Anton and Daniel 16

Passage to Barranquilla, Colombia

July 11, 2018

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Fourteen peers over his guitar at the tabs on his tablet for a moment. Okay, fourth string, um, seventh fret. Third string, fifth. Tabbing is new to him. He has nothing but time, so he struggles away at it.  The lyrics come as hesitantly, and with frustrating pauses.

“There’s a lady who’s sure; All that glitters is gold ….” Fourteen tries that again, then sings the rest without playing the notes on his travel guitar. “And she’s buying a stairway to Heaven. When she gets there she knows.” He stops there and closes his eyes. He runs what he has learned over the frets. “When she gets there she knows ….”

Fourteen imagines he is sitting beside Keon King, who would certainly know how to teach this song to Fourteen. There the middle of the Caribbean off the coast of Colombia, he gets a whiff of Arizona winter mud in his nostrils. The tropical warmth might be the wood-stove heat in the cozy shed he shared with the two brothers. Okay, that comparison is a crazy-long stretch! Fourteen snorts at the thought. The ketch is meeting the wind from Jamaica on its beam, so the V-berth is pitching in a way that only (fucking) Cordell’s dope could simulate back at the Pueblo.

Fourteen breaks into Mary Rule’s maritime rollick, North Atlantic Squadron, then stops with a slap on the strings that silences his guitar. He goes back to grinding through the tabs. Idiota! he imagines Rafael Martinez chuckling at him. Fourteen will sneak back to Topolobampo and impress Rafael, when he is super good. “All that glitters is gold ….”

“How are you doing?”

Fourteen sighs his annoyance at this interruption. He sets his guitar and tablet aside before responding to Anton’s unwelcome guest. Fourteen sits on the berth beside the fold-up table. Jagger comes all the way into the tossing V-berth and sits opposite with an awkward flop. Even sitting, he feels the need to hold on to something solid.

“If you dream of sailing on sweet, fizzy orange waves are you having a Fanta-sea?”

Jagger thinks he can set people at ease this way. As a soft boy in Tulsa, it established him as harmless. Being quick-witted gets him noticed. Knock, knock. Who’s there? Underwear. Underwear who? Underwear if you don’t have a house! Every time four-year-old Jagger delivered the meaningless punch line, his family-audience laughed. Literally nothing funny or clever about it. It was just a bunch of haphazard words. That never mattered. It was gaining attention.

“Anyway, dude —“

Suddenly, Jagger is elevator-drop weightless on the berth and the whole wedge room corkscrews a yard to the left. The boat’s motion is making him seasick and he envies Fourteen’s iron stomach. He came to make amends about the sleeping arrangements on Sirocco. Jagger had no idea how wildly the boat pitched in the front — the bow. Anton and Fourteen are big on salty-nautical terms. This is their element. He forges on, despite the teenager’s cool do-I-know-you stare.

“I just wanted to say, I’m sorry if I’m budging. That was not what I wanted to do. The other bed —“

“The pilot berth.”

It is like the kid wants to emphasize how much Jagger does not belong on a boat. “Right, the pilot bed. Anyway, I’m cool if you want to have that berth. Honestly dude, I’m not here to take anything away from you. I understand where you are coming from, Fourteen. I really do!”

“I’m fine with the V-berth.”

Two weeks with Mary Rule in Gravity reminded Fourteen how much he missed a door that he could close when he needed to. He had been sleeping in a Sirocco’s gangway, after all! The V-berth feels like first class. Jagger does not understand the significance of the pilot berth. The young man thinks it confers access to Anton. To Fourteen, it is about easy access to the helm. Neither of them completely understands the other.

“Okay, as long as we are cool.” Jagger sighs. “Listen, I feel bad that you cleaned up all the mess we left going through the Panama Canal. I should have helped. You're an awesome cook.”

“Cooking is my thing.”

“Right, so, I think it is only fair that if you cook, I should clean up. I can do all the cleaning. Is that fair?”

Fourteen shrugs. Things are not that well defined on Anton’s ketch. People do what they do, depending on the time. Anton or Daniel will bring Fourteen a drink and a sandwich if it is Fourteen’s watch. Jagger thinks cleaning is doing the dishes. The young man is making an effort. “Pretty much.” He offers Jagger a grudging grin.

“And Anton,” Jagger begins.

“Anton’s business what he does, Jagger.”

“I just want it understood.”

“Anton’s ketch,” Fourteen reminds the young man. It really is Anton’s choice who he sleeps with — even if Fourteen knows he is making a mistake. Anton can find his way to his own V-berth, if he wants Fourteen. Right now, he does not and Fourteen thinks that is just as well.

“Right.”

Jagger admires Fourteen’s tight torso. The teen’s shorts are stretched across his package. Jagger tries a seductive-invitation. The two of them have a good deal on Anton’s boat. They should be partners.

Fourteen lets the pass drop between them and roll awkwardly in an elliptic back towards the V-berth bulkhead. Not a great throw. 

“Hey, and you gotta show me the sailing stuff too.” Jagger does not miss a beat.

Fourteen considers the implications of this request. Anton assured Fourteen that Jagger was only taking passage to Aruba, maybe Curaçao. Passage done, Anton would give the college student a ticket back to Panama. That was the plan and Fourteen meant to stick to it. “Sure,” he agrees. He doubts Jagger would ever stand a real watch or reef a sail.

Show me the sailing stuff! Sure, the first time Anton let Jagger try the helm, Jagger had to make a joke.

“A pirate walks into a bar with a ship’s steering wheel in his pants. The bartender says: ‘Hey, did you know you’ve got a steering wheel in your pants?’” Jagger was very good at voices. “‘Aye, sir that it be,’ says the pirate, ‘it’s driving me nuts!’” Jagger grinned at his own cleverness.

Blue Water Sailing School, Anton showed Jagger the web site in Panama when he invited Jagger to sail with them to Aruba and the ABC islands. There was a discrete reference to Anton’s business being LGBTQ2+ friendly. Jagger’s parents would have a meltdown if they knew they flipped their bisexual son from the Tulsa pan to the Caribbean fire. Blue Water Sailing School, Jagger’s parents would pour their money into Whatever It Takes Christian drug rehab or Avenues homo-repair. Paying Anton’s fees for learning how to sail would be unthinkable. Jagger told Anton he could not afford it. “You’re my guest.” The man assured him.

Jagger does not quite buy Jeremy Gates as some gay-troubled (rich) youth doing sailing therapy. There is an intimacy between the man and teen as they move around each other. Jagger recognizes it from the gym in Tulsa. Trainers who have fucked a client touch-talk in a different way. Blue Water Sailing School is very gay-friendly.

