Date: Mon, 2 Aug 2004 06:44:09 -0700
From: Timothy Stillman <comewinter@earthlink.net>
Subject: G/M Adult/Youth "The Quality of Mercy"

			  "The Quality of Mercy"

				    by

			     Timothy Stillman

Maybe it's autumn. Maybe he has followed you home. Maybe he has passed
you by and is in your home now. Maybe this time home means something. Is
no longer a four letter word. Is no longer a prison and does not have
pain mixed in with the mortar and bricks.

Maybe he is ten. Maybe he is pretty and pale and lanky and kind. Maybe
this time you won't be jerked around. Having a shadow of a boy branch
pulled in front of you and when you are desperate enough, and aren't you
always desperate enough?, have it pulled back quickly, torn from a grasp
that never was. Leading only to a gasp. Leading only to the lead part of
the world down deep. Where the iron magnets clamp you down tight again.

Maybe the wind smells of loam. Maybe the cooling edge of it has knives in
it, whispers of winter world. Whispers of no more seduction. Except the
seduction of walking into your bedroom and seeing him there, golden
child. Indian nobility. All the Arab dust shaken away. Sarcophagus open
and life restored. Chilly hills of paddocks. Clearances where the sheep
roam and a sky of belling and blue is above so close you can see the
clockwork mechanisms of eternity.

Still he might be. Naked. Small limbed. Tremble smile. Gentry and class
distinction forgotten. Pulled to insignificance. Maybe the house is warm
again. Maybe his little rose bud penis is hard and small and his balls
are like bluebird eggs in size, the kind you saw one summer day in the
branch of the elm tree in your yard, when you got brave enough to climb
it and dizzy enough to fall from it. As you saw the speckled miracle of
life before it began. And wished woozy on bent grass to have it always in
your eyes.

The before the beginning. When things had a chance to be right. Maybe
this boy on the bed, limbs spread, arms at his sides spoked out, fingers
so very fragile and tiny spread as well. His eyes seductive and warm and
knowing, as only a child's eyes can be. His lips little thin membranes.
The veins in his cheek and forehead and side just below his hip beating
blue. Little vague typewriter ribbons from a typewriter you had as a
child, on which you typed your dreams. And mixed up consonants. Made run
on sentences. Made no sense. Save to your heart.

Maybe he is stroking his groin. Maybe he is touching himself. His vague
nipples. His wisp of a body. That seems long of limb at the same time the
opposite. Maybe he is smiling the way you used to smile when the first
day of cool cleared the summer away. Maybe he is everything you ever
wanted. Maybe he is carnival at the end of summer. Maybe he is the boy
you followed, dick led, around Wal-Mart one summer night, hoping he would
see you. Turn and see you. And this time, not turn away. Turn away. You
both.

Maybe he is the season with its mercy. Maybe he is mid October with the
smoke of mist making him what he is. Maybe he beckons like a lighthouse
on a shore you never could quite make out, it was so far away, and yet
telescoped at the same time.

Maybe he puts the tip of his tongue to the center of his lips. Maybe he
undulates his hips. Maybe he is the dream come true. Maybe there is
nothing for you but to fall in love again. Only this time, the love is
wanted. The love is real. Maybe his golden hair is being touched by you
now. Maybe it is long and silky and his body feels of silk too. Maybe the
bones in him are little bird bones. Maybe he has had no one all his life,
just like you. Maybe somewhere some slumbering giant of the earth stove
through the tumbrels of sleep and conjured up a present, tied with a pink
ribbon, this gift, and said take, eat, love, commune, it's over, the bad
times are finally over.

And it's maybe not a trick or a joke or a come on and maybe it's not
scary and maybe it's warm and felicitous as it was when you were a boy
and fell in love the first time and did not know, except at some primal
level, that kept it all mercilessly secret, this was a wrong thing. Maybe
you look at that boy now on your bed and he is the first boy you ever
fell in love with and the second and the third. And the special one. In
the chambers of your soul that you never really got over. That you never
took down from the headlines no matter how faded and tattered. Because
you have to believe in something and thus chose to believe in him.

And maybe you are kneeling by the bed now. Maybe your arms are around him
around his waist and his chest, cameo, miniature of idylls that had fauns
in them once upon a time and the light from the table lamp is soft flow
gold. And the day is winding up and throwing down more and more darkness.
Mottled at your window. Molded by this perfect boy gamin on your bed, as
he turns to you, turns his whole body to you. And breathes dandelion fuzz
to your neck.

As he says, "don't be afraid; please don't be afraid. I'm not here for
any reason other than you." And his voice maybe is reedy and high, like
that of a little girl's, and you put your hand trembling maybe on his
penis that pulses in that hand. That believes in you as his hand delicate
and somewhat trembly puts his hand on yours and on himself. Maybe there
is morning in his smile. Maybe there is nothing more than the re-creation
of tomorrow. As though he is molded of soap. Fresh and invigorating. And
you remember the lime smell of the soap you used in childhood. And the
luxury of being naked in the bath. And playing with your erection the
very first time.

