Date: Mon, 05 Mar 2001 15:44:45
From: Ganymede
Subject: Small packages

Small Packages.  by Ganymede


WARNING:

This story contains a graphic description of sexual acts
between a man and a MINOR boy. I do not condone child abuse,  how-
ever boy-love as described in this story is an entirely different
matter.

If the subject of man/boy sex offends you, if this material is
illegal in your place of residence, or if you are under the legal
age for such material, do not read further! You have been warned!
Read at your own risk!

The story is copyrighted under the pseudonym, Ganymede. A sin-
gle copy has been placed in the Nifty archives. Feel free to post
it to appropriate newsgroups or send it to your friends. If dis-
tributing my story for monetary gain, please contribute funds to a
charitable organization providing services for boys.

The story is fiction. Despite what you might think, any resem-
blance to any individual, alive or dead, is not intended and solely
the result of the author's vivid imagination.

NOW, THE IMPORTANT STUFF: THE NIFTY ARCHIVE:

The Nifty Archive needs your support. If you enjoy reading
this story, please remember that it is available only because of
the Nifty Archive. Remember that if you could buy this story at a
bookstore, you would pay for it. Why don't you send the price of
that book to Nifty instead. Instructions on how to do that are on
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FINAL WARNING:

If you are under the age of 18, if this material is illegal in
your place of residence, or if man-boy relationships aren't your
thing, then exit now and save yourself from a life of sin!



Small Packages.  by Ganymede



Chapter 1. Appalachian Spring.

"How long have you been fucking him, Dad?"

My mouth dropped open and I stared at Austin's mother. Several
seconds passed, a vacuum in time that existed for no purpose other
than because I was in shock. My stunned reaction was not as much
from what my daughter had said, but from how it had been said. I
could hear the unconcealed loathing despite her matter-of-fact man-
ner. I could feel the blood draining from my face, as if I had just
witnessed a ghost. However, this was no apparition. There was noth-
ing I could say. My mind raced through a thousand nightmares. I had
dreaded this moment from the very start, risking everything to sat-
isfy my longing. Depraved desires that would not go away and only
became stronger the more I resisted. Any terror I had ever imagined
paled in comparison to the reality of her words. No matter how
often I had lay in bed at night, consumed by guilt and thinking
about the consequences of loving him, I was still not ready. I
would never be ready for a confrontation with her. Tara was my
youngest child and she was correct.

"Uh,..."

"Well? How long have you been doing IT to him, Dad?"

"I heard you the first time," I muttered.

I swallowed dryly. Her last words got my attention even more
than the accusation that I had been "fucking" her almost nine-year-
old son, my grandson. "Doing it" was Austin's way of referring to
sex, anal sex in particular. At his age, an age that is supposed to
be one of childish innocence, it seemed very inappropriate that he
used the "f-word". While the incongruence bordered on the irratio-
nal when one thought about, I encouraged him to use a word that was
superficially innocuous and bland. He, we, quickly settled on
"doing it". Childish innocence? It seemed so out of place. At his
instigation as much or more than mine, we had been "doing it" for
six months. It was hard to believe. A fifty-five year old man doing
it with a boy who was still a week away from turning nine. Doing
what adult men did. I tried to take a deep breath. I wanted to stand
up and leave. I wanted to die.

My next thoughts converged on denial. Reason, convoluted yet
entirely logical in my mind told me that it was impossible that
Austin had told her. He knew the need for secrecy, and it was a
secret that he would not reveal, at least not willingly. Not Aus-
tin. Not my Austin. Austin would never tell anyone, certainly not
of his own volition. Yet, she knew. I could hear it in her voice.
She would never have asked the question otherwise. She would never
have used those words or made the accusation. "Doing it"! We had
"done it" so often that it had become a habit, a very nice habit,
but in some ways a habit that was no different to taking drugs.
Indeed, I often teased him about it being "habit forming" because
it was exactly that. Of course there was love, but I also needed
him in that way. That was how a man loved a boy, how men had always
loved boys. What made it possible is that I had no doubt that he
also needed me. He needed me to provide affection. He needed to
love and to be loved in return. Despite his age, I truly believed
that both us desired the symbiotic warmth of physical closeness and
the blending of psyches that western society had rejected as ulti-
mate depravity for two thousand years. Yet, it was more than bond-
ing. More than a man and a boy experiencing love. At some undefined
moment, but not long after we started, it had become simply fun to
"do it", and so we did it. We did it a lot.

