Date: Mon, 22 Nov 1999 18:00:53 EST From: insanevisionary@hotmail.com Subject: The Boys' Love This is a story of love and sex between two normal red-blooded, American boys. It is non-fiction, and it starts where most things do - at the beginning. But I mean really at the beginning. Birth, that is. After all, I'm writing this for the "young-friends" category, and you can't get much younger than that. I hope that some parts of this get you excited, but that is not why I wrote it. I am a serious writer and I want hear from you. I sacrificed to write this, and you will need to do the same to read it. The Boys' Love PART 1 - Babies James was born on the first day of May, and I showed up almost three months later. He was first at just about everything. Our parents were close friends and they built their houses in the same small Massachusetts town, about two miles from each other. They spent a lot of time helping each other, went out to dinner and square dancing, they barbecued and drank beer in their back yards together, and of course, they shared their children with each other, too. As a result of their friendship, my earliest memories are of lying next to James in a crib or small bed, just looking at him and absently playing with a lock of his soft, curly hair. And of making little whispering sounds and listening to his breathing and whispers back, and of the warmth of his body - of the sweet smell and feel of another little boy's soft skin against mine. We were two blonde-haired, blue eyed little boys, and as we grew we shared everything - cribs and bottles, naps and cookies, diaper changes and baths, jokes and laughter and scrapes and tears. We were "the boys." We both had siblings to spend time with, but it was almost impossible for an adult to put together a sentence that included the name "James" without putting in a "William" as well. I don't remember exactly how early on we discovered each other's little bodies and our sexual feelings, but it was very early. I remember putting my hand down the front of James' diaper while he pee-peed (it was nice and warm and made me giggle), and feeling his fingers around my little pecker and balls while I wet myself too. We figured out what kisses were, and how good we could feel, touching each other's boners. This was just the beginning. When we walked together, we held hands. When we played together we hugged and kissed a lot. When we watched TV, we sat on the couch and put our arms around each other, or lay down together on the floor. We were not yet discouraged from behaving this way by our parents, but I remember that sometimes older children or adults would look at us as if something were wrong, or point and giggle the way one does when they see a kid with his shirt on backwards or inside-out. There was very little display of affection in both our houses, and the word "love" was never spoken. It would be years before either of us would be able to express our feelings with words, or come to realize that we were falling, or had already fallen in love with each other. PART TWO - Not Babies One summer day, just after James had turned 5, we were sitting on the couch at his house watching cartoons. He had his arm wrapped around my shoulder and my right hand was in his lap moving back and forth slowly. A commercial break came on and I turned my head and kissed him on the cheek. He smiled, and returned the kiss softly, on my lips, then his arm raised from my shoulders and he had a surprised look on his face. Neither of us had seen his father come up behind the couch and lift James' arm from around me. "Cut that out now," he said roughly. "You're both gonna be in school pretty soon y'know, and I don't want to hear people talking." I was confused, and James had a funny look on his face so I didn't say anything. I was so naive. Just because I didn't see any other boys kissing each other didn't mean I shouldn't do it. My poor mother tried to explain when I asked her about it that night, but all I remember was that I felt like something had changed, and I didn't even really know what it was, or why it had changed. The next time I saw James, he slept over at my house and our parents went out. We slept over at one house or the other almost every night in the summer, and although we were both 5 years old and "big boys" now, we both still wet the bed at night. Before the adults left that night I was on my way back to bed after sneaking a forbidden drink of water, and I overheard a discussion between James parents. "There's nothing wrong with it," his mother said. "Well maybe you don't think so," his fathers' voice sounded loud. "But it just isn't right lettin' them sleep in the same bed all the time. They're too big for that now, and. it just. it just ain't right." "Oh Jeff, honey, it's not doing them any harm. Besides, you know what happens when we put them in separate beds - they just end up together anyway. You gonna chase them around and carry them back and forth all night?" Just then, my mom walked into the room and said, "C'mon Jeff, it's getting late and you know she's right. We've all talked about this before. They're still just little boys for God's sake - and it's a whole lot easier for Sarah and me to wash one