I was being followed. This path, that trail. Quickly took turns and twists through thick ferns but couldn't shake him. The botanical garden was no safe haven. My heart panicked. Do you know how it feels to be pursued by a predator? Believe me. It's scary.
"Wait!" his voice called although he was nowhere to be seen. "I won't hurt you."
Smooth as silk. Yikes!
Slowing, I confided to the bushes, "I'm so scared."
"I know, but it'll be all right. I promise."
Still, the pit of my stomach quaked. There were stories about this sort of thing.
Guys that preyed on the vulnerable like me.
Suddenly, his head stuck out from a frond.
My knees shook. He blocked my way. Neared.
I shuddered. I tell you, I felt threatened. In danger. Really.
Green eyes, ash-blond hair, pinch-me cheeks, toothy smile – all the signs I'd heard about.
What could I do?
"You shouldn't run from me," he remonstrated.
"You're nine, Charley."
"But I'll be ten in a month and my Aunt Alice said..."
"I don't care what your Aunt Alice told you. No." His Aunt Alice? Surely not. Oh shit.
Swallowed deeply. Folded my arms. Stood firm. I'd face him down.
Bravado might let me escape unscathed. But what form?
"I'm trying to tell you," he took a chesty breath and scrambled ahead, "all she said was that you had unusual uses for olive oil and that I could learn about them from you. I really like olive oil. It's real slippery. I can really slurp noodles so, please."
"Well, you're not about to slurp my noodle."
The look on his face was so earnest, I almost fell for it.
"Pretty please?"
He was pretty, that was certain. And wanted to please.
"Your type always tells."
"It does not! Clyde didn't."
I was suspicious. "Oh?"
He rushed in with, "Oscar Luis Menendez-Finkelstein didn't."
"And just how do you know he didn't, eh?"
If I had a moustache, I'd have twirled it.
Watched his Adam's apple bob. Caught!
"He didn't."
Twerp. I stared as hard as I could.
"Not the first time. But anyway, we're friends and that doesn't count."
"As what?"
"As telling, silly."
"What then exactly counts as telling?"
"Why somebody like Mrs. Schwarz or Oscar's mother."
The unassailable logic of a nine-year-old. Had a point, I guess.
"Oscar's twelve," I emphasized.
"Yeah, I know. Real old."
The way he canted his emerald eyes at me, my resistance's integument began to fail.
He could tell! That I could tell because he opened his fly.
"I know a secret place," he confided. "And I've got the stuff. C'mon. Don't be a sissy."
The stuff? – I wondered. Had to find out, didn't I?
I looked both ways. A small hand tugged. Off we went into dense verdure. Negotiating some thick vines, we came to an off-the-beaten-track, unnoticeable glade where he'd tucked a crumbled paper bag.
"See?" he held it proudly in my direction.
Oh no! A familiar bottle of olive oil and a somewhat-squeezed tube of KY. And what looked like a cop's whistle on a string.
Why the little...
Peripheral movement drew me from the purloined content. Looking for all the world like some whitish-pinkish stand-in for a garden-ornament, he'd even removed his shoes.
"See? Nice, huh?" Tried to pirouette, the show-off. Fairy-as-satyr.
He'd doomed me. It's what predators do.
Paralyzed by the thought there might be panpipes stashed somewhere, too, and he wanted to do some blowing, I couldn't prevent him from stripping away my clothes. I mean, I was – helpless.
And hapless. You feel sorry for me, don't you?
Thanks.
I appreciated the chance to lie down. My bed of pine needles – soft and aromatic – wasn't therapeutic enough. No, what he was after needed resuscitation.
"I can get it up."
Ohmygodohmygod! His practice with noodles was paying dividends. I mean, my interest was rising.
A perky face, his – grinning like a monkey – came up just shy of a gag. Needed air.
"There! Told ya." Skinny arm wiped away shiny slobber.
Must've remembered something he'd heard about magic being involved. Damn that Oscar! My attacker squinted and frowned and held up darling hands Lugosi-like. Made Merlin-motions and intoned, "You-are-in-my-power."
I was. No doubt.
Ready for further torment. Yehhh...
"Answer-this-question-or-face-tor-ture: gel or oil?"
"Oil," I chanted. "Oil." My voice was finding itself. His hypnosis at work.
Ere he went out of sight, he said to himself, "Oil for the derrick." Or, I thought he did.
It's been noticed that, in dire straits, I'm imaginative.
Back with bottle and grin, he began to dribble. Only, some hungry bug nipped his tush, he jerked, and the oil spilled. My rig was drenched!
"Ooh," he squealed, "I can have some fun!"
