Date: Thu, 3 Oct 2002 16:00:13 -0500 From: Tom Emerson Subject: THE TARZAN MUSHROOM HUNTERS BOOK V THE TARZAN MUSHROOM HUNTERS by R. Forbes Emerson (Bi-ped, inc., rom.) BOOK V Meshing an iconoclastic clergyman with a town in the Dixie bible belt would seem a good working definition of `problematic'. But things had gone smoothly. Since the churches as they existed were entirely the product of propaganda, and since a half-moron and twice blind president was faith oriented, emptying the pews had proceeded easily following a set pattern Rev. Christopher had perfected in Epping. The Mushroom Hunters, alike, waylaid attractive hikers and combed the surrounding valleys for thousands of pounds of the succulent quack plants each week, with correspondingly huge checks from their wholesaler. It had all taken a bit of doing, yes, but sooner than he would have believed possible, Kit and Victor were setting a brisk but far from tortuous pace along the trail and, to make a long story short, the ducks were in a row and it was turning out to be a pretty awesome summer for all concerned. Alex had found a friendly neighborhood bachelor for Kip and still saw a good deal of everybody as he tended his various trap lines. When the microscope is focused, don't play with the dials. Alex didn't. He remained highly alert for unwanted influences, and let the parade march on pretty much by itself. He now found time to get into the rectory, wondering that it hadn't been taken away, but nonetheless enjoying the roomy house and sprawling grounds. After he'd tinkered the plumbing, wiring and assorted loose hinges and cracked tiles to perfection, the pastor decided to walk off the perimeter of the church's property. He liked going barefoot so he wore only running shorts and a T-shirt. The two hundred acres stretched into the foothills and the surveyor was in the most remote corner when he heard a distant splash. It didn't seem like a place where there'd be abandon wells, but something heavy had fallen into nearby water and it could mean trouble. Alex charged off in the direction of the sound, quickly mounting a small forested hill. The sound had come from the small valley below and was repeated at his feet. It now did not sound like trouble and therefore was none of his business. He was about to leave when from behind a tree a hundred feet down the hill, a boy emerged end-for-ending a large oblong rock. As Alex watched the kid was barely able to heave one end aloft, then he let it fall with a concussive splash. "Ahoy, Mr. Roebling," the young preacher called from the hilltop, waving. The boy started, looked up, and waved back. "You need some help with your bridge?" Alex shouted. "So far none of it his built itself," the boy yelled back. Alex half-sighed. Couldn't he, one of these days, meet a sullen child who'd give him the finger and tell him to mind his own business (which happened to include taming sullen children, by-the-by). But no, a tall, slim typical-kid boy with off-blond hair in a prison cut. He looked eleven or so, and was dressed, like Alex, in gym shorts and a school T-shirt. The preacher skidded down the steep embankment on his bare heels, and, since it was the best maneuver with which to tackle the final incline, sprung a cartwheel, landing in the stream with a dramatic splash, but on his feet. "Cool," the boy said, extending his hand. "I'm Sandy Gallagher." Alex introduced himself, then the two looked up the stream. Obviously the rock was destined to be part of an impromptu dam. It weighed some hundreds of pounds so it was roll it along, or nothing. They strained in silence, the woods echoing to a faster series of splashes than before, and eventually muscled it in place on the rock wall. "That will make it at least half a foot deeper," Sandy said, once the stone was in place and they'd packed the chinks, "thanks." "Do you want company, or should I take off?" Alex asked. "The water will clear in a few minutes. It's not exactly a lake but we could cool off." "Don't mind if I do," the minister said, miming opening a beer and blowing the foam off the can. "That would hit the spot, or at least a Coke," Sandy laughed. "Did you build it all yourself?" Alex asked. "No," Sandy said, "my friend Roy helped me." "You do good work," the twenty six year old said to the boy. "He was afraid of lifting so many stones because he might get pecs or abs," Sandy laughed. "Meaning he wasn't brain dead," Alex said, nodding wisely. "Well, I knew who Roebling was when you called from up on top of the hill," Sandy said, "and I didn't learn it on a Soloflex." That was a good point, and for several minutes the conversation lulled as the man and boy watched the fresh water of the brook flush the mud clear. "You're the priestess with the leastest, or so they say," Sandy said. "I've torn up a congregation to two in my time," Alex affirmed, "though I suppose it's nothing to brag about." "Using the pews to build a symbolic coffin, big enough to hold a passel of saints and virgins got people's attention," Sandy allowed. "It was all in fun," Alex agreed. "You're really nice," the boy said. "I think you are, too," Alex said. "Do you want to swim, or whatever it is, now, or we could talk more, first?" Sandy asked. "I was just looking for boundaries to pass the time," Alex said, "I'd like to hang out for awhile." The boy didn't have to say `good' because his smile said super. That settled the sat on the rock-wall dam seeing if they could kick in the water gently enough not to stir up sediment. "Is it okay if I take my T-shirt off?" Sandy asked. "Sure," Alex said, his penis stiffening from a shock of hot blood. Sandy stood carefully to keep his footing and peeled of the shirt, folding it neatly before laying it on a rock. "Take yours off, too," the boy suggested. "If you want," he said in a quiet voice, not quite his own, "I can turn my back when I stand up." "That's okay," the boy said, his voice also a little ragged. Alex stood in foot-deep water, his erection tenting his running shorts hugely, peeled his shirt, folded it and held it to Sandy so he could place it beside his own, then he sat. "Roy got that way, too," Sandy said. "Did you like it when it happened," Alex asked. "I was scared the first time, but we had a long talk, then he took me up in the woods were we'd have privacy." "Did you like being alone with him?" "Yes. He was really gentle," Sandy said, yawning, his voice husky. "You don't have to talk about it you don't want to," Alex said. "I just don't want to gross you out that I'm a fag or anything," Sandy said, free of anger or angst, just being polite. "If you sing the top five hit songs from `Okalahoma', `South Pacific' and `Camelot', in the next ten minutes, I'll think you're a little heavy on show-tunes, but I'll still like you," Alex said. Good to have that issue out of the way. What are you thinking? Alex asked as they sat gazing into the clearing and filling pond. "Roy and I liked to skinny-dip, and I thought you might want to try it with me." "Just because of the heat," Alex said. "Oh, for sure," the boy replied with a laugh. "No," he went on, "what I was thinking was if we're going to see each other, anyway, we could take our shorts of now and go for a walk. The pool should be perfect when we get back." "I'd like that," Alex said and they helped each other to their feet and to the safety of the forest floor. If you live in Mexico and people compliment