set of sheets, and clean up the one bed in the morning." James' dad's face was turning red now, and he sounded angry. "All's I know is that there's nothing wrong with my boy, and I wanna keep it that way. There's no weirdo's in our family, and if I can help it - there ain't gonna be." I knew that he was talking about Mom's brother who got divorced and moved to Key West three years ago. Mom got mad when he talked about Uncle Al like that. I didn't know what it was about Al, but Jeff used to snicker and say things under his breath when his name came up. I'd always liked my only Uncle. He was nice and he smiled a lot and brought the neatest toys for my birthdays. My mother started getting that mad look on her face, but James' Mom said, "OK Jeff, you can stop being a jerk now." She meant it too. I could tell because she sounded real calm and talked kinda slow, and that was when you didn't mess with her. "C'mon, Brenda," she said to my mother, "The boys are in bed already in Williams' room. Let's go and check in on them, and I'll help you with the hem on that petticoat before we go." I ran back to the bedroom as quietly as I could, jumped in next to James and closed my eyes. I didn't want to get caught because my sister Carol was babysitting that night, and sometimes, if we were good, she would let us stay up late and watch TV with her. I often had really bad dreams at that age (and still do), so when I woke up in the middle of the night and heard someone crying I thought at first that it was me, but then I realized it was James. I was surprised. James did not cry real tears very often, and when he did I felt awful, like something was being ripped out of me. I felt pain in a place that I couldn't see or touch, but I had to fix it. Of the two of us, I was the real crier. It took nothing big at all to make me tear up, but James - crying - in the middle of the night - this was big, and terrible, and scary. I slipped one little hand out from under the blanket, towards James' wet face. The settling covers puffed a familiar scent up to me - at least one of us had wet, maybe both. I touched one wet cheek lightly with a small thumb. "James?" No answer. His breathing changed to a try to stop crying and get control sob. I tried again. "S'matter Jamie?" It was my special name for him that I used only when we were completely alone. No one else ever called him that, and no one but James ever called me "Willy." He blinked, sniffled and let me wipe his face with my hand. "Did you have a bad dream?" I asked. He shook his head slowly. "Are you sick? Does your tummy hurt?" "Noooooo." he wailed. The front of my pajama bottoms felt cold. "I think we're wet," I said. "I know," he sobbed. "It was me." I smiled into the near darkness. "My turn next," I said. James burst into tears again. Now I was lost. What was this? What was wrong? Neither of us had ever cried over wetting in our beds. We never worried. It was always okay. We even used to play games with it, peeing on each other and in each other's underpants and jammies after waking up wet anyway. I would make funny sounds when he peed warm and sweet in my mouth, and it tasted good - like him, like my James. But what was this? Sometimes we would get up and change each other, powdering and pampering each other like babies and go back to bed on top of the covers in nice dry undies and soft, warm PJ's, but then we would wake up wet again anyway. And we didn't care. I wound my fingers around his under the blanket. "D'you wanna get up and change?" I whispered. He squeezed my hand and shook his head slowly. I figured he just didn't feel good and didn't want to tell Carol, so we could watch TV. I couldn't think of anything else that could be wrong but I still needed to help, so I cuddled up as close as I could get and held his hand, and listened to his little sobs and wished he would feel better. Years later, when we were about ten, he told me more about that night. We were sitting in one of our favorite private spots. It was about three-quarters of the way up the side of one of the mountains near my house, on the edge of a cliff that only young boys would venture out onto, when he just came out and said, "You remember that night when we were 5, and you woke up and Carol was babysitting, and I was crying?" He used to do that, just say something really important, right out of the blue, and it was always rhetorical because he knew I would remember. He went on. "I. I didn't tell you why." He picked up a small rock and flung it into the air. I watched his dark blue eyes follow it out, and then look up into nothing as it sank into the trees. I loved his eyes, and that far-away look he would get sometimes when he wanted to tell me something real important. It was for me, just for me, and it filled me up to the top and made me feel like the most special person in the whole world. "It was my Dad," he said looking right at me now. We stared into each other's eyes for a second and then I looked down again. He picked up another rock. "He told me that if I kept wetting my bed and stuff. like a baby, and sleeping with another boy, that he was gonna send me to school in a diaper." "Holy shit." It came out of my mouth as a whisper. "Yeah." He threw