Date: Tue, 3 Apr 2001 07:46:35 -0600
From: Tom Emerson <thomas@btl.net>
Subject: Creative Camp

This is a long, complex story, written for those over forty with a
significant, but not high-falutin', literary background.  While it contains
explicit scenes of juvenile and adult sexual activity, such scenes develop
slowly.

A central theme of "Creative Camp" is intellectual property in various
forms.  The author lives offshore and has limited access to research
facilities.  Apologies are offered if any material herein substantially
duplicates any i.p. under development or in use by any individual or
organization.  The author will do his best to revise and repost any
material which creates a conflict, upon email notification.

Except where in use by or registered to others, the author reserves first
rights to all ideas, names and concepts detailed herein, and in chapters to
come.

No restriction is placed on dissemination of this story, but please include
author's email address.  No inference should be drawn from any use of
public figures in this story.


Creative Camp (M/b)
By
Feather Touch

	Charles Hastings was right on time reaching the bus station.  The
ten-mile ride in from camp had been routine.  As anything could be, anyway.
He had a lot on his mind and only the chirping voice of boy on phone had
dragged him from his work.  Blissy Scopes.  Eleven.  At the maximum range
of husky for Creative Camp, at least according to the month-old picture
that formed Charles' frame of reference.  Cute smile.  That had won the
day.  Brains, personality and appearance with no ridged order other than
keeping out louts.

	His organization's name helped.  No one with an extra hep bone was
likely to take much interest in the retro flatness of "Creative Camp."
Where were the whispering pines, raging waters, or, for that matter,
anything verging on daring, exciting or even worthwhile?  Though not
advertised, there were trees, water and a skin of campy motif.  It was just
a pretty place, no more and no less.  Leaving adventure and daring-do out
of the brochure allowed for a thousand words of text that sketched
organized and highly disorganized activities in inventing and writing.

	Charles had run the camp for ten years and some months.  Starting
with a dozen boys it now was a home away from home to just over a hundred
young males who came and went more or less as they saw fit.  Ages ranged
from eight to thirteen with a small number of boys slightly outside these
bounds.  By fifteen almost all boys had moved on to Camp Two, hardly a mile
distant.

	It was late June.  The Scopes boy was the last arrival of a summer
influx that quintupled the general population of the facility.  Charles
asked him to come a day late; the boy looked on the verge.  You couldn't
always tell but usually you could.  There was a self-assured look to the
normal boy; hands-off written in countenance, body english, and a host of
lesser indicators that equaled no way, Jose.  The photo of Blissy showed an
eleven year old apparently right on the knife-edge; half of him, indeed,
seemed the self-confident image of normalcy, but, wasn't there, even on a
fairly quick second glance, a hint of wonder about the child?  Curiosity?
A certain vibrancy and light, even a still photo didn't quite hide?

	These were the delicate cases; not cases really, situations;
circumstances; perhaps even paradigm fit.  However modified, the noun was
tough when it came to feeling out a particular new boy.  Was the light a
deep curiosity; a burning intelligence than needed to be crammed more than
stimulated?  It was bright enough, seen through the windows to the soul;
the optician's source of his daily bread, but that light could be mischief;
the quick dirty kind that could easily turn to a sugar-daddy's-pup outlook.

	There had never been such a boy at Creative Camp.  Pictures and
long telephonic interviews; long stories by the applicants submitted on the
Net.  One hundred percent.  Not an attitude case nor a troublemaker had
ever made it past the sign which read Creative Camp (An enterprise of
Plunkett Associates).  Personality.  Zero theatrics in the smile.  An
unsure look.  Charles searched for this, above all.  All his team did.
Only a moron on steroids could have any confidence between eight and
thirteen years of age.  What was there to be confident about other than
one's own baloney?  No.  You knew almost nothing at that age.  And it was
that knowledge that was vital at Creative Camp.  Self doubt.  Am I, young
child that I am, forty or fifty atoms in the entire universe?  How little
can I possibly matter?  Is there infinity to smallness; unimportance and
lack of self- esteem?

	These were the brains.  They knew.  More accurately, they hungered
to know.  Hungered.  One and all, every boy selected to attend, minus those
that fell to the winnowing blade of disease, accident and misadventure,
came with his doubts, his hungers and his passion to know at least a little
more.  Over the varying periods of time they were likely to stay they
continually learned more of their littleness and pallid insignificance,
and, fortunately for the moral of the institution, other things as well.
In summary, after four or five years at the camp every boy simply knew more
than his peers.  Brains to learn hard and fast, personality to make the
experience fun, and an appearance that fit the temperament, if temperament
could be specifically held to preclude any significant tendency toward
gluttony.  Brains, a real smile and an unindulged body.  A small list, but
Charles had come to respect it as durable - and yet, for all its success,
two flanks remained open; two gaps in the wall.  One was a 'tude case
making it in and dropping whatever kids of the present dropped in lieu of
the dated dime; the other, more frightening - from the former, one could
just run - was the possibility of falling in love with its inherent
limitation of even an option to move a fucking foot..

	Each new camper and stranger to the setting arrived with the
potential twin claws of the scorpion.  The tattling troublemaker, or any
love, subsequent maintenance high, low or medium.  The claws.  The fangs.
With every boy, however vetted and interviewed; however dissected through
readings of submitted stories, there was the chance of a wrong choice and
disaster for the entire Plunkett organization.

	Charles was getting too old for the thrill of this chase.  More and
more, over the past three years, he'd retreated into art for its own sake;
invention, for its own sake.  He was so very old.  A full thousand years
older than those born in 1948.  As a military journalist he'd spent ten or
fifteen hours as the northernmost soldier in South Vietnam.  And he was a
thousand and fifty-five years of age.

	Boys were a cure for this problem; this ancientness above all who
have ever lived.  To actually be old in the ultra-information age was the
rarest of rare situations.  To have entered the ultra-information age,
vastly read, put him in the top one-millionth of one percent of all who had
ever lived.  He used this knowledge, first, to select his young males, and
also to set an intellectual pace that would strain and loosen, like a giant
rubber band, making his staff and juvenile charges scramble to keep up,
then chill to let stuff sink in and enjoy being human.

	As he got older, Charles drew back from relationships with his
young campers.  He remembered the quote from the lady that ran the Little
Rascals center in Manhattan Beach; "Heavens," she had said, "I'd never let
one of those children even see me."  He grinned a bit wryly at this,
knowing he was being disingenuous.  The daycare lady had been heavy and
blodgy; he was anything but.  At the almost weird age of double-nickel, he
had all his hair, plenty of teeth, knock on wood, and a thirty two-inch
waist.  He'd had his chin tucked, just on the basis of what the hell.
Fully clothed, he passed as boyish middle age; in a bathing suit, he was
simply boyish.  Every pubescent male who had ever attended Creative Camp
had thought, many times, I hope I look like you when I'm half your age;
most had said it out loud.

	But for this youthful quirk, Charles would never have placed
himself in a position of being alone for any period of time with any of his
young charges.  He knew his personality was very softly and gently
charismatic.  Quiet chuckles, half grins, and a hair trigger wit worked
strong magic and could very easily be used to lure a boy out of his
underpants, to the later misgivings of the child simply for having been
with someone old enough to be his grandfather.  But he'd been first in line
at the gene pool, and so, very guardedly, he allowed reality to intrude
because if something happened the child would bear no strangulated
emotional scars.  Cute simply provided its own options and short of putting
his face through a window or gaining fifty pounds there was precious little
he could do about it other than be exquisitely careful.  This care was
manifest in his quiet clothing, his gentle ways, and in never appearing in
a swim suite or even shirtless.  Nor was lurking mysterious his game.  On
campus, he pretty much became wallpaper; often around, seldom noticed, even
absent for extended periods when a new story was boiling mad to get itself
all nice and tidy and written down.

	It was a beautiful camp.  Tropic colonial architecture with its
wide verandas and dark, soft interiors: Shaker, topping the highest plane
of design.  Off the green grass of a wet summer the buildings stood with a
touch of first drama.  This did not last.  It was almost instant comfort
that took over.  No one was trying to kid anyone else with polygons on
blueprints; the quads of quiet dorms and facility buildings flanked the
various pathways and the one gravel drive modestly, standing sun, rain, fog
and night with equal dignity.  They were not for snow, but there was no
snow at the latitude of Creative Camp.

	The bus station was where it always was.  Charles sometimes got so
lost in a story it was almost a physical thing to come back to a world of
buildings and roads; cars and bus stations.  And there was the boy.
Waving.  Smiling. What a challenge; to see that same smile on the same boy
a few months down the road, when he would likely be waving good-bye.

	How accidental was it? his coming by himself to pick up the new
eleven-year-old camper.  Everyone else was busy; true.  Still, if he hadn't
seen the slight husk in the young male's build mightn't he have dispatched
a staffer and taken on some duty at the camp, himself?  Just for two or
three hours?

	Charles hadn't done a first trip in over three years.  Graham
Ketchum had been the last.  Charles always thought of him as the silver
boy; the cross, a gift from a priest who had gently and continually
molested him for almost a year before the ten-year-old had arrived at the
camp.  With Graham, Charles had felt the very breeze of the love fang.  It
brought up, as he reminisced, the stunning amateur video of a gazelle
leaping over a tangle of fallen trees and hauled out of the air by a
springing lion.  The great cat had fielded the flying deer with a single
claw and slammed the careening animal into the ground.  Graham had been the
springing gazelle, but Charles's claw had somehow missed by the thickness
of a razor blade.  They wrote each other a dozen times a year, more or
less, and incredibly it worked for them, as friends.

	"What kind of car is this?" Blissy asked.

Charles pulled a comic face.  "This son, is a Dodge; mightiest of man's
machines.  Don't you know a Dodge when you see one?"

	Blissy giggled.  "That's Bundy," he said.  "Al, Peggy, Kelly and
Bud.  I thought the Dodge was a legend.  You mean it was real?"

	"From where the rubber meets the road, proceeding upwards, until
the antenna finally yields its length to the wild blue yonder, this car is
real.  It has a serial number, so it must be."

	"Well," Blissy responded, "for a minute there I thought it was like
the Family Truckster.  I mean, I guess I always thought that; like it was
legendary."

	Charles pointed out that the car was real enough.  That the child
was interested meant a lot.  Blase and hep; lord the world was full of
their stale cant and ludicrous posturing.  At Creative Camp a boy was
deemed A-list if he was at least a little interested in four or five
things.  It was a camp for writers; for inventors, fucking only.  It was,
at the same time, probably the farthest campus in the world from the banal
sterility grinding infinitely small the trash leftist profs had admitted so
they wouldn't have to fight a land war in Asia.  The intellectual irony of
the situation was that it was said such a war could never be won when in
fact it was aggressively and deliberately lost on a thousand campuses.
That this had all happened decades ago simply meant that sons and grandsons
of morons were ruling the roost, and that summary was prejudicial for not
counting the daughters.  Few students, even decades later, escaped inferior
instructors, a multitude of whom insisted on factory-fresh text editions
with each new academic year.  Charles could never quite determine whether
there was spiff involved, or just a cruel stupidity with one mitigating
factor.  That factor was the highlighter.  The devil's yellow in the
beginning and now available in a multitude of shades.  So modern.  But you
did have to leave academia after you'd seen dozens of once-used texts with
thousands and even tens of thousands of lines striped with the moron's
mark.  He had never beheld a book in which the entire text, save the
important stuff, had been yellow-striped, but he felt it was just a matter
of time.

	The wise head looked at the young boy beside him.  Blissy lived up
to his photo.  Plain, nice-kid face.  Bare chested he might look very
similar to a boy in a commercial where a bunch of kids cavort around a
picnic table.  Just, as the photo suggested, a softness.  Extremely
attractive.  Hard bodies were nice and all, a little like hard work, but
there was something even more erotic in a slightly lazy Grecian mellowness
than even the most chiseled torso.  Of course, slim boys often came with
long legs and big feet and knees, both of which, for some obtruse
physiological or psychological reason, were erotic in the extreme.  As a
teen, the child would have to slim down a bit, but as a boy he was exciting
more than he was perfect.
	"So," Blissy asked, "what'll this smoke-pot do on the open road?"
	"One hundred fifty three miles per hour."
	"Oh, sure," the boy responded.
	"There's a long downhill on the way into camp.  Three miles; almost
straight.  The Dodge will just nudge one seventy five on a calm day."
	"I hope it's a lonely road," Blissy said.
	"If I'd ever met anybody, I wouldn't be here bending your ear,
would I?"
	The young camper agreed with the logic and said so.  "How come it
goes so fast?" he asked.
	"Well," Charles replied, "we try to delve into the mysteries of
genius from all sides at c-camp.  Practical stuff; saving money and
resources; living happier.  One of those practical exercises is to take a
Bundymobile like this and make it into a car that will last twenty or
thirty years."
	"How do you do that?" Blissy asked.  "By replacing the factory
running gear with after-market products designed for racers.  These will
last forever on a street car, and as a bonus you get vastly increased
performance as well as safety, reliability and longevity.  Would you like
to drive and see for yourself?"
	Bliss looked at Charles wide-eyed.  "You're kidding, I'm eleven."
	"Not a problem; we installed the adjustable pedals Ford's using on
the Mercury; little touch of genius there, so you'll fit just fine.  Do you
want to?"
	"I heard it was the best camp in the world but it's nice of you to
prove it," Blissy said.  Charles thought to himself You haven't been clued
to the half of it, but he let the notion ride in silence and instead of
conversing turned off on a secondary road, pulling the docile looking Dodge
in under a tree where its radiator clicked and a surge of insect and bird
sounds intruded through the open windows.
	"Buck up, kiddo," he said as the boy regarded him with a stunned
look., "we let you guys be kids most of the time, but we throw adult stuff
at you, as well.  Challenge.  I want you not only to drive, but circle the
area and make you way back to this spot five times in the next couple of
hours.  A safe driver is a comfortable driver and a comfortable driver is
one who knows where he is.  You learn that by venturing and retreating to
the home point, then venturing, again, a little further, and retreating to
a known point.  If you learn that before you learn to pop the clutch and
burn rubber you've won half the battle."
	His speech concluded, Charles opened his door and walked around the
front o the car.
	"In the future," he said, "I will expect your young and agile self
to get out and do the leg work."  He gazed at the stunned boy through the
passenger's window.  Momentarily, the child let the message sink in and
shuffled across and under the steering wheel.  Charles opened the door and
seated himself, making no show of slipping into his belt.  "Mirrors,
first," he instructed, then corrected: "In your case, do the peddles first,
then the seat, then the mirrors.  Take your time.  Teach yourself how all
the stuff works."
	Bliss found the obvious rocker switch for the pedals and a small
motor hummed as they jacked all the way to the rear.  The seat was manual
and he soon had that hauled forward on its track, then he worked on the
mirrors.  In a couple of minutes he was as ready as he'd ever be, belts
secured, face white.
	"Are you scared?" Charles asked.
	"I'm eleven," the boy responded.
	"Yes," the man acknowledged, "and undoubtedly you've got a few
hundred hours on a bicycle, right?"
	"At least," the boy acknowledged.
	"Okay, " Charles said, "think about it from the common-sense point
of view.  You and your shirt against the world, on a bike; or you belted
into two tons of steel and safety glass."
	"Yeah," answered the boy, "but the two-ton thing goes 175 miles an
hour."
	"Bliss," Charles said, "that's only downhill under ideal
conditions.  It's nothing to worry about.  You've got big tires, rack and
pinion steering, and four-caliper disks on all four wheels, plus the latest
ABS technology.  The only way you can get in trouble is to drive like they
do in comedies to make the six-year-olds laugh.  My guess is you will have
little desire to slam things about, so we should be safe enough.  Let's
go."
	"I think I'm going to really, really, really like this camp," the
sweet young voice exclaimed.
	"You won't be the first one," Charles replied.