you on your Spanish, it means you are not fluent. Alex and Sandy did not comment on each other's size for the same reason. The child was like a man, almost seven inches jutting nearly straight up from his slender, childish hips and touching the little-boy softness of his belly. Alex was a man over him but not by much. They looked at each other shyly, and, by accord, Sandy looped his left pinky with Alex's right digit. Of course, if you rattle along pretty well in Espanole, people occasionally will be good enough to compliment you. "If I may risk being presumptuous," Alex said, "I think you did just the right things with Roy. You came out perfectly." "He was a disciplinarian," Sandy said, highly comfortable with his new friend's comment. "I always wanted to swallow when it happened, but he made me spit out at least most." "Just in time, too," Alex said, "otherwise shower time might end up more of an adventure than you want." "Yeah," Sandy agreed, "I'm just a little bigger than Sammy Jordan, so it was worth it, but sometimes it was hard to stop." "Building dams of heavy boulders is hard, too," Alex observed. "Half as hard," the boy replied. "Is Roy the only man who's molested you?" Alex asked. "Yes," Sandy replied, "he's the only one I've been alone with. Sammy wants me to sleep over, but it hasn't happened yet." "Girls?" "There's a girl on television, you know, the one my age on the diving board, I think it's a calcium supplement ad, well, she's okay, but otherwise it's pretty slow when you're eleven." "Don't despair," Alex said, "and remember what Tiger Woods said about being eleven and having the pretties girlfriend you ever saw, getting straight As, and winning thirty-two tournaments, and how life has been all uphill since." Sandy laughed. "I'd trade the ribbons and the girl for Roy." "Is he still here?" Alex asked. "No," the boy said, "he got the American disease, transferitis, but only three hundred miles so we can still get together once a month or so." "That's better than nothing," Alex agreed. "If partings are gentle and with some degree of lingering friendship they are a hundred times easier to bear, and often feel inevitable and natural when the visits stop altogether." If this weren't a novel, I'd footnote the manuscript here with squibs chronicling my parting with Anne and Jose. Anne went from riding two thousand miles from Santa Fe to Chetumal with her left hand under my thigh to never wanting to see me again or have any communications; she didn't even drop me a line when the dog died. There is every chance if she'd damaged me so badly I could no longer function I would have hunted her down and killed her, Tom Cruise, her lawyer number II, not the actor, or, perhaps even their children. It surprises me more men don't avenge themselves in the only way it is truly possible, but, probably in most cases, the men are guilty of sufficient transgressions to earn the life sentence a divorce carries. It was a near thing. Jose and I parted, after an equally intense relationship of four-years duration, little by little, and it was painless for both of us. We didn't even shake hands or hug on the steps of Sr. Frog's in Mazatlan, he walked south and I walked north. As a footnote to a footnote, I would say that if we had remained at a convenient distance we'd still be friends, as I am with several boys I had relationships with here in Dangriga, in my younger and wilder days, over twenty years ago. In fact, I tried to contact him through relatives in Los Angeles, several times, but, nothing came of it. If anyone knows Jose Armando DeLira Varela of Torreon, Coahuila, and, probably, Mazatlan, do, do write. (Last I knew, he was writing songs for Jose Louis Rodriguez and Juan Gabriel, but that was in '87.) In any event, he was the most crystalline of friends and best of companions, and the fact he spoke no English and I no Spanish never seemed to make much of a difference. If anything, it made even simple messages long, drawn-out exercises in charades, which, half the time, left us both in stitches. This is the poorest time of my life. For the first time in thirty years I'm late with the rent. School, school and more school, and I'm not done, yet. Plus, I let the cats go, literally, for two days, doubling the usual horror show under my bed. The only good thing I could think of for a while was that horse manure doesn't smell like cat stool. (Maybe if it did the conquistadores would not have bothered spreading their sacred hellhounds in the New World.) Anyway, I guess CBS is not the only one with Reality Checks as reality is owing somebody and cleaning up for five cats that love you so they can hardly bear to use the deep sand which surrounds the house. The cash flow pinch is not my fault. Dear Samantha decided not to show up for a week or more, and, having been dumped once with all the ceremony due a banana peel, I overreacted and spent a lot of money on the house, thinking she was off on other avenues, so as to have a decent nest should I find another young, young sweetheart. By the time the confusion was ironed out, we were down to grocery money, and not a whole lot of that. Good lesson for all of us. I should trust more, she should be more responsive, or go off on her own, and her mother should keep a better eye on things. Naturally Linden, in the middle of all this decided, a, to move back to Dangriga with his girlfriend, and, b, broke a molar and needed it hauled out. Now there are eleven days until my next check, so we aren't out of the woods, though we should make it with a hundred dollars to spare. I enjoy being poor. Less is more. Every little thing becomes precious, and nothing is better at keeping me housebound and at my keyboard. I know I'm financially stretched when I light the mosquito coils by first lighting the gas stove, so I won't waste lighter fluid. Someday I'm going to write a novel with no essay material. I've pretty well said and repeated what I have to say over the last thousand or so pages I've published; the problems and the solutions. My ancestor started this country and you are doing a bad job with it; I want it back. You should jump on the bandwagon just so you'll have someone to blame when the whole house of credit cards collapses. In the meantime, Samantha becomes more intriguing every day, so don't go making any rash decisions. Malcolm Dale was telling me about the most prolific English author. Apparently he wrote two twenty-page comics every week plus hundreds of other works. He claimed "Want of a wife" as his secret. I heartily agree. A six-thousand-word-a-day pace is not for a married man because there is nothing connubial about the five a.m. to midnight shift. It's an odd paradox of my childhood when people were constantly yelling at me to hurry up. Bad thing to tell a kid, how can he do a good job if all anyone wants is speed? And now here I am, master of the artistic universe, and I can't slow down. I breeze six thousand words at a sitting, and sometimes add ten thousand, or more. It's not a contest or a race, it's just that no one has ever done it before. Being number one in quality and quantity really is a little over-the-top, like being an artist and a king. Why me? What's next? Is it really possible to write great novels, practically pop them like dry corn, and live an even greater novel, or am I just a blowhard with ego issues and a typing condition? (Yes, I'll accept, gracious teacher