The nerve!
He sat. Straddled! Faced me and exclaimed, "Whee."
Youthful temerity.
He slid back and forth on my thighs, twiddling my balls like gum drops too big to hold onto, then taking turns with each hand to pretend my cock was a handle.
This dawned: I was his hobbyhorse. An object for play!
Degrading. Honestly.
Had to do something. Assert myself.
"Hey, you. You're facing the wrong way."
Articulate again! I could speak, "If you sit on my stomach, I can help you."
My brain raced.
"You can? How come you're willing now?"
"No responsible adult wants a child to hurt himself."
"It's supposed to hurt."
"Not more than it has to, if we're going to do it right. Now turn around."
He did!
I carried on, "Wriggle some. Coat your bottom well. Uh-huh! Lift up slightly so my fingers can do this."
Thought the boy'd dissolve a fit of giggles. Wrong.
He grew seriously quiet while I toyed with his teeny, tender sac and stroked my nails over his taut little seam.
Poised, he waited. Greasy hands barely supported his outreach to my kneecaps. Continued to slip, so his own dinky packet kept assaulting my poor inflexible penis.
Butt-pack, perfectly cupped by my palms and separated by the work of massaging thumbs, responded. I swear, its dead-center winked at me. Alive.
Alive!
"Let's try a poke. Easy now. No bucking."
I poked.
Nary a peep. Next knuckle – see if it'll glide. Wow. A trooper. Maybe a finger-turn like thi... Wait a minute. Nine! – and he's got the beginnings of an acorn?
A sharp take of air. "Yee!" the pip squeaked.
"You complaining?"
"That's the bestest thing that ever happened to me. Do it some more."
When you're given an order like that in a tone like that, you obey the boy.
Soon, I was pronging away, listening for funny sounds in case it was too much.
No such luck. I had to pull out and try for two fingers – one nudge at a time.
Unashamed, I actually spouted – if with effort – this: "The bestest is yet to come."
"Better be. This ain't too good right now." Very small voice, some strain in it.
"If you let me reach your special spot again, you'll see."
Took some while, but I was fingering one determined kid.
"Uh-huh," he quoted me, "that's it, but don't be in a hurry."
"I'm not impatient. Anyway, it's you holding me down. No place else to be, to go. Just here, where you want."
"Uh-huh," he was redundant. "Stay there. Gosh, I feel hot."
"Me, too. Wonder why?"
"Getting me ready to ride?"
"You catch on quickly. Good trait in this line of – mmm – work." I tossed in, "Or play," and frigged away.
Not to try your endurance, dear reader, I'll omit accounting for what you know had to be done before the main event, and get to that. Back to the glade.
The place was so pretty. Bucolic. Sun flitting through leafy boughs...
Time came. Me, too. Sorry, I'm getting ahead. You know how it is.
One more poke all-the-way (three words that go well together).
His vowel – a sustained "O" – convinced me to invite him to turn back around, take hold from underneath of what was necessary, and to hoist himself atop it.
"Ooof! This is tough. My knees can't take this for long." A flare of anger, "You better hold me up or you'll hurt me. Do your job, man!"
I didn't mind. True, for an instant there crossed my mind the idea that I could get even for him compromising me this way. But, I'm such a softie, I wouldn't. Besides, I counseled myself, the resulting prosecution wouldn't care a flip for my side of the story.
Sweat streaked his brow, neck and knobby shoulders. I held tight. He tried a hula movement on his own. My head popped through, ready to look around.
"Shit!"
"I hope not. Feels clear to me. The path, I mean."
The face of an angel, now threatened by the descent to Hell if we weren't careful, regarded me with some respect, earlier missing.
"Don't you dare let go."
Think of a wharf rat's hiss. He was quick to change moods. His age, you know.
"I won't. Promise."
"Let me down a little – a little, y'hear?"
That lovely "O" sound. Sounded like a dove.
"Okay. One more bit – but slow, okay?"
As he lowered, my balls rose. Danger impended! What if I couldn't hold out for the next three inches down? This was getting Medievally torturous, I confess. Emphasis on the evil part.
Know what? It's true, I swear. He just sank the rest of the way and sat there, staring widely.
Gravity made him a conqueror. My hero. No curses about being foiled.
Triumphant, to go by the amazed look in his blinky-blinky eyes. And that slow-to-form satisfied smile. Obviously, one boy proud of his butt.
I tweaked the flat, copper-toned coins on his thin chest. "A penny for your thoughts," I needled.
He twitched you-know-where and shot back, "That's my two cents for you."
"You mean, `Those are my'..."
"This ain't no English lesson. You be quiet. I gotta concentrate."
