The following story is for adults and contains graphic descriptions of sexual contact between adolescent and adult males and the power imbalance of these relationships. Like so many of my stories, this is a voyage and return.

If you are a minor, then it is illegal for you to read this story. If you find the subject objectionable, then read no further. All the characters, events and settings are the product of my overactive imagination. I hope you like it and feel free to respond.

Fourteen runs through five progressions, with frequent interludes. If you would like to comment, contact me at eliot.moore.writer@gmail.com or eliotmoore@tutanota.com (if you want increased privacy).

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Cordell 5

The box Canyon closes in so tightly that if Cordell puts out his arm, his fingertips will brush against the rock. Familiar tar stains paint the rocks in high gloss and flat black. A single round rock the size of the heap Roman Montreal drives rises out of the road. Roman slows to a stop, then they lift cautiously over, dropping down on the worn out springs.

Trees reach down to brush the cab and the tarp-covered load. Cordell has a headache. Maybe it is the detox, maybe it is the fear-failure of slinking back to the fucking Pueblo after running free-stupid in San Deago. The familiar canyon opens up to glaring light that makes his eyes water. The looming wind worn sandstone the same stagnant water, endless-lonely rock and sky all there to greet him. There’s no place like home. Cordell sighs, he is back in the dull sameness of the Pueblo.

Not all sameness, it seems. True, Malcolm, Roman, and his dad are depressingly unchanged. The Three Amigos, Cordell reflects. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. This is a private nickname he has not shared with anyone at the Pueblo. Inez would not appreciate the ugly laid on her father, everyone seemed oblivious to the obvious bad one. A smile passed fleetingly over his lips.

“What have you said?” Samuel asks first thing. You stupid little shit. Did you tell anyone where I am, who you are? That is what his pops is really asking. Am I still safe?

Nice to see you too pops, Cordell shrugs just out of arm reach. They are Pueblo-public, wrapped up in the usual offload of essential consumer compromises. His father’s rage is shrouded behind practicalities.

“I was in San Dego, pop. Inez and I went to San Dego. She must have told you that.”

If looks could kill. His father shakes his head, not happy to see him, less happy that he left this stifling prison in the first place.

“What the fuck old man, I didn’t say shit to anyone.”

His father does not trust his word. Long time ago, Cordell understood this hard man is shit-down-the-leg scared of being found by someone. Samual Faulkner’s paranoia is vast. It suffocates Cordell. If he had not fucked up royally in San Dego, he would have never surrendered to this humiliating return.

Cordell and Samuel abandon the heartwarming reunion as the rest move in to greet the prodigal son, promise the fatted beast to celebrate. Cordell’s rumspringa has ended and he has returned from his rebellious debauch with the English. 

Asher has grown. He is bulking up like his father. That is an expected change. The little King boys are not about. They will have changed as well. The pair must still be at the Pueblo, because Ruby-Leigh is here, taking her things.

Inez is always changing in her willful way. Cordell has noticed her beehive earth bag extension. She is queen-bee sitting by her door, not greeting him. Maybe her eyes welcome him back. How can she not be going insane here? Only minutes back at the Pueblo and Cordell found himself missing El Cajon Boulevard.

Inez smiles at Cordell. It might be schadenfreude. Cordell imagines Inez’ self-satisfaction. Not so easy, is it? Inez probably wants to tell him. Her large extension is more depressing sameness. Inez did not even make the effort to build her own place. Moved back in with mom and dad. Cordell frowns. What a disappointment. Inez might have made her own place at least.

Fleeing together to San Diego, Inez had such dreams. They would share an apartment by the sea, fill it with luxuries. Not so easy, was it? Inez could not face the hardscrabble choice San Dego offered two teens with no skills or education. Inez abandoned him for this, he thought bitterly. Cordell does not question why, with all of America (and Mexico) to choose from, they both ended up back here at the Pueblo. Cordell smiles back at Inez, nods friendly to the rest.


With nothing better to do and good reason to delay the private reunion-inquisition with his father, Cordell stays for the ritual unpacking-distribution. It is so very small town and Roman’’s old truck is the mail train with all its mail order goodness. These runs are the sad highlight of the week. There is snail-mail from the shared postbo. A small litter compared to the much anticipated distribution of personal devices. Nothing Mennonite about The Pueblo. Everyone, including Inez, grabs a freshly synced device. Everyone except, Samuel Faulkner, who wants to be dead to the world. Life out at the Pueblo is socially crippling. Cordell might have watched the bars on his phone collapse during the drive out if he had not trashed his Galaxy in San Dego.

“A satellite phone would help.” Ruby-Leigh suggests (again) to Malcolm King.

“$30 a week Ruby, then the charges,” Roman replies for the old cripple. Cost is not the point. “We can’t live that way. Society is addictive. Facebook this, Facebook that, Twitter your thoughts to the TV. People can be addicted to behaviours. Everyone out there is showing the symptoms that a drug addict has. Use the things to lift their moods.”

“Do you remember the anxiety, the panic you had when you first brought the boys here?”” Malcolm adds. Ruby-Leigh frowns at him.

“”That panic is your withdrawal. What happens to our Earthship community ethos if we are open to all that? Everyone somewhere else on their phone, not being attentive to the presence of authentic community, to the beauty of each intentional act we can do together.”

Ruby-Leigh snaps back. “Give me a break! You go out with a bag of phones and laptops anyway. Malcolm watches TV half the night. Asher has a game machine of some sort in his bedroom. Look at all these boxes. Everyone has their own list of special requests.” Ruby-Leigh pops open a box. “A case of bourbon for God sake!”

“That’s mine, be careful with that.” Samuel interjects.

“Ruby is right about that, Malcolm.” Roman chuckles. “I’m burning the planet so Samuel can drink bourbon. Vondell plays Lego instead of embracing the natural and social world. Angela wants olive oil in her salad. We are supposed to be off the grid, independent.”  This is a familiar complaint.

“My olives and avocados are just getting started.” Angela offers with a sigh. The box canyon is not ideal for gardening. Roman and Malcolm are just getting warmed up and the freezer boxes need to be moved into the house. The men like to build and argue. Somehow, it feels like the women are the ones making everything work. “Inez, come give us a hand.”

“Buy an electric truck.” Malcolm King suggests. Another familiar progression in the conversation.

“Buy a satellite phone, Malcolm.” Roman replies. “You’re getting three, four thousand a month.”