that I am, out-of-work clown, but it will cost you a letter grade.) Could I have done it if Anne had been true? No. Would I change it if I had it to do over? Double no. A hundred times out of a hundred times I would have left Anne if her obsession with the proverbial `piece of land' kept her from joining me and working on her own rich and special gifts. Disrespect, pure and simple. I worked too hard developing a scanty and elusive talent to have much patience with someone of far greater native ability who chose a house over immortality. Even without the brutal, final betrayal I could kill her for wasting her gifts, but her red hot rebound no. II was very likely a jerk, so she not only got what she deserved, but lost out on a half-million plus inheritance, to boot. Let her live, let her suffer, I've got the world's biggest and brightest bandaid and her name is Samantha Logan. I'm not much on lewd jokes being an updated Yankee Puritan at heart, but one did occur to me. It would be along the line of Samantha is my bandaid but I hope she keeps bleeding. Not very original because I doubt many middle-agers want their under-age girlfriends to get pregnant, for clinical reasons if for no others. Oh, my diet. I lie here on my workbed, thinking there's something to wrap up the editorializing, at least for awhile, but I couldn't remember what it was. It's the diet that works. There is not a scale in Dangriga that I'm aware of, so I keep track by how loose or tight my shorts are, and they're getting looser which can only mean one thing. For one thing, it's the world's simplest diet. One macaroni and cheese dinner with two hot dogs at noon, three large glasses of milk, and three cups of sweet tea. Nothing else except vitamin pills. All any human needs to stay healthy is this amount of food, full stop. It's all in the psychology. In saying to yourself I'd rather be a little hungry some of the time than way fat all the time; in other words, to enjoy hunger; to make it your pet and your friend. Of course, I cheated. Samantha may pull up my eyelids and pass me off for dead, and I take it with a grain of salt, but when she says I have a big belly, that's something I can do something about. I mean I don't think I'll get a carnival job with a thirty-three inch waist, but it's not my opinion that counts, it's hers, and if I want to feel her big belly in the shower one of these days, mine's gotta go, every last inch. It's a little like my maternal grandmother. She had the same staff keeping house with her for forty years and more. The reason is she kept house with them, did the windows, did the chandelier, cleaned up for dogs and cats, and put out where it counted. I have to pull in, but it's the same idea. I don't have a forty-year chance with Samantha, but I would like half that, assuming the liberals don't tear the country to absolute populist shreds in the meantime. I suppose I should once again apologize for the typos, glitches, wrong usages, redundancies and inconsistencies. They do creep in, bless their wittle hearts. A writer line-editing his own copy is like a doctor treating himself or a lawyer representing himself. It doesn't work out very well. It takes fresh eyes to catch the mistakes, and a writer must wait months to read his copy with even reasonably fresh eyes. On the same apologetic note, I should allude to knowing all my characters are the same; too bright, too aware, and so on. While none ever speaks above his age, all speak with the highest gloss possible for their age. On a brighter note, do this long enough, write, that is, and once in awhile you catch a lucky break as I did with this little segue back into the woods. "I found out something earlier this year, you wanna know what it was?" Sandy asked. "Sure," Alex said. "I was reading a biography of Charles Dickens," the boy explained, "and they had some facsimiles of his manuscripts. They were really full of cross-outs and margin notes. In fact, they were such a god-awful mess, a thought occurred to me, so I did some research on the Web. "Guess what?" "What?" Alex said. "Dickens didn't write his novels. Most of them were actually written by a typesetter named Elijah Pigg. He was able to read a line here and a paragraph there, but ninety percent he made up as he composed the plates." "Oh, good," Alex replied, "I like trashing history, too. I think Churchill and Roosevelt were the bums of the universe, Hitler the greatest hero of all time." "At least he had the brains to go after Stalin and the Bolsheviks," the boy responded. It's what they call `bonding' these days. "Pretty weird," Alex agreed. "Two people single-handedly saved the world last century, Adolph Hitler and Bill Gates." "Strange bedfellows," Sandy agreed with a nod. "Like Dickens and your Mr. Pigg of the nimble fingers.." "I guess it takes all kinds." They chuckled, and, having arranged the world a little more to their liking, walked on. "How did you meet Roy?" Alex asked after some minutes. "He was co-pilot of the plane I took to England," the boy replied. "Good show," Alex said, to the boy's giggle. "And you're bloody right, aren't you," the boy shot back. They walked further into the hilly forest, helping each other up and down the grades, holding hands even on the level stretches. It was a fun thing to do naked with a pubescent boy and they were lingering longer together each time their hike brought their young bodies in physical contact with each other. "Did anything happen on the plane?" Alex asked as by accord they found a fallen tree and sat on the nearly horizontal timber. "We talked a lot," Sandy recounted. "First it was about sports and the news, then religion as a global worst-case-scenarios. Then we found we had literature, at least to a mild degree, in common. I told him about my big Dickens caper and he gave me his address, which turned out to be close to Hastings, where we were just going to move, so that was another big bond." "Was he funny?" Alex asked. "He had potential," Sandy said. "I mean it was pretty obvious that he really liked me, and I thought he was almighty cute, and even got excited enough to ask him a girlfriend question so we could talk about stuff. He admitted right away that he thought I was cute, not in so many words, then he said if I was an airhead he's take me to the rear seat in coach with a couple of extra blankets so we could make a tent between the seatbacks, even if they weren't in their full upright position, but he said we'd get together later because he didn't want me for a one-flight stand." Alex laughed. Apparently Roy could be funny if he wanted to. "Did you get together in England?" he asked. "He had a Morgan. He said he always took exactly the same route out to the same farm in the midlands because he was scared to death of becoming the only motorist in the U.K. to drive on the right side of the road. That got us talking about oddballs and that led to queers and that led him to telling me that he'd dated a boy my age who lived on the farm where he hiked. He was real low-key about it, afraid I'd be uptight, but I just said Lucky boy. Then he asked if I wanted to go hiking, and I agreed even though there was only one choice of venue. "I had to take a taxi to meet him on what he called the sacred route, but once we got going it didn't seem any worse than the movies." "The Morgan must have been a riot," Alex said. "Yeah," the boy said, "it was. It didn't have seven