Date: Tue, 22 Mar 2011 12:26:32 -0700 From: Zack McNaught Subject: Stationary Disclaimer: the following is an erotic and sexual story involving a man and a happily consenting twelve year old boy. If for any reason you shouldn't be reading this story, or don't want to, now is the time to leave. Note from the author: This isn't a story written to get you off. It's introspective and dark at times. It reflects feelings I've had, but overlain onto the story of a man and a boy. This didn't happen, but I think it plausibly could. I hope I'm never that weak. If you want to read more of my work, go to www.asstr.org/~zack/ If you want to email me, it's zackmcnaught@hotmail.com Cheers, Zack Stationary (M/b12, mast) It was one of those cold, crisp mornings where the only clouds in the sky are aircraft contrails, blown into silken filaments by the relentless force of the wind and lit up by a sun which did not yet grace this rural corner of England. Frost sat dully white on every surface, not yet glittering beautifully as it would do when the light improved. I stood on the icy platform, trying to stay still within my coat and scarf, desperately hoping to keep the cocoon of warm air trapped within the folds of my clothes. The constricting band of my collar distracted me for a moment, a chocking sensation I had not yet grown used to, but then the insistent cold of the morning caught at me again as a draught of artic air whistled down the platform. For the moment I was alone. This was the last stop on the line, or the first if like me you were heading into town, and it would be ten minutes or so before the first train of the day. The waiting room was still locked, and the only reason I had a ticket was because I'd paid for a season up front. I silently cursed the contract I had signed. Two years of this, two years of early mornings while I gained the right experience. Don't get me wrong, the benefits outweighed the disadvantages in the long term, but it was hard to see beyond the end of those two, long years, stretching away like the shining rails into the middle distance. Two years of purgatory, and then bliss. 'Everyone has to do the leg work at the beginning,' they'd told me with a self-satisfied smirk. 'There are no shortcuts here.' It hardly matters what the work was. Sometimes I struggle to remember. Slipping back out of my reverie, I became aware of another body on the platform. A little cloud of condensed breath drifted past, and I risked losing heat to turn and examine who else could possibly be as unfortunate as myself. I should have guessed that it would be a schoolboy. Only school is as relentlessly unpleasant an experience as your first few years in the job market. Poor kid had a blazer on for a school I didn't even recognise, and having spent several years trawling around the schools of the area as part of the cricket team I should have known whence he was headed. That explained what he was doing here at such an ungodly hour - traveling miles to a school, one that probably none of his old friends attended. He gave me a weak smile in reply to my mumbled greeting, a brief moment of shared pain, of solidarity in hardship. Then, through shyness or simply lack of interest he averted his eyes, looking down at his feet. He was about twelve or thirteen, I guessed, and rather cute. Not necessarily attractive in the traditional sense, but there was a roundness to his features that made him interesting. And his smile, what little of it I'd seen, was electric. Only one carriage came this far down the line, an aging, lumpy diesel which seemed to meander all over the track, despite being guided by the rails. It clattered towards us over the points, inviting only for its protection against the chill of the morning. It rumbled to a halt, the driver thankfully quick to open the doors and then close them again as soon as we were aboard. The boy stalked along the carriage and sat down at one of only two four seaters. I wasn't brave enough to take a seat at the other, across the aisle from him, and instead sat a few seats away. Even with his back to me, though, I could see his ears and cheeks flush red as the heat within the carriage touched his skin. I smiled to myself at having met him, then got down to some serious boy watching. Four stops up the line, when we had to change and our friendly little train bumbled off somewhere else, he took a different train. My path was London-wards. His? Who knows? He disappeared across the busy platforms and was soon out of sight. Not out of mind, though - I thought of him several times that day, and chided myself for the silly, fluffy feelings I had when I did so. --- We became a double act on that lonely platform each morning, I the suited businessman, he the rosy-cheeked schoolboy. Sometimes we were joined by another, though by a large majority our morning meetings were undisturbed. Our conversations graduated from casual nods to a quiet 'hullo', and finally to short conversations. All of it was at my instigation, and though I knew I should have left him well alone, I couldn't help myself. I wanted to know him better, even though I understood what it meant. I was grooming him. When you're adults, it's called building a relationship, perhaps