Date: Wed, 5 Sep 2001 07:57:53 -0700 (PDT) From: Wishus Teglin Subject: Stupid Johnny chpt 3 Stupid Johnny A Boylove Romance Chapter Three by Teglin with the invaluable assistance of Michael and Kallen Dedication: Once upon a time, a friend of mine named Michael was driving along a country road in his native Poland, and came upon a ragamuffin of a little boy, dressed in tatters, struggling all alone to push a cart much too big for him. Looking miserable, hungry, cold. It was one of those moments - we all have them - moments we look back on with such great regret. Because Michael wanted to stop. He wanted to talk with the boy, see if he was ok, if he could use some food, or perhaps a helping hand, or just a kind word. But he didn't stop. Why didn't he stop? Why don't we all stop, in moments like that? Why do we let convention, or fear, or doubt, or hurry, or sometimes just plain selfishness keep us from meeting the moment? Well, Michael helped me write this story. It's all about what might have been. It's dedicated to that little boy on the roadside. And every other boy anywhere in the world who might someday need one of us to stop ... just for him. Copyright 2001 by Teglin. You may freely copy this boylove romance and distribute it. Please have the courtesy not to alter it in any way. WARNING: This boylove romance contains descriptions of sexual acts between a man and a minor boy. Their sexual relationship is very important to the story, as part of their love-making, but it is their spiritual relationship that I wanted to explore even more, as the very essence of boylove. If this story is illegal where you are, or for your age, or the concept of a man/boy romantic relationship offends you, don't read further. Glossary: Jasio = Yasho Podhorowski = pod-ho-rouskee Piotr Ostoja = Pyoter Ostoya Leon Koczurba = Le-own Kotschurba Beskidy = Beskeedy Jodlowka = Yodlovka Sosnowka = Sosnovka Rzeszow = Dgeshow Polska = Powlska Misiu = Meeshoo babciu = bubshoo Chapter Three Droga Starego Krola (Old King's Road) Rzeszow Administrative District, Poland September 15, 1959 1:03 A.M. It was like falling into a dream when I next awoke. Even before I opened my eyes, I felt the boy. Cuddled in my arms, his soft buttocks pressing down against my erection - oh how I felt him pressing against me along the entire length of his body - his head still resting against my chest, my arms still in his grasp, forcing me to hold him tight, his legs drawn up in my lap. Our bodies were so warm and cozy together. It was like he was fitted to me, and together we made up one living, breathing creature capable of enduring anything - the cold, the dark. The future. In this dream, we had a future. When I did open my eyes, the dream deepened, for high up above, framed in the rear window of our sedan, was the constellation of Orion! "Make Orion the Hunter your guide," Tomek would tell us back during the war, before every one of our winter raids. "Just like Orion, you will come and go in the night. You will hunt silently. Move quickly. Get your job done, before the Hunter is gone from above." How many times through years since then had I dreamed about such moments, and always I would see the great Orion, his belt studded in scintillating diamonds, coursing above us. Then I would awake, and the image of Orion would disappear, leaving me with my heart pounding and surging in my ears. This time was different. Orion stayed, and Jasio and I were the hunted, not the hunters. Still, my heart hammered just the same. I was wide awake instantly. Aware! Eyes open, ears straining against my raging pulse. Aroused like always in these moments, every muscle tensed. And my penis so hard that it almost hurt. "Look!" Tomek used to whisper to the whole troop, "look at that horny little bastard," pointing at me and grinning. "Piotrek always gets a hardon before a raid." Of course he was right. I never felt so alive as at such moments. Moments like this one. "Let your little dickie be your guide, Piotrek," Tomek would sputter out sarcastically. We all would laugh. I didn't care. I reveled in it. Now was no different. Well, my penis was no longer so small. If Jasio awoke, he'd feel a veritable log between my legs - 21 centimeters long, and as thick and as hard as a stout branch. Wet too. Damn. I'd be leaking precum from now till ... till I could relieve myself. I don't know what it is about me, but I can keep an erection for hours at a time. Especially one unbidden like this, one that comes upon me because I am going into battle again. The excitement, the adrenaline flow, the need for keeping my senses on edge. The need! Even if I could distract myself. Even if I got my rampant dick to soften for a moment, it would rise again till my need was fulfilled. Till the moment was over. Damn that Tomek! He'd laugh and say, "Don't you touch that dick, Piotrek. I think it's smarter than you. And braver! Always leading the way!" Well, I ought to have plenty to distract me now. I had a boy to feed and clothe and bathe. Above all I had to keep him out of the clutches of our pursuers until I could come up with a plan. So here I sat in the dark - my watch showed 1:00 AM under Orion's haunting glow - just