I tried to meet her eyes. Instead, dumbfounded, I stared at
the cup on the table, at the vase holding a single red rose, well
intentioned but still plastic, at the metal basket holding a half-
a-dozen types of sweeteners, none of them very good for you. It was
an artificial world. I knew that I should lie and act appalled. I
was her father. She had to trust me. She came back to me in the
first place because there was no one else that she could trust.
Yet, while common sense dictated that course, I knew she would
never have asked that question without knowing the answer first.
Then, honesty? I should tell her the truth and beg for her forgive-
ness and promise never, never to do it again.

Could I even begin to fulfill such a promise? I had known the
answer the first time I lost my resolve. My hand was clammy as I
clenched a frustrated fist. It was too much to ask of any man. Even
the desire itself was maddening. I would rather die than give him
up.

Almost six months had passed since the first time my penis had
managed to squeeze through his tiny opening, into the hot tight
tube within his body. At the time, it was nothing less than a mira-
cle. For a long while I was consumed by it, more overwhelmed by the
sheer possibility of being inside him, of being part of him, than
from any sensation I enjoyed. That the physical joy we shared had
no equal made the act of loving him so special that I would lie
awake at night, torn between my overpowering memories and a self-
hatred so strong that it sickened me. Yet, when I finally acknowl-
edged the depth of his love for me, I was not only able to love him,
but to make love to him. It changed then. Our relationship was no
longer a delicate balance of sharing affection and fulfilling lust.
We were lovers, indisputable, undeniable, incontrovertible fact.

Six wonderful months. Had it been so long that I had grown
complacent? Every day for half a year, had been memorable. Deeply
etched, unforgettable memories. We had joined, so closely that it
seemed we had become a single being. Even apart, knowing what we
shared when we were together was enough to keep us united in
spirit. Except for a few sad times, every wonderful weekend had
been spent together. We were intimate only two days out of seven,
but it was enough. Sex was but a brief interlude, usually setting
aside the night as a time of passion, the only time when I replaced
my devoted love with brute lust. On the other days, I was best
friend, mentor and tutor, a surrogate father who played basketball
with him and his younger brother, took him to soccer practice, and
checked his homework. We watched television, lying side by side
together on the carpet, barely aware of  Tristan who was often sit-
ting on the couch behind us. Apart, we communicated daily by tele-
phone, and since Christmas, increasingly by e-mail. Despite the
technical charm, for me it never really took the place of hearing
his soft soprano voice. Alone, I despaired, grim solace sought in
my fist.

Our love was invincible, or so it seemed to me. It had stood
the test of time just as it would stand every test. Every test? I
tried to stem my panic, the deep-down knowledge that it was over,
finished, gone. Now, it was no longer a closely guarded secret.
Now, I had to deal with the consequences of being a boy lover, and
of loving my grandson.

In truth, it had started a year ago, just after Austin's
mother came to me for help. It began the very first night he slept
under my roof, a vulnerable little boy curled up in my bed. For the
last twenty five years, every day and night until then, I had been
able to resist temptation if not deny its existence within me. I
tried very hard that night. I almost succeeded. I would have suc-
ceeded but for Austin's extraordinary charm. A single time should
have been warning enough that I could not resist. It was foolhardy
to think otherwise. That I volunteered to baby-sit Tara's two boys
for the weekend while she went to retrieve the rest of their pos-
sessions presumed my moral integrity was strong enough to resist
him again. I failed miserably. Austin was barely eight years old
when he sucked me to orgasm!