“Why can’t we have internet?” Asher decides to speak. “Ruby-Leigh needs it for school.” Asher wants it for the games his cousins tell him about, the games his brother Marco has in Phenix. “Malcolm has a Ham Radio or we could get satellite internet.”

This is dangerous ground, all three men know it. Cordell and Angela Montreal know it. Malcolm King’s monthly VA cheque and the rent from his Boston property keep the Pueblo afloat. The Montreal family contributes manual labour. Asher understands that money is a touchy subject.

“Never mind, sorry I brought it up.” Asher mumbles. Roman throws a conspiratorial glance at Samuel Faulkner. They will talk later about the latest shipment to Marco Montreal in Phenix.

Cordell is just not interested in the bickering. Samuel has created his own pile by the truck. Cordell picks up the first boxes. Earthship ethos, Cordell could puke. “We have to be autonomous, self sufficient.Roman and Malcolm explain. “People have to coexist in harmony with the earth.” Somehow, that should make a small boy content to live in a mud hut with no friends. Then there is returning to his father.

Just deal with it, just till you figure it out. Tapped out, empty handed, not holding, Cordell turns from the depressingly familiar with just a nod to Inez. The Faulkner’s are set apart from the cosy pair made by Roman and Malcolm King, the alcalde of the Pueblo. Hopefully pops has not turned my room into another grow-op.

“Everyone’s eating at the KIngs tonight.” Inez calls after him. Cordell feels better when the silence between them breaks. He nods her way. Inez abandoned him. He is not ready to forgive her for that. If she had stayed, they might have survived together. Inez would have made the difference. Maybe next time, he decides. I’m stronger now. Only maybe he isn’t. I need a fix. Samuel Faulkner’s homemade hash draws Cordell.


Cordell is very stoned, nicely baked, when Samuel Faulkner comes home. He offers no backhand greeting for the prodigal son who vanished fourteen months previous with a book bag full of his best dope. That deserves at least a greeting-beating. Cordell is in good humor now that he is showered and stoned. Samuel takes in the crooked smile. “Looks pretty clean, Angela has got this place still whipped into shape. The new hot water heating system is good.”  

Samuel studies his son for the second time. Slouched on the best chair in the house, clearly already losing himself in his father’s marijuana. Seventeen now, thinks himself a man. Fourteen months, Samuel can see the changes. Cordell was younger than Asher, more that damn problem’s age when young Inez and he skipped out. That Jeremy Gates, that problem Malcolm King dragged is of that age. Samuel shakes his head at his son. Not really, just a small twitch to the right. Just a shiver acknowledging this latest problem in his life. His son is back.

Samuel can see that Cordell has been kicked around lately. Faulkners bulk up tall and beaten-iron hard. Life’s blows stay hammered on their bodies like scars. Samuel can see some fresh dents on his son. Make you hard, Samuel concludes agreeably. Little shit came back to lick some wounds. A person makes mistakes, Samuel Faulkner knows that. Cordell learned early not to take his problems to Samuel. Cordell learned early not to make problems for family.

Samuel takes a hash brownie, wanting to keep the mellow of his day, not wanting to trash himself like Cordell is doing. “So you kept clear of Tucson, Phoenix?”

“Well, I had to go through Phoenix.” The answer is sleepy-calm. “Stole a car, hitched a bit, kept in the shadows.” You’re safe old man. Cordell knows what is important to Samuel. “Hey, what’s happening?” Cordell asks. He cannot smile at Samuel. There is nothing there but emptiness around the word family. It is all empty to Cordell.

“You got tracks on your arms? Toes?”

“Nope,” Cordell finds a grin his father won’t read. “Stayed clear of that like you warned. Not good for…” Not good for business. “Liked to smoke,” Cordell shrugs. He blinks at his old man, trying to read him.

“You stole from me, boy.” Statement, fact, warning, Samuel steps closer.

“You steal, I steal, everyone steals.” Cordell replies. The sameness of The Pueblo simply numbs him. Ten years old, seventeen years old, everything the same. This is not an apology. Faulkners do not apologize. I fucked up, gotta figure a way out of it. So he is a little addled by the strong dope. He fucked up, but he also won. He won because he is still alive, safe like his pops from the people looking for him. Cordell and his pops, both buried in the desert. “I’m not in the ground.” He adds, bracing for a blow.

Samuel Faulkner considers his boy. He is rock steady, unforgiving. It has been a battle with this boy since Indiana vanished leaving him to raise Cordell by himself. Cordell does not move from where he is slouched on the lounger. Red eyes blink at him slowly. Cordell learned the Faulkner look. Give nothing away, give what you have to, when the chance comes, give as good as you get. Take what you can, what you want, what you need. Make yourself hard because life is hard.

“So you and Angela still a thing? Maybe that woman, Ruby-Leigh?”

The sounds of Samuel rutting with Angela Montreal were a relief to Cordell. It made the furtive coupling with Inez inevitable. The answer is somewhere behind his papa’s dead eyes. Ten years old, seventeen years old, everything the same. The Pueblo numbs Cordell.

“You stole from me, boy.”

The open hand comes down fast. Samuel checks it right before the impact. The boy does not even flinch. Samuel’s fingers are curling now, taking the wet mop of hair behind Cordell’s ear. He might be picking up one of Angela Montreal’s rabbits by the scruff of its neck. Lift the frozen animal closer to his face. Consider its dark-glittering animal eyes. Considering its brief future, the simple utility of its life. Samuel Faulkner has his after plans. Cordell is expected to take care of himself. Cordell’s after is his own business. This is just a necessary fragment of Samuel’s now.

Cordell has come forward at the pressure. There never was a bright Chillicothe before for Cordell Faulkner. Maybe if Indiana Faulkner had not left them. If only Angela Montreal’s eye had wandered sooner. His eyes are just tired as he meets Samuel’s gaze. Samuel Faulkner made the failure of San Diego so inevitable-easy, but Cordell does not think that. That knowing is just part of his now. This fragment now just is. Make yourself hard. Be ready for a better after.

“Angela is back with Roman. That Ruby-Leigh is a cold bitch brooding on her boys. You know how it goes.”

Cordell sort of nods his head, understanding. His papa won’t let go of his hair, even though it does not matter. Samuel’s right hand is fumbling the heavy belt and yanking the fly open. Cordell’s eyes are unfocused on some point just past his papa’s hip. It is there, he knows, waiting for him. There is nothing to see, nothing to think through. This now just is. Cordell feels the smallest pressure on his neck, right where his first tattoo lies violet-black on his skin. Cordell is numbing himself to the utter sameness of the Pueblo.