hoping I wouldn't wake up Jasio. Would he understand that the chase was on? That he had a part in it? Would he really want that part? Would he understand my beating heart, my quickened breath, the glare of my roving eyes - or the unrelenting hardness of my manhood pressing up against his bottom? There was nothing for it, but to get started. The very hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. I sensed that someone was out there, searching for us already. The KGB. The Polish police ... someone. Taking care not to startle him, I pulled my arms slowly apart, reluctantly releasing him from my embrace. His hands loosened their hold just as slowly, and it seemed to me, just as reluctantly. They slid down and dropped limply to his tummy. He didn't stir. Just slept the sleep of an exhausted, mistreated little boy, who for once was warm and dry and comfortable. Hnnh! I suppressed a chuckle. He was as comfortable as a boy could be who had slept in a man's lap for three or four hours. Worst still, a man who sported a hardon that stabbed upwards mercilessly. . When I slid my hands under his thighs, they felt so warm and moist, where our flesh had touched for so long. His skin there was like satin, so soft to my touch, but he was so slender that there wasn't a lot of pliant flesh there - just the firmness of his muscles, and the long sleek lines of his legs. Higher up, against my left wrist, I felt the cushiony softness of his bottom as I lifted him, practically holding him suspended in the air as I scooched out from underneath, and then let him down upon the car seat. The big coat slid down with him, exposing my bare shoulders and chest to the frigid air within the car. I shivered violently while I laid him flat upon the seat and made sure that the coat still covered him everywhere, propping it up just a bit near his head, so he could get some fresh air to breathe. Quickly I reached for my shirt where I had thrown it after drying the boy and put it on. The sharp bite of its still damp cloth really just invigorated me. I felt every muscle within me tighten, both against the cold and with the need to get going. Still my penis, held tight against my pubis by my belted pants, was straining and hard. My breath was visible in the sparklingly clear night air, when I got out of the back seat and closed the door as gently as I could manage. There was nary a sign of anyone around, but I didn't waste any time looking around before getting back into the driver's seat, and starting the engine. It was so clear out that I left the lights off for the time being. Good that I did, too. Because as I backed the car off the side road onto the tarmac of the main road, I glimpsed small wavering lights back along the way. Just about where the turnout was. Probably Leon had rousted out the farmers, and they were already searching for us. I wondered if they could hear our car engine. At any rate, that settled one thing. I hoped all the decisions Jasio and I had to make would be so easy. We'd have to drive on into the mountains, into the unknown, instead of back down the road to the last town I had passed. One thing was for sure, they wouldn't have any vehicle on that collective that could match the power and speed of my GAZ. After the first good bend in the road I switched on the lights and sped up, and tried to relax back into the seat. God, I was so on edge! My mind was racing, my heart was still pounding, and my penis still strained against the imprisonment of my pants. As I drove, trying to imagine all the possibilities - where we would find food and lodging, how best to contact Pawel, how much time we had - I kept squirming in my seat, and reaching down again and again to grasp my tool and squeeze. My every move was tantalizing, causing the fabric of my waistband and belt to press down and grate against my super-sensitive glans. It electrified me, adding even more tension and urgency to the decisions at hand. I kept looking back over my shoulder too, as if to reassure myself that Jasio was still there, in my care. He had slept through everything - all the moving around, when I settled him down prone on the back seat, tucking the coat in, making sure that no part of his body was bare to the frigid air; all the noise, doors closing, the engine barking to life; the jostling as I backed out and up onto the tarmac. He was out to the world, and in a way, I dreaded the moment when he would wake up. What would he think, waking up in a moving car? It's not like I was kidnapping him. I honestly felt like he had given me all the signs that he trusted me. I had told him that I would take care of him. He had pulled my arms tight about him. Still, I worried. I didn't want him to be scared. I didn't want him to think I'd do anything to jerk him out of his world - but I had to do something! I couldn't just take him back to those farmers before I had got him some new clothes, fed him - maybe even get him a medical check - and damn sure I wasn't going to take him back there without some leverage. This mountain road wasn't making anything easier. Each passing mile proved that the villages, so close together down on the plains, had no reason for existence up