the rock. "My Mom talked him out of it but." I knew where this was going. I was the only one who knew and would ever really know that James' father had abused him psychologically and physically. But now I knew when it had started. James' father just couldn't accept James the way he was. I had seen bruises on James' thighs and back in the shower many times before this, and in one of those far-away moments he told me about his Dad and what happened and he made me promise not to tell. And God help me - I was just a little boy, and I loved James so. I promised. But none of what he got from his Dad stopped him from being together with me, and it didn't help his bedwetting either. We slept together whenever we could, and wet together always, no matter how hard we tried. We promised to wake each other up and go. We did it too, we got up and at least one of us would pee in the toilet, half asleep, dazed, but trying so hard to be dry at night like "all the other boys." But James was stronger than I was. I was the crier, and the wetter. A professional. I had a tough time "holding it" during the day and was embarrassed to ask to go to the boy's room, so I wet myself sometimes in school. When I had the courage to say I had to go - I really had to. We're talking painful emergency. I was a small, shy, boy and "thin as a rail," as they say, and the other boys took advantage. I got beat up a lot. Now I realize that about a third of the boys who picked on me wet their beds too, and took their frustrations out on me because they thought I was weaker than they were. They were wrong. I took their abuse, and didn't need to look for a way to hurt someone else. (Fact: about 20 percent of boys between the ages of 5 and 13 wet the bed.) James came to my rescue sometimes, but he was a beautiful little boy, and strong and popular, and one day he said, "I can't do this for you all the time, Willy." I understood. And I knew that he loved me. I knew that the whole world was not for us. I knew that it was a different world when it was just the two of us, and I wanted that more than anything. I knew that he was telling me that he loved me, and that he was trying to be okay in their world and love me at the same time. That's how things were until the summer he turned 13 and I was twelve. Nothing much had changed. We still slept together as much as possible, we wet at night and played games - Oh, the sweet little boy wetting games, and all the incredible dry orgasms we shared. I loved kissing. I used to trade all kinds of favors for a kiss from James, but always it was always with the understanding that he felt the same, and he never played games. I remember hearing our mother's laughter in private, when talking about hearing us giggling in bed together. And I will never forget the disgusted tone I heard in James' Dad's voice one night. "Probably having a regular `pee party' up there." as he flipped a card into the center of the dining room table. He was right, and I made sure of it that night. I could have gotten up and went to the bathroom but I didn't. I was cuddled up to his dear son, so warm and comfy, and I let go just to please us both. James was awake, and bent down to take the last of my strong boy's pee stream between his full lips. He swallowed until I was done, and then with one hand under my soft, hairless little guy's nuts (just the way he liked it too), he brought me to an incredible, dry, shuddering climax in his soft, warm and loving mouth. I pulled him up next to me and sighed into his smooth, young chest, and let him hold me as tight as he wanted. I fell asleep in his arms, knowing that I would do the same for him when I woke in the morning, and felt his sweet salty boy's pee, warming my underpants. I loved the smell of his pee. The scent was always a little different than mine, and it always tasted good. It was comfortable. It was something I knew. It was home. He was all there was in my world. The smell and taste of him, and his strong little boy's arms around me. And that cute, sloppy, boyish grin of his, which I knew would always be there in the morning for me - even though we were soaked and smelly and we would make the rest of the house hold their noses. I have always wondered if James' father was one of that 20 percent when he was a boy and what he went through. Or if he'd had feelings for another boy, or a man, (maybe even - oh my God - my Dad) and he couldn't let his son have what he denied himself. I am sure I will never know. Grammar School was a miserable time for me - at least the school part was. But those years of my life were the absolute best too, because of James. I don't know why an adult didn't grasp the situation, and just make it possible for me to get up and go to the boy's room without asking. I grew tired of having to be constantly afraid of the other boys, and James grew tired of watching them pick on me and taunt and tease and push and shove until I cried. My mother's advice was "Just ignore them and they'll go away," but it didn't work because all they wanted was to know that they had hurt me in some way, and they wouldn't stop until they were sure they had done. But James found ways to get even, and hatched plans. The two of us would