to notice me. And almost every day he was there at the window. Once for two weeks in July he was gone. This worried me excessively until I saw him again and realized that he had probably gone away on a vacation. * * * * * * * Came the Fall and I began to think seriously about contriving a meeting with The Man in The House. And in October I had an inspiration: Hallowe'en! Kids always went out begging, and most of us wore some kind of costume. Begging would give me a perfect excuse to ring his doorbell. Moreover, we were usually out begging for two to two and a half hours, which would give me time for an encounter, if I headed straight for his place. It's interesting now to remember how carefully I worked out the logistics of this project. It was the longest of long shots. I didn't know whether he was really a pedophile or not, and I had no idea what he looked like. He could be a horrible, repulsive old man for all I knew. Moreover, I knew everything would have to happen on that one visit. If I didn't succeed with him right away, I never would. There could be no question of acquaintance ripening into friendship ripening into intimacy. That meant I would have to be forward--brazen, even--but not too brazen. I would have to arouse his interest, and quickly, and without alarming him, and that was where wearing the costume came in. It seemed that the surest way would be to wear something sexy, something that would suggest that I might be interested and available and would draw his atten- tion to that possibility. And for that I had the perfect costume. I had played Sir Walter Raleigh in a school play that Spring. My mother had made me a costume that was supposed to look Elizabethan and that featured a pair of opaque white pantyhose (an improvised substitute for tights) and some kind of puffy short knickers adapted from what must have been an old pair of bloomers and dyed a bright red. There was also a red doublet made from some kind of jacket, but that hadn't interested me. It was the pantyhose that had captivated me, as soon as I saw what they did for my legs. They showed off their contours to perfection. They were *sexy*. Fully dressed, I was a rich, dark red all over except for my dazzling white legs, which stood out in gleaming contrast to the rest of the costume and drew the eye. If only some molester could have seen me in those! I never wore any underwear with them, and putting them on for the play had always given me an erection, which I had liked observing through the pantyhose, although I was glad that the puffy knickers concealed it. So my Raleigh costume was the natural thing to wear for my Hallow- e'en adventure. If The Man in The House was really attracted to boys, the sight of my legs in those pantyhose should fetch him. And if I had misjudged him, if he wasn't really a pedophile, the costume would be just a Hallowe'en costume and wouldn't arouse suspicion. When I hesitantly broached the question of a costume, I had one of those surprises that one can never imagine beforehand: my mother's first words were, "Why don't you wear that Sir Walter Raleigh costume you wore for the play?" Mom was never one to let anything go to waste. I was afraid of seeming too eager, and I momentarily considered objecting: "Oh, Mom, I don't want to wear something dumb like that!" But the possibility that she might take my objection seriously ruled that out. So I pretended to weigh the possibility and said, finally, without too much enthusiasm, "Yeah, that would be okay." So it was decided. And I was going to go begging on Hallowe'en, head straight for The Man's house, and ring his doorbell wearing my Raleigh costume with my legs enticingly (I hoped) clad in pantyhose. I was delib- erately planning to meet a man who I hoped was a pedophile so that he could play with my body, so that he could abuse me sexually. Every time I thought of this, my heart skipped a beat. The Man in the House: Part 2 The great night came. My mom got out the costume for me, and fortunately it still fitted me all right. She inspected me when I was dressed, my hard-on mercifully concealed by the bloomers, and said "You're going to be the star of the show!"--the very same thing she had said when we had the play. If she had known the "show" I had in mind this time...! My first problem was to get away from the other kids. So after we had gone a block or two, I pretended to fumble in my doublet pockets, said, "Oh, shit, I forgot my house keys," and turned back. I raced back to our house, past it, and on to school, the playground, and The Man In The House. Would he be home? Would he answer the door? I didn't know what I would do next if he did, but clearly I had to figure some way to get into his house. I rang the bell, my heart pounding. I heard footsteps: the door opened: and there he was. He turned out to be a fairly good-looking man, in his early thirties, with a slimish build, and he was wearing some kind of workout clothes--with shorts. The thought flashed through my mind: he's in shorts and I'm wearing pantyhose! I gave him the ritual greeting: "Trick or treat!" Would he just give me some piece of candy and close the door? That would be the end of everything. No. He apparently didn't have anything ready, and he said, "Can you wait a minute?" He hesitated and then said, "Why don't you come in?" I wondered whether that meant he had noticed my costume. I hoped it did. Now I had to improvise. I was in his house; how could I manage to stay there long enough? How could I get things started? I had no idea. I had never seduced a man before, except in my dreams. He brought some candy: a couple of Hershey bars. "I'm sorry, I wasn't prepared," he said. "This is all I have." I thanked him and then, stalling for time, asked, "Can I use your bathroom, please?" He said sure and showed me the way. As he did so, he said, "That's a neat costume you're wearing." He had noticed!! I said, "Yeah, my mom made it for me. I wore it in a play this Spring." He said, "It's very attractive." *Attractive!!!!