hundred horsepower like the ride you have, or so I hear, but it got us out into the country with all the old stone bridges and villages, then to the farm at the edge of the forest." "Were you nervous?" Alex quizzed. The boy didn't try to make a joke at the expense of wrong-way motorists. "Scared is more like it," he said. "It was one thing to talk about it a little on the plane, but going off into the woods with him was something else. "He was really nervous, too, because we'd kind of fallen in love and for him it had never been like that with a boy and with me it had never been like that with anybody. "I was really glad he was experienced." "Did he tell you about other boys?" Alex quizzed. "Some," Sandy said, voice husky and deliciously in the dump. "It's a good way to get excited," Alex said. "Yeah, but you really have to like somebody," the child observed. "That helps from beginning to end." "And how," the boy agreed. "Can I sit in your lap?" he asked. "Yes," Alex said. "Do you want me to face you or so you can take me from the back?" the eleven year old asked. Now there's a good place to boost the old count. Which would you choose? "From the back," the older male whispered, standing and gently manhandling the child, pulling the lithe, young back gently against his flat belly and letting his hands roam the flanks and immature belly of the boy. "It's nice being experienced," Sandy whispered, "it took Roy half an hour to get me up under my shirt and I got a little bit frustrated because I knew there was more, but I didn't know what it was, and I wanted to find out before I died." "You lived to tell the tale," Alex observed. "Close, though," the boy rejoined with a shy grin Alex sensed rather than saw. "Where did it happen?" Alex prompted. There was something about holding a coltish, naked stripling against you and hearing about his first time that Alex couldn't help find alluring. How sad it would to be promiscuous, more is less, and perhaps even find the experience became tiresome. It had been a week since he'd been with one of the boys, and, he realized, it had been just as happy a week as those that included his first meeting with Kit, the reunion with Nancy and Ken, to which Shirley had been `invited', the word a euphemism for `kidnapped' under the circumstances, or his time spent in private with Kip and three others over the two months he'd been in Hastings. "Not in the Morgan," Sandy replied, and again Alex could sense the quiet grin of a contented boy. "Do tell," Alex laughed. In the history of England Alex was sure babies had been conceived in every possible place, and half-possible place, from the tallest oak to the deepest quarry, but, he was pretty sure few, if any, had been started in the inaptly named cockpit of the small, hot roadster. "Instead of having a spare tire mounted on the trunk," he mused, "they should have a blanket." On reflection he decided to repeat the joke to Sandy. "How did you know?" the boy whispered, instead of giggling. The tone of his voice was intriguing. It was an unguarded moment, a misunderstanding, and any underlying frustration or resentment would probably have surfaced. Molesting boys is not a tricky business, they pretty much do or do not want to partner that way, and that's it. But there can be more too it; heavy handed seduction engendering a kernel of bile that can put a child off his, or her, feed and ripple and echo throughout their lives, with a clergy united in telling such kids they belong under a rotting log. Wild behavior can instill wildness; a gross violation of will likely yield gross violations by. Even though we know sexual assault is a special issue, we should pretend it isn't, pretend it's like any other assault; duking it out in a bar or even in the ring. It hurts, like a bad fall on water skies, what's for breakfast? Since people pretend themselves into misery, as I do, fantasizing about Tom Cruise's first time naked with my wife sans condom or pill, perhaps they can also pretend themselves into happiness, as I do in many ways including featuring myself as the god of artists of all time. Seems to be working and I'll be the first to admit I may be faking pretend when Samantha coos Afternoon, Tom, through the screen door of my ethereal tropic backwater. If she's after Anne's half million I'm sure I'll enjoy handing it over. That's one thing about a dumped guy, it takes very little to pleasure him, for every pleasure is doubled by its corresponding balming of pain. Would it be better to forego the pain, in the first place? Sure, but how boring would that be? My wife may have had her babies with him, but she managed to produce a hell of a novelist the day he first held the left hand always under my right thigh, however long the trip. Alex explained the joke and Sandy promised he'd remember it as a joke while going on with his story. "Nothing would have happened if it hadn't been for the shepherds," he said. "We were sitting on the blanket, Indian style, feeding Hemingway to the fish and comparing the rest to the cow pies on the meadow. We both had second string English writers we like, and we'd both read William DeMorgan, which was as big a coincidence as his living in Hastings. "We'd been in the glade half an hour, still in our street clothes, when Prince and Narfala appeared, just like you, at the top of a hill. They'd found a Roman coin and they thought Roy might know something about it. Prince was twenty and Narfala was twelve, from India. Prince was a swimming coach and shepherd in the summer so he could work on a book about old football injuries, not to the players, but to the fans." "Another clown?" Alex sighed to himself. He supposed it came of discrimination in choosing one's friends and let it go at that. "Narfala was one of Prince's school swimmers and they'd become friends and decided to wander the highlands together. `We never get to count the sheep, because we never sleep,' one of them said, I forget which. Anyway, it caused Roy and me to get very tense because both Prince and Narfala looked healthy enough to sleep, so there had to be a good reason, England being wolf-free, for not sleeping, and that reason was pretty obvious, looking back on it, because they were both tall and handsome." Alex could see where this story was going. He sat back on the fallen timber, pulling Sandy gently into his lap and catching his breath as the boy wriggled over his swollen penis so it rose next to his own and the base of his tender, white belly. "Can I turn around and sit the other way, later?" the child asked, his head lolling contentedly on Alex's chest. "Anytime," the young adult assured him, trying not to think a lewd thought about meat that turned itself when it got hot. "Pretty soon Narfala asked if I wanted to race to a copse off in the distance. Roy said it would be cool, so we took off. He won but I was gaining on him so he was saved by the dell." Alex shook his head. What was there to say? "Oh, hell?" Let them be funny, that was his motto. A little P.G. Wodehouse and a horrible enough mother, what difference could it possibly make? Actually, bad mothers can make a difference. I was reminded of this awhile ago when The Travel Channel had pictures of Stonington, Maine, where I lived for four years. [See "Stonington Stores" also posted on Nifty, if you can bear more, that is.] There was no water near the piers. When we moved to this remote fishing town, in 