The ifs:

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If you stay, I hope you'll be entertained. Just bear in mind that this is nothing but fantasy and fabrication. The story describes sex between young and older, between unrelated and related, increasing in volume as you work your way through it. All sexual encounters in this story are consensual, which to me is very important.

If you go for wall-to-wall heavy sex and nothing else, you'll not be too happy with my stories.

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If you find clumsy language and twisted idioms, bear with it. I'm not English, and I'm not American.

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Introduction.

 

In the late 70s, while visiting friends up North, I happened to see a rock band whose very charismatic lead singer used his spot on the stage in ways I had not seen before in this context. The lyrics were explicitly gay or had gay undertones, very ironic and critical to the straight society, the performance utterly provocative as well as very artistic, very experimental, very theatrical, very androgynous, and also ... well, very beautiful. This set him apart from all the heavy stomping and jumping up and down that characterized the many punk rock bands that were beginning to pop up everywhere at the time. The performance was something one would perhaps expect in an underground or a more closed gay setting, not in a "normal" public venue. Because this was at a time when gay meant you immersed yourself in the safety of the rather closed gay circuit, or if you came publicly out, you mostly kept your behavior and your political activity within the limits of acceptability or as inoffensive as you could, but still for most guys it meant you stayed deep in the closet. As I said, I was truly struck by the unlikelihood of this happening in a smallish Northern town and not in the underground music scene of the capital.

I never met the guy, I know nothing about him, about his life or what may have happened to him, only that the band existed for just a year or two before vanishing from the public eye. So, this is of course not in any way his biography. I model my protagonist very loosely after my impression of him, yes, but all in all it's just a fantasy spun from an unforgettable musical (and theatrical) experience that never seems to grow old in my mind.

 

Something completely different: In the bullshit world of Chinese astrology, the 12 animal signs change in a fixed cycle, approximately a year between each, modified by one of five elements that change every two years. Like me, you probably won't give a toss, but in the year 1977, when this story unfolds, quite a lot of people who had lost their foothold in traditional Western dogma during the late 1960s sought meaning and order elsewhere. (Not that this drivel has any great impact beyond serving as mere literary wallpaper in my story.)

 

And finally: There's a whole lot of swearing in this story, more than I normally put in. That's because the Northerners swear twice in every sentence.

 

 

The Year of the Snake

by

Magnus Winter

 

*1* Exodus

 

It was the year three astronomers found the rings around Uranus and three members of Lynyrd Skynyrd fell from the sky. It was the year the Sex Pistols did a gig in Oslo and the Bravo well blew out a 180 ft high fountain of oil into the North Sea.

It was the year of the snake. It was the year August Dahl decided to change direction.

It came over him in a flash on the 12^th of May in his second year at the College of Arts.

 

His teacher in Form and Content looked down his nose: "Is this because your castrated crucifix was slaughtered? If you're that thin-skinned you won't get anywhere."

His teacher in Color and Ornament looked over her specs: "I had such hopes for you. But you lack stamina. And ... Well ..." Shrug.

His classmate slash secretly wannabe girlfriend blew smoke out of her nose and looked dismally at a point behind his head: "Why did you have to put all that gay lib stuff into everything? People get bored, you know. Why not a bit of versatility? Widen your range a bit?"

"Well, why don't you do more gay stuff?"

"I'm not gay!"

"Exactly."

His straight best friend and classmate, who from time to time, when pussy was scarce, had found it pleasant to insert his cock in August's mouth, just looked annoyed: "You moron. Why now?"

"Cuz it's the year of the snake?"

Grinning: "Gonna miss me?"

 

Pay phone in the hall. His mother's plaintive voice, always sounding disappointed, even when fake supportive.

"Going north? Are you high, or what? No? Well, you never finish anything anyway, so why should you ... I'm sure that hippie aunt of yours will be delighted to help you get settled...Oh, and that guy you used to ...eh, know ... he's with the newspaper there, isn't he? So not quite tabula rasa, is it? And I always said art school was a mistake ..." And on and on.

He could almost hear her twirl locks of hair between her fingers, surely in need of having her roots done.

 

***

 

He packed away his tie-dyes and his flared jeans. Cut his shoulder length mousy hair shorter than a suburban lawn, dyed it black. Eyebrows as well. Sparse beard went. The lovely bones of his face came into their own, his unblemished skin that never took sun well an almost geisha-like pallor in contrast.

Talked to his mirror, promised his new image no more striving for meaningless gimmicks just to best his pompous fellow students. No more genuflecting to self-important mentors. No more nodding yes to his classmates' pretentious notion that dipping asses in buckets of paint and screwing on top of giant canvases was groundbreaking art.

No more singing mildly political and satirical, albeit inoffensive songs about gay life in a straight world with his guitar on open mike night and in obscure cellar pubs. No more flirting with the Marxist gay libbers to antagonize the right-wing fraction. No more parading with the Anarchists to annoy the Marxists. No more tedious post-hippie attitude. No more incense and patchouli.

No more lip service. No more pretense.

This is me now, he thought as he considered the sideways view of his spare and angular body dressed in his half-brother's black collarless suit from ten years ago. No shirt, just a hairless strip of pale-skinned chest framed in black. Looks pretty mundane, he reflected, or do I mean modern? I like my navel. Now, where could he lay his hands on the right hat?

 

***

 

A test run seemed required. He popped a tiny square of blotter in his mouth and let the chemical kick in while walking downtown through the balmy night. Put on a pair of purple tinted glasses and threw himself into the circuit. They were all in place, like they hadn't moved since his last round-trip: The raised-fist-brigade, the style cognoscenti, the mustachios. Parading between tables, strutting on dancefloors, on display along walls. Furtive eyes going in a million directions at the same time, a few lingering glances, none seemed to recognize him, and it pleased him.

Elbowing his way out from the overcrowded and claustrophobic darkroom of his favorite haunt, a third-floor fire hazard, he was finally identified. Fellow student from life drawing class sniggered and pointed at a whiteish string running down his trouser leg.

"Cool hair. You got cum on your pants."

Indeed, he had, but he had no idea whose cum it was. Certainly not his own. He decided to keep it there. Removing his glasses, seeing the guy like he was inside a bell jar, he said, "I'm gonna be a rock star."

Later, in the sauna, he spotted a guy even skinnier than himself with a red shoelace, bow and all, for a cock ring. Stood facing the guy, watched him slowly masturbate his oversized genitals, but the acid played funny games in his brain and the details got too absorbing: The bushy sideburns, the excessive tash, the weak chin, the bright red bow, the hairy toes, all distracting him from unfettered enjoyment of massive cock. Jaws starting to cramp from whatever was mixed with the acid, he looked down at his own dun colored pubes, the mistake of not dyeing them black grew to such importance he lost interest in everything else for a long time.

Much later, on his knees in front of a screen, totally engrossed in the grainy, flickering images and colors, anonymous cock pumping his ass. Felt like he was two different persons in two different worlds, one of him changed and pulsated in time with the world of porn in front of him, the other inhabited a distant, almost indifferent world of equally indifferent and not very big cock moving inside him.

It was the year of the snake, the year to say goodbye to all this repetitive shit, the year to reinvent August.

 

In his tiny, rented flat, music and masturbation were the remedies to get him through the discomfort of coming down. The whole day naked from the waist down, constantly tugging and teasing his rather tired cock in between weighing the pros and cons of trains versus planes and assessing which items to sell and which to keep.

Took his Buddy Holly signed Catalina guitar, a gift from his father on his twenty-first birthday, and the stolen autographed "Peggy Sue" single to the auction house. Felt like betrayal, but Daddy's dead, he'll never know. Memories of childhood hours sitting in some studio listening to his father's guitar playing, bored out of his skin, suddenly attacked him and accused him. Gave his betrayal history. Woke up regrets and pains he thought were securely locked away.

With an effort he put those futile feelings back where they should be.

Ready to go. Because the year was the year of the snake. and the snake rules the North, and the North was where August's renovated life should unfurl and blossom.

Should unfurl. Must blossom. But boarding the train on the 19^th of May he was suddenly eight again, watching the lapping waves getting closer and closer to his sandcastle built with hours of fantasy and concentration.

 

*2* Rock Around the Clock

 

"They're not at all bad", his aunt Lily shouted in August's ear as the third band finished their second number.

He didn't answer. Granted, they were a smidgen better than the first acts, but besides being too jazzy, also too predictable, too stagnant. Even more, exclusively instrumental music quickly bored him.

"They need flash", Lily went on. "They need distinction. But the handicraft is solid."

"Stupid name", he countered. "Heartbeat! Come on! How tacky can you get!"

He got up and wandered away from her, down the slope towards the roughly rigged provisional stage. His gaze swept over the crowd, searching for something or someone, always on the lookout, always from habit covertly on the prowl. So different here, so much more exciting than hunting the cruising grounds back in the capital, mainly because there were no cruising grounds here, you weren't guaranteed any outcome. Never sure of a reward. In fact, it hardly ever happened. Still, the tingling feeling of maybe, the sweet itch of possibilities, the unpredictability, the small sting of danger even, made it all so much more compelling. It's one of the things I came here for, he thought as he scanned the cross section of the local population present at this festival, the whole nothing-is-obvious thing ...

He passed the stalls with waffles, sausages, soft drinks and bad coffee in Styrofoam cups, passed the row of mobile crappers, suddenly regretting he didn't bring his guitar. I should fucking be on that stage! he mused, in need of some self-boosting. I'm fucking better that most of them!

He walked slowly down closer to the beach, hiding his eyes behind dark glasses, smelling the pungent aroma of low tide, staring at the lumps of seaweed and the glittering little pools of water left by the outgoing tide, and peering at the late-night sun hanging low above the Northern horizon, exhilarated by the knowledge that there it would stay, low on the sky all through this last night of the month of June in the year of the snake.

The music was behind him now, dull thuds of bass and drums hung in the air, but not any longer drowning out seagulls screeching and wind rustling in the grove of birch trees where he inadvertently found himself. Slanting, almost horizontal rays of light crept between the pale stems and cast long shadows. He had to pee. Moved further into the thicket, unzipped, hauled his cock out and let rip. Drew symbols on the ground with his powerful jet of piss.

Suddenly an inexplicable sensation of being watched came over him. Looked around him, and there, silhouetted by the sun through the trees, some fifteen meters away, was a lanky male figure turned halfway away from him, hands hidden at crotch height, throwing a couple of furtive glances over a shoulder. He could make out a mop of unkempt, dark hair, almost shoulder length, and shapeless dark clothing. Without looking at him, the man turned towards him, briefly flashing a surprisingly long cock which he hurriedly put back in his baggy pants, and with another quick glance over his shoulder ran off.

August shivered and goosebumps tickled the back of his neck. His instant hard-on presented a problem when he tried to return it to his skintight jeans. Maneuvered it to slant upwards towards his hip, for a short moment sniggering at the thought of parading the bulge back through the crowd. Pity he was wearing black, washed-out denims would have been so much more revealing, so much naughtier...

 

Back amongst the crowd just as the band ended their gig in a ceaseless torrent of noise, scouting for the man he had just seen, but to no avail. Weaved his way through the throng of people now getting up and milling about. Spotted Lily down by the stage, obviously in some sort of interaction with the guitarist who squatted on the edge of the stage in front of her. Oh God, she's too old to act like a groupie. Wondering why it bothered him, he walked off to find their tent in the near-by field, a grassy plain strewn with some fifty or sixty other tents of various sizes and colors.

Moving through clouds of smell from small bonfires and hash-smokers he found his destination, crept in, discarded his dark glasses and rummaged through his aunt's make-up purse. With a kajal pencil he blackened the area around his light blueish-grey eyes like a ribbon going from ear to ear, and, as it was getting a bit chilly, put on his big black sweater. Came out amid a commotion two tents away: Three big guys with yellow armbands were forcefully removing four very drunk and very noisy youngsters from the area, one of them puked all over the guard's shoes.

From the top of the grassy slope serving as bleachers his aunt Lily was waving to him, the guitarist beside her. A folksy hippie outfit were spilling their low-key tunes from the stage.

Lily was all cat that ate the canary. He watched her queryingly.

"They want a singer!" she said jubilantly, one hand resting on the guitar player's shoulder. "I told `em you're the goods!"

August grimaced. "Fuck it, you're not my pimp, aunt Lily."

Guitar guy tossed his page-cut blond hair and bared his small teeth. "'S true, though. Talked about it, didn't we? Whole fucking band wants vocals, and all of us sound like fucking sea gulls."

August sat down on the other side of his aunt. "Not my kind of music."

Lily was still fingering the guy's shoulder. "That would change then, wouldn't it? Be a whole different ballgame if they got you on board."

August suddenly went numb. A short distance in front of him the dark guy from the woods stood signaling to the guitar player. The flat sunrays illuminated his face, and it was not the face of a man. Impish and light-skinned, with those blue eyes that go with black hair and white skin, pretty in a mischievous way, this was the face of a young boy, fourteen or fifteen at a guess.

"Gotta go." Guitar guy rose. "Think about it!" he suggested to August, then quickly bent down and muttered a muffled "see ya later" in Lily's ear and left.

August sat staring after the two guys. His brain had parked some place where a slender body, a pixie face and the memory of a long cock got in his way and refused to move.

 

***

 

He woke up dreaming of falling off some weird and fantastic scaffolding, desperate to hide the fact he had no trousers on. He was alone in the tent; Lily's sleeping bag lay pristine and empty in the opposite corner. The slut! he thought briefly but modified himself: She deserves all the fun she can get. He went back to sleep.

Around noon he was softly nudged awake. Lily, of course, in her kaftan, towel over her arm.

"Come swim with us! Before the rain comes!"

