These stories always start with the usual disclaimer. I'll make mine and then we'll talk honestly.

You are reading from a site dedicated to erotic fiction. If you are uncomfortable reading about encounters between men and younger men, please skip on by and don't read further. If you are here without your mother's permission and she would be angry if she knew, please go away and come back in a few years.

Now having said that, I can tell you that my stories posted here are true. Names and places and a very few facts have been changed to protect the individuals, including me. These sorts of things really do happen, between regular everyday people. Perhaps I have a nose for adventure—or as some might call it instead—trouble.

If you like this story, I have posted on this site before. Follow these links for more of my autobiographical stories. I would love to hear from you. You can reach me at bradhealey@rocketmail.com.

The long story: http://www.nifty.org/nifty/gay/highschool/growing-up-denying-i-was-gay/

A good chapter to start on to see if you want to read more: http://www.nifty.org/nifty/gay/highschool/growing-up-denying-i-was-gay/caught-with-nick.html

Another story from my life: http://www.nifty.org/nifty/gay/highschool/billy-and-me/

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Ben the Busboy

Tucked on the main street passing through the middle of a college town, the luncheonette was small, stuffy and hopelessly old fashioned. The stools at the counter were chrome-based and bolted permanently to the floor. Dark wear spots lined the floor at the base of each stool, some larger than others, disclosing at a glance which seats had been most often occupied throughout the years. The stool tops were worn as well, where thousands of pairs of hip bones had slowly, daily, polished them smooth. The linoleum on the floor showed wear paths where throughout the decades countless feet had shuffled daily at lunchtime; a dark aisle was carved down the center of the floor where the bright pattern was completely worn away, exposing the brown layer beneath.

I travel a lot. My career is in sales, and I know that the best discussions with my clients are those that happen face to face, and so I drive the wheels off of my poor car trying to see everyone. I've had a lot of early breakfasts and late lunches on the road in places like this, and I try to avoid fast food and even those chain restaurants that appear in every town across the country. One Applebee's or Bennigans' is like any other, and I can't say that I care for any of them. My best bet is always to find a local lunch counter usually just like this one was, dozing quietly on the old main street. There, the pace is slow, the coffee plentiful, and I can eat while I read my newspaper and then prepare for my customer visit in an unhurried way.

Though it was nearly winter, the air inside was moist and uncomfortably warm while two ceiling fans turned lazily above attempting unsuccessfully to move the soup around. An older woman dressed something like a waitress stood behind the counter, her hair bleached and pulled back, her cheeks daubed red with rouge to give her an artificial look of life. Small creases surrounded her painted lips, suggesting that she seldom smiled; her face was a mask.

Some fifteen feet away a tall skinny boy stood near the other end of the lunch counter, one foot resting on top of the other, arms crossed and folded and leaning on the fixtures and facing where the customers would have sat, that is if there had been any that day. Probably five foot eight, he wore his body like a new and unfamiliar garment that didn't quite yet fit. A dingy white apron covered most of his blue jeans and his white t-shirt, he wore dusty white sneakers and his cheeks betrayed a scant hint of acne around his cheekbones but only if one looked closely. He looked bored and gazed out the front windows with dark liquid brown eyes.

Both intentionally yet unconsciously I wandered down to the end of the counter across from where he stood, oddly attracted to him. Sitting on the next to the last stool , I grabbed a menu from where it was pinched between the sugar shaker and the napkin holder, and pretended to survey it- but instead looked over the top and into the distant eyes of the boy.

He didn't look back. I gauged he was probably fifteen or nearly so. He was looking past me, out the front windows, and I could see his eyes move back and forth rapidly, as one by one he followed the individual cars as they passed on the street outside. I looked down at his hands that leaned on the stainless counter where he perched. They were white and smooth, and with the nails chewed, not cut, short. He reached up and scratched his right eye with his left hand, and from that movement alone I could tell he was left handed. His fingers were long and untrained and that other than this job I could surmise he never had engaged in physical work. I noticed the knobbiness of his wrists and elbows and lack of muscle tone, it was clear from the awkward way he moved that he was not an athlete and that he had grown tall very recently. I concluded he wasn't a fellow who climbed trees or played ball in the street. He probably preferred sitting and reading or watching television, or fooling around on a computer in his bedroom.

