From: an62433@anon.penet.fi (Reverend Jim )
Reply-To: an62433@anon.penet.fi
Date: Wed, 18 May 1994 14:01:30 UTC
Subject: New Story: The Boywatchers Inc

The Boywatchers Inc., Introduction to Book One
by Reverend Jim

Boywatchers contains man/boy love.  If that offends you don't read it, I
don't care.  Questions & comments go to an62433@anon.penet.fi

This story is fiction.  All characters, events and locations are purely
objects of the author's imagination.  Any resemblance to actual persons,
either living or dead, is purely coincidental.

The short quote from Charles Darwin's "The Voyage of the Beagle"
[Copyright (C) 1909 P.F. Collier & Son, New York] was taken from the
Internet Wiretap online edition, released into the public domain
September 1993.

The Boywatchers Inc., Copyright (C) 1994 by an62433@anon.penet.fi.  All
Rights Reserved.  Author hereby grants permission for archiving and
distribution by electronic means only, as long as no fees are charged
either for the story, for the media it is distributed on, for membership
dues, or for the connect time used to obtain the story.

The Boywatchers should run approximately twenty chapters, or somewhere
around there.  Book One may seem a little off-beat, but I need to "set
the stage" for such a huge, complex story.  Also, there is some sex in
Book One - but most of it is in Book Two.  This is my first post to the
net so please let me know what you think.

Boywatchers is dedicated to my mentor, editor and beta tester, Hans The
Terrorist.  Without him this work would not have been possible.  Hans
changed my life, and if he ever gets around to buying a faster modem
he'll probably change yours, too.  I give him my deepest gratitude.

Reverend Jim


Boywatchers Inc., book one/part one
by Reverend Jim

Boywatchers contains man/boy love.  If that offends you don't read it, I
don't care.  Questions & comments go to an62433@anon.penet.fi

The Boywatchers Inc., Copyright (C) 1994 by an62433@anon.penet.fi.  All
Rights Reserved.  Author hereby grants permission for archiving and
distribution by electronic means only, as long as no fees are charged
either for this story, for the media it is distributed on, for
membership dues, or for the connect time used to obtain this story.

                                  +++

The sun begins to set on the buildings of Soho in New York.  Most of
them are decent, unaffordable type buildings that only famous artists
seem to live in.  Unfortunately the sun appears to be the only witness
to the passage of days here; the mere humans go about their business as
if it matters, the trucks continue to make loud noises as if they mean
something.

This is not to suggest that everything is meaningless, of course,
although most opponents of this idealogy have simply never lived in New
York City for very long.  But enough dime-store theology for now because
there is trouble with The Boy.  This is our prime responsibility, above
all else we must be sure he is safe.

As things first come into focus he looks like a normal ten year old boy,
coming out of a subway labeled in yellow: "Uptown N and R Trains." The
Boy steps up onto Prince street and looks around at the artsy
neighborhood, wondering why he'd chosen to get off here.  He scratches
his head and moves on down the block to look into the window of an
occasional Korean grocer or an occasional Korean pharmacy.  These were
the types of shops who had big thugs near the doors inside (or casually
standing in the street outside) to prevent shoplifters or even keep
certain types out completely, certain types like our dear child, The
Boy.

At the same moment in time but thirty or forty blocks south, a seemingly
unrelated event occurs.  A man wearing an Armani suit and reading a
paper steps out onto Wall street, not looking where he is going and
barely avoids knocking down a bicycle messenger as he heads toward the
curb, thinking of things like interest rates and debenture bonds and
securities regulations.  Before he even makes it to the curb his car
magically appears as if from thin air.  Without thinking he holds out a
five dollar bill for the valet and collects his keys.

Upon closer inspection The Boy looks awfully scruffy, almost as if there
is simply a tiny greasy smear on the camera lens as we view an otherwise
beautiful neighborhood (for New York, that is).  But no - this is no
greasy smudge, this is in fact the living embodiment of the least
understood pleasure and the most undeniable beauty in this and most
other universes.  This is The Boy, in fact a starving, dirty specimen at
that.

The Boy is kicking a small piece of trash down the street simply to
amuse himself, and as he passes one of the aforementioned grocers he
amuses himself further by lifting an orange with no one spotting him.
He walks on, beginning to peel the orange even before he gets to the end
of the grocer's fruitstand, almost as if to say "Fuck you, world.  You
cannot touch me because I am free to do what I choose, more free than
than the birds in the sky." The Boy in our focus would never say such a
silly thing, of course, simply because he knows deep down in his soul
that there are no birds in the sky.  Everyone knows that pigeons only
walk around like rats with wings - pigeons never actually flew free in
the sky like a real bird.  And real birds were only in books, a vague
image in The Boy's mind, just like his mother and then his father.  As
if to punctuate his arrogance The Boy spins on his heels and turns to
find the grocer's thug amidst the passers-by.  There he is, lax in his
duties, not even noticing The Boy who is now calmly eating an
ill-begotten orange and walking away with a swagger.  This was only an
exercise in fun however, and The Boy moves on to seek real nourishment
under the light of dusk in New York City.

Aside from his outstanding ability to survive in this particular jungle,
The Boy has two unique traits of which to take notice.  When he found
himself alone here two years ago he adapted quickly, surviving by luck,
skill, determination, fear, instinct and intelligence.  His
extraordinary intelligence is the first trait of importance, and the
reason The Boy has made it this far on his own.  When his life suddenly
changed at age eight, The Boy knew not how or why, he knew only of fear
and running and hunger and pain.  Practically overnight he converted
himself from a frightened eight year old boy into the lean machine we
see here today wandering around Soho.

Observe carefully the second trait as The Boy kicks his lump of trash
down the street, eating his orange: he is happy.  Despite the grunge on
his face and long, greasy, formerly-blonde hair, despite the filthy
t-shirt, despite the holes in his only pair of sweat pants and most of
all the shameful smell that follows The Boy everywhere.  If you knew The
Boy you would know why...  In the two years of his great adventure, he
has not been tamed.  His spirit is not broken by simple things like
hunger and pain and cold.  He is happy only because his innocence
somehow remains intact as he plays his dangerous game of
hide-and-go-live.

The Boy moves down to Green street and heads further south in search of
either adventure or food, even he not knowing which will turn up.  On a
sudden whim The Boy pulls his leg back and kicks the piece of trash as
hard as he can, laughing out loud as it careens off a fancy-store
window.  Quickly afterwards a man comes out yelling and The Boy bolts
headlong down the street, still laughing.  He certainly looks as if he
would turn a cartwheel if in fact he only knew how.

The Boy slows down and loops back around toward Broadway.  Somewhere in
the back of his mind, The Boy was beginning to think Soho was a mistake.
He shouldn't have come out this far from home to seek food, and now he
would have to resort to begging for money to buy another subway token.
This wasn't really a problem, but begging was much better during the day
when people weren't afraid of you, and the only time The Boy came out in
the daylight was on the weekend.  This way the men wouldn't come and
take him to school or to court or to jail or to an evil home.  Begging
was his special weekend activity, and most times he would collect enough
for a week of food.  Not last weekend however, and he laments the sad
fact as he drags his feet through the cobblestone alley searching the
garbage bins for bits of food.  Most of the Korean grocers poured bleach
on their rotted fruit when they threw it out so the street people
wouldn't raid their garbage, but every now and then The Boy could still
find a wad of something that smelled edible even if he couldn't identify
it.

                                +++

Not many people would notice it, but the man in the Armani suit is
beyond just 'rich'.  If we look closely, you can see it in the way he
walks and carries himself, and by the way his suit coat somehow remains
obediently unwrinkled when he wears it.  The man smells of money and
power.  Occasionally he even smells of the fresh-cut grass at the
country club on Long Island, where he goes to play squash with the men
of lesser stations in life.  It helps to keep his body in such perfect
physical shape.

Another thing you will only find through superior powers of observation
are his eyes.  This man has dedicated his life to his business,
worshipping the almighty dollar as if it were something more real than a
piece of paper, more real somehow than the love he had felt for his
mother so many years ago.  Very little else mattered to the power man,
and you could see the damage done in his sad eyes.  He dated ladies from
the club, of course, but this exercise in social behavior was simply for
show and nothing ever developed because his one true love always got in
the way.  And somewhere deeper in the man's mind, he didn't really
enjoy women anyway. 

As if to illustrate his dedication, he glances at the clock embedded in
the dashboard of his new Mercedes Benz 500 SL.  It's a leather dashboard
with a fine analog clock, not the cheap digital garbage found in so many
normal cars these days.  Summer was beginning to break in New York City,
the days getting warmer and longer, the sun was just moving down now at
seven o'clock.  Each night around this time he would drive himself home
to his condo overlooking Central Park, enjoying the New York City
traffic in his own sick way.  Easily he could arrange for the company
limousine to escort him home in the comfort and style befitting a man of
his position, but no...  he insisted on driving himself home each night,
waiting until dusk when the traffic was dying down and then taking back
streets and nameless alleyways all the way home.  Staying off the main
streets allowed him to move much faster, even though he got home later
than if he just waited in the line of honking, stinking, obnoxious cars.

His eight-point-something million dollar condominium was only about half
an hour away, and getting restless the man turns into an alley he had
not yet driven, speeding away from the writhing mass of cars and
squealing his tires on the corner.  For the highlight of his day the man
listens to Claude Debussey selections performed by the Pittsburgh
Symphony Orchestra, home to one of his favorite Violas, an esoteric and
undiscovered performer who could bring life to the dead music wafting
through his two-seater.  The fine german machine speeds through the tiny
alleys between buildings, kicking up garbage and dirt with its wide
tires as it goes.

The man does not have his lights on yet, there is still enough light to
drive with.  From our vantage point high above, we can clearly see the
headlights on the sleek black car as they appear, not unlike the eyes of
a predator in the jungle, to be angry yet subtle.  From the front they
seem cobra-like, mean and menacing.  It takes alot of power and money
indeed to purchase a car with tiny little wipers built onto the lenses
of your lights in order to clear them when it rains.  In only a few
minutes the headlight on the right will be shattered and the wiper torn
out of its socket like the leg pulled from a spider's body, but this is
the furthest thing from the man's mind as he rolls on towards the
comfort and serenity of home high above Central Park.  Images of blood
spattered across his windshield would seem silly if they occurred to him
at all in his limited, secure, posh little universe.

Back on Broadway traffic is at a standstill, and every so often the man
drives through an intersection that allows him to see through the
cross-streets and glimpse the overheating, noisey cars while he flies
past, weaving in and out of scum-ridden alleys.  The man is now just
starting to relax, the tension of his unyeilding day oozing from his
tired muscles as he sinks more comfortably into his soothing leather
seat.

                                +++

And now somewhere else entirely, somewhere peaceful and white and far,
far away from the events of New York City at dusk, we can look back in
time, watching events as if on a movie screen.  However, the events seem
almost real in their depiction, more horrific than a movie can present.
Only the truth can be so disturbing.

The time is the mid-eighties.  The place is an abandoned building in the
tough Bedford-Stuyvesant area.  As the scene comes into focus we can see
the filthy stained walls and ceiling of a room without light or power or
heat.  It is sometime in the winter and the holes in the walls that used
to be windows are covered up with tattered sheets of plastic that were
stolen from a construction site.  It doesn't help keep the cold out,
just the biting wind that flows through the holes all day and all night,
the howling drafts making it nearly impossible to sleep, and the
freezing temperature making it impossible to stay awake.  A crack
appears in the dirty wall, and as we follow it down towards the filthy
floor we begin to hear the screams of the girl-woman in the room.  She
is not being injured or murdered, but blood spills forth from her frigid
body as she comes into view, cold tears ripping down her face and her
lips and mouth twisted in agony.  The girl-woman is called Rhea and she
has peeled back her rags in the cold, disgusting room in order to lean
against a wall and give birth.

Our view widens and we see the boy-man called George, his rough,
calloused hands holding Rhea gently while she screams.  The pair are not
even eighteen years old and yet they appear much older, nearly thirty at
least.  The two are penniless, hopeless pseudo-youth in the abandoned
building, and yet they are both full of true pride.  They are Squatters,
homesteading in the unused building and free from rent and the hassles
of the everyday world.  Free as well from heat and electricity, the pair
shiver and do their best to deliver their first child into their world.
They have no need for welfare or foodstamps or government assistance,
for they can rely on themselves and each other as they make their mark
upon the world that does not care.

In another time and another place things would most certainly have been
different, as George's Great-great-great-great grandfather was in fact a
nobleman in Scotland before he was murdered by the grieving family of a
deceased viscious enemy.  The enemy was murdered, but not by George's
distant relative.  The chaos resulting from the mistake caused a long
feud between the two families, eventually destroying the MacDonough
family.  As George McDonald comforts the mother of his child, the only
memory of such a time is the broken, towering husk of MacDonough Castle
on the rolling green hills on the southern edge of Scotland.  Were it
not for the feud, George's family may still be considered small-time
royalty in the region, but things are not different and he knows not of
his ancient, meaningless birthright - he knows only of Rhea's pain and
screams in the night as he tries pointlessly to calm the girl-woman in
his arms.

[And in another time completely the sleek black car is moving closer,
now only thirteen blocks from The Boy.]

And so the stage is set for The Boy's entrance into the cold, heartless
world.  It is not a grand entrance, in fact the world continues to spin
as his head appears, then his wet, steaming, bloody body.  The Boy is
screaming against the cold as his father holds him up to his mother, the
glimmer of pure love shining in both of their faces.  Neither the love
nor the swaddling rags he is wrapped in stop the fierce cold drafts, and
The Boy cries long into the night.

Again our reality shifts, this time into the early nineties.  Once again
we see The Boy as he works along side his father in the tenement.  This
time things are nicer from having the two males work hard to improve
their conditions.  The windows are boarded up neatly and the drafts are
much less severe in the winters.  Now they have stolen a live electrical
line from the sewers to provide heat and electricity, but it came one
winter too late, as The Boy's mother is already dead from sickness
during the harsh season.  Neither George nor The Boy are thinking of her
while they work, or thinking of her burial in a dumpster only a few
months ago.  They had no money for a real funeral, of course, and out of
respect for Rhea, George did not call the authorities to collect her
body.

[Seven blocks south and five blocks east the car turns right,
zig-zagging its way north into Soho...]

George was now alone in educating The Boy at home, away from the schools
and keeping him safely out of "The System" that he hates so much.  The
Boy is in fact well-educated in many ways, knowing how to steal food and
also the finer nuances of Shakespeare, as learned from stolen books
whenever possible.  Despite the poor conditions and the constant hunger,
The Boy is happy and loves his father dearly, the only one in the entire
world he can trust.

When it came, the pair did not celebrate The Boy's eighth birthday, if
in fact either of them knew it was his birthday.  That morning George
awakened The Boy early, before the sun was up.  It was time to tell The
Boy he was on his own, to tell him never to let The System get him.  The
Boy could not truly grasp those words until several days later when his
father had still not returned.

Early in the morning on The Boy's eighth birthday, the body of an
unidentified homeless man was scraped from the curb along Throop street
in the shadow of a tall building.

                                +++

And now we return to the lonely dark alley in Soho where The Boy's feet
are dangling several inches off the ground as his body is hunched over
into a foul smelling dumpster.  Foul to us perhaps, but The Boy knows
the scent of restaraunt garbage and triumphantly plucks a chunk of
half-eaten chicken from the waste, a smile on his face as he eats the
soggy meat.  Three blocks south and two blocks east a menacing black
Mercedes speeds closer, neither The Boy nor the driver knowing what is
about to happen.  For now, of course, we can only wait patiently and be
happy for The Boy as he picks tonight's supper from the bones of his
new-found treasure.

It is now almost completely dark, and a few blocks away the man in the
Mercedes stops to wait for a passing car at an intersection, finally
turning on his headlights at the same time.  As soon as the car is out
of the way the Mercedes' tires squeal as it lurches forward on its way
uptown.  The man inside the car is now completely at ease in his haven
of leather and soft violins, looking forward to a warm bath and a stiff
martini when he arrives at his destination.  Despite his current
activity, operating an automobile is practically the last thing on his
mind.

As the car whizzes past garbage bins in the back alley it is now only
one block south and one block east of The Boy, and reality begins to
shift once again, slightly different this time.  We are looking upon the
same players on our same stage, but time is slowing down, things are
becoming even more in-focus than they were.  Each detail is painfully
clear and we are, as we observe the scene, in a state of hightened
awareness.  It is like this every single time it happens and you never
quite get used to it - the hundredth time still scares the shit out of
you as much as the first.  It has nothing to do with the blood and the
screams, of course, you can adjust to that and become somewhat numb.
What truly gets you is that knot in your stomach at the moment of
impact, when every nerve ending is tinglingly aware of the
bone-snapping, skin-tearing collision of flesh and steel.  Just one of
the hazards of the job, I guess, but someone has to do it.  Besides, the
fringe benefits are out of this world.

The man in the unwrinkled Armani suit steps on the gas, whipping the car
around the corner into a new alley, the tires shrieking the whole way as
he guns the car into life.  In only forty or fifty yards the tires will
shriek again as he slams his brakes a moment too late, but not yet.  For
now the tires are like those of an Indy racer, nimbly gripping the
cobblestones and bobbing left and right between dumpsters, the mean
headlights throwing moving shadows throughout the alley.

The Boy has finished his chicken and is dipping once again into the
grab-bag of rotting food when he senses something is wrong.  Inside the
dumpster, The Boy's ears perk up at the sound of squealing tires.  They
are the finely tuned ears of a street kid, 'feeling' trouble rather than
hearing it.  At first he thinks of the police, the nasty blue men
roaming the streets of New York but no, there are no lights or sirens.
He relaxes slightly, but he needs to investigate the sounds - it could
still be trouble.  Abandoning his jackpot, he swings his upper body
backward and out of the bin to see what lurks beyond.  He is holding
onto the lip of the bin with his elbows, his feet still not touching
firm ground, and when his eyes are high enough to see the bright lights
coming towards him, he slips, falling onto his backside on the dirty
cobblestones below.  And directly in the path of those menacing
headlights.

Living in New York, The Boy knows well how to avoid the rolling beasts
and jumps to his feet, staring straight into the bright lights coming
his way.  At this point he could recognize that it was too late.

Inside the Mercedes, the man in the Armani suit was smiling right at
that moment.  Even he will not remember why in a few seconds, as he
spots movement in the dark alley.  His headlights shine upon The Boy as
he falls out of the trash bin and lands in the street, directly in the
line of those wide tires.  Unsure of what had happened, the man does not
react until The Boy stands up only feet from those headlights, a look of
sheer terror in his face, a look the man will not soon forget.  They
seem to lock eyes for a split second as gallons of adrenalin pulse into
each of their veins.

The tires do screech, of course, but you really can't hear them anyway
so it doesn't matter.  What you can hear, and quite clearly so, is the
incessant beating in your ears, the pulsing bass sound of two hearts in
stereo, each inflamed with adrenalin and pumping away, the noise
drilling into your head.  The beating only gets louder as we see The Boy
throw his arms forward out of reflex, as if he can somehow stop the
oncoming headlights from shattering his frail, tiny body.

There is some relief, however, as at least one of those heartbeats will
stop completely in a moment, just be patient.