Chapt. 2

	For an hour and a half they drove their practice missions.  The
time together gave Charles an opportunity to feel out the new camper.
First, the child was not overconfident.  That would have been a trip back
to the bus depot.  Fortunately, a bold look in a boy's eyes could be seen
in a photograph, so the accident prone were eliminated without further
consideration.  But it was too important a principle to leave any margin of
error, so, no matter how mild the look, the driving test was still
completed with each new camper.  Bliss did well.  Venturing a mile or two,
then returning to the shade tree; trying a turn and a mile or two.  After
the first hour was up, he was able to circle the starting point and find it
from any point, enroute, by the most direct path home.  Charles said little
during the experiment, except on one long straight stretch where he
demanded that the child accelerate under full throttle to 130 mile per
hour.  The kid poured on the coal and burst into a grin after about three
minutes at very high cruise.  That was perfect.  One minute was brash, five
minutes was simply not getting it.  Stood to reason, Charles thought to
himself, as he gave Bliss a perfect three.  A gold star was added when they
pulled under their starting-point tree for a last time and the boy focused
on the instrument panel.  "It uses a lot of gas," he said.  "This kind of
driving, you bet," the man replied.  "But it's got a five speed lockup
tranny, so it gets over twenty miles per gallon on the cruise control; tall
rear end."
	Bliss turned the engine off and once again there were the sounds of
breeze, bug and bird.  The view was of miles down the secondary road, in
either direction; fields in all other directions.  It was a sneak proof
location.
	"You did well," Charles said to the boy.  "That's a good thing,
because the life of a genius is fraught with economic peril and it's nice
to be able to drive a cab if you have to."
	"Why is it so bad to be smart?" the boy asked.  It was a longish
subject; started in kindergarten and dogged one forever; was a main them of
campfire discussions.  The short answer would have to do for now.  "Because
very few people will understand you; smart and literate takes you into a
different world, where truth rules absolutely, as it will ultimately rule
us absolutely.  In an era of spin, hype, posturing and game playing the
truth will get you fired, lose you your friends, and prevent you from being
published.  Political correctness rules; a saccharine banality of intellect
selling the lowest grade of populist socialism with each putrid breath of
every voice at every mic and every pen on every page.  Before O.J. it was
critical, now it's mortal.  A deep social insanity that would be difficult
to survive in primitive times and is impossible to survive in complex
times.  "Knowing this, and speaking of it does not make you a cheery
addition to the normal fun-loving American crowd: I mean try calling
football 'Clunk' and see how many birthday cards you get, even from Vince's
losers (aka, nice guys).  Your buds will be waxing emotional over the Super
Bowl and you'll be sitting there trying to figure what it costs, over how
many decades, to get some hundred thousand people together for three hours.
"Wouldn't they be happier if they spent the money on books and magazines
for their kids?' you'll be thinking, while ninety-eight percent of the
people are worried about a first down or laughing at a VW falling out of a
tree.  "Our mission at Creative Camp is to help you harness your brain in
an environment where truth is never forbidden from any tongue, while, at
the same time, buffing you up all pretty-like for society so you can
function in conventional backgrounds if you choose to do so."  "Wow," said
Blissy.  "It's intense, but there is nothing else like it.  Even a few
weeks free of lies, distortion and flapper mentalics will be a revelation.
When you connect Imus of the Dirty Hat with General Electric and realize
the doom it represents for all of us, you inhabit the real world.  It's
intense, alright; with two long, sharp prongs.  One is that you're a lucky
eleven year old to live in the most utterly magic of all times, and the
other is that the whole thing will collapse sooner rather than later, so
you might as well grab for all the gusto you can get as long as you can do
so without upsetting anyone else's apple cart.  We'll let the socialists
kill us; too late to do anything to prevent it, but, by god, we're going to
have ourselves a time in the meantime.  "Is that okay with you?"  "When are
we going to die?" Blissy asked.  "We should have in 1989, but then Bill
Gates came along and provided an operating system that sold a hundred
million computers in ten years, plus who knows what to go with them.
Regrettably, he so overpowered all in his drive for perfection the industry
came up with a machine that is almost perfect and lasts almost forever.
Additionally, it is a machine, especially in the laptop variant, that
require less labor to manufacture than a shirt.  Its essential value is
next to nil.  When K-Mart sells a loaded laptop for three hundred dollars,
we die - perhaps 2005, if we make it that far, of course."  "Jeepers," said
the boy.  "It's just a matter of attitude," Charles explained.  "You are
lucky to live in the most fabulous time in history, and no one will live
much above the early iron age, of the very few who live after you at all.
You see and do more in an average week than a prince who died fifty years
ago would have seen and done in his lifetime.  Plus, on the bright side,
there is not really much point at straining yourself, accomplishing
anything, or excelling in any way.  Why bother?  It was said from the
earliest conceptualizing of any variation of what we call democracy that
once you put the vote in the market-place, any populist-based society will
collapse.  Since these ancient Greeks and Romans, et al, invented the
system it stands to reason they may have been right in predicting the one
weakness that will infallibly cause its collapse.  Tyranny of the masses.
And now we've got motor voter so no angry man or woman will miss their
opportunity to do their ballotary bit and bring the whole mess down by
voting for the lead promisor."  "I'd like to hear more about not trying and
accomplishing anything," Blissy finally interrupted the longwinded spiel of
the camp director.  "Yes, that is the best part," Charles said with a nod.
"Beloved laziness.  She should have the highest column in the courtyard."
"Why?" asked the child from the driver's seat of the Dodge.  "Two reasons.
First, it takes a long, long time to think up good stuff, and most of us
have to be pretty passive for the process to work with any efficiency at
all.  Second, we only put out the best, because we're too lazy too fuck
with the rest.  This goes for inventions, manuscripts and our behavior on a
day-to-day basis.  In the end, we're just too slothful to do much but sit
around and think and scratch something on paper once in awhile.  We think,
therefore we clam."  Blissy giggled at that.  His eyes sparkled from the
thrill of driving the four hundred horsepower Dodge and in anticipation of
a summer of just lying around thinking while simultaneously being free to
say anything he wanted.  Eleven.  Hardly enough years to handle so much
unadulterated pleasure; to be, at long last, because years pass slowly at
that age, among people who had read and who did think; not of the symbolism
of white whales or mysticism of noisy ravens, but of how a thirty year old
car could be made into a breathtaking highway animal for half the cost of
the cheapest new ride.  The very car he sat in was launching pad for a
tumble of thoughts; fast reviews of the ideas he had, as well as
fascination with this boyish genius who'd practically forced the keys to
heaven into his relatively tiny hand.  "Blissy?" Charles said, his voice
taking on a slightly strained lower note that sliced through the boy's
reverie.  "Yes?" he answered.  "We bring all the new campers out here to
drive.  After that we have a mature talk about some of the things that
happen at camp; not the stuff we put in the brochures and guidelines."
"What kind of stuff?" the boy asked, curiosity a leaping flame in his
already bright eyes.  "Well," Charles said, "stuff that has to be
approached from the tedious intellectual side, first.  Perspective, context
and adherence to a philosophy that holds many thing subjective, relative
and conditional.  Part of the formulae is genius; more accurately, a
sophisticated and well-read genius, perhaps even literary; a brilliance
yielding an almost instinctive contempt for superstition, taboo and
trammeled thinking, in general.  Another part of the formulae is the fact
that we are pretty much at the end of our rope, culturally speaking, and so
may as well indulge ourselves as long as it's no skin off anyone else's
nose."  "Indulge ourselves in what?" the boy asked.  Charles was glad for
the response.  The paragraph of the preamble had been long and complex; the
child had tracked and pulled the salient thread from the convoluted weave.
"Picture it," the camp director responded.  "About one hundred boys.
Nothing held, arbitrarily, as taboo, prurient, or unclean.  No worries
about reputation, for the best will die with the rest.  And since this is
the case, every good reason to follow any whim, indulge in any fantasy,
play at any game, and to follow it, not pell-mell and wildly, but
nonetheless with reasonable dispatch."  The boy grinned just impishly
enough so as not to cause alarm.  "I liked the part about dispatch," he
commented after a moment of thought.  "That means about the same thing as
get-to-the-point, doesn't it?"  "Wow!  Did I ever win that argument,"
Charles thought to himself as he looked at the child whose hands were
tensely gripping the custom steering wheel of the British Racing Green
Dodge.  The argument in question was his insistence on meeting Blissy,
himself.  The staff, though circumspect, had thought the slightly chubby
youth was worthy of one of the junior's attention and were loath to let
their master go on what seemed a lesser mission.  This new camper was
dynamite, and the same subtle pull of intellect that had rendered
brilliance from sloth for many people over many years had brought the man
to the boy.  Blissy was looking expectantly but not impatiently for an
answer.  Charles went on with a speech which was carefully outlined but
never delivered rote.  "Let's try you out with two words, okay, Blissy, and
we'll see if that brings us close enough to the point to lead to more
intelligent questions on your part.  How would that be?"  "Great.  What are
the two words?"  "No girls."  The Dodge had been great.  Zero to sixty in
just over five seconds.  Extreme on the corners, though surely no Porsche.
Great car.  Great fun.  He though of the silly line about it not getting
any better than this from the retromercials on TV Land.  No girls.  No
taboos.  Sin, apparently exorcised to the churches which cashed in on it.
No girls.  A hundred boys.  Twenty five staffers.  The senior boys' camp a
short walk away.  No girls.  "No girls," the child finally echoed in a
half-whisper.  "Is that okay?" Charles queried.  He was absolutely sure,
but nonetheless wanted to hear it from the child's lips.  "Awesomely," the
boy replied.  He didn't need ramifications of intellectual rationalization,
nor was he interested, for the moment, in the going-out-happy aspect of the
overall situation.  What mattered was being amongst males with no females.
No one to posture and fuss for.  No one to lust after and lose to an older
or cuter boy; no one to get lovesick over.  He gloried in being only eleven
and never having gone through the limitless trials and tribulations of
slightly older boys who danced to the tune of social convention and
accepted morality.  That was no life for anybody, even if they had ninety
years to live.  He tried to put his thoughts into words and did a fair job
of it.  "It didn't exactly say 'no' in the camp literature," Blissy said.
"But I hardly dared really hope.  I never knew such a short word could be
so fine."  Charles patted himself on the back, once again.  The famous
keeper.  Five years a lover, many more a companion and friend.  Just what
he needed for old age, ha, ha, or, to live out the end with, whenever and
however it came.  All but perfect as he sat there, and a few evenings among
his fellow campers and young staffers and the boy would be a human edition
of Secretariat.  In the meantime, he was a lot less than half bad.  "So you
feel okay with the male thing?" Charles asked the boy.  "It sounds perfect.
Good atmosphere to focus."  "Much of the time," Charles agreed.  "Much of
the time."  There seemed to be an opening and Blissy took a shot.  "And the
rest of the time?" he asked.  "Do you want me to tell you? Or, if you if
you'd feel more comfortable, you can wait until we get there and learn from
the younger guys."  "Those children?" the boy retorted in mock disgust.
Charles laughed out loud at the child's instant responsiveness.  He was
like a jump to 128 Megs of ram; push a button, get a light.  In his way a
spectacularly erotic variation on Jackie Chan.  Blissy chewed his lip for a
moment, then asked, "How long do we have before we have to be there?"  "A
couple of hours.  More if you want.  I kind of let others run the place, so
it really doesn't matter.  We can swing back to town for lunch, for that
matter.  Okay?"  This sounded great to the young male and unobtrusively he
pinched himself to be sure he wasn't dreaming.  No sad old padre.  It was
real.  The ripping Dodge, the laid-back hangout for nice boys with extreme
IQs and several thousand hours, each, in various libraries and bookstores.
And now what on top of all that?  That which was missing; that of great
direct and indirect nuisance value; not to put too fine a point on it, that
which was female.  Other things made the "not" list.  Virtue; it must hold
its noble head near the top.  Chastity?  LOA.  Decency?  Fidelity?  Purity?
All to be not counted along with the girls.  And what coin was offered for
the loss of these noble characteristics?  Concentration, focus,
application, diligence, productivity, accomplishment - even happiness,
though this seemed gilding the lily.  Blissy had a lot ahead of him and he
was practically squeaking with excitement.  Like a girl?  Heaven forbid.
 	"Have you ever done anything?" Charles asked the eleven-year-old.
"With men or boys, I mean.  Would you like to talk about stuff like that?"
"Yes, Blissy said.  "I mean, no, but I'd like to talk about it.  I haven't
done anything ,but I've seen some stuff.  I like those old Rambo movies
(here Charles winces for just a second. Blissy notices and giggles,
interjecting a quick Sorry) so I like to play like him, especially in the
parish park a mile from where I live.  So, about a year ago I track this
man and boy.  He's about twenty and the boy looked just my age then, ten.
"Do you want me to tell you what they did?"
	"If you want to, sure," said Charles, then he added: "Would you get
uptight if I took your shirt off so I can look at you bare chested while
you're telling me?"  "Will you let me take your shirt off, too?" the child
responded.  "No," Charles said.  "I'm too old."  Blissy persisted but
Charles was gently adamant.  "Looks count in our selection process," he
explained to the new camper.  "I mean, we're going to be spending a lot of
time together, and even though ninety-nine percent of appeal is character
over characteristics, things are livelier with better looking boys and
young men.  I think you'll be happier, in the long run, if you take their
shirts off."  Blissy chewed his lower lip for a few moments, then moved
from under the steering wheel.  His fingers found Charles's top button.
The man sighed and gently removed them.  "For later," he whispered.
"Please," the boy also whispered.  "Sorry.  Does that mean you don't want
me to take yours off?"  "I don't think you'd have accepted me if I were
subject to fits of childish logic such as that."  The voice of an angel,
the plain, open, boy's face.  The sizzling mind.  Even by the vaulting
standards of the camp, Blissy was a find.  Twice that.  "At least kiss me,"
he finally conceded, dropping the nudity issue for the time being.  "Are
you sure?" Charles asked.  He knew he had beautiful eyes; no point in false
modesty, the mirror did not lie about such thing.  Kissing, yes.  But being
naked with the young boy was going to have to wait, if it ever happened at
all.  Blissy's hands traveled from button to cheeks.  It had been years
since this had happened.  Like Michaelangelo before him, the artist had
eschewed carnal activity in later years.  There was so much more to the
world: inventing, writing, creating, entertaining, watching for satisfied
smiles on happy faces of both camper and crew.  His celibacy was rewarded
by hair-trigger responsiveness from his staff.  Since boys at the camp
generally told the truth about their sexual experiences, is was simply
known that Charles never fooled around with his charges.  Hadn't for years.
It was an interesting distinction; the total tolerance of illegal behavior
and even encouragement of highly lewd and lascivious activities, with,
personally, a hands-off approach that was not so much strict as ambient.
"Let other call it character," he sometimes thought to himself, "it's
really just a "Word" addiction mixed with about three parts laziness."
"Too bad," he also thought, "to see such a durable streak of abstinence
come to an end."  And end it did, under that country tree.  The boys lips
were soft as warm jelly.  "Ever done that before?" he quizzed after just a
few second, checking his child.  "Just the family way," he replied.  "But I
the people I spied on did it a lot.  They used their tongues, sometimes,
can we try that?"  For a genius, the boy asked some pretty easy questions.
Good thing he defined sexy so exquisitely.  "Go slowly," Charles suggested,
and again they touched.  "Do you want me bare chested, now?" the child
asked.  Charles replied that he had a blanket in the trunk and started into
a long-winded explanation of how, with the bench seat of the Dodge, and a
pillow and blanket in the trunk, one could drive back to back twenty-hour
days when the urge for big Merlin six and miles of pavement to think on
became overwhelming.  Children always led in the felonious activities that
occurred at Creative Camp.  One hundred percent control to the junior
partner.  Blissy seemed to know this and drew Charles forth from the
automobile and to the trunk, which was duly opened.  In a minute the man
and child were on the grass verge at the border of the tree's shade.
Blissy lay flat on his back and seemed to know instinctively to lap his
hands behind his neck.  Charles lay on his left side, his head supported by
his elbow.  He stared into the boy's grayish eyes.  "Hi," he said.  Blissy
stared back and his voice was neither bold nor timid when he said Hi, back.
"Start unbuttoning and I'll tell you about that ancient-Rambo mission," the
youngster suggested.  Charles touched the warm butter lips with his and
fingered the ears.  He felt, he realized in less than an instant, not love,
but fear.  Real fear.  It was a sudden dawning.  In his solicitous behavior
in the boy's interest, he'd managed to lose sight of the fact that he was
the finest living artist of the English language; owed his readers a full
remittance of his gift.  So the devil of rationalization had three tines on
his fork.  Laziness, dedication and ego.  This fork had, these several past
years, kept his hands to himself, and not often were they even employed so.
This made for an astonishing twenty pages a day on light copy, and four or
five a day when he was engaged in the highly intricate and involved task of
displaying outright virtuosity.  How would this child under his fingers fit
in?  How would the new life gel?  For there was going to be a new life.
The boy would go with his peers and the young staffers, but he would always
be back.  Forever.  Whatever that meant.  His ego was not quite so inflated
he imagined groans and moans from his public at the intrusion of this
barely husky eleven-year-old child, but it was a close thing.  He kissed
the young boy again; lingeringly, tenderly, gently and sweetly.  From the
impossible syrup of warm lips there was a sudden banana.  Pushing against
his lips, his teeth, and then his tongue.  A wriggling, probing, seeking
banana.  Warm.  Slippery with banana spit, but texture, too.  Charles
sucked the forbidden fruit with a slow, carnal rhythm and the boy's hands
came up from their resting place and found the back of his neck.  The pull
was timid and inexperienced; nice, nevertheless.

