Tattoo on My Heart

Wrote this back in 2012. Needed a bit of editing so the nice people here at Nifty said I could submit a newly edited version. I hope you'll enjoy it. It wasn't an easy story to write. I hope you'll consider contacting me at rwxxx13@yahoo.com if you enjoy it. It always makes my day to hear someone was affected by something I've written. Also, please consider donating a little something to Nifty for being kind enough to provide us a place like this.

I walked through the door, and smiled as the girl behind the counter looked up and grinned at me. “Hey, can I help you?” she inquired.

I leaned up against the counter and grinned back and replied, “Yeah, I have an appointment with Jennifer.”

Jennifer was about 5’8”. She had dark blue hair, a number of piercings, and was covered in tattoos. She walked up and stuck out her hand. “I’m Jennifer. You must be Josh.”

She led me to the back of the shop and showed me a chair. It looked like something from a doctor’s office. Or maybe a barber shop. I sat and she asked, “So, what are we getting today?”

I handed her a manila envelope. She opened it and extracted several photos. They were all shots of me when I was about thirteen years old. I said, “I want a full body portrait of myself at that age.” I held out my right arm. “On the inside of my forearm,” She looked at my proffered arm and the faint scar that ran up the middle of it. I explained further, “He should be nude.” I watched her eyebrow quirk up at that. “He’s also very sad. Devastated. Grief-stricken. He represents my lost innocence, which was rather cruelly ripped away at that age. I also want him to be winged. Typical, white feathered angel wings. I’ve come to think of him as sort of my guardian angel.”

I nodded. “Yeah. I like to think that maybe someday I’ll sorta be reunited with him. That I’ll maybe somehow regain some of that innocence.”

She nodded thoughtfully and pulled out a pad of paper. She started sketching quickly. After a couple of minutes she turned the pad and asked, “Am I on the right track?”

I looked and said, “Yeah, but no covering himself up. The fact that he’s sort of displaying himself without shame is what says ‘innocence’ to me.”

She shook her head with a small grin. “Can’t say I’ve ever drawn a naked kid before. Hope I don’t get arrested. So, I guess I need to ask… uh… circumcised? Not?”

I replied in the affirmative and she sketched a bit more. Finally she turned the pad again. “This is just a rough idea. I can flesh it out, but I’d rather just do it directly on your arm if that’s ok. I feel more comfortable with that. I will sketch your face though.”

“Perfect,” I told her. The little boy angel was posed in such a way, with his drooping wings, that it really seemed to convey that sense of sadness I wanted. She took some more time making copies of one of the pictures and doing some more sketching. Then she applied a transfer of the face and sketched in the rest of the body on my arm in ink. Finally, she readied her tools and started tattooing.

“So,” she asked after a minute, “what’s the story behind your tattoo?”

“Well,” I began, “you have to understand that I didn’t have the best childhood….”

I was feeling a bit excited as I exited Oak Hills Junior High and unlocked my bike from the rack. Today was the day. I, along with half the student body, had been waiting for weeks, but today was the day.

I cut across the school grounds to Fifth Street and headed west. There were a few other kids ahead of me, and some behind, but that was ok. I realized it was going to likely be pretty busy, and as I couldn’t actually buy anything I wasn’t in a huge rush.

Oak Hills, Iowa wasn’t a very big town. Actually, it was a really small town, located right on the Mississippi. So the news several weeks ago that we’d be getting our very own comic book shop had been huge among many of us kids.

I wasn’t the biggest comic book fan, although I did like them when I got a chance to see them. My best friend Robert got them from time to time. However, there were rumors that there would be some arcade games, collectibles, and all sorts of other neat things. Mostly, though, it was just the novelty. Imagine, a place catering primarily to kids in Oak Hills. Other than a couple of decades-old pinball games at Pizza Express there was hardly anything for a kid to do in town.

I hit Lake Street and turned right, heading north fast, but not too fast, my longish blond hair streaming out behind me. I wondered, as I often did, why it was called Lake Street when it was on a river and not a lake. Lake Street was the small town’s main thorough-fare. Less than a half mile later I saw my destination on the right. The glowing sign, which for weeks had read ‘Coming Soon’ now announced, ‘Grand Opening’.

I could already see over a dozen bikes and nearly as many cars parked out front. The high school lets out forty minutes earlier than the junior high, so the older kids had a head start on us. I pulled up in front of the place, but didn’t immediately dismount. I was always a bit wary around other kids, especially older, bigger kids.

I was pretty small for my age anyway, and my looks tended to get me a bit of trouble, although I was never quite sure why. Something about the way I looked just tended to make some kids mad. It was a mystery to me, and I often found myself staring into my bathroom mirror, trying to figure it out. I was pretty sure I wasn’t ugly. In fact, I thought I was pretty nice looking. My features were a bit elfin. I had blue eyes which seemed a bit large to me. My lips I felt were a bit too big as well. My hair was usually shaggy and too long. I didn’t get haircuts very often, so my hair was usually either very short, or too long. Sometimes I imagined I looked a bit like a girl, and I wondered if that was what bothered some people. Once I had a girl tell me that she’d kill for my eyelashes, but I couldn’t figure out what it was about them that she’d liked.

Standing outside the store still astride my bike I watched the crowd through the large windows. There must have been thirty-five or forty kids in there milling around. After about five minutes I heard a shout to my right and turned to see my friend Robert pull up on his bike. He skidded to a halt, showing off with a grin.

“Hey, Josh!” he said as he maneuvered over to my side. “It’s finally open, huh?”

Robert wasn’t the brightest kid, although he wasn’t the dumbest either. Still, he did have sort of a flair for the obvious. We’d been friends since we were six. Lately I’d begun to sort of wonder why. We didn’t have a whole lot in common. I suppose it was just habit by that point. Besides, he was one of the few kids who didn’t seem to instantly dislike me for no discernible reason.

We parked our bikes and ventured into the store. I was struck first by the smell. It had the scent of newly painted walls and Pine-Sol. There were wire racks on most of the walls, filled with various comic books. There were also a couple of wooden bins in the middle with the same. Graphic posters covered most of the wall space. To the right were three arcade games. I recognized Mortal Combat. To the left of the games was a display of action figures and other toys. There was music playing in the background, barely heard over the excited pitch of young voices: some sort of classic rock I didn’t recognize. I only saw two girls in the place.

On the left side of the store was the counter, fronted by a glass display case with several rare comics and equally rare action figures inside. Behind the counter was what I took to be the owner of the store. I hadn’t seen him before. He was a big guy. Over six feet tall and built like a football player. His head was bald. Probably shaved. He had a light brown goatee and a smile as he waited on a line of kids, chatting and laughing with each one. I was really sort of struck by his smile. He could have looked tough, he had an earring and at least a couple of tattoos, but that smile told you he was a really nice guy. Even from where I was I could see he had kind, blue eyes.

Robert dragged me through the store, looking at this and that. He picked up several comics along the way. His parents weren’t rich or anything, but he got an allowance. He knew I didn’t and, like the good friend he was, he offered to buy me something if I liked, but I politely declined. I didn’t like feeling I owed anyone, even though I knew Robert would never ask to be repaid.

We spent about thirty minutes in the store. At one point I allowed Robert to talk me into playing Mortal Combat with him. I figured that was ok because he got as much enjoyment out of it as I did. Finally we went up to the counter where Robert paid for his comics.

I was looking at the items in the display case when I was startled by a deep voice very nearby. “Nothing for you today, kiddo?”

I looked up to see the store owner leaning over the counter, his face maybe a foot from mine. He had that same smile on his face, the same kind look in his blue eyes. For some reason, I felt myself blushing. “I… uh… I don’t have any m-money,” I stammered.

“Hey, that’s ok, kiddo,” he replied. “Money or no, you’re always welcome in here. I hope to see you around.”

The man grinned and handed a bag of comics to Robert. “Ok guys, take care now,” he said, before turning to the next kid in line.

I followed Robert to the door. He was already talking excitedly about our visit, as if I hadn’t been there with him the whole time. As we opened the door I glanced back and was surprised to see the owner was looking at me. He smiled and I found myself lifting my hand, offering a small wave. He smiled bigger and waved as well. Then I was out the door.

It was after eight by the time I got home. I’d gone to Robert’s house after we left the comic store. We sat in his room and read comics and then his mom invited me to dinner. Robert’s mom invited me to dinner a lot. I’d long ago stopped trying to beg off. She knew a bit of what my home life was like. I was secretly grateful, although I was too embarrassed to say so. She wasn’t the greatest cook in the world, but she was better than what I’d come up with on my own. My own mother never cooked.

I tried to be quiet as I entered. I kicked off my shoes at the door. Not to lessen the noise, but because I didn’t like to track dirt inside. I was making for the stairs to head up to my room when I heard my mom’s voice. “Josh, is that you?”

Who else would it be, I thought, a bit bitterly. “Yeah, Mom,” I called out, one foot on the first riser, hoping that would be an end to it.

“Get in here,” she called. I sighed and trudged into the family room. She was sitting on the sofa in a worn housedress, as per usual. She had a large, chipped ceramic mug on the coffee table half full of vodka. An equally chipped and dirty ashtray was overflowing with cigarette butts. I wrinkled my nose at the smell. Actually, the host of smells. Each more unpleasant than the last.

My mom was thirty-one, but she looked to be at least in her mid to late forties. Her face was slack with drunkenness. There were dark circles under her watery eyes. She smelled of stale cigarettes and cheap booze. She had her eyes on the tv, some reality show. “Empty the ashtray,” she instructed woodenly.

Wanting to get away as quickly as I could, I grabbed the ashtray and carried it into the kitchen, checked that there were no burning embers, then emptied it. I then took a couple of minutes to clean up some dishes that hadn’t been there this morning. At least she’d eaten something.

“I need that ashtray,” she called. She didn’t say it angrily. My mom wasn’t a mean drunk. She wasn’t mean when sober either, although those times were few and far between. She was mostly just indifferent. She didn’t ask about my day, or school, or where I’d been. She didn’t care when I came in, or even if I came in, I’d imagine. She’d pretty much been like this since my father died when I was five. I vaguely remembered some happy-ish memories, but those grew fainter over the years. Now I just avoided her as much as I could.

Placing the ashtray on the scarred coffee table I hurried up the stairs to my room. My haven. I had a sign on the outside that read, ‘Keep Out. Josh’s Private Property’. Not that it was really necessary. My mom couldn’t work up enough interest to care what might be behind that door. Still, I locked it behind me, out of habit.

I didn’t like my house. It wasn’t really messy, as I kept it clean. I vacuumed and dusted once a week. I took the trash out regularly. I kept the kitchen swept and mopped and the counters clean. I even cleaned my own toilet and scrubbed my shower once a month. Still, the place was dingy and smelled, from the cigarettes and booze, which often ended up on the sofa and carpet in the family room.

My room was different. My room was bright and airy. I had a corner room, so I had two windows, one facing the backyard, and one on the side. I kept them open as often as the weather allowed. I’d nailed in weather stripping around the doorframe to help keep out the smoke smell that managed to make it upstairs. Luckily mom only smoked downstairs. She’d used to smoke in her room, but she’d stopped sleeping in her room several years ago. She rarely seemed to leave the couch anymore.

When the Iowa weather grew too cold to keep the windows open I used air fresheners to keep my room smelling sweet. I’d painted the walls myself just a couple of years ago. Bright white. My bedroom and bathroom were the cleanest in the house. I cleaned the bathroom my mom used downstairs, but not as thoroughly as I did my own.

I didn’t have much on my walls. I preferred the clean brightness of that white paint. I had a large periodic chart on one wall. Not that I was that into science or anything, but last year my science teacher Mr. Spencer had given it to me when the school provided him a new one. I thought it looked cool. Very… ordered. I had a small desk to the right of my door as you walked in at which I often did my homework. My bed was to the left, between the two windows. It was neatly made, as always.

Under the side yard facing window, to the right of the other, were the bookshelves I’d made with scrounged cinderblocks and wood slats that I’d spray-painted white. They were filled with paperbacks. Most had come from garage sales around town. My mom got a couple of checks every month out of which she would always give me a little bit of money to buy essentials. Food was purchased with food stamps. She had her booze delivered. Whenever I managed to save up a couple of dollars I’d ride through town on the weekends visiting garage sales, looking for new books. I did have a small tv as well, but we only got basic cable and I didn’t find much on that interested me.

Sitting on the end of my bed I pulled off my socks. I balled up each one and tossed them towards my clothes hamper in the corner. I swished one but the other hit the wall and bounced away. I got up with a sigh and grabbed it, then dropped it inside. Then I pulled off my shirt and dropped it in as well. I stepped up to my desk and emptied my pockets. I just had my house key and my little book of lunch vouchers for school. Then I stripped off my jeans. They joined the rest of my clothes in the hamper. My white briefs were next.