It's a dangerous game of tag on the slippery slope, and the two boys know it, know that if there is a slip, there is a fall. A tumble down the rock leaves them on their own more miles from an ambulance then they can imagine. There had been an afternoon when Keon and Fourteen clung by bluing fingers and toes an endless hour in the sun, not daring to move until the ice had steamed from the rock. They passed the time crafting raps, matching stories. They were immortal-young and knew they would not slip.

Vondell is content to watch on a nearby ledge. He starts every once and awhile, flexes a muscle as if you would join the game. It's too dangerous for him. So he is content to watch the older boy-gods scramble monkey-sure around the steep cliff slope. Fourteen is it. Fourteen is always it, because Keon is a mountain goat, and Fourteen is just an Ohio bobcat scrabbling over rocks searching for claw holds, hoping he can reach is elusive-wiry prey.

Keon hardly makes it easy. There was no snowfall for a week and the rocks are finally dry enough to tempt the boys. Safe enough for two crazy boys to scramble. They love the vertical. They love the fuck-safety, freedom-song of boy versus nature. If Keon was back in the city, he would Parkour clear of the older brothers until the inevitable happened and he was made one of them. A boy has to Parkour the world whether he comes from Boston or Chillicothe. Fourteen’s lithe body gets that, sings the body electric on the Toroweap Formation in Arizona.

Keon climbs the steep wall, small cracks just barely visible to the searching eye.  Toeholds too small for a sensible weight. The older boy follows more cautiously taking detours. “You high on crack, Fourteen?” Keon quips.

“No man, friends don’t let friends climb on cracks.” Fourteen quips back. Vondell laughs proud-envious at their foolish fearlessness. Keon is his god and if Keon likes the Morman, so does Vondell.

Fourteen watches, pauses above and to the right. He makes the mistake of looking down. Vondell looks up, mouth open. This is so stupid, Fourteen scolds himself, but his beating heart argues, this is awesome. The Pueblo is like a war zone, endless hours of boredom followed by moments of sheer terror. Perhaps the Sonoran rock climbing keeps him alive, keeps him at least thinking of moving forward.

Keon has not moved. Fourteen wonders if the younger boy has worked his way into a dead end. “Be careful little man,” Fourteen taunts. “That’s the wrong hole to put your finger in.”

“You should know, Jem.”

“You’re hooched, nowhere to climb.”

“Smoke rocks, climb trees.” Keon grins up at him. The cliff face is 50° safe, weathered-corrugations offering almost stepladder ease at places. Fourteen favours that topography. First move down, Keon shifts ready to spider-scamper down and away. “You’re fritzled, Keon.” Fourteen edges down. Keon edges across the way he came. It is sort of a heart-race.

Fourteen twists to look down over his shoulder. Lets his weight hang on one-hand, fingers, pinched Skecher-toes steady. Keon is headed toward a ledge eleven feet below. Not thinking, too much thinking anyway, Fourteen starts a slide. Keon freezes on the cliff. Fourteen, in motion, cannot be stopped. The older boy needs to think-feel the passing handholds. It is not a time to shout advice-caution. Toes brush past holds. If Fourteen tries to use them, momentum will pivot him off the face. Fingers friction-break, catch and release so fast he hardly feels the drag. When Fourteen comes to a rest beside his prey, it is gentle. “Tag, you’re it.”

“Tag, you’re it.” So quiet and so proud. This is control. Fourteen is cat-on-a-fence proud. The Pueblo problem chased right out of his mind by the cliff-climbing heart-race. Samuel Faulkner took his solitary walk, the family-Montreal will be back sometime Before the sun sets. Fourteen will not think about the Pueblo problem till then. Till then, it is just Keon and him on a desert ledge twelve feet above the scree and brambles. Ticklish Keon with his side exposed-inviting, too close to pass up. So why does Fourteen reach around to the soft-skin dorsal hip that will draw the tween giggling towards him? 50° safe, Keon presses into the rock, presses into the teenager like he might slip-willing between the crotch and the rock.

No, stop it, Fourteen! Boys like to Parkour on each other too. Grope for handholds in unlikely places. Fourteen finds the soft-flesh warmth along Keon’s belt line, pretending the brush-beneath-the-jeans hard-softness of I’m almost twelve is more tickle-sensitive than the dorsal easy-access. It is. The nocturnal-afternoon itch of something calling, something body electric in a different way presses on Keon like a teenager’s fingers. This is a humming ear worm percussion still sonic-low, but too there. Too there for Fourteen’s sharper ears to miss. It is a tempting slide down a dangerous cliff. Nights with Angela, but Keon King is so it for Fourteen here at the Pueblo.

The three boys settle onto safer ground. Keon and Fourteen come to earth, as it were. There is a patch of New Year sun to warm their backs.

“So you and Inez a thing now, huh?” Vondell asks from beside Keon.

“I don't know.” Fourteen shrugs awkward. He stays clear of the Kings, releases pressure here and there. “Angela teaches me to cook.”

“She making you dinner tonight?” Keon asks. Angela is the girl about the King house. Ruby-Leigh lets Malcolm King have the ear-full truth of the matter. Cross on the walls, damn! The Montreals and that Samuel Faulkner are not Christian. Keon does not get it. “Yo, so how you get back up in that, though, bro? Take care of shit for her.”

The brothers talk like that when Malcolm and Ruby-Leigh cannot hear. They talk Bronx, they talk Franklin King tenaciously. Memories, a person hangs by their roots like a Texas Olive fighting the strong wind. Fourteen catches this.

“It’s just a thing.” Another helpless-evasive shrug. Keon is on about the I’m Gay with a glass monster penis up my ass. Trying to make sense of Fourteen’s hetero-Shane action on Inez. To thine own self be true, but the truth is Fourteen needs to fuck.

“Fuck that mean? I'm just saying, bro, like ...” Keon shrugs his puzzle. He was nine when grandpa Malcolm introduced himself, explained gruffly that the Kings were uprooted to this dead end wilderness. Arizona is cool and all. Grand Canyon, cactus, Joshua Tree, scorpion cool, but the home schooling only goes so far. Nine year olds listen-learn from the braggart cocksmen. Words, words, words, the man said. Keon is trying to get the picture. He could sit on a stoop, eavesdrop all day long at the Pueblo and nobody is going to tell him something he can use to figure the man-after whispering through his limbs. “Hey, come on, man.” Keon ends helpless.