Chapt. 3

	Charles looked down at his common boy.  He rose to his knees to
better view the entire child lying on the light woolen blanket.  His
thought went back to an episode of "Spin and Marty," and bare chested boys,
just Blissy's age, standing around a corral.  He had the same short hair.
Did they call it a buzz cut now, or was it still a crew cut?  No girlish
look, anyhow.  A very slight personal preference.  Some of his young
geniuses were effeminate, and the more charming and winsome, for it.  But,
though it was by a micron, this boy was the ultimate.  A young utopian
male, fit to lead a cult just because he looked right for the job.  Charles
winced at his thought.  The only cult he'd ever had the remotest interest
in had to do with Chevrolet Corvairs; he'd been a bit crazy about them for
many years.  Other than that, the very word was next to socialist and
liberal on his list of extreme Nots.  On the other hand, with Blissy it
sure would be easy to start one, and, as L. Ron had said, the easiest way
to the big bucks was to hammer out one's own religion.  Charles was bemused
at the notion of putting his new boy up against the Christ child.  The
thought tickled his intellect as an exercise in quality over quantity.
Conventional church icons and personalities were simplistic and one
dimensional; about on par with Ronald McDonald.  Created when the earth was
flat, they reeked of Machiavellian superficiality as well as the fakery of
the gypsy.  Counter with this hundred pounds of absolute genius; this
common boy with his common boy's smile, and what might you get?  Charles
took the notion to the extreme of almost thinking out loud, "I'm going to
package you and sell you by the ounce," but the thought was truncated by
the certainty that this child lying on wool before him would be capable of
selling himself.  Probably, infinitely so.
	"Are we morons in love," he asked his child.
	"Our combined IQs equal that of the average county," the boy
responded with his brightest smile.  "If we're making a mistake, I doubt
it's a big one."
	A simple yes would have filled the bill, but it is so that soul
mates are made.  Vast reading and knowledge of the world and the people
running around loose in it.  Unvarnished respect for some few, and bemused
contempt where it so often fit.  A quality of wit, gentle and persistent.
Attention to appearance, which, for the most part, meant no hairy faces and
very few excess pounds.  Serious respect and regard, one for all, each for
each, and all for one, through all weathers expressed with simple good
manners and gentle speech and action.  A soft, languorous togetherness,
almost lolling at times.  And an eleven year old with his pedal to the
metal as the Dodge blazed through the quarter mile awful close to ten
seconds after the kid floored it.  Soul mates were complicated; they had to
be, otherwise, they were roommates.
	It was all so much work.  Incessant binges, one after another, of
twenty hours at the keyboard, with six hours of sleep, and twenty hours
more.  Subtract an hour a day for running the camp, socializing, meals, and
a shower.  Yet, simultaneously, so very lazy.  Lying in bed all the
livelong day as page after page slowly materialized on the monitor -
totally free of stress by virtue of always being laps ahead of what might
be considered reasonable.  Lazy body, lazy mind.  Lazy life.  Charles
hadn't been inside a store for years; it was hard to remember how many.
The poet shall not dig, nor the novelist shop.  He didn't know what the
inventor shouldn't do, but hoped whatever it was that was discouraged had
nothing to do with loving a bright eleven-year-old.  Let society castigate
him for that, if they ever found out; he was too inert to bother dissing
himself.  This thought pleased him as an example of sloth as a requirement
of the artist.  No, he would not bother to write of the dark side of what
he was going to do to Blissy on the blanket.  That was the easy shot; the
kind that attracted energetic scriveners.  Publisher's paid for this
output; the market was huge, all that was needed was fast typing.  Ah, but
a lazy a writer would have no thought of money; not even understand the
concept of a deadline or an assignment.  He'd even be vague on syntax,
spelling, grammar and typography.  Anything that would interfere with the
slow crystalline growth of each paragraph was a burr under the saddle.  The
senior of the two geniuses under the rustling boughs of the June morning
swept tree was glad for this thought.  Saddle.  Burrs.  He almost shook
with the knowledge that of the thousand or more hours he'd spent at
dressage, he'd never used a saddle, was always mounted bareback.
	As Charles's fingers touched the top button of his shirt, Blissy
moved his arms straight above his head and arched slightly to the sly work
that was being done to him.  He wanted his chest naked for Charles so he
could be touched the way he'd seen the boy touched when he'd been out
spying.  The buttons yielded to the bottom in a minute, and Charles opened
the child's shirt.  He'd been correct in equating his young beauty with the
boy in the finance-services commercial.  A supple sleekness of pubescence
that properly tamed and maintained would last until the boy was fifteen
years old.  An hour or an hour and a half a day, five or six days a week,
and Blissy would maintain a glowing perfection that would threaten to lead
to so much of a certain tawdry exercise routine it might threaten to muscle
him up and yield the dreaded six-pack, so often associated with the pecker.
Well, problems crept into all relationships; all he could do was be on his
guard and hope for the best.  Since his young boy was obviously the best,
he was optimistic.  A man with a boy in a crackpot, soon-to-implode culture
was the luckiest man there could be.
	With a sit-up and a shrug, Blissy was naked to the waist.  He lay
back down and arched again.  Charles returned to his first position, lying
beside the boy with his head on his elbow.  It was totally cornball but he
reached off the blanket and plucked a blade of grass and used it on
Blissy's ear.  "Are you hinting you want something for your ear?" the new
camper responded.  "Why do you ask that?" Charles said.
	"Well," the boy answered, "the couple I spied on talked a lot
before they did anything.  The man, Keith, got really excited when Randy,
he was the kid my age, told him about getting molested by his priest, and
Randy really seemed to like telling his secrets.  I thought it was awesome,
so I thought, also, you might like me to tell you about it."
	"Sounds like a topic," Charles said.  "If you want, you can tell me
what Keith did to Randy and I'll do it to you."
	"Cool," quoth the youth.  "Lie flat on your back, and I'll lie on
top of you.  Is that okay?"
	Charles lay back, and the child rolled on top of him, coming to
rest with the back of his head under the man's chin.  "Start with you hands
on me right here," the boy said, indicating points on his young flanks.
"Like that?" Charles said, touching the boy's nakedness with his fingers.
"Exactly," he replied, stretching his arms over his head and arching to his
lover's touch.
	It had been a long time.  Charles was almost shocked at the beauty
of the boy's tender skin; an electrifying glissade of supple, hot delight.
It was impossible to believe that there could be more than a few square
inches of such cat-like warm velvet on the entire planet, yet this one boy
had inches to spare.  Enough for ten men.  The delicious softness would go,
to be replaced by hard muscle.  One hundred twenty five young males would
see to that in short order.  Charles moved his hands in over the soft
stomach and the boy sighed in pleasure.  "It feels better than I thought it
would," he whispered, adding, "I'm glad you're the first one to do this to
me."
	"Me, too," the man said.  He was enjoying the child immensely, and,
at the same time, was immensely proud of himself for his long hands-off
years; the six thousand hours a year in the traces that had been required
to translate genius into enough of an empire that he could start and
maintain his particular zoo.  What he had not anticipated, and what had
stretched the years of celibacy, was his metamorphosis from inventor to
artist.  The first had been magnetism while the latter had eventually
become a very life source, apparently as necessary as food, water and air.
It wasn't a bummer, though even from the first touch, the silky soft youth
arching gently against his roaming fingers he realized he'd missed out on a
lot; no, it had been worth it, not only for the long shelf of completed
manuscript stashed on his hard drive, but also for the overwhelming tactile
sensation of his first act of molestation in a long, long time.  "Oh,
babe," he whispered to the child.
	"Can I sleep with you, tonight?" Blissy asked in his sweet voice.
	"If you want," Charles replied.
	"I want," said the boy.
	Charles gave the boy a squeeze.  "Easy for you to say now," he
said, "but you haven't been to camp yet.  It's a rather foxy place, if I
say so myself, and you might find more excitement than bunking with me."
	"If I'd wanted excitement I would have spent the summer bungee
jumping, or I'd join a terrorist cell in the sand lands; blow up diplomats
and make pipe bombs for school yards.  But, I was feeling lazy and liking
it, and, since there was nothing in your brochure about activities, I
decided to apply."
	"I should have named it Camp Little or Nothing," Charles said.
	"That would fit," the sweet child replied.  "I had little objection
to driving the Dodge, and nothing could be better than what you are doing
to me now."
	Let Imus have his dirty hat if it was essential to his nature; let
Howard make giant noise come out of his huge face for years to come.  There
were rights and wrongs in the world and it was for each to choose his own.
Legal Imus, legal Stern, illegal eleven-year-old wriggling happily on his
chest.  The Monster General had sent Ilian back to the tender mercies of a
worker's paradise, allowed Napster's back to be broken, O.J. to wind up
free and clear for his next killing, and Bill Gates to be harried by
warrens of talk-for-pay lawyers.  Japan's silver haiku blade was a full
inch in, proceeding; it must, at some point, reap the whirlwind for sending
two thousand sweet boys out on the Yamato; no ammo, little fuel, full speed
ahead.  Well, the tradeunionists were doing a great job energizing the
silver blade so it was likely a done deal.  Kamikaze bankers and
MacArthur's legacy of solidarity, globally hooked up.  That couldn't be
good news.  Where was any?  For twelve years the Fed had patted itself on
the back, Greenspan never varying from the consensus of the media pundits,
while riding Microsoft's economic tsunami.  No good news from those people.
	The NEA had lingoed the school system eighty percent to death by
engendering a daisy chain of rap sessions that taught as close to nothing
as could be measured.  The AARP focused fifty million geezers where they
would do the most damage.  What good news was there in programming a
nation's wise old heads to live out their golden years grabbing for
everything they could get, with lots of spare time to do the grabbing?  He
thought harder.  Twenty-six thousand out of two-hundred-eighty million had
purchased HDTV receivers.  Hmm.  An optimist would call it a start, but
Charles, a man who'd rather watch "Fargo" on a nine-inch fuzzy black and
white set than virtually all other filmed entertainment on 65-inch high
definition, could find little optimism.  In HDTV-land Imus's hat would be
dirtier and he'd have to make less radio-school noises come from his
diaphragm into the microphone; there was something rootin' tootin' about
that, he supposed, and Howard; if his face was even bigger, clearer and
sharper his jock shock would be less likely lost on the average
ten-year-old.  In the end, beauty was in the eye of the beholder; if one
worked extraordinarily hard, willingly in the hands of the beholder.  In
his life Charles didn't need, optimism, but, large hearted as he was, he
did wonder if others might be as lucky.
	Molesting Blissy was heavenly.  Charles slowly stroked and fondled
the youth as the boy stretched and arched gently into his hands.  It was
interesting that there was a precise point the ugliness of modern America
had started; a fully witnessed and recorded moment in time when a certain
journey had ended, and another begun.  The former had been a path of lumps
and bumps; pacifists and mobsters who'd both dealt in gratuitous
bloodbaths, yet, through many an act of perfidy and venality, a certain
dignity and stability had endured.  This was lost when Teddy White threw
his professional pen to Harvard Johnny.  Emotion over reason, and Teddy
said it himself (Quote from "Life Magazine:" He Had Me.  (Round-bellied
Teddy had been had, alright.)  Well, the new road had emotion, one didn't
need that hat of Imus to know that, but for what purpose?  Peasants had
emotion.  Lots of it.  Trailer trash literally wept over soaps and the
cauliflower Jell-O that did each other dirt on shows like the one where the
host is famous for red lensware.  So much emotion, all starting with a bum
whose father used Lend Lease ships to back haul whiskey.  Cute bum.  Family
of bums.  Emotion in bums.  Who can pass a bum on the street, and feel
nothing?
	It took one to know one.  Here he was, openly fondling a child,
both hands loving the silken brilliance of the boy's skin, according to a
clip of a script from NYPD Blue, the one maggot of all skels, mopes and
perps Sipowicz and his detectos liked that should take his own life, and
feeling just great.  Right at home.  To think he was abnormal, and
real-nasty, almost-always, Andy, with his garish relationship with little
Theo, was normal, put things in an up-to-date frame of reference.  Emoting
Andy, bouncing off a dozen or more walls over everything over an inch high,
and the rest of the time bamboozling the hapless kid with enough phony,
jittery hype and nonsense to kill even the bacteria left by the death of a
human spirit.  [NB.  No kid in last night's episode.  Apparently even those
of the extraction of most producers finally realized how ugly their
Andy/Theo obscenity.]  Charles's thanks went back over the years to Johnny
Harvard.  Being a bum was sensational, literally.  Every sensation possible
in the pink skin of a wriggling boy.  No wonder Creative Camp attracted
such an astounding level of talent.
	And for them all to be bums?
	How about that.
	The reality found it's way into his writing.  It was ironic,
knowing how many writers strained far beyond their talent to add artistic
nuance to their work, so it would boast the merit not to be deemed
pornographic.  Now, the shoe was on the other foot; let every page be
meritorious to the very heavens, sperm was what brought readership, and for
good reason.  In his native land of well over a quarter billion souls,
there was not a single writer.  Zero.  None that had the least influence,
in a national sense, on anything.  Reading had been lost; bookstores,
marketplaces for paper printed about crystals and mimeographed incantations
on self-help and trendyism; all writers desperate to create a buzz like the
"Weakest Link" guy prayed and prayed for with his:
"You-are-the-weakest-link-good-bye!" promo.  [I hear your prayers, my
fellow of the keys, I hear your prayers.  Die knowing that "Final Answer"
was simply the catch phrase of the new decade and nobody could come up with
anything better, except, of course, for yours truly, who will title his
second book: "And You Think You Hate Me Now."]
	Into this creative void had come the likes of Nader and delegations
of hard scrapple fellow travelers, arms of an industry, cogs in a machine.
Rotten to the core, but loud about it, and the media valued loud, over all.
It was all desperately, incalculably, head-over-heels - sick.  Or, maybe he
was; after all, chief of a hundred under-age boys cavorting naked, at the
proper time and in the proper place, with each other and young adults...
 	A hundred thousand years in jail if Urban Andy was the judge.  The
fact that every c-camp mind was focused on and devoted to real and
long-term solutions to utter problems would not shave an hour off his
personal thousand year's in the brig; only those blessed with big noisy
theatrical faces got to pull a Fonda and play felon as free spirit.  Of
course, the faces in question could be hired by the hour.  Was that good
news?  The one hundred million lawsuits on file - what news were they?
	Was doom to be heralded by a crack, or a rustle; how fast the
ending, if the garrote be brief?