here beneath the rising walls of the mountains. The road followed a rift up into the range - it kept crossing and recrossing the same fast-running stream, twisting in tight curves around jutting rock outcrops, and skirting the very edges of looming crags. We were on the road for a good 30 minutes, with not even a hint of habitation. I was seriously considering the alternative, and was about to start looking for a place to turn about and reluctantly dare the fates down on the flats, when the very next turn brought me up hard. It was a fork in the road, and one that was definitely not on my map! Thankfully, I had the presence of mind not to slam on the brakes and tumble Jasio onto the floorboards, but I did pull the car over to the side of the road as much as possible, and slowed to a stop. Then I just sat there starring ahead, leaning forward over the steering wheel. My first thought was one of panic - so much for my well-laid plan to get over the mountains using the Old King's Way! Which way WAS the King's Way? My second thought was one of astonishment, because in the shadows cast by the headlights high upon the great citadel of rock rising up between the two roads, was something straight out of `The Arabian Nights'. Looming there, conjured out of the very stygian blackness of this forested mountain passage was a huge flat rock face filled with petroglyphs, hieroglyphs, or ... or whatever else such things are called - great symbols carved, hammered, chiseled, directly into this virgin stone outcropping that sprang up before us from the very core of the great mountain range. Road markers. Signs. Symbols. I didn't know how to decipher all of them. Even in the dark, with the light from the car slanting shadows upward from every pit and cavity within the great carvings, I could see that some were ancient, weathered by the passage of hundreds, probably thousands of years. Others were by the hands of much more recent artisans, and all too easily recognizable. On the right side - for there were actually two very different sets of carvings - rose two towering, majestic emblems of the Great White Eagle, the traditional standard of Poland's old royal families. One of the Eagles was crudely hammered - a stark figure from out of the Dark Ages. The other was magnificently detailed - an almost living relief of the mighty eagle, no doubt from the time when Poles ruled all the Slavs. Below these royal crests, the words `Droga Starego Krola` showed that here was indeed the King`s Way across the mountains. On the other side, hanging over the other route, were a multitude of carvings. Dominating them all was another famous family crest upon the face of a great shield. I recognized it immediately - what Pole wouldn't know the bold banner of the great Podhorowski family? Two interlocking horseshoes, one a bit smaller than the other, but facing away from the other - it was the symbol of the divided loyalties of a family often more powerful than the royals at times in our nation's past. That wasn't what hit me though. Superimposed upon that ancient crest, was a much more recent defacement - two interlocking gashes of jagged lightening - the emblem of the German SS - again one smaller than the other. Those hated symbols almost brought the bile up into my throat, even though someone had obviously chipped away at them, trying to remove their disfiguring, spider- like scrawl upon the Podhorowski crest. There were other emblems upon the left-side rock face. All different, but following a very obvious pattern. Two plain circles, one smaller and linked with the larger. Two Byzantine crosses, the smaller superimposed and offset over the larger. Two barely decipherable petroglyphs, perhaps very ancient Runes. To my mind, and in my still very much aroused state, the two slanted lines, connected only at their bases, looked like nothing so much as potent phallic symbols. Below all these were two words - Grecka Droga. The Greek Road. The road beneath these enigmatic symbols was hard-topped also, but a bit narrower than the King's Way, and oddly enough it was paved with concrete. It had the look of heavy usage in years past, with faint oil and exhaust stains running right up the middle of it, but even in the tire paths there were weeds growing up here and there from fissures in the pavement. I almost felt I was hallucinating. Here I was in a lonely mountain passage, rock cliffs rising on all sides, and this ... Greek Road ... with it's haunting reminders of both the recent and the ancient past, had appeared as if by magic in the dark of the night! I swear, I kept staring ahead, wide-eyed, but ever so slowly I reached back with my right hand and stretched to feel the blanketed form of the little boy in the back seat. I touched the curve of his hip, and just held my fingertips there for a moment. Yes. This was all for real. Jasio and I were indeed here. The rising bulk of the mountains on either side of us were not imaginary, the fork in this road was not some figment. Nor was the choice. To the right? Would that lead us sooner to respite? Or ... to the left? I just couldn't shake the feeling that this Greek Way had appeared out of thin air ... just for me