WARNING: Scenes of sexual activity between males of different age groups. If this offends you or if it is illegal to read this where you are, then DON’T READ IT!
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The Boys Who Knew Too Much
by Apollo Moriarty
Chapter One
His stomach was in knots, his chest hurt, and his little cock was as rigid as a diamond. He gazed out the window of the New York City cab at the Sunday evening traffic heading out of the JFK Airport complex and he wanted to scream. He wanted to beat his fists against the window in frustration. He wanted to howl in a primal scream of agony and anger at a world that made no sense. He wanted to die. He wanted to masturbate.
The woman sitting on the other side of the seat looked at him with concern.
“Tomorrow, my friend Diane will take you with her son, Nathan, to the Central Park Zoo. I’m sure you’ll love it. It’s probably much better than the zoo in Austin. Then, later in the week I know someone who can take you to a couple of the museums. This weekend, I can take you to do the touristy things like the Statue of Liberty or the World Trade Center. There’s a restaurant at the top of the North Tower called Windows on the World and it has the most exciting views of the city. You’ll love it.”
He said nothing as he stared out the window. The woman sighed and added, “Eleanor Roosevelt offered to take you to see Mahatma Gandhi when he comes to play baseball with the Yankees next week and she thought you and I could have lunch tomorrow in the Ninth Circle of Hell. What do you think?”
“Great,” the boy replied as he ran his fingers through his jet black hair. “As long as you stay in Hell when we’re finished.”
The woman glared and replied, “That was unnecessarily rude.”
The boy sighed and said, “I was listening to you, Mom. I just don’t care what you’re saying.”
She crossed her arms and said, “Look. I don’t like this situation any more than you do, but it’s the only option either of us has, so let’s try to make the best of it. Shall we?”
“Look, I don’t want to live with you!” the boy exclaimed. “You don’t want me to live with you. Why can’t I just stay in Austin?”
“And live with whom?” the woman demanded. “No one wants you, Zack. No one. I have to take you because I’m your mother, but no one else will take you. You’re too... well, you know.”
He turned his head back to the window and pressed his lips tightly together. His eyes grew moist and he crossed his arms. His mother watched him with contempt before she sighed and shook her head.
“Look, Zack. I know it’s not your fault. Your father...”
He quickly turned his head and said acidly, “Don’t blame Dad! Don’t blame him! He loved me! He was the only person who ever loved me. You never loved me! You never wanted me! I’m the reason you got the divorce. You didn’t want a kid to get in the way of your precious career! Well, guess what! Here I am! Right in the middle of your career! You can’t turn your back on me now, can you?”
“I can always give you up to the state,” she replied with equal acid. “I just have to tell them about your little problem and what your father did to you and they’ll institutionalize you, so don’t you dare cast aspersions at me, young man. You can have a nice comfortable life with me or you can go into some psych ward someplace and rot for all I care!”
Zack hugged himself tightly, trembling with rage and terror as he glared down at his Air Jordans. On the radio, the Backstreet Boys were singing “Everybody.” No one spoke. A car honked somewhere behind them. His mother sighed.
“Zack, I don’t want to fight. I’m afraid for you. I want you to be happy. I truly do.”
“Why did you leave? Why didn’t you ever see me after the divorce?” he asked softly.
She sighed and looked out the window. “I... I thought it would be easier for you if I just disappeared. I didn’t think it was right to keep opening the wounds every few months or so. Besides, you father adored you and was a much better parent than I would have been, even with... what he did to you.”
“It wasn’t wrong,” Zack said softly.
“What wasn’t wrong?” his mother asked.
“What he did to me. It wasn’t wrong. It was wonderful.”
She turned her head. She said nothing. Indeed, neither spoke again until after the cab had crossed Queens and into Manhattan. It pulled up in front of a tall apartment tower on Third Avenue. As Zack climbed out, he looked up at the building rising into the overcast sky as night began to descend over the city.
“I guess you did pretty good without Dad and me to get in your way,” he said quietly as his mother climbed from the cab.
“Yes, I did quite well,” she replied.
She led the boy into the building as the driver and doorman brought their luggage in. As they carried it to the elevators, the woman stopped at the front desk and said to the young uniformed man with the thick, black hair, “Tony, this is my son, Zack Hunter. He’ll be living with me now.”