Naked, I left my room and took a left, heading to the bathroom. I looked to see that I had a fresh-ish towel hanging on the shower rod. I remembered removing it from the linen closet just yesterday, so it wasn’t too dirty to use again. I shut and locked the door behind me. It wasn’t out of any sense of modesty. I commonly walked naked between my bedroom and the bathroom. I doubt my mom had even been up the stairs in maybe three years. Again, my locking the door was just habit.

I turned on and adjusted the water in the tub. Once it was about two inches deep, I climbed in and lay down on my back, my head opposite the drain. Then I waited. Over the last few months I’d grown to love the sensation of lying still in the tub as the water slowly rose around me. Each millimeter it rose was like a tingling massage against my skin. I could feel my penis rise in anticipation. I watched it as it slowly filled with blood, growing fatter and longer, finally lifting up off my belly altogether to hover, bouncing slightly, pointing at me.

It wasn’t very big, although I hadn’t begun to think or care about the size of it until recently, since we now had to shower in school, where I was often teased. I wasn’t the shortest boy in my gym class, but I nearly was, and I was one of only three boys who didn’t have any pubic hair yet. Both of those other boys were taller than me. Teased about the size of my dick, I’d begun measuring it, checking those measurements against any and all books I could find at the library or on rare trips to the Lakeview Mall’s bookstore with Robert’s family. It was currently about three and a half inches long and close to three-quarters of an inch thick. Unfortunately, I had yet to find any definitive word on whether or not that was normal for a boy my age. All the books said was that about five to six inches was average for an adult and they said nothing at all about thickness. It was a frustrating bit of research. Looking around at the other boys in my gym class didn’t help much. While I certainly seemed to be smaller than many, I didn’t seem to be the smallest, but it was so hard to tell considering that everybody’s dicks seemed to vary in how wrinkled up they were. Some, like mine, seemed to hang almost their full length, about three inches for me, while others, which were much hairier and much fatter than mine, stuck out only a couple of inches. Unless I could see all my classmates with hard-ons I doubted it was a mystery I was going to solve.

I shivered as the water reached high enough to spill into the hollow of my chest. I could feel it lapping against my balls as well. Over the next several minutes I luxuriated as the water eventually rose to cover every inch of me, last, and most deliciously, the sensitive, bobbing head of my dick. Then, the ritual over, I turned off the tap with my right foot, sat up and reached for the shampoo.

After lathering up my hair, I grabbed the soap. I started with my armpits, then my arms, followed by my chest. I slid the bar of Irish Spring over my stomach, careful to dip a soapy finger into my bellybutton. After that I lifted each leg clear of the water, rubbing them with the soap, sliding my fingers between each toe.

Finally, I lay back again. After rinsing my hair, I arched my back, then lifted my hips out of the water and got a good lather going in both hands. I dropped the soap then and began to wash my crotch, my slippery hands sliding all around before finally gripping my hardened penis in my left hand and washing it with my right. I was careful not to get any soap into the pee hole, having learned that stinging lesson before. I washed the smoothly wrinkled sac holding my olive-sized balls. Then, my back beginning to quiver with the strain, I reached my right hand between my legs and began to wash my butt, even going so far as to slide a soapy finger inside, which always made me shiver.

In fact, washing my butt hole was a relatively new experience. The inside of it at least. Several weeks ago I’d been lying in the tub after washing myself. I’d been experimenting with new things to do in the shower. Ok, new ways to masturbate, which was itself a relatively new experience, something I’d only discovered about four months previous. On a whim, I removed the shower head, leaving just a single thick stream of water to splash against my dick as I lay in the tub. It wasn’t particularly great. It felt ok against my dick, but if I moved the wrong way the stream would hit my balls, which caused a wince. Too much like being hit in the nuts. I was about to give up on the experiment when I moved the other way. That stream of water hit the area between my balls and my butt hole and it felt good. I then lifted my legs up and put my feet on the rim of the tub. In this position that stream of water hit right against that sensitive pucker down there. The sensation was glorious and grabbing on to my dick had caused an almost instant and very intense orgasm. Since then I’d found that a finger felt very nice as well.

This time I fingered my ass for a couple of minutes, before finally flipping over in the tub, half floating. My crotch was still soapy. Reaching both hands beneath me I formed a nice tunnel two fists long, not that I really needed the second one, and began to thrust while water sloshed and threatened to go over the side. It only took a few seconds before that exquisite feeling started below my balls, that throbbing which quickly exploded outwards through my dick, making me gasp while my whole body shuddered.

I usually didn’t think about much when I was masturbating. I’d read that fantasies were common, but I didn’t usually have them. Oh, sometimes I’d have a thought about some vague, shadowy figure touching me, but that was about it. I didn’t think about girls much, certainly not to the degree my classmates seemed to. I did sort of like looking at some of the boys in the shower at school, but I think that was mostly so I could compare myself to them. I’d tried one night to fantasize intentionally. I decided to think about Robert, since he was my best friend, but I just felt silly, thinking about how embarrassed I’d actually be if Robert said he wanted to touch my penis.

After a few moments I rolled onto my back and just lay there, my dick throbbing, my chest and belly heaving. My ears were underwater so I could hear nothing but the beat of my heart, which eventually slowed along with my breathing. Eventually I stood and unplugged the drain. Then I turned the water back on, and clicked on the shower. I grabbed the conditioner and put it in my hair while I rinsed my body. Clean then, I rinsed out my hair and then shut the water off. Using my hands like a squeegee I sloughed the water off my smooth body, then opened up the curtain and reached for my towel.

After drying off and hanging the towel to dry I made my way back to my bedroom. I took my brush from my desk and stepped in front of the full length mirror inside my closet door. I watched myself as I found the part in my hair and carefully brushed it to the side. Satisfied, I stopped and just stared at myself, as I did a lot these days. I liked the way I looked. I was small for my age, only 4’8”, and 83 pounds last I’d checked. I wasn’t muscular, but I wasn’t overly thin either. My belly was flat, and while I didn’t have a six pack by any means, I didn’t have any baby fat there either. My chest wasn’t too thin. My dime sized nipples were a pinkish brown. At rest my penis was about three inches long, laying over my little ballsac, which had grown a bit darker in recent months, and now hung lower. In fact, my left ball hung a little lower than the right, a fact which had worried me until I read that it was pretty normal.

Turning, I stared over my shoulder at my butt. I wasn’t sure how to judge a butt. It was just… a butt. I’d been told on a couple of occasions, both times by grown up women, that I had a bubble butt. I wasn’t sure what that meant. It didn’t look particularly bubble like to me. My legs were smooth and hairless like the rest of me, except down around my ankles, where I’d just recently noticed some small hairs growing in a ring. I kept waiting for some blatant sign of impending puberty, but so far I’d been disappointed.

Shrugging, I sat down at my desk to do my homework and wait for my hair to dry. I rarely bothered getting dressed anymore after my nightly shower unless my mom called for me to come down and do something for her. For about the last year I’d taken to sleeping nude, so it seemed silly to wear something between bath and bedtime. Of course, this meant that my dick tended to be stiff a lot more often than it probably would have otherwise. I would often find myself playing with it as I read or watched tv, and I would usually masturbate one more time before going to bed. Sometimes twice. My orgasms didn’t yet produce any sperm, yet another sign of puberty I was awaiting.

Later I lay in bed, drifting off to sleep. I found my thoughts drifting to my trip to the comic book store. Eventually I realized I was thinking about the owner, about the way he’d smiled at me, and more importantly somehow the fact that he was watching me when I’d turned around as I was leaving. Why had he been watching me? It seemed important somehow. He’d been waiting on another kid, but he’d taken the time to watch me leave. I eventually fell asleep without solving the mystery.

The next couple of weeks went by uneventfully. My life was pretty routine. School, clean the house, avoid my mom as best I could. I usually had dinner with Robert’s family, but not always. I started to feel a bit guilty if I was over there too often, so at least two or three nights a week I’d stay at home and make a frozen pizza or something else easy. I usually shared these meals with my mom, worried that she wouldn’t eat on her own otherwise. Which isn’t to say that I ate with my mom. I’d just give her a share and then retreat to my room with mine. Sometimes she’d eat what I gave her. Sometimes she wouldn’t. I’d learned to stop worrying about it. I could only do so much.

I didn’t go to the comic book store again. I wasn’t avoiding it exactly, but as I didn’t have money to spend, it seemed silly to torture myself. Still, I found myself thinking about it more and more. Or at least the owner. I still wasn’t sure why.

Finally, I woke up on a Saturday towards the end of April feeling restless. I had about four dollars saved up and I thought about doing my rounds of the local garage sales. As I dressed, I realized that I wasn’t in the mood for garage sales. I decided I’d go check out the comic book store instead.

I only lived about three blocks south of the Junior High, which meant I only had about a five minute bike ride to the comic shop. I pulled up only to see that it was closed. I realized I shouldn’t be surprised. I was used to getting up early even on the weekends because you wanted to show up early at garage sales before all the good stuff was gone.

Rolling my bike closer I checked the sign on the door. The shop wasn’t open till nine on Saturdays. I didn’t have a watch, but I figured it was probably not even eight yet. Sighing, I turned my bike around and was about to head off when a big, black truck pulled into the lot in front of me. The truck parked right next to me and before I could decide whether to take off or stay, the driver’s side door opened and out stepped the man I presumed to be the owner.

He was wearing jeans and a tight black t-shirt. On his feet were what looked like work boots. He saw me and gave me a grin. Then he tilted his head to the side and his smile grew wider. “Heeeeeeyyy, kiddo. Long time, no see. Haircut, huh? I almost didn’t recognize you.”

I just stared at him, my mouth hanging open stupidly. I’d only seen him once, over two weeks before, and he recognized me? Not only that, recognized that I’d had a haircut just the day before. “It’s pretty short,” I said, although I couldn’t have said why I was suddenly channeling Robert. Why was I so nervous all of a sudden?

Incredibly, the man reached out and rubbed his hand over the top of my head. Not just rubbed like you’d rub a dog’s head or something, but his hand rubbed firmly, yet gently over the top of my head, down the back, and ended up on the left side of my head, cupping it almost. “Looks good,” he said.

I found myself wanting to press my face into that hand and just blinked slowly as he removed it and gave me a squeeze on my shoulder. “Come on in,” he said, walking past me. “You’re early, but I make exceptions for my special customers.”

Special costumers? I wondered, turning to follow him. He unlocked the door and ushered me in to the dim store. I heard the door shut behind me and his footsteps as he walked over to the right. There were a series of clicks as he tripped the breakers, and lights began blinking on overhead. I just stood there watching as he went behind the counter and began doing things, moving papers and opening boxes and other things.

After maybe a full five minutes had passed in silence, he looked over at me and grinned. “You don’t talk much, kiddo. What’s your name?”

“Well, Josh, I’m Michael. You can call me Mike if ya like. My friends all call me Mike.”

Mike smiled. “Polite, too. So what brings you to me this a.m., Josh? And why did you wait so long to come back?”

“And you do today?” he asked. “If you don’t, that’s ok, too. You’re always welcome, as I think I told you when we met.”

“Well, don’t feel compelled to spend it if you don’t want to,” he said. “No pressure. You’re welcome to just hang out if you want. Do you like comic books?”

I nodded. “They’re pretty cool, I guess. I don’t have any of my own though.”

“The Dark Knight,” Mike announced in a dire tone, making me grin just a bit. He grinned as well. “You’ve got a nice smile,” he said. “You should do it more often.”

I found myself blushing for some reason. I saw him give me a gentle smile, but he didn’t say anything.

“Great. Just head out to my truck, would you? There are three boxes in there I need. You shouldn’t have any trouble with 'em; you look like a pretty strong guy. They’re in the backseat. It’s unlocked.”

I went outside to his truck. Opening the half door behind the driver’s door I saw the three boxes. They were only about 1 foot square. I leaned in to grab the first one. The inside of Mike’s truck smelled like leather and what must have been his cologne. It smelled really good. I found myself just standing there, inhaling it. Finally, I realized what I was doing, and with another blush I grabbed the first box and carried it back to the store. Mike was there to swung the door open for me.

I did so, and then went out for the next. We repeated the process. Finally, I grabbed the third box and swung his truck door shut with my hip, and then my butt, leaning back against it till it clicked. Mike was there again to hold the door and he followed me as I headed to the counter. As I was sitting it next to the others I felt a hand brush twice against my ass. I jumped, surprised.