1960, there was a bond issue afloat to dredge the inner harbor. Even though we'd lived, coming from greater New York, in the town for literally a matter of weeks, she had to get involved and ended up giving a speech at Town Meeting. It wasn't the most embarrassing stunt she ever pulled, but it's at the top of the list. What the heck, in for a penny, in for a pound, and I don't THINK I've told this story before (with five hundred single-spaced pages in the last two months I do worry about repeating myself). It was third grade, I was nine. There was a school picnic on the last day. "How wonderful! she grinned with one of those huge mid-western tooth shows (she was raised partly in St. Paul (where her father founded American Standard)) like Terry Anderson, famous for being the last hostage, or Woody Flowers, shudder, "you can wear shorts." I learned about loosing from that. I tried everything I could imagine or fantasize to change her mind. As a last desperate plea, and knowing full well its potential for fatality, I even observed that none of the other kids would wear shorts. The Minnesota Ice Pick had her cold block, and shorts it was. Even the teachers didn't come near me. For four hours I sat huddled at the end of the remotest table, too scared to even make my way to the toilet. In the thirty years of that particular school I know as a certainty I'm the only boy to have worn shorts on the property (other than gym shorts, of course). Anyway, Stonington turned down the dredging project, and there the boats sat on their propellers, 2002, on national television. "We crashed on a bank by a pool. He broke off a branch and we checked the area for quicksand, but it was okay, so we relaxed and talked.. "He asked how long I'd known Roy and was startled when I said it was our first time together. `You must want to be alone,' he said. But I really like him, plus I was so nervous -- I mean we hadn't even taken our shirts off in half an hour on a hot day -- so I assured him that they were both like totally welcome." "Have you talked about stuff?" Narfala asked, his voice soft and warm, his brown eyes peering out from under a shock of raven bangs. "On the plane," Sandy said, "he'd done things under the blanket a couple of times, but we wanted to wait." "Prince and I had to wait, too," Narfala said. "Did that make it better?" Sandy asked. "It meant we could be naked when it happened," the boy said in his soft, lilting accent. "Could you see or was it in the dark?" the curious kid asked. "It happened at his apartment and we had candles," the twelve year old replied. "Did you know it was going to happen?" Sandy queried. "He said if I came over he'd want to be really mature together, so I knew it wasn't going to be supper without." "Had you done anything with your friends back in India?" "No," Narfala. "I was looking for a runaway goat once and I saw one of the boys down the street with his little sister, but that was my only experience." "So you must have been as scared as I am," Sandy said. "I doubt it," his new friend responded, "I mean look at you. You're white as a sheet." The juveniles thought this a great laugh and still panting from their long sprint they fell on the lush grass, lying cheek to cheek in opposite directions. "Has he seen you bare-chested?" Narfala asked. "I think that's where we were when you came," the boy answered, "we were both commenting on the heat." "Prince had four big logs burning on the fire the first time I visited his apartment," Narfala recalled. "Do men like that?" Sandy wondered aloud, "seeing boys with their shirts off?" "Yeah," Narfala replied, sensing his friend's sub-question. "I thought it was unusual, at first, myself, but then I babysat for Prince's nephew, he's eight, and he came into the living room without his top on. Suddenly I got it. Boys are beautiful. Younger kids can be beautiful to us, and we're the same to guys Prince's and Roy's ages." "I wish I'd known," Sandy said, "I would have taken my shirt off in the car." "That's overkill," Narfala advised. "Only in private or at the beach. It's like Christmas, if it came every day you'd get sick of opening presents in a week. In fact, Prince and I almost always wear at least a T-shirt and shorts even when we're alone." "Sure glad you said `almost'," Sandy intoned. "It's not such a big deal, you know," the slightly older boy said. "It's like the cherries on a sundae, it would be almost as good without them. It's the quality of the bananas, the ice cream, and the other ingredients that counts. Better to have them, without the cherries, than have the cherries by themselves." The white boy got it. He was almost bold enough to make an allusion to a sundae with hot fudge, but decided to let Narfala's white-as-a-sheet comment do for that kind of cuteness. "I think Roy and I are good on all the ingredients," he said, instead. "You appeared that way," Narfala replied, "otherwise we would have circled in back of the hill and left you alone." "Thanks," Sandy said. "He would have been a great teacher all by himself," Narfala replied, "but it would have been easier for me if I'd known nothing bad was going to happen, you know how imaginations run away with kids our age, before I opened Prince's door." Sandy pointed out that fact that his friend had known Prince far longer than he'd known Roy, thus making the beautiful black boy feel doubly welcome. They'd regained their breaths by now, but still lay so close to each other their hair touched. "It's nice to be able to talk about it," Sandy reflected, emphasizing his affection for Narfala by repeating the East Indian's point. "Some kids know really early," Narfala said, picking up the conversation. "Ally, the little boy I babysat with, took his top off on the stairs leading to the living room. I found it there when I took him up to his bedroom. He knew, and he'd had no experience, that I'd like seeing his body and he'd be able to ask me a lot of questions about girls; that I'd let him sit in my lap." "Is it nice with a little boy?" the eleven year old asked. "Do you know one?" Narfala countered. "My friend Sammy has a brother that's eight like..." "Ally," Narfala reminded him. "Like Ally. He came down to say goodnight in his underpants once while Sammy was in the kitchen running the blender." "That's as open an invitation as a child can give," Narfala said, "and if you can be alone with him you'll probably find that rug rats are number one, two and three in the bathtub." "Did you give Ally a bath?" Sandy asked. "Half," the other boy said, and Sandy could tell he was smiling even though they were both staring up at the drifting summer clouds. "First or last?" the boy said so they could giggle together again. "Last," the more mature young male finally replied. "Three or four of his questions and we were out of the tub." Sandy drew a mental picture of a tall slim male drying off a cute English eight year old. "Were you experienced with Prince the first time you were with Ally?" Sandy quizzed. "Just twice," Narfala said. "Did it help?" "A lot," Narfala replied, "first, in recognizing his beauty, and then in calming him and reassuring him when I took him in and laid him on his bed. I'd let him wear a towel, even though we'd been in the tub together, and he was shy about letting me see him lying on his back with a boner. I told him about the first time Prince had seen me with one, and finally he pulled the towel