Zack looked at the man’s deep brown eyes and he felt his erection throb in his cargo shorts. The man met his eyes and smiled.
“Yes, Ms. Cavendar,” he responded, looking only at the boy with jet black hair. “Nice to meet you, Zack.”
Zack said nothing for a moment as he stared at the young man. Finally, as his mother turned and marched toward the elevators, he breathed, “Hi.”
“See you around,” the man responded with a wink.
“Yeah,” Zack replied as he turned and followed his mother. He looked back over his shoulder and saw the guard was watching him with a smirk on his face and gave the man a tentative smile.
The driver and the doorman walked away and his mother glared at the boy, asking, “Could you be any more obvious? Why don’t you just take your clothes off?”
“If you think it would help,” Zack replied as he stared at his reflection in the shiny elevator doors.
A chime sounded and the doors opened before them. They carried their four suitcases into the elevator and as the doors closed, the woman pushed “18.” She looked down at the boy and said, “You don’t get to speak that disrespectfully to me, Zack. I’m your mother and you’re only nine.”
He snorted and shook his head. “I knew you forgot,” he said contemptuously.
“Forgot what?” the woman demanded with a furrowed forehead.
He looked up at her and exclaimed, “You really don’t know.”
He turned away and softly said, “It’s my birthday.”
She closed her eyes and sighed. When the elevator came to a stop and the doors opened, she said, “I’m sorry, Zack. With everything’s that’s happened...”
He carried his suitcases out of the elevator and waited for her to follow. He said nothing as she led the way to her apartment. She unlocked the door and entered. He followed and she said, “Your room is the first one on the left. It’s the guest room. When your things get here from Austin, you can decorate it any way you like.”
He said nothing as he carried the suitcases into the minimalist room. He looked around and gazed out the window at the view of buildings between him and Central Park five blocks away. He was surrounded by eight million people, yet he had never felt more alone, more abandoned, more unloved.
He walked back into the living room and stood before the window. When his mother returned from her own bedroom, he could see her reflection in the glass as he watched the lights of the city beyond.
“I suppose,” he said forlornly, “that you’ll just send me to some boarding school, won’t you?”
“You might be happier surrounded by boys your own age, wouldn’t you? Happier than with me here?”
He shrugged and said, “Maybe it would be better if I just killed myself.”
“Oh, don’t be so melodramatic,” she replied dismissively.
He turned around and replied softly, “I’m serious.”
He sighed and walked past her toward the “guest” room and said, “I’ll unpack and then go to bed.”
She nodded and said, “Good night.”
“Yeah.”
Inside, he unpacked his clothes and put them away. He removed his Powerbook from his backpack and plugged the modem cord into the telephone outlet near his bed. Stripping his clothes off, he climbed in and set the computer in front of him. He clicked on the America Online icon, listened to the clicks and beeps and static as the modem connected to the New York number he had entered in before leaving Austin, and listened to the familiar voice say, “Welcome! You’ve got mail.”
He had four email messages and was about to read the first when a chime sounded and an Instant Message appeared on the screen from a man he knew only as John.
“Hey, dude! All settled in now in the Big Apple?”
“Yeah. My mom’s a bitch. I wish I was back in Austin.”
“I know. It’s got to be hard for you. :-( I wish I could hug you right now.”
“That would be nice,” Zack replied.
“Then I would lick your balls and suck your dick.”
Zack grasped his rigid little erection as he typed one-handed, “I would love that.”
He would not sign off the computer for more than an hour, not until he had climaxed twice and chatted with three different men.
0 0 0 0 0 0
He stared out the window of the cab as it headed north on Third Avenue in the mid-afternoon traffic, his elbow on the armrest, his fingers resting against his chin. He was thinking about his schedule and what he needed to do that afternoon before his next appointment. The radio in the front of the cab played some old Frank Sinatra song. He sighed.
The Nokia 5120 clipped to the belt of his tight leather pants began to play a single-tone version of Fur Elise. He pulled the phone off his belt and pushed the green button.
“This is Josh.”
“Joshy-Girl! It’s Randy!”
“Hey, girlfriend,” he replied with a restrained smile. “What’s up?”
“My dick! Where are you?”
“Seventy-fourth and Third. Heading back home.”