The marriage of flesh and car is complete in the same moment that The
Boy truly understands what is about to happen.  His mind is fully aware
of the sounds and sights around him, all the way down to the cool, silky
feel of the gloss black paint.  The first contact comes from the
passenger's side headlight against his knee.  The Boy is trying to turn
out of the way as they collide, shattering both the headlamp and the
knee.  The expensive, tiny wiper blade embeds itself into The Boy's
thigh like an arrow, sticking out on both sides of the torn muscle.  The
movements to follow rip the blade out of its little socket below the
glass but not out of the thigh.

The impact on the knee whips his body into a spin towards the hood and
windshield of the black Mercedes.  The Boy's head touches the glass at
exactly the same moment that his ribcage is crushed against the hood.
Interestingly enough, the glass does not crack under the pressure, and
neither does the head that bounces off of it, leaving a tiny clump of
bloody hair.  It matters naught, however, because you can already hear
only one heartbeat pulsing in your head.  The Boy's short, painful life
is now snuffed like a candle in the wind, a thin whisp of smoke the only
sign that it was ever lit.

The Boy who might have been called Lord Sean MacDonough in another life
is now dead, his heart peaceful within his twisted, bleeding body.  Ah,
we can breathe a sigh of relief that the worst is over, it is almost
time for us to go to work - a bit of mending and the boy will be as good
as new, but not yet.  The scene continues to unfold.

When the Mercedes finally comes to a complete hault the lifeless body is
thrown clear, landing just in front of the bumper.  The tiny head hits
the street with an odd sound, not unlike horses hooves clop-clopping on
the cobblestones.  The man inside the car is shaking and gripping the
steering wheel with white knuckles.  He sees the bloody knot of hair
stuck on the glass only eighteen inches from his face, then he opens the
door and vomits in the alley.  His door open, his face turned down to
the street, the man sits thinking for what seems like an eternity.

RUN.  That was his first thought, and perfectly natural.  But this man
knows nothing of police tactics, and things like blood-typing and
paint-matching and hair folicles like those on his window always catch
the bad guy in the movies.  Still, thoughts of dumping the young body
into a bin and driving homeward held a certain attraction given his
situation.  Who would care about a garbage-digger boy?

It was only thirty seconds after the impact that he decided to take the
honest route, his hands shaking so badly that he couldn't unbuckle his
seatbelt.  The man takes a deep breath and manages to get out of the car
to see if The Boy is alive.  As he fearfully walks to the front of his
car, time stops all together.  The man is frozen in mid-step, all sounds
and movements paused for a dramatic moment.

And now we can finally move into action.  The scene is so peaceful
without the agony of passing time, like the panorama inside a little
glass globe before you shake it, making it snow.  Everything is silent
as we mend the broken body on the street, giving him another chance.
First his knee, his ribs, his head.  Only the important items are tended
to...  after all, he was just hit by a car and it would look awfully
strange if he came up perfect.  Then his heart begins beating again
along with the passage of time.

Such is the job of The Boywatchers, Incorporated.  We tend to those
whose time hasn't yet come.  You'll hear more about it later, but for
now bear with me, friend: I think you'll enjoy hearing the rest of
little Lord Sean's story.  By restoring his life we gave him another
chance, and the tale begins as the man in the unwrinkled Armani suit is
cradling the unconscious but now-breathing body of Sean McDonald in his
arms.


Boywatchers Inc., book one/part two
by Reverend Jim

The Boywatchers Inc., Copyright (C) 1994 by an62433@anon.penet.fi.  All
Rights Reserved.  Author hereby grants permission for archiving and
distribution by electronic means only, as long as no fees are charged
either for this story, for the media it is distributed on, for
membership dues, or for the connect time used to obtain this story.

                                  +++

We were the only witnesses to the events, of course.  The man now stands
in the alley illuminated by a single headlight, gently holding The Boy
in his arms.  Immediately he could tell that The Boy was alive and that
most of the damage was caused by the tiny headlight-wiper blade embedded
in The Boy's thigh.  There was a bleeding, disgusting looking gash on
the young forehead, but this was a small price to pay for the mishap.
The man is thinking that surely this boy must have a guardian angel
looking after him.

The man pauses, considering the cars outside the alley.  He could call
an ambulance, but it wouldn't be here for hours amidst the rush-hour
traffic.  Knowing that it is the wrong thing to do, the man places the
unconscious body in his passenger seat and gets back in the car.  His
last resort was to drive The Boy to the hospital himself.  A little
grime and blood on his leather was truly a small price to pay for The
Boy's safety, even such a filthy boy as this.

Again the car squeals away, weaving down side streets towards the
nearest hospital.  Calmly he talks to himself, trying to figure out the
steps he needs to take.  No doubt he would need a lawyer in the event
criminal charges were filed, but the Honorable Judge Lockheim (or
"Himey," as his friends at the club called him) should be able to take
care of that.  The insurance company and the police should be notified
when he gets to the hospital, and not sooner - if he calls now he will
be forced to explain his actions, but at the hospital he can claim to
have been stricken with panic, not realizing that he was leaving the
scene of an accident, particularly one involving a personal injury.  All
of these things occur to the cool, analytical mind of the broker.

At the same time but two feet to the right, The Boy's eyes remain closed
as he becomes aware of the sensations of his body.  There is a dull,
overall ache that bothers his head somewhat but mostly the pain is
disconnected, as if someone else is experiencing it and he is merely a
witness.  The Boy's mind traverses the extent of his limbs, exploring
the reaches of his body and experiencing each contusion as if it were a
fine wine, delicately sampling the feelings and moving on to the next.
Eventually he comes to the conclusion that he is in fact alive and
reasonably well but does not remember the accident at all, probably a
good thing.  He also decides that he is moving in a vehicle of some
sort.  The last idea sets off little alarm bells deep in The Boy's mind,
but still it takes several more minutes for his eyes to open and survey
the situation.  When they do open, the first vision is of a tiny black
rod sticking through a bloody patch in his sweat pants.  Instantly the
thought that comes to mind is that now he is absolutely, unquestionably
positive that foraging for food in Soho was a bad idea.

And the black, menacing Mercedes rolls on in the night.

Now for the second time in his life The Boy is terrified, feeling like a
trapped animal and completely aware of his position.  His eyes are open
but he cannot seem to move, it hurts too much - clearly he was beaten up
and now is being taken somewhere.  He can only see one person in the car
and it should be no problem at all to free himself, but only once he can
move his hand up to the pocket of his sweat pants.

Minutes later the man is still driving quickly through unused alleys
when he sees The Boy move in the corner of his eye.  He jerks his head
to the right just as a small pistol is being pointed at him.  Obviously
a .38 caliber "Saturday night special" handgun, probably stolen from a
pawn shop.  His mind did not allow him to think about grabbing it,
clearly this boy was much faster than he.

And now The Boy speaks his first words since last Sunday when he was
begging at Grand Central Station.  He practically gurgles the words,
choking them out one at a time.  "Where ...  going?" he asks the man
wearing the Armani suit.

The man thinks of saying alot of things, all of them rushing through his
mind in an instant, almost all of them aimed at getting the gun away
from The Boy.  In the end he says simply, "We had an accident, we're
going to the hospital." His voice sounds calm and belies the screams
from his brain.

"NOOOOooooo!" screams The Boy, his face turning white as he reels in
pain from the stress of the man's words, and also from the pain of his
wounds when his body becomes tense.

                                +++

And now we can take a look at one of The Boy's better days if you don't
mind.  This particular day he fell from a scaffolding and broke his
wrist.  Keep in mind, I did not say a GOOD day, I said a BETTER day.

It was three months after his father "left" and The Boy was continuing
to improve the tenement on his own.  He had climbed to a precarious
perch atop the scaffolding to patch a hole in the ceiling when he fell
and, quite simply, broke his wrist.  Frankly, the damage was really
normal, everyday boy type stuff.

Unfortunately The Boy didn't think so, and decided that the course of
action to take was to walk to a hospital - even old Garfield thought he
needed a doctor.  The Boy knew that you were supposed to go to a
hospital if you got hurt, of course, but had never been to one.  To say
the least, it was a new experience.

The Boy walked himself thirty-seven blocks to an emergency room and
waited in line between a gunshot wound and a spike-through-the-foot.
Six hours later he had a contraption on his arm, but they wouldn't let
him leave.  He heard whispers of police and of 'temporary shelters' and
of courts.  These were the buzzwords of The System that his father had
warned him about.  These were the sure signs of trouble, and it was the
first time he felt the trapped-animal feeling in his stomach.  The Boy
waited until no one was looking and slipped out past the white-coats
into the street, then walked thirty-seven blocks home.

A few weeks later his hand started working again so he used a razorblade
to cut the contraption from his skin.  His hand was working again
indeed, but it did nothing for his image of hospitals.

And eleven months before he pointed it at the man in the Mercedes Benz,
The Boy unearthed the gun from a trash bin near his tenement.  It was
likely tossed into the dumpster after being used for a murder, but this
did not matter.  It was a priceless jewel to find, worth more than
almost any other treasure he could have come across.  There were no
bullets to go with it, but even then he knew that sometimes a gun works
just as well without them.

Unfortunately the gun still requires that the operator is conscious, as
the boy would learn within the hour as he tries to climb steps with a
tiny wiper blade stuck in his thigh.  But not yet.

                                +++

Now back in the present, the gun is working quite well without bullets
as the man slows the car to a stop in an alleyway.  "You've been hit by
a car," the man says.  "You need a doctor."

The Boy somehow knew that it was true and he did need a doctor.  But he
also knew that he would rather die than go to a hospital.  Damn.  If
only his body were working properly he could jump out of this car and
run away, but for now he wouldn't make it to the end of the block.
"Drop me off in Bed-Stuy," he mumbles.

This car would certainly make an entrance there.  If he didn't stop for
any lights the man might even make it out alive.  Bedford-Stuyvesant was
out of the question.  "I promise I won't turn you in, kid," he says,
turning on his disarming sales-meeting charm.  "I have my own private
doctor, he can take care of you.  No one will know."

Despite his better judgements, The Boy remains silent.  He knew that his
body was in bad shape.  What was the alternative?  The Boy does not have
the will to object as the car starts moving again and the man picks up a
cellular phone.

"Nathan?  I've got an emergency - can you meet me at the condo?" he
speaks into the phone and looks down at The Boy.  Then he adds, "...and
bring your kit."

As the car pulls into its garage The Boy is fighting to stay awake and
keep the gun pointed at his driver.  The car stops and the pair get out,
a well-dressed man being followed by a tiny, hunched, limping, bleeding,
smelly street kid whose leg is impaled by a wiper blade.  A more surreal
scene could only exist in the world of art.

The man moves quietly up the stairs.  The Boy does his best to follow
but five steps later the pain overcomes him.  Unconsciousness is almost
welcomed as The Boy collapses on the steps, utterly exhausted.  Had he
been fully conscious, The Boy would surely have lacked the energy to
point a gun or make threats.

Somewhere else Dr. Nathan Abromowitz sits on a couch bouncing his knee
nervously as he waits.  The good doctor had faithfully come to his
friend's aid, and there is no one here.  He looks out through a picture
window to see nearly all of Central Park from this location, absently
wondering what the emergency was.  Certainly it didn't really matter,
but if this was a joke he would be upset.  To pass the time Dr.
Abromowitz unfolds his white laboratory coat and puts it on, now looking
much more like a doctor, complete with dangling stethoscope.

Minutes later two things are happening simultaneously.  The man in the
Armani suit is carrying both a gun and The Boy up the stairs while, at
the same time but in a different space entirely The Boy is flying.
Images of oceans and of rolling green hills are flowing past below him
and he watches from his safe vantage point in the clouds.  Everything is
peaceful in this universe, there is no need to return to the one from
which he came, the one filled with pain and hunger and fear.

And now the eyes of the good doctor are bulging.  "What...?" he is
trying to say, but the words don't seem to come.  A gun is dropped onto
a table and the bloody body of a young boy is placed on the couch.  The
good doctor involunarily rises to his feet, getting out of the way of
his friend.

"No questions, Nathan," the man says.  "Just fix him - I'll explain
later." As if to emphasize that he means business, the man pulls off his
suit coat, noticing for the first time that it is becoming wrinkled.

The good doctor is making some futile gestures with his hands and his
mouth is opening and closing, but no words are coming out.  A full
thirty seconds later he concludes that he needs to do something.  The
doctor is supposed to report things like this, but he implicitly trusts
the man.  There must be a good reason for all of this - The Boy, the gun
and the tiny wiper blade.  He produces a pair of sharp, gleaming
surgical stainless steel scissors and gets to work while the man
collapses into a chair, rubbing his temples.

He kneels beside the couch and carefully strips away the grungy clothing
with a doctor's hands.  He cleans and disinfects each wound gently and
The Boy does not return to consciousness.  The Boy's pupils are not
dilated, thank the lord.  The head wound is not serious.  One hour,
thirteen stitches and two rolls of gauze later his task is complete.

The two men get to their feet at the same time, each fighting to speak
first.  The doctor wins.

"This is illegal, Rick," he begins with a cold look in his eyes.  "I
don't even want to hear about it." Then he hands over a couple of small
packages.  "When he wakes up give him these for pain, and use the
surgical soap to wash the rest of his body to prevent infection.  If he
gets a fever you better get him to the hospital quick." He pauses to
look down at The Boy on the couch, wearing only dirty underwear and
gauze, then adds, "I wasn't even here," and picks up his medical bag.

Richard Laverne Siegal grabs his friend's elbow.  "Thanks," he says,
handing the doctor a business card with the name of a company scribbled
on the back.  "Every penny you have, Nate," the man says, trading one
impropriety for another.  He owed the doctor quite a bit, and this
should begin to repay it.  If the doctor used the inside information he
would make a bundle.

The doctor silently lets himself out.

                                +++

A long, dark wooden conference table stretches the length of the room,
almost farther than you can see.  At regular intervals there are frosty
glass pitchers of icewater, each resting on a clean white doily.
Towering windows line one side of the room, peering out into the Milky
Way.  There is no bright sunshine or fancy manicured landscape, only a
black sky with tiny white stars clustered throughout.  It would appear
that the room is simply floating in space.

The voices fade in, echoing in the long hall.  "...  the third time this
week!  What are you going to do about it, Dithers!" The last comment was
intended for the Executive Vice President.  The ancient, tottering
Chairman sits at the head of the table, banging his fist against the
wood and screaming about the latest sales figures.  It seems that ever
since that damn renaissance period on Earth, the planet has been losing
young boys at an alarming rate.

The one called Dithers speaks up nervously, "Marketing absolutely
insisted that we needed some culture for the planet to sell, sir." He is
rifling through papers as he moves on.  "Our research shows that
Sociology stratified the planet, and that is the root cause."

The man from the Sociology department pipes up from down the table.
"Yes, but on this budget we had to create an upper class in order to
fuel the demand for art."

The Chairman is steaming mad now, angry at the little men passing the
buck.  "We've got over forty ALBA units tied up in this planet!  How are
we going to sell it when the kids keep dying!" He is leaning forward on
his fingertips, glaring down the table at all the nervous suits.

I suppose a mere human would mistake these men for Gods or something,
but no.  This is simply a money-making corporation like any other.  It
just so happens that their business is creating and selling planets.

"We could get The Boywatchers, sir," comes a voice from far down the
table.  Immediately a murmur arises from the room as everyone tries to
see who spoke the blasphemous words.  The last person to say such a
thing ended up sweeping bathrooms on Valius-Seven.

The Chairman is still leaning foward over the table, a vein bulging from
his forehead.  "Who said that," he asks in a hoarse voice.

A hush falls over the Board of Directors as a nervous, handsome young
executive stands up at the other end of the table.  "Johnson, sir," his
voice cracking as he speaks.

The Chairman is not unreasonable, however.  He carefully thinks of his
options and it takes a long time for him to speak.  The Boywatchers are
a guaranteed but expensive solution.  You could hear a pin drop in the
silent room as everyone waits for the axe to fall.  Finally the Chairman
says, "Do it.  We are adjourned."

And that's our business - watching boys, mostly.  Right now Earth is in
phase one, approximately two thousand Earth years.  Some of us handle
the social changes while some of us (to keep the customer happy) handle
individual cases.  Too bad actually, because it would take much less
time if we only worried about the social problems.

But then we wouldn't have the best part: seeing how things turn out.  I
could always just look into the future, but somehow it isn't the same
once you become involved with a boy.  I know what the rules are, but I
guess I've gone and fallen in love with another one this time.  Who
cares, I just want to see the end.

                                +++

Richard Laverne Siegal has moved The Boy to the guest room and is now
gently giving him a surgical-soap sponge bath.  He started with the face
and, surprisingly enough, it glowed with beauty when he got the scum
off.  The hair would have to wait for a conscious patient.  He rolls The
Boy onto his stomach and bathes the backs of his long, thin legs and his
shoulders.  His hands are still shaking lightly against the clean, soft
skin on the small of The Boy's back.  Ever so carefully he returns to
The Boy's front, wiping away dirt from every inch of skin as he goes.
He lifts each arm and curves the warm, soapy sponge through the armpits,
down the ribs and over the chest.

The job nearly complete, the man looks down at the worn cotton
underwear, wondering what he should do.  The underwear used to be white
but is now grey with dirt and the elastic is useless, the leg holes
displaying young boy-testicles on one side.  The man looks at the tiny
bulge in the center and becomes noticably excited.  His heartbeat
quickens as he gently slides the underwear down and over the gauze on
the left thigh.

"Doctor's orders," the man thinks to himself as he admires the body
laying before him.  Somehow everything had changed in the last few
minutes and the man knew why.  Often he fantasized about young boys but
had never been this close to one before, and he liked the feeling.  This
man was not daring enough to molest the child but definately enjoyed the
feelings he got from cleaning the young, unconscious body.

Slowly he brushes the sponge across The Boy's pelvis, erasing an obvious
line of dirt where the underwear had hugged the body.  Gently the sponge
moves across the tiny uncircumcised penis, soaping it up fully and
removing days worth of dirt.  The man lifts the penis in two fingers and
slowly pulls the foreskin back to soap the tiny purplish head
completely.  He moves on, using the same care on the tiny sack below,
lifting it to clean the crevices below.

Carefully the man spreads the lean legs and lifts the right one so he
can gently clean The Boy's bottom.  He sponges the tiny pink hole and
the crack leading up the the scrotum, now hanging softly below the penis
like some sort of necklace.

The penis is already done but the man returns to it.  Holding it between
his fingers he slides the foreskin down over the tip, then lets it go,
watching the skin slide back on its own.  It is both amusing and
beautiful to watch.  The man caresses the tiny, soapy genitals with
pure, unbridled joy and slowly the penis becomes erect in his playful
fingers.

THE SMELL IS WRONG, The Boy's nose twitches slightly.  Entirely too many
things had been going wrong lately and his mind is getting slower.
Eventually the eyes are forced open to see exactly what was wrong with
the smell.  Alot of things are wrong, actually - there is bright light
peeking through between the dark curtains and he can examine everything
in the room.  To start with, it isn't home.  But that is the least of
his problems ...  he spots the man in the wrinkled Armani suit sleeping
on the floor next to the bed.  At first his body jerks, causing bolts of
pain in his head, but he doesn't make a sound.