After some stock-taking, what did he do but skewer himself up and down!
Just when I thought he might go into a pole dance on me, he stopped to mull over some idea. Then – wait for it – used heels carefully to rotate himself slowly three-hundred-sixty degrees, until his innards had acquainted themselves with my every inch.
I couldn't believe the stimulus. Why? Because, he did it again. So smoothly that the infinitive would be "to revolve."
If he were a piglet (granted, a skinny one) and I an open fire (I was roaring hot.), his spitted ass'd have been cooked.
Only what happened was that his shenanigan made me lose control – completely. Whether it was one seizure or several in a furious row, I bathed his rod-grabber with enough sperm to father a future generation.
Stunned, I mean stunned, my bantamweight young master looked down. "What have you done?"
He blamed me?
"Me? No, you. You totally tenderized my best feature."
"It feels funny, all scrunched up in there and squishy. I like it now."
His face beamed – and I realized he wasn't going to get off me.
My turn to sweat. Would this persecution never end?
Thought I'd die when the nearest bush said, "Squeeze him and he'll come back up inside you. Worked for me."
Oscar Luis Menendez-Finkelstein!
"Wait for me," chirped another bush.
Alice's elevener, Clyde!
Think I wasn't jumpy? Well, okay, I would have been excerpt for the progress Charley's ass had made with my stalk. I mean, the kid had something going on no dick could resist.
Only a niner! That, my friends, is talent.
Oscar's the one who spoke while Charley ravished me again. "Here's our deal. We're a club and you're our mascot."
I was being ridden by a bucking bronco, the new, preternatural hatchling Charley. Could hardly catch a breath during that rodeo event and Oscar's galloping words.
"You're gonna be our sitter evenings when our moms go out. And Saturday mornings when they go grocery shopping."
Clyde burst out in a toothy smile (minus an upper cuspid and a lower molar). "Mom thought it up for us. She's great!" The slight lisp added to his charm.
"Aunt Alice," Charley slowed to a sit-still on me, "made up the rules, too. Tell him, Oscar. I got a long ride ahead o' me." He jockeyed away, eyes to the sky, feeling my root all the way to his tummy, I was sure.
I closed my eyes. "Tell me more, Oscar."
"You gotta keep your thingy ready for us. So, no playing with yourself when you're at home. We'll know. Any practice you need, you do with us."
"All three?" Worry nagged my attention from the way Charley was alarming certain nerve-endings.
"No, dumb-dumb," Clyde re-used his term of endearment from our olive oil fun. "Two maybe, or one, depending..."
Oscar picked up from there, "If you get a call from one of us or our Moms, you wash good, and be on your toes."
"Or on your back," Charley chimed.
No telling what I'd be in for with him on the loose with my body.
"Or on top of me. That was good."
Precious Clyde! His bottom a habitat I wanted to explore more thoroughly.
My eyes implored Oscar for whatever he wanted from me. You know, question-mark-in-the-air.
He blushed. Drew a breath and leaned near my ear, "I want you to go real far, real quick. There's a high-C in a new version of "Ave Maria" I've got to hit two Sundays from now."
Charley and I made some frightful noises before he rolled off and lay back – exposing my defeated penis and hanging-low, stripped-empty testicles to the audience.
I intended to tell the boys they were taking advantage of my good nature and innocence. That it wasn't fair. But I couldn't.
I couldn't because a voice – a woman's – from another bush said, "That's enough, boys. He's tuckered out."
Alice emerged. Looked on sympathetically. Handed me a cool bottle of spring water. "Here, drink. You're dehydrated. We'll get you back home where we can take care of you, see you make healthy food choices, set up an exercise program, help you in every possible way. These young fellows are counting on you as much as we mothers are. The better shape you're in mentally and physically, the better the mascot you'll be. Right, boys, for the club?"
She and they coaxed me, dripping olive oil, up and into my garments. The mess printed through my shirt and the top of my trousers. Need I say how unsteady I was as we paraded over the roots and pushed aside the vines and emerged from the ferns like a line of hunters with their trophy kill.
As we walked toward the garden's entrance, one boyish voice was encouraging, "We'll build you up."
"Yes, don't worry," Alice was kind. "You're in our hands. The boys will groom you."
"The best pet any boys ever had." Charley's dulcet tone chilled me to the bone.
I walked forward, hands to my side, not looking back, only ahead to the sunset.
Small fingers grasped the index finger of my left hand. Clyde. Another set took the middle finger of my right hand. Charley.
The sky glowed.
Cue the orchestra. Roll the credits. Fade.
Really, I thought the scene was movie-perfect.