“Sorry,” Mike said, holding his hands up as if to show he was unarmed. “You got some dirt on you when shut the door on my truck.”

“Oh,” I said nervously. Unable to think of anything else to say, I said, “Sorry.”

Mike grinned. “Hey, my fault again. I shouldn’t go around grabbing young boy’s asses. Bound to get me in trouble.”

“There’s that smile,” he said. I grinned wider. I couldn't help it. There was just something about this big man that made me feel so at ease.

We spent the next hour talking while I helped him around the shop. The boxes I’d grabbed had contained comics and he told me where to put them around the store. He told me that he’d just moved here from Arizona. He wasn’t married, and he didn’t have any kids. I told him a little bit about myself. I didn’t talk much about my mom, and he didn’t ask, but I got the feeling he knew or guessed more about her than I shared with him.

Over the next couple of weeks I was at the shop every day. Sometimes I only stopped in for twenty minutes or so. Sometimes I spent three or four hours there. I began to do errands for Mike, like go pick up lunch or dinner for him from a local restaurant. In return he’d give me money for the games, or the comic of my choice. I felt a bit guilty at first, but he assured me I was helping and that my help was worth something.

I was really thinking about Mike a lot, too. He was just so nice, and so much fun to hang around. He was really funny. You’d think a guy who looked like he did would be more… serious, I guess, but he could be really goofy. Like, busting out bad dance moves goofy. But it wasn’t just that. I began to feel… well, safe I guess. Even when other kids were around I was just really relaxed when I was with him. It was sort of a new feeling for me.

I found myself thinking of him at other times as well. More embarrassing times. Like at night, or in the bathtub. Sometimes I’d find myself holding my stiff dick in my hand and realize that I’d been thinking of Mike. Just sort of innocent thoughts at first, I guess. Like his smile or the way he smelled. But after awhile, I found myself wondering what he’d look like without a shirt on, or even pants. I was finally fantasizing.

When I was with him I found myself paying closer attention to how he looked. Like I said, he was a big guy. Like a football player. He was six foot three I’d learned, and about two hundred and twenty pounds. None of that was fat though. He often wore tight t-shirts and you could see he wasn’t fat at all. He did shave his head, he told me. One day he let me rub it. It was so smooth. Like a bowling ball. After that I touched it a lot. I loved to rub my hands over it for some reason, and he was always happy to let me, even later in the day when it would grow a bit stubbly.

One day, a couple weeks after I’d met him that Saturday morning, I hugged him. It just sort of happened. I’d been at the shop for a couple hours. We’d mostly been alone and having a good time talking. I figured it was time to go and before I even really knew what I was doing, I just hugged him. I could tell he was sorta surprised at first, so was I!, but then he just relaxed and hugged me back. Finally he tousled my hair and said, “See ya around, kiddo.” He always called me ‘kiddo’. I thought at first it might be something he said to all kids, but I never heard him say that to anyone else. It made me feel special.

After that, I hugged Mike whenever I saw him, both hello and goodbye. Then, well, just whenever I felt like it. I liked being in his arms. I liked the way they felt around me. He was really strong, but I never worried he’d hurt me or anything. Even when he play choked me, like he did sometimes, like he was Homer and I was Bart. I just liked being touched by him in general. He would often rub my neck and shoulders. I tended to wear shirts that had the collars way stretched out, so much that often one of my shoulders would be exposed. It was just a thing I did that year. I don’t really know why.

Sometimes we played this game I made up. Well, it wasn’t really a game, just a thing we did. I don’t remember how it got started. Anyway, the way it worked was, I would sometimes go up to him and press myself against the front of him. I would try to push him so he’d back up, but only using my body. So I’d press into him, and he’d press back. Like tug-of-war, but in reverse. One day, we were doing that when I realized all of a sudden that I had a serious boner. I didn’t even realize it until that second. It was pressing hard into Mike’s thigh, and I jumped back, really worried he’d noticed and would think I was some sort of pervert or something. Luckily he didn’t seem to have noticed. I told myself after that I wouldn’t play that game again, but the next day I did again before I even thought about it, and I got a boner again just like the first time. I kept telling myself that I wasn’t going to do it again, but I didn’t stop. I also told myself that Mike didn’t realize I was getting a boner and pressing it against his leg, but I think he did know and pretended not to. I also thought once that he started to get a boner too, but he stopped the game that time because a customer came into the shop.

In this way, April turned to May. At the end of May, school let out. I was really happy, knowing I’d be able to spend more time with Mike. Even better, Mike told me that he was hiring some help for the summer so he’d have more time to spend with me. I was surprised by how happy I was actually. It was a pretty new feeling for me. Being around my mom didn’t bother me as much. Even school had become easier. And not just the part about being around other kids. My grades actually got better. I was never a really bad student, but I wasn’t a great one either. In sixth grade I’d finished with a C average, and I’d been heading for that again. Mike had heard about that and encouraged me to study harder, saying I was too smart for C’s. I ended seventh grade with a B+ average.

By then I had finally accepted that I had a bit of a crush on Mike. I was really worried about what that meant. I’d been called a fag and queer and a homo in school for years, but I never really thought much about it. Was I really gay? What did that even mean? I mean, I knew technically, but it was all pretty confusing. One thing was sure; I was spending more and more time thinking about Mike. I no longer felt embarrassed thinking about him when I jacked off. I would imagine we were lying in bed together, naked, his strong body holding me. I wasn’t really clear on the details of what we’d do together, but I knew he’d touch my dick, and I’d touch his. I often wondered what it would look like. How big it would be. What it would feel like in my hand. I often found myself staring at Mike’s crotch when I was around him, and I’d concluded that it must be pretty big. The thought both frightened and excited me.

The week after school let out I begged Mike to come to the river with me and Robert. Of course Mike knew who Robert was by then. I’d introduced them, worried a little bit, I admit, that Mike would like Robert as much, or more, than me, but I soon realized he didn’t. Mike agreed to take us to the river.

Not that it was much of a drive or anything. The river ran right along the west edge of town. The public beach was less than a mile north of Mike’s shop. That morning Mike met me and Robert out in front of his store. We climbed into the back of his pickup while he loaded up our bikes and we headed up the street.

Arriving at the beach, we found it already pretty crowded. There were maybe thirty people there. Mostly mothers with younger kids, but a few older kids and a couple of guys Robert and I knew from school. The three of us walked across the beach. We stopped about twenty feet from shore and Robert and I both stripped off our shirts and kicked off our shoes. We were each wearing swim trunks. Robert’s were longer than mine, in the newer style. Mine were fairly short. I turned to look at Mike. He was wearing sweat pants cut to the knee and another of his tight black t-shirts.

As I watched, almost breathlessly, Mike tugged off his shirt. It was the first time I’d ever seen him without a shirt on. I first noticed how hairy he was. His chest and belly were covered in light brown hairs that glinted golden in the sunlight. He’d told me that if he let his hair grow out he would be blond like me. His stomach was flat, and his chest was wide. On his left arm was a large dragon tattoo. I’d seen it before, as the tail peeked below his sleeves and I’d asked to see it once. It looked bigger now. His right arm had a colorful Japanese style tiger, the head of which stretched up to his shoulder.

“You ok, kiddo?” he asked, making me realize I’d just been standing there, staring at him. I could only nod. He grinned and then reached down and stepped out of his gray sweat pants. He was left wearing a pair of cut-off denim shorts. They were really short and I felt my eyes widen as I took in the obvious lump there.

Again, I might have just stood there staring, but Mike suddenly called, “Last one in’s a rotten egg!” and then dashed past me.

I recovered quickly and pelted off with Robert after him. We managed to tackle him just as he reached the water’s edge and we all went in together. The water was COLD!

We all jumped up immediately, screeching like girls and danced away from the water, causing a couple of mothers and several little kids to laugh. Finally, we dared each other to go back in again. Nobody did. Mike finally solved the problem by grabbing both Robert and me, one under each arm, and running back into the water with us. It wasn’t as bad the second time, thank goodness.

For the next hour or so we learned that Mike was known to kids he’d known through his life as the human jungle gym. We climbed up and down him like he was anyway. He could also throw a kid really far. That was fun. He started making up different kinds of throws. There was one where he’d grab us by the bottom of our feet while crouching, then explode upwards, lifting and tossing us. There was one he named ‘The Stiffy’, which made us laugh. It was called that because it called for us to lie as stiffly as we could, while he’d either tip our whole body over, or sorta throw us like a javelin. One was called the slam dunk. For that one, we’d hug our legs to our chests, curling into as small a ball as we could, then he’d lift us out of the water and, with one hand on our butt, slam us back down into the water like a basketball through a hoop. Eventually, even the two guys I knew from school joined in, and Mike was tossing all four of us around like we weighed nothing.

When Mike grew tired, he’d just stand far out in the green river water, about shoulder deep to him. Robert and I each clung to one side of his body, straddling his hips. As we sat there, tight against him, I felt myself growing hard, even with the cool water. I didn’t bother trying to hide it, not sure if he’d notice or even care. I just laid my head on his shoulder and enjoyed his arm around me.

Eventually Mike announced that he was too pruney and it was time to go. I didn’t want my time with him to end and asked if we could go home with him. After a moment of deliberation, he agreed. We piled back into the truck, Mike up front, having changed under a towel from his cut off shorts back to his sweat pants. I got a little sweaty thinking that he must be naked otherwise. Robert and I hadn’t thought to bring towels, so Mike said we could air dry in the back.

I had never been to Mike’s place before, and I was excited. I was surprised to learn that he lived only three blocks south of me, in a small apartment complex. Robert and I climbed out of the truck and followed Mike inside to the small lobby. He then led us downstairs to the basement. At the bottom of the stairs were a door to the left, which led to his apartment, and a hall to the right which led to the communal laundry room. Mike unlocked the door and let us in.

“Ok, into the bathroom, both of you,” Mike announced as he shut the door behind us. “Get out of those wet clothes and let me throw em in the dryer. I’ll find something for you to wear.”

It was a studio apartment. To the right of the door was a small kitchen with a bar. Ahead against the left hand wall was a queen-sized bed. To the right of that a sofa and a tv. Straight ahead, on the wall between the bed and the tv, was a desk with a computer on it. The bathroom was off to the right and down a short hall. Mike directed us to the right, trailing behind us. He ushered us into the small bathroom, stepping in behind us to open a door and hand us each a towel.

Robert and I looked at one another and then nervously began stripping off our shorts. We’d shared a gym class last year, so we’d seen each other naked, but it had been a year. I found myself sneaking peeks of Robert’s body, and caught him doing the same to me. Robert was about six inches taller than me. He was an average looking guy, not ugly, but not exactly handsome either. He was lean like I was, but more stretched out. His muscles were bigger. So was his dick. It was soft and wrinkled from the damp of our shorts, but it was still about three inches long. Mine had shrunk to about one inch, I was embarrassed to see, so I figured that probably made him bigger by a couple inches. It was fatter than mine. He also had a neat little bush of pubic hair that was maybe an inch wide and less than that tall. I even thought I saw some curly hairs on his nut-sac. I was embarrassed and dried off quickly, holding the towel in front of me when I was done.

Just a few seconds later there was a knock at the door. “Everyone decent?” Mike called out. At our affirmation, the door opened and Mike handed us each a pair of cotton shorts. I wasn’t sure whether or not it was my imagination which made me think that his eyes were roaming a bit over my body, and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to make sure I was covered more than I was, or to furtively move the towel away and give him a little peek, just to see his reaction.

The door shut again before I could make a decision and we each pulled on our shorts. They belonged to Mike so of course they were big on us, but they must have been older ones, because they were staying up, even on my slim hips. Of course, the top was actually about halfway up my stomach and they ended about mid-thigh on me. I could tell they were probably skimpy on Mike. I exited the bathroom first and I stopped short as I cleared the short hallway and saw Mike standing at his dresser, his back to me, just pulling up a pair of black bikini briefs over his naked ass.

I must have made some sort of noise, because Mike turned and saw me standing there. “Hey, they fit,” he said with a grin. He grabbed and pulled on a pair of shorts, but not before I got a look at the big lump in his tight briefs. There was so much hair disappearing down into those briefs.

I lightly shook myself and walked into the room, grinning and modeling the shorts. “Like they were made for me,” I joked.

Robert came out behind me also modeling. His fit a bit more securely than mine did. Mike instructed us to go grab our wet things and we followed him down the hall to deposit them in one of the dryers. Back in the apartment, Mike offered us each a Mountain Dew, which we accepted.