I swallowed nervously.

"Well? How long has it been going on, Dad?" "Tara,... Uh,... I
don't know. I guess,... for a while now,..."

"He said,... he said you've been,.... Fucking him since Thanksgiv-
ing, but you've been playing around with him since last summer,"
she added without emotion.

I swallowed again, vaguely wondering why my throat was parched
despite have just consumed two cups of coffee. Austin had told her
the truth. He never lied. It was one of the many things I adored
about him. If only he had lied this time. Had he told her every-
thing? Had he told her about the diary we kept. It was the record of
my depravity. The first entry had been on the day following Thanks-
giving. It recorded the night he lost his virginity in intricate
detail, and it also recorded everything that followed during the
next twenty three weeks. The last entry, Sunday afternoon's entry
was number 99. My penis had been inside Austin's butt exactly one
time short of one hundred times.

"How?" I murmured.

She shrugged ambiguously. "How did I find out?"

I looked at her awkwardly. "Did  Tristan?" I wanted to ask
more. I was silent.

Not that  Tristan had ever seen 'anything'. There some things
that a six-year-old boy should not see or know about. Certainly, he
had seen us hugging and wrestling, and he usually wanted to join
in. We had been very careful about doing more than that in front of
him, or where there was a possibility of him discovering us. He was
far too young to understand. When he came to visit me with his
brother, I was usually very circumspect. Whatever happened when
Tristan was in the house, happened only when he was fast asleep or
when the chance of him seeing anything was negligible. Only a few
times had we slipped up, and then they had been quickly forgotten.

The latest time had been about a month ago when he had seen us
kissing, me standing knee-deep in a stream while Austin clung to
me, wet and naked but for his underpants clinging to his rigid lit-
tle sex, revealing as much as it concealed.  Tristan had watched
with interest. His brother had held me tightly, clamping his skinny
legs around my hips. His arms were locked around my neck as we
tongue-kissed for a minute or more. We joked about it, called it
"mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and hoped he would forget. If he had
noticed my very stiff penis poking into Austin's rump, threatening
to force a way through the thin wet cotton of his underpants,
Tristan did not reveal it.

" Tristan?" she asked uncertainly.

I nodded awkwardly, shamefully looking away.

"No! God! Not him too?" she said angrily. "How could you?"

"No! Never! I,... I,... wouldn't do that. I didn't mean that. I
mean,... Did he,... tell you?"

"No! Thank God! If you must know, Austin told me. Because I
asked him, Dad. He always tells the truth. You should know that by
now."

"Of course I know that. God! I,... But, but how?"

"Last night I was going through his camping things to do a
load of wash while he was in the bath."

I regarded her anxiously, curious despite my fear. There had
been nothing in his backpack to arouse her suspicion. What did she
find? What could she have found there? The only thing that could
have implicated me was the tube of K-Y, and that was safely back in
my bedside drawer.

"His underpants were starched on the bottom."

I could feel my hand trembling as I tried to pick up the cup of
coffee. My hope melted, unable to starve off desperation. His
underpants were starched on the bottom. My fear grew. I knew
exactly why those particular underpants were `starched on the bot-
tom'. The sex had been wonderful, as wonderful as any time we'd
done 'it'. Despite the limited space in the front seat of the car
and the short amount of time involved, we did 'it'. It was brutal,
with quick and hard jabs but it was not unusual for us to engage in
frantic coupling when we were finally freed after five days of
involuntary separation. Like every one of the preceding times, it
had been very enjoyable if somewhat uncomfortable.

Although the diary entry had been made in Austin's handwriting
about ten minutes after we had gotten back onto the freeway, it was
not difficult to read. Unlike his schoolwork, he always took great
care when he wrote in the diary. It was a point of pride, recording
what we did together. That it had been written on his lap while I
was driving at 70 miles per hour made it even more remarkable.