“You know we heard some shit, bro.” Vondell gives Fourteen his Buddha look, takes a punch on the shoulder from Keon.

“What'd you hear?” Fourteen asks bemused.

“I mean, nothing really.” Keon answers quickly.

“Just Bro, you good, man.” Vondell keeps at it. No idea what he is talking about, less idea than Keon. Babies come from love, honey-bunch, momma croons unhelpfully when Vondell asks.

Chill out.” Keon grinds out. The brothers shivered in the dark listening to the sex. Keon shivering so close to understanding. He blushes maroon at the memory.

“You good.” Vondell cannot help but add. “What’s the story Fourteen? Your dick gets hard, you kiss the face, what happens?”

“Easy, little man.” Fourteen has to think on this one, only a little though.

In the before, Shane and the boys would grind Jeremy Gates down for details. Shane got the trivia-truth about the August Ferris Wheel ride with Fiona. Creepy that, Fourteen shivers. The Bronco passed me after I split from Shane, came my way, not his. We rocked on our bikes in the middle of the road while I told him all about kissing Fiona, my hand touching her thigh. So good to make Shane happy for me. Patrick and John maybe waiting in the dark for us to part. Fiona and him on the Ferris Wheel, that is what his best friend Shane will remember.

“It is not that complicated,” Fourteen begins. He figures Inez thinks less of him than he thinks of the trusty chrystal-sapphire boyfriend-dildo banished to a different crack. Fourteen glances at Keon. He tested the hiding place trust. Went to check his things when he decided the money Levi left should hide with the rest. He almost brought the dildo back, then there was Inez.

“It’s not that complicated,” Fourteen begins, but it seems it is because the questions come. Boys listening to experience, drinking in manhood while Fourteen steps lightly on Inez and him. He is a health teacher here, Impressionist-painting broad strokes over the Pointillist details of a fifteen-year-old gay boy making the beast with two backs with a nineteen-year-old woman. How the heck do you explain a sunrise to the blind?


They drop the intimacy. Vondell is fine with that. Keon decides some whispers in the dark will answer more. Fourteen will share, explain it all, just like Keon patiently taught the older boy what he knew of climbing. The talk has made Keon edgy. He needs to get something out.

“You start, Jem.” The nickname slips out of Keon so often that Vondell has picked it up. The little boy is walking beside Fourteen, Keon trailing for the moment.

“You start, shrimp.” Fourteen challenges.

“No you.”

Fourteen considers his words for a bit. He picks up a jagged chip, tosses it lightly towards the little boy. “You won’t call and say I’m forsaken.”

“I just wanna be part of your storms.” Keon jumps in. “Ayy, ayy, switch my rage.” He continues with a circular chop of his hands.

“And every craziness is engage.” Fourteen tries slowly.

“Offstage, offstage.” Vondell pipes in with some bad finger pointing. The older boys look at him.

“Offstage? Say what?” Fourteen puzzles. The King boys are both better at this lyric game than he is.  They laugh at his white-boy Eminem pretentious.

“Go with it.” Keon defends his brother. “Switch my rage… when times get offstage.” He inserts, points at Fourteen.

“Ahh… And every craziness is enraged.”

“No you said engage.” Keon points at Vondell, “Then, offstage, offstage.” Vondell smiles back gratefully.

“You came with all your frosting.” Keon continues the game, encourages Fourteen to continue.

“Ummm… ummm… And every craziness says engage.” Fourteen tries hopefully. Keon frowns a little.

“I just wanna be part of your twisters.” Keon challenges with a sweep of his hand. “You’re always ditching when you lie.”

“Twisters?” Fourteen’s forehead furrows.

“Twisters,  twisters.” Vondell interjects with some hand gestures to emphasize his contribution.

“I’m way to good at desolating.” Fourteen tries.

“Desolating,” Keon approves, “I like that.” The boy gathers himself and then the words pour out. “And I’m dancing because you’re sly. You’re always defiling when you lie.”

“Because you’re sly.” Vondell pops in.

“When times get spry.” The brothers are focussed on each other, and Fourteen can only listen.

“Because you’re sly.” Vondell echoes.

“Okay you guys win.” Fourteen laughs, signalling an end to the game. It is another thing the boy’s prove better at than him. They will probably both be better at sex than I am, Fourteen concludes ruefully. They continue toward the Pueblo. Maybe not, Fourteen comforts himself.

“You won’t call and say I’m forsaken. I just wanna be part of your storms. Ayy, ayy, switch your rage, when time’s off stage.”

“Off stage, off stage.” Vondell kicks in.

“You came with all your frosting, and every craziness saying engage. Now I just wanna be part of your twisters. But you’re always ditching me when you lie.

 

“Twisters,  twisters.” Vondell interjects again. Adding his favorite rap move.

‘I’m way to good at desolating.” Fourteen remembers his line, softly.

“And I’m dancing because you’re sly. You’re always defiling when you lie.”

“Because you’re sly.” Vondell and Keon say together. “When times get spry. Because you’re sly.” They finish.

The next steps are in silence. Maybe Keon is running the rap over in his mind, because that is something he likes to do. Maybe he will write it down, keep playing with it. Maybe it was just a moment on the cliff, something wrapped up in the boy’s afternoon together and the intimacy of sharing.

"Brains love rap, it's sticky stuff." Keon shares.

“What’s the title Keon?” Vondell asks suddenly. For Vondell, the spontaneous rap is just being included with the older boys.

“Abandonment.” Fourteen blurts out, thoughts on Levi Fisher.  He stops walking, and this brings the brothers to a halt. He looks so serious-desolate to the two boys. So tangerine different in his brightly coloured hoodie. Fourteen takes in their look. He shrugs, “It’s a thing.”

“It’s a thing.” Keon repeats with a shit-eating flash of white teeth. He laughs at Fourteen, points a finger, then doubles over with exaggerated mirth.

That is worth a wry smile from Fourteen. “Guys, you head back. I’m going to take a walk.”

“You need your thing?” Keon taunts, still doubling over, pretending he has to stagger. Vondell laughs sympathetically, unsure of the joke.

“No man,” Fourteen replies-dignified. “I need a walk.”


Fourteen needs the walk because he is nigh on fifteen, he needs to walk away from the Keon-cliff tangle and the sex talk with the brothers. Then there is the endless disappointment waiting for him back at the Pueblo. Taking a walk is ritual-reminder that a Valentine’s Day fifteen-year-old takes action. Fourteen walks the Arizona box canyon-cage like he ran the blacktop KOA, bobcat prowling on light feet.