He turned his head to look at the blond woman, and I saw a glimpse of sensitive red skin right where the back of his neck met his shoulder. As he turned back I got a glimpse of the other side for just a moment, and saw a matching tender spot there well.

He shifted his weight and leaned forward; as he did a lock of his dark brown hair fell over his forehead, causing him to reach up, again with his left hand, to push it out of the way. He exhaled slightly with boredom and I wondered if his bony chest was still smooth when bare. I concluded that it was, based on both his lack of hair on his arms or fuzz on his cheeks. He was probably a high school sophomore at most.

"Can I order?" I asked him, knowing full well that this was the job of the sour looking blond, and not his. But I mostly wanted to see what he would do with my request. Startled, he made eye contact with me for the first time, and then looked nervously towards the woman and said "Carrie?"

The woman turned and walked down to my end of the counter, and I gave her my order while I kept one eye on the kid. He tuned and rearranged some empty glasses in the sink. As he tipped his head forward I could see the knobby vertebrae poking out at the top of his spine, and noticed that the pale red mark ran faintly across the back of his neck as well. He washed the empty glasses, moving his hands and arms almost delicately as he handled them, then wiped his hands on a dishtowel and turned back to stand in the same position as before, one foot on the other, staring straight ahead as the waitress walked away.

"Hi," I said to him when we were alone. Clearly he wasn't used to being noticed.

"Hi" he replied tentatively after a pause to be sure I was actually talking to him. He had an adolescent voice that croaked a bit, and was not yet the voice of a man.

"You go to high school?" I asked. It was a stupidly obvious question... one that was designed just to break the ice. Of course he went to high school, unless he was a truant. He was the quintessential high school kid if there ever was one.

"Sophomore," he answered, looking warily at me.

My name is Brad" I said. "What's yours?"

"Ben" he said quietly.

"Glad to know you Ben, I said. He was peering at me. Clearly he was used to being invisible, yet I had seen him, and he surely wondered how.

"When do you turn 16", I asked? I knew he wasn't 16 yet. My lifetime of observing boys told me that he was at least three months shy of his 16^th birthday, and I wanted him to wonder how I knew.

"In three months." He said.

"That's cool" I said softly. "Do you like working here?"

"I guess," he answered, "I make some money this way. My sister used to have this job and now it's mine".

"You don't have any brothers. " I said. It was a statement, not a question. I intuitively knew he had only sisters and that they were all older than him. It was apparent to me that he had learned how to carry himself in a house full of females; in the graceful way he moved, the way he averted his eyes, his posture when he stood. He had learned how to carry himself from his short lifetime spent immersed in the presence of females alone.

He looked surprised—and quizzical, and his eyes widened just a bit. "How did you know?" he asked. "I have two older sisters. I am the youngest. I am the only boy."

I shrugged dismissively. I wasn't going to let on how I knew. "Are you in the marching band? " I asked, and I saw his eyes grow even wider.

"Yes " he said. You know that too? All traces of boredom were suddenly gone from his eyes, his cheeks were flushed pink, and he stood erect and leaned forward. If I had a trick he wanted to find it out.

"Just a hunch", I replied with a little laugh. He simply reminded me of the boys I knew from high school in the band, and it seemed a natural fit.

"...and you play the drums" I continued.

He made a little gasp of breath. "How---- what-- did you – did you see me?" he asked, He was transfixed, like a kid watching a magician and trying unsuccessfully to guess the secret.

I smiled at him. "No, it just feels right. I know that you do. Let's just say that I can tell."

In truth, after he had confirmed for me he played in the marching band, I had surmised correctly that the red lines on his neck were from wearing a harness that all marching drummers wore under their coats to help hold the instrument without putting all the strain on the wearer's back. Some of my buddies in school had been drummers and they all had these marks on their necks; but I didn't tell him that. If I wanted him to think I was psychic, it had worked. He was clearly fascinated by me, and I liked that.