Chapt. 4

	Blissy was into his Rambo adventure.  The picture he painted was
shades of camo.  From the direction Keith and Randy had taken from their
parked car, the spy had determined their destination.  Two shortcuts at a
lope brought the boy to a thicket at the verge of a partially hidden
clearing a hundred feet off the common trail.  Something in the way the boy
led the man had attracted the young scout's attention, and he'd been right.
Within ten minutes, the couple had arrived and seated themselves on a
fallen tree.  The camouflaged kid had managed to hold a position within
five feet of them.  He was wearing a birdwatcher's amplifier; stereo.
"Looking back," he said, "I guess it was curiassity."
	Charles laughed politely.  He liked them to dazzle.  The dreadfully
tired old US of A needed dazzling like air.  Cher singing from inside her
big Coke bottle was no longer filling the bill.  The publishing arms
weren't up to the task.  No weeds in their garden; everyone was a wondrous
flower needing but a few golden drops of Fonda water to bloom forth into
decades of health, happiness and prosperity.  Socialism.  Sold it all to a
society in which the lout's vote carried all the weight of the doctor's and
teacher's.  A line in an Altman film goes, We must be doing something right
to last two hundred years.
	Since our toybox was richly endowed with fish, fur, forest and vast
fertility we might choose, wisely, to be modest in any cultural
backpatting.  Eight million stone age souls had lived here for ten to
twenty thousand years, that's how many berries there were to pick, fish to
catch, deer to hunt, and acres to reap.  Pride has become a rote
institution exemplified by a janitor's union locking down schools to do
with lines written on a contract.  And the problem went to the core; to the
founders of the institution.  Largely, they had been the tavern crowd;
recalcitrant, contentious, adversarial, disagreeable and ugly, even sober;
descendents of deported criminals and undesirables.  They should have been
whipped, long and hard, but they won.  The winners stamped their victory
with papers full of rights.  These had evolved to rights to pensions and
rights to social security and enough thises and that's to dull the most
basic instincts of half the population, rendering them liberals and
Democrats.
	If a pedophile could rack a culture, what did it say of the
culture?  That it was time for some fun?
	Blissy was five feet from Keith and Randy as they came to rest on
the fallen tree.
	"Randy, what's the big hurry?" Keith asked.
	"We can see down the trail, if anyone comes, right?" the boy
responded.
	"Absolutely," said Keith.  "It's plenty private, so give; what's
the big deal.  You're like a race horse in search of a urinal."
	"Don't make jokes, Uncle Keith," the boy retorted.
	"Don't drag me by the reins and I won't ask any questions, at all,"
said Keith.
	"I'm sorry," the boy replied.
	"Take it easy.  I was just kidding.  I could out-run you and be
there laughing at the finish line.  I was just trying to break the ice.
Make conversation.  Adults are big on that, because, lo and behold, it lead
to making friends and having a good time.  Now, what gives?"
	"Some stuff's been happening to me.  In church."
	"I hate your church and I hate your part in it.  I'd rather talk
about something else," Keith said to the ten-year-old sitting in front of
him.
	"I've figured that one out for myself, Uncle Keith.  Honest.
That's not what it's about.  You've got to listen.  You're the only one I
can talk to.  Please, don't be a bigot."
	"Lord, child," Keith rejoined, "your holy fathers spent many a
good-old generation, adding up to many centuries, if my history serves me,
devising machines, both hot and cold, to render unto god what was god's.
It's hardly bigotry to hate something with such a foul and indecent
history, nor is there anything worthy in your doddering old dirt kisser to
this very day.  Twelve hundred saints.  Hundred of foreign visits.  The
popemobile.  Since the church has never, since time began, spoken a single
word of truth, it would seem the least they might do is maintain a show of
dignity.  All your geezer has done is left legions of spiffed up husks so
rotten they stink on the hoof.  You ought to know better.
	"I shall not blaspheme further, least the devils of your tribe find
me chief amongst them, and, being the devils they are, arrange a fiendish
plot, but you'll die and mold before I'll issue kudos."
	"Fucker," said the boy; "Grow up.  Your show has wrapped.  You've
been out west long enough to know what that means.  No mics.  No lights.
No cameras."
	"Just a confused nephew.  Your church is your business.  Explain to
me why your god created the sand fly to torment the child of the poor, and
we can move on to page two.  Otherwise, shut your stupid little-boy mouth."
	The two sat for several moments before Randy broke the silence.
"That's only half the story.  You should listen to the other half."
	More moments passed, and finally Keith said Okay.
	"They tell us just what you just said, in private," the explanation
began.  "At least Father does.  He has a church within the church and says
that it's a Disneyland within a Disneyland.  He talks us out of any serious
involvement with doctrine, dogma, beads or box.  They're for peasants and
old women to whom a phony hope is better than no hope at all.  What keeps
the institution alive, in his own words, is the special things that happen
with the clergy and the choirboys and alter boys."
	"You're kidding," said the uncle.  "An honest priest?"
	"Well, I told you not to be a bigot.  Yes, he's honest.  "His day
job is fleecing dowagers without worthy dependents and using the money to
help kids through school.  His hobby is putting on boy shows for rich guys,
so he can get his hands in their pockets.  He even rents us out, for a
thousand dollars a night; ten times that for the farts.  It's nothing to do
with god; that's just a franchise, like communism; a tested means to wealth
and power all packaged and neat, like a little kiosk, with the spiel; the
tracts and pamphlets dreamed up and set down by others, ready to go.
Turnkey.  Useless, but of-the-masses.  Once god is out on his ear, common
sense can find a home.  When I get older, I'm even going to go with a coot,
to bring in a ten grand, just to prove I've got the chops.  And as for the
masses, all they have to do is get pissed to the max and organize.  They're
in a fabulous position, richly empowered to do unto themselves."

Charles cut into his boy's story.  "They liked to talk a lot?" he asked.
 	"Yeah," responded Bliss.  "Is that okay?  Do you want me to tell
you about the other stuff?"  "In due time," the man said to his secular
novitiate.  The most beautiful thing was serious talk between man and boy;
the most important thing, too.  Listening to Blissy go on and on would have
been a delight through a metal grate; to hold the bare-chested boy gently
to him, to feel his every breath and the slight vibrations of his voice was
a compendium of sensations, intellectual and physical, that was stunning
almost to the point of being numbing.  He'd wanted to use their first
intimate time to flesh out the child's submission to the camp; a quiz-show
rewrite, but decided to let little Blissy prattle on, in his merry way,
about saint and savior.  He bade the boy continued telling what he'd seen
on his secret mission.
	"Keith sort of chewed Randy out; not big time, more instructional
like."

"You should have dramatized more sophisticatedly," he said.  "If Lassie,
gets lost, gets run over, gets snake bit, or gives one bark, and ten people
run with rope, Timmy might as well have stayed away from the well in the
first place.  You derailed me by talking about the church.  To cut to the
quick, you seemed to be headed for a story of salvation, ecstasy, babbling
in tongues, miracle cures, saints, sinners, and the enduring rack of
televangelism.  If all of the above are indeed left out of your tale, feel
free to proceed."  "Well," the growing boy said, "perhaps there was
ecstasy, but I assure you it was on a temporal plane, at least for my
part."  "Probably good that you speak for yourself," Keith said with a
wink.  The boy smiled back, happy to have the conflict with his handsome
young uncle resolved.  "Have you been rented?" Keith asked his little
nephew.  "Three times, but only once all night."  "Was it okay?"  "They
were nice; gentle.  They didn't try to make me do anything.  Kind of funny,
when you think about it, I guess.  Honor amongst perverts.  I mean they
were breaking every law in the book even having me in the shower with them,
but they acted like I was a Sunday guest.  Gave me tips.  Made more dates.
Never forgot the Rush.  I think that's from the talking, not from the
physical stuff.  I mean, my body is the same as any kids'.  "What do you
think? Uncle Keith" "I think it's a good lesson to learn at your age.
Personality does count.  Sure, productivity so the industrial revolution
can continue, but charm and a sense of humor; good manners, nice ways,
generosity - as long as they're not used to manipulate, are an asset, no
bun intended."  "Nice of you to demonstrate, Uncle Keith.  Bet you couldn't
do that again."  "There was a boy on the run, who teased his uncle o'er a
pun; the uncle got pissed, a stroke was thus missed: and now the poor
nephew can't cum."  "Fuck.  I heard it but I don't believe it.  Nobody is
that quick."  "Well," Keith deadpanned to the child sitting inches from him
on the fallen tree.  "It was you who mentioned Rush."  "You know," the boy
said after a few moments musing, "I'd pay you to stay overnight.  A
thousand just for a shower."  "Call my agent; we'll ink something
tomorrow."  "But we get to do something today, right?  And I don't mean
lunch."  "You negotiate well, my son."  "Probably out of a free meal," the
boy noted, with mock glumness.  The two sat in a silence which Keith
finally broke.  "How did he get you started?"  he asked.  "When I was nine,
last year.  The other boys had been begging me to be an altar boy.  I said
I thought religion was pretty thin soup, but they hinted there was more to
it.  Said I'd probably really like it, and if I didn't, that would be cool,
too.  "Anyhow, finally I went to Father Francisco.  He was up front and
said the boys sometimes like to do adult stuff when they had a chance, and
would I be uptight about anything like that?  I told him I wouldn't too
much, I didn't think.  He said he'd like to do a ceremony with me in Eden's
lesser garden.  His voice got kind of husky when I said I would do that
with him and he asked if he could ask some personal questions.  I said it
would be alright, so he said we could go to the rectory, and get ready for
the ceremony, while we talked.  "When we got upstairs, we sat on an old
steamer trunk in the hall and he asked me if I'd ever been touched by a
man.  I said I hadn't.  Then he asked about girls and boys and I told him I
hadn't done anything yet.  He asked me if I got boners, and I said quite a
bit.  Lot of stuff like that.  Then he got two silk robes out of the trunk,
cut from a bishop's underwear, he said, and he took one and went to his
bedroom and sent me to the bathroom to change.  "I was so excited I could
hardly stand.  There was a full length mirror in the bathroom and I thought
I looked kind of dorky in it.  I was skinny and my legs were too long and
my knees and feet were too big.  A carrot-topped geek.  "I was glad to put
the robe on and wondered what he'd look like out of his church clothes.
After a couple of minutes he tapped on the bathroom door and asked if he
could come in.  I opened it and he came into the bathroom with me and
closed the door so we could see the mirror.  He came up close behind me and
put his arms around me.  He asked how I thought we looked together, in the
mirror.  I said he looked awesome but no one was going to build me any hall
of fame.  "He asked who my favorite boy was and I said Richie, (he's
eleven).  He told me Richie was getting molested by a cop, Jerry, and asked
if I'd like to watch a video of what they did together.  So we went into
the not very secret chapel and turned off the lights and lit a bunch of
candles; then he went on the computer and found the video file with Richie
and Jerry, and he pulled me into his lap to watch it.  "I got excited, even
more than I already was, and let him molest me all he wanted while we
watched what Jerry did to my friend.  At the end, we masturbated each other
and then made out while we were all covered with his cum.  After that, he
told me about hustling for the church and especially what a nice touch of
morality was involved in selling boy ass to guys who'd otherwise gamble or
drink the same loot; how the money would be laundered into my college
account, less twenty percent, which was the organization's cut.  I've got
seventy thousand, but most of that is tips, so it's not like I'm all that
prodigious in the selling department."  "Have you been with Richie?" Keith
asked.  "He was the first one inside me.  Later that night.  He and Jerry
both came over.  That was the most awesome party any boy ever had.
Straight kids are missing out, colossal time."  "You just said a mouthful,"
Keith said.  Randy paraphrased his lover of the cloth: "If the world hadn't
turned out to be a religious pretzel there'd be sex safety centers in every
mall and a sex safety channel on television.  At the centers guys could
satisfy themselves while they watched kids, even touched them through a
hole in the wall.  And if there was good kiddy porn on the tube, that would
keep the rapist types glued to their sets and off the street; plus, the
channel could have ten minutes each half hour of safety oriented
programming, linked to other resources.  If it was honest and said in many
cases incest and pederasty are fine, and in other cases, not fine at all,
then people would respect it and it could actually help in getting at least
some, maybe a lot of kids, out of lousy situations and take the guilt trip
off the kids that are having relationships they might otherwise enjoy or at
least tolerate."  "Sounds," Keith said, "as if your sessions with your
priest went far beyond masturbation and group sex."  "I suppose," the boy
responded.  "He stresses it's just a point of view.  Some straight kids
grow up healthy and well adjusted, but that takes a consistent, high level
of family input.  Hard to maintain when showboating with giant houses and
huge road machines soak up all the money, time, energy and spirit.  Since
there are fall-outs by the millions, we'd all be happier if they were
allowed to ho if they wanted to.  Give them something to do in life, and it
would be a hell of an incentive to keep one's weight down.  "But it's not
likely to happen.  When Updike visited his home town of Harrisburg, he
groaned on camera over all the churches.  They were spread along the
highway and made it a lazy-box road to perdition.  Pederasty is a strong
force.  It will make a man toil valiantly in the vineyard and raise from
the very soil an edifice of his own, that one day a sweet child might
congregate, or, if the lord is good to him, twins.  Thus the churches, but
they're long-buried in a grave of lies and lassitude; do a pound of harm
for each ounce of good.
	"I mean it's ironic of him to say that, being ordained as he is,
but that's Father.  I'll bet he's right, too.  He says in the Catholic
church pederasty is a seventy percent influence, at least; possibly even
over ninety percent.  If they'd be honest about it, they'd stop screwing up
kids by preaching one thing and either tolerating, or actively engaging in,
another.  The bible has nothing to say about sex in the context of a close
and ongoing relationship between any two people, regardless of the sex or
age or relationship to each other of the parties involved.  It only rails
against lewd and lascivious behavior where everybody lies around doing it
all the time, and society collapses.
	"Think of what it would be like if the church took an active and
humane role, but, then, if the church had taken an active role in family
planning from the turn of the last century, South America, as one example,
would be a true, sustaining paradise, and what need would such happy people
have for the stale church and its dour power?"