       ******************************************************


#94 Friday May 12 4.30 p.m. Off I-40, in the front seat of
Papaw's Car. It was a really fast one. He must have had lots of cum
saved up. I can feel a big wet spot under my butt where it's oozing
out.

We stopped on the way to the Cherokee National Forest, pulling
off the I-40 about thirty miles away from the Gatlinburg exit into
a seldom used truck inspection area beside the freeway. Unlike the
rest stops a few miles further in the mountains, there were no
facilities. Usually the gate at the freeway exit was locked when it
was not in use. As a result, there were only a few trucks. They were
scattered haphazardly in the parking area and along the access
road. I stopped in the center, the nearest vehicle a hundred yards
away. Austin had been excited since I picked him up from school,
far more energized than a rambunctious fourth-grader who was look-
ing forward to a weekend of camping. He was never one to conceal
his sex urge, certainly not around me, and never when we were
alone.

At times, it worried me that he was so intense about sexual
things. It helped that he was gifted, but sex was accorded a preco-
cious significance. He was especially concerned with sex, which
would have been normal for a teenager, but he was still two weeks
away from his ninth birthday. Even before we were properly out of
Gatlinburg, he scooted over in his seat, kissed me wetly on the
cheek and promptly placed his small pale hand in my lap. He grinned
as he met my eyes knowingly. His fingertips scratched at the denim
that was tightly stretched over my bulging crotch. Both of us were
aware of what was semi-rigid underneath my jeans. It was always in
that state when he was within arm's reach. While I drove, he
unzipped my jeans, peeled back the cloth, relocated my boxers to
one side, extricated my penis on the other side. Then, beaming with
delight he played with what he termed "his best friend in the whole
world". By the time we reached I-40, he had my penis as hard as
hickory and he had managed to extract my testicles as well without
scraping them on the metal zipper. He breathed through his nose,
licking his lips with anticipation, yet not going lower despite my
unspoken encouragement. It was his game and his rules.

In the car, it was an unspoken rule that I was his to torment.
I had to concentrate on driving and Austin, well he had other
things to concentrate on. Occasionally, he grinned crudely, making
obscene movements of his head to simulate oral intercourse, his
lips stretched into an open circle while his pink tongue circled as
if applying saliva and kisses. Only once or twice did he bend his
head lower and then it was to kiss my glans and lick away a droplet
of pre-seminal fluid that had gathered on the tip. It always amused
me that he made a wry face afterwards, yet he did not complain
about the taste. The rest of the time he delighted in smearing it
everywhere with his little thumb. Around and around, a slippery
massage that had little probability of provoking orgasm, but which
made my penis achingly stiff.

The miles passed quickly, and not because I had the cruise
control set at seventy miles per hour. His soft fingers stroked and
caressed, then squeezed and teased, scraping my bulging glans with
his fingernails until I had to ask him to stop. That only made him
giggle and try even harder. Not to make me achieve climax. Of
course not. He had better uses for my semen than to watch it gush
out over his hand. We were a long way past mere masturbation,
although it had its compensation at times. Between giggles and
taunts, and snide comments about the size, age, and performance of
my manhood, he made no secret of his intention to inflict the most
excruciating sensations without allowing me the relief of orgasm.
That was his favorite game. It gave him power over me.

I came close several times, but each time he lifted his hand
away at the last moment and blew over my raging member until I sub-
sided. Forty-two minutes into the trip we took a much needed break.
When he felt the car slowing, he looked up quickly and stopped what
he was doing as he ascertained where we were. At last I had his
undivided attention. It lasted all of fifteen seconds before he
giggled and settled back down to take up where he left off. Now he
had a different goal. By the time we had stopped moving, Austin's
hand was again wrapped around my rigid penis and moving with a
practiced rhythm. In his small hand, my engorged penis looked very
large and threatening. Yet his hand fit naturally, as if God had
created both parts to be together. The only thing I was ever cer-
tain of was that his hand belonged there more than mine did.