He stood closer as we talked, and I easily guessed that he was not used to talking to the customers. He was frankly probably not used to being noticed by anyone anyplace, for that matter. His awkwardness was attractive to me, because in a way he reminded me of myself from so many years ago.

I asked him about school and he gladly answered, more easily now. He told me his favorite subjects (math and science) what he did for fun (reading mostly and watching old movies) that he didn't like to play rough games (I knew that already and had guessed it, to his further delight). He wanted to move to a city when he grew up, and to go to college there. I asked him if he imagined going to the college that I had come to see, in the center of his town and he reacted with a sense of horror at the thought. "No, I want to get away" he said. I knew he would say that, too.

He talked. He spoke to me like a valve in him had been released, like he had been standing weeks waiting for our conversation to happen. He wanted to study engineering or science and meet people from other states and see the country and live on his own. "College is expensive." I said. "You will have to work hard to have your mom be able to send you there." There was no mistake in my words. I was certain by the way he had latched onto me that he had no father at home. In his unguarded eagerness he clearly telegraphed his need. He wanted a man to talk to; was waiting to find a man to talk to and I could feel that need emanating from deep inside of him. It found me like a radio beacon.

Carrie brought my sandwich, and stopping briefly as she put the plate down, she looked with some suspicion at me, some annoyance at Ben.

"There's dishes to put away", she reminded him.

But Ben wasn't going anywhere. He was rooted where he stood, and I doubted he hadn't even heard her speak.

"Do you miss your dad?" I asked.

Immediately I wished I hadn't asked. He cast his eyes down, and I could tell that the question made him feel sad.

"Sometimes," he said. "But I see him every month or so..." His voice trailed off. He didn't ask how I knew that his father was absent. He had apparently simply accepted that I already knew all about him, even though we had never before met.

I knew so much about him because clearly in so many ways he was so much like me. Or like the "me" I had been some thirty years before. While my observations may have seemed uncanny to him, in truth I had learned through my life that, from person to person, similar experiences create often similar mannerisms and behaviors, and in reading someone's personality traits one can often make correct assumptions about that person's life and the path that brought him there.

Ben was looking right at my eyes and met them when I looked up again at him. He almost seemed anxious waiting to see what I would tell him about himself next. His demeanor was quite different than that of the bored kid leaning on the wall I had observed when I had entered the diner just fifteen minutes ago. I smiled at him, and now he smiled back.

"Do you like marching band?" I asked, moving back to safer ground. I knew he did

"Oh yes." He answered his face flushing. "I like the guys, and hanging around and...stuff." His words were not articulate, but I understood his meaning. He was telling me that it was a place where he felt at home. A place where the other boys didn't tease him or make him feel self conscious.

"I always liked my band friends too." I said, smiling I could tell by the way he carried himself that he didn't feel comfortable around tougher boys, but I purposely didn't come right out and ask, "are the boys on the school bus mean to you and tease you?" though I would have probably been right that they did. He was the kind of shy boy who wouldn't have held his own in a competition of coolness, he lacked swagger or self confidence to stick up for himself and without any male influence at home, had scant guidance to learn how to act. But I decided not to ask him that so directly; not now. There was no further need to ask what I already knew.

He came around to my side of the counter, wet cloth in hand, and he brightened. "You were in the marching band too?" His eyes were dark and very bright.

I told him I was. I played the trumpet, and being a section leader as a senior was one of my happiest memories. My job was to teach the younger boys what to do, make sure they were on time and well prepared. I taught them how to stand at attention, how to turn parade corners while remaining in line, reminded them to keep their spacing even; their shoes were polished bright white. I took care of them like a den mother of sorts.

"Are you a squad leader?" I asked. I knew he wouldn't be, as a sophomore. But I also knew that he wanted to be one.

"Not yet," he answered quickly, leaning in even closer, "But I want to be. I hope I will be."

He would be. I knew that. It would take another two years, but he would surely be rewarded with a leadership position. "You will, Ben. I said. Just keep at it and make sure the director knows you want to be a leader. It will happen."