	Charles interrupted for a second time.  "One thing I'm hoping," he
said to the eleven year old sharing his view up through the branches to the
almost dizzying blue of the sky overhead, "is that you know who Keith and
Randy are; know some way to get in touch with the.  Do you?"  "I never
heard their last names, but I was not discouraged.  When they left, I
extracted myself from my lair - have you ever operated from a liar?  Every
boy should, at least once in his life - and ran to their car, where I
proceeded to jot down such particulars as license number, VIN, dealer name
and parking sticker stuff.  Enough data to put Holmes off the case.  I've
got it in my backpack.  Plus, I've seen Keith on television; but he's not a
star, and he may use a stage name."
	"Good boy," said Charles, giving the child's naked chest a tender
squeeze.  Blissy resumed his spy story.

	"The church and the Democratic party are identical." Keith said.
"Defective systems that create misery then offer balms against it, or, the
promise of balms.  It's like the Asimov story where the first inoculation
actually infects you with the disease, which the state then controls month
by month as long as the citizen behaves.  Liberalism sells out to
short-term greed, engendering long term problems, for which it promises yet
more short-term palliatives.
	"For example, at this moment in time we collect forty billion in
inheritance taxes and want to spend forty billion on drugs for the elderly.
One program empowers the younger generation with the assets their family
has built, and the other extends the lives of people who are parasites on
the body politic.  Here the difference between correct and politically
correct is thrown into stark relief.  Long-term, versus short-term.  Reason
versus emotion.  And the media.  They will dwell on the oldster without
their morning tray of pills; it's the cheap, easy, sell, and ignore the
fourth generation taking over the family farm or business, because the
story lacks the graphic appeal and heartstrings impact of the
eighty-five-year-old granny waiting for the tray of pills that never
comes."
	"You and Father could be twins, Uncle Keith," Randy said.  His
uncle replied: "All intelligent, well educated, well traveled and well
rounded people are twins.  There is truth and there are true courses of
action and a brotherhood that fucking well knows it.  Good and bad, right
and wrong; they also exist.  It's not a game, it's not an experiment; if we
lose our way in the high tech jungle we've built, where three percent of us
live on farms, we simply die.  All of us.  Yet look how we live.
	"Home computers have been common for over a decade.  Everyone knows
the average kid would rather live in a dumpster with a good computer, than
a mansion without one.  Yet houses are thirty percent bigger than they were
in 1990 and getting bigger every year, for ever smaller families.  Then the
guy from the inspection department comes out and measures the Styrofoam
around every light switch to be sure you won't waste energy, while
permitting one person all the cubic feet they have the price for.
	"Since computers are cool, the state now allows you to buy one with
a CPU that burns seventy-five watts of power.  The new Windows kernels are
built to always-on standards, and high bandwidth connections charge flat
fees, which again encourages always-on usage.  Suddenly, the friendly
little 'puter is drawing three hundred watts of power, twenty-four/seven,
all of which is instantly converted to heat, which must often be removed by
compressor.  Of such compounding insanities are dark ages made."
	Randy broke in with a grin: "Adding millions of giant recreational
vehicles will get us there faster, and over any obstacles."
	Keith hugged the boy to him and kissed him gently on the lips.
	"As long as I'm with you, Uncle Keith, hell can freeze over; you,
and Father Francisco and a few of the guys he rented me to.  Every day
seems like ten years when you're with somebody you really like.  I've been
a really lucky kid."
	"You spread some of that around," Keith said, "so don't feel guilty
about getting a share for yourself."  They kissed again and the boy bowed
his forehead to the man's shoulder.  Keith pulled the child's shirt to his
shoulders, and the boy raised his arms.  As the garment came clear of his
hands, he kept them aloft, and arched to his uncle.  "I've never seen you
bare-chested," Keith said as he stared at the stretching, half-naked youth.
	"Just don't get carried away and forget my personality," the boy
rejoined; "The thing was a bitch to develop properly.  I'd hate to think I
wasted the effort."
	"What personality speaketh thee of, my child?  I have detected
none-such characteristic though the clock marks a multitude of hours since
we escaped the threshold of your domicile.  Why, compared to what I see
before me, your wit, your whimsy; the arch drollery of your attempted
forays into the realm of the humorist or light-hearted companion pale away
as to nothing it all.  Like you're fucking beautiful."
	"And," replied the child, "that wouldn't be anything to do with the
eye of the p-holder?"
	"Less his eye," Keith played along, "and more his finger tips."
Keith began his molestation on the flanks of the stretching child; ran his
fingers to just under the boy's arms, then gently across the exposed breast
to the tiny nipples, where he lingered as the boy stared into his eyes.
"Take yours off, too," Randy whispered.  Keith peeled off his own shirt and
dropped it on the log behind him.  For long moments the two males started
at each other; into each others' eyes, then downwards at their respective
naked torsos.  Randy reached to his uncle and they explored each other.
	"Have you done this to a boy, before?" Randy asked.
	"Only in my imagination." Keith said.  "I never knew what I was
missing.  How about you, have you ever done this with a younger boy?"
	"Just a couple of times.  He's six."
	"Was he a virgin?"
	"Yeah.  But he was like totally curious and he kept pulling his
shirt up so I could see his stomach; then the wanted me to come in and wash
his back when he was taking a bath."
	"Were you scared?" Keith quizzed his child.  "Sort of.  He said if
I went down and locked the door, I could get in with him, so I was really
sure he wanted to do stuff.  Still, I had to kneel against the side of the
tub when he started pulling my underpants down."
	"Had he seen a big boy before?" Keith asked.
	"No.  He was just as excited as I was.  When he got to my hair he
whispered Awesome, and got out of the tub so he could kneel down on the
bathmat.  Then he couldn't wait any longer, so he pulled them down and got
me naked."
	"Did he make you cum?" Keith asked.
	"Yeah," it was the third time I spermed.  The first two were with
Father.
	"Did you tell Francisco about what you did to the boy?"
	"Yeah," Randy said.  "He'd set me up to baby sit there.  He told me
about playing Frog; it's a game for really little kids that want to
experiment."
	"Did you play it with..."
	"Petey?  Yeah.  After we looked at each other and he touched me, I
got him down on his knees, with his arms on the side of the tub, then I got
on top of him and played the boy frog."
	"Did you go up inside him?" Keith quizzed.
	"Yes.  But just about half.  Father says boys have to be really
carefully about getting stretched back there, but I wasn't even five inches
then, and I'm kind of slim in that department, so he said it would be okay
because Petey is big for six."
	"Have you ever had a man inside you, Randy?"
	"Just Mark.  He's sixteen; built kind of like me; real long, but
not too thick.  He's been inside me twice, but just in the shower so Father
can hold him so he doesn't hurt me."  "Do you like it when he does it to
you that way?" Keith asked.  "It hurt some at first but I'm starting to
like it.  I knew how good it felt for Mark, because I'd done it to Petey
just a few days before, so that was the best part.  Making him happy."
"Were you alone in the shower with your priest?" Keith asked.  "No, Father
had brought over a special contributor who wanted to watch Mark do it to me
for the first time.  That's where half my college fund came from."  "Is he
a nice guy?" asked Keith, thinking whatever else he was he was a bargain
hunter.  "Oh, yeah.  They all are.  Father is most unchristian about any
kind of rough trade; physical, verbal, psychological, spiritual, or
otherwise.  You don't have to be super cute, but you do have to be super
nice.  I was lucky; Jason, he's the one who rents me, is handsome.  I like
it when he plays with me, and I was really glad he was there when Mark went
inside me.  It was my best time except for my first time with Father."


"Good," Keith replied.  "I hope that covers sex for now.  We'll get back to
it before the audience gets bored, but, in the meantime, lets take a shot
at ripping Erin Brockobitch apart, since it's playing.  [I rarely drink and
write; don't drink much at all, for that matter.  The following was written
under the influence of six rum and Cokes.  It's peeled from the film as it
plays.]

The undertalent that did schtick on LA Law shows upon the scene.  We know
her for the thirty-second scene.

Woebegone as she is, Erin's now hustling her schmo out of a job.

The obligatory black is playing the role of a Xerox machine expert.  A line
goes: "We'll see.?"

Before a minute of work has been done, on an afternoon identified as
Friday, the manipulative female, looks, and looks only, is hustling the
boss-man for an advance.

Go waitress.  Scenes of mamma, the barfly, kissing babies, and responding,
instantly, to bikes revved in the yard.  Contact is redoubled and absolute.

The biker in the yard scores points with every word, or non-word.  A sexy
little daughter, even this early in the program, is mentioned.  These
possibilities will be stillborn, leaving enough variations on
conventionality to sicken a camel with the same-old hay.

"You're a girl."

Albert Finny says that to Julia Roberts.  As a writer I like to think I
have a grip on the obvious, but compared to Albert Finny I seem but an
amateur.

The scene now is her, Julia, unbuttoned a full big button down.

Jeepers, now she's developing an attitude because someone has disappeared
with her sprat.

These scenes show many responsible for jumping through her hoops.

Charm, wide-open patent smile, family scenes.  No law against them.

A Harley is described as the best motorcycle ever built.  This particular
writer put forty-thousand miles on a Magna, and says Harleys eat all shit,
only shit, and total shit.

This film is getting arty.  Julia and biker are mumbling at each other.
Since neither has read a single book since high school, the yada is banal,
mundane, hackneyed and cloying.  But film is running through the camera
gates, and film ain't cheap, so we get to see what should have graced any
floor.

Cleavage now a full foot below the throat.  So gracious this is all on film
so we can share.  My guess is the cheeseball trailer trash wrecking ball of
society, with Colombo style car, catching a break from..

Even a woman on woman talk her bags hang in scanty leather or vinyl.  As
she finds the Company has been responsive to medical misfortunes she
decides those that might be involved in the inch must be guilty of the
mile.

Complex medical talk with a schmo that would sell the entire planet,
tomorrow, for a one percent elevation in income or status, today, no
questions asked.

We're now thirty-four minutes into the film, and if the tits have been
buttressed, it's only physical.

Big wide smile.  Two.  Three.  Guy picking his teeth.

Remember, we're talking Oscars (trade mark) here.

Tits against the environment.

She's only been gone form her post of duty for a week, and the
establishment is pissed.  So many all wrong, the tits so right.  O, ye
Academy.  Now we find it doesn't' make One Fucking Bit Of Difference
whether she showed up, or not.  Academy Award.  Academy Award.  Academy
Award.

Beard against her face.

Academy Award.

Hey, hey, hey.  Quick takes like "Homicide, Life on the Streets."  Quack
takes, choppy, in-your-face cutting.  No traces of vomit on the print; must
be Billy Bates' "Oxyclean" (trade mark).

Academy Award.

Whooping luck.  Thrashing around for any reason she finds pieces of paper.

Tits with a cause and a cause with paper.  What greater thrill can the rest
of the film offer?

Whistle blower interested in a raise and benefits.

There are lots of other places "She could do her work."  Has anyone
forgotten the teeth?  How about the tits.?

If one single word, thought, or idea of the film is true, shouldn't Erin
Brokovich be elected regent for life over the entire planet?  Just a
thought.

Paper and machines.

The hair.  The everlasting tits.  The giant data base of chemistry that is
largely responsible for us living a hundred feet from the mouth of the
cave, and something about a certain variant of chromium.

More tits on parade.  Fuck, I write about men molesting little tiny
underage illegal boys, and doing it again and again, but do I have to use
pubescent boners on parade?

No.

So, intellectually, why are Julia Robert's chest organs amounting to
seventy-five trombones in the big parade?

"You've been reading for hours."  That's a line from the script.  She's in
her thirties, a mother, and she's been reading for hours?  How does that
fit?

Pictures of dead chickens.

There is much emotion trying to come from the screen.  Mother and child;
Please don't be mad at me, I'm doing this for us.

The lighting director is plainly seen.

More teeth.  What do Julia's Roberts giant teeth have to do with issues of
chemical liability, lawyers, retainers, and the overall perfidies and
variances of a game playing, empire-building system?"

Big teeth?  Shouldn't Tony Robbins be king of the universe, if this is the
standard?

Stories of medical misfortune now occupy our time, though people live far
longer than they have ever begun to live in all of human history.

Must be serious, only half the tits are above the buttoned jeans-vest.

She just looks so udderly stupid.  They gave her an Oscar; I wouldn't waste
the price of a Pepsi on all she has been, all she is now, and all she ever
will be.  Note, note, and note that I have never been paid a single dime
for my work, and she is paid tens of thousands of dollars an hour.

One of the two of us is a turd circling in a bowl.  Ironic, isn't it, that
your very life depends on making the choice.  Certainly my life does, and I
come from the oldest American money there is.

A dead frog.  The plot desperately needed a deed frog; thank god we have
one, because, lacking it, we're left with more tits and more teeth, and
these can only be stretched so far.

I don' t know how this would have made it as a high school play.  Homilies,
bromides, sophistry and cant amounting even to rumbling bikers.  (But,
credit where do, and appreciation for the discipline of my fellow artists,
there has been no note in a bottle.)

By this time the message is fairly clear, however delivered.  Dissect every
company over every memo and stop everything.  Air travel, rail travel, auto
travel on faulty Firestones.  Medicine, research, daycare centers, farmers,
et al.

A delicious microcosm is reported in New York as I write these words.  The
liberals have decided to get rough on cabs.  From forty medallion
revocations a few years ago they are up to almost eight-hundred
revocations.

Can't get a cab, but, know you to your very bones, for every hundred
cabbies we take off the road for about thirty years, each, we will save a
human life.  Plead with every citizen who catches pneumonia and dies of it
to understand that the small number of highly vetted cabs is in their
interest.

Now our beloved Erin is refusing twenty-million dollars, listing medical
woes in their very multitude.

So, we have before us PG&E, the lifeblood of millions on millions of homes,
who apparently invented rarest disease in the interest of profit.  Little
hard to figure, since their children live with all other children, but, if
O.J. could be figured, there is apparently no limit to the art of figuring.

This interruption in my camp tale is simply to demonstrate, scene by scene,
to the degree the scenes hold even a spark of interest, how sick you are.
Erin's poison.  The teeth, the hair, the tits.  Go America.  Go hair.  Go
teeth.  Go tits.  And rest utterly and for all of time absolutely assured
that teeth, hair and tits will lead you exactly where you deserve to go.