Gradually everything comes back, at least the parts that happened while
he was conscious.  Still he does not recall being hit by a car, but he
remembers being told that part.  He is scared, but he is used to that by
now and his mind is as satisfied as it is going to get.  The Boy drifts
back to sleep.

The man woke up and left the room at about seven that morning to make a
phone call.  He had his secretary clear his schedule for a few days
without explanation.  The Boy is awake again when he returns.

The man stops dead in the doorway when he sees The Boy's eyes are open.
Then he thinks better of it and moves aside, hoping The Boy doesn't feel
trapped.

"Where is this?" The Boy asks from the bed, now wearing one of the man's
clean white t-shirts.  His dirty underwear are still lying on the floor.
For some reason he is relaxed and at ease with the stranger.

"My home on Central Park," the man says.  Thinking quickly he adds, "You
can have your gun back and you can leave whenever you want to." He is
giving the child a disarming smile and keeping his hands in plain view.
"I'm Rick," he says.  "Who are you?"

In a little-boy voice he answers simply, "Sean." Then, matching the man
question-for-question, "What happened?"

"I hit you with my car in an alley," he starts.  Normally he wouldn't
say such a self-incriminating thing, but he knows The Boy is not in a
position to sue him, and will probably appreciate the bluntness.  "You
didn't want to go to the hospital so my doctor patched you up here." The
man moves closer and sits in a chair near the bed.  "Do you have
parents?" He is wondering about the off-chance that someone might be
worrying about the poor, scrawny kid.

The Boy shakes his head, thinking about how he helped bury his mother.
It was awfully cold, and he remembers complaining about having to go
outside to dispose of the body.

"As soon as you're strong enough you can have a bath if you like," the
man says, looking at the grimy hair mopped on The Boy's head.  He thinks
for a moment and then asks if The Boy is hungry.  The Boy's eyes light
up as he nods his head.  "Well what do you like to eat?"

"Meat," says The Boy, just beginning to remember how hungry he is.

The man chuckles to himself as he walks out of the room.  It's not
exactly breakfast-food, but there might be some Filet Mignon in the
fridge.

                                +++

And at some time in the past The Boy is begging on a street corner in
Greenwich Village when a passing faggot pinches his ass and puts a
dollar in his styrofoam cup.  The Boy just glares at the queer who is
swaggering away down the block.  He knows what they are thinking, of
course, he's seen it in the disgusting magazines.  The nice thing about
the faggots is that they usually give him more money, each of them
eyeing him up and down and smiling.  It feels nice to be admired by the
men, but his body is not for sale at any price and he always turns down
their lude offers.  Most of them were harmless, overly-friendly types,
really.  But not the junkies.

The problem with the junkies was you didn't know what to expect from
them, each was different but they were all crazy.  Sometimes they would
give you money, sometimes they would take your money, sometimes they
just staggered around the street bumping into things.  But every so
often you meet one in an alley that wants something else entirely.

The Boy is rooting through a dumpster at night in Bed-Stuy now.  The
dumpster is behind an auto-body shop so he doesn't expect to find food,
he is looking instead for scraps for the tenement.  Things aren't going
well and he is just about to search for greener pastures when it
happens.

A tremendous black man has come up behind him, but The Boy's perky ears
have failed, he does not notice as the giant is leaning over the bin to
grab him.  The man is very muscular, wearing only jeans and a faded,
tattered denim vest.  He wears no shirt and the open vest reveals a
hairy, bulging chest.  The man has whacked-out, insane eyes, and the
sinister grin on his face is clearly the result of abusing some
substance or other.

With one strong arm the man grabs ahold of the back of The Boy's pants
and lifts the small body from within.  Quickly he sizes The Boy up and
hurls him headlong across the alley into a stack of boxes.  In pain The
Boy struggles to his feet, backing slowly away from the junkie in the
alley.  A few feet later he bumps into a brick wall, however, and there
is just no other place to go but forward.

The evil eyes look down upon the squirming boy with joy.  Such a cute
little boy, after all.  "Take off your pants!" he screams, already
reaching for his belt buckle.  He wasn't going to take any shit from the
little white street kid.

The Boy's terrified eyes lock onto the wild eyes of his tormentor.  He
holds the gaze defiantly, not making any move to do what he is told.
But then the man takes a menacing step towards The Boy.  He is growling
visciously, still pulling at his belt.

"NOW!" the man barks, finally freeing his belt and dangling it in front
of him.  For emphasis he raises his hand high above his head and whips
the belt down onto a wooden crate, causing a loud, disturbing crack.

The Boy jumps into action.  Still he holds the gaze of the man in the
alley, their eyes locked steady as The Boy hooks his thumbs in the
waistband of his sweatpants.  He pauses for a split second, the fearful
eyes searching those of his captor...  they mean business.  Slowly The
Boy lowers his clothing to his ankles, his face turned up towards the
man the whole time.

The man takes two gigantic strides towards The Boy, saying "This here's
MY place, you got it?" grabbing the child by the arm and swinging him
off his feet.  "I'm gonna teach you good."

Sean's screams fill the alley.  They continue for the next several
minutes, actually, but this is Bed-Stuy.  If anyone hears the noise it
does not matter.  No one will come to his rescue.

The man sits down on a knocked over fifty-five gallon drum, laying The
Boy upside down on his lap.  The man stares down at the smooth white
bottom on his lap and grins.  He has an erection in his jeans, but it
isn't meant to fuck The Boy with.  His left hand holds the squirming
boy's arms behind his back and his right hand holds a wide black leather
belt.

The screams only get slightly louder as he brings the belt down with
full force upon the struggling white bottom, leaving a bright red strip
of skin and a line of fine little droplets of blood.  The man himself
can only stand a few strokes like this before he drops the belt and
beats The Boy with his hand.

The evil eyes are red, bloodshot globes of hate as the man stops the
beating.  He shudders as his orgasm explodes in his jeans.  Then he
picks the whimpering boy up and sets him on his feet so his tiny white
penis is in plain view.  The man's crazy eyes are locked onto their
target, the innocently dangling penis.  He drops to his knees and
instantly takes it into his mouth, slurping all over it and biting into
the foreskin with his teeth.

The Boy with the stinging bottom is now standing in the alley thinking
only of how to get away.  This was his chance, the man was on his knees.
There didn't appear to be any simple solution, however.  The man would
grab him when he tried to run.  Other options exhausted The Boy needs to
hurt the man, and he begins searching for the right tool for the job.

He is cornered between the dumpster and a brick wall.  Standing in that
same corner is a dirty old lead pipe, about the size of a baseball bat,
propped up neatly with one end in easy reach.

Surely he would thank me if he knew how.

Silently The Boy raises the pipe in front of his chest, just above the
crazy man's head.  He grips it with both hands like a toilet plunger as
he calmly slams it down, then brings it up and slams it down again.  The
huge body falls out of his way.

The Boy takes his time getting dressed, collecting his thoughts as well
as his clothes.  His bottom hurt, but that was nothing compared to the
fear in his stomach even now that the man lay unmoving in the alley.  As
if to compensate for his humiliation, The Boy urinates on the man's
clothing, pulls up his sweats, and then limps from the alley.


Boywatchers Inc., book one/part three
by Reverend Jim

The Boywatchers Inc., Copyright (C) 1994 by an62433@anon.penet.fi.  All
Rights Reserved.  Author hereby grants permission for archiving and
distribution by electronic means only, as long as no fees are charged
either for this story, for the media it is distributed on, for
membership dues, or for the connect time used to obtain this story.

                                  +++

Back into the present we go, this time a much happier scene as Sean lays
in a soft bed, using his fingers to eat a filet mignon that is almost
larger than his head.  It is probably around eight o'clock in the
morning and everything is calm.  A single early-morning sunbeam shines
through the drapes, casting a bright streak across an antique oriental
carpet at the foot of the bed.

The Boy is certainly feeling better now, better than an hour ago and
much better than last night.  The nervous street kid seems at ease in
the comfortable bed but his thoughts are quickly turning to escape.  For
some reason he trusts the man - his way of life demanded a good judge of
character - but still he is unsure if the man might call the police.
His young blue eyes scan the room, checking for valuables.  There are
various pieces of expensive art and tasteful decorations but no
easy-to-sell consumer electronics or jewelry boxes.  He is still trying
to decide about whether to sneak out or not when the man enters the room
again, this time carrying a bottle of Coke in one hand.  Tucked neatly
in the other arm is a tiny, bronze-colored puppy.

The man strides towards the bed, placing the bottle on the table beside
The Boy and taking away the now-empty dinner tray.  The tray holds a
slender Waterford crystal vase that contains a single long-stemmed
rose...  the china plate is sparklingly clean, completely devoid of
vegetables, the steak and its juices.  The silverware is untouched,
still wrapped tightly in the fine linen napkin.

Carefully the man places the softly whimpering puppy on The Boy's lap
and then sits down.  "Sean, this is my new puppy," the man says, as if
making a formal introduction.  "It's a Rhodesian Ridgeback."

This is certainly an interesting event as The Boy softly strokes the
animal's head and smiles.  "What do you call it?" asks Sean, barely
glancing at the man.  He has changed from yesterday's suit and is now
looking quite comfortable in khaki pants and a maroon polo shirt.

The man leans forward to rest his elbows on his knees.  He clasps his
hands together loosely and looks at The Boy and the puppy.  "I haven't
named him yet," he says.  "Would you like to?" he asks hopefully.

But it is already too late, The Boy has drifted away.  His eyes remain
open and he continues to stroke the soft animal but his mind is
somewhere else, in another time - perhaps even a different life.  The
Boy is thinking of the exotic spiders, rare plants and strange customs
of another part of the world.  He is drifting as if on a cloud, dreaming
of the high seas and exploring wild terrain that lies far away in both
distance and time.

Full minutes tick past on the clock as the man waits for an answer, his
soft, patient eyes studying The Boy's face.

The Boy returns suddenly, speaking as if he hadn't missed a single
moment.  "Fitzroy," he says, looking into the dog's face.

GOOD GOD.  The man's jaw drops open and if he weren't supported by the
chair he would most certainly have hit the floor.  A sound is gurgling
in his throat but the shocked man's words will not come out.  It was not
simply the obscure literary reference that caused this reaction, it was
the 'correctness' of the association.  The man does his best to pull
himself together - after all the chances are a million-to-one that The
Boy truly knows what he just said.

"W-w-what?" the man whispers.

"Fitzroy," repeats The Boy, glancing over at the man for the first time.
He looks as if he's seen a ghost.  "After the captain."

The barely-coherent man falls back into the chair, his arms flopped over
the sides.  The one and only time he read Charles Darwin's "The Voyage
of the Beagle" was in college - the man is thirty-two now so it must
have been more than ten years ago.  He still remembers the captain from
the story, Fitz Roy, as the ship sails around the world on an
anthropological mission.  Fitz Roy was captain of ...  Her Majesty's
Ship Beagle.  Even in college the well-learned man had trouble finishing
the several-hundred page book.

Silently the man shifts his mental gears, preparing himself for a
different level of conversation.  He is used to thinking on his feet
but...  this?  "You've read the book?" he asks, eager for an
explanation.

Sean nods his head - it is one of his favorite books, even if his
tattered copy is missing a few pages.  "I memorized alot of it.  Want to
hear?" he asks.  He is not trying to show off, it is more like he is
offering a gift to Rick, one of forgiveness or possibly one of
friendship.

The man nods, his eyes wide.

Sean begins to drift away again, his eyes looking at something
not-in-this-room as his soft voice whispers a wonderful, ultra-Darwinian
monologue:

"Police and justice are quite inefficient.  If a man who is poor commits
murder and is taken, he will be imprisoned, and perhaps even shot; but
if he is rich and has friends, he may rely on it no very severe
consequence will ensue.  It is curious that the most respectable
inhabitants of the country invariably assist a murderer to escape: they
seem to think that the individual sins against the government, and not
against the people."

For the last part, Sean turns to the man and looks him in the eye:

"A traveller has no protection besides his fire-arms; and the constant
habit of carrying them is the main check to more frequent robberies."

And then Richard Laverne Siegal was speechless.

                                +++

Right this minute great wheels are turning, grinding steel against
steel.  I refer not only to the mental muscles of one Richard L. Siegal
but also to the Great Work happening all around us each second.  In the
United States the courts are banning art while the Secret Police huddle
in dark conferences, conspiring to burn books.  Meanwhile in parts of
Asia there are naked, sickly childen wandering through the streets who
would eat a book if they ever had the good fortune to find one.

I speak of the social changes.  Our methods seem like utter lunacy at
first glance but I assure you these are proven, time-tested strategies
that never fail.  As for Earth, we were called in a little too late to
reverse the damage - our only recourse was to accelerate it.

Heresy?  Madness?  Perhaps, but it works.  In this particular case, the
social scientists found that most of the governments around the planet
were suppressing the true voices of the people.  Natural, acceptable
social changes were occurring, balancing the scales on their own, but
the ruling classes preferred stability over change.  Literally trillions
were spent on prisons to contain the phenomenon, but it will not help.
Burning books, banning speech and expression, detaining and murdering
the components of change only increase the effect exponentially.

In desperation, fringe groups are forming and mustering their tiny
voices.  Soon it will become unstoppable as the governments are torn
from their entrenched positions.  The healing process begins when
everyone is equal and no one may force their will upon another.  We fuel
this process with technology.

By stimulating cheap technology we undermine the governments, we
undermine the laws and the rules and the snooping eyes of Big Brother.
And furthermore we give the quickly-swelling ranks of the oppressed a
tool for unsuppressable communication.

And some day, perhaps hundreds of years from now, the system will
collapse, giving birth to a new society where equality and peace
prevail.  But not yet.

                                +++

Sean tries hard to play with the puppy on his lap but the pressure on
his bladder is getting quite uncomfortable.  "I need to go to the
bathroom," he says, setting Fitzroy to one side.

The man shakes his head, pulling himself together.  In a moment he
realizes what The Boy said and tries to come up with something
reasonable to say.  "Can you sit up?" he asks, thinking of Sean's
condition.

In answer to the question Sean sits up on his elbows and pulls his body
higher on the bed so he can lean against the headboard.  He nods at the
man.

Siegal rises to approach the bed.  Very slowly he peels the covers back,
inch by inch revealing the damage to The Boy for the first time.  The
large white t-shirt that Sean is wearing has bunched itself up around
his waist, presenting a gauze-wrapped thigh and a badly bruised knee.
The man is treated to a momentary flash of boyhood but quickly it
disappears beneath the cotton shirt.

Sean is looking intently at his swollen knee and its various shades of
purple.  It doesn't actually seem to hurt but he cringes anyway at the
sight.  In a moment he forces himself to bend it.  His face scrunches up
and it takes all of his might to lift the leg, but it seems to be
working.

Rick kneels beside the bed and gently grips Sean's slender calves,
gingerly helping to swing his legs over the edge of the bed.  There are
no screams, no tears.  Everything is going well and The Boy is smiling.

Sean hops down from the bed and lands on his right foot, his left knee
raised slightly.  Slowly, tentatively he puts weight onto the foot.  At
some point he stops, suddenly aware of the pain - intense, lightning
jolts of electricty are pulsing from either the wounded knee or the
formerly-impaled thigh, a delayed reaction from his damaged body.  He
jerks his weight off the leg, sending more shock waves coursing through
his tiny body.  His lips are puckered as if he is trying to kiss
something invisible before him.

Rick moves closer and almost involuntarily Sean reaches out to grab
ahold of his waist for support.  This room, like all the others in the
fine condominium has an attached private bathroom and Sean hobbles
towards the closed door with a little help.  Rick opens the door to
reveal a sparkling white commode and Sean immediately spins around and
sits on it, not to use but instead to rest on after the seemingly long
walk.

Sean lets out a long, hard breath.  In a moment the room stops spinning
and he remembers why he came here.  Supporting himself with the sink he
rises and reaches behind himself to raise the upper part of the toilet
lid.  Then he looks down and realizes that he is still wearing the white
cotton t-shirt that is so huge on him that it completely covers his
knees.  Without so much as a glance at Rick he lifts it up and,
completely without shame or modesty, pulls it over his head and drops it
onto the floor.

This out of the way The Boy sits down to urinate.

Rick is actually quite surprised but he does not let it show.  He
doesn't want to give the child the impression that he SHOULD be
embarrassed or something.  Come to think of it, this should be a
perfectly natural attitude for The Boy.  Afterall, who would have taught
him the concept of shame?  Still he can't help but admire the slim,
naked, urinating body before him - there was something quite feminine
about The Boy.  In fact, were it not for the obvious male genitalia, he
could easily pass for a girl.  Sean's long blonde hair frames a
perfectly soft, sweet face and his body is completely undeveloped,
leaving him not male or female, but something in between.  "The doctor
says you need a bath, Sean," he says, already thinking of a wet,
sparkling boy.  "Would you like to give it a try?"

Sean looks as nervous as a person is capable of looking while using a
toilet.  "Uh, I think it might ...  " he starts out but midway through
the sentence he looks up, surveying the bathroom for the first time.  He
had neglected to notice everything else in the room, probably from pain
and exhaustion.  Now he sees the lush green tile walls and floors, the
matching fluffy green towels, and an emerald-green tub, surrounded on
three sides by what can only be described as a small rain forest.
Potted plants and small trees rest upon a myriad of green-tiled shelves
built right into the wall, sloping out from several feet above the tub
in a tiered fashion.  The steps of the tier appear to be at completely
random heights, giving a fuller look to the lush flora.  And right in
the middle of this jungle is the biggest tub Sean has ever seen, if in
fact it can be called a tub at all.  Big enough for at least two or
three adults, the great green vessel has a molded ridge around inside,
apparently (as best Sean can calculate) for small people to sit on.
Immediately above the center of the tub is a clear glass skylight,
facing up towards the stars.  Of course, there are no stars in New York
City although the sky's lavendar glow above is quite pretty.  The entire
scene is beautiful, and the bath seems to call him forth.  He changes
his tune, finishing the sentence, "...  well, um, okay I guess, I mean
if the doctor said."

As if he expected this answer, Rick is already fiddling with knobs,
causing a foot-wide waterfall to flow forth from a brass fixture in the
wall - no simple faucets here.  He kneels before the potted-boy and with
soft, gentle tones whispers, "We're going to have to take off your
bandages, Sean." His eyes are filled with understanding and compassion
for The Boy and his wounds.

The Boy regards his bandages - his left hand strokes his thigh gently
and then, as if just realizing its existence, he reaches up and tenderly
dabs his fingers on his forehead.  The bandage on his head is held on by
two parallel strips of white medical tape, it shouldn't be difficult to
remove.  The thigh might be more of a problem.  He gives Rick a look of
unspoken approval, but also one of slight fear and hesitation and ...
trust.

