(I did not intend to write a part 4 for this story, but somehow I did. I did it because, whether they know it or not, people change. Sometimes they change for the better, and sometimes for the worse. So who knows? Maybe all of us can change... Not much here in the way of sex, though... Sorry, going through some rough emotional times.)


Moonshine

Part Four


I did not go on the Bonus March in the Spring and Summer of 1932. Yes, I knew Walt Walters was a good man, and I suspected Douglas MacArthur was a bad 'un, but that was not enough reason for me to go. I was still making plenty money on the 'shine, and for the times, I was still plenty rich. Also, I had my boys to think about. I didn't want nobody calling me a Communist while Gabe still was up at that fancy University in New Jersey, to say the least. Just thinking how I managed to send that little cocksucker who almost never had a pair of underpants into just about the swankiest school short of Harvard was plenty strange enough.


My name is Thomas Calhoun, as I guess I told you, and I also told you somewhat about me and my boys a while back. But. like I told you, boys will grow up, and a lot faster than you might like. Johnny was still good for a hug from time to time, but his cheek had got real scratchy, and it was his boyfriend Albert Brady he loved the most, and who loved him back. So when the circuit preacher came round, and took a strong liking to my 'shine, and got so drunk he didn't know what in hell he was doing, he put my sweet Johnny and his boyfriend Albert into the bonds of wedded matrimony. Nobody knows it but them and me, but it happened. And ain't that something you don't hear everyday!


I gave Johnny and Albert the farm and the malting shed and the still and all of it, and told them just be happy. It was 1933. Prohibition was over, but I got them some nice charred oak barrels to turn their squeezings yellow and satisfy the uppity crowd. Nobody really knew good booze from bad in them days, because the stuff come down from Canada in the Prohibition days was mostly rotgut anyway.


And I went to the city -- not that big a city, and I won't say which -- with a very big wad of cash in my wallet and a much bigger one in my suitcase. I figured I needed some new boys. New young boys. Gabe and Johnny had come close to curing my shell shock, I figured, or at least made it a lot easier to live with. I figured in the city there'd be boys on the streets, and I figured they'd be better off with me than on their own. Okay, I don't know if I really believed that, but I was a lot younger back then. When you're young, you believe what you want to believe.


..........


For the first four months in that city, I was not too happy. Yes, I ran into boys who would suck a cock for a penny or two, or let you stick it up them for two bits. Then, first thing, they'd want to run off and take the money back to their mamas and papas to help feed the little ones. It just left me feeling like shit. I just started giving them the money, and not asking nothing in exchange.


There are lots of cars in the city, and damn near all of them backfire pretty often. I was pretty busted up. The shell shock came back hard.


Then I got the telegram from Gabe. "There is somebody I want you to meet. He certainly would profit from your mentorship."


Shit, Gabe learned some decent English since I sent him off to high school, much less University! I telegraphed back as fancily as I could: "By all means. Send him along, and provide needed details."


I didn't get many details. His name was James, and he needed somebody to take him in. I knew it was him when he come off of the train and looked around, kind of uneasy. "James?" I called. He walked over.


Maybe he was Irish or something, with his reddy-brown hair and his little bit of a nose. He did not know, and neither did I. When Gabe found him, he did not remember much from before. He looked to be about ten, but it's hard to tell with boys these days. On account of not always eating so good, their growing up can be held back some, or so I'm told.


"Gabe says you're nice," he told me. "Please be nice."


"If Gabe says I should be nice to you," I whispered back, "I will do my best to love you with all my heart. Promise."


I led him to my not-too-new Packard, and we drove to my not-too-nice row house on a street named for a not-too-nice dead president. Mind you, I was no Rockefeller by a long shot, but I still was pretty rich for Depression days. And give how I'd made my money, I thought I'd prefer not to stick out. I don't know what J. Edgar Hoover had on FDR, but he must have had something. I didn't want him to get nothing on me.


..........


He'd ate a decent slab of ham and a banana before I got him naked in my big old clawfoot tub. He needed it, and he just sat there while I washed him. I got the feeling his hole had been used pretty hard, as best the soapy finger test could judge it, and his little weenie was suckable sweet, but did not get even a little bit hard when I soaped it up and down. I dried him off with my softest towel. Everything in his little duffle was dirty as can be, so I just left him naked and tucked him into my bed.


"Ain't you coming in too?" he asked me.


"Later," I told him. "I ain't tired yet." Then I sat down on the edge of the bed and give him a couple of little kisses on his cheeks. "Good night," I said. "Sleep tight. Don't let the bedbugs bite."


I tried reading a story by Mr. Hemingway from an old Scribner's I had bought off a guy selling them on the street. Hemingway was not the kind of guy to get shell shock, I figured, but then you never really know. James, in my bed, was never in a war, but he was sleeping as hard as me on a bad night. I was wondering if a cuddle would help or hurt when he sat straight up and yelled, so I went right on in the bedroom and took him in my arms.


"I reckon you might have let those bedbugs bite," I whispered as I held him.


"Don't hurt me," he answered. "Please don't hurt me."


"Never," I promised. "Cross my heart and hope to die." And I meant it too. His soft little bottom, which as I figured had taken some stiff ones from time to time, was nestled up in my hand, and his tears were running down the side of my face as he hugged me back. "Really," I swore again. "Cross my heart and hope to die. When I get in that bed, I swear there won't be nothing but cuddles. Okay?"