For a teenager learning how to sail, Anton’s sailing student spends hour after hour in the V-berth grinding away at his guitar like Jagger working a game in his parents’ basement. Fourteen waits out the silence between them.

“So, you really dig this sailing around stuff?”

“Live aboard.”

“Oh. live aboard,” Jagger tries out the term. “So why? I can see it for a few weeks, maybe a few months. You know, like camping. This is tiny home, trailer trash stuff, don’t you think?”

Sirocco is no trashy trailer.”

“No, this boat is pretty sharp. So small though. Nowhere to go!” Jagger replies with dismay.

“But we are going.”

“Yeah, sure, water water everywhere and what, three rooms?”

“I could imagine saving up for this. A house is pretty expensive compared to Mary’s Gravity.”

Just sailing around like Mary and Sophie, the Super Maramu 2000 is Luxor-Winnebago-simple, nothing to bind you, Fourteen needs-believes. ♪♫♬ Life is a highway, I want to drive it all day long! ♪♫♬ That refrain earworms though Fourteen’s life now. (Fucking) Cordell and (clueless) Pretty Boy rocking into the free world together, feeling so good in their now. Shake off the before and let the after come to you.

Chillicothe-rooted is school, then work, then the Craftsman on the street. Chillicothe is the August-storm. Jeremy Gates does not want to go down that street again. Mary Rule’s Gravity is the sanity-simplicity of solo sailing. Sophie Wright could tell Jeremy that the real tempests that tear your roots out are on the beach. Sophie waiting tables in San Francisco, Fourteen smiles at the thought.

“Yeah, I suppose that’s true.” Jagger tries again.

“Boat life is simple.” Fourteen warms to the topic. “Also, by living in a smaller space we use less resources, such as electricity and water. You have your whole life with you no matter where you go.”

Francesco and Campania Doria were enthusiastic about that. When Fourteen asked Mary if she agreed, she replied she was not so sure. A person’s life is tied somewhere, she said, we are all tied to the land somewhere, I think. Fourteen did not like to think he was tied to challenging-Chillicothe, or a barn filled with malignant hay bails.

“Yeah dude, I can see what you are saying. If you ever want to move, you simply untie your ropes and move to a new location. Also cleaning this whole boat must take a fraction of the time needed to clean a house. I’d like that!”

“The coast of the whole world is your possible future ‘home.” Fourteen concludes. They smile at each other, and the cill between them thaws a bit. Jagger is boy-next-desk friendly. It is just the problem he poses now, and the threat to Daniel and Anton’s after.

“Sirocco gets pretty dirty with three men and the ocean. Besides, there is always something to fix or clean on Anton’s boat. He keeps us pretty busy.” Jagger is putting on a perv. It is the lazy afternoon impulse to masturbate hum that Fourteen is always sensitive to. It is the what the fuck whisper of being Fourteen. He tries to dismiss it, remind himself that this friendly face is a problem.

“I love seeing dolphins, pelicans, sea birds, and other beautiful creatures that you won’t find on land. I mean, Ohio!” Fourteen thinks of everything he has seen. How do I take any of this back to Chillicothe?

“Oh, I can see there are beautiful creatures here.” Jagger smiles at the teen on the bed. His preference is pussy. The teenager is open to a kiss in the dark, he might be open-grateful for a man’s fat cock. Jagger realizes this banishment to Central America has tangerine possibilities. Jagger can be gay-friendly Blue Water sail right up Fourteen’s gym-bunny hard body.

Levi Fisher’s ghost pops in to sit beside Fourteen on the berth. FNG, Levi opines to the restless bobcat. Fucking New Guy, Levi was a squid washed up on a Vietnam beach, Fourteen forgets that. (Fucking) Cordell would suggest Pretty Boy do just that: fuck the new guy. Take up Jagger’s offer and pass the now between watches with adult nap time. Fourteen’s eyes slide down to Jagger’s incomplete pass rolling with Sirocco’s pitch and coil between them. It’s still waiting in Antigua, Levi whisper-promises before he twists back to his nirvana-nothingness with Nguyen Huu Tuan.

“It sucks not having the internet, hey? So, do you mind taking my watch next? I want to talk to Anton.”

Fourteen just stares at Jagger for an awkward pause. Then he nods his head with a quick jerk.

“Anton is quite the pansy, isn’t he?” The cold returns.

“Just so you know, pansies are hardy flowers, and the skipper is tough as nails.” Fourteen misses Daniel Ayers’ taciturn qualities.

Off Cabo de la Vela, Colombia

July 16, 2018

Four on, four off, Anton decided as they left Colón. When conditions allow, Sirocco cruises on autopilot with Jagger slumped at the helm chair imagining his duties are nothing more than calling Anton back to the cockpit before the sailboat is rammed by the ever-present container ships.

Fourteen has the watch. He could catnap, like Wade might do in the lazy afternoon sun on the window side of the classroom. Fourteen has Anton’s ketch wired into his nervous system now. It is like riding your before-bike without the handlebars. You can feel the movement beneath you. You feel the moments when your palms have to come down on the quivering handlebar. He cannot catnap now.

Fourteen and Anton used the autopilot very little, just so they can use the head and grab a drink. Otherwise, they keep Sirocco tacking back and forth on the mainsail and jib. Fourteen misses the free-run before the trade wind when Sirocco flew down the coast of Mexico in his first summer dream-flight.

Sirocco nibbles the miles like a fullback weaving through the shifting bodies on the line. Fourteen watches jib as he trims in the mainsail with the joystick at the helm. The helm is by the windward rail. When Sirocco has some speed, he edges it closer to the wind. There is a luff in the big sheet over his head. He trims it tightly. Just watch the jib, like Anton taught you, Fourteen peers into the darkness before him.

He thinks he sees the backwinding, the bubble, along the triangular jib. There is more movement on the leeward telltales. “Don’t let it pinch,” he says out loud for company. It is night, so it is hard for Fourteen to see the windward telltales begin to twist. He wants the little streamers on the sail horizontal. There is speed there. Fourteen cannot get to Aruba soon enough. He watches the luff of the jib and telltales, constantly trying to head a little higher without losing speed. He tries closing his eyes, taking his hands off the handlebars so to speak, Fourteen tries to feel Sirocco the way Anton always does.

The helm navigation screen shows his knots (5.4) in the top left corner. A bold blue line traces Anton’s intended course. Below it, a thin line flicks north and south as the ketch pitches in the swells. A red arrowhead sits on Sirocco’s course like a tiny compass. The arrow-ketch icon mostly sways toward the yellow map-mass of South America. The sailboat bears off a bit because Fourteen is pinching off too much. As long as Sirocco keeps more than 50 miles off the coast, they should be okay. Fourteen draws his finger between their current course and the coast. He reads the pop-up numbers.