Rick reaches up and without incident removes the gauze from Sean's
forehead, revealing both a nasty looking, stitched-up gash and a red
stain on the bandage.  "Would you like to see it?" he asks softly.  Sean
nods and he takes a hand mirror from the basin.  While the child is
curiously examining the wound in the mirror, Rick takes advantage of the
distraction and removes the knee bandage, unravelling it around and
around the tiny thigh.  However, his eyes are fixed elsewhere and with
each pass around the leg he is getting more and more excited, panting
lightly as he admires the tiny penis dangling only twelve inches from
his face.  Naturally it isn't very big although the extended foreskin
makes it appear larger.  The entire penis is about two inches long with
another half an inch of foreskin forming a tiny nipple-like pucker at
the end.  Despite the shround, the head can easily be discerned under
scrutiny as the tiny crown forms a delicate ridge, rippling slightly the
otherwise perfectly smooth skin.  All too soon Rick runs out of bandage
to unravel and the last strip clings lightly to the wounds as he peels
it off.

Sean's eyes view the punctures in his thigh with wonder...  No, make
that awe, or perhaps even pride.  Tiny black stitches mark the entry and
exit points of the foreign object, and despite the ugliness it doesn't
seem to hurt very much, at least not right this minute.

The tub full, Rick returns to business.  He moves around to the side of
the toilet, putting one hand beneath Sean's knees and one on his back.
Reflexively, anticipating what is about to happen, The Boy drapes a hand
behind Rick's neck to hang on.  "Ready?" the man asks, trying to sound
as comforting as possible.  Every ounce of his energy is directed simply
at setting the child at ease.  Sean nods and Rick lifts.

At first Sean lets out a tiny yelp, but it seems to have been caused by
the lifting motion.  He holds on tighter around Rick's neck, with both
hands now, as they lurch towards the warm water.  With what can only be
described as a father's love, Rick places the frail boy into the tub,
resting him gently onto the platform.  He then lifts the damaged leg,
setting it down on another ledge across the tub to make it more
comfortable.  "Enjoy the water, Sean," he says, "I'll be right back."
With that he leaves the room, returning a moment later with the small
bottle of surgical soap.  He sets it on the edge of the tub, then with a
glance at Sean, untucks his shirt and pulls it over his head.  He drops
the maroon polo to the floor and kneels ontop of it, preparing (for the
first time in his life) to bathe a boy.

For his part, Sean doesn't mind being treated like a baby.  He could
even get used to it given a little time, but he hasn't decided yet
whether to give it time.  Somewhere in the back of his mind he still
thinks of the dark, lonely squalor of the squat in Bed-Stuy and also for
the long-gone parents who, despite their lack of money, always treated
him like the center of the universe.  This does not change the fact that
he appreciates the attention from Rick and even with a somewhat broken
body he slowly begins to smile and giggle and enjoy the first bath he
remembers having in his entire life.

                                +++

On the streets it isn't very easy to bathe.  In fact it is all but
impossible because it requires finding water that is cleaner than
yourself.  In the summer there is always a kind benefactor to the
neighborhood who opens up a fireplug to allow the kids to play or the
homeless to wash.  The rest of the year is more difficult, although you
can sometimes find a public restroom to use.  Bathing your entire body
from a sink is hard, especially if other people are using the room at
the same time.

Alot of the homeless people could bathe at shelters, but not Sean.
First of all, he was not homeless and he was proud of his tenement in
Bed-Stuy.  The lack of running water did nothing to tarnish his image of
the home that he could truly call his own.  Aside from that he knew that
he could never go to a shelter for anything - a boy his age showing up
without family would certainly arouse suspicion if not actual police.

His fate predetermined, Sean would do his best in public restrooms and
sometimes go uncleaned for many weeks at a time.  At one point while
bathing in a fast food restaraunt (as fast as he could before being
thrown out) he met a Crazy.  Crazies were neither junkies nor faggots,
they were just plain crazy for no apparent reason.  This particular old
Crazy said a few words that Sean still had not forgotten: "Ten two
letter words, boy!" he ranted, not making any sense at all to The Boy.
"Ten, count them.  Count the letters," he wailed on with a missing eye
and a strange grin that showed matching teeth.  "IF IT IS TO BE IT IS UP
TO ME!  See kid?  I told you," the Crazy went on, babbling to himself as
he danced out of the restroom.

Sean dismissed the Crazy and finished scrubbing.  It wasn't until later
that night that the whole thing made sense to him.  "If it is to be, it
is up to me," he said to himself, just then understanding what the words
meant.  At this point he hadn't done any work to the squat since his
father left, but suddenly he knew what he had to do.  The home was his
now, and he would begin working on it again the next day.

Within twenty-four hours Sean had visited a construction site for parts
and built a really lousy bookshelf.  But it was his bookshelf and it
held Sean's books with pride, including the tattered copy of "The Voyage
of the Beagle" he found in a dumpster and fell in love with.  By now his
collection of books had swelled to twenty, maybe thirty and most were
classics by authors like Melville or Joyce.  And yet the most well-loved
book on the shelf was by Charles Darwin.

Each night Sean would lie in bed and read something.  It really didn't
matter what it was but he would stay up later if it was either something
new or something he cherished.  Over the years since his childhood it
had become a routine, an unbreakable habit and he could not sleep
without reading something first.  His parents had fueled the fire by
reading massive chunks of the Communist Manifesto or Greek mythology to
him and eventually even they tired of his thirst for knowledge,
resorting to an encyclopedia or even the damned Holy Bible to get him to
sleep.

                                +++

"Thats a boy," says Rick, gently carressing Sean's body with a wash
cloth and surgical soap.  Sean has closed his eyes and stretched out in
the warm water, the monstrous vessel providing more than enough room for
his tiny frame.  The man's large hands gently stroke The Boy's tiny
chest, his slim stomach and his arms.  Despite his practically sexless
appearance, Sean is an incredible sensuous boy and completely at ease in
the tub.  The washing quickly becomes more of a massage than a bath and
the man's hands roam the skinny body with care, tenderly kneading and
carressing the baby-soft skin from head to toe.

Before long Sean begins to make soft noises beneath the gentle
ministrations.  "Oohhh," he moans softly, parting his legs as the man
approaches his groin.  As the washcloth slips between his legs he arches
his hips slightly, pressuring against the man's hand.  It feels so good
and his mind is elsewhere - just like reading books, he thinks, but much
more intense.  The escape from reality is an end unto itself and he is
lost in ecstasy under the tender caresses.

Rick's caresses become steady, repetitive strokes around the tiny
genitals in his hand, tracing tiny circles on the inner thighs and slow,
gentle strokes along the crack below Sean's testicles.  Minutes of soft
moaning passes and the man is completely unsurprised to discover a firm,
erect little penis in his hands.  He gently strokes it up and down with
the washcloth and the moans become louder and more focused as Sean's
body twitches involuntarily from the pleasure.

Sean is gone completely now, awash in hot, pulsing waves of bliss in the
warm water.  His mind and body are one, united in passion.  The man's
touch is so gentle, so loving...  Sean believed that this was not dirty
like the passing faggots or the junkie in the alley; this was beautiful,
like James Joyce.  The fact remained that he did not know what was
happening, only that it felt wonderful to be with the stranger above,
the man who had (only fourteen hours ago) killed the body in the tub.
Of course neither of them knew what had really happened and both were
content to believe otherwise as the ecstasy between them billowed forth
from each loving touch.  Sean's soft, sweet voice filled the room
continuously now, a steady stream of moaning indicating that he his
nearing the point of no return.

And then it stopped.  "Let's do your hair, Sean," says the man, forcing
his hand away from the erect, pulsing penis.  Even fully erect the
foreskin covered the head completely, Rick noticed.  He also recognized
the impending climax and stopped, afraid of what an orgasm would do to
the fragile, wounded body.

Sean shudders.  It takes several minutes for him to swim back to
reality, a look of mixed pleasure, shock and disappointment on his face.
Longingly, he places his hand onto his penis and feels its firmness
between his fingers.  He didn't understand the feelings, only that he
enjoyed them.  Silently his young, pale blue eyes stare up at the
shirtless man.


Boywatchers Inc., book one/part four
by Reverend Jim

The Boywatchers Inc., Copyright (C) 1994 by an62433@anon.penet.fi.  All
Rights Reserved.  Author hereby grants permission for archiving and
distribution by electronic means only, as long as no fees are charged
either for this story, for the media it is distributed on, for
membership dues, or for the connect time used to obtain this story.

                                  +++

An hour later Rick enters the bedroom, toting an office chair with tiny
wheels.  "Ready for the grand tour?" he asks the now-sparklingly clean
boy on the bed.  His soft, golden locks were clean and fluffy from a
blow-drying.  Unladen from the weight of grime they became wavy and
beautiful, flowing all the way down to the slender shoulders below.

Sean looks up from playing with his new puppy-dog friend and winces,
remembering the somewhat painful trip to the bathroom.  After turning
his head, he wiggles it some more, enjoying the feel of the clean hair
against his neck.  "Uhm ..." he starts out, looking pensively at the
man.

"Hop aboard, captain," Rick says with a smile.  "You don't have to walk,
I'll push you."

Eager to see the apartment Sean grins and, grabbing the puppy, swings
onto the chair.  He spreads his legs beneath the white cotton t-shirt
and sets Fitzroy in between them.

The first part, of course, is the living room which Sean had not seen
the last time he passed through.  High, vaulted ceilings with great big
skylights indicated some sort of a penthouse apartment but not how many
stories up they were.  The furnishings were not particularly lavish and
mainly consisted of earth-tones.  Everything seemed to indicate a
minimalist style with the exception of a baby-grand piano on one side of
the room, and expensive art on the walls.  Sean was not particularly
well-educated in matters of oil paintings but he could easily recognize
a Picasso and a Klee amongst the works.  His education in art came
mostly from trips to the Museum of Modern Art, on days when he was clean
enough for them to let him in. Which wasn't often.

On the side of the living room away from the piano was the dining room
and beyond that was a wall of sheer glass and a tremendous view of
Central Park.  The rolling tour continued and mostly consisted of
bedrooms after that, until they returned to the beginning.  One last
door remained unopened, right next to Sean's bedroom.

"And this," the man said, starting to turn the knob, "is my favorite
part." After a dramatic pause, he opened the door and rolled Sean
inside.  "This is my study." Rick pretended not to hear The Boy's gasp
of awe and went on.

"There must be a few thousand books here by now," Rick said proudly.
"Over the years I've collected quite a few, you see..."

There was more but Sean didn't hear it as the man pushed him slowly past
the shelves and shelves of books, mostly pristine, leather-bound
originals.  From floor to ceiling they lined every wall with the
exception of a sliding-glass door that revealed a telescope on a patio.
In the center of the room was a modest oak table.

"...  some of them signed originals," the man continued.

Sean began to return from his overwhelmed state, cutting Rick off in
mid-sentence.  "Did you actually read all these?" he asked, his eyes
full of wonder.

"...  from the original Latin texts, of course..." Rick trailed off.
"Hm?  Oh, a lot of them I guess," he dismissed with a wave of his hand.
"I have my own filing system, so I'll teach you if you want to find
something specific," he added with a grin, happy that The Boy was
impressed.  "And this one here," he pulled a book from a shelf, "...is
one you like." He took down a tremendous, dusty copy of "The Voyage of
the Beagle" and set it onto the oak table.

Throughout the rest of the afternoon Sean remained in the library,
silently pouring over book after book.  He had no need to learn the
filing system as he simply picked out each book in order, almost as if
he intended to read every single book in the library.  Some of them he
skimmed quickly, some he tried to read from cover to cover.

Several minutes passed before Sean realized that Rick had come into the
library and then left, taking the dog with him.  He had said something
but, in his distraction, Sean could not remember what it was.  He
wheeled himself down the table, pushing himself over to the glass doors
with his arms.  Slowly he stood up and opened the door, limping onto the
patio.

And there was New York City.  On this side of the building the park was
not visible, replaced instead by a distant view of the Manhattan
skyline.  Sean could now see that the building was on a grassy hill,
allowing a fabulous view of almost everything.  This was in fact the
penthouse apartment but clearly he was only about five stories from the
ground below.  The telescope sat upon a tripod that was way too high so
Sean lowered it to his height and glimpsed the far-away buildings with a
strange sense of detachment.

Sean scanned the horizon in a slow arc, ending with the buildings only a
few blocks away.  Then he looked down to the street, reading the license
plates off of cars as he followed the clean, tree-lined avenue back
towards his current position.  He spotted Rick about a block away,
walking Fitzroy on a leash.  Spying on Rick from above was both
comforting and disconcerting at the same time: he was such a kind man
and it felt good to see him but Sean didn't want to be caught observing
him like this, so he went back inside.

He already knew what he had to do.

On his own two feet he limped to his bedroom and dropped the oversized
t-shirt on the floor.  Too bad, he thought, because he liked the way it
smelled.  In exchange he picked up his grimy underwear and put them on.
There were no other clothes to be found.

When Siegal returned Sean was waiting, sitting in a chair by the door.
He rises, a little boy in his underwear.  "I want my gun back," he says
and then pauses to look down at his bare body.  "I'll be needing some
clothes, too," he adds.  He stares blankly at the rich man, but he will
miss his new friend.  "I'm leaving.  Now."

Rick puts Fitzroy down and kneels on the carpet infront of the child,
reaching to gently hold Sean's arms while they spoke.

His expression never changing, Sean steps back out of the man's reach.

Rick understands completely, the time is at hand.  He had expected it,
but not so soon.  He really had come to like the little boy but he knew
that Sean was his own person.  "Okay come on," he says, rising and
heading to his own bedroom.  With Rick leading the way, Sean could not
see the man wiping a tear from his eye.

"Try these," he said, handing Sean an old pair of grey sweatpants.  They
were much too large but it was the best he had.  Ditto a dark blue
pocket t-shirt.  The Boy tucked in his shirt and tied the waistband on
the sweats as tight as he could, then he bent down to roll up the long
pants.  When he stood up, Rick was handing him the small, empty handgun
and the pair of sneakers he was wearing at the time of the accident.

Sean moves over to the bed, sitting down to rest while he puts on his
shoes.  The room is entirely too silent as the man watches, both of them
feeling sad about the departure but both knowing it was inevitable.  The
Boy stands up slowly, picking up the gun from the bed and looking for a
place to tuck it.  There were no pockets in these sweatpants and he
curses to himself, unable to find a place to conceal it.  His underwear
are too stretched and his sneakers are too tight to hold the piece.

In the end, Sean slowly walks back to Rick and hands him the gun.  "You
keep it," he says, "for the clothes and the food."

Touched, Rick graciously accepts the offer, saying "Thanks, Sean.  You
can come back for it anytime you want."

The pair slowly move to the door and Rick hands Sean a business card
identical to the one he gave Dr. Abromowitz, except on the back there
is no company name, instead there is a phone number.  "That's my home
number, Sean," he whispers, looking seriously into the child's blue
eyes.  "If you need anything at all, call me any time of day." That out
of the way, he digs into his pocket and gives The Boy all the cash he
has - two ten dollar bills.

The Boy starts to object but Rick jumps in, "Take it.  You need money
for the subway and some food."

It's true, the penniless boy would need subway fare and food after that.
He tucks the money and the card into the pocket on the t-shirt and opens
the door.  When he is halfway out he looks back and says "Thank you,
Rick." Then he is gone.

Sean manages to limp down the stairs and out into the street.  "That
wasn't so bad," he thinks to himself as he hobbles towards the Lexington
avenue subway, trying to ignore the sudden grip of lonliness in the pit
of his stomach.  It was a horrible feeling that he hadn't experienced
since his father left.  Absently he wonders if Rick felt the same
lonliness.

It didn't matter, of course.  The Boy still had to leave because somehow
he knew that the man was one of the rich people that were evil, at least
according to his parents.  His mother and father had clearly told him
that the people with money had ruined the world.  Getting onto the '4'
train, he wasn't sure whether he believed that the man was bad,
especially after he was so kind and gentle.  But Sean also knew that his
home was calling to him, begging him to return to his normal life.

Even beyond that, deeper in his mind The Boy believed that he was
beginning to care for the man.  This was, of course, completely
unacceptable - he did not want to care for him because then he would
disappear ...  they always did.

                                +++

Richard Laverne Siegal was certainly depressed.  The wonderful little
boy whom he thought he could help was gone and the condominium was again
empty save the dog, Fitzroy.

He moped about for hours, unable to do anything.  The empty feeling he
had inside was amplified by the empty apartment and his empty life.

Rick was sitting on the couch, playing with Fitzroy and Sean's gun when
the phone call came.  It was nearly eight o'clock and the ring made him
jerk from within his self-pitying funk.  He picked it up.

"Yeah," he says into the phone.

"Richard Siegal, please," says a deep voice.  There are alot of noises
in the background, as if it is coming from a payphone on a busy street.
But there are no car-sounds, Rick realizes.

"Speaking.  Who is this?" he demands, still concentrating on identifying
the elusive sounds in the background.

"Detective Curran, NYPD," comes the voice.  "I'm sorry to bother you,
but we didn't know who else to call..." the voice trails off, replaced
with near-by sirens.  When they fade away the voice comes back, saying
"Excuse me, sir.  I'm at a hospital, you see, and we have a John Doe, I
mean," the man pauses and then continues "umm, an unidentified youth who
was carrying your business card with him, I was hoping you could tell me
who he is."

"Uhh, can you describe him?" Rick asks.  He already knows who the youth
is, he just wants to buy some time to think about what to say.  But even
as he gets the words out he realizes what the policeman said: "WAS
carrying your card..." What did that mean?  Before he could stop himself
he blurted into the phone, "Is he alive?"

"Oh, yes sir.  He's alive but unconcious," says Detective Curran.  There
is a long pause before he goes on.  "Long blonde hair, blue shirt, grey
sweatpants.  Maybe nine or ten years.  You know him?"

"Of course I know him he's my..." he stops himself as he was about to
say 'son,' but that might require legal proof.  "...my nephew, Sean.
I'm taking care of him while his parents are out of the country," he
improvised.  "Where is he, I'll be right there."

"New York Downtown Hospital on Williams Street," said Curran.

                                +++

Rick didn't drive the Mercedes, a cab would be much faster.  The traffic
was still pretty heavy and the ride still took more than half an hour.
When he arrived it took him another fifteen minutes to locate Detective
Curran, a plain-clothesman who looked nothing like the Irish policeman
he expected, he was too dark for that.  Perhaps he has some Italian or
Greek in him, Rick wondered as he approached the man.

After the introduction Curran begins the police routine.  "He's
conscious now, we can go up and see him if you want," he began on a
casual note, trying to get his suspect off-guard.  As they began to walk
towards the elevators he stuck the barb in.  "What did you say his name
was...?" he asked, all too casually.

Rick knew what was going on.  "Sean," he said, completely aware of the
fact that he did not know The Boy's last name.  The pair stepped onto
the elevator.

So was Curran.  "Sean ...  ?"

"My brother and his wife are on their honeymoon in Rome," he started
off.  "When they return and the adoption is finalized, his last name
will be Siegal," he finished as casually as he could.  The cop seemed to
buy it, and Rick silently congratulated himself on the lie.  He
half-suspected the policeman's probing probably meant the conscious Sean
was refusing to tell the police anything.  "Would you mind telling me
what happened?"

The doors opened and they stepped out into the children's floor.
"Transit police brought him in," said Curran as they walked down the
hall.  "The kid collapsed and fell down some stairs at Fulton street,"
he went on.  "The doctors say it was probably caused by the pain from an
earlier injury." The two men stopped outside a closed door.  "If you
were watching him, what was he doing on a downtown train, Mr. Siegal?"
This was the sixty-four thousand dollar question.