I gazed at him, recognizing in his pale blue eyes the same
overpowering lust that I felt. My desire for him was matched by the
hard thickness that burgeoned between my legs. That he was so young
no longer bothered me. Time has a way of reducing one's inhibi-
tions. I had stopped thinking of him as eight-going-on-nine years
old a long time ago. All that mattered was that he was a boy who was
willing to explore his emerging sexuality, and eagerly at that.
While I still loved as my grandson, he had become much more than
that. I loved him in a far greater way.

I turned off the engine, and glanced at the nearest vehicle, a
truck without a driver sitting behind the steering wheel. I had no
doubt that the driver was sleeping in the cabin. Then I looked back
at Austin. He grinned, shamelessly squeezing the head of my penis
to expel more of its slippery fluid. Our eyes met. All it ever took
was a single shared glance. When you got right down to it, we
didn't need words to communicate. Even his mother had observed the
closeness we shared, although I imagined that she never suspected
that it was the result of prolonged intimacy. Over time, we had
joined both in body and mind, and I liked to think in soul as well.
That was what love was for me. Another crystalline droplet appeared
at the crimson opening at the end of my penis. Immediately, his
thumb lifted up, then with added slipperiness, circled my glans
slowly.

"You want to do it, A-J?" I asked at last, just to make sure.

"By now I reckon you of all people oughta know, Papaw. I
always wanna do it," he replied teasingly.

"Silly me!"

"You got something we can use for my butt, ain't you Papaw?"

Austin did not have to ask, yet he always did. It was a matter
of habit, simply to let me know that he was willing. We both knew
that I kept a tube of K-Y in the glove box. We had certainly used it
often enough. We had also done it `dry', but it took much longer
and left him tender.

"Sure do."

"I got an itch that needs scratchin'."

"Yeah, I just bet you do, boy. Going to take more than my fin-
ger too, isn't it?"

"I reckon so, Papaw."

Not even nine years old, and he grinned wantonly, revealing
perfectly white teeth. Some teeth were still very small, others
larger. One of his front teeth was missing, creating a somewhat
lop-sided look that was very endearing. He had lost it just before
Christmas, provoking inane sing-song wisecracks from his uncle
about wanting his two front teeth for Christmas.

Like this, aroused and anxious, his voice crackled with
excitement. His Louisianan accent, a voice still high-pitched and
unbroken, had suddenly turned squeaky. He was always the same way,
unable to conceal his anticipation, boldly teasing ever since he
realized that his boyish voice and youthful taunts were part of
what turned me on. After a year, he knew exactly what he needed to
do. Still grinning almost from ear to ear, his hands quickly unfas-
tened his belt and button. He pulled his zipper down very slowly,
and then wriggled his hips as he started to take down his jeans. It
was a strip show that was always worth watching.

After a few Seconds the top of his jeans passed his thighs.
Then his thumbs looped over his belt and he hurriedly pushed his
jeans and briefs the rest of the way down together. I saw the bril-
liant white of his underpants tangled up in his jeans before they
disappeared onto the floor of the car. Austin had an erection that
pointed to the sky. With the sunroof open, the sight was awe
inspiring. Not large by any stretch of the imagination, but neither
was it something to be ashamed off for a pre-pubescent boy, partic-
ularly given his slender body. His scrotum was loose and I could
easily discern the barely visible lumps of his young testicles.
They were like jellybeans, there was no other word to describe
them. His belly and thighs were paler, verging on a delicate shade
of pink at his loins. Only the purple-tinted glans of his circum-
cised penis differed in color, and then it was forever memorable as
it peeked upward from between his legs.