even chatting someone up. But when he's only a lad it's 'grooming', with all the negative connotations of the word. I hated myself for breaking my not-in-real-life resolution, but resolve is something I clearly lack. Each morning as I stood in the shower washing the grime of another long day and another unfulfilling night's sleep from my body, I thought of him. I justified our conversations. They were just harmless chats first thing in the morning, camaraderie in adversity. There was nothing sinister in me chatting to him, why should there be? After all, wasn't I quite vocal about the ruination of society by overprotective parents, their fears fuelled by a lopsided, molester-obsessed media? Well yes, I was, but that's because I was potentially an offender, no matter how hard I tried to deny it. It suited me to rally against the hysteria, because I was the type of person they were writing headlines about. Oh no, I hadn't actually offended yet, but faced with temptation would I be able to resist? If there was even the smallest seed of doubt that I could do so, I was unsafe. And deep down there was a part of me which knew that if the scale of the temptation was sufficient I would probably give in. So, each morning, I would determine not to speak to him, or at least to gradually lessen our conversation until it was back at a safe level, the noiseless nod, the slightest recognition that another human being existed. And each morning I would break that promise to myself, because as soon as I saw him, as soon as the barest hint of that smile graced his lips, I was lost once more. I would chatter away to him and he would answer, bolder each morning, telling me a little more about himself. His name, Adam. A name I loved. Elsie, his annoying little sister. Cookie, an energetic collie dog with one blue, one brown eye - I'd love to see that, I'd told him; there had been no invitation. Mount Priory Secondary was the blazer I didn't recognise. Harrow Road, the street where he lived, two streets away from my own. My back window looked toward Harrow Road, but there were houses in between so there would be no chance I could see his house from mine. I didn't ask which number. I broke every rule in the book short of actually doing anything illegal. You know, the unwritten rules in the unwritten book, the ones everyone knows. --- I watched him for a moment as he headed off across the platform. I was stuck unable to move in a knot of passengers, and so I waited patiently. His shaggy mop of hair stayed visible right up until the moment when, with a furtive glance around apparently to check that no-one had seen, he ducked into the gents toilet just before the escalators to the upper levels. I pondered that glance, wondering if it was just my overactive imagination. Would I have followed him if I'd been free to do so? Perhaps. But my train was leaving, and I was being slowly herded in the other direction, a rudderless passenger in the masses flocking to the same train to the same destination. I daydreamed all day long about what would have happened had I followed him. The rational part of my mind knew that his motives would have been innocent, and that the glance around was nothing more than just that. He was simply going in to use the facilities. Why did I have to make anything more of it than that? There was nothing more to be made, and to do so was the most baseless flight of fancy. That didn't stop me ending up in a cramped stall in the office toilets with a wad of damp toilet tissue in my hand, shaking as I came down from my orgasmic high. With my desire temporarily sated, I was at least able to concentrate, even through my self-loathing. --- Here we were again. Here I was, standing on the platform, watching him heading in the same direction again, to that white-tile-walled, septic smelling place. He had gone there every morning since that first time I saw him. Who knows if he'd gone before and I hadn't noticed. I had watched him go, growing closer each time to the certainty that I would follow him. His activity was suspicious to me, and encouraging. I know what I went to public toilets for at that age. Oh, no, not THAT. But a glimpse or a glance or a plain old ogle at what emerged from the flies of my fellow users. I was a voyeur, taking advantage of the complacency of others. I didn't care who at first, though it didn't take long for me to express a preference for younger guys, my age or less if possible. My first experience with a boylover was in the toilets - he was a classic pervert, flashed his dick at me for his gratification. I ran away, but at home found myself strangely turned on by the memory. So perhaps that's what he was going there for. Perhaps. Even if it was, should I take advantage? Of course the answer should have been no. I wish I could tell you that it all stayed only in my mind, that I pulled back from taking action, that I behaved like the mature adult I should have instead of letting hormones control my actions. But I didn't. I acted. My heart thumped so hard in my chest that the rush of blood through my ears blocked out all other sound. I had the sensation of floating in water, the world full of air and sounds and light some way distant. I saw nothing except