"It must have been the pain killers, Detective," he said, trying to
sound like he felt guilty about it, which he did.  "He was hit by a car
recently.  He said he was going downstairs to play with a neighbor's boy
but..." he gave a dramatic pause.  "After you called I checked and they
said he was never there.  I know he used to live in Bed-Stuy, maybe he
got confused and thought home was there." Then he stopped, waiting to
see if the cop would buy this load of crap.

Curran opened the door.

Inside was the beautiful little boy, naked except for his underwear and
sitting on the edge of the bed.  His oversized clothing was neatly
folded on a chair and it was plain to see that his bandages were freshly
re-wrapped.  He was looking down at the floor, visibly crying when they
entered the room.

He looked up, wiping his eyes when he heard the people.  When he saw the
man who entered his response was immediate.  "RICK!" he squealed, so
loud that the detective didn't have any choice but to believe the whole
story.

Sean stood up slowly, but even in his obvious pain he gave the man a
great hug.  "Are you here to take me home?" he asked, already knowing
the answer.

"Of course, kiddo.  As soon as the policeman says we can go," he says,
looking at the cop.

Curran just waved his arms, looking irresponsible.  "You're free to go,
as far as I'm concerned.  I'll need some personal info but I can get
that from the desk.  And you need to talk to the doctors, of course..."
and with that he walked out, probably to do paperwork.

The doctors gave Sean a mostly-clean bill of health but insisted that he
get lots of bed rest.  Actually they wanted to keep him for observation
but the obvious signs of previous medical attention allowed Rick to
assure them that The Boy would be brought immediately to his own,
private doctor.  Rick made payment arrangements and then the pair left
via taxi, headed uptown in silence.

And something had changed: the two lonely strangers were suddenly aware
of an odd connectedness between them.

                                +++

Everyone called him 'Garfield' but no one knew exactly why.  Maybe it
was even his real name.

The abandoned Bedford-Stuyvesant tenement was in fact a fourteen-story
building and housed more than just Sean's family, including Garfield,
the building Shaman, or wise-man, or whatever he was.  If this was an
average, functional family in a white, middle-class neighborhood,
Garfield might have even been Sean's 'adopted uncle.' But he wasn't, he
was Garfield: the man to see if you had a problem.

Garfield was blind, his eyes looked like bright white orbs stuck inside
his worn, black face.  Still, the old man had a way of seeing more than
anyone else could, and knowing more than anyone else did.

The building was made up of about thirteen squatter families which
mostly kept to the upper seven or eight floors while an endless stream
of junkies prowled the lower floors like cockroaches.  The balance was
precarious to say the least but the squatters and the junkies mostly got
along together - often Sean had to step over a junkie or his vomit to
get out of the building but they didn't usually bother him or any of the
other squatters.

And then there was Garfield.  He kept the entire fourteenth floor to
himself and everyone, junkies and squatters alike, seemed to respect him
and his space.  Everyone knew that they could go to him with a problem
and he could fix it.  Even the junkies occasionally went to him and he
would treat them with the same dignity and respect as he would a
squatter.

Sean had only been to his floor a few of times but it was simply
beautiful.  It was the first time he had seen a real telescope, an old,
brass, sliding model like you see in paintings of pirate ships.  It was
tarnished and scratched but it worked; Garfield had rescued it from a
dumpster many years ago and fixed it up - even though he could never see
through it.

Garfield had removed all the walls and painted everything that remained
a bright, hospital white.  Throughout the floor were support beams,
themselves painted white as well, and no furniture save a huge
beanbag-type thing that the old man used as a mattress.  There were
white shelves on one wall which held clothes, a first-aid kit and some
trinkets like the telescope and an old tarnished flute.  Over many years
the man had painstakingly replaced or repaired each window until
practically the entire floor was encircled by real glass, affording a
rare view of the surrounding city and (with the help of the telescope)
even the Empire State Building, the World Trade Center and further away,
the Statue of Liberty.  It was unfortunate that the man could not see
through his windows but for some reason he would sit and appear to
'stare' out of them for hours at a time.

Each morning the old black man would walk down the fourteen flights of
wretched iron steps, stopping at each floor to greet 'his' families on
the way to purchase food, or whatever the old man did each day.
Garfield was bald on the top of his head with curly white hair only
around the sides, and a curly white beard surrounding a never-ending
smile.  The old man must have been sixty or seventy years old but he
never ceased to defy gravity, walking up and down those damn stairs.

Two days after his father left, Sean went to the fourteenth floor alone
for the first time.  He found the old man sitting in his beanbag thing,
playing the old flute and staring out a window at the dismal city below,
somehow removed from the filth in his clean white palace high above.
The music was Bach, 'Sheep May Safely Graze' and it was awe-inspiring.

When his parents were with Sean, Garfield would play similar tunes to
him when he was sick and it always made him feel better, often putting
him to sleep.  Sometimes Sean would sit on the old man's lap for hours
listening to the beautiful notes.  Garfield would pause every so often
to tell him about the music or even show him how to play a few notes.

Sean stood at the top of the stairs (there was no door on Garfield's
floor) and silently listened in a trance, the soft music wafting and
echoing throughout the floor and moving the already-sad Sean practically
to tears.  And then the music stopped cold.

"Sean?" the old man asked in his deep, gravelly voice.  "Come over here,
son," the kind old man offered.  "I want you to see this yourself."

Wiping away wetness from his eyes, the surprised eight year-old Sean
went to the man and curled up on his lap, looking up to the old man's
burned-out eyes and wondering how he had known he was there.

"Be still, child," whispered Garfield, pointing out the window to a
ledge five or six feet away.

Sean looked up and saw a pidgeon's roost on the ledge, a mother pidgeon
setting beside a nest which contained a solitary new-born chick.  The
chick looked quite sickly, not like a pidgeon should look at all.

"See, boy?" Garfield asked.  "We've got a new family here," he smiled,
motioning to the ledge.

The young Sean stared silently at the pair for a long time before
Garfield went on.

"Some day that chick will grow up, Sean," he began with wisdom.  "And
his momma's gonna leave him."

Already knowing the answer, the teary-eyed Sean asked "B-but...  Who's
gonna take care of him?" He set his head down on the old man's chest.

Garfield stroked the little boy's hair lightly, whispering to him,
"He'll be fine, Sean, he'll learn to take care of himself." And then he
gave the tiny body a gentle squeeze.  "Just like you, boy."

And then for a long time the eight year-old Sean cried, his tiny frame
shaking in the old man's arms.  After a while Garfield picked up his
flute, playing a beautiful song that Sean could not identify.  He put
the young boy to sleep on his lap, playing 'Hard Times' by Ray Charles.


Boywatchers Inc., book one/part five
by Reverend Jim

The Boywatchers Inc., Copyright (C) 1994 by an62433@anon.penet.fi.  All
Rights Reserved.  Author hereby grants permission for archiving and
distribution by electronic means only, as long as no fees are charged
either for this story, for the media it is distributed on, for
membership dues, or for the connect time used to obtain this story.

                                  +++

And now reality shifts again as the old, blind Garfield looks down, his
unseeing white orbs glaring eerily at The Boy.  "What's your problem,
boy!" he shouts angrily.  "You don't belong here!  Get home now!" he
screams, jumping to his feet and dumping the young Sean onto the floor.
The old man's tortured, gravelly voice pierces the night:
"NOOOOOOOOOOoooooooo!!!!"

Sean is covered with cold, clammy sweat and he sits upright in bed with
a gasp, breathing heavily and looking around the dark, silent room.
Beside him Fitzroy the puppy comes to life and licks his trembling arm.

Seconds tick by slowly as Sean remembers where he is.  His eyes adjust
to the dark room and he can see Fitzroy, the bed, and the green bathroom
beyond.  He is at the home of Richard Laverne Siegal, the rich man.

He knows it was just a dream.  The old, blind man called Garfield has
been dead for nearly a year, beaten to death by a junkie.

Moments later Rick stumbles through the door and turns on the light,
both of them squinting at the glare.  "Sean?  You all right?" he asks,
sounding and looking scared to death.  The Boy's scream had woken him
from his sleep.  He moves slowly toward the bed, seeing tears on the ten
year-old's face.

"I'm, uhh..." the frightened Sean mumbles.  "Uh, sorry, Rick." He
reaches up to wipe off his eyes.  "It was a dream."

In his underwear, Rick sits down on the bed and puts his arm around the
shaken-up child.  "It's ok, pal," he says, "I'm here." In a few moments
Sean is feeling much better, still hanging onto the man.  "Do you want
me to stay with you?" he asks.

Sean looks up and nods simply.

Rick gets up and shuts off the light, returning to the bed and The Boy.
He slides between the covers and instantly Sean cuddles up to him,
putting one arm around his chest.

"Rick?" the young boy asks.

"What is it?"

"Can you..." he pauses, rolling onto his back and tugging at the man's
arm.  "I want you to touch me."

Rick lets out a deep breath and turns onto his right side, looking down
at the child below.  Gently he places his left hand onto the slim chest,
slowly stroking big circles over the ribs and stomach under the covers.
Every so often he pauses, using a fingertip to lightly rub a nipple or
explore a hairless armpit.

Sean feels his whole body tingling under the caresses and again he is
floating, but something is missing...  After a few minutes Sean pushes
the covers away, then climbs ontop of them in the warm room.  He lays
back down wearing only his grey underwear and takes Rick's big hand in
his own, placing it on his stomach.

Rick resumes petting the young, soft body beside him.  He becomes more
daring, allowing his fingertips to slip beneath the failing elastic band
at Sean's waist, gently brushing the soft skin lower and lower but never
reaching the penis below.  Both of them are breathing heavily at the
teasing motions but still the man is not bold enough go further.

"Uhhhh..." Sean's heavy breathing slowly turns into soft moans in rythym
with the stroking on his slim, hairless body.  His penis has become
erect, appearing as only a tent-pole beneath his underwear.  Somewhere
along the way the strokes have become a frustrating method of pure
torture; his body is reeling beneath the tender caresses and he is only
aware of a building pressure in his gut, one that he is powerless
against.  In the balance between angst and ecstacy, Sean tugs at his
underwear, pushing them down and kicking them off the bed.  He flops
back down and moans, pushing Rick's hand further down.
"Pllleeeaaassse...." he whispers coarsely.

With little resistance Rick allows his hand to travel further down, his
fingertips just lightly brushing the erect, uncircumcised penis below.
He moves on to trace a single finger beneath the tight scrotum, The Boy
spreading his legs to allow him access to the tender area between
testicles and anus.  The hand explores Sean's inner-thighs, moving
slowly back up to his penis, drawing a line from his tiny balls all the
way up to the fleshy tip.

Sean begins whining, his body is trembling all the time and the pressure
building to an even greater level.  He hadn't thought that the feeling
was possible at all, but now he was completely amiss within a bubbling,
overflowing fountain of rapture.  Somehow he is aware that he is further
out than ever before, that even books could not take him this far from
his inhospitable reality.

And the beauty of it is not lost on Rick.  His own hands shaking, he
slowly pulls back the foreskin of the tiny penis, a slightly more
difficult task now that it is erect.  Getting the skin over the ridge at
the bottom of his glans took a little force, which caused a spasm in
Sean's fragile body, but he continued moaning as if it were pleasurable.
Then Rick began masturbating the young boy, wetting his fingers with
saliva and massaging the tender glans continuously, causing Sean to arch
his hips and tremble as if he were having a seizure.  Or an orgasm.

Minutes of tension build slowly, Sean sweating and writhing on the bed.
His moans become shrill, high-pitched gasps and his left hand forms a
death-grip around Rick's upper arm.  "Nooo...  NoooOOooo...  NOOOOOO!"
he screams as the orgasm finally hits and he bucks his hips wildly.
Rick continues the massage, waiting until the tiny body is completely
tapped out and lies still.  Then he carefully eases the foreskin back up
on the still-erect penis and begins lightly stroking Sean's heaving
chest.

It takes a long time for Sean's head to come swimming back to reality,
still trembling and completely dumbfounded.  "What...  I...  uh," the
confused, tired boy whispers, shaking his head lightly to pull himself
together.

"Are you okay, Sean?" Rick asks in a soft, gentle voice.

Sean scared himself pretty well.  "What ...  happened?" The Boy asks.

"You just had your first orgasm," the man says with a smile in his
voice.  "And a pretty good one, at that!" he adds.

Sean is still confused, and rightfully so.  "What's an orgasm?" he
whispers between breaths.

"Well, you just had one," says Rick.  "The nicest thing a person can
give another, Sean.  A natural part of sex."

There is a long pause.  "I'd like to give you one, Rick," Sean finally
blurts out.

Rick muses at the idea but comes to the conclusion that they've shared
enough for one night.  "There's plenty of time, pal," he says.  "Go to
sleep now," he whispers, softly stroking Sean's chest.

The exhausted boy falls back to sleep within minutes but Rick cannot; he
lies awake for hours thinking about the luscious boy in his arms and
what had just happened.  He tries to think of a way to keep the child
forever but every scenario he creates fails because of one thing: Sean.
He is a loner, a free spirit that could not be forced to stay under any
circumstances.  Nor would Rick want to force him.  Sean's fierce
independence was his most attractive feature, even finer than his pretty
face and sleek, ten year-old body.

No, he could not break The Boy's spirit, it would have to be voluntary.
But why would he possibly want to stay?  Rick couldn't come up with an
answer.

And if he did want to stay, how would the man arrange it?  Certainly
some authorities somewhere would want to ask questions, check records or
whatever they do.  Rick could not keep Sean holed up in the condo
forever, either.

Rick tried to force it out of his mind but it kept creeping back in,
keeping him wide awake all night, gently caressing Sean's lightly
breathing chest.

                                +++

It was last spring when Sean heard about Garfield.  There was a sick
three year-old girl in the building who needed medicine and the
squatting parents could not afford it.  Garfield went to buy it himself
and was waiting on line when the pharmacy was robbed by a gun-toting,
half-crazed junkie on a rampage.  The junkie started pushing a lady with
a baby around.

True to his form, the old, blind Garfield spoke up for the woman, trying
to talk the junkie out of his rage, trying to talk him out of the store.

The junkie pistol-whipped him to death.  Just like that, no care at all
for who the man was or what he was doing.  Just bashed his skull in with
a pistol.

That night Sean climbed to the fourteenth floor, sat in the beanbag and
played the flute for his dead friend.  With tears in his eyes he
performed the only blues music Garfield had ever taught him: 'Hard
Times' by Ray Charles.  Sean kept the old man's flute, setting it on his
bookshelf next to his favorite books.

Even with his extremely high intelligence, Sean was only nine years old
and couldn't know any better: he came to the conclusion that he was
dangerous to be around, bad luck.  All of the people he cared for just
plain died or disappeared, and he knew it was his fault.  That was when
he stopped caring for people.

In fact it took several weeks before he could even talk to other people.
For nearly a month he could only stutter gibberish, his young voice not
able to form any coherent words at all.  For those weeks he didn't go
out to beg on weekends, resorting instead to the dumpsters for food and
losing a lot of weight from his already-thin frame.

Eventually he pulled out of it but he was a different person from then
on.  It was probably just another step in the development of a young
boy, but it was still difficult to watch.  The shocking events of the
previous fourteen months forced the trusting lad to become an adult,
practically overnight.  After that he was always quiet and suspicious,
his personality changing drastically and turning Sean into a recluse.
Of course that changed two nights ago when he was hit by a car, but only
briefly before he realized what was happening and attempted to withdraw
again.

When he woke up at the hospital it was as if his life was completely
over, so he just clammed up.  He wouldn't say a word to the nurses, the
doctors or the police, all of them asking questions.  He knew that he
was going to a boy's home and there was nothing he could do about it.
Nothing at all mattered anymore.

He found a scalpel and had finally made the decision to kill himself
when Rick walked in and he realized that it was too late - he cared for
the man and there was nothing he could do about that, either.

                                +++

"Ouch!" Sean yelped.  "Yeah, I guess it is kinda sore," he said, looking
down at the inflamed, red glans in the tub.  Rick had pulled the
foreskin back, causing him to wince.  "But...  I liked it," the soft,
feminine boy whispered.  "We can.." he paused, looking away from the
man.  "You can do it again if you want," he blurted out.

For his part Rick felt terrible about hurting The Boy, but it was really
only a minor part of what had transpired.  He would not take it back if
he could.  Nonetheless he knew that the penis needed a little rest.  "We
better let it take a break for a while, Sean," he said, pushing the
ideas out of his mind and hurrying on with The Boy's bath.

The limp, sensitive penis had become erect while it was washed.  Sean
laments the fact, yearning for more attention.  "Yours is hard, too," he
says and then quickly looks away again.

He was right.  It was sort of obvious beneath the man's loose khaki
pants.  "Good guess, genius," he giggled at the wet little boy.  This
lightened the mood a little for the rest of the bath and the subject did
not return to sex.

While he was drying Sean's hair, Rick asked a moderately dumb question.
"Have you ever ridden in a limousine?"

Of course not, what a silly thing to ask.  Sean shakes his head.

"If you feel up to it, I thought we might go shopping today," said the
man.  Certainly the child needed some real clothes; he couldn't go on
wearing the huge sweatpants forever.  "I can get my company limo to pick
us up," he added.

The idea of riding in a limousine did not particularly impress Sean.
Nor did money in general, given his upbringing.  What did impress Sean
was the idea of spending time with Rick, doing things with him.  He nods
his head silently.  His leg was feeling much better today, as was his
head.  They had removed the head bandage to give the healing wound some
air - it was beginning to look like more of a scratch than a gash, soon
they would have the stitches removed.

In an hour Rick carried The Boy, now dressed in the sweatpants and a
green t-shirt, down the many steps and then let him walk by himself to
the limo.  His limp was beginning to fade away.  The uniformed driver
opened the door and offered his hand to Sean, who refused it and managed
to climb into the limo himself.

The car began moving while inside Sean fiddles with the television and
the stereo, deciding he liked the stereo better.  He had seen
televisions before and this time of day there was nothing but soap
operas and talk shows.  For the rest of the trip the radio was locked to
a classical station.

Time flew past quickly as the pair went from store to store, buying
several nice outfits and a suitcase to put them in.  Sean insisted on
picking out 'sensible' clothes like jeans and plain t-shirts but Rick
somehow got him to stand still long enough to be measured for a suit and
several custom silk shirts.  "You can keep these at my house," he
explained with a wink, "in case you ever come to visit me again."

Sean rounded off the day by picking out a pair of nice leather tennis
sneakers while Rick grabbed a twelve pack each of white socks and
underwear.  Everything seemed to be going well.  At least until they got
back into the homeward-bound limousine.

Sean flipped on the radio and instantly classical music swept the cabin.
"Mmm," he sighed.  "I like this one."

"Me too," said Rick.  He looked thoughtful for a moment and then added,
"This is the first movement from Beethoven's ninth, Sean."

"I know," snapped a cranky, irrational ten year-old.  Something had
suddenly come over Sean and he felt as if the man's comment was
condescending.  His intelligence insulted, The Boy flashed Rick an evil
look and said the words under his breath: "Allegro ma non troppo, un
poco maestoso."