"Do you think so? I hope so," he said. He smiled. I could tell that this was something that was very important to him.

"What is your team mascot?" I asked.

"It is a yellowjacket—you know, like a bumblebee. " He wrinkled his nose in mock disgust. "It's a stupid thing to have for a mascot. The suit looks stupid. The other teams laugh at us."

I laughed too.

Very quietly he added, "Our nickname is "The `Jackets', but some of the boys say that we should be called `the Ejaculators' instead."

He averted his eyes from mine and blushed, turning his head away. He had said this softly, and his voice trailed off. Either he was testing me to see what would do, or he had grown so comfortable with me that he thought that this was an acceptable thing to say to an older man he had just met.

Most men would have dismissed this without comment, perhaps believing they had misunderstood. Very, very few would have ever seen it as a statement meant to arouse attention; and fewer still would have responded with any interest. But I wondered about his intentions, and I was admittedly very curious. I took the bait.

"That's funny," I said, and it was to me. But in truth I was surprised that he had shared this nugget with me, a stranger; a joke that among teenage friends would be the source of knowing laughter, but was daring between a boy and a man he had just met. "You know what that is, of course?" I asked softly, knowing well that he did, but I wanted to see what he would do. He continued to look me in the eye, his ears burning red.

"Yes" he said and finally broke our gaze looked down at his feet.

"I like you. You're a good boy." I said quietly, just above a whisper, only loud enough for him to hear. My intention was to let him know that I felt a connection with him too, and that he needn't be concerned about having offended me with his unguarded statement.

"Thanks," he said, tilting his head a little more my way. He was standing so close to me now, his white apron bumping against the table, the edge of the table pressing six inches below his waist. I glanced down where he leaned and bumped, and he blushed red—very red. Under that apron and pushing against the chair, I could see only a tiny whisper of evidence through his apron, I surely and intuitively knew that he was aroused.

"Is it...?" I asked softly, nodding towards his crotch, an equally daring thing for a man to ask a boy he had just met.

"..yes," he answered in a whisper, averting his eyes, his cheeks darkening to almost crimson.

It was no surprise to me that he knew exactly what I was asking, but I was surprised at his quick answer.

"Ben!" shouted Carrie from halfway across the room. "Clean up.. now."

He turned from me and shuffled off, head still bowed, neck still red with excitement, quietly bussed the dishes from the table that had been vacated. I smiled to myself as I ate my tuna sandwich on toast. No matter where I was I seemingly always found someone I knew. And surely as I had never met Ben before, I knew him well. Without question we were kindred. He knew that I could see inside of him, even right through him. And he wanted to know more... more about me, but more so more about himself. He wanted to know what else I saw inside him, and I hoped that I could tell him.

I had business at the college, and would spend a couple of hours there before I climbed into my car for the three hour drive back home. I felt an itch inside, though one that was not related to my work at all. I just couldn't leave the town without talking to Ben once more.

I left a ten on the table that more than covered my tab. As I walked toward him, I pressed a five into his hand. "This is for you." I said. " I'm the blue car across the street. I will be back at 4 o'clock if you want to talk more before I leave."

"OK" he answered, sweeping his eyes up, looking up into mine for a final time.

I left the diner and walked up the street towards the college for my business appointment. I thought back to myself at that same age. I had an after school and weekend job in a dusty factory, sorting pieces of molds that were used in making plastic parts. It was a boring job, cleaning the spare bits of plastic off the molds, finding their pairs and putting them back in their trays and racks so they could be used again to make the next batch of parts. I recall it was a spring afternoon, and I would have rather been anywhere else than here. But the Soph-Hop dance was coming up, and I had to make enough money to rent a tuxedo and buy flowers and I knew better than to ask my mother for the money. She made barely enough to keep us clothed and fed, and there was nothing left over for extras. I didn't know who I would ask to the dance, and I realized with a thud that there was really no girl I liked well enough to go with. The other boys my age looked ahead to this night as somewhat of a rite of passage, a chance to have a real date, a first kiss or maybe more. They talked among themselves at lunch in code, wondering if this girl or that girl would "put out" and poking with blunt elbows, laughing knowingly with one another in their fraternity of burgeoning manhood.