Robert was immediately drawn to Mike’s computer. He asked if he could play around with it, and Mike agreed, powering it up and showing him a couple of games he had. Neither of us had computers. They weren’t very common in Oak Hills at the time.

While Robert sat engrossed by the computer, Mike and I drifted to his bed. Lying there amidst his blanket and pillows, I felt so relaxed. I could smell Mike in the bedclothes, but it was stronger than I was used to. More intimate somehow. I eventually found myself lying on the bed to the left of Mike. I had my arms behind my head, and didn’t I see Mike look at each of my armpits when I’d done that, exactly as I did nightly, looking for that one wispy hair? Mike, for his part, was stretched out beside me, his head propped up and resting in his left hand. His right hand had found its way to my chest, and it drifted there lightly, rubbing up and down across my naked skin. I couldn’t believe how good it felt.

I don’t remember what we talked about, but we conversed quietly while Robert sat at the computer, oblivious to us. My eyes were closed and I was just enjoying the feeling of Mike touching me. It felt so nice. Sensual, yet not sexual somehow. Up and down, around and around. His fingers repeatedly passed over my small nipples, which eventually stiffened into tiny nubs. Each touch there sent tingles through me.

Eventually, after a lull in the conversation while Mike’s hand never stopped, I slid open my eyes to see Mike just staring down at me. Not at my eyes though. I followed his gaze and realized that, with my leg cocked the way it was, the overly large shorts Mike had given me had slid down my legs and gaped open, leaving my crotch in shadow, but otherwise fully exposed to his gaze. Mike didn’t realize I was watching him. At that moment, my dick began to stiffen. I felt it rise up off my balls. Not wanting to embarrass either of us, I shut my eyes, coughed, and moved my legs together. When I opened my eyes a moment later Mike was looking at me.

“Hey, thought you were asleep there for a second,” he said with a soft smile. His voice sounded a bit hoarse to me.

“Well,” he said, “I think it’s probably time you guys got going. Your parents are going to wonder where you are.”

I knew Mike probably realized that wasn’t the case for me. I wondered then why he wanted me to leave. Maybe he was embarrassed? I didn’t know. As I stood I tried to see if Mike had been affected the way I had, but one of his pillows was draped across his hip, hiding his crotch from me. My own dick was sticking straight up, but I quickly thrust my hand into the pocket and gripped it tight, hiding my condition as best I could.

Mike had me retrieve our shorts from the dryer. By the time I returned he’d gotten out of the bed, but if he’d had a boner, it was gone now, as was mine. Robert and I changed then Mike helped us get our bikes from the back of his truck and we headed home.

That night as I lay in bed, my stiff dick in my hand, I thought about that afternoon. I tried to remember the look on Mike’s face as I realized he’d been looking at my dick. How long had been looking, I wondered. Did he like what he’d seen? Was it just curiosity? How had it made him feel? What would have happened if I hadn’t moved, if I’d just let my dick grow harder and harder while Mike watched? I imagined Mike reaching out and taking my dick in his hand. I shuddered with an orgasm.

Mike and I grew closer over the summer, and I fell further and further in love with him. Only a couple days after our swimming outing I kissed him for the first time. It was a lot like that first hug. I’d been at his house for a couple of hours. We’d been sitting watching tv. Mike had this big wicker chair sorta thing. It was shaped sorta like a satellite dish I guess. He’d sit in it and I’d sit between his legs, my back to his chest.

Anyway, we’d been watching tv when I realized it was getting late. Turning around in his lap, I hugged him, then on impulse leaned down and gave him a quick peck on the lips. His eyes widened and we grinned at each other. After that, I always greeted him with a kiss and said goodbye the same way.

I was spending a lot of time at Mike’s house. I started showing up earlier and earlier on the days I knew he didn’t have to work. He would always keep the door unlocked for me. One day I got there so early he was still in the shower. I was concerned at first when I didn’t see him, but then I heard the water running. I went to the bathroom and the door was open. Standing in the doorway I called out to him. After getting over his surprise he seemed ok talking to me, so I just sat on the toilet seat while he showered. I couldn’t help trying to imagine what he looked like in there, and the urge to peek was strong, but I was sure I’d get caught. Mike, for his part, was careful to dry off in the shower and not exit until his towel was wrapped firmly around his waist. Still, I could see the long lump of his penis through the towel.

One day, in June I think it was, I asked him if he masturbated. I’d been building up to the question for days and I was a nervous wreck when I finally blurted it out. He was startled at first, but then admitted that he did. In fact, he told me that eighty percent of all guys did it, and twenty percent of guys lied about it. I thought that was pretty funny.

About a week later I asked him when he got his first pubic hair. He could tell I was nervous I think. He told me he was a late bloomer, and he was almost fourteen. I still think he said that just to make me feel better.

Towards the end of summer, Mike told me he wanted to meet my mom. I’d told him all about her by that point, and I was horrified by the thought, but he insisted, saying that with all the time we were spending together it was only right that she meet him. The meeting went pretty much as expected. She barely said a word, barely glanced away from the tv. At least I got a chance to show him my room, which he was very complimentary about, but I could tell he was sad about it.

It was also around this time that I finally got to see Mike naked for the first time. I’d been asking him for weeks if I could spend the night with him. He always turned me down gently, saying that it just wasn’t right. I sorta knew what he meant. I’d heard of dirty old men touching boys and stuff like that, but nobody would think Mike was like that. Besides, I pretty much wanted him to touch me. In fact, we’d grown really touchy over the summer.

While Mike always wore jeans and a t-shirt at work, at home he was never in more than a pair of shorts. I didn’t wear much more that summer. If I was wearing a shirt when I went to his place, I always took it off, first thing. As we would sit watching tv together in that big wicker chair Mike’s hands would constantly be touching me, rubbing my chest and shoulders, or my stomach. In fact, if he wasn’t touching me, I’d grab his hands and set him to it. That’s how it started in the first place. In fact, Mike never seemed to do anything that I didn’t instigate, a fact I didn’t really think about until later.

Anyway, back to seeing Mike naked. As he wouldn’t let me spend the night with him, I figured I’d go the other direction. One morning I set my alarm early. I entered his apartment while it was still dark. Pulling off my shirt, and nearly pulling off my shorts after a brief hesitation, I started to climb into bed with him.

Mike woke up and looked at me. “Josh? Is everything ok?” he asked. He glanced over at his clock. “It’s five-thirty in the morning.”

“Everything is fine,” I told him. “I just wanted to come over. Go back to sleep.”

He shook his head and lay back. “Crazy kid,” he muttered and then he was back asleep.

He was lying on his back. I was on his right side, lying on my side facing him. I snuggled against him, my right arm across his chest. I just lay there for a time, feeling his chest rise and fall against my arm, feeling his heat seep into me. I knew Mike slept naked. It was one of the many things we’d talked about over the summer. So I knew that if I reached down just a bit more, I’d touch things I’d only dreamed about. Or I could pull back the covers and see it. I didn’t though. I just lay there against him, lulled by his soft breathing.

When I woke up a couple of hours later, it was light and Mike was dressed in his usual pair of shorts, making us breakfast. He didn’t scold me for coming over early. So two days later, on his next day off, I showed up at the same time. He barely reacted this time as I crawled into bed with him, asleep again almost instantly. However, this time I couldn’t sleep. I was too wired. I’d actually taken my shorts off this time, and being in bed with Mike in just my underwear had me excited and nervous.

As before, I stretched my arm out across Mike’s broad chest. Over the last couple of months I’d come to love his hairy chest and stomach. I loved to run my fingers through those tight curls. It felt like fur to me, and I often teased Mike that he must be half bear. He once teased back that I was half bare, so we were even.

This time, I couldn’t help myself as my hand drifted downward over Mike’s stomach. It felt like I was moving so slowly. Glacially. I was so afraid he’d wake up and catch me. Finally my hand found his thick pubic bush. I was amazed at all the hair there. Against the blade of my hand I could feel the solid warmth of his cock. I didn’t move. My hand grew sweaty and I wanted to move it that extra tiny bit, and really touch him, but I didn’t dare.

How long I stayed like that, I don’t know. It must have been a couple of hours, and I surely dozed in and out during that time. Eventually, I felt Mike stirring. I shut my eyes and deepened my breathing, in order to feign sleep. Mike rolled a bit on his side, and I heard him make a little noise, as if surprised to see me. At the same time, the weight of his floppy dick slid over the back of my hand to hit my wrist. I didn’t move a muscle.

Mike then scooted down to the end of the bed so as not to have to crawl over me. By this time there was enough sunlight coming through the small basement window to see by, and as I cracked my eyelids open I saw Mike walk by the side of the bed on his way to the bathroom. In front of him, thrusting out of that thick bush of hair that I’d felt but not yet seen was Mike’s big dick. It was soft, but it still looked massive to me; thick and long, hanging down well over the big, fleshy ball sac beneath. I sucked in an involuntary breath, but by that time Mike was past me.

I lay there as I heard the toilet flush, then the sounds of the fridge opening and closing and some pots and pans being moved around. I couldn’t get the sight of that big dick out of my head. It had been… awesome. At least half a foot long, I was sure. I was unsurprised to note that my own smaller dick was straining upward. I longed to touch it, but I was still feigning sleep.

Eventually, after my erection subsided, I allowed the smell of waffles to rouse me. I pretended to wake and slid out of bed. “Morning, sleepyhead,” Mike grinned. “Cute undies.”

I looked down, having forgotten that I’d stripped off my shorts. I was wearing blue boxers with little pictures of Spongebob in his tighty-whities on them. I thought they were sorta cool, but then I thought to wonder how they’d look to an adult like Mike and I blushed. I hurriedly pulled on my shorts.

Mike shrugged. “In my day, only old men wore boxers. Can’t get over the fact that kids think they are cool now.”

A few days before school was to begin, Mike got me into his truck and started driving without telling me where we were going. Eventually I realized we were heading for the Lakeview Mall.

He drove in silence for another minute or so, glancing at me from time to time. I started to get nervous, although I couldn’t have said why. Finally, he said, “Look, Josh, school is starting in a couple of days. I know you don’t have any new clothes, and I know your mom isn’t going to be getting you any, so I’m going to buy them. I don’t want to hear any arguments either.”

I stared at him a moment, my mouth working, but no sound emerging. A rush of emotions went through me and I wasn’t sure what I was feeling or what I was supposed to be feeling. I finally looked at him, and saw how nervous he was. Then I just leaned over and hugged him. “I love you, Mike,” I finally whispered.

“I love you too, kiddo,” he said, obviously relieved that I wasn't going to fight him on it.

I hadn’t had new school clothes in years. The new clothes I got, I got from garage sales, or sometimes Robert’s mom would give me his hand-me-downs. Mike let me get three pairs of pants, several shirts, and even plenty of underwear. Briefs this time. The cool ones in different colors, not tighty-whities. I tried to tell him how grateful I was, but he just waved me off, seeming to be embarrassed.

On the way back home that day, loaded down with bags of clothes, I finally worked up the nerve to ask a question that I’d been thinking about forever. I asked him if he was gay. He looked at me for a few moments without answering. As the silence drew out, I was afraid I’d offended him.

I was about to offer an apology when he said, “Would it matter to you if I was?”

“No,” I said. “Of course not. If you are, that’s ok. Or not. I don’t really care.” But I did care. I worried more and more that I was gay. Well, not worried exactly. I knew how I felt about Mike. If that was gay, I was ok with it. Maybe I worried that if Mike wasn’t gay, that he’d never come to feel about me the way I felt about him.

“Well,” he finally said. “I’m not attracted to men, if that’s what you mean.”

That seemed an odd answer for some reason. “Does that mean you like women then?”

Again, he was silent for long enough to worry me, then he said, “Not really, Josh. I’ve dated women before, but I don’t anymore.”

I leaned back against the seat of his truck and smiled. It was enough for me, too.

There were fewer early morning sleep-ins after school started. I still tried to show up early on weekends, but Mike sometimes worked on weekends so I only got the chance a couple of times in September. On the first occasion I once again found my hand searching out his pubic hair, questing until my hand was again resting against the warm length of him. This time I managed to move that hand back and forth, back and forth, still not touching with anything but the side of my hand, as if it were only an incidental touch and it somehow didn’t count. Still, the side of my hand stroked until I felt him stiffen and grow, sliding up over his belly till it pointed at his chin, but again, I was afraid to grab it.

The second weekend, I finally worked up the nerve to touch it. To really touch it, although my fingers only danced along his length. I was still too nervous to take it in my hand like I really wanted, to wrap my fist around it. I listened so carefully to Mike’s breath on those occasions, paying as close attention to the pattern of his breathing as I imagined a safe-cracker must to the sound of falling pins.