aside, himself." "Was he big?" Sandy asked. "Like an American frank," the twelve year old replied, "which is about twice the size of most boys his age." "While we were driving out Roy said I'd get extra big if we did certain things together after we got to know each other," Sandy said. "Yeah," Narfala agreed. "That's really private. It's cool he told you about it." "What is it?" the curious boy asked. "I've been doing it for six months with Prince," Narfala replied. "When it happens in your mouth, you swallow his sperm instead of letting it drool down your chin. The semen is loaded with hormones. But Ally had not done that, at least as far as he knew, though, when I questioned him a little he admitted he'd been at a camp during the summer and sometimes he'd felt strange in the middle of the night, kind of hot and glowing, and in the morning a counselor would change his sheet while everyone was getting up." "So he was getting molested?" Sandy whispered. "Yeah," Narfala replied, "he was so cute it had to happen. They probably gave him half a sleeping pill so he wouldn't wake up and freak out." "They must have had to be really quiet," the observant white boy said. "It's really exciting that way," Narfala whispered. "Prince and I had to be quiet twice when we were on field trips and their were a bunch of other boys bunking together." "Could you still go all the way?" Sandy asked. "Yes," the boy whispered, "but it took an hour because we couldn't whisper to encourage each other, or let the bed squeak even a little." "Is it noisy when you have privacy?" the neophyte asked. "It can be, especially the first few times," Narfala answered. "I think I'd just faint without a murmur," Sandy said. "Once I sprayed by accident," Narfala said, "so that can happen, too. Premature ejaculation." "How did it happen?" "We went for a hike on our second date," Narfala said, obviously meaning Prince. "We left our clothes hidden at the entrance to an abandon farm and walked around holding hands and talking. We were going up into the loft and he was behind me on the ladder. My penis went inside one of the rungs so he climbed a little on me by accident. When he knew what had happened, he just stayed close over me, and slowly went down the ladder. I got free, but it was too late. I was really embarrassed and said I was sorry, but he just came up against me and held me from falling. Then he looked down over my shoulder so he could see what was happening and turned me to him so most of the sperm went on him and on his belly." "And they say even when it's bad it's pretty good," Sandy intoned with a mock sigh. "Prince started cumming just as it ended for me," the boy said, as if to prove a point. "Did you do anything together last night?" Sandy asked. "No," Narfala replied. "Homosexual couples have a lot less sex than boy/girl couples because their alternative bonds are stronger, and, because when they do have sex, it stays exciting for an hour or two, not the few minutes most non-newlyweds spend." Sounded good. "Plus," Narfala added, "you don't have to worry about morning breath because males don't sleep together unless they're way-gone gay" "I wouldn't like to sleep with Roy," Sandy said, nodding at the wisdom of his new friend. "But it would be nice if he came in bed with me to wake me up." "And it will be nice if you cum in bed with him before you go to sleep," the black boy responded, hoping the lewd allusion would not be offensive. He got a shy giggle for his pains, so it was pretty obvious they were on the same page. "Would you have slept all night with Ally?" Sandy asked "Yes," Narfala replied, "little boys are like girls, really soft and cuddly, but when he gets to be thirteen or fourteen I'll lose interest in that part of our relationship, if we still have one." "Do you think you will?" "Probably," the older male said happily. "I'm trying to get Prince to be with us, because three have more variety and it will last longer." "He doesn't want to?" Sandy asked. "Because it's his nephew," Narfala explained. "so he thinks if it went wrong it might go really wrong because of the blood tie." "I hope you're talking him around," Sandy said. "He talks about Ally a lot, so it will happen one of these days." "Would you like to watch them?" "If they wanted me to," Narfala replied. "I'd bet on that," Sandy said. "I'd like to have a party for him. His uncle and you guys. That would be so awesome." "Half-way to American, eh, dude?" "I've always felt we had enough fat people here," Narfala said, "so I'll take the States as it comes on the telly and leave the malls to the mound mamas." Sandy liked the offhand cynical edge to his new friend. So beautiful a toy, it was super to learn of the boy. "Where would you like to go?" Sandy asked. "Caribbean or Africa," Narfala said, "and not because I'm black. Because I've read a lot and those are the favorite places of the writers, excepting the countries where the writers lived, which is pretty obvious." "Yeah," Sandy agreed. "Durrell and Egypt." "Masters and India, or Kipling and Forster and a dozen other heavy hitters," Narfala added, demonstrating why homosexual couples have less sex. "Did you ever read `Tom Cringle's Log'?" Sandy asked. "About three times," the other boy said. "Okay," Narfala asked, "the boy that gets killed by the shark in Havana harbor, do you think they did things together?" "He was obviously in love with the cadet. They would have had lots of opportunities to be alone together, a student and an officer, so, yes." "Me, too," Sandy agreed. "Prince says the sailing fleets should be recommissioned," Narfala said, "that container ships kill too much around them to make up for their cheap prices. That waterfronts are the cultural dynamos of a healthy society, and sterile track lines lead nowhere but to cheap junk at Wal-Mart." "Shopping. The last refuge of the total moron," Sandy quoted, adding a pithy rejoinder about the opportunity to spread the payments out over nearly fifty years. "The Jews have that place nailed to the cross," Narfala agreed. "Yes," Sandy said, pointing out they got heartfelt assistance every step of the way from every liberal running around loose. For several minutes they lay staring up at the clouds. "Sometimes boys become too good of friends to do things together," Narfala said. "I was wondering that, myself," Sandy whispered. "What do you think?" Narfala asked. "That you're an entirely bad chap, a bounder, a rotter, a poof and a shirt-lifter," Sandy recited. "Why," came the happy, giggling retort, "you must be one of those running dogs of imperialist colonialism and tools of capitalist oppression I read so much about." "Phew!" both children said together. "Do you want to have the men with us when it happens?" Narfala asked. "Yes," Sandy responded, "but if you want to teach me in private, that would be okay. More than." "It'll be more exciting with them," Narfala said, and they wrestled briefly as they helped each other to their feet. "Can we take our clothes off?" Sandy asked. "Perfect," Narfala agreed and the two slipped out of their shoes and clothes, locker room style, then turned to look at each other. The white boy looked like a well-developed child, his circumcised penis well beyond the hot-pencil stage, while Narfala looked like a perfectly developed man, jutting six uncircumcised inches from his slim waist. For long moments they drank each other in and the only thing