* I dawdled in the bathroom while I thought what to do next. I was so scared of what I was planning that I almost decided to abandon the whole thing. Almost, but not quite. On an impulse--I'm not sure why, hoping perhaps to draw attention to my butt, hoping to make myself more tempting-- I took off the bloomers. By that time I was so on edge that I couldn't have gotten an erection if I had tried, so everything looked okay underneath. When I came out, dry-mouthed with nerves, I asked whether I might have a glass of water. He said, "Let me just put something else on first." Well, that would take a couple of minutes, so I could stay that much longer, but dammit, I wanted him to take his clothes off, not put them on. I thought this, fiercely willing him not to change: `Don't put clothes ON, damn it, take them off! OFF!' Finally I made myself say, aloud, "Don't bother on my account. It's so warm in here, I took these off," I added, and held up the bloomers. Then I turned a bright red. Should I have done that? Should I have said that? I was torn between being afraid he would realize what I had in mind and being afraid he wouldn't. He came back from the kitchen with a can of soda. Great! A glass of water would go down in a moment, but soda could be lingered over. And maybe that meant that he wanted me to linger over it, wanted me to stay. Maybe he was playing for time, the same way I was. I sat on the sofa, so he could sit next to me. But then he went and sat down in a chair. "You go to the school next door, don't you?" he said. He had seen me!--and remembered me! I said I did, and that in the Summer I played there as well. "You like sports, then?" Actually I didn't, much. I had gotten into sports just to have an excuse to play next to his house, but I wasn't about to say that. How could I get closer to him? I wanted to get my legs in pantyhose next to his legs in shorts. Damn that chair, why couldn't he have sat here on the sofa? An inspiration: "Actually I think I like wrestling the most. We wrestle a lot in gym." I had never wrestled in my life. In a choked voice, I took the fatal step: "Do you like to wrestle?" At this point, HE turned red. Aha! He must be thinking the same thing I was thinking: body contact. In a voice nearly as choked as mine, he answered, "Yes, I do." He added, "Sometimes," and turned even more red. I considered the way the conversation was going. He had said I, or my costume at least, was attractive. I had told him not to bother to put on any more clothes, and he hadn't. I had mentioned wrestling and, when I suggested that maybe he wrestled, opening up the possibility that the two of us might wrestle, he had blushed. I was pretty sure there was something there. "Would you like to wrestle?" I asked, my heart beginning to pound again. "I'll wrestle you for a Hershey bar." He hesitated, then said, "Okay, Son, I'll wrestle with you. Two falls out of three." We got down on the floor. I don't believe either of us knew the first thing about wrestling. I certainly didn't, and I'm pretty sure he didn't, either. I was all over him. He must have realized instantly what was in my mind, because it never occurred to me to grab him or try to get a hold on him; instead, I felt him all over, my hands running over his body. I had never touched a grown man's body this way, and I could feel my cock beginning to get hard. Then I realized he was doing pretty much the same thing, running his hands over my body. I decided I had better make some pretense of actually wrestling and grabbed his thigh. I wrapped my legs around his. Good: my pantyhose- covered legs on his bare legs. I was getting harder. Then I held his leg in both hands, pretty far up. I caught a glimpse of his shorts and saw that he was getting hard, too. So there we were. Again I was monitoring how things were progressing. I was wearing nothing from the waist down but my pantyhose, and my hard-on must be unmistakable. And he had a hard-on, too. It seemed to me now that it was only a matter of time. I had been so worried that if I were too forward it might put him off and I might lose everything. That didn't seem likely now. We kept on "wrestling," going over and over on the rug. At one point my face bumped into his and, without thinking, I kissed him. And... he kissed me back! Success!!! I put my arms around him and kissed him again, hard. I felt his arms around me and was thrilled to feel the strength of his grasp. I hadn't realized how hard a man could hold me. Then I felt his tongue between my lips. Suddenly, he released me. "You set this up, didn't you," he said, looking at me. A state- ment, not a question. "No other kid came begging this evening. No kid ever comes begging here. Only you." [Why was that? Did he have a... reputation?] It seemed useless to pretend. In fact, I was all for laying my cards on the table, and I let the whole story tumble out. I said Yes. I said I had been watching him from school. I said I had seen him watching us. I said I had hoped he was watching me. I said I had planned this Hallowe'en expedition. I said I had worn my Raleigh costume deliberately so I could show off my legs in pantyhose. I think back on this adventure now and wonder how I could have been so brazen. There must have been some instinct that told me, intuitively, that this was the way to go. "I want you," I finished. "You know, you could get me into a lot of trouble," he said. "I can go to prison for doing what you want me to do." "Well, I started it, you didn't." "In the eyes of the law you're still a minor," he said. "And they don't care a damn who started