I was still over at Mike’s most evenings, though. As the weather grew too cool for shorts, I was forced to wear jeans to Mike’s house. However, he kept the place as warm as he always did. He was from Arizona and he said a house should be warm enough to be able to sit around in shorts year round. That left me a bit over warm in my jeans. Eventually I asked him if I could take them off when I came over. He said he supposed it was ok.

So, when we sat in our big chair and watched tv in the evening, I would most often be dressed in just a pair of briefs. This gave Mike a lot more skin to touch, and I was getting the feeling as the months went by that Mike very much liked to touch my skin. Sometimes I had to move his hand to an area to get him to start, as if he were reluctant, but once started, he didn’t seem to grow tired of it. Both of his hands were constantly caressing me, my chest and belly, my sides, my arms. Eventually, as I stopped wearing pants there, my outer legs and my inner thighs.

The only barrier to his touch seemed to be cloth, and the less I had of it, the more of me he touched. I would most often sit with my legs spread apart, knees wide, my feet together, my crotch sort of suggestively thrust out. I didn’t really plan it that way, it was just a result of the way I sat. At first I wondered if Mike would stare at my crotch, as he had that summer. The small lump of my penis and underneath that my balls were plain to see in the soft cotton of my briefs. Even plainer to see as Mike’s fingers caressed me.

At first, in the beginning of each evening, Mike’s hands would rarely dip below my bellybutton above, or about mid-thigh below. However, as the night would progress, my legs would spread wider and his fingers would creep closer and closer to waistband and leg-holes of my briefs. Eventually my dick would begin to harden, stretching up against the fabric, eager for attention. I was embarrassed at first, seeing that small pup tent there, then increasingly excited. I knew Mike had to see it. In fact I’d grown increasingly aware of Mike’s hardness against my back, or under my ass, depending on how I was sitting. I could feel him throbbing against me and the thought thrilled me. Surely he had to see how excited I was in return. However, neither of us mentioned it. We would each ignore that straining lump in my briefs, and the longer, thicker one against my back, as Mike’s fingers grew closer and closer, until the side of his fingers would be lightly brushing against my cloth-covered nuts.

It never went beyond that. As much as I began to suspect that Mike wanted it to, he always managed to stop himself about that time. Even in the face of my abject need. One night the feelings grew so intense that I reached out and grabbed Mike’s wrists where the sides of his fingers brushed lightly against my balls, his hands in the sweaty hollow between my legs. I grabbed his wrists and I gasped as my dick spasmed, jumping visibly in my underwear as an orgasm ripped through me. Neither of us said a word about it.

As October arrived two things happened. Finally. The first was that I woke up one morning to get ready for school. I made my way to the bathroom to pee and as I pushed down on my morning boner to avoid splashing I noticed that I’d finally gotten my first pube. In fact, not just one, but three. All at the same time. They were each nearly an inch long, straight, silky and golden. I was overjoyed. I so wanted to tell Mike, but I wasn’t sure how to do so.

That night as we sat and watched tv, I thought about it. At one point, Mike got up to grab a drink from the kitchen. I went to the bathroom. As I stood there I got what I thought was a brilliant idea. I checked my crotch once more, disappointed I didn’t find what I was looking for, then finally pinched myself down there. Returning to the kitchen, I hopped up on the bar.

“Is this a mosquito bite do you think?” I asked. I pulled my underwear a bit to the side by the right leghole, just far enough that one of my silky little pubes was showing.

Mike bent down to look at the self-inflicted red spot and his eyes grew wide. “I don’t know if it is or not, kiddo, but you got a pube!”

I hesitated for a moment. What did he want to see? How much? How much did I want to show him? I quickly settled on pulling the front of my briefs down far enough to expose my pubic mound and just the very base of my dick.

“Wow, three!” he exclaimed, bending close to look. Then, mock choking up with emotion, he hugged me and cried, “My little boy is growing up!”

The other thing that occurred in October was that I finally started shooting a little. I’d been lying in bed on the night of October third, stroking my dick as usual. Finally, I felt my orgasm rising, but it actually felt more intense than usual. It felt like something was shooting through my dick. When I finally looked down I saw three little dots of liquid on my belly. It was clear liquid, not white like I heard sperm is, and it was sticky, but I’d read enough to know that this was pretty normal. I wasn't sure how or if I should share this information with Mike.

However, the ability to start shooting a bit caused me a new and embarrassing problem. Namely, pre-cum. I started secreting more and more as the days went on. During evenings at Mike’s house my straining boner would produce a widening wet spot where it pressed against my briefs. I know Mike noticed because for a few days after the first time he was much more careful about touching me too close to my underwear.

One of the things Mike and I had discovered about each other was that we shared the same birthday. As November twelfth approached I went to Mike with a single request for my birthday – I wanted to spend the night at his place. He was reluctant at first, but I didn’t give in this time. I begged and pleaded and even flirted, if awkwardly. Finally, he relented.

Our birthday was on a Sunday that year. As I had school Monday, we decided to celebrate a day early. We started the day off with lunch in the city. Mike was wearing a black suit with a blue silk tie. I’d never seen him look so handsome before. He was like a GQ model or something. I didn’t have a jacket, but I had a white button up shirt. It had belonged to Robert. Mike had lent me one of his ties. I didn’t have any dress pants either, but I had a decent pair of khakis. Mike said I looked great. We certainly got a lot of looks.

Lunch was great. It was like being on a real date, and that’s secretly the way I thought of it. I desperately wanted to hold hands with Mike across the table, but I was worried he wouldn’t, so I didn’t try, not wanting to be embarrassed. Still, Mike surprised me by ordering for me from the waiter, so that was cool. He said, “And the handsome young gentleman will have the-” well, I don’t remember what I had exactly, but it was cool all the same.

While we were at lunch, we exchanged gifts. I’d made a leather friendship bracelet with some cool colored beads. I was sort of embarrassed that it was so cheap. I wish I’d had the money for something more expensive, but Mike insisted that he loved it. I thought I actually saw him wipe a tear away. He put the bracelet on immediately, and even showed it off to the waiter. Mike’s present to me actually came in a leather bound jewelry case. It was a gold necklace with a pendant. The pendant was gold too and had hieroglyphics on it. There was a snake, a bird, some wavy water, another bird and an arm. Mike said it spelled out Joshua. On the back it was engraved, ‘All my love, Mike’. I didn’t just wipe away a tear. I cried for like five minutes. Mike held me the whole time.

After lunch, Mike surprised me by taking us to an art museum. I wasn’t sure how I’d like it to be honest, but we really had a great time. Mike made everything fun and interesting. He seemed to know a lot about art. Or, as he said it, he at least knew what he liked.

It was late by the time we got back to Mike’s apartment. The plan was to just go right to bed. I was practically trembling with anticipation, but I thought Mike looked nervous. The apartment was warm as always. I was already removing my clothes as Mike kicked off his shoes and removed his suit jacket. He slipped it onto a hanger, and then removed his tie. I was already down to my underwear, a pair of powder blue briefs, as I watched Mike remove his slacks and carefully hang them on the same hanger as his jacket. He was left standing in black socks, a white dress shirt, and a pair of black bikini briefs which I could just barely see under the shirttails.

I walked up to Mike and handed him my tie, then hugged him from behind. “Thank you for a wonderful birthday,” I said, my face pressing against his back.

He turned and knelt in front of me. “No, thank you, Josh,” he said. His eyes were so full of emotion that I felt myself choking up. “I’ve never had a more perfect birthday,” he said. He wrapped his arms around me, pressing his face against my chest. He kissed me there gently. Then I bent over a bit and our lips touched gently.

We’d been kissing fairly often over the last couple of months. In addition to my hello and goodbye kisses, I would try to sneak one whenever possible. Sometimes when watching tv on his lap I’d turn around for a quick kiss. Well, a kiss anyway. Our kisses weren’t as quick as they used to be. Our lips would linger, longer and longer, pressing harder and harder. These kisses caused my dick to quiver like nothing else. It was like there was an electric wire connecting my lips to my groin. Mike was always the one to break the kisses. I’d have kissed him forever if he’d let me. I knew he was trying to keep them short, and I realized that he was losing that internal battle.

This kiss was the longest yet, the most passionate. For just a moment I actually felt the tip of Mike’s tongue push into my mouth. He broke away from me like drowning man surfacing, gasping for air. He held me out at arms length and I saw his gaze drop automatically to my groin. My four inch dick (yes, I’d grown a bit over the summer) was obscenely poking against the restraining cotton. It was less than a foot from Mike’s mouth. I watched him lick his lips, and then swallow.

Finally, he stood, and then tousled my hair, as if nothing had happened. Just a little innocent horseplay, but I wasn’t feeling innocent and I knew Mike wasn’t either. My hand dropped to squeeze my stiffness as Mike turned his back and removed his shirt. He actually started to ball it up and toss it, but at the last minute he looked down and instead, back still to me, used the shirt to cover his crotch and walked over to sit on the side of his bed. He sat the bundled shirt in his lap as he bent over to remove his black socks.

“Can’t we keep them on?” I asked. Mike might have been ready for bed, but sleep wasn’t in my plans at all, and I wanted to be able to see him. We compromised. I shut off the overhead light, but only after switching on the small desk lamp next to his computer. It wasn’t perfect, but it would provide enough light to see by.

When I turned to the bed, Mike was already under the covers over on the left side of the bed, against the wall. His socks and the crumpled white shirt were on the floor. “Are you still wearing your underwear?” I asked. “You always sleep naked.”

Mike swallowed and nervously smoothed the sheet over his stomach, flattening it. “Josh, I’m not going to sleep nude with you here tonight. It’s just not right.”

“But you’ve been naked in bed with me before. Lots of times,” I explained as I crawled into the bed. I rolled onto my left side to watch him.

“That’s different,” he said. “You got into bed with me. We didn’t go to sleep together.”

“But most of the time you knew I’d be there in the morning,” I pointed out to him.

“I… you’re right, Josh. I shouldn’t have done that. It’s… God, Josh,” he said, exasperated. “There are a lot of things I shouldn’t be doing. Things I shouldn’t be feeling. You just confuse the hell out of me. Do you… I mean… have you got any idea how much trouble I could get in?”

“I’d never tell anyone, Mike,” I said, hugging him. “You know that. I love you.”

“And I love you,” he replied, hugging me back, pressing his face against the top of my head, kissing my hair. “It’s not that, it’s just… you just don’t understand. Some of the things we’ve done… the lines I’ve crossed… I love you, Josh. I do. Too much.”

“How can you love someone too much?” I asked, rising up to my knees and sitting back on my heels. “You’ve never done anything to me, Mike. Nothing bad. Nothing I didn’t want you to do. I even want to do more stuff with you.” I paused for a minute, uncertain, and then said, “Do you think I’m ugly?” It was my secret fear.

“I… what? Ugly? Josh…. How could….? Josh…,” he reached out and took me by my arms, his hands squeezing my biceps almost painfully. “Listen to me, Josh. You are the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. More beautiful than any painting or sculpture we saw today. More beautiful than any painting or sculpture ever made. Man, woman, boy or girl, you are the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen. Do you remember the second time we met? In front of my store?”

“Don’t you realize how I remembered you from the first time? Because you were impossible to forget. You were like some angel that first time I saw you. Like some angelic being from Heaven. I could barely bring myself to talk to you, afraid that you’d disappear like a mirage. Josh… you’re gorgeous.”

I felt tears streaming down my cheeks. He thought I was beautiful! So many years of worry and uncertainty blown away in an instant. But, if that were true… “But I don’t understand,” I said in a small, soft voice. “Then why won’t you… love me?”

“Oh, Josh. I do love you. More than you know. I don't just love you… I’m so IN love with you that it hurts. But, you don’t understand. Hell, I don’t understand, but I know there are consequences, Josh. What we’re talking about… making… love, with one another… there’s just no way of saying how that would affect you, Josh. Your… sexual development. The way you grow up viewing sex and sexuality.”

“I’m fourteen years old,” I said, a bit indignantly. “I know what sex is.” Well, I did. Mostly. “And I love you. I love you, Mike! I’ve loved you forever. I want to do… sex… with you. I’ve wanted to for so long! And I know you want to with me. I know you do, Mike. So, how could that be wrong? If we both want something, if we both love each other? How could that ever be bad?”

“Josh…” Mike began, his face anguished. I didn’t let him finish. I leaned forward quickly and pressed my mouth to his. I wrapped my arms around his neck and straddled his legs. I pressed my body against his, kissing him as passionately as I’d ever dared.