Excuussee Me!  The film has degenerated to desert mumbling and a ratty car.
Overexpose the negative by half a stop; that is the art director's
contribution; makes things look a bit funky and rural.  Remember that,
overexpose by half-a-stop.

Now Erin is a secret weapon.

I have one, too.  Thousand of books and magazines plus fifty channels of
cable.  Living in three countries.  Tens of thousands of hours of
keyboarding, just for practice.

Believe as your Constitution allows, but at least know there are two sides
to the story, a life story and a death story.  I represent one and Erin
Brockovich represents the other.  Your life depends on your choice, so be
cool about any orientation or hasty allegiance, and remember your writer
has stature in no field, whatever, except as the monarch of pornographers.

It's a sorry situation, all will agree on that, leaving only a question of
fact.  Erin and her tables of lawyers are right, and I am wrong, or, vice
versa.

Now our Erin is reciting phone numbers like Dustin with his matches.  Is
the fact she knows, or fails to know, phone numbers, relevant?  Ask
yourself.  I've lured you in, young boys and attractive young men, few
holds bared, but if I started reciting phone numbers, how long would you
read - me with a titless boy's body?

Fun to see the conservative female draped with a skull-cap of dated hair;
the embodied cliche has its place in literature.

Less tits now, the story must be getting interesting.  Disregard, for you
own well-being, that I have displayed more insight, perspective, context
and reference, per paragraph, than Erin Brockovich has displayed in almost
a hundred pages of populist wallop...

Was I wrong?  Julia is coughing right there on camera.

If the military/industrial complex could somehow poison her (and Sally
Fields) would it, or would it not, be worth half a million innocent deaths?
Bad math.  Population is over a quarter billion.  Populist empowerment will
result in such confusion as to, slowly perhaps, kill all.  Bad math.

Dreary scenes of Albert Ninny and folding chairs.  Another bike on desert
pavement.  What mood is the director trying to sell me?  Are five thousand
dollars worth of sun glasses the theme of the picture?  There must be
something more, or they wouldn't have awarded all the Oscars (trade mark).

Cute.  Finally.  Here is the twenty-something biker with the seven year old
daughter, just plump enough, and long-legged enough.  The little boy is
future stuff, but coming to the verge.  If I called the story "The Once and
Future Happy Biker" would anyone option it for a dime?

Tits out again, at the roadhouse.  The kids apparently safe with the biker.
More story to be told.  A barfly motif; if one runs out of words through
desperate lack of talent, practice, experience, and love, throw in a barfly
bromide.  Demonstrate your skill with twists and turns by making him say
something.

Wait, here comes some dialogue over a stale cell phone.  How lucky for the
Academy a pay phone is on site.  It means a run across the parking lot,
awkward for a tit wagon, but the message eventually gets on through.

Thank god.  Someone's intestines were eaten away.

A stage mannerism.  Gray-faced informant blowing through his fist.

More paper now comes into our story.  Memos.  Stuff from files.
Personally, as a trust baby living fat and happy in the Caribbean, I'm
saying go, Erin, go.  Shut Pacific Gas and Electric down, tomorrow.  Pay
one billion dollars on each claim.  Let me live, back on the island, as I
once did.

All those teeth are back.

Three hundred thirty three million, and, you guessed it, the teeth are
back.  Laughing people and Your girl's girl's needs.  Three hundred,
thirty-three million dollars for culpability on medical stuff.

LET ME ASK YOU, AMERICAN, THIS VERY SHORT QUESTION.  IF ERIN WINS, HOW CAN
YOU LOSE?

Oh, fuck; she's won her money, and still with the tits.  Sorry, folks, I
missed the whole point.

And the climax?  A direct steal, voiding all copyrights for all time, form
Paul Newman's "The Verdict."  (Hint: Her tits get her everything she sued
for, and more, played out cute as a thousand bugs in a hundred rugs.)

Final credits rolling, and I view the film as total filth.  How about you?

Since you live in it, and I live very much out of it, your vote counts a
hundred to one over mine.  Sleep well, and back to our story.  (I only
thought I was done.  Upon the final ending of Erin we are delivered unto
that which was written and produced by Alan Alda.  Hands for Alan Alda, or,
do I have better use for your hands?)  (Since it is far, far, beneath me to
write for money, I probably do.)

I'm going to insert a chapter break here; it's high time, in a literary
sense, even if measured by raw page count.  Some of you have written
claiming me to be odd or mad.  The terror is that you bet your very life on
whatever I am.  If I am insane, O.J. walks in his rightful world.  If I am
sane, you will die slowly of a hundred insidious embodiments of your
rapacious greed, and get to watch your children die slowly beside you,
which might make it all worthwhile.

Intelligent comment, and especially proofing, are welcome.  (If you can't
write your own, help with mine.)  Thomas@btl.net

xxx

Chapter five.

	Well, that was half fun.  A nice drunken rant.  I wonder if Julia
will survive.  Actually, she seems personable - but why the Marxist,
tear-down-everything-for-any-reason script?  The way I read it, you've got
one chance, only, and that's Creative Camp.  Now this could either be
vanity rampant beyond the absurd, or the truth as told by perhaps the only
person fully and utterly qualified to tell it.  But, let's face it; what
could be more pointless than saving the necks of a culture circling the
porcelain throne?  I mean you've done this so deliberately; sold out so
easily.  It must be what you want, the cradle- to-grave hand to hold,
complete with checks in the mail; the very extensive ravagization of the
kids so the votin' geezers never miss a tray of pills.  Anyhow, my various
writings are your trail of breadcrumbs out of the labyrinth.  Share them.
Someone step forward to edit them; hell, Tiger works with his coaches
constantly; writing is one thousand times more difficult than flog; leaving
me before you bare-assed, speaking of which, aren't there some characters
involved in pretty extreme misbehavior somewhere around here?  I vote for
getting back to them.  Getting them bare-assed.
	For those joining midstream, we have three man/boy setups working,
at least storywise, at the same time.  Blissy is being molested by Charles,
under a tree.  Blissy is telling his man about spying on Keith, man, and
Randy, boy, who are stripped to the waist in a clearing.  Also, Randy has
been telling Keith about special things that have happened to him as an
altar boy.  Another labyrinth, I suppose, but more enjoyable than the
tedium of saving your not very scrawny necks.

	"Uncle Keith," Randy asked, "have you ever been to a nudist camp?"
	"No," replied the young man.  "Have you?"
	"Yes," said Randy.  "I thought maybe you'd like to take me
sometime.  Or are you too famous.  Would people cause trouble if they
recognized you from television?"
	"I don't think so," Keith replied to his young nephew.  "Chevy
Chase works at a summer camp; Jay teases him about it, but that's about as
far as it goes."
	"So then you might take me?" said the young male.
	"I might not if I wrap the Beemer around a tree; I might not, if an
embolism ruptures; I might not if there's a nine-point-five earthquake.
Given lots of time I could probably come up with several more reasons I
might not take my willowy nephew to a nudist camp."
	"How about if I told you there were lots of virgins there?  Some
even eighteen years old.  Perhaps if I added a graphic description of what
happens when a mature teen, who has never even had his underpants off,
except maybe after gym, takes his first walk into the woods with a naked
little boy, you'd be interested."
	"Now," replied Keith, "if the boy was tall and slim, and had
milk-white skin, and curly red hair, and happened to be intelligent, eager
and responsive, it might be a story worth hearing."
	"I think 'responsive' might be understating it," Randy said.
"Highly aggressive would be closer to the truth.  If the boy was really
aggressive, would you take him then?"
	"Well," came the answer, "I guess I might not leave him behind."
	A giggle, and Randy said: "He wouldn't want you to leave his
behind."  "Oh!" exclaimed Keith, "a funny boy.  An aggressive, funny
redhead."  "And deep woods, replete with clearings much like this one."
"Okay, okay!" Keith wailed in mock despair; "You're going to tell me
whether I want you to, or not.  So get one with it."  "Can we start by
getting off with some stuff?" came the wide-eyed query from the child.  "I
don't think personalities come off," said the uncle with a tight grin.
"And that's what I'm interested in, you know; out of respect for the energy
you put into yourself."  "Not this?" the child asked, gaining his feet and
pulling his uncle also off the log, avid fingers going to the man's belt
buckle.  Keith groaned at the urgency of the child, and let him do his
will, their will.  In moments the young actor was clad only in his
underpants and the boy was standing, suddenly shy, before him.  "Almost
eighteen?" the man whispered, causing the child to blush at the memory of
his first time alone with a mature virgin male.  "Get my pants off, while I
tell you," Randy responded out loud.  Keith now went to his knees.  He
couldn't help, for the life of him, kissing the smooth, white child's
belly.  Randy looked like a slightly older brother of the boy who is just
on camera for a second in a dietary supplement ad; the one were a woman is
making funny with some cucumber eye patches.  There was enough treasure
between the boy's belly button and the upper hem of his shorts to occupy an
invading army for a month.  It was no place to hurry, and Keith didn't.  He
fingered, fondled and caressed the child, kissing around his own fingers as
he went.  "Robbie," said the sweet voice, no husking from Keith's touching.
"He had acne, kinda bad, I guess.  It made him look lonely, so I swam over
to him.  When he stood up he was six four; no body hair, no fat, and six
four.  Seventeen.  He could have had green-dripping fistulas, but he
didn't.  Just a really nice smile.  We talked about computers for awhile,
then I asked him if he wanted to go for a walk up in the woods.  He turned
really red, but said okay.  That was soo cool, because I knew he was
thinking about stuff like being naked alone with me.  I wanted to
piggy-back him right on the spot, and it's a damn good thing I didn't,
considering what happened a few minutes later."  Randy seemed to need no
encouragement to continue.  He was now, also, in his underpants with his
uncle fondling his child's body willfully and openly.  But Keith didn't
want to take any chances; his activities on the tender ten-year-old skin
might be distracting.  "What happened a few minutes later," he asked Randy.
"We went to where the cold water comes into one end of the pool.  I knew
why Robbie wanted to go there, but I was as cool as the incoming water.  We
talked there for awhile; he'd come with his dad who was at the pool on the
other side of the camp.  He'd read a couple of books, and read a few
stories on the Net, but otherwise he was clueless, because of the acne.
Stupid females.  But I guess I'm being cynical; after all, they drove him
right smack dab into my arms.  "So, after we'd been by the cool water for
awhile he said he was ready to go for a walk.  Except for the first time
Father came all over my tummy and chest after I'd only masturbated him for
a minute, and the first time Mark went inside me, seeing Robbie get out of
the pool was the most awesome experience of my life.  I mean he wasn't
huge, like in a story, just big, big, big.  He was blond and his hair,
there was actually very little of it, was almost as red as mine.  I thought
I was going to get so bogged down in how stupid girls are that I'd lose it,
but I didn't, and I climbed out with him.  "As soon as we got past the
first tree, I asked him if he wanted to hold hands with me while we walked.
He didn't say anything, but took my right paw in his left.  As we walked we
tickled each other's palms.  I could have made it as far as Timbuktu, it
felt that special, but Robbie couldn't.  He got a huge boner even faster
than I did.  Before we got even two hundred feet from camp he suddenly
stopped and said I'm sorry.  I was just about to ask what was wrong, when
he started to ejaculate.  I couldn't believe it; it was so flattering.
Just holding hands and suddenly he was a blown well of gushing hot sperm."
"What did you do?" asked Keith.  "Nothing.  He grabbed me against him, then
we fell together and he landed on top of me.  'How long does this last?' he
asked as he was covering me absolutely all over.  I was too busy hugging
him and feeling him up and sucking his right nipple to answer, so I just
grunted, and that got him started grunting back.  "I didn't wipe the sperm
off, and every time we met another couple out in the woods he'd haul me
behind a tree and cum on me, again.  Of course, as the afternoon wore on, I
had to help a bit, but together we made it happen five times for him and
twice for me."  "Well," Keith said, "scratch what I said about the major
earthquake unless I'm standing under a bridge.  I'll get you to camp,
somehow."  "Or," the child replied, lightning in his eyes, "we could go
visit Robbie at his house.  He only lives half an hour from here.  His
parents are as cool as mine aren't, plus, he's got a nine-year-old boy down
the street so we could double date in a single room.  I love the looks a
boy gets when he checks in with a cute man, and the drop-of-a-hat room
service.  Add my Hollywood uncle, who looks hardly more than a boy,
himself, and we'll have hot and hot running bellboys 'till dawn."  "I guess
my only options is to stand and be counted," Keith commented.  "What's
really cool is 'puters," Randy said.  "That gives him a reason to hang with
Stacy, that's his nine year old.  Plus, he can write and tell me
everything; even pictures.  I can't wait..."

Blissy finished his story by saying that's all there was, there was no
more.  The two males in the clearing had started dressing of one accord,
and the little spy had begun his retreat under the noise of the surrounding
forest and the lack of attention the uncle and nephew were paying to
anything other than each other and the evening ahead of them.  "So you
never saw any sperm?" Charles asked his young beauty.  "No," said the boy.
"Randy lay on him like I'm lying on you, and they kissed a lot, and
stripped to their underpants, but that was all."  "Oh, was that all," said
the camp owner.