Austin had been closely circumcised by a doctor who had very
little experience with the Gomco clamp. The incompetent dolt had
pulled the boy's prepuce over the clamp too tightly, with the end
result off removing more of the foreskin that was normal, and cer-
tainly more than was desirable. When Austin was erect, the skin was
pulled tight, so tight that it appeared polished. He had an other-
wise beautiful penis, and I never tired of telling him so. The end
result was that his small perfectly shaped but miniature helmet-
shaped glans was even more exposed and 'cherry-like'. It was a
crown for a beautiful young prince.

Austin grinned at me lasciviously from the other side of the
car. He was like a little satyr, his spike of masculine flesh
standing up proud and powerful. With a quick glance out his window
to convince himself that no one could see him, he scrambled across
the console that divided our two seats. Without a word, he took up
his position, kneeling over my legs, his bony little knees squeezed
against my thighs. When he was settled again, he smirked and
glanced down into the narrow gap that separated us.

"You gotta get us both ready, cause I got no room, Papaw," he
said meekly, still husky.

In that, he was correct. The steering wheel was behind his
back and his silver-blond hair was close to the headlining of the
car. It was nearly impossible for him to move except to the side
and back to his seat. Still he leaned forward and braced himself by
leaning against my shoulder and holding onto the car seat.

"At least it's better than the Jeep, A-J," I replied. "There's
a lot more room."

Austin nodded slightly. "I like this car more."

I was glad that I had traded the Jeep for the Ford. Sure, the
bigger vehicle used more gas and was far less maneuverable on the
back roads, but it was also a lot larger in places where it
counted. Now that the weather was warmer, more than ever before, we
were making out in the car. This wasn't the first time we'd had sex
in the front seat, and it certainly wouldn't be the last time.

I felt his heated breath on my neck, his cheek against my
shoulder. A moment later I could feel his lips brush my neck, rel-
ishing the hot wetness, the slick softness of his inquisitive
tongue. Left to his own devices, he would give me a hickey before I
ejaculated. It was a small price to pay. It was his way of leaving
his mark on me as I left my mark on him. With luck, no one would see
us for the next two days and it would be gone before I took him back
home. There would be other marks by then, none of them quite so
visible as a love bite on the neck.

My left hand lovingly stroked his slim body, touching his
smooth exposed buttocks with unconcealed interest. He moved
slightly to improve my access. His lips suckled closer to my shoul-
der, then changed position, nibbling slowly towards my ear. My fin-
gers caressed his firm small cheeks, dipping into the hidden groove
between his firm small buttocks. Nature's furrow. Without diffi-
culty, I found the dimpled indentation. Slightly moist, like tiny
lips pouting. I loved that part of him as much as any other, even
more at times like this. With my one free hand I flipped the plas-
tic cap off the top of the tube and placed the end where my other
hand was. I spread his rubbery cheeks apart, centered the tube
where I thought his anus was, and squeezed.

He winced as the cool gel spread into the heated crevice of
his buttocks. Unable to see what I was doing, I kept squeezing
until I thought there was sufficient. It was much easier to clean
up afterwards than to run the risk of friction burns. A long time
ago, we had discovered that leather upholstery kept the stains to a
minimum, especially if we were diligent about promptly cleaning up
afterwards.

I snapped the cap back onto the K-y, dropping it onto the con-
sole where it would be easily found if we needed more. I knew from
prior experience that plenty of lubrication would be necessary. He
was awfully tight at the start of the weekend. Yet tight as he was,
it was nothing like he had been the very first time.

With my right hand I slowly circled his rump, keeping my dis-
tance from the source of our pleasure, building up to the inevita-
ble gradually so that he did not think I was only interested in one
thing. Both fore-play and after-play were important, and even when
we were rushed, I always took a few minutes to relax him. Getting
him ready was my job and it was a task that was anything but oner-
ous. Always pleasure before and after, letting him know that while
his butt was important to me, so was the rest of him. However, this
time impatience got the better of me. After all, Austin had spent
the last forty minutes playing with 'his best friend in the whole
world' and his `best friend' was ready to have some fun.