The words were not his, of course.  The name of the first movement was a
bunch of meaningless, foreign words taught to him by the old, blind
Garfield.

The rest of the trip was in silence.  Rick was shocked by The Boy's
hateful tone as much as by his musical knowledge.  There was nothing to
say as the car rolled through the city.

Rick set the quiet boy down at the top of the stairs and went back down
for the suitcase.  When he returned he could hear the sobs coming from
the guest room and he opened the door, moving to the bed where Sean's
face was buried in a pillow.  He sat down and rubbed his heaving,
sobbing back.

Sean screamed a muffled "I hate you!" into the pillow, beating the bed
with his fist at the same time.  "I hate you!  I hate you!" he screamed
the powerful mantra over and over.

Rick picked up the screaming boy, trying to bring Sean to his shoulder
but The Boy immediately began pounding on his chest.  "Hey!" he shook
The Boy.  "What's the matter?"

Sean stopped pounding but not crying; tears were streaming down his face
and his lower lip was still curled outwards, trembling with his sobs.
"I really have to go now," he sobbed, trying to struggle away from
Rick's embrace.  "You don't understand, I really have to go," he let out
between short bursts of tears.

"Sean, wait!" Rick said, holding the struggling boy more tightly.  "I..
I-I love you, Sean.  I want you to stay here with me," he blurted out,
trying to look into The Boy in the eyes.

Sean refused to make eye contact, and when he heard the words he started
screaming and kicking even more wildly, going into a fit of tears that
frightened Rick pretty badly.  During the outburst he screamed "You
don't get it!" and then "I'll kill you!"

Rick just held the child more tightly, clutching Sean against his chest
firmly and whispering in his ear, "It's ok, Sean...  Everything's gonna
be fine, pal." He had heard the child's words but had mistaken them for
an impotent, juvenile threat.

Sean continued the struggle and began to calm down only from exhaustion.
Eventually he settled down to just a whining, drooling, sobbing puddle
of mush in the man's arms.  "I have to leave, Rick," he whispered on the
man's shoulder.  "I don't want to kill you like the rest of them," he
sobbed.

A strange look comes over Rick's face as he holds The Boy.  Very slowly
it begins to turn into a look of understanding as he pushes Sean away,
his hands in the child's armpits.  "What?" he asks, looking into the
tiny blue eyes not-unkindly.

"Mom, Dad, Garfield," Sean cries, trying unsuccessfully to wipe his eyes
dry.  "I killed them all," he says, the words coming out in short
bursts.  "Everybody I care about..." he trails off, beginning to cry
more heavily again.  In a few moments he blurted out "Anyone I love just
dies!" and then instantly went back into his sobbing and screaming.

"Oh, God," Rick whispered, more to himself than to The Boy.  After
holding him for a long time he tries to explain, "No, Sean...  That
wasn't your fault!  They didn't die because you loved them, they died
because it was their time!" He rushed on, trying to convince the lad.
"That's impossible, Sean...  and I promise I'm not going to die anytime
soon!" he grinned.

Sean heard the words but it took a while for them to sink in before his
whimpering slowly subsided.  "Y-you m-mean...  ?" he asked.

"Yes!" Rick said firmly.  "It wasn't your fault, Sean."

And then Sean collapsed back into the man's arms.  Still he was unsure
if all of it was true but he was sure of one thing - he did love the
man.  It was definately too late to do anything about it anyway, so it
really didn't matter whether he stayed or left.  The confused, sniffling
Sean whispered onto Rick's shoulder, "I love you too.  Please don't
die."


Boywatchers Inc., book one/part 6
by Reverend Jim

The Boywatchers Inc., Copyright (C) 1994 by an62433@anon.penet.fi.  All
Rights Reserved.  Author hereby grants permission for archiving and
distribution by electronic means only, as long as no fees are charged
either for this story, for the media it is distributed on, for
membership dues, or for the connect time used to obtain this story.

                                  +++

"Mutherfucker!" the word rang hollow through the cold, empty, antiseptic
room three stories below ground.  The kid hurls a walkman into a
stainless steel tray and runs to the sink to disinfect.  Peeling off the
sliced rubber glove as quickly as possible, he grabs a bottle of pure
rubbing alcohol and dumps it on his wounded hand.

His screams continue long after he runs out of rubbing alcohol.

"What the fuck, dude?  You raping one of these bodies again?" Philipe
the night guard wanders into the room as Chris is rinsing his hand in
cold water to stop the stinging.

Christopher Castillo swings a pale, twisted face up from the sink.  "No
man, I cut myself inside this old nigger," he says, pointing at the
table.  "Right through my gloves, dammit."

Philipe looks over at the body in-progress.  An old guy, maybe sixty or
seventy with his guts all laid out in orderly fashion in tiny
containers.  Seeing this crap stopped bothering him years ago but the
smell always gets him, and this one smelled worse than most.  Next to
the body was a tray with a still-blaring walkman.  "Your own fault," he
says.  "I told you to leave the music at home."

"Fuck you," replied Chris, not feeling particularly witty right that
moment.  He had been disecting a kidney when he cut himself and got some
of the old stiff's blood on him.  He just knew he was gonna get AIDS or
something.  It would be just his luck, especially after landing the job
here.  "Who the fuck ever heard of an internship doing autopsies with
the Medical Examiner?" he whispered outloud.  Served him right he
thought, he should have gone Ivy-league.

"Why's this one stink so bad?" asks Philipe.

"This is his second visit," mumbles Chris.  "The D.A. wanted us to find
more evidence for a conviction, he's got a weak case I guess."

"I'm outta here man," the guard wrinkled his nose.  "Besides, it looks
like you got your work cut-out for you," he laughed at his own joke,
heading for the door.

"Wait a sec," says Chris, putting on another pair of gloves over a
gauze-wrapped finger.  "Come look at this." He reaches over and peels
back the man's forehead, revealing a spiderweb of cracks and
indentations in the man's skull.  "Can you guess how this guy died?"

"Well, I'm no expert but I'd say he took a baseball bat to the head,"
grinned Philipe.

"No man, look at the pattern," the med-student picks up a scalpel and
circles a pattern in the cracks.  "See it?"

"Holy shit man, that's cool!" grinned the guard.  "Looks just like a
handgun!"

"Just like connect-the-dots.  From the measurements I'm pretty sure it
was a small caliber revolver, maybe a .38," smiles Chris.  "I can't tell
for sure 'cause the cops didn't bring it in."

"So what happens now," asks Philipe.

"I dunno," Chris says, going back to the walkman.  "This stiff is
homeless, so it probably gets shipped to City Burial in a couple of
weeks."

In Bedford-Stuyvesant witnesses have a way of forgetting things.  The
flustered, overworked, underpaid Assistant District Attourney rifles
through his papers, examining the file of Alfred Saffo.  But his mind is
on the private-practice offer in Texas, and he wonders if the office is
within driving distance of a good school district.  "We'll go down to
Robbery-one and Involuntary Manslaughter," he says into the phone.

"No way Bill," replies the public defender.  "You've got no reliable
witnesses and no murder weapon.  It's only his fifth offense, anyway."

"Just give me your offer, Syd."

"Robbery-third and simple assault with no time," comes the voice.

Riker's Island jail is already overflowing, and the City had no case, of
course.  "Hooo-boy...  Make it Robbery-one and simple assault with six
months and five years probation," he says.  "He'll only serve ninety
days."

"Draw up the plea bargain, I'll be there this afternoon," says Syd.
"Wanna take off early and hit the golf course?"

Had he known, Sean certainly wouldn't have cared that the gun he found
in the dumpster belonged to Alfred Saffo.  He also wouldn't have cared
that by taking the gun, the City wouldn't have enough evidence for a
real conviction - he knew that the police and the prisons were simply
elements of an evil, horrifying system - one that Sean believed actually
created monsters like Saffo.

Or at least that is what his parents taught him.  In either case, eleven
months later the weapon that was used to murder the old, blind Garfield
lays quite peacefully in Richard Laverne Siegal's sock drawer.

                                +++

"I really don't know, Sean," says Rick, who is just finishing wiping The
Boy's tears away.  He tosses a few wadded-up tissues onto the bedside
table, right next to an unopened bottle of Coca-Cola.  "Honestly, I've
never tried that one before," he adds with a conspiratorial grin.

"I saw it in a magazine once," explains Sean, still clinging to the man
as they rest on the bed.  "I've always wondered about it," he goes on
unashamedly, "I bet it would hurt, though."

Rick stretched out on the bed and cuddles Sean to his chest.  "Well,
that's one thing I will never do, pal." He looks down and gives The Boy
a wink.

"Y-you mean you don't want to..." he trails off, glancing down at the
tiny bulge in his pants.  "You know, do it?" The look in his face is
either disappointment or rejection, or both.

Rick runs his fingers through The Boy's soft blonde hair, saying "What I
mean is that I would never hurt you.  Of course I want to do it."

Sean ponders this for a moment and then grins at the man.  "Right now?"
he asks.

Rick laughs out loud at the precocious little boy.  "Gee, I don't know
Sean - is your penis feeling better than it was this morning?" he teases
the child.

"It's hard now," whispers Sean.  Playfully he slides his hand from
Rick's chest down to his crotch and gently grips a bulge beneath the
fabric.  "Can you do it again?" he asks with a grin.

If there was one single thing that Rick liked more than anything else
about The Boy it was his pure, innocent playfulness.  How did he manage
to hang onto this last vestige of childhood after such a miserable life
on the streets?  Rick was completely amazed with Sean's curiosity and
wonder with each new experience.

The last woman Rick slept with was Penny Morgan, an investment banker he
met at the club.  The couple were the brunt of quite a few money jokes -
"Penny and Rich the money team," they called them to their faces; much
worse behind their backs, of course.  During sex Penny was practically a
refrigerator, and most times she would have something sexy and
mood-inspiring to say like, "Aren't you done yet?"

For his part, Rick was happy when she botched the Stahlman-Shure merger
and got transferred to Wisconsin or some damn place.  It didn't help his
sex life much but it was awfully funny: he could picture the stuck-up
prude in Wisconsin saying "What do you mean you don't have twenty-four
hour Szechuan?"

Those days were over, thank god.  It had been about a year and a half
since Penny left and he was beginning to get lonely with just his work
to keep him busy.  Until he met this beautiful young enigma, that is.
Silently he thought to himself about how the past two days had suddenly
changed both of their lives, and how fortunate he was to know such a
beautiful, sensuous, interested, intelligent boy.  Such a short period
of time had passed since they met: it was just now approaching
forty-eight hours since Rick had hit the child with his car.  And yet it
felt like an eternity.

Before he knew it Sean had stripped away his shirt and sneakers, and was
now tenderly easing his sweatpants and underwear down over the bandaged
thigh.  Sean's tiny penis was fully erect and Rick could do nothing but
admire the child's youthful body.  The penis was merely a fraction of
the whole; a centerpiece for the slim, hairless perfection that made up
what was quickly becoming the focus of all of his thoughts and consuming
him with passion.  Certainly Rick had never felt this way about Penny,
or any other mere woman for that matter.  To him, Sean became like the
forbidden fruit, a sinful treasure that made his heart race with
excitement.

Sean had managed a seemingly-impossible feat: three distinct erections.
His tiny nipples each stood at attention on his slim chest while his
boyish, erect penis pointed them out from below.  Speechless, Rick could
only reach out a lightly shaking hand to touch the beauty before him.
He wanted to touch the nipples as much as they wanted to be touched, and
he felt as if he could somehow manage to capture just a tiny piece of
perfection before him.

But Sean grabbed his hand.  "Rick," he whispered, drawing the man back
to reality, "I want you to feel good too," he said seductively.

Rick understood what the child meant, but he could only mumble for a
moment as he processed the information.  Slowly he pulled his hands up
to undo his shirt and for the first time noticed how badly his hands
were shaking as he fidgeted clumsily with the buttons.

"Let me," said Sean, the pleasantly nude child pulling himself up onto
Rick's chest.  Carefully he began unfastening each button, starting at
the top.

If Rick was speechless before, he was dumbfounded now.  It was all he
could do to keep himself from stuttering like a fool.  As if he were
simply giving up, he let his hands fall away from the awkward buttons
and slip down onto the smooth, soft skin of Sean's lower back.  Gently
he caressed The Boy's spine, feeling the tiny notches under the silky
skin as they guided his hand lower, towards the round curves of the
bottom below.  Sean's long, lean thighs were already parted as Rick's
friendly hand began to explore the most sensual areas of his boyhood.

Sean ran out of buttons.  He had gotten down as far as Rick's belt and
instead of tugging at the shirt he moved on to the buckle and then the
zipper.  During the entire process he was tinglingly aware of the man's
erect penis only inches from his hands and mischievously he stretched
and pulled the fabric more than neccesary, causing little twitches in
the body below him.  He completely understood the effect his playful
tugs were having on the man, but this was not simply love-making to
Sean.  It was a curious new experience, almost a game without rules, and
he was eager to share each pleasure with Rick.

Sean peeled back the unzipped pants, revealing three remaining buttons
on the shirt and also a tiny white patch of cotton briefs.  With one
hand he plucked each of the remaining three buttons while his other hand
drifted gently between the trousers and the underwear, exploring the
length of the full-grown man's erect penis for the first time.  It was
pointed off towards the right and Sean had to switch to his left hand in
order to reach far enough to touch the tip.  He rolled his fingers over
the strained cotton fabric, feeling the bulbous glans beneath while
Rick's mind began reeling.

In a moment Sean collected himself and moved further up on the man's
chest, pushing the shirt back over his shoulders.  He left the rest of
that job to Rick, and moved down to pull off the shoes and socks.  These
out of the way he grabs ahold of the waistband of Rick's pants and
begins tugging while the man lifts his hips to allow them travel.
Slowly the pants make their way over the man's erection, causing it to
bounce outward slightly, still constrained by his briefs.  In the span
of a few minutes Rick is wearing only his underwear and a wide smile.

Sean feels a gentle twitch when he returns to the penis, and grins at
his own accomplishment.  Teasingly he strokes the backs of his
fingertips over the bulge in the underwear, causing Rick's body to tense
and shiver in excitement.

Rick watches in ecstacy as Sean gently hooks his fingertips in the
elastic band of his underwear and begins to peel them down slightly.
The Boy pauses and looks up, almost as if to ask permission.  In
response Rick just raises his hips off the bed to allow Sean to free the
restraining fabric.  With eyes of wonder The Boy lowers the shorts,
revealing a grown man's erect penis to himself for the first time.
First the circumcised head pops out, quickly followed by the seemingly
tremendous shaft.

The Boy lets out a gasp at the sight and quickly reaches to touch its
firmness.  Sean had seen all sorts of things like this in those
disgusting magazines but never up close and real, and never a penis that
was erect because of his own handiwork.  It was awe-inspiring to say the
least.  Playfully Sean ran his fingers around the glans; it seemed like
most of the pictures he had seen were just like Rick's circumcised
penis.  Sean sort of wished his own penis looked the same.

But wait a minute.  Although Sean was having a wonderful time playing
with and teasing the penis, he didn't actually know how to give Rick the
pleasures they shared last night.  In fact Sean couldn't even remember
what the man had done to him or why it felt so good, only that he
enjoyed it.  What was it Rick had done?

Sean remembers the gentle caresses on his chest and stomach, and how the
man had rubbed his erect penis...  But beyond that it was merely a blur,
a moment of exploded pleasure without reason or rhyme.  What was he
supposed to do?  It felt strange and uncomfortable not knowing what to
do but...  he was certainly eager to figure it out.

In a few minutes Rick answers his unspoken question.  The man reaches
for Sean's legs which are curled up near his body and stretches them out
so his tiny feet are resting lightly on the pillow beside the man's
face, and his hips are lined up with the man's chest.  Rick then rolls
onto his side, turning his attention to the tiny penis and letting his
own erection dangle within inches of Sean's face.

And so begins the learning process.  The comparison to a teacher and
student would be perfect except it is nearly impossible to tell which is
which - although Rick is the older and more experienced, he learns to
handle Sean's young body as he goes along.  With each gentle touch the
child responds in different levels of intensity and Rick eagerly picks
up all the signs, doing his best to pleasure The Boy beyond both of
their expectations.  In this state of pure fascination and
responsiveness he quickly becomes all but one with the quivering child
whose body heat is slowly and predictably driving him insane.

Strangely, Rick doesn't feel the need to experience his own orgasm
nearly as much as he wishes to experience The Boy's climax.  He can
clearly feel each of Sean's tremors deep within his own soul, as if the
pair were of only one mind, feeling the pleasures for both of them in
perfect unison.  The sheer beauty of the union of man and boy could
almost be considered pure narcissism as Rick gratifies himself solely by
moving Sean to the brink of ecstacy.

The man began by lightly dragging his fingertips over the creamy thighs
before him, causing shivers throughout the fragile, sensitive body.
Rick let his hand travel higher on the slim boy, teasingly stroking his
chest and stomach, even getting within an inch of the tiny, erect penis
but never touching it.  He continues the stroking as he begins kissing
the closest thigh, working his way around to the inside and getting
higher and higher all the time.

Sean's high, soprano voice begins whining at this, and he parts his legs
to allow the man unlimited reign over his quaking body.  Slowly he draws
his knees up, resting his left on the bed while he lets his right knee
fall to the side, propped neatly up against Rick's chest.  Casually his
hand drifts over to the man's erect penis, feeling its length hot
against his palm and running his fingers over it continously.  This time
Sean has no reservations, no fear.  It is different from his first
orgasm because now he lets the feelings run their course without
interference, totally giving in to his body's demands.  Sean becomes
completely removed from the reality of the sex; his mind usurped instead
by overpowering waves of hot, steamy bliss and his body acting merely as
a channel through which he receives the electrifying pulses of
unrestrained, animal pleasure.

Urged on by the trembling boy and his cries, Rick kisses his way down
the smooth flesh and finally touches the small genitals for the first
time.  The uncircumcised erection was laying on his belly pointing north
towards Sean's rapture-filled face.  Rick reached around The Boy's leg
to stroke the penis at the same moment his lips began caressing his
tight, round testicles.  At this Sean gasped quite loudly and opened is
eyes but once the feeling hit him he moaned, throwing his head back and
returning to his state of blessed escape.  Carefully the man sucked one,
then both tiny jewels into his mouth and swirled his tounge around the
scrotum while his left hand massaged a youthful penis an inch away, each
tender stroke lowering the foreskin another notch until finally and
painlessly the beautiful purplish head is fully exposed to the world.

Sean's trembling and moaning has become more intense, but Rick is unsure
of whether it is because of his mouth or his fingers, or both.  As a
compromise he switches them, rolling the testicles in his fingers while
his mouth moves on to bigger things.  As he runs his tongue up the
barely three inch erection to its sensitive, exposed glans he feels The
Boy shudder again, a moan coming from somewhere deep in the tiny body.
He glides his lips over the tip, engulfing the whole thing in one big
gulp, and then swirls his tongue around the head in quick, tiny circles.
This erupts a fit of spasms in the frail body, all of Sean's muscles
tensing and releasing in rythym with the tickling tongue.  Before long
Rick plunges his mouth down the length of the small shaft, raising back
up very slowly, gradually easing into a repetitive motion on the tender
penis.