Mike didn’t respond for a moment. I was sure he was telling himself all the reasons not to, thinking of all the terrible things that could happen. I felt warm tears on my face and I wasn’t sure if they were his or mine. Perhaps they were both of ours.

Eventually I felt Mike’s hands on my back, pulling me tighter. He let out a soft moan, and then his tongue slipped between my lips. He swirled it around in my mouth. I instinctively used my tongue against his. I was amazed by how it felt. This was electric. This was what I knew sex had to be about. My dick, which had softened during our talk, surged back to life, poking insistently against Mike’s hairy belly.

Then Mike’s hands were on my ass, cupping, squeezing, and pulling me tighter. I heard myself moan this time, and then I was making greedy little whining sounds into Mike’s mouth. I felt Mike’s cock then, pressing against my balls between my legs. Mike’s hands left my ass for a moment, going to his own crotch, and then he pulled me tight again. This time I could feel the long, thick, length of him burning against my belly. I ground my crotch against his, eliciting another moan from him.

My hands went to Mike’s chest, rubbing, feeling that thick fur slide between my fingers. I felt Mike’s hands slip under the waistband of my briefs and cup my bare ass. I pushed my hands downward, over his belly… then lower. With a gasp I broke our kiss and leaned back.

I looked down. Our crotches were still joined. The large wet spot in my underwear showed where the head of my dick pressed against the left side of Mike’s cock, at least four inches of which protruded from the top of his briefs. I just stopped and stared, not even breathing.

I’d known Mike’s cock was big, but I wasn’t prepared for the sight of it hard and erect. It was about two inches thick, more than twice as thick as my own. He was circumcised like me, the red head thick and fleshy looking. His cockhead was wider even than the shaft, unlike my more streamlined look. The shaft, what I could see of it, was thick and veined. As I watched, it pulsed and a dollop of pre-cum oozed from the large slit. I could see and feel the wetness against my belly where he’d leaked before.

I finally drew a shaky breath, realizing I’d stopped breathing. I must have wakened some last sense of reservation in Mike because he started saying, “Josh…”, but I interrupted him but reaching out with my left hand and pushing down the front of his briefs as far as I could while grasping that thick shaft in my right. Mike gasped.

It was everything I’d dreamed. So hot in my fist. So hard. I could feel it throbbing, feel the wetness of another stream of pre-cum running over my fingers. I couldn’t even get my hand all the way around it. I squeezed it, eliciting a groan from Mike, then I began to jack it up and down, watching what was left of his foreskin rising and falling to partially hide and then reveal that wide, spongy head.

I suddenly looked up to find Mike staring at me. “It’s really big,” I said softly, feeling a bit like Robert, saying something so obvious.

“I want to see all of it,” I said, reluctantly releasing my grip so that I could grab the sides of Mike’s briefs. I tugged in vain for a moment before Mike realized he had no choice, and lifted his hips enough for me to yank them down. I rose to my knees so I could twist to the side and slide them off his feet. Mike spread his legs wide and I knelt between them.

Fully uncovered, it seemed even more massive. It rose from his groin like an obscene plant stalk, eight inches, thick and muscled, or so it seemed. It lay against his hairy belly, its base hidden in a large bush of brown hair. His balls looked like small eggs in his hairy sac.

Before I even realized I’d done it, I found myself lying on my belly between Mike’s legs. My face was inches from his crotch. From this distance I could smell him, the smell I’d grown used to from his bed, but so much stronger, sweat and musk and… sex. That’s what I smelled. It was the smell of sex. I inhaled it greedily.

Holding myself up on my left arm, I reached out my right and once against claimed my prize. I felt Mike’s pulse against my palm. I pulled his cock closer. “Josh, you don’t-” Mike began, but I shut him up by pressing my lips against his penis, right under the head in that upside down V area that I knew was extra sensitive. I kissed like I was kissing Mike’s mouth, all passionate lips and tongue. Pulling back a moment, I licked my lips, tasting the wetness there. His pre-cum tasted much like mine, sort of sweaty. I then licked it like I would an ice cream cone. I licked all the way down the shaft, even nuzzling my face into Mike’s big, hairy balls, then I licked all the way back up, ending with my tongue against his pee hole.

Mike groaned as I slowly lowered my lips around the tip of his penis. Wider and wider until the whole head was in my mouth and I could feel my lips stretched tight against the flared ridge. I took a moment to try to figure out what it tasted like. As best as I could figure, it was no different than sucking on your thumb or licking your arm. I wasn’t sure what I was doing, but I had been dreaming of doing this for months and I tried to imagine what I thought would feel good. I began to suck lightly while I used my tongue to lap at, and circle around, the head. Mike gave an involuntary thrust of his hips and another inch of his cock slid into my mouth, almost choking me. I backed off enough that just the head remained.

“Sorry,” he said. “Sorry.” I felt his hands on the back of my head. He ran his fingers through my hair, caressed the side of my face and the back of my neck. His hips settled again and I moved forward to keep him in my mouth. I began to use my right hand to stoke his shaft up and down. At the same time I let my mouth take in more of him. He seemed to like that. I could feel him shuddering. I began to slowly move my head up and down, taking nearly three inches of him inside me on each downward slide.

I’m not sure how long I sucked him. I was lost in the moment and lost in the rhythm of it. My hips were doing a slow grind, pressing my throbbing dick against the mattress. My mouth rose up and down, my fist pumped, my mouth sucked, my tongue danced. Mike’s breathing grew louder and more ragged.

Suddenly, Mike’s hands gripped my shoulders and squeezed. “Josh!” he gasped. “Josh, stop... I’m going… Josh, I’m going to cum!”

But I didn’t stop. I sucked harder. I began to suck more eagerly, my hand rising and falling faster and harder.

Mike gasped, and then my mouth was suddenly full. Mike’s whole body stiffened and he began to shake as hot liquid blasted against my tongue and the roof of my mouth. I swallowed quickly, nearly gagging, but it was only a moment and my mouth was full again. I could feel his sperm squirting out of the sides of my mouth as I attempted to swallow everything.

Finally the spasms slowed, the jets of hot cum decreasing in volume. With one last spurt across my tongue Mike’s body collapsed backwards with a groan. I swallowed again, then used my tongue against his pee hole, searching for more, wanting to make sure I’d gotten it all. Finally, I pulled back, staring at Mike’s glistening cockhead. I let go of his dick long enough to wipe at the corners of my mouth. I looked at my fingers to see his white semen coating them. I carefully licked my fingers clean. I couldn’t describe the taste.

Mike looked dazed, but his eyes were on mine. “That’s the weirdest taste ever,” I said.

Mike chuckled and shook his head with amusement. “My beautiful Josh,” he smiled. “So full of surprises and hidden talents.”

I grinned at him, taking that for the compliment I was sure was intended. I rose to my knees then, and straddled his hips. I pressed my body against his, my chest against his, my mouth finding his. Our tongues swirled and I wondered if he could taste his own cum and what he thought about that.

Finally I pulled back. “I love you, Mike,” I told him staring into his blue eyes.

“I love you too, kiddo,” he said softly. He took my head in his and pulled me forward, placing a gentle kiss on my forehead. Then he looked me in the eyes again and grinned. “Your turn.”

A moment later I was on my back, Mike stretched out on my left. His left hand caressed my cheek as he leaned in to kiss me again. His tongue swirled in my mouth a moment, and then it was gone. He captured my bottom lip and then bit it lightly, twice, a third time. It felt amazing. Then he was kissing my cheek. He brought his left hand to my chest and began rubbing me there as he kissed his way to my left ear. I squirmed beneath him as he began licking and nibbling at my ear. I’d never imagined anything like it. Then his tongue was in my ear and I heard myself whimpering.

From my ear, Mike kissed his way down to my neck. He covered me with kisses, occasionally shocking me with the heat and wetness of his tongue. Then he was kissing my upper chest. Down further and he lifted my left arm over my head, exposing my armpit. Then his tongue was swiping against that smooth, hairless expanse. I writhed underneath him. After more nuzzling licks, each more delicious than the last, Mike’s lips moved to the right and found my nipple. He slowly circled it with his tongue, and then shocked me as he lightly blew against it. It stiffened instantly. Leaning in again, he took the tiny nub between his teeth and bit it lightly, over and over again while his lips suckled me. I thought I’d die. I didn’t imagine it was possible to feel pleasure like this. This rivaled every jack off session I’d ever had, every sensual bath. I was floating on a wave of ecstasy.

Mike moved to my other nipple next, repeating the procedure. At some point as he nibbled and sucked I felt his hand move down to my right hip. His fingers gripped the side of my briefs and pushed downward. I automatically raised my hips and felt my little cock slap against my groin as it was caught for a moment and then released. Mike could only push them down as far as my calves, so I reached down and pushed them over my feet and off. I straightened my legs again, imagining I could feel a breeze against my now naked body. I was naked in bed with Mike. I couldn’t believe it.

Then Mike’s hand was on my side, caressing me up and down. I gasped when I felt his forearm brush lightly against my sensitive penis. Back and forth it went, just barely touching, just enough to make me yearn for more, to press my skinny hips upwards, but Mike kept moving his arm back, teasing. Meanwhile, his mouth moved down over my stomach, kissing and licking, while the muscles underneath rolled and writhed. I felt his tongue dip into my navel, then swirl around.

Mike’s tongue left a glistening trail of wetness as he moved down across my pubic mound. Then he stopped. I opened my eyes to see him staring at my stiffened penis. It bobbed there, quivering. I could see and feel the wetness of my leaking pre-cum. It formed a small puddle at the base of my thin shaft, flowed around the mostly hairless root and down either side of my tightened scrotum, leaving twin trails as it wet my inner thighs.

I felt Mike’s eyes on mine and I met them. “You’re so beautiful, Josh,” he said softly. “So perfect.”

One last niggling worry I’d carried with me that needed to be addressed. “I’m not too… small?” I asked.

Mike shook his head. “You’re perfect. You’re the perfect size.” Mike used his left index finger then to trace the length of my dick, from my balls to that same sensitive inverted V I’d first kissed on his cock. He was touching me! His fingers slid to the side and he took me lightly in his hand. I shuddered. His thumb rubbed that sensitive spot, circling, slick there from my pre-cum. I made some small, greedy noise in the back of my throat and lay my head back, my eyes closing.

Mike’s fingers closed tighter around me. Using three fingers he slowly began to jack me up and down. All of my attention was on my cock then. Warmth suffused me, spreading out from my groin in growing waves. Then I felt hot wetness surrounding the head of my dick and I knew Mike had taken me into his mouth. It was more than I had ever imagined in any of my feverish masturbatory fantasies. Liquid heat. Like lava or something. His lips moved down, taking more and more of me, then settled against my smooth groin, tickling the dozen hairs I now sported there, all four inches of my boyish member throbbing inside that delicious heat.

Then he was drawing upward, his mouth forming a vacuum which drew all that warmth to the sensitive head of my dick. His hand was on my balls then, the hairless skin there slippery with pre-cum. He rolled my small orbs around gently, and then his hand was moving between my legs. I spread my legs wider without a thought. Then his finger was circling the pucker of my butt hole, making me gasp in surprise. Circling tighter and tighter, then pressing, gently at first, then more insistently, using my leaking fluids to lubricate and ease the passage of that questing digit.

I gasped and my back arched as Mike’s thick finger penetrated me, sinking to the first knuckle in my sweaty ass. It reached deep. Deeper than I’d ever managed and then it began to rub somewhere inside me.

I could feel my orgasm coming now. Like a tidal wave, like a Mack truck. I grabbed Mike’s head and began thrusting uncontrollably. I was talking, saying something, but I have no idea what. I was out of control. Mike stopped bobbing his own head and just held still as I worked my hips. Quick, short jabs, again and again, while his finger rubbed and rubbed and my pleasure grew and grew, to heights I hadn’t imagined possible.

Then I was coming. I stiffened, my back arching, my toes curling, my hips quivering a foot off the bed, my hands gripping Mike’s head, my groin pressed desperately against his mouth, the roughness of a day old beard like sandpaper against my sensitive skin. I could feel myself emptying my balls into Mike’s mouth, what felt like a load to equal Mike’s, though I knew it was probably no more than a thin squirt or two.

Finally, my paralysis ended. I sank slowly back to the bed. My arms fell to either side of my body. Mike’s head had followed me down, his mouth still wrapped around my now overly sensitive cock. I pushed his head away, unable to form the words necessary to ask him to release me. I felt his finger slowly slip from my ass, and I felt a tiny ache of loss there, of emptiness.