and Jasio! As if luring us. No. Guiding us. I had had premonitions before. An unexplained sense of ... purposefulness, fate, Providence ... I don't know what to call it. I felt it that long-ago moment in `39, when I laid down the shovel I had used to bury my mother and father, and turned to see Tomek standing watching me. I had felt it just yesterday morning, talking to Pawel on the phone. Truth be told, I had been practically struck down by the feeling, yesterday evening, on this very road, when I stopped so suddenly, realizing that I had to return to Jasio. "I don't know what it is, Misiu," I suddenly uttered out loud, still staring up at the symbols marking the Grecka Droga, "but I think we must go left." I heard Jasio sigh then and rustle the coat, as he turned over on the seat. I looked back to make sure he was still completely covered and adjusted the covering about his feet. He hadn't awoken, but somehow I felt his continued, peaceful slumber was a sign. All was well. Notwithstanding those ugly SS slashes etched into the rock face, we would go left. Certainly not all the way to Greece! Hopefully soon to find some food, and a place to rest without fear of discovery. I eased the car back into gear and took the chosen way, passing directly underneath the extraordinary set of glyphs. I reached down and felt that my penis was no longer engorged. For the moment at least, fear, or ... uncertainty drained away at my spirit. The sense of purposefulness waned for a moment, as I gave in to doubt. What had I gotten Jasio into? Was it right that I consign his destiny to the rule of my feeble premonition? Cement. Even that made this Grecka Droga unusual. I could only imagine that it was some kind of war-related construction. The Germans had left their concrete scars all over our land. And yet, this way had obviously been marked and used for countless centuries before the war. I took the road a bit slower, but pushed on ever deeper into the forest that seemed to close in upon us - huge boles rose up now right at the very edge of the pavement. I rolled down the window a bit. Even with the steady rumble of the engine, there was an eerie sort of `quiet.' A calmness and darkness disturbed only by the moving car. There was a sibilant gurgling off to the left, and through the thickly clustered tree trunks, the headlights reflected off a small brook that tumbled over a rocky bed. A bare rock cliff rose just to the right of the road, less than twenty meters away, but the further we went the height of that great rock wall diminished - the only real indication that we were still gaining ever so slowly in altitude. Two kilometers along the Grecka Droga, and the trees started to thin out and recede from the edge of the road, and the brook disappeared. The high rock wall off to the right was now a mere ledge, and then it simply blended into the ground as I drove the car up a slight rise and suddenly found ourselves in the very center of a courtyard - a cobbled, leaf-strewn expanse - with small white-washed lodges in either side of us, and straight ahead a much larger structure - like a rustic inn. This, apparently, was the end of our road. The place looked empty, unoccupied, but well-kept. Not abandoned. Definitely not abandoned, for as I drove the car slowly up to the steps of the main building, out shuffled a wizened old crone. She must have been 90! Or a 100. Stoop-shouldered and gray, draped in a disheveled robe of sepulchral white, no doubt thrown over her nightgown when the sound of our car rousted her from sleep. I glanced at my watch. It was almost exactly 2 AM now. The woman was certainly not too old and weak to sling a double barreled shotgun under one arm, and to hold a flashlight in the other - both pointing in my general direction - but her whole body was shaking. It was a slow, rhythmic rattling of her ancient bones. Not from the cold or fright - she looked anything but frightened as she glared at me - perhaps it was from some affliction of age. I suppressed a most disconcerting urge to chuckle, figuring it wouldn't take all that much steadiness of aim for her to blast a man-sized whole through my windshield if I enraged her any more than she already was. For she looked likely to blast away. Not at all happy to have her sleep, nor perhaps her privacy, disturbed. When I brought the car to a complete stop, I hesitated for a split second, then just turned off the engine and lights and very slowly rested my hands on the steering wheel where she could see them. She looked grim, and very much intending to be taken seriously, when she motioned with the flashlight that I should step out of the car. I got out, but left the door open, not wanting to startle Jasio awake at this very moment. What if he suddenly arose, poking his head up over the front seat?! Would she fire away? I stepped away from the car, happy to see that she turned with me, keeping the gun and flashlight aimed at me. It was cold in this mountain air! And here I was without my coat again! I must have looked quite the frightened innocent, standing there rigid against the cold, trying to suppress my own shivers. "The Grecka Droga is closed," she croaked out, her voice hard