Fourteen has drifted off the course far enough. It would be easy to let Sirocco’s heavy diesel assist the tack. Fourteen has no problem waking Jagger, but Anton needs his sleep. “If they are sleeping,” Fourteen voices sourly. “Ready about,” he tells his missing skipper. This sudden shift is going to wake Anton, motor or not. Fourteen is sort of proud that Anton’s tacks wake him in the V-berth. Hard to sleep through that!

Sirocco’s wheel pushes the rudder and the ketch reaches head to the wind. The electrics release the jib sheet and pull it around to the new tack. All this as Fourteen rides the ketch through the heavy swells off the South American coast. Fourteen brings the rudder back to the centerline as the sails fill on the new tack. The game of reaching for the wind continues, and Fourteen’s heart settles down. He no longer looks around for Anton’s approval.

Remy and Greyson Gates are the (accurate) measure of all (good) things. In the Chillicothe before, parental fighting is like reading about some Midwest tornado shattering a home three counties over. Odds are, it was a fragile trailer anyway, and not the Gateses’ solid craftsman. Remy and Greyson are eagle-eyed about wear and tear. One, the other, or both will set their house to rights, and young Jeremy Gates lends an apprentice hand to two masters.

Life has its stress, even in the Gateses' house. Remy, Greyson and Jeremy are only human, after all. Jeremy gives his parents space to work the rough spots out. His mom will turn to baking, and then Jeremy will lend a hand. It is harder to help his dad. Greyson turns his problem-solving inward. Regardless, his parents tend their partnership and parenting as carefully as his mother schedules maintainance or his father eyes the old foundation’s cracks.

Daniel and Anton are more like his parents than Fourteen thought. Daniel turns it inward like dad. Anton doesn’t bake. Fourteen rolls his eyes. With Jagger in the mix, Fourteen is not inclined to help Anton’s yeast rise at the moment. He could have turned to me, Fourteen thinks.

Fourteen can feel the swells growing. Anton warned him of this when they handed off. The broad reach of the vast Atlantic is meeting the gulf as they pass Colombia. Sirocco rolls the swell coming from Jamaica and twists on the odd conflicting swell going to Haiti. In the darkness, Fourteen cannot see each swell coming until it whacks Sirocco on the beam. A few of the swells come through six or seven yards high. It is a little scary in the cockpit by himself, a little freaking glorious.

Fourteen thinks his problem with Anton and Daniel is more like two friends fighting. Anton and Daniel are not his parents. Mary’s questions about Jeremy’s favorite teacher remind Fourteen of a sixth-grade hallway conversation.  Ms. Clement’s talking circle, where she did the talking and the three boys did the thinking. The trilobite hardly left Ms. Clement’s hand.

The three of them were hardly a clique, which was a gang when Wade asked what she meant by that. “You’re BFFs,” Ms. Clement advised them. That made all three boys groan. We’re not girls! Fourteen remembers thinking. “How long have you been together?” Wade answered for them: kindergarten. Rita Clement could have told them they were all marked — like everyone was — and each year when it came time to divide the students into homerooms, there was the Plan. Shane and Jeremy could be separated for the next year, it might be good for them, but Wade needed to be kept with one or the other.

Shay Wilson upset the thoughtless-harmless threesome that they shared. Shay scoped out his classmates and wanted in as soon as he joined the class. Wade was the weakest link. Nobody would even think that, except maybe Wade. Wade could sense that Shane and Jeremy were inseparable. Wade worried he was expendable. Ms. Clement’s round tables had plenty of room for all of them, and more. You had to be a real dick to turn Jeremy off. Shay was kind of sweet. Shane was cool with anyone Jeremy hung with. Wade was not so sure. Maybe just a little, to make Wade feel more comfortable, Jeremy and Shane pushed Shay out. Not being really mean, just hide'n'seek about the school.

Ms. Clement kept her classroom as carefully as Remy organized her kitchen. She sat them down in the hallway to advise the boys. Shay was worth a chance. The polished trilobite went around the little circle on the floor and the three embarrassed friends agreed it might be four. Ms. Clement was right. Four made them stronger. By June, each boy had a partner for the fall, by eighth grade, Shane and Jeremy could share a class by themselves.

Daniel and Anton need a talking circle, Fourteen concludes, or maybe I’m the one who does. Was he being worried Wade? He liked the cozy threesome on Sirocco. No question, Anton and Daniel were inseparable and Fourteen was the expendable one (stirred memories of Patrick and John). Was he letting jealousy push Jagger out? Anton is being Anton. The man fucks like a chimp in the forest.

Levi Fisher regaled Fourteen with nostalgic-self-deprecation his time Where the Wild Things Are. It was, to hear Dr. Evil Fisher tells it, a wild two-decade rumpus Anton Schroeder would approve of. Now is Fourteen’s time to wear his bobcat suit. Now, the world is all around and the ocean tumbles by. It had been in and out of weeks and almost a year since the August midway with his friends. Fourteen has tamed monsters with his tangerine trick. Sirocco is Fourteen’s wild rumpus of forgetting.

He worries he is selfish. Fourteen has a right to say if two are three, but it is not his place to say that three cannot be four, or who two was. Daniel and Anton were simply the two he knew.

Knowing you were two, and knowing that when you’re not, you’re broken. Levi Fisher’s loss of Tuan taught him that, but first his parents' marriage did. What would it be like to lose the one person who can make you whole?

Fourteen has watched Anton and Daniel since San Diego. He is positive Anton feels the gravity between, but he is caught up in his wild rumpus. Anton is making such a big mistake! Jeremy’s parents always worked it through. Jeremy’s parents were not stupid enough to walk out on each other. You stay to work things out! That went without saying. It went without thinking.

You don’t question the gravity between. Mary told Jeremy that, but first his parents showed him how it is done. Anton and Daniel should not need Fourteen’s advice. Sort of, because Fourteen also knew his mom worked it out better when he baked with her, and dad thought it out a little better when Jeremy curled up nearby and purred. Gravity’s attraction weakens with distance.

It’s still waiting in Antigua, Levi whisper-promises. Fourteen told Daniel on the volcano that this would end up on the beach. West, Far East, Fourteen promised himself as the Luxor Winnebago took him safely away from Patrick and John. You’re crew, free to come and go. Fourteen would try not to be Wade friend-blocking Jagger. Not my place, but the man was just not right for Anton. Daniel is so right for Anton!