on earth that prevented their touching was a pair of tall athletes but a few minutes distance. They did not hold hands, preferring merely to walk shoulder to shoulder, nor did they get very far, for ne'er had their young loins girded for march than, forsooth, wending their ways from hence that the lads were bound came a stalwart pair, shoulder unto shoulder, clothed not with yea the merest handmaiden's stitch, and verily and equally massive about the waist. Sandy and Narfala scrambled down a hillside, coming to rest standing still with their arms at their sides as the mature males approached. "It's lucky we're not looking for girls," Roy murmured when they were a foot apart. "I don't call this looking, I call it finding," Prince added. "We found a pretty place," Sandy said. "I guess we'd follow you into quicksand soon enough, wouldn't we," Prince said, "so lead on." As they walked hand in hand, four abreast, Roy told Sandy they'd been invited to stay over at the shepherd camp. The boys compared notes on cartridges they had and needed, and the invitation was accepted. Surveying the terrain from a prospect, Sandy thought there might be a scenic route. Prince was impressed with the American's alertness and said indeed they could round a certain hill and approach the copse from its other side. As they walked Prince told of those who had marched the same valley, yokels following buttons, but, nonetheless, yearning hearts treading from longing hearts to spill their blood on the lush English grass rather than their seed in the lush girls now so far and tomorrow the more. The sober reminder had no effect. All four males walked along as hard as they'd ever been in their lives, their very spines tingling with the need to touch and be touched, for the young men to give and the boys to take. "If each side had marched forth with its most likely lads, as our boys are, many a hallowed engagement might have followed," Prince said, "leaving the field of honor stained with the spring and breath of tender loins and the pearl syrup of shuddering hips and panting lips." Narfala caught Sandy's eye and circled his right temple with his finger, enough pride in his sensitive and poetic swimming coach evident in his flashing eyes to render the gesture an affectionate tease. And they might have walked the three mile circle route just as they were, perhaps tanning slightly from the intermittent sun, but for a surprise in the trail. "Oh, wow, a stile," Sandy said, "I've only read about them." Sure enough, they'd come to a hedgerow six feet tall with a ladder up one side, a tiny bridge across the top, and a ladder on the far side. "Several hereabouts," Prince said, pleased that the commonplace was of interest to the Americans. Everybody forgot something except Roy, who didn't know about it in the first place. No, in all innocence, or at least such as they could muster, they examined the ancient woodwork, then started across, letting the foreigners have the honor. Roy crossed followed closely by Sandy. As he started down the far ladder, the white boy paused to wait for his friend. Narfala climbed the first rung, Prince close behind. The second rung and the third. Sandy was gazing happily an the beautiful face when the eyes went dull and his mouth slackened. "It's happening again," he was just able to whisper. "Oh, my god, the loft!" Sandy was just thinking when Priest realized what was happening. The powerful athlete manhandled the slim child to the top of the stile in a flash, holding him firmly by the shoulders. "He's going to cum off," Sandy whispered down to Roy, who re-mounted the sturdy ladder, holding Sandy in his left arm and the shuddering, panting black boy's leg with his right hand. "I thought it was. I'm sorry," Narfala whimpered. They petted him and reassured him and were about to help him over the rest of the ladder when he suddenly had half a seizure and started spraying. His semen gushed in long ropes, pearl white shocking against his brown skin. "Hold him," Roy suggested to Sandy who was staring, mesmerized by the hot violence of what he'd assumed would be a few drops of fluid. He reached for Narfala, found him, and held him against his now panting chest. Roy reached around, Sandy could tell what he wanted, so he held his young friend against the outstretched palm, soaking it with the twelve year old's hard pulse. Immediately he felt the shock of his life as the hot, wet hand found him and began masturbating him against the ladder with full, aggressive strokes. The results were immediate. Sandy moaned he was cumming, and, like his East Indian friend, he gave enough warning that Roy was able to boost him to the top of the ladder in time. He knelt, with Prince bracing him, on Narfala's splayed thighs and in moments began ejaculating on the slim chest of the panting black boy. The thick white semen of the older male was easily distinguishable from the hot, more watery fluid of the younger child. Sandy's drawn out ejaculation lasted through Narfala's strong after glow and when the white boy fell spent on the slick, panting chest beneath him, the lips of the pre-teens met in a gulping, shattering kiss. Roy and Prince held their panting charges for long minutes as they slowly recovered, whispering and mewing in each others' ears. "Thing like that could change history, it could," Prince noted, "right place, right time, stop a whole army." The boys were happy enough to giggle, always a good sign with young lovers. They whispered intensely for awhile, then giggled again, and, if you'll remember our little lesson on foreshadowing, you'll know it doesn't take more than two boys whispering for a minute to get the ball rolling. For a few moments they were bashful as they climbed down the far side of the ladder, handing up tufts of grass to wipe away any traces of their passage, then, seeing other slick with their semen, they brought up the subject they wished to discuss. Free of the stile, the made for the brow of the hill so the shepherds could look for trouble and, still as erect as they'd been when they stood before each other on the valley floor, they reached the small wood. "What is it boys?" Roy asked, Prince's face echoing the question. "You tell them," Sandy said, nudging his more experienced friend. The boy addressed Roy. "There's something I can't do anymore with Prince," the child explained, "or I'll get too big." Here he looked down at his bulging, thick erection. "But," he continued, "there's a way we could do it." Prince interrupted. "He can't swallow when I cum in his mouth," the young coach explained, "or he'll become freakish. "So, what, then?" "Let it happen in my mouth, then Sandy can lie on his back in the grass and I'll kiss him on the lips. It will be just as exciting for me to feel him swallow than it would be if I lost control and swallowed, myself. Trust. Boy, there's one we haven't vetted yet. I've never been more than fair at it, myself, either being trustworthy or trusting. I think it's fair to say you could trust me equally with your willing daughter and your unwilling daughter. It crops up because there is no way to tell what the young boys might do together. Sandy's an innocent, so even a salty taste will satisfy him; Narfala is experienced, and would be able to swallow most of the young adult's sperm without anyone being the wiser. If it wasn't life and death, that's okay, because this is not a book about war and