Date: Fri, 8 Sep 2017 07:20:38 -0600
From: Travis Caufield
Subject: What Made It Okay

What Made It Okay

A Fable


by
"Travis Caufield"
(not his real name)


Kyler stepped into the darkened back of the refurbished bus where I waited
for him, lounging on a couch I'd fitted to the frame. Great porn playing on
the wide screen, half dressed in my grease-stained wife beater tank and
rolled down mechanic's jump suit I had yet to fully step out of after my
day's work at my body shop out front, I knew he felt as keenly aware as I
did that the energy in the air was intensely and undeniably sexual.  The
light was just enough for me to see him smile -- shy but intent, as he
unsnapped his jean jacket and flannel shirt. He sat down on the couch,
grabbed his Heineken, took a drink, and turned to face me with that little
smile. "So what now?" was exactly what he said.

The bus was parked behind the same body shop I'd seen Kyler passing on his
way to and from school every day for the last 3 months.  I took him to be
maybe fourteen or fifteen years old...a freshman more than likely, since
this was the first year I'd seen him walking to the high school down the
road from the garage where I lived and worked.  He also had a face that you
just knew had never seen a razor.  My gut told me he wasn't just a late
bloomer. This had to be the real deal.

I'd imagined him wearing a tank top or a too-large wife-beater and low
riding pair of baggy cargo shorts, I'd imagined him in a school gym
uniform, I'd even pictured his white but somehow sun smacked skin looking
up at me in nothing but a jockstrap, white socks and freckles....but all
I'd seen him wearing day in and day out were these weird brown corduroys
with a tight black jean jacket, ski hat, book bag and his hands thrust deep
into the pockets of those pants.

I knew he liked to look into the garage and see me working on something,
setting up the air tank to the sprayers, or wiping cement from somebody's
dented SUV....and I'd swear he'd move his pocketed hands across his
crotch... but who knew? He was small and it was hard to tell with a 26-inch
waist wearing size 30 corduroys.  But I know I saw his eyes and they always
caught mine -- always; every single time.

Look... I'm gay, and proud of it.  But, right now I want you to get me
straight -- I'm not one to believe in taking advantage of kids or even
teenagers.  Hell, I had just turned 39! But there was something bizarre and
overpoweringly seductive about his shock of slightly long jet-black hair
obscuring, but not quite hiding the piercing golden-brown eyes ...the way
he'd look at me sidelong and bite his lip as he walked past my lot.
Somehow those baggy corduroys actually made his hips and tight little butt
even more discernibly defined and his round cheeks and tight curved crack
more visible than if he'd been wearing bike shorts; ...how that soft and
startlingly thin material caressed the contours around his crevice and the
bulbs of his ass, as he headed down the sidewalk and away from the garage,
I am still not sure how he did it.  I'm not even sure it wasn't
intentional.

Some nights I'd wake up realizing I'd been dreaming about having sex with
that boy. However, just as he was about to make my dick a temporary part of
his digestive tract, and engulf it whole, I'd wake up hard as a rock,
knowing it had never happened, that it was just a pervert's fantasy.  Of
course, knowing I'd be seeing him in just 90 minutes yet another morning in
a row was only a bay window at Alcatraz.

I discovered his name was Kyler about three months after I'd first seen
him. I caught him loitering after school on a patch of my property behind a
gate in the tall wooden fencing that separates the side of my garage from
the alley and the liquor store next door.  The patch of dirt and rocks
isn't actually used for anything.  I keep a couple old metal chairs there
and a rusty barrel.  They're there so in case I ever go back to chewing
tobacco, I'll have the perfect place to do it from.