Anton joins Fourteen at that moment. “You’re early,” Fourteen points out, welcoming the company and the break in his train of thought.

“Close enough,” Anton replies. “You are closing on the cape and the Atlantic is making itself felt. We’ll tack to port on my watch and a beam reach will take us to Aruba and Curaçao. Well, if the wind holds. You go below, the clock is ticking. Four hours and counting. Give us a kiss sweet boy.”

Fourteen has been thinking at the helm, dealing with the sea like his dad would. He goes down and decides to cook it out like his mom would. Jagger is slouching behind the salon table on the bench looking at a few of Daniel’s orphan things.

“I fell out of bed the last time you turned!”

“I’m going to make myself something before I lie down. Do you want anything?” Fourteen feels like baking.

“I could eat. Anton works up an appetite.” Jagger grins. “Hey, what does Captain Jack Sparrow use to cook? – Pyrex of the Caribbean! Are you making coffee?”

“Just herbal tea for Anton,” with a splash of rum in the berry-brew. Fourteen sees his way to biscuits in the oven, despite the heaving deck. They still have cheese. There is a can of ham in the V-berth locker.

Jagger is looking at his useless phone. “I never thought about the internet.”

“Some boats have it. Anton told me he was happier cutting the umbilical cord. His business would be at him all the time.”

“Yeah, he told me that. I was telling him what my plans were, the studying thing. He said he did not miss his work at all.” Jagger could only imagine that sort of work-freedom, until he joined this cruise. Jagger assumes Anton’s best flirtatious tone. “Yeah, I can see Anton avoiding an internet connection. Work emails are like the gym. You sign up for it thinking it will be loads of fun. You get bored of it within hours. You only keep going to keep up your reputation. The more you stay away, the harder it is to go back.”

Okay, Fourteen has to laugh at this. It is so like what Anton might say. First, Anton hates the bodybuilding, then, he cannot hide the let-out-of-school excitement of sailing free. The satellite phone is usually turned off. “There is only one form of exercise Anton likes.”

“I can tell you don’t go to the gym, either.” Jagger observes. “You are in good shape. I could give you some tips on how to bulk up.”

The biscuits are in the little oven. Fourteen cuts slabs of cheese for the final melt. He leans against the galley while he waits for Anton’s tea. “Rum,” he asks Jagger, who is close to the liquor in the table pedestal. After Fourteen splashes a measure into the thermos mug, Jagger takes it back with a very Anton-like caress of Fourteen’s hip.

Jagger stays close, boxing Fourteen into his galley. After a swig from his glass, Jagger breaks the silence. “So, what do you know about Anton’s business? Does he have a house somewhere?”

Don’t friend-block, god knows he has not cock-blocked the man. Reluctantly, Fourteen tells Jagger what he knows about Mirage Property Advisors and Valerie’s vaster Avakian Fisher Empirical. There is only the Seattle condo. Anton likes to travel. MPA and AFE have executive suites in places like Dubai and Paris where Anton camps-camps with friends and strangers.

“Holy shit!” Jagger speculates. “Seattle is nice. I’ve never been there, but I’ve heard.” Jagger pours another shot. “Those buns smell good. You’re not eighteen?”

“No,” Fourteen has been cautious with Jagger. Anton? Not as cautious as he thinks. A passing Fourteen is worth a pinch and a seductive invitation. Anton misses Master and Commander times. We were seven days at sea, the Captain took to buggery. ♪♫♬ His only joy was the cabin boy in the North Atlantic Squadron. Away, away with fife and drum, ♪♫♬ Here we —

“This sailing school ends where?”

“Antigua and Barbuda,” Fourteen is pretty sure about that.

“So Anton, wow!” Jagger speculates. A gym in Tulsa would run Jagger to six figures. He is missing the big picture if he settled for that. “I should not have asked you to take my shift. That wasn’t fair. I’ve got to pull my weight, be part of the team.”

Don’t take it all on by yourself. Mary warned Jeremy in Panama.

Puerto Lodo, Colombia

July 18, 2018

Anton is pressed down on the bed, held by his wrists. Jagger is deep inside him thrusting with orgasmic short-shocks of masculine arrogance. The satellite phone begins to ring. Anton lifts up from the mattress and Jagger pushes him down with a commanding shove.

“I think you are tied up right now,” Jagger quips. He clasps Anton’s wrists again. He is very close to coming and pulling out would be an agony-waste right now.

The ringing continues, then thankfully stops. Fourteen’s youthful voice is heard through the bulkhead. Jagger squeezes a wrist to remind Anton who is still in control. His strokes slow as both men listen to the fragments of phrases from the chart station.

“Mary, I think,” Anton decides. If the call had been for Anton, something pressing, something Daniel, Fourteen would knock on the bulkhead without a blush.

Jagger accelerates again. “Have you ever been tied up? Say, we should go grab the kid. You could teach him some sailing knots, raise his mainmast, ride his waves. Have you ever thought of that? Take his cherry maybe?” Jagger slams Anton hard.

“I wouldn’t try that,” Anton warns. They should not be talking about Fourteen. That only spoils the spontaneity with Jagger. You’ll never be more than an opening act for a star like Fourteen, honey. Anton only kisses and tells with his partners.

“I know, just joking. I’m no chicken hawk.” Jagger assures Anton. He has no scruples about Fourteen’s age. After all, the gay boy has no scruples about walking naked about the boat. If Fourteen is going to flaunt his tight ass, he deserves what he is asking for. “So you think he wanks off listening to us make love?”

Jagger slips out. Anton rolls so he can look at the young man. Making love is something Anton did with Daniel. Fucking is what he does with men like Jagger. Anton is not disappointed with Jagger. He is a friendly young man. Funny with all his boilerplate jokes. Perhaps Jagger is deluded about his prowess, just as Fourteen is unaware of the superiority of his alluring animal intensity. The long flaccid length of Jagger is a familiar disappointment to Anton. Shower, not a grower, Anton muses. He massages Jagger’s spent cock, not dissatisfied with his current bedmate.

“Ropes and ropes,” Jagger’s ejaculations are young-man-bountiful. The residue of his latest creams between Anton’s fingers. “Tyrone and I were in Osaka unwinding after an overly ambitious movable feast.”

“Movable feast?” Jagger asks in his Tulsa innocence.

“My twenty-first birthday,” Anton begins.

“Hey! Like me!”

“Indeed,” Anton smiles. “The ambition was twenty-one cities and twenty men.”

“But you were twenty-one.”