“Ooh! You’re just now getting home from your wild weekend at the Plaza?”
“Yeah, something like that,” Josh replied.
“Well, someone must be very happy.”
“I think he is.”
“Listen,” Randy said breathlessly. “What are you doing tonight?”
“I have another date.”
“Damn,” Randy replied with genuine disappointment. “Mikey and I were hoping you could come over. We need your hot ass. I have lots of groovy white powder and some of those nice little blue pills that make your little dick all hard and stiff and Mikey’s got a new order of poppers. You know, the good stuff. From Canada.”
“Sorry. I wish I could but I’ve got a thing already. Maybe tomorrow. I don’t have anything on the schedule for Tuesday or Wednesday.”
“Well, all right,” Randy whined. “Maybe. We’ll see. Call me tomorrow. Will you?”
“I will, sweetie.”
“Smoochies.”
Josh pushed the red button and clipped the phone back to his belt. He would like to spend the evening with his friends. It would be nice to be around someone under the age of forty for once, someone his own age--or younger. He’d have to check with Thad to see if there were any new recruits who might need some “special training.”
The car pulled up before a tall apartment tower and he paid the driver, before climbing out with his overnight bag. There was another cab right in front of his and as he closed the back door of his cab, he saw a boy of maybe nine or ten emerge from the one in front. He had an unruly mop of black hair and a pair of tight jeans, a refreshing sight in a time when boys wore the baggiest clothes in order to hide any sexy curves or bulges they might have. The boy turned as Josh started toward the entrance to the building and the young man saw him freeze and stare at him with wide eyes. Josh almost laughed at how blatantly the boy gawked at him. He smiled and nodded to him, read the front of his tee-shirt, which said “I’m thinking, so you don’t have to,” and walked past the doorman into the building.
“Hey, George,” he said to the guard behind the desk, disappointed the hot, young Italian hadn’t started his shift yet.
The older guard nodded and said formally--and not just a little coldly, “Good afternoon, Mr. Hoffman.”
The boy walked past him and toward the elevator. Josh followed him, his eyes on the cute butt and then stood beside him as they waited for an elevator. He felt his cock start to swell in his tight pants and glanced out of the corner of his eye to see the boy looking out of the corner of his eyes at the growing bulge. Josh decided to have some fun.
“Hey, sailor. Come here often?”
The boy looked up at him, disconcerted and blushing, as he replied, “Um, I live here.”
He had a sweet voice, clear and melodious, that went along with the clear, pale complexion and the most impossibly blue eyes Josh had ever seen. He wanted to grab the boy, hug him tightly, and thrust his tongue deep down his throat.
“Ah. Just move in?”
The boy nodded, his eyes returning to the bulge in Josh’s leather pants. Josh could see a small bulge in the front of the boy’s jeans and he smiled as he asked, “Where from?”
“Austin,” the boy replied.
The elevator doors opened and they walked into the empty elevator. The doors closed as Josh pushed “14.” He watched the boy push ”18” and then said in a smooth, soft voice, “I love Austin. Hot town. Lots of action in Austin. I had a really hot weekend there at the Four Seasons not too long ago.”
The boy seemed not to know how to respond. He looked from the rise in Josh’s pants to the young man’s face and in a trembling voice, said, “You’ve... got a... boner.”
“Yes, I do,” the young man replied with a smile.
The boy made no attempt to hide that he was looking at it. The elevator slowed and the boy said, “It’s big.”
“Yes, it is,” Josh replied softly. “You’ve got one, too.”
The elevator stopped and he said, “My name’s Josh.”
The doors opened and the boy said, “I’m Zack.”
“Cool name,” Josh replied as he stepped out into the hall. “Zack’s are always lots of fun.”
Zack grinned shyly and Josh said, “I hope I see you around. By the way, I live in that apartment.”
He pointed to the first door on the right and Zack said with a grin, “Cool,” before the doors closed. Josh groped himself once the boy disappeared and he smiled. Yes, he was definitely going to have to get to know young Zack better.
However, as he unlocked his apartment, the old shame returned. He sighed and thrust it aside as he entered the door. He walked into the bathroom and turned on the bathtub water, adjusted the temperature, added oils, and then walked to the bedroom just as the land-line rang. He let it go to the answering machine as he undressed and listened to his outgoing message, recorded with only a hint of the old Oklahoma twang he had fought so hard to lose.