He raised himself up on his elbows, groggy from sleep.

"You've lost your mind. I'll have you certified."

"Wuss", she laughed. "Suit yourself." Halfway through the opening she turned her head, long curls bouncing across her face. "There'll be naked guys!" she tempted him. He groaned and flopped back down.

Couldn't go back to sleep. Got up, feeling dirty having slept in his clothes, but bathing in the Arctic Ocean? No way.

 

A glorious day. Sun was at its highest, everything around him was colors: Vibrant green foliage, the edge of the field crowded with yellow and purple flowers, the sea a deep blue. The distant and grainy amplified sound of girls' polyphonic voices to acoustic guitars followed him as he trotted slowly towards the beach. Found the cove where a handful of people had gathered, some huddled in towels, some splashing and flapping their arms in the shallow waters close to the beach. He shivered thinking of the cold sea. And clouds were building in the southwest, like towers of marshmallows, in half an hour or so they would probably be here and turn the warm southern breeze chilly and heavy with rain. He sat down a small distance from the bathers, watching the sky where two rapacious jaegers attacked a seagull to make it vomit its catch.

Something came between him and the sun. He lowered his eyes, and there was the guitar guy, vigorously toweling his naked body. Not all bad, August thought: nice shape, straight shoulders, slim waist and hips. Looked kind of soft, though, thin layer of fat obscuring possible definition of pecs and abs. Smattering of blond hair from the middle of his flat chest down to a dense bush where genitals rested, still a bit shrunken from the cold water. Definitely showing promise, though.

Guitar guy plopped down on his folded towel. Started talking about Aunt Lily, a bit on the boastful side, so August shut him up. Guitar guy was not put off, just changed the subject to his band. Tempting, sweet-talking, coercing. Also, calculatingly and not particularly subtly baiting August by stretching out and spreading his legs, showing off his nakedness. Obviously informed of August's orientation.

August laughed in his face. "If I should want to front a band, and if is the operative word, it won't be a jazz-rock band, no matter the size of your cock."

Guitar guy laughed right back. "Worth a try, wasn't it? I hear you're Pelle Dahl's son."

Oh, not again. Annoyance showed clearly in grey eyes and dismissive grimace.

"Screw you. I'm me, I'm not him."

"He was the best. I mean, no one came close to him. Lily says you've got his genes."

It was clouding over, temperature was dropping. Guitar guy wrapped his towel around him.

"I'm serious, you know. From what your aunt says, you're the man. And screw the jazz, I mean, this is our second gig, we're not stuck anywhere. The thing you've heard was just us jamming. We can go anywhere. Musically, I mean."

But August was not listening. Because on top of the slope to the left of the cove, almost hidden among the shrubs and the trees, he spotted a tousled black mane and a glaring purple-red shirt, a shirt that shouted Look at me! Here I am! The boy stood still like a statue, staring at them.

"Who is that guy?" he mumbled, mostly to himself.

Guitar guy stopped talking and looked at him. "Huh?"

August tilted his head. "That red fellow over there."

Guitar guy turned to look. "The little fucker, that's my shirt! My cousin. Bit weird."

The first raindrops hit them. Guitar guy jumped up.

"Oh, shit! My clothes!"

He ran towards the beach. The red shirt disappeared between the white-stemmed trees. August just sat there and let the rain soak him, wondering why on earth this gangly, untidy pipsqueak was crowding his brain this way. The remaining kajal from yesterday ran in black rivulets down his cheeks.

 

***

 

July came and saw a sequence of unpredictable weather and the more predictable comings and goings of guitarist Alexander - preferring to be called Lex, an affectation August mentally sneered at - conducting a half-hearted affairette with Aunt Lily, a poorly hidden pretext for securing August for his band.

Lily seemed to accept this with great complacency. In fact, August suspected this was all her plan; to get him behind the microphone again and getting the occasional roll in the hay as fringe benefit. And Lex would spend as much time leafing through August's records and studying his sketchbook as he would between Lily's sheets, relentlessly cajoling and wheedling. August found himself more and more amused by his perseverance.

Like a jack-in-the-box the black-haired young cousin would ever so often materialize somewhere on the sideline. Waiting, watching ... and vanishing again. Every time disturbing August's equilibrium. Every time pulling August, tingling with an inexplicable fever, closer to the vague edge of something he had no idea how to avoid or rationalize away.

And by mid-July in the year of the snake August had secretly begun writing new songs and planning visuals. When July said goodbye, he spelled out to Lex which conditions should be met if he was to join the band.

 

*3* Dies Mirabile, Dies Irae

 

August turned 24 on August the 24^th.

The letter from the auction house arrived in the morning, saying the bidding on his Buddy Holly memorabilia was now closed and the money dispatched. The money that on the day before had gone into his account was most welcome, his student loan long gone, the pittance he made shifting boxes part-time at the warehouse a source of mild worry more than lucre. Even so, the pretty hefty sum screamed thirty pieces of silver at him.

Coming from the bank, eaten by a deranged demand for purification, this was after all a day of outstanding eccentricity and had to be made ... what, magic...or sacrosanct ... he popped into the Catholic church, crossed himself with holy water and stifling a giggle genuflected in front of the side altar, like he'd seen in so many movies, and theatrically whispered forgive me ... forgive me ... forgive me.

Didn't help much.

Popped into a salon and had his hair bleached white.

That didn't help either. Tried to push half of the dosh onto Aunt Lily. Like penance for the crime of selling her brother's treasures, or compensation for the rent he didn't pay. She wasn't having any.

"Got all I need", she countered. "I don't want your money. I just love having you here, it's like having Pelle back. You're the spitting image of him, you know. Even with the Zorro make-up."

So, he sat in the small self-contained flat in the basement of her house, waiting for the shadows of contrition to go away, because fuck it, it was August the 24^th in the year of the snake, and August was 24 on August the 24^th in the year of the snake, and that was a valid excuse for anything, wasn't it? And repeating it over and over like a mantra really ought to have some effect, or what?

Oh, for God's sake. Time to get a move on. Time for music now.

 

***

 

In the rehearsal room in the cellar of the old kindergarten building where they could practice three nights a week, Lex and drummer Egor were in the throes of a tu-quoque argument about which girls were reliable or trustworthy in assessing who of them had the biggest dick.

August guffawed at them. "Straightest thing I've heard. If you were gay, no need for dispute, everyone would know to the millimeter. Why don't you just go compare or something?"

"We're not twelve," Lex acidly cut him off.

"Really? You had me fooled there."

High pitched, nasal and pinched laughter suddenly sounded from behind the bass amplifier. Oh yes, Shaggy-Black-Hair was in residence, hidden in the dark corner.

"Oh, shut up, Stinky!" Lex growled.

 

They ran through a couple of songs, new arguments rose. Bass player Arnold, who fancied being called Noddy, again wondered loudly why all the lyrics had to be so fucking homo all the time. The rest of them chimed in reminding him that was the deal, and did they want a singer to give them a bit of an edge or what? August just tiredly argued he could quit at any moment, and he would if they didn't stop their bloody habit of jamming every note in the universe on top of each other into the music.

"It's the air that creates the groove! The voids between the notes! You sound like fucking porridge!" He threw the mike down. "Gotta pee."

"You can't," Lex sniggered. "Toilet's clogged."

He went outside, behind of the building where there were no neighbors overlooking. Unzipped, drew cock out. Just as he let loose, someone came hurrying along to stand close beside him. Breathless voice in his ear:

"Piss on my dick!"

He turned his head; the boy's half-open mouth and wanton gaze stabbed his brain like a dagger. And the boy already had his long, pale cock out ... what on earth had got into this shy and elusive creature? But come on! Watersports? Not!

But the boy simply reached out, took hold of August's cock and steered the jet to splash against his own cock which he held out in front of him. In a daze August watched the boy's cock harden. He'd almost expected it to grow a foot long or something, but it didn't grow all that much in length, quite a lot in girth, though. And when the boy let go of August's cock and started frantically wanking his own, August rose to full mast and his piss dried up as the boy shot five spurts of transparent adolescent cum out in the late afternoon air. Blood thundered in August's ears.

The boy made to leave, but August grabbed his jacket and held him back.

"You're crazy!" he said, his cock still jutting out in front of him.

The boy just stared at him, glassy-eyed, cockiness competing with nervousness .

"Yeah," he softly agreed. And just like that he moved closer, bent down, kissed the tip of August's cock and quickly rose again. A funky whiff of teenage lack of hygiene invaded August's nostrils.

August still held him by his jacket while his other hand packed his cock away.

"What's your name? Other than Stinky, I mean."

The boy moved even closer, his face an inch away from August's, and in a voice that hadn't quite decided whether it was boy or man said, "Kiss me and I'll tell you."

August firmly shook his head.

The boy pulled away, stared at the ground.

"Sivert," he whispered. "Sivert fucking Sivertsen. That's me." And hunching his shoulders, he turned and walked slowly away.

But it was still August the 24^th in the year of the snake and August was 24 on August the 24^th in the year of the snake, so August took a deep breath and ran after Sivert fucking Sivertsen.

 

***

 

Sivert shed his thin jacket. August took one look at the boy's grubby T-shirt and wrinkled his nose. Indoors now, the stink of him was even more objectionable.

"Honestly, man! Don't you ever wash?"

The boy tried to look tough. Put on an arrogant smirk.

"Fuck you! Course I do." But his blush gave him away. As did his suddenly moist eyes which he shut hard and turned his head away.

August felt like an asshole. Started babbling.

"Sorry. That was a bit rude. Shitty, actually. I'm so sorry if I hurt you. It's just ... Well, don't mind me. I really don't know anything about you, you know."

Harsh grunt between clenched teeth.

"No. You don't."

August told him to sit down and enlighten him, then. The boy crossly said no, cuz August wouldn't want him to fucking stink up his fucking furniture, so August had to tell him not to be silly and pushed him down on the small, ancient sofa. A bit too hard, maybe, the old creaky springs moaned, and quite unexpectedly the boy started to cry. Really cry. Like a cloudburst, like a deluge. Like he was five.

What now? Should he ignore this, or should he step in like a therapist or a mother or something? He stared at the boy's clenched fists. Felt numb. Did nothing.

"It's all upside down!" the boy gushed between sobs.

August was nonplussed.

"Come again?"

Sobs were dying down.

"It's wrong! It's ... No, the whole fucking everything is inside out like my fucking underpants and there's fuck all I can do about it!"

And with that Sivert Stinky Sivertsen jumped up, grabbed his jacket and vanished out the door like a fart in the wind.

 

***

 

The unpleasant feeling of failure wouldn't leave August. He trotted the floors of his small apartment, feeling confined and suffocating, eaten by anger he didn't know where came from.

The need for skin, the lust for cock grew in him. He left and headed downtown in the dusky northern late summer night. The bars and discos were just closing, the Wednesday crowds were flooding the streets. But as he took it all in, looking for whoever would nibble his line, his ardor crumbled, and his itch died. Without understanding his sudden reluctance, he avoided the groups of people, all so high and noisy on alcohol and other substances, and instead wandered along the piers and wharfs, alone and untouchable, studying the fishing boats and the freighters, loafing without real purpose towards the coastal liner that suddenly made him jump as it sounded its horn for departure, reminding him it was 3 a.m. Lost in his own bad vibes he sat down on a bollard, staring blindly at the horizon where the soon-to-rise sun had started bathing the sky in pinks and yellows.

 

*4* It's a Stinky World

 

August was just in from another boring day at the warehouse, soaked and cold, when three sharp knocks above his head and Aunt Lily's shouting voice told him to come up. Had to get out in the wind and the rain again, ran as fast as he could up the sloping path around the house to enter the main floor, slipped on the steps and crashed into the door. Hurt his wrist and swore.

Lily, hennaed hair up in an untidy bun and dressed in extensive layers of flimsy multicolored cotton, was in her living room folding clothes. Didn't give a shit about him looking like a drowned rat.

"What's with you and little Sivert Sivertsen?" she burst out accusingly.

August hunched his shoulders defensively, no way he was ready for a 3rd degree.

"Why are you mean to him?" she went on.

He got annoyed. Face turned pink.

"What do you mean, mean? I haven't done anything. I haven't fucking seen him since my birthday!"

Lily sighed, patted the stack of folded clothes with both hands.

"Well, I have. And these are his clothes. Washed and ready."

August felt dizzy. What the hell was going on here?

"You know him? And why do you call him little Sivert?"

Lily gestured for him to sit.

"I've lived in this town all my life. I know people, right? I used to know little Sivert's mother, and yes, little, because though he's almost as tall as you now, he's still just a little boy. Beer? You might as well, because this could take some time."

August silently nodded. Lily vanished into the kitchen, then appeared again with two opened brown bottles. Flopped down on the couch, feet up on the low table, looking like a collapsed rainbow. Took a deep swig.

"I haven't really spoken to little Sivert since he was like ten or eleven. Just seen him around. Always avoiding me. Yesterday I caught him outside, peering through your window. So, I got a bit curious. He was carrying a plastic shopping bag stuffed to bursting point with something. Dirty clothes as it turned out. I asked him in."

She leaned back and guzzled more beer.

"He wasn't all that talkative. But hell, I can read between lines. He's obsessed with you, you know. Thinks you're Jesus and Mao and David Bowie rolled into one. And crushed, absolutely devastated because he was convinced you hate him. I suppose you rejected him in one way or another?"

"I didn't really!" August broke in. "But he's been like stalking me. Showing off his dick and stuff. I'm not saying I'm totally immune, but Christ, Aunt Lily, he's way too young! And he stinks!"

"And I don't suppose you asked yourself why?"

"I didn't. But I guess you're about to tell me, huh?"