it. They consider me the responsible party, not you. Any way it goes, any way it starts, I'm the one at fault, not you." "I'm certainly never going to tell. I want this," I said. "I've wanted this ever since I was six years old." A slight exaggeration. With that I grabbed him and kissed him again. This seemed to decide him. We started running our hands over each other's bodies. I stopped and began unbuttoning my doublet. He pushed my hands away and finished unbuttoning it himself, so I reached down and started tugging at his shorts. I couldn't move them (we were both sitting down), so I put my hand in them and felt for his cock. It seemed huge. I didn't realize men had cocks as big as that. (Where had I been?) He opened up the doublet, reached under my undershirt, and started playing with my nipples. I thought I was going to pass out. I had never played with my own nipples (or anybody else's, for that matter) and didn't realize how sensitive they were. It was as if there were a direct nervous connection between my tits and my crotch. I was on fire. We stood up and got the rest of our clothes off. He carefully laid out my costume in a neat pile. While he was doing this, I said that I had to be home by nine. So we had an hour and a half ahead of us. (How was I going to account for coming home with only a pair of Hershey bars in my bag instead of lots of candy? I didn't know, and just then I didn't care.) Then he picked up the clothes and said, "Let's go to my bedroom." Much better than the living-room floor, I thought. I pictured us lying together on his bed, naked, playing with each other's bodies, and as it sank in that we were actually going to do this, my cock began to drip. The Man in the House: Part 3 We lay on the bed and kissed. I fumbled for his cock and took it into my hand. I had never fondled a man's cock before. It was hard and felt...rubbery. I ran my fingers up and down it, and then felt for his balls and took hold of them, gently. I cradled his ball sack in my hand. Then I touched his cock again and felt that the tip was wet. I picked up some of the wetness on my finger and put it in my mouth. I couldn't believe I was doing this. Meanwhile, he was playing with my cock. I had always known I wanted to be a cocksucker. I wanted to suck him, and I was impatient to begin. I bent over and put my lips to the end of his cock, tasting more of his pre-come. He said, "Turn around so I can do the same for you." And we ended up in a nice sixty-nine, lying on our sides. He raised his free thigh, and I did the same, realizing how much more available everything was that way. He sucked my cock, then my balls, taking them both into his mouth. I could feel his lips through my ball sack pressing on my cock. So I did the same. His balls were too big to get into my mouth, so I took them one at a time, popping them gently in and out. He was sweaty from working out, and he had a lovely musky, masculine smell that made my head swim. We sat up and kissed again, long and hard, opening our mouths wide. "Oooh, I want you," I said. "I want you, I want you, I want you." I couldn't think of anything else to say. Our hands were all over each other then. He started flicking my tits with his fingers and I went wild. I pushed his shoulder to get him to lie on his back, and when he did, I crouched over him. His legs lay stretched out beneath me, and they were beautiful. I didn't think I had ever seen anything so beautiful in my life as his legs were. I ran my hands over them, feeling the silky-smooth flesh of his thighs under my fingers. Up to his hips and to his lovely hipbones. I kissed his hipbones; then I put my lips to his cock. Again that rich masculine smell, again the taste of pre-come, and I thought how good it would be to taste the genuine article. I had tasted my own by that time, of course (although I had never dared to swallow it), but this would be another man's. As I imagined him shooting into my mouth, I started moving my lips up and down his shaft. I stopped after a moment and disengaged. "Am I doing this right?" I asked. "Tell me what to do." "You mean this is the first time you've done this?" he asked. I could tell he was horrified. He must have thought I was an experienced kid, hardened and street-smart, one who knew his way around in a world that I was actually just entering. I nodded, mutely. After a pause that seemed to last an eternity, and during which I had a horrible fear that he might be going to kick me out, he whispered, "Take the head in your mouth and lick the bottom of it." I did. I felt the miraculously smooth skin of the head between my lips, and put my tongue on the bottom of it and licked it. I tasted more pre-come as it oozed out of his penis. Then I took a little more into my mouth so I could reach that lovely gathering of skin just below the head. I licked that. "Aaah, that's it," he murmured. "Don't stop!" But the sight of his shaft, with its tip in my mouth, and of his thick bush just inches before my face, excited me, and I couldn't keep the rest of his cock out of my mouth. I wanted it all so badly, I kept going down on it, taking it all in my mouth, and then coming back to the head and licking it again, then going down again, back and forth. His hands were on my tits, now, rubbing them and squeezing them, and this made me suck him like crazy. "Oh...oh, my God, I'm coming!" he gasped. An inarticulate grunt... and then I felt the contractions on his cock, pulsating on my lips, and a jet of come erupted into my mouth. It seemed as if it was never going to end. Spurt after spurt, flooding my mouth. I hesitated, then swallowed it down (with a momentary thought, "Is this going to make me sick?") and more kept coming. Finally, as the pulsations stopped, he pushed my head away. But I kept the very tip of his