Austin groaned when he felt my finger press between his small
soft cheeks, seeking to enter into him, into the private place
within his rectum, into the very core of his being. Kneeling the
way he was, with his legs splayed wide and supported by the edges
of the car seat, it was easy to find the target. It was even easier
to lift my finger upward, press into the little hidden mouth,
beyond the greasy lip, feel his succulent heat, the pleasant pres-
sure of his firm cheeks clamping my knuckles. He was hot, slightly
spongy, resilient, precious. He sighed softly, licked my neck gen-
erously, tightened his grasp of my arm. He breathed deeply. He had
readied himself for what came next.

There was no puckered anus to greet my fingertip. There had
not been one for a long time. He had become very used to my penetra-
tion of his anus. My finger dipped into the sensitive opening,
probing the little elastic flesh-ring that centered his crevice. At
that moment, the thought furthest from my mind was the other func-
tion of his anus. His body heat seemed to flow into my finger. He
sighed again, took another deep breath, and pressed down ever so
slowly. It had the inevitable result of pushing my fingertip firmly
into his pliable anus. Slicked with K-y, it slid through to the
second joint without hesitation, the rim tensing momentarily before
he managed to relax again.

As far back as I could remember, Austin had never fought it.
Experience brought muscle control, and now his anus nibbled hun-
grily on my finger. It was his way of saying `ready for more'. The
suction against my neck increased, his teeth drawing into my flesh,
his tongue swirling. His buttocks began to move. Slowly at first.
Always slowly, steadily, lifting cautiously, pushing down just a
little bit further each time, working his pelvis back and forth,
trembling if it went too far too fast.

I supported him, aware that he wasn't very comfortable, know-
ing it wouldn't take very long for either of us once my penis was
inside him. I wondered who would crest first. Sometimes he had a
`hair' trigger, a few times all my finger was all it too to make him
shudder uncontrollably, but more often than not I beat him to the
finish line on Fridays.

I was breathing deeply when I finally eased my finger away.
For a moment he tightened his anus, reflexively holding, binding
his quivering muscle to keep my finger inside him. It was to no
avail for he had loosened considerably over the last few minutes.
Not loose enough that I could ram two fingers into him, but loose
enough that he could take my penis without too much difficulty if I
was patient. He lifted higher, repositioning himself. His arms
pulled close to his chest, his hands held me tightly. I kissed his
forehead lovingly. Instinctively his head turned. His lips pursed,
closed with mine, locked. I sucked his tongue forward, held it
between my teeth. We kissed, oblivious to the dribble of saliva
between our chins.

We parted after a minute and sat quietly watching while I
reached down and smeared what was left of the K-Y over my penis.
What I was about do to Austin was the one thing that brought me
closer to him than I had ever imagined possible with another per-
son. We shared our bodies without restraint, ever ready to join. It
the result of love, deep love that consumed my every thought. That
he could even be willing, wanting me as much as I wanted him made it
even more miraculous.

"You ready, A-J?" I asked.

"Uh huh! Let's do it, Papaw."

"Okay."

"Hey! That's my balls, you dummy. The hole's further down."

"Lift your butt up a bit higher then," I laughed. "Or I'll
make a hole where there isn't supposed to be one."

I placed my hand behind him, positioning my penis where it
needed to be. With his buttocks wide apart, I could feel the dis-
tance between us. There was still a few inches and the angle was
all wrong. I moved down into the seat while I pushed him forward
and upward. My penis teased his crack and he sighed from the added
warmth and pressure. His pelvis rotated, rubbing energetically so
that my glans stabbed into the wrinkled mound of his scrotum. He
groaned anxiously.

"Too far up now, A-J," I said urgently.