"Short version. One: In his head, no one likes or cares about him. Hormones play havoc with his reason, tell him people will like him if he offers the only thing he thinks he's got to offer. His cock. And two: Home sucks, so he stays away, hence the stink."

Lily's bushy cat came in, slithered around August's legs before jumping into Lily's lap, curled up like a large dust bunny and purred like an engine.

"I've been thinking maybe I should take him in. Haven't asked him yet, but I think that would be a goodish sort of thing to do."

August, with a sudden growing apprehension, watched the cat stretch up and lick a drop of beer off her chin.

"What? Living here, you mean? Why?"

"Long story or another short version?"

"Short, please."

She changed position, the cat looked offended and jumped off.

"Well, his home is not a good place for him now. His mother is out of circulation, he doesn't hit it off with his stepdad, who's a dickhead, by the way. Which is why he's been roughing it all summer. You know, sleeping in people's sheds and stuff. Lex has been sort of looking after him, emphasis on sort of. Not very efficiently as it turns out."

August's apprehension is turning to panic.

"But ... Listen, if he's ... like you say, obsessed with me, how the fuck do you think that will turn out? It'll be a nightmare! For all of us! I'd have to move!"

"Oh, get over yourself! This is about him, not you!"

She got abruptly up, started to pace the floor.

"I feel so bad for him. He's just fourteen and tries to be tough, you know, but he's quite naïve, and unless someone steps in and takes action, I'm afraid he'll do some very silly things and land himself in very deep shit. And I don't see anyone else lifting a finger, so ... And he really is such a lovely kid. Stupid and misguided, yeah ... but ... sweet."

"Wait. What's with the mother?"

Lily continued her restless patrol.

"In the slammer. Drunk driving, hit a kid at a zebra crossing. I blame that loser she married. Changed her, you know. She used to be so much fun."

She stopped by the window, stared out at the heavy weather. First signs of the nearing autumn dancing out there.

"Know what made my heart bleed? Little Sivert ... He had stapled the inseam of his jeans to make them slimmer, I mean, there were like a hundred staples there ... wanted them tight like yours. Some twisted notion that it would make you like him. He's so goddam helpless!"

She turned. August saw her moist eyes. Saw her kindness, her warm heart, and felt ashamed of his own cold lack of compassion.

"You are the nicest person I know," he mumbled. "I wish I was more like you. Like I could believe in stuff ... like that peace-and-love thing from 69 still existed."

 

***

 

"Who's that? He sounds like you."

Little Sivert not-so-Stinky-anymore Sivertsen sat on August's worn and tired couch. Wagging his head to the music, he absentmindedly pulled his socks off, fingers started digging between his toes.

"60s band called the Doors," August replied, nodding towards the boy's feet. "What's that about?"

"Itchy." He scratched something loose with his fingernail and held it to his nose. "Fucking stinks."

August shook his head.

"Didn't you just have a shower up at Lily's?"

"Yeah. But ..." The boy's slightly elfin face looked worried. "Something crazy here."

August sat down on the floor next to him, eyes on those slender toes and their long, untended nails, still stripes of dark dirt under them.

"Shit, man. You could pick up mice with those claws."

"Yeah. Gross, right?" The boy laughed awkwardly, hiding his discomfort behind teenage bravado.

"And I think you've got athlete's foot as well."

"How the fuck can I? I don't fucking do sports!"

"Got nothing to do with sports, it's a fungus infection. Wait here."

August fetched a tub of warm water, soap, towel, nail clippers. Sitting in semi-lotus position, caring for the boy's feet did something unexpected to him, it was like his heart grew out of proportion. His initial reluctance gave way to genuine care, his need for distance melted away and left a warm feeling of ultimate intimacy, like he was a lover. Or perhaps more accurate: A parent. And in the process Little Sivert Stinky Sivertsen became a person, became Sivert.

The feeling was exhilarating, but it was also like imprisonment. Bewildered he looked up at the boy's face, searching for something to remove this feeling, hoping for escape ... but Sivert's eyes gave him nothing but confirmation. They were both caught in something neither of them fully understood nor knew what to do with.

August remained there, quietly sitting with Sivert's feet in his lap, unmoving hands closed around the boy's heels, brows knitted in confusion, and his heart just went on expanding. A sudden and unexpected tear broke loose and hit Sivert's big toe, and August was roused out of his numbness.

Tension was broken. Thankfully. August got up, disappeared and reappeared carrying a bottle of concentrated antiseptic mouthwash.

"You need some antifungal cream or something. I'll get you some later. This might actually work as well, you never know."

He moistened a wad of cotton, applied it between Sivert's smallest toes. The boy quickly jerked his foot away.

"That bloody stings!"

"Ah, don't be a baby! If it stings, it's sure to work, huh?"

August got hold of the foot again and continued his ministrations. Easier now, pretending to be a nurse put a flimsy lid on that former hard-to-handle emotional gulf. And Sivert clenched his teeth, fretted like a three-year-old but kept his feet still.

Putting his socks back on, he suddenly bored his eyes into August's. There was a strange, almost dangerous light in those pale blue peepers. He opened and shut his mouth, and then his eyes clouded over. He rose. On the way out he turned and grunted over his shoulder:

"Doors? They're so fucking ... closed ..."

 

*5* The Snake Rears its Head

 

August was tired. Drained, empty, and oddly lonely all things considered.

He had put in a lot of work to shape the band the way he wanted it, musically as well as visually. Endless discussions, maneuvering through bass player's tantrums and drummer's preconceived and boring ideas of what a band should come across as. And then, of course, there was the name. Suggestions fluttered about, one worse than the other.

"Something that can be interpreted in several ways", August had insisted. "Something to create speculation. Like two Fs. Some will think fortissimo, some will think fast forward, and a few in the know will think fist fuck. Or anything else with fuck in it. F is always a suggestive letter."

And with Lex in his corner, August had won. They were now F.F.

A few weeks ago, he was ... well, nobody. Now, after the band had done a couple of gigs, they were suddenly the talk of the town. More specific, he had become the focus of interest. Opinions floated freely, even far outside the music scene. Big words like innovation and brilliance fought against blasphemy and vulgarity. Provocative was the only word with full consensus. And there were press interviews, local radio spots, photoshoots.

The self-appointed authorities and connoisseurs of music had a hard time categorizing them and fought their own trivial battles whether the band was trash rock or punk funk, others again brushed them off as burlesque pop and sneered that their music was distorted by too much theater.

August marveled at how easy it was in a small town to become something like a byword almost overnight. Couldn't really believe it was happening. But it seemed to have happened regardless of his doubts. Must be the year of the snake ...

The guys were happy, though. There was a much young pussy to be had in the wake of budding success. Like the ambiguous image they now had gave extra pull.

Not for August, though. Oh, there was attention, yes, almost too much of it. He was recognized, he was approached, he was analyzed, he was even admired, but there was distance, sometimes almost reverence in these actions. He'd had a vague idea that as a small-scale rock star, boys would fight to get in bed with him, but no. Admittedly, there was that journalist that had flirted quite unrestrained with him during an interview and brought him home to his girlfriend for a threesome, but although his sprightly and slim body was quite yummy, his cock was small and very crooked, and August lost interest. Leaving them, he worried about his own attitude: Was he so shallow that size really mattered that much?

Maybe things would change when the sudden notoriety wore off, but for now it was like he had become untouchable, unobtainable.

And then there was the darker side of it: The contemptuous looks, the finger-pointing and the name-calling, the arrogant and biased arguments, the furious bible thumpers' letters to the papers. Once a car had slowed down as it passed him in the street, window rolled down, person inside spat at him. All so tiresome. But he had to realize it came with the territory. And remind himself that this actually was what he had wanted for himself: A platform where he could act out his creativity and his music, as well as his anger and frustration with the overwhelming hetero-cultural assaults that were everywhere around him, a rostrum for the new and uncompromising August.

Nevertheless, his feet felt heavy, and his brain exhausted as he trotted past the Jugend and Swiss style villas in the older residential neighborhood and came in sight of the sector where Aunt Lily's small house sat. The area here was full of these houses, all built after the war. The architects, if ever there were any, had focused on utility rather than beauty: the buildings sat on the hillside like cardboard boxes, all with the same small, square gardens where little grew, but numerous garden gnomes lived among the struggling vegetation. Despite the sameness, the houses looked as lonely as August felt.

Lily's little garden was positively overgrown compared to the rest. Hogweed that so thrived in the arctic summers had grown taller than August, their umbrellas of seeds and their browning leaves a strange mix of beauty and decay. Unmowed grasses that once were strewn with wildflowers were now turning yellow and dry, and her only outdoor ornament, a worn bamboo wind-chime, met him with its enervating, monotonous noise.

A nap, he thought, and then we'll see.

 

Slung down on the couch, he went out like a light.

He suddenly woke from a nagging feeling of discomfort. Opened his eyes to see Sivert sitting on the floor across from him, silently watching him. Looking like Sivert, but not looking like Sivert.

"Shit! What are you doing here?" he blustered. Sat up, rubbed his eyes. "You can't just walk into people's houses like that!"

Sivert grinned, not at all fazed.

"Wanted to show off my haircut."

Of course. That was why he looked different. His shaggy, black mane was now cut millimeter-short on the sides, the top a little longer: a thick, broad mohawk-like stripe. His ears stuck slightly out, increasing the pixieness of his face. It suited him. God, he really is cute, August thought, as if he hadn't dared to admit it earlier.

"And it couldn't wait? You got any idea how scary it is to wake up with someone who shouldn't be there watching you?"

"Lily said I should show you."

Before he could answer, there was a loud ohoi! from outside, and in tumbled Lily with Lex in tow, laughing and carrying a stuffed shopping bag. Lex dropped the bag in Sivert's lap: "Here, Stinky!"

"Name's Sivert!" August and Sivert said simultaneously. Looked at each other. Sniggered.

"Whatever. Try these."

Sivert looked queryingly at August who tilted his head in the direction of his bedroom. "Go ahead!" The boy vanished like a genie carrying out wishes.

Lex spread out the new national semi-underground music rag to the middle pages. Huge photo glared at them, side view of August in a nun's head dress and classic white one-piece underwear, flap open showing ass. Caption read: "F.F. Fires off Farts in the Face of Formalism."

August moaned. "Fuck him! That was like ...for two seconds or something, why did he have to choose that one? I looked far more chic with the tailcoat still on!"

The three of them huddled together reading the article, accompanied by murmurs of oh, that's a good one! and I never said that! and so on.

"Could have been worse", Lex finally concluded.

"Are you kidding? This is tripe!" August grumbled.

"No, no!" Lily intervened. "This is great PR! Pity he wasn't at your second gig, that was a lot more spectacular!" She nudged Lex's arm. "Didn't I tell you? August was exactly what you needed to make people sit up!"

August pooh-poohed.

"There's too much focus on the stage show. And the sound. Like he was too stupid to see the connection between the visuals and the lyrics."

The sound of a door banging shut made them look up. And there was Sivert. Not in his new clothes, but in a long, black monk's habit, hood up and crucifix dangling.

"Is this what you had on the last time?"

And quick as a wink he opened the long tunic, revealing the top August had also worn under it, a cross between a harness and a corset in black silk, but where August had worn a black thong and black stay-ups, he wore nothing at all. He shook his long cock and grinned as he closed the habit.

Lily laughed out loud.

"I certainly didn't have my dinky out like that!" August countered. "Now stop messing with my stuff and go put on your own clothes! Christ!"

Lily was still laughing.

"My, my! Little Sivert? I mean ..."

August, swallowing and shivering and trying to fight off unwanted fire in his loins, folded the paper and handed it back to Lex. Damn Sivert! Why did he have to pull stunts like that? He felt his ears heat up, turned away to hide his blushing face.

But Lily noticed.

 

***

 

"How come you got all these wild clothes?"

Sivert looked envious at August's short, grey school-boy trousers, knee length black socks, black T-shirt with leather embellishment and bright yellow suspenders.

"Like `em? Some I make myself, some I get from London. Got a friend who sends me stuff."

"Why can't the shops here sell stuff like that? They have only boring, boring, boring shit."

"Market's too small, I guess. To be honest, Oslo's not that much better. Wait, I just got a new pair of pants you might like."

August disappeared into his bedroom and returned with a half-opened brown paper package. Discarded the paper and held up a pair of tartan trousers.

"Stuff like this is the rage right now. Especially if it's torn a bit and full of zippers and safety pins and chains and all. Try these on, why don't you."

Sivert's puckish face lit up. He rose, unzipped and pulled his new tight black jeans down. His grey briefs got caught on the way, showing his wreath of black pubic hair and the top of his cock. Grinning rather brazenly he pulled the briefs back up with a small sniggering and flirty oops! and removed his jeans. August, as per usual, found his mouth go dry and his heart rise to his throat as he handed the boy the colorful, checkered pants.

They fit quite nicely. The readymade tear with frayed edges from the left pocket to mid-thigh was made to overlap, August fetched two large safety pins and stuck them in. Crouching as he did, face centimeters from Sivert's crotch, his heart didn't exactly beat any slower. He rose quite abruptly.

"I think a chain across the front hanging loose from one belt strap to the other would be the deathblow. And suspenders, maybe. What do you think?"

Sivert was looking down on himself, wide eyed, speechless. Breathing loudly through his nose, like some agitated animal. And in a flash he threw his arms around August and glued his lips to August's neck. Tickling tongue and all.

August's knees turned to jelly. He struggled to get a grip on himself, managed to grab Sivert's ears and pull him off.

Sivert turned away, hiding his face.

"Why don't you like me?" he asked unsteadily.

August swallowed.

"Who says I don't?" he almost whispered.