Mike gently licked my groin, lapping at my balls, around the base of my penis, cleaning up the last traces of my sticky pre-cum. Then he was crawling up to lie beside me. He curled himself around me. His left arm gathering me against him protectively. His left leg over mine. He kissed the top of my head. I could sense him smelling my hair. He caressed my face.

I’m not sure how long we lay there like that. After the ebbing pleasure allowed me to think, my head was filled with a myriad of thoughts and emotions. Mostly I was filled with wonder and a sense of contentment like I’d never felt. Then I heard a noise.

I looked at Mike and saw tears on his cheeks. He noticed that I was looking and his face crumbled. He looked stricken. “I’m sorry,” he whispered then. “Oh, Josh, I’m so sorry.”

I felt my heart breaking. I reached out and hugged him desperately, my face against his neck, suddenly fighting tears of my own. “No,” I whispered harshly. “Don’t be sorry. Please, Mike. Don’t. We didn’t do anything wrong. I love you! Please believe me. Please be happy. I’m happy and I love you so much!”

Mike hugged me close, stroking my hair. “Shhh,” he said. “Shhh, Josh. You’re right. I’m sorry I said that. You’re always right. I’m not sorry. I love you, too. So much. So very, very much.”

I woke up Sunday morning still in Mike’s arms. My head was against his chest and resting on his right arm. I was on my side with one arm across his chest and one leg over his. I had my usual morning erection and it was snuggled warmly against Mike’s thigh. I reached down and quickly found Mike’s cock. It was as hard as mine.

Looking quickly to see if Mike was awake, which I shouldn’t have bothered to do since I could hear his light snoring, I pulled back the sheet that covered us. In the sunlight which streamed through the basement window everything was much clearer and brighter than last night. I carefully moved into a sitting position, my legs crossed, so I could get a better look.

Mike looked so sexy lying there. His right arm was under the pillow under his head. His left, which had been around me, was now resting on his side. I loved how hairy he was, from his armpits, to his muscular chest. Down across his flat stomach, rising and falling with each breath. There was a thick line of hair that surrounded his navel and led down to the even thicker bush of hair around his penis. It was all a light brown color which shone with glints of gold in the sunlight. Mike’s balls hung heavy between his legs, each testicle clearly outlined in the wrinkled skin there. They were also covered in hair. In this light I could also see that Mike had pubic hairs that actually grew out of his dick itself for about an inch up the shaft. I didn't know hair grew there.

I noticed for the first time a small scar on his right side, at the lower part of his stomach. I figured it must be an appendix scar. I traced a finger over it lightly, feeling the satiny touch of the scar tissue. Then I ran a finger the length of Mike’s cock. I traced the veins there, not just the thick ones which bulged the skin, but the blue ones that were visible underneath. Reaching down I hefted his balls in my hand, once again impressed by their size. I rolled them gently around my palm.

I looked at him and grinned. I released his balls and grabbed his stiff cock. I began slowly jacking it, rubbing my thumb over that sensitive spot as he’d done for me last night. “Whatever I want,” I replied.

“A slave to love,” he said. “Ready to fulfill your every desire, to grant your every wish.”

“What if I do this?” I asked, then bent over and gently wrapped my lips around the head of his cock. I bobbed my head a couple of times. I pulled back, swirled my tongue around it clockwise a couple of times, and then took it back in my mouth. Then I pulled back and gave him a grin. “Well?”

“Anything,” he promised, then exclaimed, “Damn, you’re sexy, Josh. Watching you, like that… I just can’t explain it. You look so much like some innocent angel, with all that curly blond hair and your beautiful face, and then you wrap your lips around… well, the contrast is sexy, trust me.”

“You still think I’m beautiful?” I asked, rising to my knees. My four inch erection was already shiny with dripping pre-cum. I slowly caressed my body with my hands, my chest, my stomach, while moving my hips slowly side to side. I played lightly with my dick, jacking it a little bit, rubbing my balls. Mike watched me avidly. I really did feel sexy. Excited, and powerful somehow. I could see how his eyes drank me in.

“More beautiful than ever,” he assured me. “You are the very picture of sensuality. My very own Eros.”

“I like all of you equally,” he said, “but that is a particularly lovely part.”

“Desperately,” he grinned. “In fact, I can’t think of anything I’d rather do more.”

“I thought you liked all my parts the same,” I said, turning on my knees to show him my ass. “Don’t you like this part?”

“It’s a glorious ass, Josh. One in a million. The ass that launched a thousand ships.”

“Do you want to… fuck it?” I asked in a sly whisper, tripping only slightly on the dirty word. I was worried what he would say. I’d dreamed of it every since I found out about anal sex in one of my books. It sounded scary, especially after that first time I saw Mike’s cock. Even soft it had seemed huge. In the bath at night I’d begun sticking first two, and finally three fingers into my rectum. I couldn’t stick them in very far, but I’d had the idea to stretch myself out for Mike when the time came. Now, having seen how big it was when fully erect, I was sort of scared by the thought, but still willing to try. If Mike wanted to, that is. At least I thought I was.

Mike quirked an eye at my use of the word ‘fuck’ and I think he was about to give a silly reply, then he seemed to realize I was serious. At least partly serious. I glanced at that big, throbbing cock again and my feelings were mixed.

“Josh,” Mike started, “we can’t do that. You’re too yo-“ he stopped himself from saying ‘young’, which I appreciated, and continued with, “small. I’d hurt you.”

“You might not,” I said. “I’ve been… practicing. Stretching… down there. With my fingers.”

Mike shook his head, clearly dubious. “I’m just too big, kiddo. And you’re too small. As much as I might like to… and trust me, the idea turns me on like crazy; I just wouldn’t want to risk it. Besides… what we talked about last night. The things we did… I know we worked that out. I don’t feel bad about what happened. I don’t. But that… Josh, it’s just… I don’t know… major.”

I wasn’t ready to give in, but I could tell Mike was, so I changed tactics. “Will you suck me then?” I asked.

I smiled in return and moved over to him and straddled his chest. Seeing what I was doing, he made some minor adjustments so that his head was propped up a bit higher on his pillow. Then I pushed my hips forward. Mike reached for my dick.

I inched my hips forward till the head of my cock brushed against Mike’s lips. He opened his mouth to take me in, but I backed away. Forward again, and then I backed away. “Ok, have it your way,” he said, closing his mouth.

I grinned, and then pressed my dick against his lips. His mouth stayed shut. I began to move back and forth, rubbing my leaking cockhead from side to side, smearing his lips with my pre-cum. His mustache tickled. Finally the tip of his tongue poked out. I began a thrusting motion, rubbing the underside of my dick against his tongue. My pee hole bumped his nose. Thrusting upwards even more, I was able to set my balls against his tongue. He began to lap at them, poking at each of my small balls. Finally he opened wide and took my whole scrotum inside the warmth of his mouth. I could feel him swirling them around in there.

I grabbed the hand that had tried to grab my cock before and I brought it to my ass. Mike quickly realized what I wanted and grabbed on with both hands. I loved how big his hands were, how he could so easily hold each globe in each hand. Pulling back so he’d release my balls, I reached down and aimed my dick at Mike’s mouth. He eagerly swallowed it. I gasped.

“Put your finger in, Mike,” I whispered. “In my butt.” It felt a little bit weird saying that, but I knew I could tell Mike anything and he wouldn't laugh at me.

He pulled one hand off my ass and brought a finger to his mouth. He pushed me back a bit so I’d remove my dick from his mouth. He started to wet his finger, and then stopped.

“I have a better idea,” he said. Then he lifted me in his strong hands and quickly had me on my stomach with my head at the foot of the bed.

“What are you doing?” I asked as I felt his weight settle around me. He leaned over me and pushed his face through my longish hair to nuzzle the back of my neck. I could feel the heat of him hovering over me. The only part of him that touched me though was his mouth, and his cock, which I felt settle between my calves where they lay together beneath him.

Mike didn’t answer. He just nuzzled my neck, and then began to kiss and lick his way downward. I shivered as he lightly licked the fine golden hairs in the small of my back. Then he spread my legs and I felt him settle himself on the mattress. I swallowed as Mike began to kiss and lick each firm, pale globe of my ass.

As caught up as I was in this new sensation, I couldn’t help but ask, “Mike, what’s a bubble butt?”

“A bubble butt is just one that’s nicely rounded. A lot of guys have a sort of flat butt. Most people I know prefer a nice, round bubble butt, and yes, you have one. A perfect one, in fact,” he said, giving me a big kiss on my right cheek.

I giggled a bit, but that turned to a gasp when I felt Mike spread those cheeks. “Mike?” I asked uncertainly.

He didn’t answer. Instead I felt the rasp of his beard as he settled his face between my legs. Then I felt the warmth of his breath against my sphincter. Was he… ? My breath caught. Yes, he was. That was his tongue. Oh, man. I’d read about this once, but I couldn’t imagine that people really did it. I found myself shuddering as that hot, wet appendage circled and twirled against my butt hole. And then I felt the pressure as he began to push it inside.

“Mike!” I exclaimed as his tongue speared my ass. It was incredible. So different from my fingers. So warm and alive. It began to move in and out, around and around. Meanwhile, Mike squeezed and kneaded my asscheeks.

I began to whimper and tried to lift my ass, wanting more. Mike suddenly lifted me by my hips. “On your knees,” he said hoarsely.

I quickly pulled my knees under me, leaving my ass sticking up obscenely. An instant later and Mike’s tongue was back at work inside of me. One of his hands worked its way under me and between my legs. He gripped my throbbing, little dick and began to jack me slowly.

As good, hell, as wonderful as his tongue felt inside me, I felt a sudden emptiness that needed to be filled. “Stick your finger in me,” I begged, my voice muffled against the mattress where my hot breath had turned the sheet damp.

Mike’s tongue was suddenly gone, quickly replaced with his finger. No niceties this time. He just pushed it straight in to the hilt. It took my breath away. I felt his mouth on my balls then, taking my little nuggets back into the warm protection of his mouth. His finger began to work itself in and out.

Mike hesitated a moment, then withdrew his finger. I felt him reach in and rub it over the head of my dick, lubricating it with my pre-cum. A moment later, it was back, with a friend. I groaned at the delicious stretching sensation as two of his thick fingers pushed inward past the tight ring of my sphincter. His two fingers were easily the size of three of mine, so I was as stretched as I’d ever been. But, I wanted more.

My balls dropped out of his mouth as he released them to say, “Josh, I don’t know.”

After a pause his fingers withdrew. Even that temporary emptiness ached inside me. Mike began to push again. I could feel the pressure growing and growing as that ring stretched further than ever. I winced as it became painful and I must have made some small noise because Mike stopped.

“I’m f-fine,” I managed. It was becoming less painful as he held still there. “Keep going. Please, Mike.”

Once again the fingers began to push. He was inside me at least an inch now, maybe more. It was a bit painful, but nothing I couldn’t manage. Finally, he began to pull them out. Not all the way though, just till the tips remained inside, then he pushed them back in again. The next time he pulled back I pushed my ass at him, wanting them back. He obliged. Then his other hand began to jack me again. My dick had softened a bit, but it instantly stiffened under his ministrations. Then I felt his tongue back at work on my balls.

As his fingers worked in and out of me the pain diminished and then was finally gone, leaving just a wonderful stretchy warmth down there. I began to rock in time with his delving fingers, with the rhythmic jacking of my cock. I realized my breathing was very loud. I was panting like a dog.

I so wanted to give in to that desire. I could feel my impending orgasm out there. Nearing. Making me tremble. “No,” I said softly. “No, no, no.” Then louder, “No.”

I rose up to my knees then, forcing Mike to remove his fingers. Again, that emptiness yawned inside me. I flipped around on the bed, pulling Mike’s arm so that he’d turn onto his back. I eyed the big wet spot where his cock had been pressed against the mattress, saw that big member throbbing as it settled against his belly. I quickly straddled Mike’s hips, surprising him. Then I was kissing him, hungrily, my tongue spearing boldly into his mouth. I felt Mike wrap his arms around me.

I slowly spread my legs until I felt Mike’s huge cock under my ass. I began to move against it, sliding back and forth, my balls against him, my dick lost in his sweaty pubic hair. Mike was returning my kiss with just as much hunger. Then I reached down beneath my body, questing till I found his cock. I wrapped my hand around it, my fingers just below the ridge of his fat cockhead, slimy with his pre-cum. Positioning myself, I maneuvered the tip of Mike’s cock until it was pressing hotly against my tight pucker. Then I began to push backwards.

It took a moment for Mike to realize what was happening, and then he grabbed me by my slim hips. “Josh, no, we can’t,” he exclaimed.

“Let me try,” I pleaded, still pressing. My asshole was spreading wider and wider. “I need it.”