There was no girl who I wanted to put out, or even to kiss for that matter. And I realized sadly that there never would be. I could no longer kid myself; I was not normal. I didn't like girls. My dreams at night that left me happy in the morning always involved boys. My daydreams in study hall always involved boys. My fantasies of who I might spend special time with and love forever shamefully always involved boys. I was a freak, a misfit, and I was coming to the conclusion that this was not something I would outgrow as I had always hoped I would.

Without warning, a tear had rolled down my nose and it fell onto the table where I worked. I was so surprised to see it drop there; I had conditioned myself for so long not to feel the emotions that had borne it, that I never really ever realized that I was sad when In fact, I was empty and hurting all the time. Seeing that first tear caused me to feel suddenly very sorry for myself, and so the first drop was followed by a second and then a third. And so I ran out of the room, into the bathroom where I stood in a stall and lips trembling and cheeks burning tried to get a handle on my shame. I didn't have any intention of dealing with these feelings, especially now; only of stuffing them back deep down inside where I could slam the lid on them once more. I never dreamed that anyone else felt this way, and never dared imagine there was anyone I could ever talk to about it. Boys liked girls. That's the way it worked. In every story book, every TV show, in every family on my block, in every home in the world for that matter, boys and girls belonged together, and boys and boys certainly did not. They told us so in church, in school. The jokes on the playground that cut me the deepest were the ones about fags, freaks who hadn't learned the admittedly simple rules to live without shame in our civilization, those who chose this aberrant way of living.

I knew some fags. My neighbor Anthony the hairdresser was surely one. Swishy and lispy with pink tinted glasses permed hair and a trim moustache, his flared pants and platform shoes said "look at me... I am a freak and I don't know any better than to show it to everyone." I doubted he could hide it anyway, even if he had known he should. Too much of his being was seeped in freakishness for too many years for him to ever act normal. I was glad I wasn't like that. At least I looked normal. I could throw a ball; climb a tree. I wasn't going to turn out like Anthony, even if it meant I had to be angry and sad and empty my whole life, until I could die.

These were my thoughts as I walked in the winter dusk back towards my car. My appointment had ended late, it was nearly five o'clock. As I turned the key in the door lock I heard a voice behind me.

"Hi"

It was Ben, waiting for me in the shadows, leaning on the wall in the doorway under the awning of the flower shop right there. I never really expected him to be there—my parting line telling him when I would return was practically a throwaway. And I was late coming back besides.

"Hi Ben" I said, elation welling inside me. "You waited!"

"Sure", he said. But he stayed where he stood.

"Come sit in the car," I offered. "We can talk."

Without hesitation he emerged from the shadows of the doorway and walked towards me. He was wearing blue jeans and the same sneakers, a white t-shirt under a light navy blue jacket. "When did you get done work?" I asked. I wondered how long he had been standing there waiting for me.

"Three o'clock," he replied. And anticipating my next two questions he added, "I went home already and then I came back. And I told my mother that I was going to the library."

I reached across and opened the passenger's door; he grabbed the handle and got in, then he immediately slumped in the seat. As I shut my door behind me, my mind reeled at the circumstances that had brought him here. No accident; there was a connection, and we both knew what it was. But it wasn't one that either one of us wanted to name. I could smell him, sitting so close next to me. He smelled like boy- clean and fresh but musky, with hints of some kind of teenage cologne and spiky hair gel.

We sat silently, Just the same way as I had reached out to him earlier that day, pulling him quickly from dishwashers' anonyminity into a conversation about his life, a talk that he had so burned to have.

I knew that he expected me to break the silence.

"Are you happy, Ben?" I skipped the small talk. We didn't have time and besides it wasn't necessary anyway.

"I guess... at least sometimes," he answered, probably honestly.

"You feel lonely a lot, right? " I asked. I could just have well issued this as a statement as well, because I was sure it was so.

"A lot of the time," he answered, and he exhaled.