Sivert turned to him again, uncomprehending expression. Then a sudden anger shot up in him, he stamped his foot hard on the floor.

"Fuck you!" he yelled as tears of frustration trickled from his narrowed eyes.

Oh, no, not again! ran through August's brain, but something took hold of him, something he'd only felt once before. Not passion, not horniness, not love ... but something like what he had felt doing Sivert's toes, an encompassing, warm tenderness, a wish to help, a desire to take care of a lost boy. Almost overcome by this unfamiliar emotion he reached out and pulled Sivert to his chest, held him and caressed the back of his head, felt the boy struggle and then give in, felt the boy's body quiver. The smell of him, simple teenage-boy-smell with just a trace of soap, unspoiled by too much deodorant, or days of sweat as it had been before, was intoxicating. And then, fuck it, the altruistic or parental feeling he had wanted to keep inside him drowned in pure lust, vanished in a flood of need. Question was how to get it out of his system.

"Listen," August mumbled, lips close to the boy's ear. "It's not that I don't like you. It's more that I like you a bit too much. To be honest, I've had the hots for you since the first time I saw you. I wanted you even when you stank like a cesspool. But you're forbidden fruit, you know. I wish you fucking weren't, but you fucking are!"

Sivert whimpered in vexation. Stirred to get out of the embrace, but August didn't let go of him.

"This is a one off," August said, then clasped Sivert's bewildered face between his hands and kissed him. Slowly, deeply. Tongue tasted and explored. Blood rushed through him, pounding in his ears as the boy opened up and kissed him back.

God, what a bad idea. How on earth could he have labored under the delusion that a kiss would put anything to rest between them? A one off? You wish! He had to stop before this got out of hand.

Sivert was left standing immobile in the middle of the room, breathing heavily, looking dazed. August rested his buttocks on the windowsill and watched him. And then it was like a small electric shock went through the boy's body and woke him.

"You want your pants back," Sivert said flatly, unbuttoned and unzipped and let the trousers fall to the floor. And there he stood, in his shirt and his small grey briefs, long slim thighs pale and hairless, calves sleek and curved, small black hairs sprouting at his ankles. The thing that really got to August was the boy's knees, so young and coltish, so beautifully shaped. August couldn't stop looking.

"Don't stare at me like that!" Sivert's voice sounded shaky, on the verge of either rage or tears.

August lifted his eyes.

"I have to. You're beautiful."

"Bollocks."

"But you are!"

"I'm not!"

"You are. I wish I could draw you like that."

Sivert stepped out of the collapsed trousers, embarrassment written all over his face and his bearing. Stooping, he walked to the opposite end of the room, then stood still with his nose touching the wall.

"If we're never going to do that again ... Will you do one thing for me? Just one fucking thing?"

August hesitated.

"Maybe ... If I knew what you're talking about."

"I wanna see you onstage", Sivert said to the wall, "but they won't let me in. And Lex is being an asshole and won't help. Can you please get me in on your next gig?"

 

*6* The Snake Strikes

 

It was the year of airplane hijacks and disco movies. It was the year of General Zia's coup d'état in the name of Allah. It was the year when the orange juice lady wanted to save the children from the queers. It was the year when too much banana split and too many prescription drugs made the king of rock and roll kiss the bathroom floor.

It was the year of the snake. It was the year August Dahl first saw the whole inside of a Police station. It was the year Little Sivert Stinky Sivertsen learned yet another level of the word pain.

 

***

 

Without consulting his band mates, August took his poster sketch to the offset print shop. The poorly hidden drools from the printer, a slightly chubby guy in his forties, were signals more than strong enough for August to hatch a scheme, resulting in 50 posters at half price and a sore asshole – the man turned out to be a rather savage fucker.

Feeling like a whore, he presented the posters to the band. Noddy the Bass again whined about the fucking homo vibes in everything, but as Egor pointed out: "Anything August comes up with is fine with me, I've had more quim the last two weeks than I've had in two years" - and him being just nineteen, that was probably true – and Noddy reluctantly bowed to his point.

The posters, depicting a pop-arty, hard contrast ink drawing of a pair of bare boy's legs from behind, an inch of ass showing at the top, pants around the ankles in front of a wrought iron fence and printed on a sickly pink paper, created quite a stir when they came up announcing F.F.'s next gig. By midday, half of them were removed. By night there was only one left. They put new ones up, now stapled crisscross over the whole sheet. So only half of them vanished this time.

August saw the disappearance of the posters as a triumph more than a problem. His brain, however, was more concerned with how to get a 14-year-old boy smuggled into an alcohol-serving venue with doormen built as brick shithouses. He doubted he was yet famous enough to pull rank.

He was proved wrong.

 

***

 

Wednesday at noon, seated with Lily's sewing machine at Lily's dining table, Lily being off visiting friends in Trondheim, and God only knew where Sivert was. Hopefully at school. August was putting in the last bit of work on a suit put together from frayed strips of medical gauze. It was a tricky project, mostly because the entire suit had to be made to come off with one swift movement.

Lex sat across from him gluing cigarette papers together. Egor was heating a small piece of hash to mix with tobacco.

August looked up from his sewing. "If you see Sivert, tell him he can come to the concert as my guest. Oh, and by the way: That guy you know from the theater, the fat one. He seemed kinda enthusiastic ... Think he could help with the lighting? And a smoke machine?"

Lex lit the joint, sucked in and blew out, handing it to Egor. "Sure. I'll ask him. Do we need extra light?"

August explained his idea. For once he also explained what he planned to do on stage. Shook his head when the joint came his way.

"I don't get you", Egor moaned. "Sometimes you come across as the most decadent fucker I've ever met, but you don't get drunk, you don't get high, and I've never seen you trick, what the fuck do you do?"

August sniggered. "All of it. Just not in your company."

He went back to his sewing. "Seriously, I used to indulge quite heavily in all that stuff when I was in art school. Right now, I like to stay sober most of the time. That's not to say I won't ever party with you. Thing is, when I was stoned all the time, I lost some om my critical sense, and I did a lot of stuff that seemed so brilliant at the time but turned out to be shit. Now I'm testing sobriety to see if my ideas get better, understand? I may be wrong, but I'd like to give it a try."

He finished his work. Leaned back and watched to two guys get steadily more glassy-eyed and giggly.

"I'm fine with hanging out with you guys downtown and stuff, you know. Every now and then. I do like you. Really. But those parties ... at people's houses ... I mean, they all pretend to be so ...I don't know, loose? ... or open minded or something ... but it's just pretense, it's straight as hell when it comes down to it ... and even if it's my own choice, I'm just bored now with being "the Gay Guy", the one those conceited straight idiots can tease and flirt with to boost their already swollen egos ... confirm that they're as hot as their delusional minds think they are ... but they would knock you flat if you should really respond to their stupid innuendo ... and if it's not them, it's those chicks that attack you and push all but their cunts in your face and imagine they can convert you, see what I mean? No respect!"

The pair of them nodded all through his speech like it was music, complete with sheepish smiles, but not really listening. Egor burst out giggling. "Jesus! Was that Afghan? I'm wasted!"

Lex lazily pointed his finger three times at August. "I think you're brilliant", he said sluggishly. "I think you're the best. Even if you didn't like my cock."

August got up, stripped to his underwear and tried on the gauze suit. It fit, alright, but when he pulled it to get rid of it, either the Velcro or something else got stuck, and it only came halfway off. On again, tried a different grip, and off it came.

"Now, I'd ask Lily if she was here, but she isn't, so which one of you straight fuckers will help me get some self-tanning goo on my backside?"

 

***

 

Sivert, alone by the tower of speakers to the left, held on to the edge of the stage, eyes fixed on August.

The small stage was filled with a multitude of undone rolls of gauze bandages hung from the ceiling, the guys all dressed in black and showing various amounts of skin moved in and out of the fluffy, white forest where lights changed from harsh white to nuances of blue and purple. Egor had really taken the black-and-skin deal to the hilt, dressed only in black speedos and a huge black flatcap.

Then they had changed for the second set, August to the tattered white gauze outfit, and as the last song but one ended, he had turned away from the audience, ripped off the suit in one swift go and showed his naked backside as the light faded to blackout.

Now a single spotlight illuminated August's face, gradually widening until he was shown strung up like a painting of saint Sebastian, completely nude but for a bandage wrapped around his cock and balls, dripping fake blood on the floor, singing his "Kill a Queer for Christ" song to the backing of a lonely, brittle guitar, increasing in volume as catcalls and whistles sounded from the crowd, bass joining in, then the drums, all slowly building towards a violent crescendo.

Anxiety shot through August as he became aware of a budding commotion at the back of the audience. Angry shouts and people pushing forward, raised fists and spitting mouths. The uproar spread, and suddenly the whole crowd seemed to be moving, like caught in an undulating wave of aggression versus defense. Full-fledged panic gripped August as the tumult closed in on the stage. Like in a nightmare he saw the large top speaker tip over and knock Sivert down, the boy fell to the floor like a sack, and August screamed.

Strong arms gabbed him and hauled him backwards, off the stage and into the long, narrow corridor that served as dressing room. He kicked and yelled at the bouncer, screaming and begging him to take care of Sivert instead. And then it was like a hundred spikes punctured him and he fell apart.

Ten minutes later.

Gruff and unfriendly voices of two uniformed policemen told him to get dressed and come with them.

 

***

 

Clock on the wall said ten past midnight. The hospital's main reception smelled like over-ripe bananas and cheap industrial detergent. It sickened him.

"I want to see Sivert Sivertsen."

"Relative?"

August hesitated. Should he try a bluff? Better not.

"Friend. But I don't think there's anyone else for him right now."

"Name?"

August told the hard-faced woman in the old-fashioned starched uniform his name. She disappeared from the window of her cubicle, leafed through a stack of papers, came back with a sheet. Looked at him with a strange gleam in her pale, yellow eyes.

"You're named as next of kin here. Moreover, it seems you're the only one listed."

"Well then? Can I see him?"

She turned from him again, spoke on the phone, noted something down, all the time sending furtive glances his way. He suddenly wished he'd removed his make-up.

"He's in X-ray. You can wait outside the E.R. reception."

"And where's that?"

She put on a condescending face. "Can't read, can we?" Pointed sourly to the huge double doors to the right. Next to it a board naming all the wards and arrows of direction. August felt humiliated and angry, felt his ears boil.

 

He didn't have to wait long. He rose abruptly as an orderly came wheeling poor Sivert in, flat on his back on a high, narrow bench of a bed, as if the man was serving Sivert up on a tea trolly, like for a late snack or something. A short man in a white coat followed. But before he could say anything, the small cortege retreated to somewhere behind a white door.

With a heavy sigh August sank back down on the hard chair, guilt and apprehension eating at his heart. The bad vibes increased as the minutes passed, he started to pace the floors, wringing his hands, touching everything there was to touch, and imagining all sorts of terrible outcomes. The hospital smells that should have reassured him that he was in a place of caring expertise turned disagreeable, almost fetid and nightmarish.

He was fit to be committed when the doctor finally showed up. Turned out that Sivert was concussed and had a broken collarbone, and apart from some bruises that was it. They would keep him under observation until morning due to the concussion, but August could see him now before he was taken to another ward.

Sivert, now in a normal hospital bed, had been undressed and put in a gown, his right arm in a stabilizing sling. He looked even paler than usual but managed a wan smile that turned into a grimace when he saw August.

August rushed to him, his fingers itched to stroke the boy's hair or pat his cheek or something, but he dared not touch him.

"God, Sivert! Jesus, never in my wildest dreams did I think anything like this could happen. I'm so fucking sorry!"

Sivert closed his eyes, his face pinched and contorted.

"Hurts like fucking hell," he moaned. "I feel fucking sick."

"Oh God, I feel so bad for you. Listen, I won't bother you now, I just had to see how you were. I'll come back in the morning.

Sivert opened his eyes, there was panic behind the pain-induced dullness.

"Don't go! Please!" He lifted his left hand but winced and let it drop.

"Ok, I'll stay until they throw me out."

August just stood by the bedside, watching Sivert's eyes glide shut, watching Sivert's pain twitch and contract in that unusual and sweet face. His chest filled with despairing regrets and helplessness, and with a wild burn he wanted to believe was concern, but had he been honest, he'd have known it felt too much like love to be anything else.

Sivert's eyes opened again, as if to make sure he was there.

"How could they hate you?" he groaned weakly. "You were so ... "

The orderly came marching in, and with one dismissive look at August wheeled Little Sivert Stinky Sivertsen off.

 

*7* There's always a Choice. Or is there?

 

It was the year Voyager 1 set out on into the unknown. It was the year Steve Biko was beaten to death by uniformed assholes. It was the year the last person was guillotined in France.

It was still the year of the snake, but the snake was about to lose its venom: It was the year when August Dahl's lyrics changed from bitter sarcasm to cryptic but nevertheless obvious love songs.

 

Noddy left the band. The new bass player was more in tune with the band's concept and also a far better musician. His Latin good looks didn't hurt either, the horde of ovulating groupies seemed to increase by the hour. Everybody were expecting new surprises, new stunts to challenge bourgeois good taste.

But August toned down the theatrics. Became more of a singer than a clown as his new poetry sneaked into their catalogue. The unpleasant hour spent in the stark custody cell and the following harsh interview may have helped the transition, as did the charges of indecent exposure. He had argued. He hadn't shown his cock. So instead, he got a whooping fine for disturbing public order. But that was only half of it. A boy like a meal on a trolly did the rest.

The music cognoscenti praised the change. The sensation seekers poohed and called him a chicken and a coward. Neither had any big impact. Only thing that worried him was the band's name. He wanted to lose the fisting associations. A softer name. A gentle name. And F.F. became Candy Machine.

