Date: Wed, 19 May 1999 22:31:58 EDT From: Marrauder 390 Subject: Will's Story The story that follows is pure fiction. Do not read anything into it. It's make believe: what you see is what you get. The author neither promotes nor agrees with sexual relationships between men and teenage boys. I'm sure that there are characters who resemble those depicted in the story, but any resemblance to persons living or deceased is unintentional coincidence. Any sex acts depicted should not be attempted without proper precautions. You only have one life. If you value it, you will comply. If reading or possessing copies of this document violates local, subnational or national laws where you live, please leave now. If you are below the age of consent in your community to read or possess material of this nature, please leave now. If you are offended by homosexual behavior, man/boy, man/teen, or boy/boy relationships, then please do not read any further. The author and this site assume no responsibility for consequences resulting from reading or saving this document. The author reserves all rights to this story. Please do not reproduce or distribute without permission. Positive commentsand questions may be directed to marrauder390@hotmail.com. The author will neither read nor reply to flames. Will's Story I first met Will when I was studying for my Master's Degree in counseling. One of my long term assignments was to do some practicum (its like an internship) with young children. Being a typical college student, and therefore completely lazy, I chose to do my practicum in the elementary school near my apartment. As I suspected, the school principal was overjoyed to have someone willing to work for free in any manner that he saw fit. I soon found myself working one-on-one with several kids who were chronically in trouble with their classroom teachers. There was usually one to three kids waiting for me when I showed up at ten each day, and it was my job to get * some * school work out of them while they were with me. I was free to do whatever I deemed appropriate with them after they had produced some work. This way, the kids didn't view me as a total ogre. Now, at that time in my life, I think that I should say that I did not know that I liked guys, or that I preferred younger guys best of all. I was just your average professional student, and I viewed this assignment for what it was: a royal pain in the butt. I didn't get into dating too much, because of how it interfered with my schoolwork. So you see, I hadn't had enough experience to determine that something was missing in my life. That something, whether I recognized it or not, first walked into my area in the school library about 3 weeks into my stay at the elementary school. Will (as I now call him) was your basic hyper kid. I didn't know much about learning problems and kiddie disabilities at that time, and Will was really a handful. Will was a typical third grader, a little under four feet tall, skinny as they come, and sporting a messy summer blonde bowl cut. He soon became a "regular customer", even as my impromptu counseling was helping my other "regular customers" to see less and less of me. What I could get out of Will was rather common among the group of kids that I had been seeing. He was left alone a lot at home while mom and step dad were out (drinking and partying). Weeks passed, and the only new information that I had found out about Will was preferred to be called William. I was also fairly sure that he was overmedicated for his hyperactivity problem. Will was the only kid sent to me that I couldn't reach. It galled me. In fact, it galled me so much that when my own semester ended, and with it the need for practicum, I decided to finish out the school year in an attempt to reach this kid. Needless to say, the principal at the elementary school was quite pleased to get more free staffing out of me, especially now that I had completed my degree in counseling. Well, right about here in your typical story, I would say that the extra two months were the turning point and that Will and I became friends. This didn't happen. Will stayed the same, and although he seemed somehow less hostile towards me. We never really got anywhere with helping him to get to the root of his problems. The only positive thing that came out of this experience was that I realized that I liked working with kids. When the school year had ended, I circulated my resume intending to get a job. II Four years and two degrees later, I finally got around to taking a job. Its not that they hadn't been offered to me, but you see, I just wasn't ready. I was too busy being a professional student. The time finally came, however, and I got a job at, yes, a school near my new house. This time, it was a middle school, and it was actually closer to my new house than the elementary school had been to my apartment. My job was to assist special needs kids with fitting into regular school classes. I knew going in that this would be a challenge, but after what I had gone through with the kids in the elementary school four years earlier, I was sure that I was up to the challenge. I had deliberately not read my student files before the first day. Not even names. I am a strong believer that kids can and do change. I really do believe also that sometimes when a kid seems trapped into certain patterns of behavior, it's his teacher's fault as much as it is his. I think sometimes, kids behave a certain way because the teacher expects them to. I also believe that certain teachers just decide that certain kids are bad and write them off early. But enough of this soapbox preaching. I had no idea who my students would be, so it was a total surprise when Will came into the room. Will said something smart like 'Oh, its YOU!' I had always thought that I'd be glad to see him again, but here he was and I honestly didn't feel anything. Back to the first day though, the morning went as mornings do on the first day, full of paperwork, and more paperwork and a lot of administrative bullshit. Will didn't do anything that would warrant my attention, but he had a very sullen, heavy-browed look for me every time I looked in his direction. I was sure it was going to be a long year working with