He was smoking a glass pipe that did not look like it was made for either
marijuana or tobacco.  I was about eight feet away, between him and the
gate back out into the alley, watching him hold a lighter the length of his
fist beneath a clear globe of glass attached to an elongated stem.  His
lips were wrapped around the stem and his eyes were transfixed on the vapor
rising from the crusty molten liquid he melted in the bowl.  Looking at him
as he inhaled reminded me of how I'd seen first year clarinet players in
marching band attempt to master the embouchure for a reed instrument.  His
lips seemed little too full, maybe a little too rich a shade of pink.  But
the silent "O" shape they made around the pipe and his downward-angled long
eyelashes were so beautiful... He reminded me of an angel... But smoking
something so powerful!! Holy Hell, the contrast was stark and yet
thoroughly integrated -- something I would learn Kyler excelled at.

He didn't see me until he had just finished blowing out a big puff of
cloudy white exhalation -- nanoseconds after which he yelled and then
gargled, and nearly jumped out of his skin with coughing. As it was, it was
all he could do to blow vapor out of his throat instead of through his
sinuses -- while simultaneously trying to avoid swallowing the little pipe
whole. I was amused.

He, however, was cornered and I am not a little guy.  I told him, "Don't
worry, I wasn't gonna do anything. It's cool."  But I thought for a second,
and got a sudden idea.  God knows what made me go ahead with it.  "I won't
turn you in or call the cops or anything.  You can leave and I'll go back
to cleaning up my shop, no problem.  But there is one thing...  and I mean
this with complete kick-back, no-stress, 100% honesty, kid.  You're not
getting through my gate with that pipe in your hands if your plan was to
bring that stuff to school and smoke it on my property on your way back."
I leveled my gaze at him and watched him react.  It was like watching a
puppy being left at the pound.  "I'll tell you what: you can do one of two
things.  You can either leave your pipe and your lighter, or you can leave
your student ID and your books.  You just can't leave with both.  You'll
have to decide which one it's gonna be and hand them over before I'll let
you back out that gate."

I figured he'd fear the school more than losing a pipe and I'd have done my
bit to keep drugs out of the hands of kids -- even sexy ones -- but,
no....... He dropped his bookbag, pulled out his wallet and handed me his
plastic laminated holographic, photographic student ID.  He then said, "Oh,
fuck no, dude...No way you're getting my pipe! I need that shit for what I
have to do when I get home tonight -- non-negotiable man..."
	"What? What are you talking about?"  I was surprised and I admit,
kind of curious...Was this drug some kind of chore juice that fueled the
work ethic of the All-American teen nowadays? What ever happened to good
old-fashioned threats and bribery as the motivators of choice?

He looked up at me with those dark glowing eyes and said, "You don't want
to know, man.  Trust me."  His eyes started to get shiny and he looked
away.  "I can't do that shit sober.  Not again."  He wiped his nose
roughly.  "Fuck, okay? ...I said never mind.  I mean... You know what I
mean -- I'm saying it now.  Shit.  Whatever, okay? Just don't.  You
wouldn't believe me anyway."

I took his ID and got a good look at it.  Yep.  He was fourteen when I'd
first laid eyes on him, but he'd turned fifteen only a couple weeks
earlier.  "Happy Birthday", I ventured with a kind of a grin to show him he
didn't need to be ashamed.  "Guess I missed it, huh?"

He smiled a little and said "Yeah."  He rolled the clear little pipe around
his fingers.  I just stood there watching them.  They seemed really good at
moving quickly and yet so awfully small, even for a kid who looked to be no
more than 5'3.  Suddenly, he jerked and hurled out an animal's wail, voice
a hoarse anguished screeching "Shit, dude! I'm so fucked! You don't even
know! You aren't taking away my only survival skill at that house!"
"What?"  I looked up suddenly.  His face had turned completely red,
terrified, he was shedding tears, and he looked like a rabbit that'd just
been chased by a fox into a pack of wild cougars.  "Jesus Christ kid!
You're serious about this! ...Wait a second -- What's wrong?"  He screamed,
"Never mind! I said you wouldn't believe me!"  He tried to run past me and
push me out of the way.  Unfortunately, I don't push that easy, being about
6'1, two-twenty.  He ended up on his ass in the dust and his head crashed
into my leg about halfway down.  "I'm s-s-sorry, sir...I'm sor..."  His
eyes were staring right at my crotch.  After a long second, he seemed to
get his bearings, took one look up at my face, and quietly, unexpectedly,
his eyes just welled up with tears, catching me completely off guard.