Anyone with half a brain could tell that August was in love.

But let's go a bit back in time.

 

***

 

The day after the incident August came to pick the boy up. Found Sivert hanging around in the hospital lobby, looking shy and dejected, much like he used to look. Except for the sling. The guilt he felt when he saw the boy almost choked him. And that unexpected and disturbing feeling that had so startled him the night before returned with full force and made him dizzy like a high school girl.

August steadied himself to the back of a nearby chair.

"Aren't you supposed to lie down?" he asked, slowly stepping closer, blushing from sudden suspicion of what these unsettling feelings could actually mean.

"I'm taking you home now," he said softly, his throat thick, his voice catchy. "Taxi, I think."

In the cab August struggled with a strange need to get closer to Sivert. Gave in to his desire and very gently put his arm around the boy's shoulders, careful not to hurt his injured shoulder. Sivert leaned his head against him, but with a sudden ouch! lifted off and straightened his neck again.

 

***

 

Two days later.

"You fucking well have to help me!"

Blue, beseeching eyes bored into August's, causing giddiness and a sudden urge to close his eyes in pure self-preservation.

"You're not that crippled, are you?" he mumbled, looking at the floor.

"Yeah, well, how am I gonna get my fucking shirt off and get fucking clean without using my fucking right arm? They said I shouldn't for six weeks, and besides, it fucking hurts to lift it!"

August sighed. Mustered all the weak remnants of resistance that still lived in him. Knowing only too well what seeing the boy naked in the bath would do to his self-control.

"I suppose Lily could help?"

"Yeah, right. Fuck, you're stupid!"

August sighed again. No loopholes, no escape.

"All right, all right."

He removed the sling and carefully helped Sivert out of his shirt. With his left hand, the boy managed to unbutton and unzip his jeans himself and pushed them down. To mid-thigh, then he stopped. Watching August with a strained frown.

"Why do you look so angry?"

August didn't answer. Anger was the last thing he felt, but his face tried all it could not to show what really went on inside him. Sivert just stood there, irresolute and forlorn. So August did what he probably shouldn't. He swept the boy's jeans down. And the dark blue briefs. And lifted his head.

A naked boy. Little Sivert fucking Sivertsen in his absolute natural state. For the first time all of him in sight, all of him in proportion. And little such a misleading epithet.

August could not refrain from staring. Undeveloped chest, sure, and square bony shoulders, pale skin decorated with a dark bruise on the upper right and strangely wide pink areolas around little nubs of nipples, so pale pink they almost merged with the skin tone. Concave stomach under sharply marked edge of ribcage, belly button that hadn't quite decided if it wanted to be an innie or an outie. Not a hair in sight until eyes moved down to the spare wreath of black hairs topping that long, appetizing appendix that hung in front of a loose, smooth sack where two pigeon's eggs lived. All smooth and slender thighs, no fur at all on those legs until you came down to shins and ankles, where little soft-looking black hairs had started to sprout.

August had mentally clenched his teeth and gambled that he was prepared for this, but he wasn't. Oh, he knew he felt sorry for the boy, he knew he felt guilty about what had happened to him. Nor had he forgotten the weird emotions doing the boy's toes had set off. And he had known for long that the boy's dick had a strong pull on him, and his resistance had all been centered around how to withstand the lust it evoked in him. But this was another story altogether.

Why do I find him so heartbreakingly beautiful? he thought. Why have I been fooled by all those porn-star bodies to think what is hot and not? Why have someone fucked up my brain and channeled my views on what beauty is? Because this boy, who didn't come up to any standard in the context in question, was the loveliest creature he'd ever gazed upon. Could this perhaps be what love did to people? And dammit, was the suspicion he had had lately really true? Love? Was he really in love? But that was impossible! He couldn't! He wouldn't! That would be nothing but disaster!

There was, he guessed, one way to kill these disturbing feelings. Suck his cock, rim his asshole, have him stuff that gorgeous boy-cock into his bowels and get him out of his system. Use him and discard him. Fuck away this creepy love-thing once and for all.

"Are you gonna sit there and fucking gape, or are you gonna help me wash?"

August was torn out of his reveries. Without a word, he turned on the shower, stripped down to his underwear, pushed the boy under the spray.

"Turn!" August's voice sounded unfriendly and commanding. He heard it himself. But dammit, anything to curb those mushy and maudlin feelings that threatened to upset his whole existence.

But the minute his fingers started to rub shampoo into black scalp, his resistance began to dissolve. And when his soapy hands slid over silky back, he shuddered. And when same hands made contact with two firm hemispheres of smooth boy flesh, he was lost.

Sivert spread his legs slightly. With goosebumps all over, August's right hand slid in between boy buttocks to clean the forbidden valley, and no matter how many times he told himself that this was a clinical project with no overtones whatsoever, his resolve failed him spectacularly. All by themselves fingers explored. Fingers found. Boy's legs spread even wider.

August strained his ears, trying to catch a sigh, a moan, as if he need more affirmation than the wide-open legs. All he heard was the splashing of water on tiles. And fingers now tickled and petted a tight little orifice, marveling at the unexpected lack of little knots or wrinkles: The boy's asshole felt as smooth and as virginal as a two-days-old baby.

His left hand dived into his drenched black briefs to adjust his aching erection.

"Tell me to stop!" he almost shouted over the sloshing and spattering from the shower.

The answer was simply a boy's ass pushing further out against his caressing hand. And August's reason, or what little was left of it, vanished. Blood rang in his ears as he kneeled down. His nose pushed in against the tightly shut hole, rubbed up and down, like there would be smells of boy there, not just soap. And lips and tongue followed. Sivert's thighs trembled dangerously, Sivert's hips began to move, Sivert's moans got louder than the rush of water.

Whoa! a faint voice in August's brain piped. He regretfully withdrew, tongue unwilling, but it had to be. Soaped still shivering thighs and calves. Grabbed an ankle.

"Up!"

Sivert steadied himself to the wall with his good arm while August washed his feet. And then it was time.

"Turn!"

August tried to concentrate on arms and chest, gently soaping up armpits with their smattering of black down, quickly passing over nipples. But his eyes were again and again drawn downwards. Down to the unavoidable cock, pointing up at him almost accusingly, fat and inflated, wide head poking out of its sheath of skin. Waiting for August. Waiting for August's soapy hands. Waiting for August's touch.

August's soggy black singlet and briefs stuck to his skin, the dark colour couldn't hide the outline of a raging hard-on. Sivert opened his eyes. And hooked a finger inside the waistband. Tugged.

"Please!"

Oh, how he wanted to get out of the soaked cotton! How he needed for them to be all skin together! No modesty, no barriers, no rules. But he shouldn't, he knew he shouldn't ... Sivert pulled impatiently.

He should. Took two steps backwards and stripped off the uncomfortable wet rags. Then with a sigh closed in, clung to the boy, hands clasped buttocks, hips gyrated, cock rubbed against cock. Steamy. Raunchy. Feverish. And for August there was but one way to go now.

He soaped Sivert's thick cock. Lots of soap until it was truly slippery. Again struck by the way it had grown so much in girth instead of in length. It felt stiffer and harder than any cock he could remember he had felt, in his experience fat cocks often felt a bit spongy even when hard. He held on to it as he turned, aimed it at his asshole. Heard a shocked yelp behind him. Then a growl. He pushed back, impaled himself on the spear. No hesitation, straight on. But halfway in he had to stop.

Pain surged through him. Pain that he needed. Pain that made him feel real. Pain that was too much, though. He grunted a strained wait!

But for fourteen-year-old Sivert holding back was not on the cards. His whole body felt like it was going to explode. He rammed his young cock in as deep as it would go, oblivious to August's wail, gasped for air as the explosion came. Fired two shots into the tight cave, pulled halfway out, clawed onto August's hips, banged his cock in again and fired off the rest of his ammunition.

Movement suggested he was about to pull out, but August was quick to grab the boy's buttocks and hold him still. Pain now waning, he badly needed to be filled with as much of this incredible boy as possible, for as long as possible.

The cock in him didn't wither. Oh, marvel! Oh, splendour! It moved gently now, just slowly a few centimeters in and out. Like a caress.

But the water started to turn cold.

August eased himself off and away. Turned the shower off, watched the boy with a heart that almost burst right out of his chest.

Not-so-little Sivert Stinky Sivertsen's breath was laboured and ragged. His cock stood up in front om him as if nothing had happened to it, never mind how wet and sticky with cum it was.

August leaned in on the boy. Lead Sivert's good hand to his own achingly stiff one-eyed snake, felt it slide up and down the length of it. Whispered muffled confessions of love to the air beyond the boy's ear, hoping he wouldn't hear them. And then, forehead to forehead, they masturbated each other and came together in a shivering torrent of united ecstasy.

But Sivert's concussed brain was still concussed and didn't exactly benefit from this exercise. His headache returned full steam ahead.

He whimpered. And threw up on the bathroom floor.

***

 

When Aunt Lily came bursting in and found them, August sat clad in nothing but his Marcel Duchamp T-shirt, watching the boy lying with closed eyes on August's worn couch with a Palestinian flag thrown over him. August didn't look happy. Worried face, nervous hands. Hands that automatically covered his naked crotch. Of course noticed by Lily.

"Now, what have you done to him?" Her voice was that of a disappointed mother.

August gave her a pinched little whimper. And a sigh the size of the Wall of China. Cast a quick glance at Sivert. Good, he thought. Teenagers can sleep through anything.

"He felt dirty and asked me to help him undress for his shower," he muttered.

"Oh, yeah?"

August sighed again. Looked helplessly up at her. Hands restless in his lap.

"Then he wanted me to wash him. And ... I couldn't ...I mean, I didn't stop ..."

Forgetting he would expose himself to his aunt, he hid his face in his hands and leaned his elbows on his knees.

"Goddammit, Aunt Lily. I'm in love. Goddammit!"

He sat up. Hands back in his lap, although it was a bit late for modesty now.

"I didn't mean to! I don't want to! Fuck!"

His aunt came close. Took both his hands in hers, her eyes stared deep into his. Her kind eyes. For the longest time.

"Be good to him," she finally said, sotto voce. "If you hurt him, you'll be singing with the fishes."

He yanked his hands back, jumped up, turned away from the couch and stood before her, cock dangling, hands spread out apologetically. In his T-shirt with a picture of a pissoir on it. Would have looked ridiculous if it wasn't for his utterly miserable face.

"Aunt Lily!" he almost shouted. "I put his cock in me! I didn't even ask him! He was just ... And then his headaches kicked in again and he puked. I feel so bad about it."

His aunt didn't say a word. Didn't look at him. August felt defiant.

"Wanna know the worst part? I want to have his cock in me forever! Forever!"

His aunt had her eyes fixed on the boy under the flag. She had seen eyelids flutter. Now she saw lips that tried to conceal an embarrassed, or maybe even frightened, grimace. Oh, yes. Little Sivert Sivertsen was awake and pretended not to be. She almost laughed out loud. She curbed herself, however. Thinking it was more educational for both him and her if she let August carry on with his confessional.

"Have you any idea how beautiful he is naked? Like ... I don't know, there's such innocence there, and freshness ... Pristine may be the word, right? I don't know how to explain. And then ... You should see him hard!"

His fists banged his skull a couple of times.

"How could I stay cool? How could it not affect me? Bloody hell, you've no idea how hot he is, how he radiates sex on top of all that weird innocent or unsullied vibe he also sends off, and I haven't a fucking clue how to get out of this, but I must! Because he's forbidden! He's jailbait! But I want him so badly it hurts!"

August suddenly dropped to the floor with a thump. Curled up into fetus position and looked like he was ... well, weeping or something.

Sivert's head still had little men with heavy tools at work in there, but he lifted it anyway. Tried to fix a pair of unfocused eyes on Lily.

"Tell him to stop," he moaned. "I don't need to hear I'm a fucking baby!"

 

Aunts aren't parents. Parents so often think they must teach and uphold the illusion of convention, of propriety, of behavioral standards. Aunts don't. Aunts can permit themselves to think outside boxes. Hippie aunts most certainly can.

And this hippie aunt was not fazed by a nephew's pornographic confessions, nor was she discomposed by same nephew's melodramatic performance on the floor. A light kick in his exposed posterior was what he earned.

"Oh, get over yourself!"

Another kick, a little harder.

"Now get your pretty little ass over to where it should be. Someone needs comfort, not self-indulgent theatrics."

August untangled his head from his arms, looked up, gawking in disbelief. His face was dry, so whatever he was doing on the floor, crying wasn't in it.

"You don't get it, do you?" he shouted at her.

"I sure as hell do. What I hear is the voice of your conformist mother with all her hang-ups of what is done and what is not. Your father, bless him, wouldn't have batted an eyelash. Now get up!"

She swept away the flag like she was ceremoniously uncovering a work of art.

"Haven't you noticed by now that he's utterly and completely ready for you? And that age has nothing to do with it? So get in there with him. Just hold him and comfort him and put him at ease, and maybe those headaches will go away."

She shook her head.

"I never thought you could be as square and as hidebound as all that. He needs you, you idiot! Just as much as you need him!"

She made sense. August had to realize it and August obeyed. Bashful and blushing he crept in behind Sivert, spooned him and nuzzled his neck. Lifted his head and glared at his aunt.

"You can go now."

Lilly, however, just sat there. Gazing. Filling her eyes with the sight. The beauty of the pair made her eyes water.

Eventually she rose, grabbed the PLO flag and covered them. And quietly tip-toed out of the room.

 

***

 

It never rains but it pours.