As soon as Rick is underway Sean remembers his purpose and tries to pull
himself from the fog of pleasure, almost as if he is waking up from a
dream.  Even completely overtaken by ecstacy he pulls his head up to
look at what Rick is doing, watching the man's head bobbing up and down
on his tiny boyhood and feeling the results through his entire body.
Then he looks over to the man's erect penis, still in his playful hand.
Without thinking further Sean parts his tiny lips and moves towards the
seemingly tremendous erection.

"Mmmmph," Rick moans, stiffled by the penis in his mouth.  He realizes
what Sean is doing and continues sucking, aware that both of them are
already nearing orgasm.  The Boy beats him to the punch.

Sean's mouth stops for a moment as the rush of climax overcomes him.
His lips part to let out a squeal and his body trembles continuously as
Rick moves harder and faster on his penis to release the tension.  In
moments Sean is awash in his feelings and the orgasm runs its course,
spending all his strength and leaving him quaking.

It takes a while for Sean to realize that it is over.  Still trembling
in the wake of his orgasm, he slowly begins moving his mouth up and down
Rick's penis again, mimicking the way the man had done it to him.

Lost in his own pleasure, Rick's orgasm shook him before he was ready
and he exploded into The Boy's mouth.  He pulled out as fast as he could
but it was too late, he had already squirted quite a bit of sperm onto
Sean's tongue and it dripped down his chin.  What remained spurted onto
Sean's face, covering him in little white gobs.  It still took Rick's
shaking body several minutes to recover and finally he opened his eyes
and looked down at the child.

When he did Sean was actually grinning, proud of his most profound
accomplishment.  He was just about as cute as a kid can be while their
face is covered with sperm.  "I'm sorry, Sean," Rick mumbled, but The
Boy just giggled and crawled up to meet the man's eyes.

"Is this 'cum'?" the curious, elated little boy asked.

Rick couldn't help laughing out loud at the sight as he reached for
tissues to clean the goop off the beautiful face.  "Sometimes it's
called 'cum' yes, but the correct words are either 'sperm' or 'semen,'"
he says, wiping all three from Sean's face as both of them grin.  "I
think you need a bath, kiddo," he says.

Sean crawls onto Rick's chest and presses a still-erect penis into his
ribs.  Longingly he looks down into the man's eyes and with a smile he
says, "Can we do it again first?"

                                +++

And somewhere far, far from this place Sean is sleeping peacefully in a
small, dark cabin below deck.  It must be some time in the future, for
there is no longer a mark on The Boy's beautiful young forehead from the
accident.  The soft rocking of the boat has put him into a deep sleep
which seems to help pass the endless hours and days.  He had traveled
only three or four days but it felt like an eternity without people to
talk to, or Rick to cuddle with.  He missed the man deeply and sleeping
allowed him to forget about it, if only for a few hours here and there.

It came as a complete surprise when the door was kicked in, and Sean
immediately jerked his head up to see a dirty, dark man walking into the
room pointing a machine gun at him.  The man had curly black hair
everywhere that Sean could see his skin, from his knuckles all the way
up to his face, and he was wearing a beige military uniform of some sort
but Sean could not identify it.

"LEVANTESE TONGA LOS MANOS DONDE LA PUEDOVER!" barked the man, waving
the nasty-looking gun around.

Sean jumps at the man's angry shouts but has no idea what the words
mean.  In desperation, the frightened child curls up in a ball and
begins crying.

Then there is another voice, coming from the hallway out of Sean's
vision.  "El es solo un nino senor, de jelo en paz," says the
familiar-sounding voice.  "Estoy seguro que enconcara nuestros papales
en orden."

"Criminales," the man with the machine gun spits out.  Slowly he turns
and leaves Sean to cry in his cabin, completely unsure of what is going
on.


Boywatchers Inc., book one/part seven
by Reverend Jim

The Boywatchers Inc., Copyright (C) 1994 by an62433@anon.penet.fi.  All
Rights Reserved.  Author hereby grants permission for archiving and
distribution by electronic means only, as long as no fees are charged
either for this story, for the media it is distributed on, for
membership dues, or for the connect time used to obtain this story.

                                  +++

The pair woke up in each other's arms on Saturday morning, both of them
still glowing from the previous nights' excitement.  After the bath they
went to bed, leaving Sean's bandages off completely and the wounds
looked much better this morning.

Neither of them saying a word, Rick watches Sean crawl down off the bed
and walk out of the room.  A moment later the naked boy returns,
dragging along his new suitcase from the hallway.  They had neglected to
unpack it and all the new clothes were still inside.

Sean opens the suitcase and selects an outift, immediately putting on a
new pair of underwear, jeans and a t-shirt.  The Boy was so beautiful;
Rick was sorry he was getting dressed at all.  Getting dressed?  He
began to think something was wrong. "Are you going somewhere Sean?"

Sean sits down on the chair by the bed to put on a new pair of socks and
his new tennis shoes.  "I have something I need to do," says The Boy.
"I'll be back tonight though." He was feeling better today, but even
more importantly it was a weekend and he would be more comfortable going
back to Bed-Stuy during the day, especially if he had to dress like
this.  He wished that he still had his grungy old clothes to wear;
nobody would bother him if he were dressed less like a rich-kid with
fancy clothes.

"What do you have to do?  Where?" Rick asked with an almost demanding
tone.

The Boy looked up at the man and repeated, "I'll be back tonight Rick."
His voice was final and his eyes were firm.

Rick instantly regretted the way he spoke to Sean, but there must be
something he could do.  Last time The Boy left (was that really only two
days ago?) he ended up in the hospital and Rick was forced to lie to the
police about the situation...  he didn't want to lose Sean again.  "Let
me get you the limo?  Or a cab?" he asked, thinking that the whole thing
was moving too fast for him.  He swung his feet out and sat on the edge
of the bed.

Sean just shook his head 'no.' He finished tying his shoes and stood
before the naked man.  "Goodbye Rick." He moved towards the door, his
limp barely noticable at all now.

"Wait!" cried Rick.  "Let me give you some money or something?" he
pleaded with The Boy, trying to buy some time at least.

Sean had eighteen dollars and seventy-five cents left from the twenty
Rick had already given him.  "No, Rick.  I'll be back tonight or
tomorrow morning." And then he walked out.

Rick hopped up and followed him to the door, knowing there was nothing
he could do about it.  Sean seemed quite certain that he had to leave,
but for what?  "Be careful, Sean," he said as The Boy closed the door
and was gone.

Several minutes pass while Rick stands naked at the door.  Suddenly
panic grips him when he realizes that he had still forgotten to ask Sean
what his last name was.

                                  +++

Calvert, the man from Marketing, lights a long black cigarette and sits
back in his chair.  He is beginning to lose his patience with this new
twerp Johnson.  "You don't get it.  The problem has nothing to do with
Boywatchers," he says to the young-looking executive.  "The entire
matter boils down to who is going to buy the planet, and my job is to
make sure it is what the customer wants."

"And of course it's too early to know who is going to be the final
purchaser at this stage," pipes in Barlow, the man from Sociology,
"...so at this juncture we need to make sure it has all the
possibilities."

Calvert nods in agreement.  The men pulled Johnson aside to straighten
him out before he actually ended up saying something really dangerous,
and the three now sit in Calvert's office overlooking the beautiful
Ankus-five.  "Look, this is just between us, okay Johnson?" he asks.

Johnson just nods and swallows nervously.

"The real issue is that only five or ten Zaedes ago we used to have a
hundred bidders on each planet.  These days we're lucky to have four or
five," Calvert pauses a moment to let this information sink in.  "For
planet Earth we have only two."

"Two plus the S.S.C.," Barlow interjects.

"Who is the S.S.C.?" ask Johnson.

"The Stellar Studies Coalition," Calvert explains.  "They buy up our
unsold planets at a discount for terrestrial research.  But if we lose
another planet to them I can guarantee heads will roll," he moves on.
"As I was saying, we only have two clients interested in planet Earth,
and the old man is getting nervous."

"So what's the problem," Johnson asks naively.  "If there are two, one
of them is bound to buy it, right?"

"Wrong," says Barlow firmly.  "Here's where we come into the picture.
The first client is the Edetate conglomerate, who want to farm warriors
and resell them across the border to the Harlan Crusades.  Clearly they
can only use young, healthy stock and the rest of the planet goes to
waste in a few Zaedes."

"And the other client," Calvert jumps in, "is a group called the Elders
of Naminoor." He spins his chair around to look out at the beautiful
constellations as he talks.  "Which is why we requested an additional
element of culture be added."

Johnson is thoroughly confused now, and watching the two men was like
watching a game of tennis.  Still he tries to pretend like everything is
status-quo.

"You see, the Naminoor are very cultured.  They also have no eyes, no
vision whatsoever.  That makes Earthlings imminently qualified to be
farmed as house-servants," Calvert continues.  "But the problem is that
their religion requires they only have direct contact with their own
sex.  And there are no female Naminoorians, only males."

Johnson is finally beginning to understand what the problem is when
Calvert spins his chair back around and looks him dead in the eyes.

"If either one of these clients finds out we're using Boywatchers, we're
all out of jobs!" he shouts, pounding on the desk.  "And it will be all
your fault for suggesting it!"

"Calvert!" snaps Barlow, and instantly the angry man recomposes himself.

Barlow turns back to Johnson.  "What he really means to say is that
while the Boywatchers are good at what they do," he trails off for a
moment as he phrases it properly.  "...they may be uhhh, a Cosmetic
solution at best.  Good to get the numbers up temporarily but not good
news for either of our clients in the long-term."

"They wouldn't be interested in buying damaged goods, now would they?"
asks Calvert rhetorically.  "I don't want you to feel guilty about it
son," he smiles, apologizing for his outburst.  "It's really a fluke
that our two bidders are both looking for the same thing and the planet
is lacking in that one department."

Barlow nods and gets up, walking over to Johnson's side.  "What we're
really trying to get across is that maybe next time you should try and
think a little more before you go and suggest these things.  Sometimes
the old man is a little umm, hasty."

                                  +++

Sean rides the Lexington avenue express to Fulton street and then walks
the tunnels below ground to the Broadway-Nassau platform.  Vaguely he
remembers the steps on which he collapsed so recently, but this trip is
much less stressful and he manages to get onto a Downtown 'A' without
incident.

The weather is a balmy, sunny sixty-five degrees and the filth of the
neighborhood is beginning to wreak like a steaming garbage dump.  Ahh,
the smells of home.  It beckons Sean's young nose along Throop street,
northward towards the tenement.

Sean was beginning to get nervous when he reached his building; all
along the homeward path people were staring at him.  Not merely looking
at him, but actually staring - Sean now had the look of a rich kid, at
least for this neighborhood.  His beautiful, fluffy blonde hair, his
clean white skin, his brand-new jeans and tennis sneakers all stuck out
like a sore thumb in Bedford-Stuyvesant.

Suddenly Sean was a preppy white-boy, there was no question about it.
Where he used to be an anonymous, greasy shadow fleeting through the
streets, he was now rather uncouth in his new clothes, an obvious
reprobate amongst his former peer group.  Sean could do nothing but
hurry along his way, trying hard to ignore the fear that was building up
inside him.

It was with no small amount of relief that The Boy slipped through the
broken door to his tenement, his knee beginning to ache.  Once inside he
leaned up against a wall and let out a deep breath, realizing that he
hadn't breathed in a long time.  Slowly his eyes adjust to the gloomy
interior and he can see the broken walls and filthy floor.  He can make
out the disgusting brown tub along one wall which the junkies use as a
toilet.  And he can see the junkies lying around, some of them
unconscious, some of them stoned out of their minds, and a bunch of them
looking right at him.

Somewhere along the way, all of the familiar sights and sounds had
become foreign, all of the things that used to comfort Sean had become
alien to him.  And now the rich-looking kid has seemingly stepped
directly into the lions den, one that belongs to a bunch of very hungry
lions.

The Boy knew what they were thinking.  Sean looked like an easy target,
and with such pretty clothes he must have some money on him.  And he
didn't have his gun.  But still, he had expected the junkies; they had
not expected him.  He decided he needed to act quickly and make use of
his only advantage.

Some of the junkies were actually pretty fast, and a few had even
started moving when Sean bolted for the stairs.  The young boy silently
cursed the wounded knee that was sending sharp jolts of excruciating
pain up his frail body, but he kept running, leaping as many stairs at a
time as he could with a broken body.

One of the more rambunctious junkies followed him as high as the second
floor, but then gave up.  That was the only good thing about junkies,
Sean mused, they have no ambition whatsoever.  The Boy was not yet out
of the woods however, and kept moving until he reached the seventh floor
where he collapsed on the stairs, breathing heavily.

After a few minutes Sean begins his journey upward again, pushed on by
thoughts of why he had come this far.  At the ninth floor he enters his
own squat and looks around.

It was the same as he left it.  No one had violated it's sanctity while
he was away.  Nor should anyone, as there was nothing here other than a
few books and a mattress.  The grey, stained walls were cracked and in
some places had holes that displayed old, rotted wooden slats.  The
floor was grimy and the windows were boarded up.  The only light came
from the hallway, until Sean turned on his only lamp.  But nonetheless
it was his only true home and he loved it dearly.

The Boy kicked garbage out of his way as he crossed the room to go to
the bookshelf.  There he took some of the great books away to reveal the
object of his desire: Garfield's flute.  While he loved his books, the
flute was the only possession that he could not live without.  He took
the flute and shut off the lamp.  Onward to the fourteenth floor.

Sean stepped into the bright white palace in awe.  Silently The Boy
paced over to the beanbag and sat down to rest for the first time since
he was chased up the steps.  It felt good to relax in the old man's
chair as he looked around the place.

No one had moved onto this floor when Garfield died, despite the
real-glass windows and the sparklingly clean walls and floors.  Everyone
seemed to agree that the floor should remain just as their friend had
left it.  With the exception of Sean keeping the flute, nothing was
touched.  Not even the telescope.  Sean suddenly felt guilty about
taking the flute, but Garfield had taught him to play beautiful music
with it - the old man would probably want him to have it.

There is fabulous sunshine coming from each window and the marvelous
view of the city all around.  Reverently, Sean raises the flute to his
lips and the most joyous notes fill the room as he begins playing the
famous "Ode to Joy" chorus from the final movement of Beethoven's ninth
symphony.

As he plays the lofty notes, The Boy thinks of the words that Garfield
had taught him.  Beethoven had taken the words of Schiller, a famous
poet, and incorporated them into the beautiful music.  The poem was "Ode
to Joy," but Garfield told him that in 1824 it was an open secret that
Schiller was using "Joy" as a code-word for "Freedom".  The old man had
said that if Schiller spoke openly about freedom, the oppressive
government would have taken the poet's "freedom" away completely.

The tragedy of that government was somehow lost amidst the exquisite
music, and Sean could feel only pleasure and joy.  The feelings were so
overpowering that he closed his eyes, a single tear running down The
Boy's cheek as he played.  It felt so good to relax here, surrounded by
his music and the clean white room, overlooking the seemingly peaceful
city below.

"Sean?"

The Boy stopped playing and jerked his head towards the stairs
immediately.  He had been so completely absorbed by himself that he
forgot about the junkies, and everyone else for that matter.

But it was only Juanita, the little girl who needed the medicine that
Garfield had gone to buy when he...  Sean put the thought out of his
mind and gave the four year-old girl a smile.

Juanita stepped closer, looking at the flute.  "Can I listen?" she asked
sweetly. It was certainly the four year-old's version of a compliment.

Sean nods and motions her over to sit in his lap.  The girl plops right
down on his bad knee, but Sean does his best to hide his pain and shift
the little girl to the side.  Once she stopped squirming, Sean picked up
the flute and began the Moonlight Sonata.

Juanita's eyes were fixed intently on Sean while he played.  The little
girl only had fleeting memories of the old man called Garfield, but she
could remember clearly how he would play his music to her.  It was one
of the few bright spots in her otherwise depressing, gloomy life.

After two or three sonatas, Sean realized that the little girl was
asleep.  Not wanting to wake her up, he set the flute down on the floor
and closed his eyes.  The Boy's knee still hurt, and it felt good to
just sit and let his tension ooze away with his troubles as he sat in
the warm sunlight.  Still, he could only rest a few minutes before he
had to head back for Rick's house.  If he waited too long it might get
dark, and then he would be forced to stay overnight.

Someone was shaking him.  Sean opened his eyes to see Juanita's father.
He was cradling his sleeping daughter in his arms.  Outside, the sun was
just beginning to set, it must be somewhere around six or six-thirty
Saturday evening.  "Sean, are you staying up here tonight?" the man
asks.

"Oh my god," Sean mumbles.  He had fallen asleep with the little girl,
and it was getting dark.  He could still make it if he hurried.  The Boy
jumped up and grabbed his flute.  "No, I'm leaving.  Thanks for waking
me," he told the man, who was already starting down the stairs. 

As soon as he was alone Sean pulled down his pants and tucked the flute
into his sock.  When he pulled the pants back up, it was impossible to
tell what was concealed below. Perfect.

And then he moved quickly down the stairs, hoping the junkies had
already forgotten about him.

                                  +++

Richard Laverne Siegal didn't really start worrying until Sunday night,
when Sean still had not returned.  The Boy told him Saturday night or
Sunday morning, and yet he was still absent.

Monday morning came and Rick absolutely needed to go to the office for
at least a couple of hours to clean up the most urgent things.  Short of
calling the police, what could he do about Sean?  In desperation he
forwarded his home telephone to his pocket cellular phone (in case Sean
called) and then taped an envelope to the door, labelled "SEAN" in big
letters.  Inside the envelope was three crisp new twenty dollar bills.
Rick figured that Sean may need to pay for a cab-ride back here.

Around noon on Monday, Rick is disappointed to find the envelope and
it's contents untouched on the door. There were no calls all day.

Tuesday the frustrated man did not go out at all.  He waited patiently
by the phone, half-expecting another call from the police, or the
hospital, or something.  But nothing came, nothing happened.  Endless
hours ticked past as the nervous man just waited, sitting on the couch
and biting his fingernails.

For some reason dogs have a way of sensing when something is wrong.  And
Fitzroy (being a pure-bred Rhodesian Ridgeback) was imminently qualified
to the task of wandering over and licking the sad man's face every so
often, in between eating and sleeping. 

Somewhere around five or six Tuesday evening, Rick suddenly gets the
idea that The Boy was not coming back.  The feeling was creeping up on
him for some time, in fact, but he was able to push it away until now.
It had gotten too powerful, too nagging.  Maybe Sean was dead or in a
hospital somewhere, or maybe he didn't want to come back.  Maybe he was
just being nice until his body was healed enough for him to disappear
again?  But then why did he leave his gun?  Why wouldn't he take the
money he was offerred?

And why was the little boy so willing to fool around in bed?  Surely
Sean must know how much he was loved.  As a matter of fact, Sean had
specifically said "I love you too."

No.  The Boy had not simply run away.  Something was wrong, and there
wasn't a damn thing Rick could do about it.  He didn't know Sean's last
name, and even if he did he couldn't call the police, there would be too
many questions.