“Hey, this is Josh. Say something interesting and I might call you back.”
“Joshua dear,” an older female voice declared, “this is Angelica. Cavendar. You know me. The woman who brought you fame and fortune? Well, at least fame to your pseudonym and fortune to you? I most desperately need to speak with you about something. I need help with an issue you are uniquely qualified to assist with. Call me back before five at the office or at home after nine, that is if you aren’t off fornicating and committing all kinds of crimes against nature. Do call me, dear. I truly need advice. Ta ta!”
He was naked by the time the call ended. He would not call her that afternoon and he would be otherwise occupied that evening. He would call her Tuesday sometime. In the meantime, he was going to relax in a nice, hot bath.
0 0 0 0 0 0
“Infantile. A childish scream for attention without saying anything of meaning.”
An elegantly dressed man with salt-and-pepper hair stood before the work of art, a stainless steel penis with small cowering figures before it. Josh stood beside him, wearing his own elegant suit, dark charcoal with thin lavender stripes, a white shirt with lavender tie, and a silver collar pin. His red hair was perfectly combed, parted on the side and sweeping back. He nodded and said, “You’re right. And, his sex isn’t much better.”
“One of your dates?” the man replied with surprise.
“We’re not supposed to kiss and tell,” Josh replied with a discreet smile.
“Which begs the question,” the older man said, “what do you say about the Odyssey Bank Tower when you’re with other men?”
“Sadly, the work of America’s most provocative architect seldom comes up when I have a hard cock rammed up my ass,” Josh replied.
The older man grinned and replied, “I should think not!”
“Although,” Josh added, “a topic worth exploring might be your fascination with tall, slender buildings. You don’t per chance have any Freudian issues from your childhood, do you?”
“I don’t know. Let’s discuss it tonight when I take you to the penthouse atop my latest phallic symbol on Lexington Avenue and ram my own cock up your ass.”
“Oh, Peter,” Josh replied with demure smile, “you do know how to woo a girl.”
“I do try. In the meantime, shall we move on before people start to wonder if we both have a fascination for stainless steel penises?”
“Actually,” Josh responded as he gave the piece a final glance, “I was thinking of adding it to my collection of exotic dildos.”
They stopped before a painting of amorphous shapes in various shades of red bisected by a blue lightning bolt. As Peter explained what was wrong with it, Josh allowed his eyes to wander around the room. They stopped on a refreshingly (to his mind) realistic bronze of a boy, perhaps twelve or thirteen, naked and sitting with his legs to the side, his flaccid penis lying atop one thigh. It was a beautiful piece, but not as beautiful as the actual boy who stood admiring it with his back to Josh. He stared at the boy’s cute butt and mop of black hair and realized with a shock that it was Zack, from his apartment building.
At the same moment as the realization, Zack moved around the piece to look at it from another angle and his eyes rose. He looked at Josh for a moment, frowned as if he were trying to think where he had seen the young man before, and then his face brightened as he realized the elegantly dressed young man was the same as the man with the sexy leather pants and the erection in the elevator. Josh smiled and cocked his head to the side as Zack shyly smiled in return.
“I’m not boring you, am I?” Peter asked.
Josh turned to the man and said, “I’m sorry. He’s... I recognize him from my building. I’m sorry. You have my undivided attention.”
“I should think so, for two thousand dollars a night,” Peter replied with a wry grin. “Though he is rather fetching. I can see the attraction.”
“No,” Josh replied. “That’s not for me. I’m not a pedophile.”
“Oh, come now,” Peter replied. “You mean to tell me that one of New York’s hottest male escorts wouldn’t consider doing it with a boy like that for the right money?”
Josh was about to answer with a firm no when a familiar and sophisticated female voice declared, “Joshua, darling. How sweet of you to come to the showing just to see me.”
He turned and found his agent standing before him.
“Angelica, dear. What a surprise,” Joshua replied with less than enthusiasm. “Angelica Cavendar, may I introduce Peter Lindholm, the architect.”
“Peter, it’s a delight to see you again,” Angelica replied with a smile.
“Angelica, you’re as radiant now as you were when we first met.”