The band weren't all that happy. The new August didn't go down well with either Lex or new bass player Stein, Stein who had the audacity to keep his given name unadulterated, but nevertheless sided with Lex. Easygoing Egor couldn't give a shit, flittering through his young life without a single difficult thought in his head as he did. But quarrels started, and quarrels increased, and quarrels soured everyone's existence.

It got quite heavy when Lex thought he found a lever to get August back to his old modus operandi by threatening to tell the world that August was screwing his cousin. August responded by turning on his heels and leaving rehearsal. When he had stayed away for more than a week, Lex included a friend in the band, one who owned a Korg PS 3300 synthesizer but regretfully also owned a voice like a macaw, loudly announcing they were going New Wave. Loud noises from the two others to fucking get August back, because fuck it, none of them could even pretend to match his singing.

So August returned. But nothing was the same anymore. Stuff was festering under the surface.

 

Sivert's messed-up mother was granted two days of leave. On the second day she stole a car and ran it into the ocean. By design or by accident, nobody knew. Sivert's nob-head stepfather had not adopted Sivert, laughed in the official faces and swore he didn't want him, so an orphan now, Sivert was placed like an unaddressed parcel in the lost property department of a temporary foster home some forty miles away.

Aunt Lily cried. August sat dumb struck in his cellar apartment. Life seemed out of repair.

Until little Sivert Stinky Sivertsen ran away and thanks to stolen ticket money one night stood banging on August's window.

 

*8* A Reptile Farewell

 

It was the year when Roman Polansky fucked a 13-year-old girl and fled to France. It was the year when the stolen Crown of Saint Steven was returned to Hungary.

It was the year when the snake left for the horse and Candy Machine toured Sweden.

Without August.

 

***

 

Ever resourceful Lily had stopped crying and instead set wheels in action. Her incessant arguing and relentless pinpointing that Child Care had for years failed to do their duty regarding Sivert's well-being, paired with the obviously ill-timed decision to remove him from his familiar environment including his school, eventually earned her status as the boy's temporary foster parent. And with the snail speed of bureaucratic processes, likely to remain as such for the unforeseeable future.

Whether her success was due to her convincing argumentation or the public services' need to shut her up and gloss over faulty judgement was an open question, but, when February said so long to the snake and hello to the horse, the powers in office revoked their former injunction, and Sivert Runaway Sivertsen didn't have to run away anymore.

 

 

August, even if he had scrapped his most outrageous costumes and shrunk his rabble-rousing behavior, still figured as a style icon among the faithful. Here and there you could see youngsters copying his appearance, hoping to gain the same unpredictable sophistication. It amused August for a while, but it soon got old. Dammit, he had set out to provoke and challenge opinions and mentality, not to create superficial clones.

What didn't jar on him, but secretly flattered him, was that Sivert, now that he again had access to August's wardrobe, tried his utmost to become August's twin. Slender as they both were, and of the approximately the same height, pale of skin and light of eyes, hair dye and scissors helpful in creating the illusion, they could if the lighting was right pass for brothers.

In bed once, face to face, spent and still sticky with bodily fluids, August had let his hands first run over Sivert's hair and face, then his own.

"If it wasn't for your ears, this is almost like making love to myself."

Sivert had bared his teeth in a wacky smile.

"If I'm you, I've never felt better about myself." Frown and blush. "That came out fucking crazy."

August just covered the impish face with fast little kisses.

 

***

 

August had kept his job at the warehouse, not so much for the pittance he earned as for the time-out it gave his brain. The routine work combined with the absence of conflict let his mind wander along new paths, leisurely exploring possibilities and alternatives. Hazy and yet hypothetical, but slowly nearing certainty.

One afternoon Sivert came strolling in twenty minutes before August's shift ended, climbed up into the parked fork truck where August sat musing, and heedless of August's protests squeezed himself in. The wheel was very much in the way, but with the boy finally and awkwardly lodged between his legs, August fog suddenly lifted, and he knew. He nudged the boy's thighs with his knees, ran his fingers through the boy's hair.

"Wanna go to Oslo with me?"

Sivert turned his head. Face first blank, then concerned.

"Like move there? Fuck, no!"

"Not move, silly. It's just something I need to do. And I thought it would be nice if you were with me."

"Why?"

"I'm quitting the band. I need to get away from the squabble. Need to do something on my own. Think that's stupid?"

"I don't think anything. Just wanna be here with you."

The boy twisted and squirmed out of August's lap. Holding on to the wheel, dangerously close to falling out of the truck, he crouched down until he had his face in August's lap, free hand fumbling, then he got hold of the zipper head with his teeth. Tried unsuccessfully to pull it down. Swore and gave up. Fingers did the job instead. Out came the desired object.

August first thought had been to stop him. Rather halfhearted if truth be told, for as anyone who knew him well could testify there was a pronounced streak of exhibitionism in him. He looked furtively around to see if anyone was near. Saw no one. But all the same that old familiar exhilaration of risking exposure made his whole body tingle.

He leaned back, watching the tip of his foreskin where the zipper head had just now been: between closed teeth in the middle of a wide open smile. His cock started to fill out. Struggling against the confinement of foreskin held firmly in place by boy's teeth. He heard soft giggles rumble in Sivert's throat. Fingers rummaged in his pants and hauled his balls out.

Sivert, holding August's gaze and letting go with his teeth, sucked the almost fully erect cock halfway into his mouth. Kept it there. No in and out, just a slight rhythmic pressure of lips. Like lazy munching. Just enough to tease the cock into rock-hard condition. It drove August crazy. His hips jerked forward pushing cock deep in between tight lips, a short, sharp moan followed.

The sudden movement caused Sivert to lose his foothold. One hand still clasping the wheel, the rest of his body slid out of the truck, his chin hitting August's shoe with a sharp click of teeth knocked together. He let go of the wheel and with a sheepish laugh flopped down on the concrete floor.

Panic. August's brain exploded with the ever remembered image of Sivert falling to the floor at the concert, and a frightened, pinched sound escaped him. Quick as a flash he climbed out, squatted over the boy, cock still out.

Sivert just lay there on his belly, laughing, rubbing his chin.

The shift leader had heard the commotion and came in a hurry out of the office at the other end of the hall. Heard laughing. Saw a body flat on the floor. Saw his work mate standing over the prostrate body zipping up his pants. Shook his head. God, those youngsters and their pranks! And somewhere at the back of his head a nagging feeling popped up, a touch of lament that he would never be young again. Never be young again. Never.

 

*9* A Circle is a Circle is a Circle

 

It was the year someone thought it a good idea to steal Charlie Chaplin's coffin. It was the year Italian good guy was kidnapped and snuffed by bad guys' brigade. It was the year Iranian earthquake killed 25 000. And it was the year that saw the first test-tube baby, compensation or consolation, you decide.

It was the year of the horse. It was the year August Dahl made friends with his dead daddy again.

 

A million phone calls, a million questions. Excuses and evasions ( the studios), complaints and fault-finding masked as advice (his mother), verbal shrugs, even derision (old associates of his father). Finally confirmation (solicitor). Yes, every recording that wasn't copyrighted by the studios was August's property as well as everything else of his father's belongings. No, she didn't own a thing.

Anger with his mother, who now stood out more devious than merely scatterbrained, grew like a dark cloud. The gall! Making out everything left by his father was hers! Sitting with her fat ass on top of his inheritance!

Sivert, listening in and getting nothing, hid a yawn. Lily, listening in and getting everything, nodded sapiently.

"I'm not at all surprised. That conformist brain of hers would of course tell her that married to him equaled inheriting him, divorce or no divorce. I hate to sound spiteful, but goddammit, it serves her right!"

But August was sent back to the day he saw Daddy's apologetic face vanish through the door while all he could think of was that he himself had only one shoe on, and where was the other? And there, totally lost in front of Aunt Lily and little Sivert Stinky Sivertsen, he clenched his fists and screamed from vexation and misery.

 

***

 

On the dot one year after August had boarded a train and left he was back where he came from. With a purpose. And not alone.

The record company had bought his idea. Whether because of his late father's high standing or because of the small amount of fame or rather notoriety he had earned up north was anyone's guess. Preliminary contract was signed, studio booked.

 

Sivert sat quietly listening, the cramped studio so full of cigarette smoke his eyes watered. Headset on, trying to concentrate, but the attention in his face flicked on an off like a wall switch. It was evident his mind wandered. August had warned him he might be bored, and perhaps he should go explore the city on his own, but he had refused. Wanted to be in on this. Besides, although he pretended it was not so, this unfamiliar big city scared him a bit.

August, behind the glass pane in the soundproof cubicle, also had a hard time concentrating. The confrontation with his mother had not been a happy one. Starting when she refused to hand over the storage room key accusations and insults had floated freely, old and forgotten inequities had risen from the dead, new jibes and sneers had flowered.

He had brought Sivert with him, and in a fit of perverse humor he had made them dress alike. His mother, hearing Sivert was Lily's ward and commenting acidly she'd never had thought Lily was in possession of that kind of responsibility, had suddenly pointed at Sivert and asked him bluntly why he was trying so hard to look like her good-for-nothing son. Sivert with surprising presence of mind had fired back asking her why she was trying so hard to look so young when she wasn't. August had shivered with love for him then.

Found the tapes bunged away along with several of his father's things in the basement storeroom, items that had been brought back here from Daddy's small down-town apartment after his death. Items he had learned now belonged to him. Boxes of demo tapes and private recordings from before his father became that rather famous studio musician. The old tape recorder had been thrown, probably in rage, on the concrete floor and looked beyond salvation. Clothes, books, vinyls. In a corner, hidden behind a stack of black garbage bags one of his father's guitars. There should be two more. At least. Where were they?

Stuffed everything he needed in his backpack. Placed his father's old baseball cap with the Corvair logo on Sivert's head. Too big for him, but nevertheless swelling his cute factor.

His parting shot was a promise to his mother that he'd look into who really owned her apartment and take measures accordingly. Didn't stop to gauge the possible effect this might have on her, left in a state of turmoil, and back in their dingy hotel room wept in Sivert's arms.

 

And now, in this studio where August had been welcomed like the heir of a prince, headsets were brimming with Pelle Dahl's guitar: Short riffs and longer passages, loose ideas and completed compositions, quality ranging from shit to brilliance. Every now and then interrupted with a command from August to stop and go back, then his voice would tentatively put bits of his lyrics to the music. On the second day choices were made, hesitation said goodbye, and songs flowed like butterflies hunting nectar.

Technicians and record company bigwig smiled and spotted the contours of a golden calf. Backs were slapped, final recordings scheduled, and no one questioned the constant presence of a fourteen year old ... friend? ... groupie? ...lover? Whatever.

 

***

 

Sunday. Recordings were to start the day after. This day lay before them empty and clear and full of undisclosed potential. Loose plans were sketched over breakfast. A bit of sightseeing of course, August maintained. A fucking lot of shopping, Sivert insisted. Shops are closed, August Kill-joy Dahl reminded him.

But it was the 21^st of May in the year of the horse, and the weather was all and more you could possibly wish for on a Scandinavian spring day, so why not just a leisurely stroll with no agenda and see what would come up? Enjoy the freedom of no plans? Be unavailable and invisible for a few sunny hours?

That should be the only plan. Or so they thought.

In the small, dark lobby of the hotel they ran smack into the record company agent, a tall, cadaverous man with the most regrettable haircut. He had a short, tightly built guy laden with photographic equipment in tow, August immediately caught a gay vibe from him.

The gaunt agent bared his yellow teeth.

"Can't waste this weather. What was that title you suggested, Anatomy of the Soul? Skin, I think. Lots of it. Shirtless, right?. And some glitzy building, like church or something, that's what I want."

"Anatomy of the Mind," August lamely corrected. "Soul suggests black music. It isn't."

"Whatever." He turned to the photographer. "Take him somewhere ... you know, pretty, but a bit sanctified, like. Or do I mean academic? A bit Delphic, know what I mean?"

And then the man left. August felt overrun. Trapped.

The lensman sniggered. "Don't look at me with that martyred face. I don't have more choice than you." He nodded at Sivert, half hidden behind August. "Who's that? Is he coming too?"

 

***

 

"Delphic my ass," the photographer snorted.

The colonnade outside the old library. The monastery ruins. The Greek room at the Museum of History. All seemed to work as mere stage sets, and rather farfetched and artificial ones at that. Not what they were after, was it?

"What's it got to do with anatomy anyway? Or the mind?"

August had meekly trotted along and held his tongue up till now, but his patience was wearing a bit thin. Sivert on the other hand found everything very exotic, very urbane and oddly thrilling. His head went left and right, and his eyes moved in ten different directions at the same time. His breath was repeatedly sucked loudly in, and his feet appeared so light they seemed to somehow hover above the tarmac and the cobblestones.

"And lots of skin?" Lensman wasn't through yet. "How can there be lots of skin with this army of people about? Fancy getting naked in the middle of this throng? I thought not."

August stopped.

"Would it hurt your professional integrity if I make a suggestion? After all, it's my record, right?"

Snigger and head shake. Then a meaningful glance at Sivert who had turned his back on them, gazing at the crowds milling in and out of the huge department store. Observant August noticed how the guy's eyes lingered tellingly on the boy's slim but shapely butt.

"Is he gay? He looks awfully young!"

August looked hard at him.

"He is, and he does. And he's untouchable to you."

Snigger again. Last look at Sivert, then eyes fastened on August.

"What were you going to suggest?"

"Skip architecture. Water. And a body, backside I think, with superimposed pointers and medical terms. Like a chart, you know."

 

***

 

Ride on the rickety tram. Sharp turns around bends caused Sivert to lean heavily into August beside him, steadying himself with his hand high up on August's thigh, grinning every time, clearly enjoying the novelty of it all: The tram, the city, the weather, all sharpened by the repeated touches on August's leg. August sat thoughtful and quiet. Photographer sat covertly eating them both with his eyes.