What else could I do?  I knelt down and put my arms around his shoulders
and just held him.  Told him it was okay; rubbed my fingers into his back,
and my five o'clock stubble into his hair.  I let my warm breathing fall on
his neck.  I held him and he was holding onto me right back.

After a minute or two passed, he leaned back so he could look at me.  His
eyes were still red, but he actually looked almost happier.  He sniffled a
bit and sort of smiled at me.  That's when he started telling me his story.
Animatedly.

"My mom left in June so she could go to L.A.  and work on some movie.  She
said its gonna make us rich.  She left me here with her cousin Gerry `cuz
she said the studio wouldn't hire her if they knew she had a kid.  Only
Gerry isn't really her cousin -- just some guy she knew before she bought
me from a sperm donor clinic in Cleveland.  I haven't seen my mom for six
months and Gerry keeps saying he talks to her on the phone, but I never see
him on the phone, and she never calls when I'm there.  I don't have a cell
phone anymore since Gerry stopped paying for it back in August.  He says it
just makes more trouble for him to bail me out of anyway, which costs
money, and he doesn't work anymore since he's been on unemployment..."
Christ this kid was a piece of work! Probably he was high from all the dope
he'd just smoked, but jeez, who could blame him? Sounded like the kid was
stopping over on a one-way ticket to hell.

"Wait a minute, Kyler....It's Kyler, right? Cool name, by the way -- um,
so... Kyler... What is it exactly you have to do tonight? I mean, that you
can't do unless you're high?"

Kyler's face became instantly stone cold, and his smile was gone.  He
looked into some world only he could see, and I thought I'd lost him for a
second.  He pulled the pipe back to his lips and took a long drag.  After
inhaling, he held it out toward me.  "Here."  Exhale.  "You want some?"

Okay, so, here's some more straight talk from the gay guy.  I party once in
a while.  With Tina, I admit it.  I like the way it brings horny gay men
together for hot mind-blowing sex without all the cliques, tricks and
showing off.  I hadn't partied at all in a few ...maybe two or three
months, but I had definitely never -- ever -- partied with anybody Kyler's
age!  (Or with anybody who looked as hot, with as tight a young and
corruptible ass as Kyler had, let alone anybody with lips as soft and ...)
Anyway, you get the picture, I was horny and I said "Sure," and reached for
the stem, careful not to touch the hot rounded bowl.

I lit up.  I inhaled.  I looked at Kyler looking at me.  I thought, what
the hell.  Why not go whole hog, and chances are I'm dreaming again, and
I'll just wake up in five, four, three, two....

And leaned over to offer this beautiful, terrifying, fucked up and amazing
little boy a genuine crystal meth smokin' shotgun, right on those
incredible lips.

And felt his mouth as he closed it over mine, inhaled, and then, and then
------

He ran his tongue, wet with the kind of wet only a truly teenage boy's
mouth can produce, ran his tongue over my top lip, and then across the
lower one, slowly, just once around the circumference of my mouth until he
pulled away and said, "Okay, now blow."

So I blew.  God.  Damn.  Wow.

After I sat there sort of stunned for a long minute, Kyler said, "Gerry
taught me that."  Ah.  Gerry taught him that.

!!!

Oh!  I got it suddenly.  Gerry had taught him that.  Gerry had taught him
how to smoke meth, and how to slowly and sensuously lick a grown man's
lips.  Gerry had taught him that.  Oh, jeez.  Suddenly, it dawned on me
that Kyler hated it there, hated Gerry and everything he did with Gerry
too.  So, then why was Kyler sitting here with me?

Why, indeed?

"Kyler," I embarked, "before you said `Not again,' ...not doing it again
sober, I mean.  What was it that made doing it when you were high better
than when you were sober?"

He was still sitting right next to me, his shoulder touching my arm.  He
shifted a little at the question.  He took the pipe back and started
heating up the bowl again.  He stared at the glowing glass and went into
that world again.