and inflexible. "Turn your car around and go back down the road. Your kind aren't welcome here, anyway." Again I felt that incongruous urge to laugh. It was hard to take the old witch seriously! "And what is my kind, old woman?" I tossed off banteringly, through teeth clenched against the cold. "You're a Commie. That's your kind. I don't need your kind around here." "You do know it's illegal to have a gun, don't you? Much less to point it at som ...." "Piss on you and your Commie rules," she said, and then she worked up her toothless gums and twisted her mouth into the most horrifically ugly grimace I could ever imagine, and spat out a huge wad of some brownish gunk that splattered expertly right on my shoes! I jumped back, keeping my hands still by my side. She might be old and toothless, but I realized I had better not take her threats lightly. "I didn't kowtow to the Nazis, and I won't bend over for the likes of you either. I served the Podorowski's! Nobles, by birth and nature. I spit on your kind," she muttered angrily, and I saw that she was about to wrestle up another gob of spittle for my pleasure. I decided to take a different tack. Jasio needed a place to sleep. And some food. I did too, for that matter. "Pardon my intrusion. I'm sincerely sorry to show up here at such an awkward hour. However, you obviously have rooms here, and that's all I'm asking for. A place to stay the rest of the night, perhaps a bite to eat in the morning?" I pleaded, holding my hands forward, palms out. "Get out, I said," she repeated, unimpressed by my soft words. "But I can't go on driving forev ...." "That's exactly what you can do, for all I care. Now for the last time, get out! I know how to use this cannon if I ...." "But I have a boy with me!" I blurted out, still pleading, seeing that she was about to raise the shotgun to point it more directly at me. "He needs rest, a good bed, some food, some clean clothes - he's had a hard time out ...." "Shut up!" she barked at me, then she looked towards the car and quickly shone the flashlight through the windows. It was maddening to just stand there and watch her blazing that light through the windows towards Jasio, it`s beam shaking slowly along with her whole palsied body. Had I made a mistake? Should I just lunge forward and wrestle that gun from her hands? Would she harm .... "A boy?" she asked suddenly, looking back at me suspiciously. "Yes, he's in the back seat now, sleeping." "Let me see, then." she answered gruffly, as she started down the steps. I wished she would drop the gun. It wavered about wildly as she descended the steps. I reached hesitantly as if to help her down, but she motioned me away with the flashlight, grumbling under her breath. I shifted towards the back door of the car to open it for her, keeping a wary eye on the gun. If she so much as hinted at a threat to Jasio, I would cut her down.. "No!" she yelled at me angrily. "But I thought you wanted to see the boy," I answered meekly, backing away from the car again. "It's you I want to see, stupid. I know what boys look like," she said as she waddled closer to me and pointed the flashlight right up into my face, blinding me. I just stood there stiffly. I could have pounced on her, taken the gun from her then, but for some reason I ... I just felt her authority, as if she had the right to inspect me. That it was important for me to let her have her way. I couldn't see her with the glare in my eyes, but I could hear her rasping breath just below me. She was no taller than Jasio, and came only up to my chest level. She punched me in the chest with her finger, and said very solemnly, speculatively, "you have a strong face, Communist. Do you also have a strong heart?" "I ... think so." I answered, taken aback at her question. "Will you care for the boy?" The question hit me like a lightening bolt out of a blue sky! What could this old hag know of ... what could she know of me, of how I felt, of what kind of man I was, of my past, of ... my present? What could she sense? What could she read in my face? Did she know? Did she sense ... anything? "Well, will you care for the boy?!" she repeated, this time impatiently. "Yes! Yes ... babciu. I will care for him," I answered solemnly. "I'm not your grandmother" she grumbled, and lowered the flashlight. She started towards the car. "But you can call me that for his sake," she said, waving the beam of light in Jasio's direction. "Now show me the boy." I hastily strode to the back door and opened it, then started to lift the coat from Jasio's head. She had just enough time to see the soft lines of his forehead and nose, when she said, "Alright. You can stay. For the boy." "I thank yo ...." "Don't thank me. It's for the boy. We shall see if it's for you also. Now come with me," she ordered as she started to shamble off towards the steps. "I will give you a key. You bring me his clothes. And yours too. I will wash them. You can have breakfast at 8. Then you will take a bath in the warm spring." Now for what I was dreading. How was I to explain that we had no extra clothing. "Yes, ma'am. But ... I'm sorry, babciu, but ... uh ... neither the boy nor I have any other clothes." She