“There was Tyrone.” Anton teases Jagger’s proclivities, running a hand between the young man’s sunburnt thighs. “Where was I? Oh yes, at Senkaku Salon in Osaka with a rope artist. Kinbaku, very erotic, sexy, exciting. Tyrone’s birthday gift to me. It was a woman — don’t be surprised. She was very good. I was her model for the workshop.” Anton’s fingers find Jagger’s relaxed testicles. He captures the slack scrotum with his thumb and index finger. “Have you ever been tied up?”

“Fuck no!” Jagger has imagined tying others up. Nothing sadistic, just the heart-thumping of that extension of his partner’s necessary submission.

“I was the model, she was the rigger, and there was the audience.”

“Do you like that? Should we try it? Fourteen could be the audience.” Jagger thinks of all the rope about the sailboat. He fucked one gym-bunny-cougar on a Bowflex, after hours because she liked the danger of getting caught on security cameras.

“How generous you are!” Anton dismisses this demurely. How does it feel while being bound? Words that came to mind are anticipation, suspense, fear, excitement, relief.

Anton thinks it might have been the exhibition that turned him on in Osaka. All those eyes examining me. It was not painful. It was erotic and decorative. “I enjoyed the emotional exchange,” Anton tells the naive young man. “Kinbaku is communication, just like conversation or sex. The person tying me adapts the way they tie based on watching my reactions. I got to know not just what she expressed on the surface, but through the way she tied. I also got to know her thoughts and emotions. Maybe the audience’s as well. Perhaps she tied for them too.” The difference between love making and simple fucking, he adds to himself. 

“I don’t want ropes, dear. I understand the sense of binding, though.” A person can need a rigger. Fourteen can bind Anton with a flick of his finger. It is simply sex, but the boy is attentive beyond his years. Fourteen abhors physical bondage. Daniel, on the other hand, probably shares Jagger’s fascination with this playful dimension of topping.

“We should grab the kid and you tie him up,” Jagger jokes. This talk of bondage is an unexpected turn. If this is what Anton likes ….

“He will give you a black eye if you try it.” Anton warns. “Fourteen thinks the only people who want to be physically restrained are those who have never experienced the fear of being a helpless prisoner, enduring inescapable bonds.”

“He is a funny kid.” Jagger backs off the idea. Landing Anton is sort of like the man said. You need to watch reactions, get to know Anton’s thoughts and emotions.

“Fourteen is funny, and he’s not.” Anton thinks about the brooding youth in the V-berth. Is he talking with Mary Rule, or is it Daniel he is commiserating with?

“It’s nice not to be moving.”

“Life is constant movement. Never stepping in the same stream twice because everything is flowing, intersecting, exchanging.”

Jagger nods agreement, anxious to be agreeable. “Yeah, I get what you are saying. You are so smart, Anton — sexy-smart.” Anton’s hand knows how to make demands on Jagger’s body. Twenty-one men for a birthday party! Anton is insane-ambitious. “I want to keep changing too. I want more than working in a gym, you know? I’m looking for partnership, love,” that was perhaps too hasty, “I am going to have my own gym. Something I can build. You probably understand what I am talking about, being a businessman.”

The change in Anton is subtle, but it is there. Jagger revises his opinion of the man. Anton has probably had a lot of experience with people after his money. He is a bottom, but hardly a fool. The man’s eyes remind him of the ladies when they offer him an extra tip at the end of the month: knowing the score.

“You’re building something right here,” Anton deflects the conversation.

The V-berth bulkhead is open because the air conditioning is confined to the stateroom and the coast of Colombia is insanely hot. Fourteen is reading John Green’s Looking for Alaska at Mary Rule’s suggestion on his Kindle app. She had to ask him what he had read while they were talking, so he had to start it.

“I’m going to take a shower, interested?” Anton asks from the open bulkhead. Taking a shower means going to the foredeck where Anton can rig the saltwater hose. A bucket to get wet, soap and salt water rinse, then go below for a second rinse with fresh water. “Who phoned?”

“Mary is leaving Chiriqui Lagoon. She was telling me about it and asking if we made it to Aruba. Well, she knew we had not. She could not reach me on my phone.”

Nothing has been said about the change in Anton’s habits. The satellite phone represents obligations to his mother and Anton’s business. It has stayed off for months. It is on because Daniel might call. They both know that.

“You know the charges by the minute are extortionary,” Anton has to say.

“Take it out of my wages,” Fourteen retorts. “Let’s just step off the stern and wash there.”

“I’m worried about the currents. We don’t know much about them and it is still dark. Why aren’t you sleeping?”

“Why aren’t you?”

It is a companionable-routine at Sirocco’s bow. Fourteen rigs the deck hose while Anton switches on the pump. Fourteen runs the hose about the deck and fittings. The crust of dried salt buildup from their passage dissolves under the jet. When Anton returns, Fourteen turns the jet on him. He catches his opportunity and blasts Anton’s crotch. “Little fucker!”

Fourteen lets Anton wrestle the hose away from him, then rotates under the refreshing flow while Anton turns it into something sensual. “You never brought fresh water.” Fourteen comments. They will have to soap below if they have a mind to.

“There is still plenty of water in the tanks.” Anton assures Fourteen. The thought of a hot shower is pleasant, but they are both enamored with the sea, wanting to be on the deck, not in a closet-head-claustrophobia. Anton begins to massage Fourteen’s shoulders with one hand as he plays the water across his back.

“We only have a mooring off the beach in Aruba. I don’t know. I haven’t decided how long we will stay. We might just move on to Curaçao. Then, I don’t know.” Anton had a plan. That seems to have been spoiled. He is trying not to think so far ahead.

“I think this is my fault,” Fourteen announces. People do crazy stuff to people. Selfishness, and then they end up hurting someone. He remembers telling something like that to Daniel when he shared his fears about Anton. Fourteen had been thinking about (fucking) Cordell when he listened to Daniel. He let all the betrayals he had suffered shape his final answer.

Fourteen speaks to the ocean and not the man behind him. “I told him you were not his friend if you just wanted to use him.”

Anton’s fingers tapdance from Fourteen’s shoulder blade down to the ribs beneath his arm. He does not answer Fourteen.

“I said a friend does not take your dreams away; keep you from what you need. Daniel told me he loved you.” Fourteen takes a step away and turns to look at Anton. This seriousness is so awkward with the man. Anton has said nothing. Anton turns off the hose and starts to coil it on the deck. “Don’t you think you should talk to Daniel?”

“I’ve talked to him,” Anton replies, detached. “I even said I was sorry,” he adds grudgingly.

“A real friend puts you first. If he is your friend, you have to prove it!” Fourteen slumps a little. “I think I convinced him to leave. You have to fix it!”