"Kyler."  "What?"  He smoked and blew out the hazy fumes.  They hung in the
warm for mid-October air around us.  "Why do you have to get high to go
home tonight?"

He looked very closely at the material in the pants he was wearing, pulled
his knee up to get a better look.  "Gerry is kind of a dick.  What he
wants... Sometimes I think what he wants is to get drunk, eat, fart, get
more drunk, and then pretend like he's fucking my mom, and I just have to
let him lick and spit and rub his smelly-ass hands on me and I like it
better when he flips me over and does it from behind `cuz then I don't have
to smell him, or see him, or play with his stupid greasy wiener.  But then
it hurts `cuz he can't get it hard and he can't get it in, and he puts his
fingers in there and tries to push his fucking dick in but he's so drunk he
can't even do it.  But when I get high, I can turn around and put up with
it and suck on his nipples and kiss his mouth and suck his spud till it
turns into a French fry and I lie back and oil it up and jerk it till he's
almost there and then when he puts it inside it doesn't even hurt for more
than a few seconds and then he cums and its over, and I can get out and go
to my room and shut the door and write on stuff, write music and stuff,
until the sun comes up and I can get the fuck out of there and come here
and see you before I go to school and ..."  Abruptly, he stopped.  He
looked up at me, his entire face suddenly and noticeable turning bright red
from the cheeks all the way out to his ears.  "Oh God," he whispered.  He
looked like he thought I was going to hit him or something.  "Never mind,"
he said... "I'm just kidding," he picked up a dried stick and started
scratching the dirt around his tennis shoe.  "I'm just messing with you,
man... You totally believed me! Ha! What a psycho!"

I looked at him, feeling sadder and prouder than I think I had ever felt.
Maybe this is what makes being an adult -- or a parent -- so much more
precarious than the fleeting emotions I had when I was a teenager.  These
feelings are actually connected to the power and strength I could see in
Kyler, and yet was incapable of seeing, and therefore helpless to deploy.
Could I actually be in a position to help this kid?

I reached for the pipe and lighting it, I said, "Hey, Kyler.  Listen.  I've
got a six-pack of Heineken sitting in that cooler I keep under the green
workbench there in the garage.  You know the one.  Why don't we go grab a
couple and you can help me close up for the day.  Maybe I'll tell you about
the guy I used to live with back in New Orleans before I moved to
Chicago... Jake.  Used to drive me nuts trying to figure out whether he was
joking or being serious!  He was my closest friend I've ever had, you know?
I really loved him.  I mean I truly loved that guy ... he died, you know.
Cancer.  I still love him -- isn't that weird? Anyway, I'll let you have a
beer with me if you promise to go easy on it, and that pipe, too, okay? And
I'll tell you why you remind me of Jake.  There's a big renovated bus I
keep around back... wood paneled, great entertainment system, wet bar,
couches...We can relax and get out of the cold. Sound good?"

Kyler looked wide-eyed.  Slowly a big smile started to grow... not a grin,
or a smirk like the one he shot at me when he called me a psycho.  A real
smile.  And it was the first time I think I ever saw one on him before.

"Okay I can hang wit' you nigga!"  He jutted his head side to side in a
move I think he thought was gangster.  "You can hang with me, but the next
time you call me "nigga", I'm throwing your ass in the backseat and I will
personally take to see your mom in L.A.  myself - only I'll drop you off
with your homeys in Compton first so y'all can catch up on the nizzle from
the hizzle -- You'll be packin', holmes....you trackin' what I'm crackin'
or you just jackin'?"

I gotta say, this had Kyler rolling.  And again I got that warm, rich,
swelling pride and joy feeling ... Huge.  Wow.

At which point Kyler replied, "If you're still up for crackin', I'd rather
be jackin' what you packin'....you trackin'?"  So I got a different sort of
warm, swelling feeling.  Also pretty huge.  I leaned over closer to him and
gestured the same way I had done for the shotgun.  Knowing there was no
shotgun this time, Kyler let me wrap my lips around his, and neither of us
blew.  And that's how we stayed until he pulled off and said, "I love
Heineken, man!  It's totally my favorite!"