Chapt. 6

	Blissy lay still on top of Charles for a few minutes, letting the
man take his young body as he would.  Charles nibbled the boy's husky
shoulder and the base of his strong neck as he let his hands roam slowly
and tenderly over the child'' nakedness.
	"Can I at least turn over and unbutton your shirt, if you don't
want me to see you?" the boy asked, adding, "I just want to feel you a
llittle bit naked against me. Please."
	Which was the more dangerous fang?  A cop caller, or love?  A
century ago Charles had this very thought tug at his mind.  Way back, when
he had a mind.  With a boy, who needed a mind?  By this time, anything
other than his two petting hands seemed superfluous to his existence.
	Regrettably for dear reader, my character, Charles Hastings, is a
flat-out, no-holds-barred, genius.  The lesson he has learned over the past
hour, as Blissy has told his multi-layered spy tale, has to do with the
carnality of waiting; temporizing.  Coming off a ten-day writing blitz, the
man had as much sperm as three normal boys.  He longed to strip his new
child, and let the child stroke him until he was streaked all over his
pubescent nakedness with rope and ribbon of tangling semen.  Dripping it
from his face with more congealing in the short boy hair of his rugged
head.
	The big brain came with a big clutch.  Charles engaged it slowly,
but the child in his arms immediately sensed a change.
	"What's wrong?" Blissy asked.
	"Nothing, Blissy," Charles replied, "but I've got to get you to
camp.  You've simply got to be around younger men and boys for your first
real time.  Trust me, okay?  Then, if you still want, my door is always
open.
	"Meantime, I want you to tell me again about your quiz show idea."
	"You're just trying to change the subject," said the boy with a
quaver in his voice and tears dripping down his cheeks.
	Charles rolled his eyes and exhaled a non-verbal Du'uh.  But the
wisdom that comes with age, when built on a rock-solid foundation, is the
best there is, and he stuck to his guns, gently retrieving the child's
shirt and easing him back into it with petting, fondling and kissing.  The
boy sighed and played a bit of a role, as boys are wont, but, deep in his
eyes, beyond visibility, was a glow of admiration and respect, the kind
that builds to-the-death loyalty (not necessarily a good thing).
	Rolling once again in the green Dodge, Charles let the boy sulk.
This lasted two minutes, then a small voice came from the passenger's seat.
	"I thought of something on the bus, on the way down here.  I think
it's better than the quiz show thing.  Do you want me to tell you?"
	Chalk one up for c-camp, Charles thought to himself, and simply
nodded at the boy.
	"Okay," said the boy, quickly brightening to his subject.  "It's
sports, how much do you know about sports?"
	"I know how to keep my heels down, my hands quiet, and the horse
between the knees; other than that, I watched 140 games of the '84 Cubs
season.  That's about it."
	"How about golf?" asked the sweet young voice, so quickly free of
the recriminations that had brought tears five minutes before..
	"I love it, especially when the course is green and it's cloudy so
the lighting is soft.  Beautiful game.  I've even played a few rounds,
years ago; why?"
	"Well," said Blissy, "it's kind of a golf thing I invented.
[Author's note: The following description is not copyrighted.]
	"I mean," the boy continued, "what's the first thing about sports,
in general?"
	"They cripple people when they age," came the sardonic response.
And so soon was Charles repaid for his discipline with the young boy.  His
eyes hardly blazed to half indignation a the flippant comment before he
remembered who he was talking and the look softened.
	"Seriously,:" was his response.
	"Fitness, teamwork; I suppose there's a list.  What are you getting
at?"
	"Size," said Blissy.  "Think of it.  The basketball is just the
right size, he hockey puck, both the softball and the baseball.  Everything
in sports is just the right size; jumping skies, slalom skies, to the
freaking thousandth on an inch - except one thing."
	"The golf ball? answered Charles, having had a pretty good hint.
	"No," came the answer.  "The cup.  The hole.  It's too small."
	"Good point," said Charles.  "How big should it be, six inches,
eight?"
	"No, no," said the little camper, "twelve inches, by
four-and-a-half, by however deep the present cup is.  I think it's four
inches."
	Charles thought with the boy for a minute.  Chalk one up for
c-camp.  It was like a hammer on the head.  Of - freaking - course!  Twelve
by four and a half.
	The boys voice broke into his thoughts.  "Oriented, magnetic north
and south on odd numbered holes, and east and west on even numbered holes.
	Fuck, that made it perfect.  Could anything so simple, be so
perfect?  He thought of the short game; an entire layer of strategy and
tactics, ball striking, to stick the ball as close as perpendicular to the
trough as possible.
	More exciting because it amounted to a little more skill over a
little less luck at the professional level, and faster play on crowded
amateur courses.
	Charles almost had a palpable sensation of smelling smoke.  He
realized his big clutch was slipping to the point of burning.  Could this
boy possibly show up in his bed tonight?  Possibly?  He wanted to jam on
the big four-caliper brakes, slew the car to the shoulder, and have and
have and have the boy on the wide, comfortable bench. seat.  Every boner
he'd ever had blistered his pants.  But, a mind was a terrible thing to
waste.  Charles didn't rent his boys; their earnings came from signing fees
and royalties, exclusively.  This kid was brilliance, personified; a golden
goose perhaps full of diamond eggs, not, not, not to be hurried, pressured,
inveigled or tampered with.  Easily worth a million dollars a pound;
perhaps many times that in an era where writing code was a common
denominator to invention, with results that in all probability would
destroy LAWKI.  "All I ever wanted," Charles thought to himself, "was a kid
that could re-invent and vastly improve an ancient sport, and do it in a
minute or two."
	  "Can I still sleep with you," the boy asked, "or is it a dumb
idea?"
	Virtuoso yes; virtuoso, no, sometimes all a writer can do is start
a new chapter (even if it's premature [one smiley face]).

Chapt. 7

Charles was amused to note, minutes later, he was cruising five miles an
hour slower than he had traveled the same road on the trip in.  Must be the
precious cargo.  They covered the miles chatting about life in general.
Subjects ranged from the trauma of living in an aggressively sub-literate
culture to the vagaries and inconsistencies of genius, in general.  They
mutually detested the box-faced bearded one with the knit sweaters.  Backed
by the NEA his cow-flop prose had turned some hundred million kids, perhaps
more, off reading, forever, apparently.  If this lifestyle on wheels was
good, how fucking horrible were the rest?  Few wanted to find out, much to
the delight of the producer class, because now they could turn out
condo-speak banality, season after season, and a vast, bovine sub-class
would not only watch it, but slap plastic in cadence with the sponsor's
demands.  The talk of writing quickly circled to Blissy's application
sketch.  The quiz show.  [Author's note: This is my stickiest one, as far
as rights go.  The following sketch is a significant modification to a
popular quiz show.  The author fully acknowledges all rights of existing
copyright holders, and, with no intention of infringing thereon, copyrights
the following variation to be licensed only to the original copyright
holders.]  "There the audience sits," the boy began, "two hundred dollars
on the line, a question that's usually humorously imbecilic, and a stage
hound goes through three lifelines before flubbing out; or flubs out two
questions later.  Again, and again, and again, making the show at least
half un-watchable.  "What they should do, is start the ten contestants at
the same time.  Put each low value question, with all four answer choices,
up on the screen for, say, twenty seconds; long enough for the audience to
play along.  Go through the first bunch of questions this way.  The secret
is to measure the time it takes each contestant to answer each question.
That way there will probably be a never be a tie, because the points will
be awarded in an equivalent of hundredths of a second.  "This would make a
fun horserace out of it.  Instead of having ten in the beginning, it would
be better to have nine; three rows of three.  Each contestant would have an
indicator on their desk, showing the audience how they were faring in the
race through the first ten questions.  I'm not sure exactly the best way to
score this part; probably the way they do it now, if you miss one, you're
out; or, they could split a purse amongst the top three finishers.  "Okay,
now we're about ten questions in.  We have a winner.  They take the hot
seat, and begin at the $32,000 level.  Then, and only then, the lifelines
kick in, the host interviews the contestant, and so on.  From the $32,000
point on, the game would be identical to what is now on the air.  "And the
kicker is, you'd get a much higher quality of play.  As it is now, if
you're a member of the first group of ten, you have a one in sixteen chance
of being selected, just by pushing the buttons as fast as you can, assuming
others players are trying to answer accurately.  If four are chosen for the
hot seat, your random-luck chance becomes one in four.  Doing it my way,
the best of the ten, or nine, as it should be, gets to play on, which is
also as it should be.  Result: much better game."  "Result," paraphrased
Charles, "much bigger bills."  Here he imitated a smaller-bills television
catchphrase from an insurance company.  "For the producers, I mean.  A lot
more people would win a lot more money.  Before we submit it, we should try
to find out what percentage of the budget the prize money is, that might be
a problem, but other than that A-plus in gold stars.  Blissy got a pat on
the head.  Simple, clean, superb.  A six-inch putt and a twelve-inch
trough.  (Blissy wanted to name his improved ball trap the Tiger Lair; he'd
had experience in a lair, but Charles preferred the bone-deep grace,
stature and manners of Vijay Singh, so he did not bubble over with
enthusiasm, though, to be honest, he did not hesitate to think of himself
as the Tiger Woods of contemporary English prose.  (Better, actually,
because Tiger often had dozens of players a few strokes behind him, and
Charles never had anybody even on the course.  That is what Hemmingway and
liberals had done.  That's what they had done.  Hadn't done it to Blissy,
though.)  "I've got a completely original quiz show, too," said the boy,
then he changed the subject.  "Can you tell me a sex fantasy while we
drive?"  Charles almost choked.  Tell him one?  What the hell was he
living, chopped liver?  He sputtered a bit, then began.  "It's the movie
where the young kid goes away, and comes back as an adult, and something
happens to him.  In Africa.  I just saw half of it..."  "Yeah," said the
boy, I saw some of it too, I can't remember the name either.  That's an
excellent starting place; the boy was kind of a blondish moppet; thin face,
big teeth, long legs for his age."  Charles began his tale.

"Is that you, Norry?  Are you home?"  "Yes, little cousin, it's me, and I'm
glad to hear you call it home."
	The blond nine year old charged half way down the stairs, leaped
the log banister, and skidded to a stop on an east Indian rug.  Norry
caught the boy, and both pivoted, half dancing to an armchair.
	"I'm too big to kiss," said the child in a mock man's voice.
	"Then you'll soon be too dead to tickle," Norry laughed, going to
the child's lean flanks.
	"Come on, let's go riding," the boy chirped, kissing his
seventeen-year-old cousin on the neck.  "We can both ride Hack Attack, but
I want to be in front, because I need to ask you some questions and I want
to be able to hear what you say without you running us into a ravine or
over a snake.  Okay?"
	"That should get the city out of my lungs; you're on.  Give me ten
to stow my gear and kiss your mom and we'll be off like a dirty shirt."
	The scratching of iron gave way to a nearly silent tread as Hack
Attack cleared a ridge and brought his boys onto a sweep of African
pasture.  It was too hot to even lope, so the big gelding settled to a near
plod.  Norry sensed tension in Billy; rigid and silent in contrast to his
first bouncing greeting.
	He would have said What's up under other circumstances, but felt
the interrogatory might not fit the circumstances.  "I was nine only seven
years ago, so you don't have to try to communicate across any big gulf,
okay?"
	"Well," Billy said, "we don't get into town much, and I hardly ever
spend time with boys my age, so, well, there's a lot I'm confused about.  I
mean, I know some stuff from living on the plantation, but, you know,
that's just physical; cats in a row.  How old do you have to be for it to
start making sense?"
	"Two or three hundred years might give you a grip," Norry replied,
"if you live that long; before then, it's kind of an
every-person-for-themselves deal, vastly complicated, but there you go."
	"Yeah," said Billy, "but that's the problem.  It's all really
complicated, and I should be talking to someone about it, so I don't get
wrong ideas, I guess, but there is no one out here to talk to.  I mean the
African kids know stuff, but we don't take our friendship to that level;
you know, where I could talk about really personal stuff with someone from
a different culture.  Is it okay to be that way?"
	"You're probably right, but things like that can change.  It's all
massively individual, misery in the rules, splendor, without, and,
definitely, vice-versa.  Sticking to your own culture probably makes sense,
and certainly does if that's your choice."
	"At least to start," said Billy.
	As they rode, Billy's eyes scanned the ground.  Hack Attack's thin
blanket and a place free of ants.
	"Do you want to ask me some questions?"  Norry asked his young
cousin, "or, I could just hold forth with a sermon with everything arranged
to my personal preference."
	The rode on for a few moments and Billy scanned the ground.  "I
mean," he finally said, his voice shaking, "boys sometimes really talk a
lot about it, right?"
	"Yes," Norry said, "especially if they're really close friends.  It
can be really scary, because after so much talking, one boy might want to
do a little more than talk, and he won't know if the other boy would like
to do stuff, or get really mad and split up and maybe even rat him; that's
what they call it in the States."
	"Do boys do stuff a lot there?" Billy asked.
	"It's getting pretty common.  Especially with computers.  That
gives kids a strong common interest, and that leads to friendship, and I
guess about a third of boys end up doing some physical experimenting.
Maybe more.  Probably more all the time, in any event."
	"Do they keep it really secret?" the nine year old asked.
	"Mostly, except some boys come out in their later teens.  Usually,
it's pretty secret though, especially when boys do things with mature
males.  That could lead to trouble.  In all it's kind of catch-can.  Don't
ask, don't tell is actually intelligent and spreading; besides, some of the
excitement a man gets from a boy is just because it's naughty, and about a
hundred percent of the excitement a boy gets from a man is the same thing."
	"Is it really exciting when you do it?" Billy asked.
	Some of the tension was going out of the child.  Norry felt him
lean more freely into his chest.
	"I'll answer your question with a question," the older cousin said;
"do you see a lot about it on television and in the movies?"
	"All the time."
	"I guess that's the answer.  Pretty exciting.  I've even read
married couples like doing it, proving it takes all types."
	Billy laughed and jabbed back with an elbow.  More questions
bubbled out of him.
	"So, if you live in the city, and there are a lot of boys to hang
out with, how do you find one?"
	"Being nice is the biggest step," Norry answered.  "I don't mean
being phony nice as you might be around Christmas, but sort of low key and
friendly.  Just about like you are now.  Then, once you have some nice
friends you have to try to make something happen, real carefully, gently,
and patiently, usually, anyhow, and most important, don 't make too big a
deal of it.  If things work out, excellent; probably, brilliant, and if
they don't, study harder and make yourself smarter, since you probably
can't be any nicer without overdoing it.  Try to remember that if it
happens a few times in a lifetime, with just the right person, that's more
than a lot of people get.  And if it doesn't, write a book about it.  The
Net needs content providers, so you can publish without going through the
ritualistic rigmarole of the book trade."
	"That's cool," said Billy; he'd seen it and other Americanisms on
cable and the words sounded great in his Kenyan accent.  Cool.  He
continued his thought: "I already know what my first story is going to be
about.  Can you guess?"
	"Something along the line of the evil older relative coming back to
seduce the lad of the plantation, I should imagine."
	"Will you help me?" Billy asked.  The child had settled happily
against the older teen's chest, and was wriggling contentedly, his eyes
never leaving the ground in their search for a perfect piece of ground.
	"As long as no one finds out, I might.  I'm not eighteen, but I
still could get in trouble."
	"I've got passwords inside passwords.  Encryption is a hobby; or it
was, before you came along.  Safe as houses."
	There it was.  The younger boy quickly triangulated by blinking in
a distant mountain peak and two prominent plane trees.  He grabbed the
reins and dropped from the horse, beckoning his older cousin.  Norry also
dropped to the ground and Billy secured the animal and spread the saddle
blanket, which had never actually been mated with a saddle, on a shady
patch of soft grass free of dung and ant trails.
	"Now we can really talk," he said, dragging the mature male down on
the blanket beside him.  Norry looked into the eyes of the glowing child.
He reached off the blanket, plucked a stalk of reed, and tickled the boy's
ears.

	"That's what you did to me," Blissy giggled from the passenger seat
of the cruising Dodge.  "I'll bet you do it to all the boys."  Charles let
the comment slide, time enough later, and returned to his tale of the two
cousins under the tree.

