Summer of Twelve -- Chapter 9

In which Grandpa and Daffy are reunited, and Critter, Spencer and me receive a mysterious package.

"Johnny, is that you?" Daffy said.

Grandpa froze. Only his eyelids moved, blinking rapidly.

"You got old," Daffy said, "but your birthmark is still there, the butterfly on your left cheek."

Grandpa put his hand up, touching the spot on his cheek. I had always thought it was just the kind of spot that old people get. It wasn't very big; two fingers could cover it. It did look like a butterfly.

"You died sixty years ago," Grandpa said. "This is impossible."

"I don't remember dying," Daffy said, "but I remember how much I loved you."

Grandpa broke down. He sobbed like an eleven-year-old boy who's just learned of the death of his beloved big brother. Critter hugged him tight. I moved closer and put one hand on Critter and held Grandpa's hand with the other. Critter was wracked with sobs almost as deeply as Grandpa.

I found myself crying also, not sobbing, but with tears flowing so freely I couldn't see right.

Daffy went around to Grandpa's other side. He put one hand on Grandpa's shoulder and held his hand with the other. Daffy's cheeks were wet also.

After several long minutes, Grandpa managed to say, "Dear God! I so want to believe it's you, David. But how can it be?"

"Do you have to know how?" Daffy said. "Does it matter so long as we both remember the same things?"

Grandpa sobbed again for a few moments. "I can let a miracle happen," he said.

"Do you remember stealing watermelons from old man Smith?" Daffy asked.

Critter and me laughed, because that was one of the stories Grandpa had told us.

"You both got spanked, but not `til after you'd eaten the watermelons," Critter said, laughing through his tears.

"Do you still have the scar on the inside of your left thigh?" Daffy said. "Dad said you nearly gelded yourself when you got that one."

"I don't remember that story," I said.

"Because I don't tell that one very often," Grandpa said.

"Do you remember how we played in the hay loft?" Daffy said.

Grandpa's sobs stopped, though his tears did not. "Critter," he said, "give us some room so I can hug my brother."

Reunited

We went inside and sat around the kitchen table. As Daffy and Grandpa reminisced, Critter and me came to understand better what they meant to each other as boys.

"I remember when you first came to us," Grandpa said. "It was the summer of 1908. My parents told me I was going to get a big brother, but that I mustn't ask questions about where you'd come from or why you were fostered. They told me you had been through a bad time and needed to put the past behind you."

"That's kind of like now," I said.

Critter nodded.

"I don't remember much about that first summer." Daffy said.

"I'm not surprised," Grandpa said. "You had an odd, fey air about you, like your mind was a thousand miles away. At first I thought you might be simple, but it was just that you didn't have much to say. When you did speak, you had a wonderful accent. I loved to hear you talk, but it was hard to get you to say more than one sentence at a time."

"Was it a Welsh accent?" Daffy said.

"That's what our parents told me, though you lost it within a year. They changed your name from Daffyd to David, so you could fit in better in Missouri."

"I don't remember being Daffy from that time. I was only David back then."

"Something changed for you around the end of July, I remember it was like someone lit a lamp behind your eyes. Over the span of the next couple of weeks, you really seemed to come alive."

"I remember my eleventh birthday, it was the 15th of August," Daffy said.

"Do you remember that you didn't actually know your own birthday, or even how old you were?"

"No, I don't."

"Our parents wanted to celebrate you joining the family, once you could really be present for the party. They decided you seemed like you were about eleven, so that was your `birthday' into our family."

"I remember starting school in the fall. The teacher put me in the wrong grade at first."

"Yes, you were anything but simple," Grandpa said. "Whip smart was more like it. She started you in fifth grade but it was clear that was too easy for you, so she moved you up to sixth."

"How do you remember so much about what grade Daffy was in?" Critter asked.

Grandpa ruffled Critter's hair. "Because we were in the same classroom," he said, with a smile. "All the kids from first to eighth grade. There were only a couple dozen of us."

"I liked school," Daffy said.

"Playing hooky was about the only mischief you wouldn't get up to!" Grandpa said. He stood. "Would you boys like some lemonade? I'm going to make a mimosa for myself."

"Yes, please!" Critter and me chimed.

A few minutes later we were talking again. Or rather, Daffy and Grandpa were talking.

"I've promised not to ask questions about whatever trouble you're in currently," Grandpa said. "But I have to ask what happened when they took you away, so many years ago."

"I remember that," Daffy said. "It started with a letter from some lawyers in Chicago. This would have been in the spring of 1911. Mom and Dad showed me the letter because it was about me. I couldn't make much sense of it, but they told me it meant some men were going to come do a `welfare check' on me, since I was a foster child."

"I remember when the men showed up. Three men with a chauffeur in a big, fancy automobile."

"One of the men was a doctor. Or at least he carried a doctor's bag. He took me to our bedroom and examined me."

"I remember sitting with Mom and Dad in the front room while that happened. It was very tense."