The cliff-climb game is still in him. Levi had the Club Football handy excuse all wrong. If Fourteen knew the game, it would be Rugby. Chase the prey, rough grapples, hard oxygen-scooping, dusty-sweat-drenched heaves before launching back into a contorting, crushing, grasping scrum. The ball, always in motion, never quite dead. A boy’s game, tangled, run hard, hit hard, weighty, grasping. Fourteen kicks a root, then leans his back against a nameless Arizona tree.

Football in the park, Fourteen’s dream game, until he discovers Rugby on an emerald island and a boy to play it with. A boy’s game of football, football at its best. Tireless bodies high on the intoxicating now of male companionship. Bodies dodging trees, coming down hard on bruising roots. Alpha boys strutting, hoarse and meaningless yawps as they dance together. Walt Whitman’s now, barbaric-untamed, untranslatable-understood by the gathered players. It is a running game with friends because Shane has a great spiral and Jeremy can snag it from between two boys, but the passing plays are always playground-shouting, everyone’s-a-receiver, useless. It is a running game with boys because park football is a boy’s game of sweat-drenched, tangled-touching, glorious-grasping pile-on. That’s Fourteen’s game.

It is 45° and Fourteen leans back 70° onto a tilting Gambel oak. So quiet, Fourteen never knew this silence in the Ohio before. Great Seal State Park was never this leaf-rustling, something-scratching silent. Always some presence; voice, car, air conditioner whisper, coming to you as you lie summer-afternoon still on your bed. The Pueblo lazy-business, garrulous men arguing is pushed away.

The Arizona-stone-washed Cordell-jeans are brushed-soft, paper-weight thin. Fourteen picked them off the thrifty-store pile of clothing, passing a thought to the absent boy who outgrew them. Faulkner’s son is back, mysteriously hiding in the round house. The stone-washed jeans were Cordell’s. Kicky times, his balls cupped in another boy’s groin pouch, unexpectedly sexy. Room to grow, his hand slides easily past the band. He cups the familiar placement of his balls, fingertips counting hairs, scrotum gently sandpapering a hundred pressure receptors in each light digit-drop. Feedback loops of sensation in an Arizona abandonment.

This is a boy’s first intimacy. Private, mindful attention to the details of self-discovery, self-nurturing. Discover your adult male details, sexual presence, engage in an inner dialogue with your essential being. This is mindful, like drawing in a long breath of cold Arizona desert-moisture. Feeling the air pass flared nostrils, attend to the skin tighten, note the cool the throat, pass to the expanding lungs that change the shape of you. Mindful attention to the manhood details.  

The heal of his palm presses into hard-svelte cock. He draws his fingers up to hold the shaft. Straining denim contours the tight flesh. He feels the knuckle brush, waistband restraints on his wrist, the elastic shift of his sticky skin around the blood-hard bone-cock. Some cliffs you don’t think to walk away from. He has had other hands down his pants, different sorts of feedback loops to his body’s pressure points. This absent hand down his pants is back to the first intimacy inception. This is the ultimate before for 93.4 of his kind. This hand, this cock, this now.

Fourteen’s hard cock greets the Sonoran Desert chill. Bare back, bare bum massage on the tilted trunk. Small tumour-burls knuckle into his flesh. For a moment, Fourteen imagines a ripped oak-sprite making love to him with a burnished phallus; something unyielding like his limitless cock. Something he can bear down on. He studies his cock, strokes it with the careless assurance of youth.

It levitates taught-free from the gently shifting muscle of his abdomen. God only knows the repetitions of this familiar plank. A hand passes beneath it, tips tickled by the proud pubic forest. Back again, so the shaft can knock along his fingers (subsonic beats in quarter time). Back and forth, percussive motion, light, sensitive, inviting. This is unconscious performance art Fourteen’s solitary now. In the before, in the virgin-before of twelve-year-old Jeremy Gates’ self discovery, this would be an urgent-clumsy self-abuse. Boyhood, fist-hammering out a crescendo on unfamiliar keys. Fourteen’s masturbation is after-art now.

This is unconscious performance art. Fingers lightly stroking, recalling the you-drive-me-crazy parts of his flesh, recalling other fingers. Other old fingers, a soft old voice teaching him to feel the familiar in different and exciting ways. Fourteen recalls lips that left his shaft as cool as this Sonoran Desert now. He has sat impaled on one thing or another, stroking his display, exhibiting himself. The cock in full salute, no soldier more at attention than this circumcised rod. Today, he is his only audience, appreciating the fingernail brush, the petting, the imagined extra swell as his gland cobra-dances for him.

Dewdrops spread glistening down to hood-free corona. Finger tip on tongue passes dewdrops from one mouth to the other. Fourteen is languorously patient. Choke the head gently, draw down the shaft as if to make it stretch. Feel the stretch. Appreciate the bobcat-bow of flesh arching from the root to a whisker-sensitive, velvet-wet-nose sniffing for something. His engorged cock nuzzling cold air for something. Exquisite self abuse: repeat, pause, let this magical wand cum in its own good time. It will transpire.

One hand wanders the bare chest, prickly-cold-excited nipples, the throat where Inez tries to choke the orgasm out of him. The other hand does its thing to the exhibited essential. Feather light, teasing, light rubs with just a fleeting pinch. Fourteen fights the primal urge to fist himself. Gentle, implacable tourture-invitation. Coax it out, gentle it out, focus on the now of building orgasm: unconscious performance art, conscious control, anticipated release.

Fourteen is idly think nothing much, just feeling a great deal. He can take his hand away, allow the wellspring-artesian pressure happen like the next breath that huffs out twice announcing orgasm. Hands free, cock jerks shotgun-recoil. Husbanded jets of cum spit out across his chest. Anal muscles tense around the missing sprite-phallus urging the last feeble jerks to come out dry heaves. Final dribble bubbles up, an afterthought-tingle at his head.

Oh, the vanilla-icing richness on his next mindful breath of air. Fourteen is cock-ringed to this pleasure, every boy’s solitary, deeply intimate pleasure. His hands go back to cock, tight scrotal-bag, race-run orbs. He is young and there must be more. There needs to be more. Hands massage out an ovation. The men have freed fourteen and his spent cock throbs still.