the back of his head, and I followed it like a beacon. He did not turn to see if he had been observed. Into the dim light of the facilities, a flickering strip light above our heads adding to the atmosphere. Me and the boy. There were three urinals, and he stood at the end one, head down. Didn't look up as I entered. I skirted the puddle of unidentified liquid on the floor and went to the first, the furthest from him. If I was wrong, this was my insurance policy. Coincidence would be my cloak, and I wouldn't take the risk again. A one-off, pure fluke. It might just have stood up to scrutiny. I had filled my bladder with morning coffee, another insurance policy. I had a reason to be there. My hands shook as I dug into my fly, and continued to do so as I sent my stream dancing across the bowl. My nerves, amplified by caffeine intake, threatened to set my whole body into spasm. I glanced across, taking the chance, being as circumspect as I could possibly be, and I could see it. The blunt, soft skin of his boyhood, emitting his own very healthy stream. My heart beat even faster, threatening to tear its way from my chest. Breathing was ragged now, coming in gasps, and I could feel myself doubling over slightly as excitement clenched my abdomen tight. I looked up at his face, and he was glancing my way, pupils in the corners of his eyes. I didn't think he recognised me, I really don't. He wasn't looking at my face anyway. Another city gent in a dark suit and polished shoes. His stream faltered and he made a show of squeezing out the last few drops, pinching forward soft rolls of foreskin and shaking free the clinging liquid. Without looking my way again he was gone, his boyhood replaced in the confines of his grey school trousers, the zip noisily returned to its proper position. I turned and bolted for a stall, ripping down my trousers as soon as the door was locked behind me, and uncaringly dumped my laptop bag on the unsanitary floor. With a soft splatter my emission tumbled into the water below as I leaned forward, a hand supporting my suddenly weak body on the tiled wall above the toilet. I shook all over, and wanted to vomit with excitement. I didn't trust my legs to work so I kept them locked straight and waited for my pulse to return to normal. Eventually I summoned the strength to sit, and fell heavily on the seat, sweat flooding down my face. By the time I could walk out of there I was horribly late for work. --- I wanted to hurt myself, to stick the damn pen into the flesh of my arm, sit there at my desk and watch the blood stain all the stupid bits of paper covered in their meaningless numbers. I'd done nothing wrong, but everything wrong. I made no move on him, but I went in there with my eyes open, and what I expected to happen did happen. I should have known better. Already that morning I had had to excuse myself to the toilet twice. A dodgy stomach. Stupid curry. Yes, I do look pale, don't I? Sympathy from the boss, who insisted that I take the rest of the day off. I refused, the gallant, committed worker. If only they knew. That night the scene replayed itself in my head time and time again. I slept only fitfully, and in the darkest hours of the night imagined the very worst consequences. What if he had quite innocently gone in there, and been followed by the creepy guy who chats to him on the train platform? What if he'd been so disturbed that he had gone straight to his teachers, or back home to his parents, and told them, and they'd told the Police? As seven a.m. approached and the time came to leave the house I grew ever more nervous of a dawn raid. My toast was left uneaten, my coffee brimmed to the top of the cup and untouched. I left early for the station and stood alone on the platform with an ever-building sense of dread in the pit of my stomach. The time he usually arrived came and went. The rock which sat in my stomach became a burning ball of fire. I'd lost the capability to rationalise, and could only imagine that it was my actions which had caused his absence. Five minutes past his normal arrival, and the train turned up, screeching to a halt on its aged brakes and letting out a hydraulic hiss as the doors struggled to open.. I boarded, hands visibly shaking now as the realisation of what I had apparently done to him hit home, and fell heavily into my seat, mind awash with speculation as to my impending arrest. Then, with the doors already closing, there came the thunder of feet on the platform and then the altered tone of the same on the floor of the carriage. He appeared, red cheeked, a huge grin on his face at not having missed the train. He fell into the seat across the table from my own, gave me a big grin and said, "Made it!" I can sense what you're thinking, dear reader, at this point. How did we go from the abusive, unidirectional position of our relationship only a few short paragraphs ago to this apparently easy friendship? You may rest assured that as I sat in that rumbling train carriage that morning, looking into the smile of the boy after whom I had lusted for so long, I too wondered the same thing. My head swam with possibilities, running through option after options, dismissing some, keeping others, trying to determine what