I did not roll my eyes or make a single derisive noise.  Instead, I stood
up, grabbing him by the ribcage, lifted him along the way, swept him up
over the fence, and set him down on the other side.  "Okay," I said, "I'm
coming over too.  You ready to catch me when I do?"  "You're such a dork,"
he said.  "That's so hot."  I almost creamed my shorts.  But I managed to
make it through the gate on solid ground and only a halfway embarrassing
bulge tenting in my flight suit.  I just smiled and followed as Kyler
walked around toward the lot in front of the garage , turned around once on
the way, shot me a wicked grin and giggled, turned back and ran the rest of
the way in to get out the Heineken.

I grabbed the other five in the six pack and let him know I'd be waiting in
the bus for him.  Kyler had to go back and grab his book bag before he
joined me.  I guess he needed a few things in it after all. Meanwhile, I
would set up the media center, get the heater going and make sure
everything was ship shape.

What kind of entertainment to put on, was my question when I got in and
started looking through my files and disks.  Music?  Hmmm.  Third season of
Heroes?  I needed to stop kidding myself and admit I knew what I wanted to
do before I even stepped on the bus.  I chose a list of downloaded sex
videos called "Tortured Twinks", knowing they contained some of the
hottest, most aggressive daddy/boy pairings I'd seen in a series, with
really truly young-looking eighteen-year-olds and hairy muscled tattooed
daddies ready to toss them around.

I wanted to see what he was used to.  I wanted to see if he'd comment.
Actually, I wanted to just see him watching that shit because it turned me
on to even imagine him in the same room with a perverted video pretty much
trying hard just to keep up with the two of us here in real life!  Did I
think we'd be getting naked?  I honestly don't even know what I thought. I
just knew I wanted to find out what he'd do once was actually there -- and
how I'd respond once I actually had to make a decision.  The whole
give-me-your-pipe-or-give-me-your-I.D. thing had worked like magic, since I
barely knew what I was saying until I said it!  Who knew what lurked around
the corner next?

I settled into the plush velveteen sofa in the back of the refurbished
sixties school school bus I'd tricked out for life on the lamb.  I'd only
just finished the last details by the time the leaves started to fall and
summer started closing up for the year.  I'd figured to have to wait until
Spring to break it in. Just goes to show what happens when you let the
universe plan your fun.

Just when I started to wonder if Kyler had gotten second thoughts, the tall
narrow door at the front slid open halfway to let in a shaft of what was
left of the light.  My late deco wall clock I'd paid some queen in Amarillo
an arm and a leg to get hold of said it was getting on toward six o'clock.
I wondered if "Gerry" was starting to drink yet, or if he'd even noticed
Kyler's absence.  I wanted to see him for myself when all this panned
out... just to look him in the eye and ask him point blank if he fucked his
ex-girlfriend's fourteen-year-old son.  It should have made me feel maybe
at least a little guilty to find myself here with the kid ready to show him
porn myself, but, I had a strong feeling Kyler was raped, and rape is a
hell of a lot different than what had just happened between us in that last
half hour behind the fence.

The light was just enough for me to see him smile -- shy but intent, rapt
in his awareness of my thick white boxer briefs showing from behind the
deeply unzipped open and drooping front flap of the overalls. As he came
through the rice curtain, he unsnapped his jean jacket and threw off his
flannel shirt revealing a little dirty white wife-beater straight out of my
imagination.  The cloth was old, rumpled, too-large and had holes in it.
It was so threadbare, I could see his nipples making dark spots behind the
fabric.  Hoo yeah.  He looked like Harry Potter's little house elf.

Right away he noticed the video scene showing a couple right out of extreme
pool boy fantasyland -- slender white-skinned smooth small-framed blond
pool boy in a Speedo looking up from cleaning the pool filter at an
auburn-skinned fuzzy-chested muscled dude who was easily twice the kid's
age.  Kyler just stood there with his eyes wide like a little boy's, mouth
kind of half-open like he was going to say something... but he was
completely transfixed.  I watched him for a minute.