Fourteen can fist out another electric release. He lets himself go somewhere else. This hand job is more memory, more friction-hard recalling things past. He lubricates the assault with an after-montage of feelings, memory-moments, unrequited dreams, and that damnable-precious old man Levi Fisher. Mixed emotions about it all, he comes hard the second time, no mindfulness in the act. Just a boy stretching to manhood, always needing something more.


Fourteen blinks when he feels the first wad of dirty snow land across his chest. The second lob of crystal-sludge punches him in the sternum. He scoops the snow, scrubbing it about his cum-splattered flesh in an absent, unembarrassed motion. Sweat-flakes dissolve the wasted semen and it gets snow shoveled into a pack of ice. Fourteen rolls off the Gambel oak, pant legs fighting the grace. He sends a fastball Keon’s way.

“Now that’s just nastiness!” Keon Matrix-moves free of the missle. Laughing-innocent at his intrusive voyeurism. “Never seen that before.” Like Fourteen just slid neatly down the cliff face for a tickle. As like as not twelve, the concepts known to Keon, if only theoretical. Choke the chicken, crack one off, milking the monster, older boys will brag-tease this. Home Schooling does not cover this either. Keon is in touch with his cock (so to speak). Feels good, feels good, but he was nine when Ruby-Leigh dictated exile to the desert. Keon missed the Bronx neighborhood details.

The older boy is tucking himself away, drawing the shirt and hoodie over his bare chest. He does not seem to mind the interruption. Asher Montreal would likely punch him in the face for watching. Not Fourteen, he is chill. Keon wonders if Fourteen knows about Asher Montreal, gets the in-my-business attitude-shade the angry sixteen-year-old throws Fourteen’s way. They are going to be fighting pretty soon. Keon hopes the slender new-boy-in-town cleans the husky boy’s clock. Franklin King always told his son, “size doesn’t matter.” Size never stops a bullet, Ruby-Leigh predicted, rightly.

“Thought I’d take a walk with you. Didn’t expect you were going to it’s a thing with your thing.”

“Yeah, well, that thing is an awesome thing.” Fourteen is four months long after shy. You get a following, he knows. The only thing worse than being wanted is not being wanted … Is that how it goes?

“Hey, respect.” Keon offers, suitably impressed by the older boy’s practical demonstration. “When?” He wonders hiding his shy behind the Bronx street smarts.

“God, I suppose ten, eleven,” Fourteen ambles over. “Sprout just like you.” He is on the edge of cliff-tickling the cute boy.

“No man,” Keon pained, “The jizz.” Stupid not to know, to hear the words, but not to get it. Stuff comes out, stupid not to know. All the men wrapped up in their whatever’s, even grandpa Malcolm too past it to think to parent a boy about his dick.

Fourteen remembers that. Shy grin at Keon, “Oh, Christmas before I turned thirteen. Friends and I watched videos. I was working for it, real hard.”

“I don’t know how to get there.” Keon frowns.

“You won’t know till you do.” Keon questions this and Fourteen shrugs. “You have to go past nice, don’t stop at feels good. Keep going till your mind is blowing with the ache for something you just don’t know, but you gotta have.”

“Then I jizz?”

“In your time.” Fourteen nods.

“Practice makes perfect.” Keon suggests, liking the older boy, not minding the gentle closeness, not really getting the gay thing, since Fourteen was banging his woman now. “You do that with Inez?” He looks sideways at the boy, trying to be chill, knowing he is just round the way still.

Fourteen frowns. He is taught not to tell. Greyson Gates made a deal about that, hoping it was just theoretical Seven-Minutes-in-Heaven stuff for Jeremy’s basement parties. Inez is a confusion. “Yeah, I suppose.” He admits.

Keon has the necessary packaging, micro-managed. Fourteen feels it when they lie together, not quite platonic. Keon does not have the right attitude, the wrong perspective (pretty sure). Fourteen admits that when the storm hits you, you head to the port at hand, hope for welcome. The kid is straight-twelve, how wacked are you? Even twelve-straight get knocked around in the storm. Something very Levi Fisher whispers softly up and down Fourteen’s spine. More frenzied masturbating to that Shane-tossed, forlorn hope.

“So, I was taking a walk.”

“Stopped to do your thing.”

“Stopped to do my thing.” Fourteen concedes, balanced on the cliff of fresh desire for the boy. “I want to show you something.”

“I’ve seen your somethinsomethin’.” Keon has to giggle.

“No, man, I’ve got a mystery.”

“Your dick is no mystery now.” Keon is emphatic. “I’ve done seen the light.”

“You ain’t seen nothing yet, little man.” Fourteen tries to turn it away from the cliff-moment flirtation, the past orgasmic exhibition. “I found a trail. Want to show it to you. Maybe you know it. I’m not ready to go back to all that.” Fourteen waves in the direction of adobe complex.

Keon knows the Pueblo yawn, likes the Fourteen-rambles. Keon hardly noticed the cliff-moment flirtation, wants past the recent orgasmic eruption he witnessed. The teenager is all that about marching the penguin. The white boy tosses off jizz casual, like a wanna-be-gang-banger fridgerates the shoplift moment when you eyeball him. Fourteen is a kanundrum. Keon has no place to be. Someone entertaining to be with now works for him. Jem is very entertaining. Keon is happy to step Fourteen’s way.


Keon has wandered enough in the direction Fourteen leads. It is not a beaten track, just more of the same old, same old. Keon won’t miss it when Ruby-Leigh drops him back into the Bronx. The boys travel a non-trail along an icy pool and deeper into the snow-heavy box canyon beyond. Broken bookshelf footholds draw the boy’s eyes. He bumps Fourteen’s shoulder and point. “Good climbing.”

Fourteen nods, “Thought so, too.”  He squints at the snow rimed ledges looming over them. “Not too safe today, they were dry the last time I came through.” They move on along the rocks and grass, dodging trees and stepping around the shaded snow.

The cliff shouldering ends when Fourteen leads his young companion up the fan of broken rock, then into the cleft slashed into the plateau above. Blocks of rock lay kanted at the end of their tumble-slide. More water-gnawed rock fans out across their trail. Fourteen avoids the sheets of snow, fresh mud, favoring the dry rock.

“We sneaking around, or you just keeping those old icy whites dry?”

“Sneaking, maybe.” Fourteen shrugs.

The axe bite climbs toward the high plateau and Keon feels the shade-cool rock close in like a bad alley. Twists and turns round boulders and smooth curves are like dodging alley dumpsters. Keon can imagine dashing back the way they came, trouble following him. “Grandpa swears his daddy was the last of the Buffalo Soldiers. You know Buffalo Soldiers?”