And maybe he tells you to take of your clothes. And maybe you are not you
anymore. But the someone you have been pretending behind the pretense to
be all along. And maybe there is nothing more than salvation here. Maybe
there are doors in this tiny bedroom with its hidden "Boy" magazines that
stare back at you and mock you and tinge the years with sadness like
sardine cans tied to your eyes, the terrible tinned claustrophobic
feeling of that.

And maybe he is on his knees now. A fluid boy. A boy of passing interest
to no one but you. A boy whose beauty has been seen never. Save by you.
And his little penis juts out. It is like a pink lollipop. It has a
foreskin. His eyes glitter as though something is somehow beautifully
wrong with them. As though he might not be able to see well. He blinks
often and he does not, it appear, focus normally. His shoulders are
brief. Eclipse of a sentence before it falls off a cliff.

His smile is one hard won. Bitter fought. As though he came through
tremendous somethings to get here. He is leaning to you. Turned to you
now. He is all bones. He is all boneless at the same time. He is every
dream you ever dreamed at the libraries of your youth...town and school.
He takes your shirt in his fingers that have pronounced whorls at the
tips and the back. He is a master progenitor. He smiles up at you. And
weaves magick in the place of your shirt as he helps you take it off. And
you are someone else. The person you once pretended to be. And were.

He looks up at you maybe with adoration. He puts his warm face maybe
against your naked chest. He puts his tiny arms around you and pulls you
close. His voice tells you soft quiet moist summer things. He is
diffidence. He is tentative. He is magick that is unsure of itself. And
you feel such compassion for him. You feel maybe such sympathy for him
that it seems like your heart will burst maybe. He is holding you tighter
than anyone has ever held you before. As you run your hands over his warm
flanks and touch the beginning of his cleavage in his hips.

He maybe pulls you "please sir" onto the bed with him. He is Hermes. He
is the mail from Euromag that finally arrives in your mailbox of a long
endless day of suggestion and tease and torment and turn away from and
walk away, leaving you akimbo and silently screaming in your head. He is
Denmark and he is Holland and the brick streets there (do they still have
brick streets there?). He is the boy pose. He is Kirsten and Dicky and he
is all the photos you have rammed into your head. To keep the sanity
inside. Stuffed there for them. For it and you and whatever powers you
that maybe drives you to the brink at the same time driving Euromag to
the bank.

He lies with you maybe. He is a boy with a silver heart. With a curve
inside his mind that takes him to the shadows of the stars and what waits
there for him and now what waits possibly there for you. He banishes with
his warm hands on your face tracing your gauntness, your sadness with his
fingers, bursting the pain and the loneliness with his gentle gifted
fingers. He banishes the Elder Gods and a skeleton man who did nothing
apparently but write monsters and drink hot bitter coffee all the days
through.

His is Tony and Tim, "heroes before the bath," giggling and playing and
bending over, with sun burst smiles and laughs, pretending to put penis
to ass and one boy falling to the bathroom floor of clinical white in
black and white photos, on his back, while the other, also naked, stands
over him and reaches down long and long arms and friendliness to the
laughing supine boy whose heavy feet are kicking in the air and whose
penis is frustratingly covered by his legs going straight up and then
crooking downward.

Maybe.

And he kisses you maybe. And it is the first time a boy has kissed you.
And there are rain storms in the kiss. And there are maybe trees to run
to and hide under and maybe the rain is silver as the dream in his mind,
and maybe all along that dream has been you. And maybe you are the tree
he is now naked, toes straddling, climbing. And maybe it is the first of
Autumn and maybe it will never be the second.

And maybe he giggles like Tony and Tim before they get in the tub of soap
and hot water and scrub each other down "priperly" as the misspelling for
other photos of other boys had it. And there is maybe boy for you and the
boy is the one you always saw on cold street corners before the light
changed to red and you could walk across. Never wanting to walk across.
Never wanting to go away. Maybe he is the midst of fairies in the autumn
Camelot mist. Maybe you do not have to ride away. Maybe he is now asking
you to stay.

And maybe he is forming a ladder of himself. As he asks you maybe to tell
him what you think of him. And maybe you trace him with your fingertip
from nose down to neck to chest with rest stops at each nipple and then
downward to belly button and then maybe halting and the giggle in both of
you. Maybe familiar. Maybe shared. Maybe today you do not want to die.
Maybe today you want to live. Maybe this is a good feeling.

And maybe he reaches his hands, they seem waterlogged, for some reason,
somewhat wrinkled, not with age, but with youth, and as if he has been
under the sea for a long time, and he is not sure how to survive yet on
land. And maybe he wishes you to tell him. And maybe in the telling, done
with touch, and not with words, maybe this is all that is needed, as
night presses against the glass of the bedroom windows and this time IT
is the face pressed at the candy store window. Always that. And not
yours. Maybe for a change.