write naughty things on the blackboard, or hide a pair of boots or a coat and scarf. We stole homework, all the while making it look like someone else was to blame. We even got two of the other boys fighting one day. James was clever. Oh was he ever. We never got caught. How we laughed that day when Billy Sparsky had to stay after and clap out all the erasers on the side of the building, and when Eddy Snow had to write that sentence on the blackboard 20 times. PART THREE - A Young Romantic Oh, the young are capable of such romantic thought. Youth is truly wasted on the young. I stole that from someone, but it is something I have always kept close to me and, what the heck, plagiarism is flattery after all. It was a hot and very humid day in mid-July. James and I used to climb the mountain, Sugarloaf it was, to get high enough to catch a breeze and be alone. There was a road to the top, where tourists came to see the valley spread out below, but there were trails that went up from the Southernmost point for people who knew they were there. And from the main trail there were others that spread out toward the road and toward the side of the mountain that was just crumbling cliffs of sandstone. It was on one of these that we would find the best chance for privacy, beyond where the sensible adult hiker would go. James would play games on me sometimes and just let go of my hand and run, laughing. It was a great game. He could run faster and farther than I could and then he would wait for me to catch up. I would go as far as my little legs could and then, out of breath and at a junction of trails, try to figure out where the hell he had gone, which trail he had taken. I knew them all as well as he did, but he was so much stronger than me, and in better shape, and would double back and scare the crap out of me. Hi did that today, running ahead, laughing, but it seemed a bit different. Like the times when he would have something on his mind. And somehow, to me, even different than that. I climbed as fast as I could for a hundred feet and stopped and called his name. Nothing came back but the air, moving slowly in the heat, through the tops of the trees. It was up to me to guess. I went up, to a place where I knew the air would cool me, even though he probably knew right where I was. I would go there, and if he wasn't there I would wait. He always showed up when I gave up finding him, and today I didn't have the energy to go on a long search. It had been two days since we had been alone for more than a couple of minutes and I wanted just to hold him and call him mine. I figured he would want the same. I was right. I sat on a cliff's edge looking out. A small rock bounced two inches from my left foot, and into the air. I sat still. Another. Then another, followed by a handful of dirt blown sideways. Finally I looked up. He grinned down at me, "I was right here all the time," he said. "I knew you'd wait here." Of course. He always did. No matter where I ended up; on the road somewhere, or just on a log next to one of the trails, he always found me. I knew he would. No matter where one of us was, the other would always know, and would go there. I tried not to look as he slid down to me in a shower of sand and pebbles. I made him come right up behind me before I looked. I don't know why. I felt his hand on the small of my back. It moved up, caressed me softly, and ended up around my shoulder. I leaned into him. He slid his other hand under my chin, pulled my face toward him, and kissed me, his tongue just at the opening of his mouth, waiting for mine. Magic. Oh, the magic I had felt since ever I could remember. You know. The real thing. Right there with you. James always kept his eyes open when we kissed. Talk about intense. I kissed him back. Our hands wandered. My heart and mind were on fire. There were no trees. There was no breeze. There was no humidity. No heat but what I felt from him. My hands wandered to the button at the top of his jeans. To my surprise he stepped back. I looked up and saw that his eyes were wet. My hands fell to my sides. In response to the questioning look on my face, his mouth turned up into a crying smile. "I. I gotta show you," he said softly. "Just - so you know." He unbuttoned his jeans and pulled the zipper down slowly and stopped. I looked into his eyes. Whatever was to come next he couldn't do on his own. I knelt in front of him as I had done, tenderly, so many times before, and pulled his pants down to mid thigh. There were so many bruises. My breath left me. When I looked up, I saw a small reddish-brown spot on the front of his white underpants. I looked up into his beautiful tear-streaked face. "Oh baby," I whispered. "Oh Jamie. Oh, my baby." My tears ran freely now, and I wiped them away with my sleeve. "Oh Jesus, what did he do to you?' He grabbed one of my hands and pulled. "C'mere," he croaked. I let him pull me up. He me held tight, trembling, and whispered, "I love you, Willy." And then again, in a normal and serious tone, with his eyes on mine. "I love you." I had never seen him like this and I didn't know what to do. "I know, James. I know and I always have." I held him as hard as I could. As if my little arms would hurt