“I know old soldiers, well enough.” Fourteen answers shortly. “Black cowboys, right?”

“Well, sort of. Grandpa says his old man got his Purple Heart in Korea.”

“What was a cowboy doing in Korea?”

“I said sort of. Nobody rode horses around Korea.” Keon rolls his eyes. “They had tanks and trucks… probably. I don’t know, it was a long time ago.”

“What was?”

“Some war.” Keon is not sure. “Got a Purple Heart, anyway. So yeah, grandpa Malcolm had to go and get his ass shot off in Vietnam so he can have one too. That’s what he said, get my ass shot off. My old man said Malcolm was a fool to join the army. I don’t know, he got his ass shot off in New York, no Purple Heart. Seems like you got a name like King somebody is going to bust a cap in you.” Keon shakes his head. “So I don’t need no white boy’s piece lying around where my baby brother can keep up the family tradition.” He is following Fourteen over a gravel spill, avoiding making tracks. “Are we walking into an ambush here?”

Keon glances up towards the sunlight. “Good place for Apachie Bloods to smoke a brother.” He shakes his head again. There is sunlight on the rocks ahead. Fourteen stops and Keon walks into him.

“Don’t talk,” Fourteen warns. The older boy is listening to the wind and the rocks talking to each other. Roman Montreal drove out. Samuel took his walk before the truck left, not Samuel Faulkner’s way to come back twice. Still and all, he stands jackrabbit ready for a quick retreat.

“Okay,” Fourteen decides. “Let’s see what we can find.”

“You ain’t gone any further than this?

“Nope.” Fourteen looked around the corner to where sunlight spilled across the ground.

“What are you worried about? Momma dragged us out here ‘cause there was nothing to worry about. Nobody beating on you so you want to join the gang.” Keon added like he was just describing dodging heavy traffic.

“Don’t talk like that.” Fourteen stopped and leaned against the rock face just short of the turn.

“Ain't you ever been beat on?” Keon is skeptical about Fourteen.

“Don’t talk about it.” Fourteen’s voice is a dry whisper. It is his turn to roll his eyes. “Fuck this.” He turns the corner at a brisk pace.

“What are we looking for?” Keon eyes the sameness of trees and brush.

“A motel, a police station, how about a Mac’s?” Fourteen replies. “I just see more trees, grass, rocks; more hills to climb. What brought Faulkner this way?” He finishes to himself. Was Samuel Faulkner just out hunting, taking a walk like I do? Fourteen turns his attention to the high ground they have just cut through. It forms an unremarkable-unrewarding barrier marching away in both directions. The stark beauty fails to move him.

“Hey Jem,” Keon’s voice draws him back to the rugged landscape ahead. “What’s that over there?” The boy is pointing down the tumble toward the first big trees.

“Where?”

“See the cottonwood?”

Poplar trees, Fourteen knows. “Yeah, so what?” But then, he sees what Keon sees. Beneath the low-slung boughs, Fourteen sees the van. “God damn! There is a road out there!” The van draws the boys, but there is time for a second search across the Arizona vastness. Malcolm’s Bollinger inched a tortured-twisted path. The territory looks the same. Rock and trees obscure all possible paths. “Let’s take a look.”

The van was hard to see. It looks as if the van is leaning up against the tree, tired from its long drive into nowhere. It is the slope, but also two flat tires. Driving it to Chillicothe does not seem to be an option. Samuel Faulkner has leaned deadwood against the yellow panels. Mr. Electric, Expert Electrical Service. It seems Samuel Faulkner has taken the time to smear mud across the giant lightbulb. Shovel fulls of dry dirt, dead tufts of grass, have been thrown across the top. Very obscured, very tucked away. Fourteen tries to peer through the dust-grime windows.

“Doors are locked. It’s been here a while, I bet.”

“Why do you say that, Keon?”

“Seven years, maybe. New Mexico plates are eight years old.” Keon joins Fourteen by the driver’s door. He tries the latch, then wipes a hand across the window.

Not a good idea, It is the frightened jack rabbit foot-thump coming from his heart, or maybe the bobcat silent-prowl instinct. “Don’t touch it."

The warning came too late. Keon had wiper-washed a swatch across the window. Damage done, Fourteen and Keon take turns looking in. “Need a flashlight, all I see are white and yellow bricks.”

“Hard to tell without cleaning off the windshield.” Fourteen murmurs, “Six times six times four…” his voice trails off even further.

“We are out of here, Jem.”

“Just a second, I think I see….”

“No man,” Keon’s punch really gets Fourteen’s attention. “We are out of here now. I’ve only seen daddy’s dime bag shit on the kitchen table. This is Mexican cartel I-wanna-fuck-you shit. This is bury my black ass in the mother-fucking-desert bad.” Keon hits Fourteen in the arm again. “You want your white ass melted in some Breaking Bad shitty chemical whatever?”

The boys back off the hidden van as if it was a silver Vietnamese necklace set to explode. “We gonna leave before Pablo Escobar comes back and smokes us.” It was funny how Malcolm and Ruby-Leigh’s careful coaching vanished in the moment. “We just gonna pull a disappearing act, get begone!”

“He is going to know we were here.” Fourteen frowns.

Nobody, is going to know we were here, ‘cause we ain’t going to be here.” Keon spits out. Still and all,” the boy flashes a grin at Fourteen. “Tagging along with you is very interesting.”

“Our footprints, you touched the window.” Fourteen points out. The scuffs on the ground are light, but Keon’s smear across the driver’s window says it all.

“Shoot, we backtrack through that alley to the Pueblo, never here, never were.”

“Mr Faulkner.”

“What about that old cracker?” The boys turn away from inspecting the (not really) abandoned electrical service van.

“Never mind.” Keon watches as Fourteen scoops a handful of dusty gravel off the ground. Fourteen finger paints the window, daubing here and there. Keon joins him, throws a dust cloud on the effort. “Maybe nobody notices.” Fourteen sighs. It will not be like that. Everyone seems to notice Fourteen.


Cordell is not interested in potluck community at Malcolm King’s. Samuel Faulkner made his point, papa’s house, papa’s rules. It is not about paying for his theft, it is not about coming home tail between his legs. It was not even a transaction between them. It is about Cordell’s utility to papa at that moment. Ten-year-old Cordell knew that when mamma walked away. “Your mamma lit out on us. You and I will just have to make due.”