He could hire a private investigator, but only if he could find one that
would work in Bedford-Stuyvesant.  That would be a rare find, and then
what would he tell them?  To look for a ten year-old boy somewhere in
Bed-Stuy? No, that wouldn't work either.

"Helpless" is a really lousy feeling.  Rick had never really felt it
before this; he was always able to buy his way out of any situation that
he got himself into.  Almost anything in life could be fixed if you
threw enough money at it.  He could even fix the drunk-driving charges
he got when he was in college.

But now the money-man was jerked into reality by a penniless, ten
year-old street kid.  Money could not help this situation.  Nothing
could help this situation.  He could only wait and bite his fingernails
mercilessly.

It wasn't until around ten o'clock that the crying hit him.  He was
pushing it off, trying to convince himself that Sean would limp through
the door any minute.  But finally it caught up with him, climbing slowly
in his throat and spilling forth in great sobs and shook his entire
body. 

The comfortable, secure, rich man sat sobbing on the couch for hours,
scaring even the faithful Fitzroy away.  Late in the night Richard
Laverne Siegal cried himself out and fell asleep on the couch, alone.


Boywatchers Inc., book one/part 8
by Reverend Jim

The Boywatchers Inc., Copyright (C) 1994 by an62433@anon.penet.fi.  All
Rights Reserved.  Author hereby grants permission for archiving and
distribution by electronic means only, as long as no fees are charged
either for this story, for the media it is distributed on, for
membership dues, or for the connect time used to obtain this story.

                                  +++

Sean was aware.  Unto itself, this statement is entirely too simplistic;
like "I pulled the trigger and it went off." No mere human could be as
aware as The Boy was at that moment, and still yet so far from reality.
In fact, it was his state of semi-consciousness that permitted Sean to
see beyond the boundaries of his physical universe; beyond the
boundaries of the reality that he thought he knew.

His eyes half open, Sean lays comfortably in the bean-bag chair and
peers down at what can only be Garfield using his first-aid kit to tend
The Boy's wounds.  The child lay stripped of his clothing as the old,
blind man checks the bandages.

Sean has fleeting memories of similar scenes happening recently.
Occasionally The Boy had drank from a cup that Garfield put to his lips.
And sometimes the windows around him were bright while other times
things were dark.  The Boy knew that it wouldn't make a difference to a
blind man whether it were day or night.  Poor old Garfield was blind as
a bat, couldn't see a thing regardless of how much sunlight there was.

Sean closes his eyes and lets out a soft "Mmmmmhhh" as he remembers how
good it felt when the old man picked him up and carried him up the
stairs.  He recalls looking up and seeing the bright white orbs peering
sightlessly at him, and then he knew everything would be okay.  His
friend was there to take care of him.  Everything was peaceful and
comfortable.

But Garfield was dead.  Sean was most certain of this, the whole thing
had not been a dream.  He was laying in the blind man's bean-bag, and it
was now sunny out.  The Boy could see the bright glow behind his
eyelids.  And an old, blind, dead man was taking care of him?

As he bolted upright in the chair, Sean's high-pitched scream damn near
shattered the real-glass windows nearby.  And the two people in the room
stopped dead in their tracks to look at The Boy, their jaws dropping
open in shock.

Sean sat there looking at something entirely not-in-this-room, his eyes
unfocused, until someone went to him.  At the touch of a hand on The
Boy's shoulder he jumped and screamed again, a sound nearly as
terror-filled as the first.

"Sean?" asked Juanita's father, holding The Boy's frightened face in his
palms.  "Everything's okay Sean, everything will be fine now Sean," he
said in a rush, trying to comfort the child as fast as possible.

The Boy's gaze darted quickly back and forth between the adults eyes.
His whole body was shaking and tears were rising in his throat.  "Where
is he!" Sean shouted, "Where is Garfield!" But the words were not
questions; he already knew the answer and it scared the hell out of him.
Garfield had been dead a long time and he was not here.

Nervously the two adults in the room looked at each other.  Calmly and
quietly Juanita's father puts his arm around Sean's shoulders and
simply holds him while he cries.  There was nothing he could say to The
Boy.

After a few minutes the man speaks softly to his wife, stark fear
showing in his expression.  "Lita, I think his fever is coming back."

                                  +++

"We can accomodate you," says Calvert.  The marketing man was beginning
to feel his nerves acting up; much rode on this meeting.  Including
millions of units of Paragranus.  And somewhere in the back of his mind
he knew that his job was also at stake.  He had to make the sale.  "I've
spoken with my people and we agree that your last offer is fair.  All
you need to do is sign the papers." He grinned, putting on his best
sales-meeting face, but then realized that the Naminoorian
representatives couldn't see him anyway.  He paused just the correct
length of time and added, "Let me get you a pen." His high-pressure
techniques almost always worked.

"No.  We need to study the specifications further before we can sign,"
said the Naminoorian on the left.  "You'll be happy to hear our
preliminary reports are positive.  And I must admit it would be nice to
have servants who can see."

"Except one thing," the Naminoorian on the right jumped in, "These
Earthlings seem to have a somewhat violent disposition."

Even without eyes, the damn creatures could see right through the man
from Marketing.  Calvert quickly moved to avert disaster.  "Well, the
planet is in the final stages you see," he said and then instantly
regretted his choice of words.  "And things will smooth out as we tailor
the planet to your needs," he said in a reassuring voice.  "We'll get to
work on it as soon as you sign the papers."

"We'll wait," replied the Naminoorian on the right.  His tone was flat,
as if he were having reservations.

Calvert's hands began to sweat as he looked back and forth between the
Naminoorians.  They were a weird-looking race for sure; the pair were
bald on top of their heads but whispy white hair grew around the sides,
and they had very dark skin.  Calvert was beginning to wonder if they
were capable of reading his thoughts.  He hadn't heard that the
Naminoorians were Psionic at all, but they seemed to know more than they
should.  He could feel it in their attitude.  And he could feel the
money slipping out of his hands.

In a moment the pair stood up at exactly the same time.  They hadn't
said a word to each other.  But Calvert knew the meeting was over, and
stood up to shake their hands.

"Send the contracts to our legal department, we'll get back to you,"
said the one on the left.  With that the Elders from Naminoor picked up
their flutes and turned towards the door.

"Sirs," Calvert calls to them.  "Why do you carry those flutes with
you?" he asks.

The Naminoorians answer in perfect unison.  "In case someone dies." Then
they turned and walked out, leaving a confused salesman behind.

                                  +++

Sean was nine years old when Garfield died.  No one at the tenement
could afford to pay for a funeral, so no one claimed the body from the
Medical Examiner.  Which also meant that their friend would be moved to
City Burial, and the people there aren't allowed to give out information
about where someone is buried.

After the legally-mandated fourteen day waiting period, Garfield's
unclaimed body was shipped from the Medical Examiner to City Burial.
From there it was moved to the City graveyard in Pottersville.  A
chaplain and a licensed Funeral Director were the only people present
during the short ceremony.

"Morgue," Philipe says into the phone.  Strange that a call would be
coming in at this hour, especially to the security desk.  The on-duty
Medical Examiner usually gets his calls directly.  The night guard was
sort of annoyed at being interrupted while flipping through the pages of
his new Hustler magazine.

"Philipe?  This is Esteban," said the person on the other end of the
phone.  The night guard did not recognize the hoarse voice, or the name.
After a long pause, the person went on.  "Lucinda's cousin from
Bed-Stuy, remember?"

Ahhh yes.  Philipe's wife's cousin.  They had met once a few years ago
at a family gathering, maybe a wedding or something.  Calling out of the
blue like this, Esteban must want something.  "What can I do for you,"
asked Philipe.

"I'm looking for a body, Philipe.  It would have been a John Doe, maybe
two or three weeks ago, and I was hoping you could tell me where he is?"

"That information is confidential, Esteban.  I could lose my job," said
Philipe.  He didn't like being put on the spot like this.  "Besides,
there are hundreds of John Does, what makes you think I can find the one
you need?"

"It's really important, man.  Can I at least give you a description,
maybe you could just look around?" Esteban was beginning to sound kind
of desperate.

After an awkward pause, Philipe breathed heavily into the phone.  "Go
ahead," he mumbled.

"Black guy in his sixties, bald on top and blind.  He was killed during
a robbery, some kid hit him with a gun," said Esteban.

Philipe knew exactly who it was, there was no doubt about it.  "What's
your number, I'll call you back when I have the information," he said.

"Uh, I'm at a payphone. Can I call you back in an hour maybe?"

"Yeah, I'll have it by then - I know who you're looking for," Philipe
said and hung up the phone.

And a short while later, Juanita's father had the information he was
looking for.  Garfield was buried in Pottersville section Overlook B,
grave number 2422 in a below-ground concrete vault.

About a year ago (on the twenty-third day after Garfield's death) the
squatters made a pilgrimage to his grave to pay final respects.  Esteban
arranged the whole thing because of the guilt he felt; Garfield would
not have died if only he went to buy the medicine himself.  It was his
fault that their friend was dead.

But by then Sean knew that it was his fault for loving the man.  This
was the third person he had killed by loving them.  The Boy stood
weeping while at least six squatter families and a couple of junkies
stood at the grave, singing songs of joy and love in rememberance of the
dead one.  Sean had brought the flute along, but could not bring himself
to play it.  His tears and his guilt were too heavy.

Hours passed as the sad bunch sang and cried for Garfield.  Over thirty
people had come, and together they made a powerful statement for their
friend.  As the sun began to set, Esteban moved behind Sean, put his arm
over his shoulder and said "It's time now Sean." With that he gave the
little boy a gentle nudge forward.

Sean knew what he had to do, but still looked around nervously at all
the mourners as they quieted down and watched him.  Wiping tears from
his eyes, The Boy stepped up next to the grave and put the flute to his
lips.  Everyone was silent, waiting intently to hear Garfield's only
disciple play the old man's instrument.

At first the notes came softly, barely audible.  The sounds were shaky
and awkward because Sean was trying to hold back his weeping, at least
for the performance.  After a few bars he started to become comfortable
and the music got louder and smoother.  And in a few minutes he was
playing almost triumphantly.  Slowly the hushed crowd joined hands and
swayed back and forth in rythym with The Boy's music.

It was 'Hard Times' of course.  Garfield had played it for Sean's
father, and now Sean was able to return the gift to the old man.  As The
Boy played, the evening sunset exploded in colors of red and orange and
purple all around them.  A more beautiful funeral could not have been
bought by all the money in the world.

                                  +++

And in the present, the young boy is fighting to pull himself together.

"What happened?" Sean whispered once his shaking had subsided.  He did
not look up at Esteban, instead he looked around the room trying to
collect his thoughts.  His new jeans lay next to the bean-bag, one of
the back pockets torn completely off.

"We found you at the bottom of the stairs, Sean," said Esteban.  "The
junkies told us you just fell down the stairs.  That was Saturday, and
you've been sleeping since then."

The whole statement didn't seem to register with Sean.  "What day is
this?" he asked.

"Wednesday."

Slowly Sean put the pieces together.  What was he doing on Saturday?  He
had come for the ... "Where's the flute?" he jumped suddenly.

"Here it is Sean," said Lita, now crossing the room holding the
tarnished old instrument out for The Boy.  "We found it when we took off
your pants," she added.

Gently he took it and then clutched it against his chest.  Wednesday?
Sean just sat there trying to clear his head.  It wouldn't be so bad if
the ringing in his ears would go away.

Sean picked up his pants to look in the pockets.  There was almost
nothing, only a business card and seventy-five cents.  And then he
remembered everything, all at once.  He hadn't fallen down the stairs,
the junkies had beaten him and taken his eighteen dollars.  He was
supposed to go to Rick's house in Manhattan, but that was four days ago.
"Oh god," he whispered to himself and tried to get up.

Things were kind of shaky, and the floor seemed to make lurching motions
towards him as he stumbled around picking up clothes and trying to get
dressed.  While putting on his pants he fell over a couple of times, and
finally Sean sat in the bean-bag chair to finish the job, tucking the
flute into his sock once again.

But when he was done he looked awful.  His nice new clothes were ripped,
stained and wrinkled.  Sean's hair hadn't been washed in days and it
was draped randomly over his head from sleeping on it.  In short, he
should blend nicely into the neighborhood.

Esteban and Lita tried to get him to stay, but it was no use.  Sean was
determined to make the trip, and he seemed like he had to do it today.
The Boy just asked them for fifty cents, which they gave him.  Sean
thanked the pair for fixing him up and then he headed slowly down the
stairs.

Every step brought him closer to the junkies, and with each passing
floor The Boy began to feel the tension rising in his stomach.  He
wanted badly to go back, just go upstairs and resume his life in the
squat.  But his heart and mind were somewhere else.  He needed to leave
this place that had somehow become uncomfortable and frightening.

Slowly and silently Sean came to the final landing and turned to view
the first floor.  There were junkies strewn about but most of them
looked unconscious or close to it.  A few steps later The Boy was
standing on the landing when someone noticed him.

It started as a curious glance and quickly became a look of recognition.
Even as Sean saw the look, he was bolting for the door in his wobbly
sort of way.

But the junkies didn't try to stop him, they just laughed and threw bits
of garbage at him.  Cold, shrill laughter followed Sean right out onto
the sunny sidewalk.  He could still hear their cries as he moved away
from the building, crossing the street just to be safe.

At Kingston avenue Sean went below ground and forked over one dollar and
twenty-five cents for a token.  Once through the turnstile he sat on one
of the many broken plastic seats to wait for a train.

Sean took the time to examine his body and gather his thoughts.  His
left pant-leg was ripped enough to snake a finger under his bandage and
examine the wound, which looked pretty bad.  Some of the stitches were
torn and it had begun to get infected.  While he was unconscious,
someone had put a fresh bandage on his forehead but he couldn't feel any
pain there so it was probably fine.

Beyond that, The Boy had a headache and some bruises but nothing more
serious than his leg, which was hurting pretty badly after his long
walk.  Sean longed for his soft bed at Rick's house; it would feel so
good to be loved and taken care of.  Rick would probably have food for
him too, and The Boy was feeling quite hungry.

Sean barely noticed as the train arrived and he stepped on.  He plopped
down on a seat and continued his deep thought, fantasizing about the
wonderful green tub and the gentle man who could make everything better.
The slightly dazed little boy transferred at Fulton street and headed
uptown towards the safety and comfort of the rich man's arms.

And then it occurred to him that he was heading home.  Not merely to
someone's house, but to his own home.  Perhaps his aching mind was
confused, perhaps not.  In either case The Boy's feeling was
unmistakable: relief.

Everything was going to be okay, he just needed to walk a few blocks
west to the condo.  His limp got worse as he moved, and only a short
distance later it was too painful to walk.  Frequent rest stops allowed
Sean to keep going, sometimes even dragging his leg behind him.  So
powerful was the need to get where he was going.

There was only a small amount of relief in reaching the condo, for now
he had to go up five flights of stairs.  Fortunately the nicely
carpetted steps were comfortable to sit on as he dragged himself
further.  All he could think about was Rick's piano: how had he gotten
it up these stairs?  Nearly an hour passed before he reached the top.

When Sean saw the oak door it made the whole painful journey worth
while.  Behind it was only rest and peace and love.  The Boy picked
himself up and tried to straighten out his ragged clothing before
reaching for the doorknob.

It was locked.  Knocking on the door produced no result; there was no
sign of life.  Not even a barking dog.  He had come so far and there was
no one here. Sean sat down and leaned against the door.

A wave of depression washed over The Boy, but there were no more tears,
he was just too tired to cry.  Too tired to care, for that matter.  Sean
just closed his eyes and sat in the corridor.

At first Sean would jump up every time he heard a noise but was
disappointed when Rick didn't appear.  Eventually The Boy gave up and
dozed off, leaning against a cold wooden door in the hallway.  After
that, time moved pretty quickly.

Rick left early from work and moved up the stairs just before five
o'clock on Wednesday afternoon.  Everything was going normally, except
people kept telling him he looked tired or depressed.  Which was
probably true, but he didn't think it was very nice of them to say.  It
didn't really matter though.  He was still trying cope with the
disappearance of the young boy who had briefly changed his life last
week.

Grumbling to himself, the man hikes up the last few steps, already
digging into his pockets looking for his keys.  But when he sees Sean
the keys don't seem to matter - nothing seems to matter.  He just stops
and stares at the sleeping child on his doorstep.

He had been correct in his logic.  The Boy was in bad shape; there had
been trouble of some sort.  Richard Laverne Siegal made a silent promise
to himself that Sean would never be endagered again, ever.  The whole
situation was made worse by the guilt Rick felt from the car accident.
If it wasn't for the accident, Sean wouldn't be having all of these
troubles.  On the other hand, if it wasn't for the accident, Rick never
would have met the beautiful young boy.  The best that he could do would
be to take care of Sean, and protect him.

He decided not to wake Sean, opening the door and picking him up
instead.  With a father's care he carried the wounded boy into the guest
bedroom and laid him out on the bed to rest.  Sean only began to stir
when Rick layed down to hold him.

Seans eyes parted slightly.  "Rick," was all he said.  It was a simple
statement of recognition from the pained child.  But everything was
going to be okay now that they were together again.  It didn't matter
that Sean was banged up.

There is one simple question on Rick's mind and he has to ask it now.
He smiles gently at the barely-conscious boy and whispers, "Sean, tell
me your last name."

In return The Boy's eyes fall shut and he mumbles something completely
incoherent.

Rick gives up for now, reaching to brush hair out of Sean's face and...
That was when he touched the soft skin of his forehead.  It was too hot.

What was it the Dr. Abromowitz had said about a fever?  Take him to a
hospital, quick.  But that was impossible.  He had promised The Boy that
he wouldn't.  And even worse than that the hospital would ask too many
questions.  Rick had no other choice but to ask another favor of the
good doctor.

Within an hour the doctor appeared and tended Sean's wounds, including
the infection that was beginning to appear on his leg.  Neither of them
saying a word, Rick just sat helplessly nearby as Nathan Abromowitz
carefully re-stitched the leg and dispensed medications.  Before he left
he removed the stitches from the forehead, which was on it's way to a
perfect healing.

When he was through, he gave Richard Siegal a nervous, sideways glance
and walked out.  Rick followed him to the door but didn't say a word as
the doctor slipped into the hallway and was gone.

With Sean sleeping comfortably on the bed, Rick goes to the other end of
the condo and opens the door to the kitchen.  Eagerly Fitzroy comes
bolting out to greet the man and go for a badly-needed walk.

When they return Rick gently places Fitzroy on the bed beside Sean, and
then turns out the light.  The man sits in the chair near the bed, still
wearing his suit.

Rick just looks at The Boy for a long time, with sad eyes.  The healing
gash on Sean's forehead did little to reduce his beauty.  His feelings
were clear: he wanted to possess Sean.  The perfection before him was
too intense and he wanted to hold it, capture it, love it.  But it
wasn't possible.  He made a mental note to call Judge Lockheim sometime
soon, and then he fell asleep in the chair.

                                  +++

And so the stage is set: the two are together once again.  But as I said
earlier, I think you will enjoy the story - which is only just beginning
to unfold.

          This ends Book One of The Boywatchers, Incorporated.