Anton looks away. It is hard not to dismiss this persuasion for what it is: adolescent idealism. He would not be Anton Schroeder without some dalliance with Broadway and the West Coast glitterati. It is all so dramatic to the young. The naked fifteen-year-old is hormone-hardwired to live Romeo and Juliet. What were they, sixteen and thirteen? Gonna kill yourself for perfect love? The Bard treated their naive, destructive passion as seriously as he did the buffoons and doddering old fools rioting in the Verona market over insults, preprosperous!

He smiles gently at Fourteen because he really is a good kid. Less than half my age, Anton thinks, disgruntled. I’m certified skipper of Sirocco and have twenty years of sailing troubled waters in craft this five-month novice can’t conceive. Anton will not be schooled on relationships by this walking hardon any more than he thinks four-hour watches in a stiff headwind qualifies the boy to school him on sailing.

“Jeremy,” Anton finally replies with asperity, “I told you, this was not about you. You didn’t do anything. What you might have said to Daniel did not change things between us.”

Fourteen gives him attitude, standing there on the deck. He thinks I’m happy with how things turned out? Anton narrows his eyes. A person learns that the furthest distance in the world is the distance between how things are and how you want them to be. “Jeremy, just let it go. You’re just —”

“A kid?” Fourteen’s attitude turns acid. “How many times do you need to get burned by a stove before you learn not to touch the cherry red? You think it takes twenty extra years? I have had betrayal carved into my flesh, Anton. I know what hurt is like. Daniel is hurt. You should make him stop hurting.”

Anton recalls the horrific implications of the news reports Daniel opened after the truth of Jeremy Gates came out. “I’d like to think this is completely different than what you went through.”

Fourteen waves Anton off. “I’m only trying to say, I’ve watched you and Daniel. So yeah, you know what’s going on better than I do. Only, you said you screwed up. So if you screwed up, isn’t it your job to fix it?”

Fourteen is just a kid, he knows it. Try to get these men to understand! Getting shoved-betrayed into Levi Fisher’s Luxor Winnebago, Fourteen tried to tell John Cannon his now did not have to be that way, John could make himself a different after. Fourteen stepped away from John into Levi Fisher’s fatal hajj to Mÿ Sòn Temple. Fourteen confronts Anton. “What are you going to do old man? Grow old with a lifetime of regret? Take this sailboat out one last time before you die and sail back to the Pearl Islands and set yourself on fire?”

“What a crazy thing to ask me!”

“Go. get. him.” Fourteen can see the stubborn pride of Anton, perhaps the fear of failure. “He's not Beckett, if you want Beckett, go to Maryland and try to get him.” Anton looks away. “Anton!” Fourteen urges the man to listen. “You can see that can’t you? Jagger’s just another Beckett. You’ll be so sorry after.”

Fourteen’s voice drops. “I think you want Daniel, so go after him.”

Anton and Fourteen left it at that. Fourteen thought about their brief exchange during the next day while they sailed the last sixty miles to Aruba. It was 91°F by noon and the wind blew 16 mph east-northeast across Sirocco’s side. Anton had them on a port tack, close hauled, when land was sighted. Fourteen rode the three-foot swells at the bow. Anton was just wrong.

“Hey!” Fourteen chirped as he dropped down into the salon. “We just sighted Aruba,” he announced to Jagger.

Daniel’s rival was slouched-bored at the table watching a movie from the hard drive. The Wolf of Wallstreet, Fourteen noticed. “I’m not talking about this,” DiCaprio unfurls the $100 with a snap. “Money is the oxygen of capitalism and I wanna breathe more than any other human being alive.” Fourteen pauses on the salon’s big screen while Leonardo DiCaprio crumples the bill into a ball and tosses it over his shoulder into a corner, where it comes to rest with a small pile of others. “Money doesn’t just buy you a better life — better food, better cars, better pussy — it also makes you a better person.”

“Man, I could use their life and pussy,” Jagger mutters. “There are a lot of movies on this drive.” He finally acknowledges Fourteen’s presence. “How long till we get to the island?”

“Hours,” Fourteen replies.

Jagger spares a thought for the classic yacht he saw in Panama City as he boarded Anton’s sailboat with his aunt and uncle. It wouldn’t be hours on that spaceship.

“Some newer stuff here: The Revenant, Justice League, Thor. Who is the DiCaprio fan? Are there any snacks?”

“Just the last of the bread.” Fourteen grabs the satellite phone and sits at the chart table. “You don’t want to see the island?”

“Sure, later.”

“Anton has a thing for Leonardo DiCaprio, ever since he saw The Basketball Diaries.” Fourteen assumes Anton’s party tone. “I read the book! Utterly devastated when they straightened out his character! I mean, Leo looked so pained when the man sucked him off in the bathroom stall! Seriously, what boy would have that Christ-suffering-on-the-cross look on their face during a blow-job? The scenes they never shot from the book, such a homophobic tragedy.” Fourteen ends it with a sigh as Anton would.

Jagger laughs at him. “Hey, pretty good imitation.” He turns back to the movie. “He likes the superheroes too?”

“We argue what goes on the drive when we reach a marina with internet. Stuff goes on, stuff comes off to make room. No, the action stuff is Daniel’s choice. His thing is Chris Hemsworth,” Fourteen replies.

“So what’s your thing?” Jagger asks after a moment of watching the movie. He sees Fourteen with the satellite phone between his knees.

Stranger Things, Fourteen blushes. When the series started, Jeremy Gates had a thing for Noah Schnapp, still does. Jagger will not find that on Anton’s hard drive. “I like Marvel movies.”

“Nothing gay on the drive. No porno,” Jagger wonders.

“Anton has no patience. He says he would rather be a player than a spectator.”

“Sucks to be you,” Jagger commiserates, “I guess you have your tablet.”

They watch the movie together for a few minutes. Fourteen lets himself be drawn into a lively discussion of Belfort’s predatory manipulations and reckless adventures. “At least he is living!” Jagger tells Fourteen. “I mean, don’t you think Anton with his businesses doesn’t bend a rule or two?”

Like harboring and sleeping with an underage boy? Fourteen is not oblivious. Patrick and John used brute force. Levi used his money and mind-fucked Jeremy with a silver necklace and good sex. Fourteen thinks Anton is helping him, but really? People do what they want to do.

“Yeah, I guess I’ve seen this. I suppose they make it cooler than it was.” Jagger decides.

“You play Divinity?” Jagger asks Fourteen. Original Sin Two is an absolute gem of a game. You know it?”

“I haven’t played it yet,” Fourteen confesses.