stopped and turned again towards me, and again she shone the flashlight up into my face. "Why would you travel the Grecka Droga without ... have you ... did you take this boy by force from his family?" she demanded fiercely. "No, grandmother. I assure you he came willingly. As far as I know he has no family. He was being mistreated by the farmers down on the flats, he has no parents and ...." "You mean the farmers of the Jodlowka Collective?" she asked sharply. "Yes. I found the boy beside the road. I ... hit his cart, with my car, and I feared that ...." She spat again. This time off to my side. "Save your explanations for the morning, Communist," she said dismissively. "I've seen your face. I have also seen the faces of the farmers of the collective. I know them all too well. You will do as I say. I will bring you some clothing. Then I will wash your things." -------------------------------- Grecka Droga (The Greek Way) Beskidy Mountains Rzeszow Administrative District, Poland September 15, 1959 2:33 A.M. The fire crackled and flickered in unsyncapated, arrhythmic counterpoint to my cooing voice. Its life-giving, warming tendrils licked up against the rock-lined confines of the hearth, offering our only source of light. It was pitch black outside in the darkest hours before the dawn, but inside our cabin I could finally look upon him. Him. Jasio. I murmured to him unceasingly - about all the possibilities, about all the improbabilities. Or perhaps I spoke mere nonsense. Whatever it was, I couldn't stop it, no more than I could keep from glancing over at him on the bed, where he lay in the deepest slumber, still wrapped in my coat. Everything seemed so right again. I finished setting out the clothes that the old woman had lent us, then let my hand linger over the impossible softness of the flannel nightgown she intended for my boy. I wondered how long it had been since he had felt something so soft against his skin - something soft enough for him, good enough for him, worthy of him. I grasped the nightgown and traipsed silently in my bare feet to his side. I had already stripped to my shorts, and now I slipped out of those too, letting them drop to the floor trailing precum all the way down my legs, and releasing my heavy penis to swing out, free and hard - in that same unrelenting arousal that I had known was going to mark this day. My erection had returned along with the sense that so far, I had made all the right choices. "Let Orion the Hunter be your guide ...." Well, the mighty Hunter had done well for the Hunted, this night. We had our sanctuary. New clothes. The promise of a welcome to the old woman's table. The offer of a cleansing bath in the Grecka Droga's warm springs. Plus we had time. Time to plan Jasio's future. Time to just ... be. Selfishly, as I stood above him, stroking my engorged penis with one hand, and feeling the softness of the gown in the other, I acknowledged that another reason I was aroused was that I wanted the Time most of all. Time to just be with him. "Little Angel Boy, it's time to get your nightgown on and then get you properly under the covers," I whispered to him as I sat down just above his head on the bed. The nightgown might be soft, but sitting on the bed was like being suddenly enveloped in a cloud! The comforter alone was 15 centimeters thick with down and like silk to the touch. I practically glided Jasio upright upon that frictionless coverlet, slipping my hands under the coat to gently grasp his upper arms from beneath, and just pull him onto me. The coat fell away ... the firelight, reflecting off the dark, polished lacquer of the log walls, played in shades of tempered gold upon his pale flesh, highlighting the little crease at his belly-button, casting a dark shadow below that, where his flat tummy disappeared within the coat. The flare of his hips, and the flattening of his buttocks upon the silken surface of the coverlet were mere hints of what lay out of view. My penis extended hot against his thigh - with a mind of its own, wanting to burrow beneath his flesh and feel the pressure of his body abrading its tenderness. His head lay propped within the crook of my neck, resting warm against my cheek. I felt the slow rise and fall of his chest beneath my chin, as I gathered up the fabric of the nightgown in both of my hands, and then slid it over his still unkempt and unwashed hair. It fell easily to his shoulders, then cascaded slowly in lovely folds to his tummy, where it puddled concentrically about him. His thin arms dangled like a puppet's within the gown - I was his marionette as I searched beneath the fabric for each of his little hands in turn and guided them up and through the arm holes. He was light as a feather against me, and I considered for a moment sitting like that all through the rest of the hours until dawn. I knew he'd sleep better if I laid him down, however, so I pulled the edge of the comforter in towards us, then simply slid Jasio over onto the mattress. His little white bottom and the backs of his thighs and legs blended into the creamy white of the bed sheet. Angel boy, in truth. His legs seemed to extend in smooth white perfection forever, belying the