“Josh…” he began, but then it was too late. With a final push and a grunt I felt that thick glans slip at last past the fiery ring of my anus. I paused there a moment, breathing heavily, but there was very little pain, just an uncomfortable tightness. Mike tried again. “Josh…”

I nodded wordlessly. Then I began to push again. Mike moaned as more of his cock slid into me. I took another inch before I backed off a little bit. Taking a breath, I bore down again. This time I had at least three inches. I backed off, then pushed again, the friction thrilling me, and Mike too, to judge by his moans. I opened my eyes to see that his were shut. His hands held my hips, but gently, letting me go at my own pace.

I pushed again, and then more. I was fuller than I’d ever been. I felt stuffed like a Thanksgiving turkey or something, and I managed a small laugh at that thought.

“Something is funny?” Mike asked, sounding a bit amazed. It made me laugh harder, which did strange and wonderful things to my insides.

Mike snorted with laughter. “You crazy, crazy kid,” he said affectionately. “Are you sure you’re ok? Am I hurting you? We don’t have to do this, Joshy.”

Joshy. It was the first time he’d ever called me that. I vaguely remembered being called that when I was a little kid. I grinned. “I like that,” I told him. “Joshy.”

“I swear I’m fine,” I told him. “I’m better than fine. You feel so good inside me, Mike. I’ve been thinking about this forever. You’ve got no idea how many times I jacked off thinking about this.”

I was shocked, although I realized I shouldn’t have been. “You really did?” I asked. “You thought about doing this… while you did that?”

“For months,” Mike said. “You’ve got no idea how crazy you’ve made me, Joshy. All those nights in front of the tv, staring at your stiff, little cock, wanting so desperately to touch it, to touch you. Everywhere. To make love to you like we did last night… like we’re doing now. So many sleepless nights thinking about you lying alone in bed, touching yourself, wishing it was me.”

I was shocked again. “Then why didn’t you?” I asked. “Didn’t you see how much I wanted you to? All I wanted every day was to come here and be with you, to have you touch me. And you always came so close. I just wanted you to do all those things you said. Sometimes I didn’t even make it all the way home, I was so horny. Sometimes I’d run into the laundry room and jack off. Why didn’t you ever just… do it?”

“I was scared,” Mike said. “I’m sorry, Josh. Part of me knew what you wanted. Of course. I’d have had to be blind not to, but part of me told myself that you didn’t understand what you were asking, or that maybe you weren’t even aware of what you were doing. I was an idiot.”

“You were,” I affirmed. “I should stop right now and not even let you… ravish me.”

Mike laughed and again, my insides did a somersault. “Ravish you? Is that what I’m doing?”

“Well,” I said, “I guess really I’m ravishing you. But I should still stop. To punish you.”

“You want to stop?” he teased. “But won’t you miss this?” And then he did something, flexed or pushed or something, and his cock jumped and swelled inside me.

I gasped. “Do it again!” I said. He did it again, reminding me just what we were doing. Slowly I drew away till only that fat cockhead remained trapped inside me, and then I pushed once again. This time I kept pushing… pushing… until there was nowhere else to go.

We both lay there gasping. I could feel him in me. All of him. All that thick, throbbing length. I was a stuffed turkey in truth now. Slowly, oh so slowly, I sat back up, feeling things shift inside me, until I could rest my hands against Mike’s chest. I looked down to see my dick, looking soft and small now, resting in the hair of Mike’s belly.

Mike seemed to know what I was thinking. He reached forward with his right hand and took the tip of my penis between his two fingers. He began to pull and squeeze until my dick began to lengthen again, then he slowly began to jack me as I became more erect.

“And you’re so damned small,” he said. “I feel like a rapist or something. How you can manage that is beyond me. Are you ok?”

“I’m fine,” I said, rocking a bit, wiggling to feel where everything was. “Am I doing it ok?”

I was perplexed. “When you said once that you didn’t like women anymore, and that you didn’t like men, I finally figured out that you must like boys. Like me. I… I guess I always thought you’d had other boyfriends before.”

“You’re the first and only boy I’ve ever loved, Joshy. The first I’ve ever… touched. Not that I haven’t been tempted before. Yes, I like boys, but you’re my first.”

“We’re both our firsts,” I said with a grin. Then just to drive the point home I lifted my ass several inches and then slid back down.

My hands pressing against Mike’s chest, I began to rock back and forth, riding that wonderful thickness. I noticed that Mike’s eyes were glued to where we were joined.

Mike carefully lifted me off him. His bulbous cockhead exited with an audible plop sound. He laid me down on my back then reached behind him. Next he grabbed two pillows and carefully placed them under my ass. Finally he grabbed each of my feet and pressed so that my knees bent.

I did, pulling my legs tight to my chest. Mike then knelt before me and took his big cock in his hand. He moved it against me, spreading around all that leaking pre-cum. As I watched, he gently began to press it into me. The mushroom head entered much easier this time. Slowly he began to feed me more and more, inch after inch filling me. Watching that long snake disappear inside me was amazing. I was shocked at how widely stretched my tiny asshole looked.

“You’re so beautiful,” Mike exclaimed when he was all the way inside me. “I love you, Joshy.”

Then Mike began to fuck me. There it was. That supposedly awful word. But that’s what we were doing. Fucking. Finally. Mike was fucking me. Fucking my ass with his big cock. My eyes were locked on his hairy, muscular body as he began to drive himself in and out of me. He started very slowly, making sure I was comfortable, but as he realized that I wasn’t in any pain, that I was in fact loving every minute of it, his speed began to increase.

Mike gripped me by my hips as he really began to fuck. I had my right hand around my dick, jacking myself steadily. I could feel my right knee against my cheek. My head was moving from side to side, as if I was denying something, but I couldn’t stop it. I was gasping like a dying fish. Mike’s cock was moving in and out of me ever faster. I began to feel his heavy nut sac beating against my asscheeks. I kept flashing on that pale spear as it impaled me again and again.

My eyes drifted shut and I lost myself in that thrusting rhythm, the meaty smack of flesh on flesh. I felt my balls begin to tighten and I knew it wouldn’t be long, though I felt like I wanted this to go on forever. Mike was panting loudly above me now.

“Come inside me,” I said, opening my eyes and staring him in the eye. “Shoot in me.”

That seemed to push him over the edge. With a grunt he slammed deep inside me and held himself there, shaking, as I felt his hot cum splash deep in my bowels. His swollen, spasming cock was the last little bit I needed. My four inch cock bucked once in my hand, and then I was spurting thin streamers of watery boycum across my sweaty belly. Even after I’d squirted my last tiny bit, I could see my little pee hole gaping open and closed, like a gasping fish.

Mike slowly lowered himself to his hands and then gently gathered me against him and rolled over onto his back, keeping me cuddled against him, his softening length still deep inside me. I lay there on top of him, my head on his sweaty chest, while my breathing slowed. After some time Mike’s cock slid out of me. I once again felt that yawning emptiness inside as his spent seed dribbled out and down over my balls.

After another five or ten minutes, it’s hard to tell, I raised my head. Mike met my eyes with a small smile. “We did it,” I said. He smiled and nodded.

I slowly sat up. I looked down at Mike’s cock, soft and glistening and still big. Just above that my four incher was anything but soft. I asked, “Can we do it again?”

We did do it again, but not before Mike made us breakfast and we both took a shower. In fact, we did it a lot over the coming days. In every conceivable place and position. We screwed in our big chair, me in his lap, my back against his chest. We screwed on the sofa. We screwed with me sitting on the bar and him standing. We screwed in the cab of his truck, our windows fogging the glass so bad we couldn’t drive for twenty minutes after. We screwed at the shop, both in the storeroom in the back, and lying on the floor behind the counter. Once I even crawled under the counter and sucked Mike off while he waited on a customer.

I began to spend every night at Mike’s house. Not just the evenings, but the whole night, wrapped in his arms. I’d check in every once in awhile to see if my mom was ok, but she didn’t seem to miss me.

When Christmas break finally released me from school, Mike took me to the city. For three days we stayed in a hotel, ate in nice restaurants, and went to movies and the theater. We bought a tree for his apartment and decorated it. I hadn’t had a Christmas tree since I was five years old.

On Christmas Eve we went to bed by the glow of blinking Christmas lights. The bottom of the tree was surrounded by presents. Mike had insisted on giving me money to spend, and since I was spending it on him, I was happy. I was happier than I’d ever been.

On Christmas morning we were awakened by a loud knocking on the door. In a panic, we both jumped up out of bed. Mike pulled on his shorts and I hurriedly stepped into a pair of briefs and then slipped back beneath the covers.

Mike opened the door to find two policemen there. They asked if I was there and I had to get out of bed. I saw their eyebrows raise as they saw me in my underwear. They told me to get dressed.

It seemed my mom had passed out during the night, as always, on the couch. However this time she managed to do so with a lit cigarette. The house had burnt down with her in it. The police and firemen thought that I must have been in the house too, but on finding no signs of me they talked to neighbors, who talked to Robert’s parents, who talked to Robert, who told them to talk to Mike.

As I couldn’t go home, I was taken to a temporary shelter. They wouldn’t let me return to Mike’s place. The next day I was interviewed by the Sheriff. He wanted to know what I’d been doing at Mike’s. In his bed. In my underwear. He wanted to know how long I’d been staying there, and mostly he wanted to know what Mike had ‘done’ to me.

I told him Mike and I were friends and nothing more. That he was nice to me and let me stay there cause my mom was a drunk. He didn’t believe me. For the next four hours he, two of his deputies, a social worker and a therapist all took turns questioning me. The Sheriff seemed to get angrier and angrier as the hours wore on. Finally, he began threatening me. He knew what we’d done, he claimed. If I was just honest it would be ok. Nobody would be getting into trouble. I just had to tell the truth. Otherwise, I would be going to a group home, never to see Mike again. All I had to do was tell the truth and it would all be over. Just tell the truth.

Of course, they had lied. The next day Mike was arrested. I was sent to a group home. Mike pled guilty to everything they charged him with, not wanting to make me have to go to court and testify. I wish he had. I wanted to. I wanted to scream it to anyone that would listen, that I loved Mike and he loved me and we hadn’t done anything wrong.

Mike was sentenced to a year and a day in prison, as well as 10 years probation. Five weeks later he was dead. He’d been stabbed seventeen times by two men in prison.

Jennifer sat in silence, the tattoo machine finally going quiet. She looked down at her work, grabbed a paper towel and some water and wiped my arm clean. I looked down at the perfect picture of myself. So sad. So lost, and I felt that loss hit me in that hollow place in my heart.

“So what happened to you?” she asked me. She’d been mostly quiet while I related my story. I hadn’t given her all the graphic details of course, but I’d told her a lot of it.

“Robert’s parents took me in for a few months,” I told her. “I tried to commit suicide the first time about a month later. Pills. The second time was a few months later. Slit my wrists in the bathtub. They got rid of me after that.

Probably for the best. It was a small town. I was suddenly ‘the boy who was molested’ to everyone in town. I was looked on with either pity or derision.

I went through a lot of therapy of course. They spent a long time assuring me that I’d been a victim of a horribly sick person who just used boys like me for their own perverse pleasures. It was sickening. Their world view just couldn’t cope with me, with the love I felt for Mike. With the love I knew Mike had felt for me.”

I sighed. “On the anniversary of his death I burnt down the Sheriff's department. Still blamed them for his death. I still do, actually. I was sent to juvie after that. Till I turned eighteen. When I got out, I joined the Army. Wanted the toughest, most punishing thing I could find. I went infantry, then Airborne, and then into the Special Forces. I got two Silver Stars for bravery. It was just a death wish really.

Lying in the hospital after being wounded the second time I finally started asking myself what the hell I was doing. I was still so full of hate. Then I met this little Iraqi boy named Jamail. He used to hang around the base. He didn’t have any parents. Just a street kid. I didn’t fall in love with him, but I did come to love him. I spent months cutting through red tape, but I managed to find him a family in the States. Then I left the Army.

When I got back to the States, I let the Army pay my way through college. I got my bachelors in psychology. Now I work with kids. Victims of abuse mostly, the truly abused. I try to make sure that others aren’t abused by the system that’s supposed to look out for them.”

Jennifer was looking again at the pictures I’d brought in. She held one up to me. “I guess that’s Mike?” she asked.

“He looks nice,” she said. She didn’t seem to know what to say, and I could hardly blame her.

Then she surprised me. And herself, I think. She hugged me fiercely, and with her head near my ear ,she whispered, “I’m sure he loved you. I think he’d be proud of you.”

I hugged her back, feeling the sting of tears. I thought he’d be proud of me, too.