	"It's really private here," Billy said.  The trail is almost half a
mile; no one would come out here in a year.  Is it okay?"
	"It's outrageously beautiful," said the returned traveler.  "And,
yes, we could see anyone coming before they could see us."
	"No spore on the whole ride out," Billy pointed out.  His cousin
had been out of the country and might have lost touch with the finer points
of indexing predators.
	"Strange," said Norry, looking into the child's bright eyes.  "I
could swear I was with a tiger."
	Billy giggled happily.  He knew who the tiger really was; he'd seen
some soccer, as they called it, tapes, and a tiger had been loose on every
field.  Number 18.  All the tiger he needed.  As he thought of his cousin
in his playing shorts he got a boner.  Thinking back about all the things
they'd talked about on the ride out made his young penis swell all the
more.  He'd lost his innocence.  From now on, every talk that wasn't about
nuts and bolts stuff was going to do this to him.
	Norry looked down the slim body lying on it's back; the beautiful
boy face, and the astonishing big bulge in the boy's tight short shorts.
	"Oh, tiger," he said.
	"I can't help it.  I'm sorry..."
	Norry hushed the nervous child with a gentle kiss on his lips.  The
boy gasped lightly and looked into his eyes.  "I never thought about
kissing,:" he said.  "I mean, I don't really know what I did think about,
but I know it wasn't kissing.  Since I'm such an ignorant child, maybe
you'd better give me another lesson."
	Norry leaned back to the boy, and they touched lips again.
	"I'm still not getting it," the child chirped, "you've got to try
again."
	 "You mean harder?" Norry asked the boy.
	"Have it your way," the boy said, coming after the teen inches
above him.  It was harder.  Billy's hands went to the older boy's cheeks,
then up in back of his head.  He pulled and Norry shot his hands under the
little boy's head and boosted hit with his fingers.  For all his talk,
Norry had never been with a boy younger than fifteen.  As an MIT
undergraduate he'd hardly been with anybody, for that matter, but with
Anthony enough had happened so he felt confident in taking the child.
Their kisses began to linger with what started as minor lateral swipes,
lips against lips.  Norry was astonished to feel Billy's tongue, first.
He'd never have thought of doing that with Anthony, until the teenager had
done it to him.  He blocked the probing phallus with his teeth, then
nibbled very gently as he allowed the boy entrance, gradual changing to a
slow carnal sucking of the child.  There were not walls on this part of the
veldt; otherwise Billy would have climbed four of them.
	Two full minutes went by before the young males finally separated.
	"Damn," quoth the boy; "if that was just kissing, what's the rest
like?"  ` "I don't know," Norry replied.  "I've never even seen a boy your
age bare chested; I don't know what it must be like."
	"Well, it's so cool I might even try it with a girl.  As long as
she could ride and didn't shit a brick every time there was some crummy
mamba in the thatch."
	"Look, Billy," Norry said, a worried look in his eyes.  "Fooling
around like this is something only some boys like.  Other boys do not.
It's totally okay to change your mind.  I kid about girls and getting
married, but I've never met a man I'd even like to touch, so I don't even
know for sure what I am, even after four years around Boston.  So you tell
me if you feel uncomfortable, okay?"
	"Do you ever see girls you like, you know, that way?" Billy asked.
	"Yes, but it's about one in ten thousand in my age bracket.  I'm as
fussy as you are.  If they can't ride, or the like riding and horses even a
bit too much, it doesn't matter what they look like.  Then they have to
read; at least a thousand books by sixteen.  The list goes on and on.  I
mean don't get me wrong.  I do see some.  There was a girl in Watertown, a
prodigy, math whiz; she had cerebral palsy.  I was patching software at the
clinic where she got her pool therapy..."
	"How old was she," asked Billy.
	"Eleven," he said.  "Was she pretty?"  "She is.  Lucy Terrant.
Much more than pretty.  The finest hair, dirty blond, you can imagine.
Neck like a swan.  Beautiful mouth with just the tiniest wisp of fuzz on
her upper lip.  Blue eyes.  Very oval face.  High brow, with that beautiful
hair halloing like gossamer.  Porcelain skin, so milky you could see veins
at her temples..."  "Did you ever kiss her?" the boy asked.  "That's a long
story," Norry said.  "Make it short, but tell me some, please?"  "Okay,
it's mature.  Promise you won't freak out, okay.?  "Well, you didn't chop
her up, did you?"  "It's much more exciting than that."  "Are you in love
with her?"  "Yes.  We're going to write; I'm helping her with her thesis."
"Awesome," said Billy, trying another gem from the tube in his lilting
accent.  "You guys get married, then have a boy kid; maybe a girl; and I'll
teach them when they're old enough.  Deal?"  "It's a plan."  "So, did you
kiss her, or not?"  "Okay, Billy, you asked.  She had an older brother;
nineteen.  He'd cared for her since she'd started to feel the effects of
the disease.  The treatments consisted of a lot of time spent together in
the pool, and they were often alone after the staff left, behind locked
doors.  Also, they had a whirlpool in their house.  Anyway, they spent a
lot of time together" "She told you about what happened?"  "Yes," Norry
said.  "We'd know each other for about six months; it was pretty soon
before I left.  She wanted me to make love to her, and I couldn't because
I'd done stuff with a boy and I wasn't sure I was clean.  So then she told
me about her brother, and about the things he did with her when they were
alone together, and she said I could watch them, and masturbate on them if
I wanted to."  "Will you take me to Boston someday?" Billy asked.  Norry
grinned at him.  "I guess we're peas in a pod," he said, and added, "sure;
I'll take you anywhere in the world you want to go.  I've got my teaching
credentials, at least at the graduate school level, so you could play the
dummy and I'd be your fountain of knowledge."  "No that sounds like a
plan," the boy said.  "Did you watch them together; and what's that word,
mas..."  "Mas is more in Spanish; mas -t-u-r-b-a-t-I-o-n.  Also known in
the States as jerking off, among other names, and in Britain as wanking or
tossing, neither much to my liking, I'm afraid."  "What's not to like?"
asked the boy with a giggle, parroting more of his cable lore.  "Do you
know what it is?" Norry asked the little boy.  "No.  I'm not very clued in,
even with cable.  We've only had it for a year."  "It's usually the first
part of sex, after kissing; the first part of real sex, especially between
male partners, and, in that subset, especially between boys and mature
males."  "Are you going to do it to me?" the boy asked, his eyes wide with
hope.  "I thought the kissing was enough to last a lifetime, Billy; I just
don't know about pulling your underpants down and masturbating you."  "Will
you let me pull your down, too, so I can do it to you after you teach me
how?" the child asked, more hope than ever in the bright, eager eyes.
"Yes," said the older cousin.  "That's the way males almost always start
together, after kissing like we did."  "Why?" asked the nine year old.
"Some males, not all by a long shot, mind you, like to watch other males
ejaculate.  That's when the semen comes out.  Some girls like it, too, but
mostly guys."  "Well, I sounds like three Brady neat-o's," said Billy,
quoting a very favorite movie.  "It is, especially for little boys your
age; awesome, in your vernacular.  In anybody's, for that matter."  "How
long does it take," asked Billy.  "Ten minutes.  Half an hour.  The first
times with a new partner, sometimes it's over so fast it hardly really
happens at all."  "If I sneak into your room tonight, how many times could
we do it before six in the morning?"  "We'll probably do it all night
long," Norry said.  "Sometimes people measure by how many climaxes they
have."  "How many will we have?" asked the child.  "There's no limit for
you, because you're too young to have sperm.  When you cum, only a little
fluid will come out.  With me, probably four or five times; especially
after being out here with you this afternoon.?  "Is it exciting to do it a
lot, or does it get tiresome?" the boy quizzed.  "It's exciting to do it a
lot with exactly the right partner."  "But even when it's bad it still
pretty good.  I remember that from cable."  "That's what they say.  I've
never had it be less than brilliant, but I'm hardly big time.  Most couples
make love once a week; most homosexual partners make love between fifteen
and a hundred and fifty times in their entire relationship, even if it goes
on for decades.  Lucy's brother, Alex, ejaculated twelve times insider her
their first night together, after cuming on her breasts with his first
sperm.  They've been lovers since she was eight, and he still takes her
several times before they go to sleep, and twice before they get up in the
morning."  "Wow!" exclaimed the young boy.  "His penis is really big, and
Lucy is very slim; her vagina is very tight.  Plus, he's trying to get her
pregnant before her illness interferes with her ability to bear a child."
"I'm awfully glad you had a cute little boy to come home to," said Billy
with a sweet grin.  "That makes two of us."  "Do you think Alex will get
her pregnant."  "Yes; I'm expecting hysterical news on the internet about a
Noreen or a Norry any time."  "Wow!  It's too bad you played around with
that boy; maybe it could be yours."  "I don't see it that way," said Norry.
"Alex is about as good looking as a guy should ever be; six three; swimmer.
He's a Navy pilot.  He's legally adopted her so she can be with him
anywhere he is, at least most of the time.  Now he's at MIT; probably
headed to be an astronaut.  I don't blame her for wanting his child; I'm
just happy she lets me be any part of her life, and, if things work out,
her second baby will be mine."  "You'll have to think up some new names."
"I'll give you that assignment."  "I'll take it.  Meantime, you take
me. Please??"  Norry lunged on top of the little boy.  Their lips crashed
together frantically; the boy tearing away after a few moments to say Rip
it off me.  I'll tell mom it was ants.  Rip it off me.  The mature teen
grabbed the boy's shirt, and drew blood from scraping buttons as he tore it
from between their writing young bodies.  The nine year old didn't have the
strength to rip open Norry's heavier shirt, but his fingers worked with
frantic haste and in moments the two juveniles were naked chest to naked
chest, kissing wildly.  "Nothing can be better than this," the boy gasped
through his tingling and swollen lips.  "I thought so to until I watched
Alex ejaculate all over Lucy's chest, then they made out."  "Are you going
to do that to me?" Billy asked, his eyes now openly glowing.  "Every day
for weeks and weeks," Norry answered.  "Starting when?"  "Are you asking
for a date?" the teenager teased his little cousin.  "Shut up and talk,"
the boy responded.  Norry knew what the kid meant, and lifted himself off
the writing young body.  He lay on his back, his penis a log inside his
jeans.  Billy had the belt and zipper undone in moments, and soon the jeans
were piled off the small blanket.  His mission of the moment accomplished,
Billy lay back, his penis also hard against his short shorts.  Norry
reached for the boy's right, inner thigh, seeking permission in the eyes as
his hand moved slowly to the silky boy skin.  Billy jumped at the first
overtly sexual touch to his young body.  He threw his hands behind his
neck, and spread his legs widely, offering himself blatantly and without
reservation.  Norry knew he was way past the point of no return just from
looking at his little cousin.  Leaving the child's thighs for a moment, the
powerful teen surged to his feet between Billy's splayed-open legs, and
pulled down his briefs, kicking them on top of their pile of clothing.  For
a minute he posed for his child, emulating the boy's hands behind the neck,
his big penis jutting nearly straight up as he arched his back for his
little beauty to see all.  "Come back to me," Billy whispered, his eyes now
burning.  Norry dropped to his knees, then straddled his nine year old.
Stretching, he reached for his jeans, retrieving a hunting knife from a
sheath on the belt.  Billy winced as the blade traveled inches over his
nose on its way to his groin.  Looking at the spreading legs of the boy,
Norry couldn't imagine closing them for any reason, even to pull down the
little underpants.  A couple of flicks with the blade, and the briefs
became a miniature loincloth, draping the boy's huge penis.  "This is
masturbating," he whispered, kneeling between the thrusting young legs and
stoking himself over the child's waist.  "Can you do it on me?" Billy
asked.  "You mean my sperm on you, or do you want me to masturbate your
penis?"  "Yes," groaned the child.  Instinctively, he moved his silky
little boy's tender calf against Norry's erection, and pulsed against it,
emulating the stoking he'd just seen.  The mature teen groaned at the
sensation, and reached for the child with both hands.  He fondled the boy's
white belly and ran his fingers up and down the childish flanks.  If lions
weren't dumber than monkeys they'd be fighting each other, tooth and claw,
just to get a look at this tender eighty-some pounds of slender, very
long-legged boy.  That was Norry's last thought as his fingers crept
beneath the remnant of the sliced underpants.  The boy was a champ.  Big
and hard.  Over four inches and thicker than a frank.  Roaming his fingers
gently under the cloth, Norry was shocked to discover more than a hint of
fuzz just under the line of the child's underpants.  He'd heard middle
school gym teachers we're experts at picking out early to mature boys; that
such boys often had a much higher sexual appetite than boys who matured at
a normal pace.  What had he found?  The big powerful cock, even with hair,
on a nine year old.  He'd been more than half right in calling the boy a
tiger.  He was all of that; practically a virgin stallion.  Then the
child's big penis was naked; it looked like a fourteen-year-old's.  Cut,
and straining to five inches; awesome seen against the slim child body
seeming to like almost beneath it.  Norry fell forward over the boy, coming
to rest on his extended left arm.  Bending his wrist against the ground, he
was able to use his finders to help hold the child's head aloft, while he
slowly, carefully masturbated himself against Billy's big cock.  Billy
watched in fascination; totally enthralled at the sight of his own
little-boy belly, the big log of a boner jutting toward his belly, and his
mature cousin pinioned over him on a locked elbow, masturbating against his
creamy thighs.  Billy felt his older cousin shudder like a small bridge
being crossed by a big tank.  He removed his right hand from under his neck
and grabbed the shoulder of his athletic lover, hoisting himself so he
could see everything that had to happen, now, or the bridge was going to
collapse.  "I'm cuming," whispered Norry.  "Always tell your partner when
you feel it starting, just a tip."  The teen's stroking suddenly froze, his
hand sphinctering the base of his big penis.  With a grunt, the actual
spray started, bringing fire to Billy's eyes.  It was getting all over him.
He held the powerful shoulder frantically to his boy chest, instinct
telling him how carnal the feeling was the male that was spurting his hot
seed all over his childish torso, with some of the gush splashing all the
way to his face.  Then the rhythm changed; slowed dramatically, and very
tenderly Norry used the last of his strength to hold himself off the boy
while he guided the tip of his penis to thhat of the little boy.  Billy
watched his big boner get sloshed and smeared with the thick, white sperm
of the older male.  With a grunt, Norry released his last seed onto the
child under him, then thrust himself back to a kneeling position between
Billy's legs.  He pulled the boy roughly, bringing the big penis against
his own.  The sperm in such quantity acted as a tactile catalyst between
the seventeen-year-old hand and nine-year-old boner.  Billy's ejaculation
began so fast, Norry was able to take three watery spurts from the child
before his afterglow began to fade.  Both males were now covered with each
other's hot seed, and the big boy lowered himself gently to the child
underneath him.  They kissed, and lived very happily ever after

	"Turn around," said Blissy.
	"Why?" asked Charles, worried that his scandalous tale might have
upset the boy beside him.
	"Because," the boy explained calmly, "I want to go to the camp the
other way; around the world and come from the other side.  Then you can
tell me stories the whole way."
	"And what fare would you offer for such an excursion?" Charles
asked.
	"I've never seen sperm," Blissy replied.  "I believe this would
make me willing, eager and experimentally creative.  As does the boy in
your story, little Billy I believe it was, I maintain a certain
youthfulness of flesh and spirit that should last throughout any trip of
reasonable length."
	Charles was going to get rear-ended at this rate.  He hadn't
cruised at 45, ever in his life; well, perhaps nursing his college car home
on fumes; but for a long, long time.  His shoulders actually twitched at
the thought; pull over, turn around; take the long way.  But basic morality
kicked in before he began acting out.  It was criminal to mistreat a child,
and not getting this boy to c-camp, asap, would be outright abuse.  A trip
around the world with the boy would be premature, but ending this chapter
isn't.

Chapt. 8

	The mood at the camp was serious.  Something was afoot.  The new
boy.  Something special about the new boy.  Who'd seen him?  This boy, that
staffer.  What was it all about?  Charles?  Had the ice prince finally
melted?  Wow!  Who?  What?  Where?  How?  When?
	A precept of c-camp, directly from Charles's lips, was essential to
his view of his many young chares.  I'm smarter than you are, but, if you
learn from me, by the time you're half my age.  This went hand in hand with
his simplistic approach to himself as perfect, except for his conceit,
which kept him from being annoyingly perfect.
	At this level it was a good thing to be as good as one's word

Daliel

Sensibilities and sensations.

Work in progress.  If it were a freeway overpass, you'd be in mid-air by
now.

I remember transistors.