fact that he was just a child. I pulled the hem of his gown down over the mounds of his bottom and smoothed and tugged it even lower, down to his calves. Then I flipped the edge of the comforter over him and stood to smooth it all the way to the wall. Now Jasio was where he belonged, ensconced in a bed just right for a sleepy little boy - so soft, so thick, wrapping him in comfort and warmth. I froze as Jasio moved under the covers, pulling his legs up and curling into a fetal position. He pushed one hand up from beneath the covers then, and twined his fingers around a lock of hair laying upon the sheet just at his forehead. For the briefest moment his fingers twiddled in the silken strands, then fell lax again, curled in upon themselves in a little circle. His lips parted, and just the glistening tip of his tongue darted out to wet his lips. He murmured softly, the opening note of some sweet melody that submerged back into the silence of his dreams? Or perhaps it was a whimper, for his other hand emerged from the covers, his fingers curled again right at the tip of his nose, and he settled his thumb into his mouth and started suckling on it. Circles. My eyes lifted from the circles formed by his delicate fingers, to look about our one-roomed sanctuary in amaze. The patterns ... that motif upon the picture rock, above the intersection of the roads ... they were everywhere about our room too. Oh, it had the trappings of the typical resort cabin - a closet, and a little alcove beside that for a polished metal sink and ceramic faucet. Hot and cold water - I supposed piped in from the warm spring and the mountain creek. The bed was set against one wall, with a narrow walkway between it and the wall facing the courtyard. But set in that wall was the oddest shaped window. A white lace curtain covered it thinly, but through that veil I saw the message drawn in the window pane. It was in the shape of a large rectangle, and overlapping that, a smaller one, creating an irregularly shaped trapezoid that had to have been hand-made and glazed. Another similar window, over the bed, looked out upon the blackness of the forest. There were a wooden table, it's surface carved by some skilled craftsman into the shape of two tear-drops, overlapping - and again, one smaller than the other ... there was a woolen throw rug between the foot of the bed and the table ... and once more, the interlocking circles, one smaller than the other .... For a moment perhaps no longer than the catch of my breath, or the beat of Jasio's heart, I sat suspended in time, for suddenly my eyes fell back upon the bed, where the bend of my knee almost touched Jasio's hand, and I saw ... hallucinated ... the pattern.. Perhaps it was only what I wanted to see. Me. Jasio. Man. Boy. One touching the other. Lives intertwined. Circles of existence. Once so separate, now together. I was transported back out onto that place where we met, when I first beheld the little boy staring up into my face, and how for a moment, our circle of existence was all that there was in the entire world. Now on this bed, once again, we might just as well be the only two people in the entire universe. We were One, because we came together. We were One, because our circles of existence ... overlapped. I reached down and looped my own fingers through his, wishing I never had to let him go. Still, there were things I had to do before I could steal the remaining hours of the night with him in my arms. In a daze, I stood and turned back to the hearth and squatted to place another couple of logs on it. My penis jutted out lewdly, wobbling between my widespread legs. As I knelt to stand back up, I saw a drop of my precum that had fallen to darken the red brick edging the hearth. Wasted? Useless? No. Not wasted. I don't know if I truly even wanted release at that moment. My continuing erection made me feel even more this boy's protector and guardian. With the screen securely back in place, I walked over to the table, determined to ignore the tightness, the fullness, in my groin. My balls ached and hung as heavily as I could ever remember them. My penis begged to be held and stroked. But not now. The old woman had told me to bring our dirty clothes to her at breakfast time. There wasn't much to do, other than getting all of Jasio's collection of odds and ends out of his coat. I shook the cobwebs from my brain, and feeling a bit like I was invading his privacy, I spread the coat out on the table and laid it open with a clunk and clatter - a small broken wrench fell out, with a twisted metal wire attached to it through a hole in the handle. I set it on the edge of the table. A wad of rags bulged from an inside pocket. I lifted them out, and placed them right below the wrench. Then a fork, with two tongs broken off of it, a sewing thimble, a large key - its haft broken off at some point, but obviously hammered back together. Next I drew from the coat a notched stick. I shook my head in amazement. There was such mystery to each of these things. I wondered how he found them, why he kept them, how he used them? I counted the marks on the stick, and examined their order. Thirty- two little cuts taken out of