“I haven’t been this invested in a game since Skyrim. The combat system is absolutely fantastic. I mean, there were times I wanted to be more powerful. You know what I mean?”

“Yeah, sure.” Talking with Jagger was like hanging with his buddies in Chillicothe in the before. It was comfortable. The most serious thing you had to worry about was buying the latest game so you could talk it up.

“I would have enjoyed more freedom with the fight system.” Jagger pauses to grab a handful of food. He watches the video for a while. Comments on the scene. “I don’t want to come off as too negative for the combat. Original Sin is one of the most satisfying turn-based combat games ever created in my experience.” Jagger jumps the track. “You have an Oculus?”

Fourteen shakes his head. “No, Shane got —“

“Oh man, blows your mind! That is the endgame, isn’t it?” More grazing, and then, “If you plan well, you can dish out maximum damage. You know, knowing where to land, where to stand, when to use which school of magic and how to manage your AP.” Jagger waves his hand as if to say, the usual. 

“There’s times I will quick save and then pick a fight with an entire town, just to fight. I’ve played the storyline mode, obviously, but I like playing with my friends. It really blows not having internet on this boat. You read books on that little thing?” Jagger is mentioning Fourteen’s tablet.

“Yeah, mostly,” Fourteen shrugs. “I’ll have to look at Original Sin. So, it’s like what?”

“Divinity is its own beast, nothing like it.” Jagger pauses to consider. “Maybe Xcoms Combat MMORPG. Pretty similar, certainly scratches the same itch. Fallout and maybe Tactics.”

The nice thing about living with his parents was having money for the games. Panama City with Aunt Lisa and Uncle Mike really sucked. His sweet system was back in Tulsa getting molested by his parents.

Fourteen glances at Daniel’s message. He thinks this messaging is useless. It is all so like passing notes across the room. Anton and Daniel simply needed to FaceTime. Hell! If Fourteen screwed up, his mom and dad would tell him to march himself right to his friend’s door and apologize. How is not talking to him working out for you, Greyson Gates would ask Jeremy as he leaned against his bedroom door.

“I have a PlayStation 4,” Fourteen contributes. He hardly misses it. It seems he has Jumanjied into his own adventure game. This challenged now has driven before games right from his mind. It does not seem likely that Fourteen will ever get a chance to settle down and play video games.

“Yeah?” The platform is pretty standard for young dudes like Fourteen. “What are you into?”

“You know, Madden NFL, Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare with my buddies.” Fourteen.

“Anything on that Android?” Jagger asks hopefully. “Anton is kinda old, but I figured he would at least have an old PS with some disks.”

“Subway Surfers, Badlands, um, yeah Minecraft,” Fourteen confesses.

“Oh dude, that is so preteen!” Jagger looks appalled. “I’d rather read a fucking book!”

Oranjestad, Aruba

July 20, 2018

Bonaire and Curaçao were the most popular ABC islands with cruisers heading to and from Panama. Aruba is a flat island, exposed to the ocean currents. Bonaire and Curaçao are surrounded by reefs, and so are more sheltered from the weather. Anton was intent on Aruba, just 18 miles off the coast of Venezuela.

He steered Sirocco to the northern tip, turned south and surveyed the windward coast for twenty sunny miles before tacking around the southern tip. The rugged and dramatic landscape gave way to the long stretches of white sand beaches on the island's populated leeward side.

They get a buoy in Oranjestad well off the Waikiki-worthy beach with its modest hotel complexes. You can't anchor. You have to be moored and it is very close to the shore and the water is shallow. Less than a foot of tide. Anton explains that it is different than the Eastern Caribbean.

“There's a lot more infrastructure and everything is paved. Just a short stay, then we are on to Curaçao.” Anton informs his young men. “How are stores, Mr. Christ ….” Then he stops, because Daniel Ayers was Mr. Christian and Fourteen is not there to take his place.

“If you get your fill of fresh here on the island, we have enough to get us to Curaçao.” They two are alone for a moment, so Fourteen adds, “Enough for the two of us, that is.” Very pointed, this. The promise-plan was Jagger flying back to Panama City, hasta la vista, baby.

Anton glances toward Jagger, eagerly anticipating the shore. Fourteen stands close, hiding nothing behind his Oakley shades and the much abused Padres ball cap. “I’m still thinking about that.” The skipper of Sirocco is the tone.

“Aye aye, captain,” Fourteen deadpans.

Anton runs his young men to the beach. Aruba should be safe, but it is better if they keep a watch. Jagger and Fourteen watch Anton pull away. “This is the Netherlands.” Jagger begins.

“After a fashion,” Fourteen replies.

He has brought his bike bag for the necessaries of his shore leave. He never thought when he impulsively picked the bag in San Diego that it would accompany him so far. He stuffed the last of his old life into the black bag Levi Fisher gave him, dropped it in the donation bin, and started (almost) fresh. He has Levi’s Hikari blade in his pocket and the last of Elvis Parker’s burner phones.

“Prostitution is legal here,” Jagger informs Fourteen.

“Are you short of money?” Fourteen asks, embarrassed by the idea. He brushed too close to all of that in San Diego and Puerto Vallarta. The waiter Sergio Ochoa, and the two ladies’ proposition on the walk back to the ketch; Fourteen is haunted by the specter.

Jagger snorts. The question is harsh. He has tried his best to get along with the teenager, share the wealth, as it were. Jagger thought they were making progress, reaching a mutually beneficial understanding. Fourteen’s “sailing camp” is more than it seems. Jagger is tired of the boy’s hypocrisy.

“So what should we do first?” Jagger thinks it is worth a try to keep things friendly. between them.

“I don’t have much time before I have to take the watch.” Fourteen pulls his Galaxy out to check the time. “I have your number (damn right I do), let me get my errands done before everything closes. I need to call home where I can find wifi, you understand. I will message you when I’m free.” Fourteen gives Jagger a playful shove, “If you are not tied up with your prostitute.”

“I don’t know how well that would go over with Anton.” Jagger does not need to jeopardize his chances.

“You don’t know Anton yet.”

The St. Patrick sign offers live music and a happy hour that might not yet be over. The ghastly glow of the Cafe Chaos sign washes flirting Millennials in unflattering ectoplasmic gloom. No way in hell would Anton tolerate that lighting, Fourteen decides.

He puffs two and a half years into his broadening chest, takes two steps up to the outdoor tables, and slips past the older mingle into the gay bar. He tries to channel Daniel Ayers’ twenty-something been-there-done-that. Kale Euler’s false identity had its utility. Despite the loathsome attachments, Fourteen feels a regretful pang.