him, but I didn't care. His mouth found mine and I let his eyes find my soul the best I could, because I always knew that I was always looking straight into his. A small period of time went by. People flew by in large planes overhead. People drove by on the road below. People just above us looked out on the valley, taking pictures. He had to let me see, and I knelt again in front of him. I pulled his underpants down in the back slowly, over his soft, white, muscular fanny and then, carefully, I pulled the waistband of his Fruit of the Looms out toward me and down, so they were even with the back, at the curve of his cheeks. I saw more bruises, continuing up under his little white briefs. His inner thighs were all black and blue. His right nut was swollen. His were always a little bigger than mine, but this was something different. Then I saw it. The end of his foreskin, that special, sensitive place that I loved to tickle with my tongue was bloody and raw. It looked as if someone had put a cigarette out on it. One hand went to my mouth. I couldn't speak. I remember seeing his hands reach down to the waistband and pull his briefs up, then I was in his arms again. His tears were hot against my neck and he was trying to talk but nothing came out. I was trying to say that we had to tell someone, but all I got out was a clipped, "I -love you - Jamie." In the next few blurred moments I went down on my knees and was sick. I heard him say something that sounded like, "I can't take it any more." I heard a scuffle of gravel. I turned around and he was gone. I looked around. Was he hiding on me? Where had he run to now? Then I knew. The breeze blew it into me, I think. A sense that a fire had gone out. I went to the edge and looked over. I started getting dizzy. The next I knew, I was sitting in the brush, back from the edge. I remember getting up more than once and trying to walk out into the air. I don't know why, but I kept finding myself just sitting in the leaves and dirt again. For the next couple of hours I had random thoughts like, "It's gonna be time for supper soon, so I better go," but nothing was real. Nothing registered. At six PM that evening, a woman who lived a half-mile from the trail called the police and said that a boy had shown up in her yard asking if she would help him look for his friend, who had had an accident. I remember a policeman, and telling him that James had fallen. I remember sirens and firetrucks and people looking at large pieces of paper spread out on the lady's kitchen table. I remember asking over and over for them to please go and find James, that he was lost. I remember just crying and asking. And being asked over and over about where we were, and what had happened. I remember a nice man in a white shirt who held me and wiped my face, telling me that it was going to be OK, and that they were there to help. I remember a ride in the back of a big car, as the sun was setting, and a policeman telling my parents that there had been an accident on the mountain and that James was dead. I remember running from room to room screaming, insisting that they go back and look for him. I remember being held down by many hands, and the kind man in the white shirt gently brushing back my hair and then putting a needle in my arm and whispering gently in my ear, "You can go look for James now, if you want." Then my ears felt warm, then my neck, and then my chest and legs, and I think I said, "OK," and I fell asleep. PART FOUR - No Ending The next few days and weeks are hard to describe. I was a mess, and so were the people around me. I took pills to help me sleep. There was no real support except from my father who indulged me and let me cry. As far as anyone knew, it had been an accident. I never told anyone otherwise, and I never said anything about the abuse. But I know that I am not the only one who knew. At the funeral, and ever after that, James' father could not meet my eyes. There were those, including James' mother who blamed me in all kinds of ways. But she, at least, must have known about her son's torment. The friendship between our families dissolved for lack of communication and understanding, and James' family moved away seven months later, after Jeff had lost his job for showing up drunk too often. I don't even remember where they went. In the years to follow I let myself be used by some of the other boys for sex. I thought they were offering friendship and comfort but they were not. I became less naive. I have tried to make long lasting relationships with women without any success at all. I know that it's not only because I truly prefer men. Even in the good straight relationships, there was more missing than just that. There always will be. Just the other day a friend complained about the line, "I'll love you `til the end of time." "Man," he said, "That's dumb. When I'm dead, that's it." I wanted to tell him that I am one of those people who believe that love is stronger than death. There is no ending to this story of "The Boys." James still loves me and misses me. I know. because he tells me. What we keep in our hearts is ours, and will be his, forever. I will never be alone. Please respond to: insanevisionary@hotmail.com