the bark, evenly spaced, leaving light yellow gashes. The last four were crudely crossed and slashed. Then a space, and seven more notches below those. Every item, just like that stick, with a purpose beyond my ken, took it's place in neat rows on the table top. Every one had some meaning for the boy, and I intended to make sure he found them all when he woke up. There was no doubt. This boy was a marvel. It both thrilled and dismayed me to touch his things like this. I felt a kind of awe, and thought back upon his cart. Then I remembered that strange arc of small obelisks set out so orderly next to Leon's cottage. Jasio's Field of Corn. And here was Jasio's Broken Wrench. Jasio's Knotted Ball of String. And Jasio`s ... Coat of Many Wonders ... Had I stumbled upon a little prodigy here? A boy who could turn junk into a working, innovative machine? A boy whose ingenuity and curiosity had not only been ignored, but actually scorned? Once again, I wondered most of all, what could I do about that!? What could I accomplish in this one or two days, before everything came crashing down on us. By the time I finished retrieving all the odds and ends from his coat, it was going on 3 AM. I bundled all his old clothes and mine into the coat and placed it outside on the steps. Yawning uncontrollably as I closed the door and turned back inside, I stretched, then stepped back to the bed hesitantly, giving my penis another wrenching, punishing twist and squeeze. It was tormenting me. I needed to go ahead and jack off right then and there. I needed it desperately. I feared that not even exhaustion would make it go down otherwise, but I didn't want to waste even the few moments necessary for that in a solitary release. I wanted to be with him! That was the meaning of this moment. Cautiously I slipped in under the comforter, and in the tiniest of little nudges, I snuggled up against his back, holding my penis up against my stomach. He might feel it there when he awoke, but there was little I could do about it. I released it feeling the softness of his nightgown, and the firmness of his back beneath that, pressing against it. His gown would get soaked there, but there was nothing I could do about that either. Lovingly, I then slid one arm underneath and the other over him, to draw him into my embrace. My arm was his pillow. Perhaps not so soft as the real one that I used for my own head, but surely comforting, in a different way. At least I hoped he would feel that. I held him like that for the longest time, till even the firelight had cast its last glimmer upon the wall. To my surprise, just the feel of Jasio next to me - just those moments of BEING with him - consumed all my inner tension, fulfilled my desire, met my need - all those elements that made me so hard - were spent just getting to know him. For the time being at least, I felt the expression of my man-ness in our embrace - my whole body was against his, not just my penis. I had no more need of an erection. I had only to hold him. I swear that as I grew softer, I felt even more intimate with him, feeling like I could perhaps hold him even closer. Long moments they were, but all too short for me. In each of them I tried to live a lifetime - feeling what it was like to have a boy's curling hair pressed, unmoving, into the flesh of my bicep; marveling at what it felt like when a boy's hot, sweet breath kissed the tender flesh in the crook of my elbow; listening for the faintest whisper of that little boy's breath. When I could steal a thought from those sensations, it was but to lose myself in others: did I know before these brief moments, that if you place your fingers in a sleeping boy's palm, he will curl his own fingers about it just like a baby? Had I ever imagined that the smell of a boy - even an unwashed boy - was earthy, but sweet at the same time - a cleanliness that must come from his very youth? It was so penetrating within the confines of our covers. Each new sensation served as a reminder that I had gone the better part of my life alone. Stefan was a lingering memory. Tomek too. It seemed that memories were all I was to be allotted in this life. To those I would now add a few precious hours with Jasio. At some point - I remember I had my right palm resting right over his tummy, my eyes closed, trying to sense the tiny little gurgles inside there, imagining the infinitesimally slow movement of his diaphragm - he suddenly stretched out his legs and arms, his thumb plopping from between his lips. He uttered a little groan of satisfaction, and then turned over right there in my arms. Now it was his turn to nudge in closer to my body - I swear he snuggled in against me, seeking the touch of our bodies together, seeking our shared warmth, perhaps wanting that sense of being safeguarded and treasured that I wanted so much to give him. Then I remember placing my hands on his bottom and pulling him in even tighter. I lingered there, feeling the pliant softness of his cheeks and the little vale between them. I fell asleep as my conscious caresses gave way to the slow rhythm of my hands traveling up and down his thighs and bottom, and I joined him in a complete surrender to ... us.