Happy after-hour is not so crowded that he cannot find a seat at the bar. He looks around the cluttered bar top for inspiration. “Anita Amber” he tells the young bartender. Then he waits to be carded. Fourteen screams pampered tourist brat, so there is just a conspiratorial-cynical friendliness to the bartender’s smirk reply. Jeremy Gates scratches a blunt fingernail over the well worn surface of the bar.

His Galaxy comes free first. Something new from Sophie’s world. San Francisco updates he will reply to when he can. Cafe Chaos popped up on his phone after he ditched Jagger in the sand. Oranjestad is one more Disneyland groomed-tailored for the tourists. Fourteen wonders if this is what Antigua will be like. Cafe Chaos is almost Montana Restaurant comfortable for the visiting crowds. He has made it to the Caribbean and this gay bar is nothing like he expected.

“No such thing,” Anton advised him. “We’re blending into grey with all the rest. How would dear Campana and Francesco Doria put it? One more pristine and quaint cultural paradise ruined by its own success. We have been expropriated! Assimilated!”

Fourteen has not come for that sort of company. After the upwind battle from Panama, the constant tacking around Anton’s problems and Jagger’s campaign to friend him, Fourteen needs to lose himself in an indifferent, noisy crowd. He sips his beer and looks at the crowded room.

The ceiling beams above his head are filled with bills in all denominations. Sharpie signatures are scrawled across the money. Fourteen was ghosted across America. He stared at security cameras. Gas stations, supermarkets, restaurants, there were so many cameras.

Fourteen never thought to leave a breadcrumb trail to follow. John Cannon was too watchful. Jeremy Gates could not even slip out the Bronco door; leave scraps of paper or Sharpie notes on bathroom walls — Jeremy was here. Jeremy Gates was not really there that much. Blame Patrick and John, blame Levi, blame (fucking) Cordell, blame Fourteen.

His name spray-painted on a random shipping container had a better chance of being noticed than a wasted ten joining the selfie-confetti above his head. Jeremy Gates was here, but was he really?

Fourteen reaches for his bike bag full of treats for Anton’s palate. Sirocco is well stocked against a passage mishap. He will shop in earnest when they make it to Curaçao. He thinks about phoning Daniel in Indiana. His voice might be more persuasive than a string of messages. Later, he decides, when he is alone on the ketch and not trying to talk over a live band called RPM.

The side pocket of his bag holds his lifeline to Chillicothe and Jeremy Gates. Fourteen turns it on and fiddles with the bar’s wifi connection. Something new, he thinks the phone number is familiar but cannot remember whose it is. The message is several days old; he clicks the icon to play.

“Message 12: July 13 at 1:12 pm”

For the first time in almost a year Fourteen hears the now deeper voice of his best friend. He almost misses what it says as his mind goes back to the last time he saw him, the night of the Ross County Fair, a bare few minutes before he circled back to help the wrong people. The last person he saw before his life changed.

"Dude, hey I got your number from Wade. I was kinda hoping you would call me sometime but I, I suppose you got your reasons.”

Shane sounds sad or I dunno maybe he's still pissed off, Fourteen thinks.

“Anyway I hope you heard the news it's all anybody's talking about I mean for real. Those psychos who kidnapped you are dead, did you hear? Dead as fuck! The FBI shot them all to hell where they belong! And good riddance!"

Fourteen drops the phone, grabs it just in time; he is juggling it, his heart pounds, he feels sweaty; misses a few words and only half-hears the message over the bar noise.

“--was kinda pissed at you. I know it's stupid, but—well anyway, people were saying you just run away. I didn't believe it you woulda talked to me, told me about anything that big. We didn't have no secrets you'd tell me anything wouldn't you?...I don't get that old dude but your folks said he rescued your ass, so good for him. Anyhow, man... I miss you. I dunno how you got away from those bastards—” Shane’s voice kind of changes, “uh, lotta people are saying they, they, well, I dunno, hope it ain't true Jeremy hope they didn't uh hurt you... they say they were, uh, aw hell, never mind, you were too smart for them anyway, you got away. All them other kids...well...died.” There was a longish pause. “Well, call me some time, OK?” His voice fades, and Jeremy is about to cut the connection but Shane returns, “Yeah call me.” He sounds half wistful.

Fourteen SAVES the message and hangs up, he can't listen to more right then, the band has gotten louder and the news has hit him hard. He begins to huff, he is dizzy as flashback visions of Patrick and John run through his brain.

The beer bottle is raised to his lips, but he relives the moment when his body was slammed onto the hood of the Bronco. The casual violence on that rain-soaked night. John Cannon tugging and then Jeremy felt the rain splattering on his bare flesh. He fought on with an elbow pinning his head to the paint. Then the humiliating pain.

The bartender passes by as unnoticed as the beer still in his hand. He is Jeremy Gates, inconsolable in the barn. “No,” he mumbles. The bartender glances at him, as if the youth is answering some question. “No, please no, no.” He remembers.

More than ever the two men are stripped of their erotic appeal, instead he sees their naked cruelty. You are best in breed now Fourteen. Do you wonder why I picked you? Asking yourself, why not one of my hot friends? What did I do to make this happen? What’s wrong with Fourteen? Fourteen recalls Patrick’s malice.

He cannot quite control his body, he makes it into the restroom and huddles shivering in a stall. Fourteen collapses on the toilet. All he can do is curl over his groin protectively. He's not sure if he's gonna hurl.

The other boys are laughing at you Fourteen. They know what you are as you walk with them. You laugh at their jokes, maybe try a few jokes of your own, see if they laugh back. You are not their friend. You know they keep you around for the fucks. Even John Cannon had never been his friend. There was never any cause for gratitude.

Patrick is singing his utter indifference to Jeremy Gates in a wavering falsetto. ♪♫♬ “There's gonna be a heartache tonight, ♪♫♬ a heartache tonight, I know. There's gonna be a heartache tonight, I know.” ♪♫♬

John Cannon no better with his Saturday-night-special threats. “You are going now. I’m going to cut you loose in a second. You have to stand up, walk with me over to his camper, and get inside.” So cold and matter-of-fact. It had felt like such a betrayal at the time.

“Get away from him John.” Fourteen prophesied to the man. “Get away from me John.” Fourteen whispers in the Cafe Chaos restroom stall.

After long minutes, Fourteen turns again to the phone clutched in his hand, brings up a browser and types “John Cannon” in the search box. He is sweaty, clammy, his heart pounds as he reads.

The article has photos with it, he recognizes John, and Patrick, a license photo for John, an old mug shot for Patrick, but much younger looking; and two boys who look like they could be twins...he can't quite read the captions.

But he doesn't need to.