"You like porn?" I asked.  Instantly, he looked up and the spell broke.
His eyes unglazed and he slouched back and threw his hands out in a
gangster gesture like he was back to his old street-punk swagger.

"Whatever, man -- I mean like yeah...It's cool."  He flumped down on the
couch and studied a lamp on the table next to his elbow.  I saw the skin
beneath his jaw convulse reflexively as he tried to swallow.  Wow, I
thought.  He's actually more nervous than I am.

He and I smoked out the rest of a pretty well-packed bowl he had obviously
refilled since our moment in the rocks and the dirt.  I was already so
fucking wired and horny; I thought I'd better not say anything in case I
ended up with a seriously compromised boy in my crotch. He was definitely
watching my trouser flap when I stood up to grab a couple of cold beers
from the dorm fridge.  I was his reward, I think.  For breaking the spell
he'd been under with that asshole he'd been living with. For telling the
truth about what he'd been hiding.  No way to know, but I wanted to let him
know how amazed I was by how strong he must have been to go through what
he'd done and survive.

"Hey.  Can I ask you something?"  He leaned forward as he spoke up loudly
for the first time since getting coming through the rice curtain.  Until
then he'd been quiet.  I shut the door of the little dorm refrigerator and
started hunting around for the bottle-cap opener.

"Sure," I said. "It's not like I'm holdin' back, here."  "Are you -- I
mean, do you sleep with guys?  Like dude-on-dude?"  I found the opener,
popped open a bottle and handed it to him as I sat down on the sofa. "Sleep
with `em?  Yeah.  That, and maybe a few other things."  "Do you like
girls?"  "Sure.  But I like boys better."  His eyes flashed and he smiled
like a kid who just got a compliment.  He was clearly turned on.  I could
hear his breathing getting deeper.  "Would you -- I mean, can I just
like..." His fingers were shaking.  "Fuck, I'm totally not like this, man."
"Like what?", I asked.  "Nervous!"  He reached around and scratched the
back of his head madly.  "I'm just like ...sweating like crazy!"  He ran
his fingers through his hair and wiped them on his pants.  "Then take off
your shirt," I suggested and stood up, dropping my overalls to the floor.
My dick was growing before they hit the ground.

He looked up and grinned for a second.  "Okay."  He did so.  "Now what?"  I
smiled and a rushing tingle passed through my whole body.

"Kneel down in front of my cock and I'll show you."

______

What happened later might not get me arrested, but I hope and plan to keep
it that way.  Let's just end by reassuring you that Gerry was, and I was
not.  We are still looking for his mother, but the two of us are pretty
fine with things as they are.  We've got a lawyer and a caseworker, and a
judge has actually given us her conditional blessing to proceed.  He is
seeking emancipation and meanwhile is staying with me at my house above the
garage.

	He turned sixteen last month, and he's picked out a car he's paying
for with his job helping me at the shop. No joke, he is making me real
money. He's earning that car and then some. I am a little ashamed about
this next part -- I had wanted to give you a happy perfect ending to a
boy's sad tale, but life is truth, and truth is not black and white.

	We do still party every couple of months, and we've learned to
enjoy the hell out of it.  Then we just let it slumber until next time.
Most people would say I'm corrupting a minor and should not be given the
opportunity.  They might be right. Many would say we should be living
healthy lives and not smoking at all, ever... well, they're probably right
too.  Almost everyone would agree, however, that a man who is 40 years old
and a boy who is sixteen should not be "shot-gunning" each other on the
mouth. Or even flirting with each other's sexuality.  That is indecent and
dangerous for the child.  Well, I was sixteen when I met my first
boyfriend.  He was thirty-one, my parents loved him, and we stayed together
four years. I am not saying Kyler and I are boyfriends -- far from it.  He
is someone I can help and I am someone he has helped learn how to be
someone who can help.  And he is learning how to help me, too.  God knows,
I can use it.