“And you’re just as full of bullshit as you were then, too,” she replied with a grin.
Josh looked on with surprise. Peter turned to him and said, “Josh, I’m one of the few people in New York who happen to know that the city’s sexiest male escort is also Christopher Westbrook, the author of The Different and Boys on the Street.”
Josh frowned and responded, “I guess I’m not very good at keeping secrets.”
“Not really,” Peter replied with a grin. “It’s just that Angelica also represented me when I wrote my book on modern architecture. Don’t worry, though. Your secrets are safe with me.”
Angelica smiled and said, “I trust Peter as much as I trust you, Joshua.”
“Oh, dear,” Josh replied. “So, what is the problem you mentioned in your message this afternoon?”
“Oh, it’s not something to discuss in the middle of this dreadful showing.”
Suddenly, another woman swept up and cried, “Angelica, darling! Where have you absolutely been? We haven’t seen you since Jesus wore diapers!”
“Hortense, dear. I thought you had died.”
“I nearly did, dear. Our daughter has dropped out of Sarah Lawrence and is now living with a flannel-wearing lesbian in the Berkshires.”
“Oh, my! I’m so sorry! How is Wilfred taking the news?”
“He’s drinking. I hear you were out of town last week.”
“Yes, I went to Austin, Texas.”
“Oh, how dreadful! Liberals in cowboy boots.”
“Yes, it was ghastly.”
“You know, dear, George and Barbara’s son, the one with the drinking problem, is the Governor down there.”
“Oh, my. I’ll have to pray for them sometime.”
“Well, we have to run. We’re having dinner with our son. He’s in from Amsterdam. Oh, Angelica. Why couldn’t I have had at least one heterosexual child?”
“It’s the nineties, dear. Nobody does. Tell Wilfred I love his new hairpiece.”
“Ta ta, dear!”
Peter struggled to hold his laughter in as Josh asked, “How the hell do you know that fossil?”
“My mother went to school with her mother and... oh, who cares. She’s sweet and just can’t accept that the world has moved on from Ike and Mamie.”
Peter grinned and asked, “Did I hear you say you were in Austin last week?”
Josh’s eyes grew wider and he looked at the bronze naked boy. Zack was no where to be seen.
“Yes. My husband died.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry!” Peter replied with compassion.
“I’m not,” Angelica replied. “I prayed for his early demise on a daily basis.”
“Well, in that case,” Josh asked with a grin, “to what do we owe the pleasure of his passing?”
“A freak accident. He staggered out of a gay bar and was struck by a passing panel truck.”
“Eww,” Josh replied with an evil grin. “How delightfully gruesome.”
“Yes. Sadly, he died instantly. I would have preferred he know something of the agony I endured in giving birth to our spawn, but such was not to be.”
“Your spawn?” Peter exclaimed. “You have a child?”
Josh watched and listened with interest as Angelica replied, “Yes. A boy. Zack.”
“And, when did this happen?” Peter asked.
“Ten years ago. He was the product of drunken make-up sex after a particularly ugly dinner at Jonathan’s family manse in Dallas.”
Josh took a breath and asked, “And, Zack has now come to live with you?”
“Yes. Oh, Joshy, God is punishing me. I am in absolute hell. The Lord never intended for me to be a mother. I am missing that certain gene or chromosome or the requisite segment of the DNA molecule that guides a woman into motherhood.”
“Oh, Angelica,” Josh declared with a grin, “I would pay serious money to watch this comedy of errors!”
“Joshy, what am I going to do?”
“Angelica, dear,” Josh replied. “You do what ever other mother on the Upper East Side does. Probably what Hortense and Wilfred did with their larvae. You hire a nanny until he’s old enough to be shipped off to boarding school.”
“Oh, my, where he’ll learn to be a bond trader at Goldman Sachs,” Angelica moaned.
“Or a heroin addict,” Peter contributed.
“Well, whatever makes him happy,” Angelica responded. “Joshua, what are you doing tomorrow afternoon?”
“Whoa, Nellie!” Josh cried throwing his hands up. “I am not babysitting the fruit of your loins, dear!”