cock between my lips, and I held the last of his come in my mouth. I savored it, running it about with my tongue, working it all over, coating the inside of my mouth with it, and finally swallowing it. Reluctantly, I let his penis fall from my mouth. He offered me another can of soda, but I said I didn't want to wash away the taste of his come. I still remember the look of horror on his face when I said this. He must have thought me a depraved little monster. I guess I was. We talked. He was still in shock at the thought of having been blown by a little thirteen-year-old virgin who (he said) had sucked him like an expert. I think he was relieved to know that it was I who had seduced him, and not he me. He was even more embarrassed when he had to ask me my name. It upset him particularly that he had had sex with me before he even knew who I was. We compared histories. He had been sexually "abused" as a boy, by an uncle. (His uncle! I thought again of my uncles and suddenly wondered why they had never married.) He thought that this was what had made him a pedophile. I doubt that now. We didn't talk long, because he wanted to suck me, too, and we didn't have much time left. Well, I was all ready for that, let me tell you. I lay on my back and he crouched between my legs and took my cock into his mouth. It had gone soft while we were talking, but it perked up the instant I felt his lips on it. His mouth was hot and soft. I hadn't known anything in the world could feel as good as his lips and tongue felt on my rod. Unbelievable sensations ran along my nerves, through my veins, from one end of my body to the other. Jerking off had never been like this. His lips ran up and down my shaft, and his tongue never stopped moving. I felt as if I had surrendered all control over myself, as if I and my cock were helpless, at the mercy of some inexorable sucking machine that would never stop its maddening, intoxicating stimulation. As he sucked me, he ran his hands all over my body. I put my hands on his nipples and tried to make him feel as good that way as he had made me feel. Then he reached up with his fingers and did the same for me. That was too much; it sent me over the edge, and I abruptly exploded into his mouth. Now, in a porn story, the partners keep on going all night, sucking and fucking on the bed, on the floor, in the john, everywhere. But that's not the way in real life. With rare exceptions, when you've come, you've come, and with that the encounter ends. Besides, in my case, I had to get home. Stay out all night with no satisfactory explanation and the roof would fall in. I can't think of anything I ever did in my entire boyhood that I wanted to do less than put my clothes back on that night. I loved being naked with him, I loved lying there with him, I loved touching him, and I looked at that Sir Walter Raleigh costume with loathing. Just then, going to the dentist would have been pure pleasure compared with getting dressed again. But there was no choice, and slowly and reluctantly I drew my white pantyhose back on, the pantyhose that had been such a blatant invitation to him. I thanked him for everything. I said I wanted to do this again. I said we HAD to find out how to get together more often. I said I loved him. I said I couldn't live without him. I was babbling. I made him nervous. He said I couldn't come to his house, because if I did that regularly people would notice. He said he would arrange something. We embraced and kissed; I thought we would spend hours kissing. He clasped and fondled my little butt in his hands, through the knickers. I left. At home, I rushed to my room so my mom wouldn't see how little candy I had collected. In the morning I would just say I had eaten it all. Upstairs I took off my costume and folded it carefully, just as my lover had done. (My lover!...oh, God, oh God oh God, I had a LOVER!) Then I went straight to bed, and thought about what had happened. Swallowing his come had not made me sick, I realized. That reminded me of how his cock had felt in my mouth. Then I remembered the feeling of his hands on my tits and masturbated furiously. * * * * * * * There isn't much more to tell. We did arrange meeting places-- never the same place twice--and he would come in his car and pick me up. We went all sorts of places for sex, sometimes in his car, sometimes in motels, a few times out in the country, and once or twice in the Summer out of doors. Once we found a way to spend a night together. We did everything two men can do in bed; he taught me all the ways of sex and love. Hallowe'en was always a special day for us: our anniversary. The affair lasted until I left home for college, and we never got caught. When I was away at school he occasionally came to visit me. He sent me presents, too, mostly money but also clothes and, once, a delight- ful assortment of sexy underwear. (He lived on a small inheritance, which is why he had been at home days when he watched us on the playground.) In my Junior year, when I was laid up in the infirmary with pneumonia, he came and visited me every day. We remained friends, and occasional lovers, even after I was too old for him. (I did not inherit his tastes; I always preferred men my own age or older.) He told me once that although he had managed to connect with other boys, there had never been another like me. And for me there was never another like him. I learned about more than sex from him; I learned about love, about life, about myself. He was a second father to me; he helped me grow up. He died last year, of a heart attack, at the age of 63. I had known him for nearly thirty years. I wept at his funeral, to the wonder of his surviving relatives, none of whom knew who that middle-aged stranger in tears was. I owed him so much. And nobody had ever known.