"Okay," he replied. "Then get on in."


As I started to get on in, he said, "Not with your clothes on, stupid. If I'm naked, you gotta be naked too."


So I got naked too. Yes, I was hard as I'd been since before Johnny got all furry, but I managed to keep it off him. Both of us, best I can tell, slept real good after that, at least until morning when he woke me up tossing and turning again.


I tried to pull him into a hug, but he just pushed me away and yelled, "Don't hurt me!"


"I promised I never would," I reminded him, not touching him at all. "I just figured you had a bad dream, so you needed a cuddle."


"I guess I do," he admitted, and rolled up against me. I smooched up against him, gathered him in my arms, and rubbed my face across that reddy-brown hair. They got a name for that color, but damned if I can remember it.


"I get bad dreams too," I said, "lots of them. They say I got shell shocked fighting in the trenches during the War. Some nights, maybe, you can cuddle me."


"Maybe," he replied, "but maybe I'll be scared. You're awful big, you know, and if you mistook me for some German soldier, well..."


Well, I figured he might be right about that.


..........


He stayed naked most of that next day, while his clothes were at the washerwoman's down the street. I'd have bought him some new ones at Kresge's or someplace, but I was thinking he should not be alone for too long. When I got back, he was just laying there on his back on my bed, his little pecker laying limp on his belly.


Oh, god, how I wanted to lick him all over, he just looked so sweet. But then I stopped and thought he might find that kind of thing hurtful. Why he might have got the idea getting licked could be hurtful I didn't know, but it occurred to me nonetheless. So I asked, "You want some kisses?"


He stopped to think about it. Then he said, "Okay, and you can lick my dick and balls too if you like. Just don't go noplace near my ass."


I will admit, I was hoping to stick a finger up that sweet ass while I sucked him, but I didn't. Hell, I didn't even suck him. Yes, I got those little nips all pointy, and I licked all the smooth and soft skin around his cute little dickie and balls, but that little dickie stayed soft the whole time. Then I just thought, "Oh to hell with it. It don't do nothing for him, so maybe I should just lay off."


So that's what I did.


..........


The day had been sunny and dry, so James' clothes were all clean and pressed the next morning, but they still looked kind of ratty. He needed some new duds, and no fooling around. First, though, we went to Kresge's to get him some underpants. You can't go shopping Macy's if your boy don't have no underpants.


I liked how he was little enough to hold my hand walking down the street. It just felt so fine having that boy holding onto my hand, but I sure wanted him in nice clothes real fast. I was also wishing Gabe would send me a letter or something telling me more about James, because James wasn't saying nothing.


We got him dudded out real nice, and I think he felt proud going down the street with me, hand in hand, before that day was over. Truth is, I wished I had a nicer place to take him home, but goddamned J. Edgar made me keep my wealth in hiding.


Back at the house, anyway, I got out the Brownie and took a picture of him in his new duds. He did not look like Little Lord Fauntleroy by a long shot, but he could have been a little bitty Cary Grant, maybe, except not nearly so slick. Then I sat in my comfy chair and asked if he might want to climb in my lap. He did.


"How'd you meet Gabe?" I asked him.


"He found me. He got me out of the bad place."


"What bad place?"


He just turned kind of pale and went to get out of my lap. I held him back, saying, "It's okay, you don't have to talk about nothing you don't want to. You don't have to remember it neither, least not on my account."


It was starting to dawn on me that James was a lot like me when I first come back from the War. I was starting to think maybe you didn't have to be in the trenches to wind up with shell shock.


..........


He liked wearing his new underpants to bed, so I left my drawers on too. Since we were not doing anything you might call sexual, and since he was no less cuddly during the daytime hours, I figured I ought to get him his own bed. I wished I would get a letter from Gabe, because there are some things you just don't put in a telegram.


A couple of days later, the letter came. I will not write it all out, especially since I might not get it all right. Gabe writes better than Hemingway, these days, at least in terms of fanciness, and sure did beat about the bush a whole lot. I guess first class mail gets steamed open sometimes. This is the gist of it, though.


Gabe met some fellow University boys liked cock as much as he did, which, knowing Gabe, is pretty much what I would have expected. One of them knew of a house where they could enjoy some newer, younger meat. That was where Gabe found James. He was hardly even used yet -- in that house, anyway. The house owner figured he was still a couple years too young for most of the clientele, but pretty enough to keep while he growed up. Even if the real crazy bastards were not his big customers, they paid well when they came round.


The owner had noticed, though, that James' hole was pretty well battered, which brought his price down. The house owner didn't know if it was his real daddy or just one of his mama's boyfriends sold him, so when Gabe offered to buy him, he still had enough of my money to make the deal.


"I had a strong feeling you would want him," Gabe wrote, "and that you'd be good to him. He needs a lot of love. Merry Christmas."


So I had me a boy for no sex, and probably shell shocked from what been done to him when he was even littler -- so even if I did find a boy who liked a man's cock in one hole or the other, I probably couldn't bring him home. "Gabe," I thought, "I am paying for your Ivy League education, and you gone and ruined everything."


Then I looked over at James, all curled up in a little ball in my comfy chair, and I thought, "No, I guess you ain't."


(Right about now, I am guessing that there will be more to this story -- and if Tom doesn't ever have a good raunchy scene with James, he certainly will with somebody else. Thanks for bearing with me. I needed that episode. Get in touch with heedon@tormail.org)