him. I was surprised after lunch to see the change in Will. He seemed lethargic and slow moving. Almost like one of the 'living dead' from zombie movies. I was so certain that he had gotten into drugs or something that I called the nurse. Our school nurse has got to have one of the nicest jobs in the school. She's mean enough to most of the smaller kids that they don't come in unless they're dead or dying. The bigger kids avoid her because she sees through their tricks and dispenses detentions for wasting her time about as much as she dispenses medicines. Because of this, she is able to spend her days on the phone socializing. Well, I didn't get what I should have, turning to such a person. It seems that she had a soft spot for Will. She told me, quite indignantly, that I should be seeing such behavior out of the boy, given how medicated he was. When I asked for clarification, she read off a grocery list of medicines that he was on, the combination of which should have guaranteed total unconsciousness to an adult rhino. We were both pissed off by the end of the phone call. It took two months and a lucky break to get Will off of all those meds. I had called our school system psychiatric caseworker, who assured me that there was no valid reason for the boy to be taking such a mouthful of pills every day, and so my supervisor and I got on his mom's case. She was quite resistive to our efforts, in part because she had probably talked the doctor into the meds in the first place. She really was quite short on parenting skills, and had probably come to the conclusion that a pill could take the place of the attention that she wasn't giving the boy. She would have most likely continued to resist us for the long run had her common law husband not gotten arrested in a brawl. Will's step dad Vinnie was not going to win any awards for grooming or social skills, and I really wondered what his mom saw in the man. Therefore, it surprised me when Will's mom took the unusual step of requesting that the court not allow him to return home until he was clean and sober. Vinnie took this court order as a really good excuse to leave her high and dry, and promptly fled the state. Deprived of his money earning abilities, Will's mom soon ran out of funds for all the meds that she was feeding her son, and our idea of a med-free boy suddenly started looking quite nice indeed. III Once free of the meds, Will soon became a different person. The zombie - like behavior that I had seen most afternoons, and quite a few mornings was gone, and in its place was an inquisitive, hungry little mind. Will was starved for information, and was soon a regular sight in the library after school, and in the town library during the evenings. This of course made me quite happy, and raised my opinion of Will considerably. Will wasn't perfect, though, despite his ravenous intellectual hunger, he still needed to have someone from our staff nearby when he was with certain teachers. He was still prone to violent reactions to not getting his way, and sometimes his classmates would manipulate him into misbehaving as a means of avoiding some lesson or other. Will was also singularly unable to handle certain events, such as a substitute teacher. Will seemed to view a substitute teacher as a really good excuse to act like a monster. It was on a day when I had pulled him out of class to keep him away from a sub when I got my first glimpse past his barriers, and saw the real Will inside. Will seemed excited, for no reason that I could fathom, and was talking a mile a minute. I had intended to have him do some independent study while he was out of class, but instead, I ended up listening to him prattle on about various topics that could only interest a 12 year old boy. Finally, without warning, he just dropped the bomb 'Mr. O'Connor, do you like me?' I replied 'Yes, of course,' as any adult would. Will pressed me for clarification, reminding me of his past, and how he was still viewed with suspicion by the principal, and how he sometimes did strange things to amuse his classmates. I of course replied that I liked him for himself, and not for the things he did or what he wore or who likes him. I reminded him of how much progress he had made since the beginning of the school year, and told him that he was rapidly becoming a favorite of mine. Well, you would have guessed that I had kicked him in the 'nads. He immediately began crying. Now, Will doesn't do anything by half measures, even to this day. Will started sobbing these deep, gut-wrenching sobs that would make a United States Marine feel pity. I didn't realize at first why he was crying, but after a moment, I realized that this was probably the first time someone had said anything nice to him or about him. I felt really bad for him at that moment, and grabbed him in a big hug and held him until he stopped crying. I didn't care if touching students was frowned upon by the school administration; this kid needed a hug. When he finally stopped crying, and he realized that I was holding him, Will seemed a bit embarrassed. I released him and he scuttled back a few steps. We stood looking at each other, perhaps seeing each other truly for the first time. Will was now about 5 feet tall, and still skinny as a rail. His clothes were filthy, and his hair was badly in need of a decent cut. It was an interesting soft blonde with lighter blond highlights, and would probably be quite stunning if it was neat. He was wearing it in a mostly shapeless mop that had probably once been a bowl cut. I'm guessing at that. He did have a rather heavy forehead, but it was graced with the kind of neat eyebrows that look almost groomed. His eyes were a deep green color, the same color that you see in the ocean off the New England coast. The space under his eyes was more than a little bit puffy and purplish from lack of sleep. A neat round nose stood guard over full pouty lips, and a cute little rounded chin finished the face. He had rather high cheekbones, and the whole effect less the shapeless hair, was quite like that of an English schoolboy sent 'round by Central Casting. My heart went out to him. More coming soon.... Positive comments may be sent to marrauder390@hotmail.com. Flames will be deleted.