And maybe he is winter cold house and maybe he is warm pajamas and lots
of thick covering for shivering under. And maybe his hand holds your
erection that is large to him. And maybe he plays with it. And maybe
there is nothing but a vector of love and sex merging. Maybe this time
you can say I love you and he wants you to. And he wants you maybe to
listen to him and put your ear to his chest and feel his rapid beating
thrumming heart. And the gurgle of his stomach. And the pulsing of his
penis. As he draws you and collects you. Like autumn leaves maybe before
the burning. When the respect is there. And the awesome church windows
collected from all those Catholic centuries past.

And maybe he lies on top of you and you feel such winter warmth in him.
And find all the contradictions hilarious and well kempt and beautifully
edged and glowing with the finery of a strawberry window at Saturday dusk
from childhood too busy too alone to be forgotten. And maybe he wiggles
on you and sits up on you, like Dickie in the photos, but Dickie was ill
looking, haggard, sad, lost and never to be found, while this boy, this
real boy before you and on top of you, rubbing his tiny balls on your
navel, this boy has the health of forgotten in him.

This boy maybe has the health of this is who I am and I am to be the best
of it, not someone else. Maybe won't you share the woods with me, for
there must be you, for there to be me. Little gift boxes of warmth and
making up for from maybe the both of you. Maybe this is the first time
you have ever laughed. Maybe this is the fear, the rejection receding.
Maybe it is so good to be naked with him. Maybe it is the world come down
soft and more than you as a convenience, or you as the butt of yet
another clever joke. Maybe this time you are needed as much as you need.
Maybe if possible even a little more so.

Maybe he feels you behind him. Maybe he feels your hard on and reaches
his hands behind and holds it and strokes it like maybe it means
something to him. Maybe he puts your hard on at the tip of his butt.
Maybe you wish there were other words than butt and cock and ass and the
other things, like, fuck, that will make the poetry of what is to happen
worthy. The words to the act. The body in its boy/man nobility. And no
words save whisper warm spoken, and he puts you gently, with a sigh maybe
at his lips, and a grin bigger than tomorrow Christmas promise, that this
time will be kept, as he puts you at him.

As you begin to feel the interior. As you begin to feel the all ness of
him as he slowly guides with your help, both of you helpless innocents
most willing to learn, as he slides onto you and holds a moment and grins
and closes his eyes and maybe gasps and maybe sighs and maybe there is no
pain for him and maybe his tightness his dryness his secret of all secret
places was made to fit you and maybe only you. And maybe then this little
thin candle of a penis is in your hands as you are engulfed in him.

And maybe you make love. The real kind. The kind that counts. And
matters. And maybe you hold him afterwards in your arms and maybe you are
trying to tie up the lose ends in yourself as best you can, for his going
away soon. There is always the going away. And cold street corners to see
him on, vague and ghostly, until the light turns red and you have to
cross the street and walk away.

And in the shadows, now the night of the room, maybe the two of you
sleep. He atop you. And maybe you hold when you sleep him and maybe there
is the soft silent stroking of your penis by his hand this beautiful half
awake boy and maybe the warmth of your cum cements your chest to his and
it's maybe so good not to be alone. Maybe for a little while. But maybe
there is evermore only a little while.

And you dream of fairies on your lawn in summer. Maybe you are Conan
Doyle and you believe such things the ancient camera showed and even if
it is proved to be a trick, such an obvious one of ghost exposure that
they could do back those centuries even, maybe you still believe the
little sprightly things out there, maybe you still hold together because
you have to believe in something you cannot see.

And maybe you awake in the early morning hours. And maybe you awake to
find yourself alone, or maybe you wake to find yourself with him still
there and on top of you, the gentle weight pressing you down, keeping you
on earth a little while longer. And maybe he is awake and smiling shyly
at you, like in a film you bought through a friend who hurt you so badly
and made you sure it was totally all your fault, thus killing memories.
Like maybe everybody you ever knew made sure to kill the good memories
before they left. Like maybe this dream boy will also do so.

And he puts maybe his mouth to your left nipple and he tingles
electricity to you. And maybe you hold him. And maybe this time he is not
going away. And maybe this time it will never be Autumn the second. And
maybe this time makes all the sad collages of all the other days of your
life not count, never have existed. The monsters turned to monsters and
thus gone and banished for good. And the light begins to bloom vaguely in
the windows. And the silver curve of the boy's mind becomes his little
blooming hard on verging at such a cute delicate angle, and this time he
maybe asks if he can take you in his mouth.

And maybe autumn is the most beautiful season. And maybe this time it is
for always, for keeps, and cross my heart. And yours too.

Please accept this story, as a gift, personal like, from me to you.
Maybe.


    The End


Timothy Stillman
comewinter@earthlink.net