"I didn't have anything to compare it to. But now I doubt he was even a real doctor. It seemed like he barely knew how to use a stethoscope. After the exam he told me to get dressed and come back to the front room."

"They said you were sick, in a way that didn't show. They said you needed special treatment in a big hospital in Chicago."

"Mom and Dad argued with them all day," Daffy said. "They sent us to play outside..."

"But we hid under the window and listened to them arguing instead," Grandpa said.

"Dad sent them away empty-handed."

"But they came back the next day with the Sheriff."

"I wish now that instead of listening to the grownups argue for hours, that we'd gone to the hayloft one last time."

"We couldn't have known. It was a surprise when they came back the next day with the Sheriff."

"The Sheriff said he had no choice," Daffy said. "The men had their papers in order, and I was fostered, not adopted."

"They promised that once you were cured, you could come back to the farm."

"I don't think I was sick. I remember riding with them in that automobile all the long way back to Kansas City. We stayed the night at a hotel. They locked me in my room. The next day we caught the train to Chicago."

"That's the part I want to know about, if you can bear to tell it," Grandpa said.

"There's not much to tell," Daffy said. "They put me in a hospital alright, in a locked ward. There were a couple of other boys my age, but no one else. We made friends in the few days we had together, running around the ward in just our hospital gowns. None of us felt sick at all. There wasn't any treatment being given. But then a real doctor showed up and gave us all a very thorough exam. The next day we were all going to get an operation. The last thing I remember was a sort of sweet smell, like flowers mixed with disinfectant."

"It was weeks later, but the last thing I remember was another letter," Grandpa said. "It said that your treatment had begun too late, that you had died in hospital.

"I was never in any pain," Daffy said, "and making friends with the other boys helped distract me from the fear and confusion."

"I cried for weeks," Grandpa said.

They were still talking when Critter and me left that evening, just before dark. We left them alone for a few days, since they had sixty years of catching up to do.

A mysterious package

The next afternoon, Monday, Spencer called.

"Hey, can you guys come over?" she said. "Papa got a package in the mail, but it's for the three of us."

"What kind of package?" I said.

"It's about the size of a shoe box, but Papa said we can't open it until you can be here."

"Is it heavy?" I said.

"Just come over as quick as you can. It'll make more sense when you get here."

Critter and me rode as fast as we could.

Spencer let us in and yelled "Papa! They're here!" She led us to the kitchen table. The box was resting in the center. "He's in the darkroom, but he wants to be here when we open it, so we need to wait until he gets to a place he can stop."

We sat there looking at it like it was some kind of exotic animal and not just a shoe box, tied up with twine, with `For your models.' written on the top of the box.

Mr. B came to the kitchen a few minutes later. He was still wearing his apron from the darkroom.

"Hello Christopher, hello Critter," he said. "Thank you for coming over so quickly." He took his apron off and draped it neatly over the back of the empty chair, then sat. "Spencer has been dying to open this box, but I insisted she await your arrival. Please proceed."

We tore into the package. It was filled with smaller boxes, all the same size, except for two that were larger. Resting on top of the smaller boxes was a comic book.

Critter and me grabbed the comic book eagerly, because it was a special edition of Dragon Boy.

Spencer picked up one of the smaller boxes and opened it. Inside were a dozen little squares of foil that seemed to enclose a ring.

"What are these?" Spencer asked.

"Condoms from the look of them," Mr. B said. He reached out and took another one of the smaller boxes and read the label aloud. "One dozen latex condoms, sized for tween boys."

"What's a condom?" Critter said.

"They are a form of birth control," Mr. B said. "They are worn during sexual intercourse to reduce the chance of unintended pregnancy, or purely for novelty. Perhaps the comic book sheds some light on this mystery?"

Critter and me looked at the comic book. It was a Dragon Boy comic alright, but we could immediately see it was different from the usual. It wasn't a story about one of Dragon Boy's adventures, instead it was Dragon Boy himself talking directly to the reader, and he wanted to talk about condoms!

"I think it's instructions." I said.

"May I have a look?" Mr B said.

Critter handed it over and Mr. B spent a few minutes skimming the pages.

In the meantime, Spencer opened one of the larger boxes. Inside was something that looked like an over-sized tube of toothpaste. The label on that one said "Water Based Personal Lubricant."

When Mr. B looked up, he seemed surprised. I couldn't remember ever seeing him surprised before.

"It is instructions," Mr. B said, "step-by-step, suitable for the complete novice. This Dragon Boy character speaks directly to children his own age in plain language. The illustrations remove all doubt. It is an unorthodox format, but fully factual, so far as I have perused it."

Mr. B examined the comic book again, looking at the front and back covers, then at the boxes that had come in the larger package. "I am surprised that such a thing even exists in the USA," he said. "But I see that nothing in here has a trademark, or copyright printed on it, that the comic book has no indication of publisher or author or artist."

"Do you know who sent it?" I asked.

"I haven't a clue," Mr. B said. "Whoever sent it took pains to conceal their identity. You children appear to have a secret admirer."