End of the line. Off the tram and on to a road that soon became a path winding into the woods. The air was cool under the shadowy trees, but the noonday heat was back when they came to a lake. Wide clearing, grassy shore, surprisingly many people sunbathing in their swimwear, only a few hardy souls splashing in the cold water.

"Fucking cool!" Sivert exclaimed and took off, looking for an empty space between the half-naked bodies, some wintery pale, some already tanned. Found a place and plopped down. Started to remove his shirt, but then shyness took over and he left it on. Waved to his companions to come over.

But August and cameraman had moved further along the path that continued into the forest and beckoned Sivert to follow. He got up and jogged over to them, looking bewildered. Got no answers, though.

Eventually the somber setting of pine and spruce thinned out a little and lightened, and another small lake came into view. Sivert's eyes seemed to fall out of his face as they passed a group of three women and one man, stark naked and spread-eagled in the sun. From somewhere behind the shrubs close to the shore came children's laughter.

August gave him a small nudge and a smile. "A little further now. You'll enjoy this."

There were small, sheltered clearings all along the shore, almost like private chambers. Some were empty, a few had naked people in them. Sivert tried hard not to stare, but there were just too many tits and asses not to. However, the further they got, the less women were to be seen.

Nearing the far end of the lake. Men now. Not many, scattered around in the small clearings, mostly alone, one group of three. Eyes followed them as they walked past. One man stood facing them, arms stretched up and hands folded behind his neck, evenly tanned all over, sagging belly over shaved pubes, short dick and the lowest hanging balls ever seen.

Sivert now looked totally flustered. August, observing him intently, put an arm around him.

"There's like an unwritten agreement that this area is males only," he whispered as he gently squeezed Sivert's shoulder. "We'll find a good place for a photoshoot here."

Suddenly a guy, in his late teens or so, came running out of the woods and almost crashed into the photographer. Clad in nothing but thick socks and hiking boots, skin pale like this was his first day out in the sun, very nicely developed body and long, thin cock flopping as he ran. Looked wide-eyed left and right as if frightened, then disappeared back among the trees again.

Sivert drew his breath rather sharply. Looked almost desperately at August, like he needed help. Like he couldn't cope. Like it was too much. August kissed his cheek.

"Relax. Please! Know what I think? I think it's tops to see that not everyone is already tanned, so we don't have to be embarrassed by our white skin."

But little Sivert Stinky Sivertsen hid his face against August's shoulder.

"How can I fucking relax? I have the stiffest fucking stiffy ever!"

 

"Here!" lensman shouted and pointed at a small clearing gently sloping all the way down to the rocky bank, open to the path but sheltered by thickets on both sides. "This is what you were thinking, right? Sort of open water as background, I think the far shore can be retouched or cropped out. OK?"

He dumped his equipment on the grass, short and soft as grass grows in spring. Started to undress, turned to the boys. "When in Rome ...?"

His compact body revealed, it proved quite pleasing to the eyes. Lower half a bit too hairy for Augusts taste, but still: Very nice chest, pronounced pectorals and large, dark nipples. Shoulders and arms that also spoke of a bit of weightlifting. Flat stomach, more of a two-pack than a sixpack, strong thighs flanking if not a spectacular, at least an adequate cock beneath a dense bush.

"Let's get it on!" the guy nagged impatiently. "The sun's in the right position!"

August took one look at the guy's muscled legs and suddenly felt inferior. I'm too skinny, he thought, I'll look like a starveling on the photos. Oh well, in for the penny ...

He turned away from photo guy, faced Sivert who was still standing on the path. Timid, shy and extremely self-conscious. Belt open and zip undone, he suddenly stopped, struck by a loose idea that grew and took form. With jeans threatening to fall off he tottered up to Sivert. Softly kissed the stunned face and firmly grabbed an immobilized hand. Moving backwards, he pulled Sivert along with him until they were out of sight from the sides, his jeans sliding down as they moved.

"I want you with me. I want both of us in the photo. And I want you to do backup vocals on some of my songs."

Little Sivert Sivertsen's chin dropped, and his eyes opened wide in disbelief.

"You fucking lost your fucking mind," he croaked.

"Are you coming, or what?" lensman hollered, hands fluttering impatiently in the air.

"I heard you sing in the shower," August almost whispered. "You can do it. Your falsetto is great. And you know, you're beautiful naked. Whether you believe it or not. I want this. Really!"

He removed Sivert's light jacket, pulled his T-shirt up over his head and off. The boy lamely let it happen. Then everything speeded up, to Sivert it felt like every item of clothing from both of them vanished by magic.

Two slender bodies, near equal in height and shape, skin almost luminous white in the glaring sunlight. Photo guy hadn't really known what to expect, all he knew was that it certainly wouldn't be the kind of beef-cake hotness he was rather partial to. But he felt a shiver down his spine when these shimmering waifs, these frail and ethereal beauties slowly came towards him. He blinked hard. The illusion of unearthly apparitions vanished, left were two pretty normal slender bodies, thin and pale but well formed, smooth and ... well, lickable ... And shit, the cock on that boy! Photo guy swallowed hard. And swallowed again.

August noticed the reaction. The guy's cock seemed to start a life of its own, and August, sniggering inwardly, tried to concentrate on other things not to let the situation affect him like that too.

"No faces," he stated. "Full view of bodies from behind, and I want both of us in it. The rest is up to you."

 

***

 

Records would show May the 14^th in the year of the horse to be the hottest day of the season in twenty years. August lay on his side lazily eyeing the beautiful curve of boy's buttocks, the boy prone on the grass beside him, shirt spread out under his midriff.

Photo guy had left, promising to bring results to the studio the next day. The shoot had only taken twenty minutes, but those minutes had done stuff to August. Standing at the bank, Sivert beside him and the photographer busy behind them, looking out over the water where tiny ripples glittered like jewelry, had brought an unfamiliar kind of peace. He had laid a casual arm across Sivert's shoulder, needing the touch. Not in a sexy way, though. The horny tension that had hit the three of them at the beginning had strangely enough just vanished, instead images of his father had moved in. Would he have approved of this project? Would he have approved of Sivert?

As his thoughts had wandered, unexpected feelings had seemed to follow. Peculiar feelings. Feelings he would have scorned and ridiculed had someone else reported them. Forgiveness. Redemption. Peace. Maybe, Daddy, maybe you haven't really left me.

And that was when he had needed Sivert's presence, Sivert's skin to touch. Needed to be grounded. Needed reality, not fanciful sentiments.

Now, almost dozing off in the sun, a light occasional breath of a breeze making the heat pleasant and cherishing, life seemed so in place, so light, so free of thirst for more.

A sudden peal of boyish laughter alerted them. Sivert lifted his head. August sat up. The world was real again.

"Think we need to cover our shoulders. Don't want to get sunburnt, do we?"

Both got up. With T-shirts on, naked from the waist down, ambience turned slightly sexy again. Cocks somehow became more prominent. Unavoidable. Sivert, grinning broadly, jumped up and down a few times, cock flapping to his stomach and down. August felt the familiar tingling in his groin.

"This is fucking great," Sivert mused, leisurely pulling at his foreskin. "I don't wanna go back. Fuck it, why can't we stay here forever?"

August just smiled, enjoying the display of boy fingering cock. Again they heard that short, high-pitched laugh, this time followed by the muffled sound of a deep voice. Coming from somewhere behind the trees to the left.

Sivert, agog with curiosity, stared fixedly at the vegetation, like the power of his stare could penetrate right through the trees. Then abruptly jogged the few steps to the water where the trees stopped, bent forward like a spy in a cheap movie trying to see around corners. And to August's surprise waded out in the shallow water. With a few pinched squeals, the water was still cold in spite of the sunny day, he splashed out until he was knee deep, then moved to the left, almost out of August's sight, turned and faced whatever there was to face in the next clearing. And just stood there. Stock still, and his cock slowly filled out and rose.

August, alert and wondering, moved tentatively towards the water. Stopped and looked at Sivert, trying to make eye contact, but failed. The boy seemed quite bewitched. Clenching his teeth he waded out to where Sivert stood.

There, in a grassy spot sheltered on all sides by trees and bushes, accessible only by a narrow path along the shore, were two people. A man in his thirties, full head of blond curls worn rather wild, lightly tanned skin on wide shoulders and chest tapering to slim waist and hips, half lay, half sat, leaning on his elbows, shapely legs spread out in front of him, and a long, slender cock, stiff and up past his navel. Hard to tell from did distance, but he looked shaved all over.

A boy of eight or nine stood a few steps in front of him, gazing at the Sivert in the water, as still and as seemingly mesmerized as Sivert himself. His mass of tight blond curls spoke of his origin, his undeveloped body showed the promise of becoming a copy of the sitting man, bony shoulders and chest already a pleasing form. Legs slender and yet strong, the perfection that only a boy in constant activity is blessed with. Flaccid little dick with a nice, long spout of foreskin.

August, totally captured by the sight, closed in beside Sivert and took his hand. Sivert turned his head and gave him a short, unbelieving look. August squeezed his hand. Bent his head and whispered in Sivert's ear.

"Beautiful. Fucking beautiful."

Sivert kept staring at the couple.

"His father," he whispered. "That has to be his father."

The small boy suddenly ran a circle around the man, stopped close to him and started twirling and twiddling his foreskin. The man sat up and slowly stroked the boy's back and butt a few times. The boy ran off again, aimlessly, until he came close to the shore where he stopped and stared for a moment, then ran back and whispered something in the man's ear.

Goosebumps rode all over August's skin. The whole scene was so absorbing, and so strangely contradictory: The innocence and the suggestion of something completely opposite, the purity and the hidden eroticism, the freedom and the seductiveness. Almost impossible, but it was all there. He could no longer fight it, his half hard cock just twitched and jerked itself into full mast.

And then the man beckoned them with his head. Inviting them. Wanting their company. For what? August's knees trembled. Still holding his hand, he gently lead Sivert ashore.

When grass was under their feet, Sivert pulled his hand free and stopped. August gave him a searching look but got no answer from the boy's face. He trotted further into the small clearing and sat down a couple of arm's lengths away from the man, nodding briefly, waiting. The man's eyes swept over August's body, fastened a moment at his hard cock, looked down at his own and shrugged, smiling apologetically. The ... hm, regrets? in his face were only skin deep, there was undoubtedly an underlying pride in the way he showed off his hairless skin and long, stiff cock.

But the young boy ran in zigzag towards paralyzed Sivert. Stopped in front of him. Cast one fleeting glance back at the man, then looked questioningly up at the older boy's face and reached his hand out, palm up. Getting neither rejection nor welcome, he stepped closer until his hand touched Sivert's thigh.

August and the man exchanged brief looks, August insecure, the man reassuring. And then they just watched.

Watched Sivert's body tremble and shake, watched a small hand lift and grip big boy cock, too thick for those small fingers to properly close around. Heard the older boy whimper, watched two small hands weighing and cradling a pair of balls in a now very tight sack, and then return to caress the fat, rock-hard, close-to-bursting young cock.

In his peripheral vision August noticed the man sliding his hand over his cock, not gripping it, just petting it softly. He dared not touch his own, he was way to close to explode.

The small boy let go of the big boy's cock. Instead he pushed Sivert's T-shirt up, studied the older boy's abdomen closely, rubbed a finger against the navel he found there. Bent his head, and then his pointed tongue came out and flicked across the shallow round hollow. And after two quick tugs at Sivert's aching cock ran off.

A long moan sounded, frustrated and helpless. The boy came up to the man, tickled and played with his dick as they all watched Sivert flop down to his knees. Without touching himself, and convulsing like he had the cramps, he erupted and shot his sperm further than he ever had. A small titter came from the small boy, his dick now stiff and straight up, long and thin as a middle finger, and to August's disbelief and insane arousal the boy pressed closer to the man, bending his stiffie down, aiming it at the man's lips. The man turned the boy slightly sideways to give August the full view, and with eyes never leaving August's, he opened his mouth just enough to let the boy's amazing young dick push in.

Little indentations came and went on the man's cheeks, and the boy's hips did what boy's hips do in this situation. Back and forth, in and out, steadying himself on the man's shoulders. Still holding August's gaze, the man grabbed his cock at the root, pushing down hard and causing the cock to lift up and out, because of its slenderness it looked too long for words. The boy's hips moved faster, and the man's fist closed around his pole and slid slowly up and down.

Fast and urgent little whisper: "Yes! Now!" And the boy's breath was held, the boy's head bent backwards, and the boy's body went rigid.

August watched, mouth open and dry as parchment, breath strained, body immobilized and shivering like a leaf.

The boy, with the resilience of the very young, quickly regained his vitality, pulled his still stiff spike out, turned full circle on one leg, whispered loud enough for all to hear in the man's ear, "Can I have one more?" and then looked directly at August. Now both of them were staring at him.

The man, with a wry smile, nodded slowly. The boy toddled towards August, wagging as if he was deliberately acting like an infant. August didn't move, void of all sense and reason, mind blank save for one thought: How can a boy that young be so goddamned sexy? And as the boy came closer and the stiff, young prick hovered in front of his face, his brain suddenly flashed a warning: This is incongruous! This is wrong! But then the boy grabbed his dick and swept the tip across August's lips, and August's resistance turned to vapor and vanished like mist.