"You know," I launched right in. I knew hardly anything about him... not even his last name. But I was able to resume a conversation midstream that we never had actually started together.

"You are not the only boy who feels this way, who has these thoughts... you know that, right?"

He scoffed, "Well, I sure don't know any others."

"Well, there are a lot of others. Believe it. You are not the only one."

He was silent.

"You don't talk about it, right?" I asked. Well, neither do they. But they are out there, just like you."

He was quiet and almost a minute passed. I wanted him to say the next words. As sure as I was that I was on target in my veiled comments to him, I wanted to be sure that I wasn't too far off base. I knew that he wouldn't be able to maintain the silence forever, so I just waited.

"I'd like to meet someone... someone else," he finally spoke.

"Someone else... like you." I confirmed. He nodded his assent.

"Yes- somebody – " and then he quietly added, "maybe like you."

I could tell he wanted a relationship with another guy—but that didn't mean that I had come to the conclusion that he was exclusively gay. I believe that there is a whole spectrum of sexuality, and that people who are 100% straight are perhaps as uncommon as people who are 100% homosexual. I've been married myself for nearly twenty years, and I have met many other men like me, often under questionable and sometimes shameful circumstances.

"I can tell you how you might... but it will be up to you to take the next step. You'll have to be brave. You need to be as observant with them as I was with you. You might be right about somebody else, but you never can be sure how he will react... when he knows you know."

"How do you mean?" Ben asked softly, cocking his head and looking my way in the cold fading light of the afternoon. He was definitely interested.

"I mean, you have gotten to the point where you aren't sure you want to hide it any more. You want to find someone else to talk to. The risk you take is that the person you meet isn't ready to give up hiding. Guessing a secret about someone else that he doesn't want you to know can make him scared and angry. When people are cornered sometimes they act strange... and someone can get hurt."

"How do you know?" he asked me.

I allowed a small smile. "I know because it happened to me, too. When I was sixteen I didn't want anyone else to know because I was sure I could still change it. Anyone who made a pass at me was going to get a bloody lip. And then some."

More silence.

"Do you masturbate?" I asked. Of course he did, but it was a purposefully inappropriate lustful question, designed to test if he was really aware of what was going on here.

He acted like it was the most normal question in the world "Oh yes. It's one of the things I worry about. I think I do it too much."

"How much?" I asked

"At least once every day. Sometimes even more."

"Do you always think of boys when you do it?"

"Almost always."

"Neither of those things are strange. Most boys do it that much. They just don't talk about it. And if you like boys, it makes total sense that when you do it you are thinking about boys."

He was quiet for a long time.

I could hear laughter as a bunch of kids approached from behind, then passed the car walking by on the sidewalk. Ben glanced quickly at them, and looking back at the car floor he said "Can we go someplace?"

I was cautious. "Where do you want to go?"

"I don't know... someplace where there are no people around."

I was suddenly elated, but also afraid. "Why?" I asked somewhat breathlessly, already knowing the real answer.

"I don't know. Just to talk some more, and, well, if you wanted to do stuff..."

His voice trailed off. Looking next to me I could see his left hand on his thigh, and directly beneath it he nudged a noticeable bulge in his tight jeans.

"Stuff...?" I asked "Stuff... with you..and me?" I asked. My voice trembled in spite of myself.

"Only if you want," he replied.

Christ. I imagined how it would be to "do stuff" with him, and the simple thought caused a sudden pleasurable stirring in my pocket as well. I imagined how big his would be, how thick, how inexperienced but physically mature he would be. I knew he'd not resist at all if I had placed my hand in his lap right then, that he would have allowed me to unzip and free his cock. He would be making a lot of sticky precum by now and he might climax after only a few strokes, as much out of relief than excitement from finding another person like himself. I dared think of how his pale young hand might look on my cock too, and how he'd react when I came on him too, wondered f he'd be surprised and happy – or ashamed and afraid. I didn't think he'd be afraid.

"What do you want me to do to you?" I asked, choking slightly my voice betraying lust, wanting to hear his teenage voice describe what he wanted done to him.