Cordell got used to it. Shrug it off. “I’m going to eat.” Papa just stepped away, ‘nough said between them. No reason to be bitter. No reason to mix with the community though.

He finds a bottle of his papa’s Jim Beam and rolls a joint dusted with cocaine. A can of tuna suites him just fine. He has lived on much worse. From the bench beside the door, Cordell listens to the voices drift over from cast del alcalde. The women making most of the noise, but the tres amigos probably in a triangle plotting their next eco-foray. His father will have put Cordell’s utility out of his mind now. Maybe Angela will tease his old prick again. That freed him before when he was thirteen. Cordell reminds himself, it does not matter. He will work it out, find a way to make things right in San Diego. Won’t stay here, he promises himself. The laughter gets louder. Say what you will, this place is safe, Cordell concedes. Safe enough, he qualifies. He steps out into the dull sameness of the Pueblo night.

The Pueblo is like closing the door on your room after an all night party. It is a flop on your bed thankful letdown before the afternoon hangover. Evening comes, the itch comes back to hit the streets, find the action in the Midtown District. Get high like this before you get into it. Yeah, and that was your mistake. He is back at the Pueblo to work it out.

Fresh voices catch his ear. Light laughter, street-free, coming-home easy like Cordell never got to be. Yanked out of the stream to hide with papa just short of The Grand Canyon. on or off the Havasupai Indian Reservation. Half my fucking life, Cordell reflects. Older voices, he decides. Ruby-Leigh’s rugrats growing up like Asher and him. They are a shadowed pair, tall together. Not the brothers.

Cordell takes a pull on the last of his joint, smokes a sip of bourbon. Watches the lanky stranger dancing in the dark. The fine smoothness of the bourbon rolls around his tongue as a teenage tenor fills the Arizona emptiness. A flash of face thrown his way, then the pair move on to the paired houses and the gathering he shunned. Cordell’s nostrils are full of winter-leaf dust-disappointment, his tongue thick with tuna-tar. Still, there is a tang there. Something new on the night air. Something breaking the sameness of the Pueblo.

Body of Work

If you are here on the midway then you have come to the carnival seeking entertainment, company and of course excitement. There are a dazzling array of rides suited your every mood. There are gentle rides that conjure up soft memories of youth and rides that lift you from the dreariness of your grind and send you flying ageless through the night. There are also the side shows…

If you are here then you are in the house of mirrors captivated by the reflections around you. They are all curved in some way. Every mirror is imperfect and every mirror draws your attention to something new. The mirrors magnify or diminish parts of what we think is real. Sometimes you like what you see and sometimes you don't. Sometimes you believe what you see and sometimes you can't be sure what has been distorted. The distortions are intentional and we flatter ourselves into believing the mirrors only stand arrayed like this in such places as the midway. Before you go back to the mirrors of your life step closer to this one.

Eliot Moore, 2007

Here is a summary of the wide variety of other stories I have published.

Dark Thoughts Rising: This story was posted to Nifty in April 2017. Keegan Bressler (14) and his best friends Rey and Davon rape Keegan’s stepbrother Rowan Pense (12) during the course of a drunken party. The three boys embark on a desperate struggle to keep the shattered and confused Rowan from revealing their crime. As events unfold, Keegan and Davon fail to fight their inner demons. Rowan begins his own journey, hiding the truth from his closest friend, Hayden, until he reaches the breaking point.

https://www.nifty.org/nifty/gay/authoritarian/dark-thought-rising/

Awakenings: This ghost story was posted to Nifty in November 2016. Middle aged divorcee Jake begins renovating a 1900’s Craftsman home in an old neighbourhood. He becomes entangled with Will, the 18-year old ghost of a Great War veteran and Chris, a 15-year old homeless addict on a desperate quest. As Jake’s failed life is rejuvenated by his love affair with Will, he slowly pieces together the hundred-year-old connection that has brought the three of them together.

https://www.nifty.org/nifty/gay/adult-youth/awakening.html

For Your Eyes Only: This novella was posted to Nifty in November 2010. Simon meets Glyn and his younger brother James one August evening during a neighbourhood game. Simon and Glyn become fast friends but it is Simon's secret game with James Fleming that helps Simon accept his hidden self.

http://west.nifty.org/nifty/gay/highschool/for-your-eyes-only/

A Fragile Light: This story was posted to Nifty December, 2009. Graham (28) goes to the Christmas Eve service to be with his husband John. He is alienated from his deeply religious family and detached from the warmth of the service. He identifies a kindred spirit teenage Theo and learns they have more in common than he thought as Theo is joined by Jesse. Graham leaves strengthened by the encounter.

http://www.dabeagle.com/stories/eliotmoore/afl/afl.htm

Janus: This story was posted to Nifty July 2009. Michael (18) is coaxed into attending a summer party by his older sister. He is college bound and uncertain about the choices he has made. At the party, his encounters with Lauren (19) and Scott (20) help him discover himself and make a decision about his future.

http://www.dabeagle.com/stories/eliotmoore/janus/janusdh.htm and

https://www.nifty.org/nifty/bisexual/college/janus.html

Hound: This story was first posted to Nifty the summer of 2008. The first draft was completed in 2005 and in truth I sat on it a long time before I decided to post it. Six-year-old Ethan Yates is abducted off the streets by a pedophile ring. Cast into a nightmare world he struggles to hold on to his identity. Isolated and confused, he clings to fourteen-year-old Peter. As the years pass their mutual need develops into an indestructible bond.

http://www.nifty.org/nifty/bisexual/authoritarian/hound/


Turbulence: This novel was first posted on Nifty between February and June of 2007. Fourteen year old Daniel Murrell finds the hazing at Riverview High School as freshie a serious challenge. He negotiates it with the help and hindrance of his friends. After a long year of discovery, he comes to terms with his bisexuality.

http://west.nifty.org/nifty/gay/highschool/turbulence/ (first edition) and

http://www.dabeagle.com/storymainpages/turbulence.html (second edition)

Recovery: This story was first posted to Nifty in January 2007. Sixteen year old Greg Cox reluctantly joined his father in a small rural village in Saskatchewan. There his life becomes entwined with fourteen year old Seth Patterson. As he is slowly drawn closer to Seth he struggles with the memories and guilt associated with the loss of his mother, brother and sister while coming to terms with his promiscuity.

http://west.nifty.org/nifty/gay/highschool/recovery/ and

http://www.dabeagle.com/storymainpages/recovery.html