the actual cause of this tectonic shift may have been. All in the fraction of a second it took me to draw breath and answer him. "Yeah, looked close. How come you were so late?" I asked, returning his smile, hoping he couldn't tell how forced it was. "Oh, Elsie in the bathroom. You know what girls are like." I nodded my head, but really I had no clue. I was the middle of three boys, and I'd never had a girlfriend, or shared a place with any females at university. My domestic arrangements to that point in my life had been all but exclusively male, my dear mother the only exception to the rule. "She doesn't usually make you late, though, right?" He shrugged. "Yeah, but usually I get up before she goes in there. I spent too long in bed this morning - " I'd love to have known what he had spent too long doing in bed that morning, but he cut himself off. My mind was merrily filling in the blanks for itself, though, and the colour rapidly filling his cheeks suggested that it might not be too wide of the mark. "Yeah, I can imagine," I said. Oh god, why did I say that? Classic pervert talk! Fucking hell, Zack, you idiot, stop being such a fucking cliché! But he just dissolved into a fit of giggles and then sat back smiling at me, mischief in his eyes, occasionally shaken by another silent attack of laughter. We sat chatting amiably like that all the way to the station where we would go our separate ways. I had already resolved in the strongest way possible to not follow him that morning, but when I glanced across the platform after his retreating back he strode straight past the entrance to the gents anyway. Perhaps we had both made a resolution. As we'd pulled into the station, he had brightly chimed up with a "See you tomorrow!". Yes, he absolutely would. --- It's not an exaggeration to suggest that day was a turning point in my whole life. A fork in the road, you may say, except that for me one of the forks had a 'Road Closed' sign across it. Nothing would have stopped me furthering my relationship with Adam, or at least seeing where it went. There would be no holding back, no beating myself up about it. I'd never received such strong signals from anyone before. All my paranoia was swept aside by that one journey, that glorious twenty minutes we shared. And, I realised, because he hadn't returned to the scene of our prior dalliance. I attached great importance to that fact. We met again the next morning, his excited chatter more effective than all the caffeine in all the cups of coffee in all the world. We sat together on the train, facing each other across the Formica-surfaced table, and still he directed the conversation. He was a different boy altogether, so much so that I casually mused that he had been kidnapped and replaced with some sort of android clone, a la David from the film A.I. The conversation flowed across me, smothering me with its intensity, wrapping me in its embrace and spitting me out on the platform at the far end of my journey. I smiled at the world, and skipped into work. Talk was rife among the giggling girls of admin. Oh, don't go getting all politically correct on me - all the admin staff were young females, and all giggled incessantly about this or that, and speculated about the love lives of their co-workers, and whom they were and weren't currently screwing. They had no idea about me, none at all. God, they thought I might someday find a girl and settle down. The thought that I might be gay didn't even cross their minds, let alone the possibility I might be a boylover. They wouldn't have understood the term had I told them straight to their faces. But talk there was, anyway. I was swanning around the office like a lovesick teenager, and of course the questions came. I avoided them as best as I could, and then thanked the Lord that my secondment to this particular department had only a few days left to run. No direct answers, it just wasn't safe. No denials, no lies, nothing that I would have to maintain under cross-examination. I evaded like the best of them. The questions eventually faded into the background as the serious work of the day was attended to, leaving me to contemplate my situation in peace. What was my situation? What did I actually have? A friendship with a boy on the train to work in the morning. A glimpse of his little man. Not a lot more than that, really, but there was a deep down feeling that something bigger was happening. What that 'something' was, was hard to say. Did I honestly think I was going to end up in some sort of relationship with Adam? Probably not. The realistic side of me knew that simply didn't happen. But did I think there might be a small chance of something happening between us? Something sexual? Yes, yes I did think there might be a chance. And I wanted to find out if it would happen. Damn the rules, damn all the rhetoric about boys being too young to know what was going on. If I did end up end bed with the boy, it would be because he wanted it as much as I did. Now all I had to do was find out if he did want it. --- "Are you going to watch the Spurs game tomorrow?" He and I were both Tottenham fans, and I knew for a fact that he didn't have Sky, so wouldn't be watching the Saturday afternoon game