"Anything you want," he answered. "I trust you."

We were both quiet again, and I watched as he brazenly ran his hand down his front to his crotch, lifting his jacket, pushing his shirt up slightly and positioning himself inside his trousers so it stood straight up inside against his belly. Because he had slumped down, the seam of his trousers clearly separated his balls, one pushed on each side. His jacket had ridden up and his belly button was exposed, and I could see that his skin there was still completely white and smooth, and I watched his tummy rise and fall quickly with his breathing.

To the uninitiated, this sounds like an unlikely tale, an incredible, imagined fantasy sequence of events that could never happen. But it did happen, and similar situations had happened to me in my life several times. Not the stuff of pornography, this was the result of kindred spirits meeting and each instantly knowing that the other had something that he craved, and desiring a connection that needn't be explained.

And he trusted me... what would his mother say? I was after all a stranger he had just met. He knew only my first name. My interaction with him would appear to most people as seduction and would even appear predatory perhaps. It didn't feel that way at all to me, and I knew right then it didn't to him either. But then, neither of us was thinking terribly clearly at the moment.

"You look nice... and big." I said, voice still trembling. I was losing control of my words, my voice shook, my hand strayed to rest on his warm knee. It felt soft but firm. He made no move to resist.

"Thanks." He said."I guess I am OK. "

"When you cum do you make a lot?" I heard my voice say all by itself. I was surrendering to my lust, rubbing his thigh through the denim as he squirmed.

"Usually a lot," he answered without embarrassment but looking straight ahead. "At least the first time. When I do it a few times in a row it is less after the first one... So, wanna go?"

I exhaled. How I wanted to! But this was just too much to bear. My ears were ringing, my heart pounding a tattoo in my neck. I could tell my bulging cock was leaking sticky stuff in my shorts. I could feel my adrenaline rush and I could feel the thud of my heartbeat in the stiffness in my sex.

"Ben, have you ever done anything, like this before?" I asked, considering the possibilities, my convictions wavering.

"No," he admitted "But I want to..." he pushed down hard with the heel of his hand and wrist moving it down over his erection again, and immediately after his hand passed over it the bulge sprung back to its original height. He squirmed down in his seat in his illicit delight. "You don't have to worry, I `m not going to tell anybody..."

It is a human response to feel affection for another person when one's deepest feelings are understood, especially when those hidden feelings carry a burden of secret shame. With so few words, I had guessed his secrets, and the result had made a powerful impression on him. This is why people sometimes fall in love with their therapists; often times they seem to be the first person who has ever listened and understood them. While I didn't want to analyze the situation in this way, I knew that he wanted to orchestrate a trade with me. He was willing to give his body to me to have in exchange for my brotherly understanding of his loneliness.

And how I wanted to see and touch his body! I imagined how he would look and feel and taste, how he would allow me to undress him, and how he would allow me to take the lead and so whatever I wanted with him. I wondered how his mouth would taste and how bold he would be in return. Would he touch me without me my encouragement? Would he suck me into his mouth like I wanted to suck him?

This would be classified as an anonymous encounter, but with irony I noted that we already knew more intimately about each other than most all of our close friends knew about us individually. To my friends I was straight and masculine, a husband and father. But now I imagined how his sperm would look shooting on his smooth belly, and I imagined if we could spend an hour or two together how many times we might make each other come. I was willing to bet he would come three times easily, maybe four. I imagined that I would like to watch him squirt the first time, have him come in my mouth the second time, then suck him the third time just until he was ready to come, then pull off his cock and suck his tongue while he orgasmed again. I wanted him to feel me too, to hold my cock and jerk me off the same was as he did it to himself, so I could feel what it was like to "be him". I wanted to see what he'd do when I came, if he would want to feel or taste my sperm, or if he would be grossed out. I hoped he wouldn't be. I imagined how I wanted to spend the night with him instead, sleeping naked together all night long, falling asleep with his softening cock in my mouth, buying him breakfast in the morning and promising to see him again to his blushing delight, tousling his hair as I left.