peace, even though tired readers might see it, temporarily, one hopes, as a work to bore about a piece. How much fun would it be to come on strong as a creative writer and say that, in the end, Prince decided he could not, in fact, trust Narfala and hustled him away from prurient influences? Seems like a safe place to abandon the subject. In reality, no words were spoken. Roy and Prince led the children a little way from the stile and then leaned back against the nearly vertical mound of the hedgerow, spreading their legs widely, arching their swimmer's chests, and linking their fingers behind their necks. Narfala went to his knees on the soft turn, Sandy huddled close. This is how you start," he whispered to his white friend. "Just lick and kiss and play." Sandy watched intently. Five minutes ago he'd cum so hard he thought it would take an hour to even breathe normally, now he was just as excited as when he and the young swimmer had first faced each other in the nude. It was easy to learn. The men had joked about the boys stopping an army with their play, but their young stallions could stop a division or two, all by themselves. Touching, kissing, licking, lapping, and fondling. You wouldn't want to make your living at it, but it sure beat hanging at the mall. Narfala led, wetting his hand on his slim belly and teaching Sandy to masturbate a mature male, fondle him, and use his mouth. Prince hissed and moaned, his hands locked behind his neck, his powerful legs shaking from the repeated shocks of two avid pre-teens teaching and learning. "When he tells us he's cumming," Narfala said, "lie right next to me on your back. We haven't done this for three days, so his sperm will be very salty, okay? And if you want, just spit it out and turn away, okay?" Sandy had Prince deep in his mouth, but nodded, and, sensing what was about to happen, pulled his head away. Narfala kept the younger boy's rhythm, his lips straining to make the adult spray. "I'm cumming," Prince murmured. Sandy kissed Narfala on the cheek and fell on his back, staring up at the black boy's face. Then Narfala emitted a low humming sound from deep in his throat and the semen started flowing hot and white from his lips and down his chin. He'd changed immediately on Prince's warning from deep rhythmic strokes with his twelve-year-old mouth to just massaging the tip of the young man with his lips while masturbating him firmly with his sopping right hand and fondling him openly with his left. Roy helped steady the shaking shepherd, and the sperm kept pouring from Narfala's avid lips even as the boys cheeks filled. Finally Narfala left the still spilling male for Roy to masturbate and fell to his child lover. Gently he lowered his beautiful face to the waiting lips. They kissed, getting used to each other, like children for a cute video, then Narfala began earning the trust placed in him by letting Sandy taste his adult lover, first a drop at a time, until the avid tongue of the eleven year old came begging. He allowed a tease to develop for some moments, then released Prince's hot cum. Sandy moaned and bucked his hips as the shock raced through his body. His slender throat worked convulsively and his tongue drive deep into Narfala's salty mouth until his friend was no longer rank with the heat of sin. Narfala finally pulled gently away. "Take Roy's from him," he whispered, "and it won't do you any harm to take it all down your throat if you want to." He helped his white friend to his knees, and Prince shifted his weight to help support Roy. It was tentative at first, then Narfala positioned himself close behind the kneeling white child and began molesting him with his left hand while masturbating him with his right, setting a rhythm for Sandy to copy. It worked, and the second Sandy got it perfect he could feel Roy tensing. "If you like the taste," Narfala whispered, "let him cum on the tip of your tongue. Otherwise, take his sperm at the back of your mouth." Sandy nodded. Roy began tensing to the point of straining and cording the muscles of his belly and thighs. He brought his hands from behind his head and lovingly ran his fingers through Sandy's hair and over his face. "I'm cumming," the young pilot whispered. Sandy immediately did what he'd seen and covered his partner with brushing lips and a darting tongue. Roy grunted like a stag and froze, shivering, in Prince's strong arms. There was so much, at first it welled from the child's inexperienced mouth. Narfala kept masturbating his young friend, but jockeyed his position so he was able to lick Sandy's chin. He knew he was cheating, but if people didn't break rules once in awhile society would collapse for a lack of police. Sandy gained experience and to keep his friend from getting in trouble, concentrated on pacing his swallows to the hot pulsing of the pumping organ spurting again and again against his lips and the tip of his tongue. It was the history of the world. Men and boys in monasteries and at sea; on the cattle drives of the American west and as assistants to truck drivers in Mexico and a hundred other countries. In the best public schools, amongst the Ninjas and Janissaries, and up-to-date, too, taking the Internet from the campus to the cul de sac and bootstrapping an economic engine that, for a decade and a half, has been the salvation of the civilized world. A lot of fools, morons and fanatics had marched over these midland meadows, but four came in peace. As they went about bathing and retrieving their clothes, then retracing their steps, then walking, still as erect as at their first meeting, to the shepherd's camp, they appeared, and were in fact, as tall and manly as any who had tramped the sod in ten thousand years. The sun had lowered notably. Alex lay Sandy gently across his lap and the boy spread his legs widely. "I thought I was going to be like Narfala on the ladders a couple of times there," he whispered. "It was a great story, Narfala and the ladders of England," Alex said, openly fondling the boy's slim belly as the child extended his arms beyond his head and arched his back, bucking his hips gently to coax the handsome young minister. Alex reacted to the longing summons by whispering to the boy. "Let me cum on you, first," he said. "Are you ready?" Sandy replied, trying to keep any plaintive note from his voice. "I'm cumming," Alex replied, manhandling the boy gently so his penis was free between the childishly spread coltish legs. Sandy made to bring his hands to the young man, but Alex begged him off and used his right hand to masturbate for a number of gentle strokes, finally freezing his fist at his base and cumming. His hot sperm covered the panting chest and belly, and, as his climax subsided, flowed down his swollen shaft to that of the youth. A few wet strokes, and Sandy's sperm was spraying two feet in the air and splashing back on his shoulders and his face. The young man and the boy eased off their log seat and settled gently to the forest floor, kissing, licking the sperm off each other, and kissing, again. They lay together for half an hour, talking and watching each other masturbate to a second modest climax. Before they got up to go, their mouthes found each other, and so each lay still and quaking for a third time. Needless to say, Sandy's impromptu pond was crystal clear and brim full on their return. END OF BOOK V Posted by Thomas C. Emerson, Dangriga, 2002 xxx