unless he could find somewhere to do so. "Nah, we don't have Sky, remember. You?" "Yup, I'll be watching. Paid for it already." "Damn, you're really lucky, you know. My dad will never pay for that." I left it hanging there for a few moments, waiting to see if he would ask, hoping that he might. Sure enough, a few minutes later he piped up. "Don't s'pose I could watch at yours, could I?" I shrugged. "Sure, as long as your parents are OK with it." "Oh, yeah. Yeah, that's not going to work, they'd probably think you were some sort of dodgy pedo or something!" I laughed along with him, wondering all the time if he really did understand what I felt for him. The subtlest glint in his eye when he talked to me suggested that perhaps he did. "But I could say I was going to David's house," he continued. I shrugged. "If you reckon you could get away with it." "Yeah, no problem. They won't know." --- I'd spent ages agonising over what snacks and drinks to buy. It was like some twisted first date or something. Actually, it was exactly that in my mind, I think. I was desperate to get it right, and bought far too much. In the end most of it stayed in the cupboard, but at least I knew there must be something he'd like in the selection. I tidied up the place, unused to having guests. In the year and a half since I'd bought the little three bed semi I'd rarely had a visitor. My parents simply assumed that I would always travel to see them, and both brothers were somewhat distant now, one living with his wife and kids in Sydney and the other based at RAF Kinloss, way up in Scotland. So I lived a little untidily, and spent the morning attempting to remedy that. I don't know why I believed Adam would care. He turned up at about half past two, half an hour before kick-off. We settled down on the sofa. Or rather, he settled. I fussed around offering him drinks and food and generally making a bit of a tit of myself until I had to disappear into the kitchen to give myself a bit of a slap before my behaviour got any further out of hand. It was the first date thing all over again. We were meant to be two lads who supported the same football team watching the game together, for fuck's sake. It wasn't as though we were sitting on the back row of a darkened cinema, waiting for the strategic move to put my arm around his shoulders. As with all matches against Man Utd, we didn't expect to win. Oh yeah, Harry had done wonders with the team since he'd taken over, a strong run in Europe and all that, but we didn't seriously expect to come away with a result. That we did should probably go down as one of the most important moments of my life, not just for the sake of the result, but for what happened when that final whistle went. It was a hell of a game. End-to-end throughout, with just enough of an edge to make it interesting, without degenerating into violence. A few yellow cards brandished, but no reds, no lasting damage done. They scored first, in the 11th minute, a stupid goal to give away, one which said a lot more about our defence than their forwards. At that point, with the tide of the game strongly against us, it seemed likely to be an afternoon to forget. Somehow, though, we held out against the onslaught which followed. They hit the bar twice and the post once, and yet the ball stayed out of the net for the next 35 minutes. I was just thinking we were getting back into the game, managing to make a bit of progress, when deep into first half injury time they mounted a blistering counterattack and with no time at all left on the clock made it two before the break. We were a dejected pair as the half time analysis droned on, and when it turned out that our star striker would not be returning for the second half the mood only worsened. But then the strangest thing happened - we started to boss the game. Suddenly Spurs were first to every ball, passing accurately, and raining in shots on the United goal. All the pressure had to tell, and in the 59th minute we pulled one back. This seemed to finally stir United, who regained a little of their earlier drive, but it wasn't enough to stop us levelling the game with 15 minutes to go. That last quarter of a hour was frantic, heart in the mouth stuff. They hit the post, then we rattled the crossbar. As the seconds ticked down it seemed that the draw was inevitable. Then, out of almost nothing, we scored. Our keeper had booted the ball clear after a dodgy back pass, and as it sailed over midfield our lanky centre forward leapt like salmon and nodded it down for our pacey little winger, who jinked first this way and then that, and lashed the ball into the roof of the net from a quite ludicrous angle. The Spurs fans in the away end of Old Trafford erupted, and we did likewise. Both Adam and I were on our feet instantly, jumping up and down. In the heat of the moment I lost all common sense. I knew what I was about to do, and I knew it was crazy and stupid and the most insane risk, but I grabbed him in a hug. A celebratory, 'isn't our team great!' kind of hug, but a hug nonetheless. And do you know what? He hugged me right back. We parted rather sheepishly, both blushing furiously at our over-excitement, but he grinned at me and I smiled back at