I knew that if I offered to take him somewhere alone now he would surrender his sensibilities to me; it would have to be a safe place to avoid disclosure, and he would simply assume that I'd know what to do. And I knew with certainty I could not guarantee us safety. Not now. I was not about to rent a hotel room, and the public and social punishment for discovery in such a situation was worse than he could ever imagine. I didn't need to imagine. I knew; I had experienced it once before.

I looked over at his face. He was half turned towards me and his eyes were begging. I wanted to do him even right here to push his zipper open and his trousers aside, see him almost rudely exposed, to make him lose control, to watch him thrust and writhe and to see him jerk as he climaxed, to hear him gasp, me sucking his tongue and feeling and watching out if the corner of my eye as he squirted a flood of warm new seed on my hands and his skin and clothes. I knew it would be fast and it would be hot. And undeniably we both wanted it to happen. But common sense scratched in an annoying way at my conscience that I could not ignore.

In a flash of real memory, I remembered the call of the police detective to my home, asking me politely to come in for a visit. The detective had said "let's make this easy. You know what this is about." Even if that didn't happen, the thought of worrying every evening about turning the corner onto my street, with the prospect of finding a police car in my driveway made my stomach tie into a knot. Even considering the guilt I would feel, imagining hearing that catch in my wife's voice whenever I saw her or every time I talked to her on the phone, wondering if now she suspected or somehow knew. This had happened before. I didn't need to imagine how it would be; I already knew.

"How about I take you home?" I asked. "I don't want you to get in trouble."

Truly it was me I was really worried about being in trouble. I didn't know this area, it was rush hour and I knew that he wasn't thinking clearly, his thoughts addled by lust. I consoled myself that I could see him again, after we both had time to process. And I realized he was young enough to be my son.

He didn't answer right away. "Come on, tell me where you live, I will drive you there."

He sighed with resignation. "I have my bike. I'll go here." He reached for the door handle to leave, and I put my hand on his warm knee again.

"Ben, give me your email address" I asked. "Maybe we can meet again," was what I was promising, but I left it unsaid. I knew in my heart I was issuing him a rain check, allowing him to keep a placeholder in my mind, preventing him from leaving my thoughts. I grabbed a scrap of paper from my cup holder, and scrawled the mail address that he told me. "Are you sad?" I asked. In a way I wanted him to tell me that he was; that he wanted me and would see me again. I felt guilty—I should have wanted him to move on and learn about life at his own pace. A fifteen year old boy doesn't need a grown man to have sex with him to experience life. But I wondered, for a moment, if I had a man to have told me that I was alright when I was fifteen if I would have been happier today.

"I'm OK", he said. He opened the door and climbed out into the dusk. As he stood, His jacket again fell over his waist hiding the evidence of his excitement.

"I'll write you," I promised, regretting immediately that I had asked him to go.

"Yah", he answered flatly and pushed the car door shut behind him. I wanted to call him back, to roll the window open and tell him to get back in, to find a parking lot or a side street to park, where I might undress him in the dark of the winter evening, see his nakedness and make him come. My own cock throbbed thinking of how it would be, and yet I had stupidly let him go. I watched him emerge from the shadows of the store's alley on his bicycle, and in my mirror I saw him pedal off into the dusk.

And I felt overpowered by sadness that I could not explain. Certainly it was sadness over a missed opportunity, but more over my own lost adolescence. It was sadness over the idea that as a boy he felt the only way to connect with me was through having sex. I understood that part, because I was the same. Growing up, my sexual experimentation with other boys was urgent and driven but always secret, unspoken and carried out under cover of darkness. I learned if other boys were gay by watching them carefully and then finally sticking my hands in their pockets and waiting for them to object. They never did. And that was because I chose carefully, only making my bold move after I watched them for a long time, and came to the conclusion that they were safe bets. I had batted a thousand at that high-stakes game; a game where I knew even one wrong guess would have surely ruined my life forever.

I had ended up married by the time I was 23. I wondered if he would follow that path too. I hoped not, for his sake.

I drove away after he disappeared in my mirror. And today, many months after, the scrap of paper still sits folded in my wallet, now many months later.