Tried to swallow, needing moisture that wouldn't come. Not until he felt boy cock plough in between his lips, not until his tongue felt the silky skin on that incredibly hard spike did his salivary glands return to business. The faint, unfamiliar, and above all forbidden taste of immature cock sent bolts of almost unbearable lust through him. Automatically, if not to say unconsciously, his lips closed tight, and he sucked. Sucked gently, sucked deliberately, sucked hard. Grabbed the boy's smooth, firm little buttocks, feverishly pulled him closer and sucked hungrily, like he wanted the whole boy in his mouth.

The boy, however, pulled back. This obviously was his show, he wanted to be the one behind the wheel on this ride. And first excitement no longer threatening to detonate him, August calmed down as much as he could, letting the boy decide the movement and the pace. Eyes open again, he saw Sivert had crawled up to the man and was kneeling diagonally in front of him, gaze fixed on the man's cock, fingers opening and closing nervously. The man still had his eyes fixed on August and the boy, but he was clearly aware of Sivert's undecisive little movements.

August, one hand left to softly caress silky boy butt, just stroking, not pushing, tongue savoring unthinkable but wonderful young cock moving in and out between his lips, and his own cock so hard there was actual pain, watched the man push his long cock towards Sivert. Watched Sivert's at first timid touch, watched Sivert's grip turn more confident. Watched Sivert's fist sliding up the full length, then down, peeling foreskin off a pink, oval cockhead.

The man took hold of Sivert's wrist. Guided the boy's hand up and down his shaft. Should have looked lascivious, but it looked refined and graceful. Elegant. Like a slow dance, August briefly thought. Then steadily increasing the speed. And as if on cue, boy cock in his mouth upped the tempo. Two small hands grabbed the back of his head, and pumping started. Purposeful, concentrated. So uninhibited, so free of shame. The boy hammered his bone-hard cock in as far as could, his body stiffened, a small grunt escaped him. August was so saturated with alien, wild and all-consuming feelings he almost cried, and one touch on his cock sent spasms through his whole body and his juice heavenwards, so intense was his orgasm he didn't notice the cock in his mouth had disappeared.

Coming to his senses, he saw the boy skipping around the man and Sivert, all the time keeping his eyes on the pair of hands that worked the man's pole. The man closed his eyes and leaned his head back with a sigh and an almost inaudible moan, then his hand left Sivert's wrist and he bent his neck forward again and fervently and openmouthed stared at his own his cock in Sivert's hand as his balls drew up and his cock spewed out four hard jets of cum followed by a few weaker trickles. Then he shuddered. And moaned feebly again.

Sivert threw himself backwards on the grass and frantically wanked his cock, attentively watched by the boy. His legs jerked with little spasms, his fat, bared cockhead seemed to swell, and then a series of transparent spurts was released and splashed down on his belly, like he had turned on a small fountain.

And exhilarated and silvery boyish laughter echoed across the lake.

 

***

Still shaken and a bit shocked, and not knowing what to say to each other, August and Sivert had made their way back to the city. Sauntered aimlessly through streets for a long time. Silent. Both preoccupied with the day's overwhelming and unprecedented happenings, both feeling a slightly troublesome constraint, but also a weird security that they were together, that they could share this silence, side by side on asphalt alternating with cobblestone, with no urge to explain, no need to make excuses.

Quiet and subdued meal at a small diner. Quiet and subdued walk to their small cheap hotel. Quiet and subdued night cap in the dark lobby. Sivert gulped down his tiny glass of orange juice in one go, then quickly snatched August's neat brandy. Took one sip, spluttered, grimaced and giggled. Their eyes met, and suddenly they both burst out laughing. They laughed and laughed with eyes locked, laughed until tension ran away, laughed until they knew they were together for real, laughed and poured love into each other.

 

***

 

The small room had no air-condition. Window wide open, they lay side by side on top of the sheets, holding hands, feeling lazy and lethargic.

Sivert raised his head.

"What's it like?"

"What's what like?

Letting go of August's hand and turning over to his side, Sivert ran a finger very lightly around August's nipple.

"To have a small dick like that in your mouth."

August took his time, wondering if he should make light of it or just be honest. He decided on frankness.

"It was one of the strangest things I've been part of. It was so ... well, immensely exciting, and at the same time terrifying. I mean, it was so totally different from anything I've ever done. I don't think I can explain properly ...It felt both right and wrong ... Like it broke something, I'm not sure what, some kind of limit, and maybe that's why it felt so enormously arousing, so mind-blowing ... But you know, the whole situation was so loaded, so brimming with sex ... but strangely not in a heavy way, they were so easy with it, those two ... I mean, you were there, you know what it was like."

He drew his breath sharply.

"But I shouldn't have done it. When I think about it now, it feels wrong."

"Why? Is it the fucking age thing again?"

"I suppose so. Also that whole father and son thing. If that's what they were."

Sivert turned over on his back.

"I wish I'd had a father like that." Then a pinched giggle. "A father that sucked my dick and let me feel his big cock. Fucking amazing."

August was silent for a bit. Images crowded his brain.

"Yes. It was something else. To watch them and all that."

Sivert abruptly sat up, stooped and rested his head on drawn up knees.

"But why do you say it was wrong? You didn't do anything. I mean, it was him. He wanted ... he did what wanted to do. Fuck, we were just there for him to play with, right?"

Sigh.

"It's wrong because there's a law that says it's wrong. And the law is there to prevent men from taking advantage of boys. Or girls, for that matter. And that's what I feel I did."

"You didn't. It was the other way around. Fuck it, you know that."

August banged a fist down on the rather hard mattress.

"Shit! Shit! And I was just getting over falling for ... seducing you, and now this! And all right, you may think it's stupid, but it's been sort of hammered into us that underage means off limits, and I can't escape it. Not really."

Sivert had had enough. He flopped back down, stretched out, and rolled over to lie on top of August. Squirmed and twisted impatiently.

"You fucking didn't seduce me. You fucking didn't want me. And I did everything I could to make you like me, so who did the wrong thing?"

August's hands slid over smooth, curved boy butt. Sivert stopped wriggling.

"Shut me up, then," August mumbled. "That's what your lips are for."

A kiss. A chaste kiss, but lingering. Lingering until it wasn't so chaste anymore, and tongues started to dance.

Sivert wormed down until his legs were off the bed and his face was in August's crotch. Lifted flaccid cock up. Gently licked almost hairless balls. Buried nose in under same balls. Nuzzled. Purred. Felt cock in his hand start to lengthen.

August grabbed the boy's ears, pulling gently, wanting him back up to his face. Kissed him again when he was in place, felt hard boy cock against his groin. His own cock answered with a jerk.

Held Sivert's head between his hands and looked deep into his eyes.

"Did you ask what it was like because you would have wanted it too?"

No hesitation.

"No. I like men. I like big ones."

August's cock got a fist closing round it. Gliding up and down, then squeezing harder.

"Like this one."

August gave a short, self-conscious laugh.

"It's not so big."

"It's longer than mine."

"Yours is a lot thicker."

Sivert humped him a few times.

"I wish mine were as long as that man's. Do you think that boy will be the same? Because it seemed fucking long for his age, didn't it?"

August again had his head full of images. And having his boy now on top of him, frotting and rubbing his fat cock against him and talking about cocks like that, turned his libido up ten notches. His hips gyrated back against the boy.

"I'd have fucking liked to see that man sticking that fucking long broomstick into you." Sivert was on a ride now. "In and out the whole fucking length. How does it feel to have cock in you? I mean, I suppose it feels good, but like, how good? Is it better than being the one who has his cock inside someone's ass?"

Sivert's hips rotated hard against him. August's hands found their way to the cleft between two smooth hemispheres, fingertips parting and aiming at tight little hole. Gently tapping.

"Hard to tell. It's different. Sometimes it hurts really bad, but when the hurt passes you feel ... full. Or no, not just full, more like you completely surrender to the other person and that other person's cock owns your body ... and makes you completely yield to him. Or to lust, or whatever. But with you inside me it's even more than that, because I want you more than I want anyone else ... and I love you more than anyone else ... and I don't know if I make sense now."

Sivert held his breath. Held his breath and held still as his hole was caressed. Tickled, teased and pushed against.

"And if the cock inside you moves right, it hits a spot in there that makes you feel like nothing else. Something I don't know how to describe. It makes you almost cringe with lust, like you can't have enough and at the same time it's almost too much. And it can make you cum. Really hard. And that's what happens when you fuck me. Or make love to me. Whatever."

August's index finger was almost penetrating the tight opening. Only almost. For there was no moisture, nothing to help it slip in.

"Will you do it to me?" Sivert's voice was quite husky.

"Maybe. If you really want me too. Not now, though. Not here."

Sivert lifted himself off, writhed himself up to sit on August's chest, knees pushing his arms out. His cock pointed at August, foreskin halfway down the swollen head. He gripped it with three fingers and slowly pulled the skin down and then up. And again. August filled his vision with big, fat cockhead, dark red and shiny, clear drop seeping out of the slit and hanging like a tiny transparent gem in a thread.

"Give me!" August begged, his hands roaming over velvety boy thighs, smooth, warm and pink from the sun.

Sivert moved. Lifted and wriggled his legs until he sat with knees around August's ears and cock aimed at August's chin. Again teasingly peeling foreskin all the way back, hard, and the cockhead flared, and a clear pearl dripped down on August's throat.

August grasped firm boy buttocks, pulling the boy those buttocks belonged to up and forward, and closed his mouth around half of bared cockhead, tip of tongue prodding the lips of the little opening. And hands again moved to the valley of boy butt, finger found boy hole.

August spat cock out, quickly stuck to fingers in his mouth and moistened them thoroughly. Out with fingers and in with cock again. And cock pushed, wanting deeper in. August wouldn't let it. Not yet.

Fingers found the way back to the virginal gate to the boy's innards. August sucked whole cockhead in, tonguing rims and ridges. Slippery fingers pushed, prodded harder, and one of them pressed itself in. Just a bit.

Sivert yelped. But his cock was taken care of in such a nice way, and the surprise was worse than the pain. "Oh fuck," he grunted. "Put it in!"

And finger slipped in. Slowly up to the second knuckle. August felt a tremor run through the boy's body. Open his mouth wider, welcoming the fat cock properly in. And in it went. And another finger found it could get in beside its mate.

Sivert's body tensed, he bit his lip. Then he seemed to discover how to deal with this new and unfamiliar sensation, and his sphincter relaxed as his hips started moving, cock pushing into throat and fingers going deeper with each thrust.

And he went wild. Moans and whimpers gushed out of him, for every time fingers touched something inside him back there, it was like a switch was turned on. But then he went all quiet, for it was like his voice along with everything else that wasn't related to his genitals faded, and his whole being was sharpened to focus on this incredible feeling, like groin and cock and ass and skin were all that counted, all that had meaning, all that existed. And everything down there pulsated and throbbed and it felt like his cock couldn't be buried deep enough. And little Sivert Stinky Sivertsen shot every ounce of juice he had in him into the throat of his ... his ... his lover. His love.

 

***

 

It was the year of the horse.

It was the year someone's mother under loud protests was charged and prosecuted for withholding and misappropriating an other persons rightful inheritance.

It was the year an album popped up in the stores, and its cover made a bit of a splash in the duck pond: Two naked men by the sea, a sea that was colored pink and lavender. Body areas hemmed in by thin lines and addressed, not as we were first told with medical terms, but with unrelated and not at first sight logically placed words, words like agony and anger and adulation, words all starting with the letter A. The word alarm connected to one ass cheek and the word anal-retentive had an arrow to loose-hanging hand. Go figure. (The title, Anatomy of the Mind, you had to look for, almost hidden as it was among the narrow strip of dark blue trees to the left.)

It was the year the bittersweet ballad "My Other Shoe" by August Dahl climbed to third place on the singles chart. It was the year August Dahl, after two gigs and one televised talk-show where questions about his late father was all they put to him, disappeared from the public eye. Maybe temporarily, maybe for good, who knew?

It was the year little Sivert Stinky Sivertsen failed to pass his 9^th grade exam.

And yes, it was the year when a young man turned 25 and a young boy turned 15. It was the year when young man of 25 stayed put with boy of 15 from July to December, alternating between cramming general knowledge into 15-year-old head and cramming 15-year-old cock into his 25-year-old bowels. And it was the year when 15-year-old virgin boy hole learned what boy holes are for.

It was the year of Independence and Generosity. According to hippie aunts, also the year of Romance. All very well, but as August put it:

"It was the bullshit year of the bullshit snake, and now it's the year of the goddam horse, and who the fuck cares."

*** *** *** ***

 

If your interest was tickled, why not try some of my other stories?

 

"The Willow Flute" and its sequel "This Wretched Heart": Set in the 1930s. The destiny of two men and a boy through sickness and health. Long story, lots of love. (Adult/Youth - Historical)

The Willow Flute (nifty.org) and Nifty Archive: adult-youth/this-wretched-heart'

 

"Oh, Martin! Oh, Martin! Oh, Martin!" and the spin-off "Oh, Martin II/Fleshable". Again the story of two men and a boy, and an additional boy in the spin-off. Bit of a psychological soap-opera-ish love story, with an increasing amount of hot stuff. Long story. (Adult/Youth)

Nifty Archive: adult-youth/oh-martin

 

"Mr. Marshall Stops Running". Short story of reserved, yet emotional teacher and loner student. (Adult/Youth)

Mr. Marshall Stops Running (nifty.org)

 

"Sweet Dreams, Little Johnny". Short story of loss and gain. Stormy story, within and without. (Adult/Youth)

Sweet Dreams Little Johnny (nifty.org)

 

"Harald Lange, 1959". Father and son. Short story where size matters. (Incest - Historical)

Harald Lange by Winterboy (nifty.org)

 

"When a Father Gives". 3 generations, alienation and reunion. Warmth rather than heavy porn. (Incest)

When a Father Gives (nifty.org)