him, and suddenly, somehow, I knew that it was OK for me to move to him, like so, and hold him, just like this, feeling the warmth of him, and tip his complicit head back, like this, and lower my mouth, and oh my God to kiss him. It was OK to do that. So I did it again. --- He was frightened. It freaked him out to think of what we had done, and more importantly that he had liked it, and that he had even wanted more. Those were the feelings he expressed as he lay with his head on my shoulder on the sofa which had so recently been the setting of our wonderful shared victory, and even more recently than that the scene of our first fumbling forays into a blossoming relationship of a type so thoroughly unlikely as to seem impossible. We had tumbled there, grinding together, lips locked in dirty, wet passion. God I loved the taste of him. My hands roamed his back, pulling up his t-shirt and feeling the softest skin beneath, and then ran down over his backside, pulling him closer to me. I didn't pause to wonder how this had happened, or whether it should continue. It was far too easy to simply let happen what was happening without recourse to introspection. Had he hesitated I might also have done so, but he did not. My passion was if not exceeded then at least matched by his own. Side by side we frantically humped into each other until I could resist no more and reached between us to unsnap the fly of his jeans. Once more he was utterly complicit, reaching down to push trousers and boxer shorts down past mid-thigh, down past calves, down past ankles and feet and onto the floor. His nimble hands worked on my own clothing, and as soon as it was started his work was done. Naked from the waist down, our passion reached new heights. Hands caressed while mouths entwined. His hot little fingers on my oversensitive shaft left trails of fire where they touched, arousing me as no other ever had. His boyhood, a miniature of my own in a way which would have been cute had it not been thoroughly exciting, was alive beneath my fingers, jerking and pulsing as I stroked it, and yet at the same time steel-like in its constant hardness. As we both reached our peaks, his a few tens of seconds before my own, sighs grew to gasps and groans so loud that I surprised myself. I had never felt such a sensation as that first time with Adam. We lay in our post-orgasmic bliss with our semen mingled and soaking into our t-shirts, his contribution far smaller than mine but by no means less worthy. I hugged him close to me, the protective, older partner, and he hung a crooked leg over mine, thigh nuzzling into the soft, sensitive parts at the centre of my being. He asked questions, all sorts of questions, and I answered them as best I could. Perhaps he believed me to know everything there was to know about being gay, though on several counts I had to disappoint him. I asked questions of him, too. He had apparently not even considered this course of action before today, not until the hug, and the sudden feelings it aroused in him. He was nervous, but he knew that he liked guys. He liked girls, too, and seemed comfortable with the idea of maybe being bisexual. He'd seen plenty on the internet about it, and it didn't frighten him too much. And I asked him about more personal stuff, the sort of things that get boylovers aroused - he'd been shooting for a month or so, it was still little drops but they fired a long way (I told him I wanted to see how far one day, to which he laughed and promised that I could). His dick was a little over four and a half inches long, and it had a scraggly little tuft of hair at its base; not bad for a boy still three months shy of his thirteenth birthday. "Didn't you think it was weird me kissing you like that?" "Oh yeah!" he replied, a little too enthusiastically for my liking. "I mean, I kind of thought you liked me 'cause of the way you always talked to me and stuff, and that was really creepy at first, but then I realised you're cool, and you're much younger than my parents, so that's OK. But I thought kissing might be gross. I let you 'cause it was so sudden and stuff. And I liked hugging you. But it wasn't gross, it was nice." "I'm glad you liked it!" I said, hugging him tighter to me. "And the wanking, that was really nice. It never feels like that when I do it. And your dick, that felt so big!" God, way to stroke a guy's ego, kid! It wasn't very big, actually, but I knew what he felt - it always felt like other guys' dicks were fatter than my own when I had them in my hand, for some unknown reason. "Yours is pretty nice, too," I replied, reaching down and grabbing it for emphasis. Now that it was mostly soft it was barely more than a couple of inches long, though it didn't stay that way for long when I began to fondle it. As the afternoon wore on and we talked more and more, it became apparent that this was the beginning of something a little more serious than a casual wank once in a while. I listened to his voice and sank into a lovesick stupor. --- Every rule I had imposed upon myself was broken. The feelings I had chosen to oppress came strongly to the fore, and took over my rational mind. I'd done something which I had promised myself I never would. I wondered if I