Peter raised a quizzical eyebrow at Josh, but Angelica replied, “I’m not asking you to... yet. I want to have drinks with you tomorrow. I’m having lunch at Elaine’s with Julian Spenser and some frightful thing he wants me to represent. Ever since he discovered you at the age of fifteen in whatever dark and dank basement brothel you were trapped in, he wants me to represent every youngster who’s ever put three words together to form an English sentence. At least the ones who can overlook his rotundity to allow him to violate the statutory rape laws with them. Anyway, after I dispense with the two of them, I want to get drunk with you and discuss the meaning of life. Are you free at one-thirty?”
“For you, Angelica, yes,” Josh replied. “I am free at one-thirty.”
“Good. Bring drugs. Now, I must find the fruit of my loins and pretend to be a mother. Peter, it was delightful seeing you again. Pray for me.”
“Angelica,” Peter replied. “I’m an atheist.”
“Oh, that’s right. You think you’re Howard Roark. Well, do whatever you do instead of praying.”
“I have sex.”
“Good for you. Joshy, be careful tonight. Peter has a weak heart. I shall see you at Elaine’s tomorrow at one-thirty. Ta!”
As Angelica hurried off, Peter grinned and said, “So, the plot thickens. The mysterious black haired boy who gave you such a fierce erection earlier is Angelica’s son, Zack from Austin.”
“I didn’t have an erection,” Josh replied coldly.
“You certainly did,” Peter replied, “and it put that stainless steel penis behind us to shame.”
“I do not find this topic of conversation amusing,” Josh replied coldly.
“Joshua, I think your reactionary Oklahoma heritage is raising its ugly head. Free your self of the shackles of your Okie-ness. You’re free now.”
“I think I have done quite well in cleansing the stench of Oklahoma from my life, thank you,” Josh responded with the same frigidity.
“Joshy,” Peter said, “you turn me on when you get angry. Perhaps I need to piss you off more often. If you aren’t careful, I may throw you down on the floor right here in the middle of Gallery Zeus and have my way with you.”
Josh took a deep breath and said, “I’m sorry. I have some... issues in that area.”
Peter nodded and said, “I understand. Let’s go eat dinner. I think you may need some nourishment before the depravities later.”
0 0 0 0 0 0
Zack was stunned when he saw the bronze of the naked boy. He had never seen anything like that in Austin--and Austin was a pretty progressive and cultural place! Right there, a naked twelve or thirteen year-old. He had nice muscles and a cute face. Zack especially liked the curly hair. It was beautiful. However, he was even more stunned when he saw the handsome man in the elegant suit standing across the room and looking at him with a knowing smile. The face looked familiar. Where had he seen him before?
And, then it hit him. Holy crap! That was Josh! From the elevator! The guy with the leather pants and the boner! He was wearing a really nice-looking suit and his red hair was so neat and good-looking. He didn’t look anything like he did in the elevator! He looked hot and sexy and nasty in the elevator and it was all Zack could do not to reach over and feel the long, hard rise in the front of the man’s sexy leather pants. Now, though, he looked so handsome. He was so elegant and stylish, almost like a model. It was like he had stepped out of an ad in one of his dad’s GQ’s.
Zack felt his dick throb crazily as Josh smiled at him, but then the older man, who was also handsome, but not like Josh, noticed them looking at each other. Zack felt embarrassed and apparently, so was Josh because he quickly turned and began talking with the man.
And, then, damn her, Zack’s mother entered the room and started talking with Josh. She knew him!
Zack slipped out of the room and stood in the next gallery behind something that looked like a giant pussy. What was it with all the sexual art? From his hiding place, he could see into the other room and watch Josh. He seemed very friendly with Zack’s mother. He would have to ask her about him, if she wouldn’t be hateful to him and assume he was just being sexual. He really didn’t know his mother well enough to know how she would react to such questions. God, if only his father was still alive.
When his mother turned and walked into the same room where Zack was hiding, she saw him lurking behind the giant vagina and smirked. Shaking her head, she walked up to him and said, “You haven’t broken anything, have you?”
“Not yet,” he replied, “but if it would make you feel better...”
“That won’t be necessary,” she replied wearily. “Look, I’m sorry if I’m a bitch. It’s just that this is all new to me, the whole ‘mother-thing.’ I won’t make you wait too much longer. We’ll be leaving soon. I just need to talk to a couple more people and then we can go home.”