"Can we try them out?" Spencer said.

Mr. B answered with a sentence that started with "Vous les enfants..." I had figured out that meant "You kids" but the rest of it made no sense to me. He cleared it up by saying "But of course."

We raced to Spencer's room. She carried the lube, Critter carried the condoms, and I brought up the rear after retrieving the instructions from Mr. B

Spencer started peeling her clothes off the moment she got into her room. Critter and me were not far behind.

We lay face down on her bed, shoulder-to-shoulder, Critter in the middle, and devoured the instructions.

Dragon boy explained what condoms were, and why we should use them, even if we thought we were too young to make babies. Then he took his costume off and gave himself a boner and showed us how to put one on the right way.

"I can see why you like this comic," snickered Spencer lewdly.

"It's not exactly a normal issue," I said. I lifted my hips so my boner could spring up to a comfortable position.

"I think it's neat that Dragon Boy looks like us down there," Critter said. He reached a hand under himself and made an adjustment also.

"I want to put one on each of you guys," Spencer said. "I don't have a penis to practice on."

"Should we use the thicker ones?" Critter said.

"Why?" Spencer asked. "The boy in the comic said it would make you less sensitive."

"Well, I didn't make you cum when we did it on Saturday."

Spencer gave Critter a big hug. "You're such a sweety!" she said. It was funny how we were laying in bed naked, about to have sex, but her calling him "sweety" made him blush. I had to hug him too.

"You guys don't keep score with each other anymore, right?"

We shook our heads.

"You don't have to keep score with me either," she said. "If I want more, I'll ask for it!"

We nodded.

"So what color do you guys want?"

I picked blue and Critter picked green. Those were Dragon Boy's colors. Spencer followed the instructions in the comic. We figured out that lube is cold when it's right out of the tube, but that was just a gasp and some giggles from Critter and me.

We found a fun position with Critter leaning against a wall and me half-reclined in Critter's arms. Spencer straddled my legs and put a big dollop of lube on the end of my boner, then pulled it so it pointed mostly at the ceiling. She lifted up, put me at her entrance and lowered slowly down.

She was warm inside, warm and soft. Then she gripped me.

"Your kitten can grab?" I said.

"Yeah, do you like it?"

"I love it!"

She rode me for several minutes, controlling the pace and angle. I tried to keep my hips steady.

Critter leaned forward and whispered, "Kiss me."

I craned my neck back and to the side and we kissed. That started me cumming.

"I can feel that!" Spencer said. "You guys feel good inside me when you're having your cums."

"I'm still hard," I said. "You can keep going."

"The instructions say you gotta pull out when you're done," Spencer said.

I gripped the condom at the base of my dick and Spencer lifted off me.

"Quick, Critter, like we did on Saturday," she said. "You're on top!"

Critter moved to the position he knew, crouched over her supporting most of his own weight except where he lay his head and shoulders on her chest.

"More lube please," Spencer grunted.

I found the tube, Critter lifted his hips to give me access, and I squeezed out a big dollop onto Spencer's clitoris, meaning for it to flow down into her opening. It was her turn to gasp and giggle.

Critter entered her then and got to work warming them up. She kept her legs locked over his hips this time and he moved with confidence. Soon she started moaning and crying out. It was easy to tell when Spencer started to get close.

I loved making love to Critter, but this view, being able to see his body moving while he made love to someone else struck me as beautiful. The way they moved together seemed perfect. I lay down beside them, facing Critter and leaned up to give him a kiss.

That started Critter cumming. He should have pulled out when he was done, but Spencer was too close, so he soldiered on until she was finished shouting out her ecstasy

A few minutes later, we were cuddling, just enjoying the afterglow, when there was a knock at the door.

"Come in, Papa," Spence said. "We're not doing anything right now."

We were naked and embracing each other, three spoons in a drawer, but nobody was actually copulating at that moment.

"Did everything go according to plan?" he asked.

"Yes sir, but we need more practice," Critter said.

Mr. B chuckled. "You will be pleased to know then, that I have telephoned your mothers to let them know you boys will be spending the night."

"Thank you, Papa! You're the best!"

"I will prepare a variety of sandwiches for when you inevitably discover your appetites," he said. "I have no illusion that will be on any schedule except that indicated by your exertions in the bedchamber."

We practiced with condoms twice more, and made another couple of daisy chains before we settled down to cuddles and drifted off to sleep. At some point in the middle of the night, I was wakeful while the other two drowsed. Spencer had Critter hugged in front of her like he was a stuffed toy.

I took the chance to examine the back of Spencer's head, to see if she was a clone. There in the same spot as Critter and me, Spencer had a little bald spot. Hers was different from either Daffy's or Critter's and mine. She had two of the smaller belly-button-looking things, but they were side-by-side.

I didn't have anything I could tell her though. Daffy's warning was alarming, but his plans were vague. So I decided to keep the knowledge to myself until I could tell Daffy about it.