should back out before we got too deep into things, but realised this simply wasn't an option. I was too weak to pass up the opportunity of having this relationship, and I knew it. I felt such overwhelming feelings of both love and lust for Adam that nothing could stop me, no amount of will power would suffice. I sat up at night thinking about what we were doing, wondering where it could possibly go. Each morning we would greet each other on the train platform, careful to keep our distance in front of the CCTV cameras, aware of the world watching us. He understood that it was clandestine, and was no keener for the world to know what was going on, even if for slightly different reasons. Unlike Adam, I didn't really care if anyone knew I was gay, but to be in a relationship with a boy his age was clearly something to be kept to myself. Adam, though, was not ready to deal with the consequences of being young and gay in a society which is still not fully accepting, and I couldn't blame him. It's all well and good saying you have to stand up for your rights, but it's not actually that easy in real life, and not everyone can deal with the issues it causes. Our moments together were fleeting, snatched. We met in public places, prearranged. I bought him a pre-paid phone and we communicated that way. I was so paranoid about the risks that I ran our relationship like a covert operation. Only some time later did I realise that this was 'classic' behaviour for an abusive relationship, at least according to psychologists and those who would have it that I was taking advantage of him. For us it was a survival tactic, our way of having a relationship within the bounds of a society which refused to accept it. Looking back it's easy to see how to an outsider might see me as the manipulator, but I keep coming back to my knowledge of Adam. He was so worldly wise despite his years, so aware of what was going on that I couldn't feel I'd abused him, despite all my misgivings about this type of relationship. We had passion in spades. Our whole relationship was fuelled by short, energetic sessions of kissing, fondling and fellatio, the latter surprisingly reciprocal. We found time where we could, and when we couldn't find it, we made it. We would meet in secluded spots around town, ignoring the cold just for a few moments of mutual gratification. My little house became a sex den, when he could get away for long enough. We would mate enthusiastically, rolling naked on the living room floor, or lying cramped together on the sofa. I can still see him, arms and legs akimbo, draped across the cushions of the sofa in post-orgasmic bliss, covered from groin to sternum in a copious spattering of my seed, idly fondling himself and smiling up at me as I stood to retrieve a cloth and wipe clean his body. I never broached the subject of the ultimate act of love with him, though no doubt he would have shown willingness. I never entertained the idea of getting caught, not seriously. I think if I had done so, I wouldn't have been able to continue. But the fact that I did continue despite the precautions we had to take is indicative of my belief that we would always get away with it. And we did, wholly. I've given you only his first name, and made up that of his sister and his dog. Ours is one of a multitude of anonymous little commuter towns in the London area. Nobody knew then, and no-one beyond the realms of cyberspace knows now. --- I was going to continue our story for a while, but what would I say? That eventually passion turned to boredom for him? That he appeared at my house less and less, and that I began to hear more often of girls he knew, or occasionally of boys? That he confirmed three months later something I suspected all along, that he never loved me, that his passion for me was born of lust alone? I may have felt differently enough to risk all for him, but to Adam it was a fleeting moment in his life, an experience gained but nothing more. And perhaps that's the way it should have been. He wasn't left emotionally scarred by our relationship. He felt a bit naughty, but nothing more than that. He didn't leave with a sense of disgust that he had shared the times with me that he had. He'd enjoyed himself for a while, had perhaps felt a bit of a crush on me, but nothing more serious than that. I'm glad he felt comfortable enough to enjoy himself, though somehow I doubt many boys his age would have handled it so well. He's 14 this week. I saw him at the station the other day, even though I changed jobs just so I didn't have to catch the early train and see him any more. It was a one-off, an early meeting which caused me to be there that day. There he was on the platform, as he always was, with a ready smile. He blushed when he saw me, introduced me to his friend, another boy from the same school who had moved into town recently. He acted as though nothing had ever happened between us, as though I was just another person he happened to know. I left him a few stops up the line with mixed feelings. I missed him terribly, and longed for that passion. But then I thought of his young friend, so innocent and unaware, and I was glad that since Adam I had held my resolve. Perhaps for ever this time.