“It’s okay,” he replied, deciding to wait until they were in the cab returning home before he dared inquire about Josh.
It would not be for more than half-an-hour before he had the opportunity. The cab was heading east through the narrow canyon of Fifty-seventh Street, passing Fifth Avenue when his mother pointed out Tiffany’s on the corner. Zack nodded and then asked, “Who was that man you were talking to? The one in the really nice suit? With the red hair?”
He was afraid to look at his mother, but he knew she was looking at him. She didn’t immediately respond, but when she did, it seemed to be with a false cheerfulness.
“He was one of my writers. His name is Joshua Hoffman. I’m having lunch with him tomorrow.”
Zack nodded and, still not looking at her, he asked, “Is he gay?”
Another pause and then his mother replied, “Yes, as a matter of fact, he is. The man he was with is the renowned architect Peter Lindholm, who designed the building we live in.”
Zack nodded. Impressed.
“Josh wrote a couple of books that you might be interested in reading. I know you’re advanced for your age, which does impress me, Zack. I don’t completely hate you, you know. Anyway, he wrote the first one when he was only fourteen and fifteen. I sold it to Verity House in ’93. It sold fairly well and received a great deal of critical acclaim. He writes under a pseudonym, though, so you can’t tell anyone who he is. It’s quite important to him to remain anonymous.”
“Why?”
He turned and saw his mother looking out her own window. After a moment, she replied, “I have some theories, though I don’t know specifically. I just know that he is a very private person and shuns the spotlight.”
She turned and looked at him. “You find him attractive?”
Zack looked up at the cab driver, a foreign-looking man, and saw him looking back in the rear-view mirror. The boy blushed and looked out his window without responding.
“The two of you actually have a great deal in common. When we get home, I’ll give you his first book to read, the one he wrote when he was fourteen. I think you will find it... illuminating. It’s called The Different.”
He looked at her and asked, “Why’s it called that?”
“Because it’s about young boys who are gay and the struggles they face.”
He turned his head and looked out the window again as the cab turned onto Third Avenue. He said nothing further until they pulled up to their apartment tower. As they walked through the lobby, Tony the security guard smiled at him and he smiled back, though he didn’t wiggle his butt as he ordinarily would have. He was too thoughtful, too uncomfortable at that moment to react naturally. He remained silent, indeed, until the two of them were inside the apartment.
His mother took the book off the shelf in the living room and handed it to him. He stared at the cover and then looked back up at her.
“I’m going to go to bed now and read it,” he replied.
She nodded and said, “I will see you in the morning, Zack.”
He nodded and walked away, but his mother suddenly said, “Just a moment.”
He stopped and turned.
“This is an unusual question coming from a mother,” she said, “but... would you like to spend time with Josh?”
“What do you mean?” he asked warily.
“I mean... well, I don’t know what I mean. I just think the two of you might understand each other. He’s... well... never mind. Just read the book. I’ll see you in the morning.”
Silently, Zack nodded, turned, and walked out of the room. After brushing his teeth, he retreated to his bedroom and safely behind the closed door, stripped and reopened his Powerbook. Twenty minutes and a climax later, he logged off AOL and put his computer away. With his radio softly playing the Goo Goo Dolls singing “Iris,” he crawled naked under the covers and picked up the book. When he heard the line, “When everything feels like the movies, yeah, you bleed just to know you’re alive,” he flipped the book over and looked at the photograph on the back cover. He inhaled with surprise and his penis snapped back into an erection.
Josh had been hot, totally beautiful, totally awesome when he was fifteen! Long, shoulder-length hair, a lost and frightened look on his face, he looked as if he needed desperately to be held and loved. Josh looked at the teenage eyes of the man he had seen in the elevator and at the gallery. The picture was taken in Times Square and with faces passing all around him, he seemed alone in a sea of people.
Zack wanted him. He wanted to hug Josh. He wanted Josh to hug him. He needed to do it with him!
He frantically masturbated again, staring at the picture and when the usual action resulted in the usual reaction, he paused a moment and then opened the book.
He didn’t close it until well after midnight, when he reached the final page, his eyes moist, his penis rigid, and his heart full to breaking.
Please let me know what you think of my story. Send comments to: apollo (dot) moriarty (at) hushmail (dot) com.