I bent my penis down, massaging the swollen helmet head back
and forth along his perineum. Each time I passed over his anus he
tried to push onto it. I had forty minutes of torment to make up
for. After the fourth or fifth time, he groaned and shoved back at
me. I smiled, still surprised that a boy who had not seen his ninth
birthday, was so sexually advanced that he knew what he wanted and
how to get it. I relented, and pressed home, burrowing no further
than a half inch into his tight anus.

"Hmmmm,...."

"That the right place?"

"Uh huh! You got it, Papaw."

"You feel so good, Austin," I purred in his closest ear.

"But not as good as you feel. He's so big and hard."

"That's from you playing with him so long."

"It's my job." It was impossible to miss the pride.

"God I love you so much, A-J."

"I missed you, Papaw."

"I know. Me too! Take your time, Austin. Don't push down so
hard."

"I want him inside'a me."

"Whoa boy. Take it easy."

"Yeahhhhh, there he goes. Let me do it now, Papaw."

Austin breathed out slowly as the bulging glans of my penis
gradually passed through his anus and reached up into his rectum.
It seemed like he was wasn't going to stop until he had taken all of
it--in a single inexorable thrust.

"Slow down a tad, A-J."

"It don't hurt more than a bit."

"I'm not worried about you. I want it to last."

"Me too. Only I cain't help it."

"Yeah, that's so good."

"You feel nice."

"So do you, A-J."

Austin giggled softly and stopped with three inches of my
penis imbedded in his bowels. He took a deep breath and rested
there. Nearly a minute passed as we reflected on what we now
shared.

"Today in school,... all I could think about,... was you and me
fuckin'."

"Like this?"

"Yeah. N' we can do it all weekend too if we want. `cause
Tristan ain't here. Anyway I was thinkin' `bout it in Ms. Thomp-
son's readin' class, and she went and picked on me."

"Oh?"

"Yeah. I was on the wrong page and everythin'."

"Did you have a stiffie?"

His teasing giggle answered the question. "Duh! What do you
think? I was playin' with it."

"Dumb question. Did you get into trouble, A-J?"

"Nah. When she picks on me I'm mostly ready, so she didn't
care that much."

"One day I'll have to meet her."

"I'm goin' to introduce you,..." Austin giggled, relishing the
next words, "as my boy-lover." He lifted up with infinite slowness,
careful that my penis did not pull all the way out of him.

"Very funny,..."

"So funny you forgot to laugh," he interjected. He pushed down
again, letting it stab hard into him.

"God, you're so tight, A-J. It feels like you're going to
squeeze it off."

"No I'm not. This is tight, Papaw!"

The pressure exerted in that hot taut tube was immediate and
unrelenting. It felt like Austin really was squeezing my penis off.
It reminded me of when he was a virgin and the night we had taken
that irrevocable step. He was painfully tight for the next few
weeks after Thanksgiving, except that then it was not deliberate.
He was just plain tight. Experience time and eventually took care
of that for him, and with practice he also learned how to give me
pleasure, lots of pleasure, more pleasure than any man could rea-
sonably expect to receive in a single lifetime.

"Okay, okay, I give up." I laughed and playfully grabbed his
buttocks, one cheek in each hand. "You're going to squeeze the cum
right out of me if you don't stop that," I warned.

"Then stop wastin' time and just do me," he said softly.

His face was just inches from my ear, close enough that I felt
the moist heat of his breath.

"I thought you were going to do all the work this time. You're
the one on top."

"Nah! It's more fun for me if you do it, old man."

"Old man? Who's an old man?"

"You are, Papaw! You might have a big dick but you're older `n
hell."

Austin gasped as I lifted him up from the seat, bracing my
feet in the foot well and my back against the seat. Holding there,
suspended. Gravity did the rest. Another inch slid in. Almost too
much. He groaned. My penis had reached his prostate, immature
though it was. The tiny node was compressed. At the same time, his
anus was stretched wide as the thickest part of my penis breached
his opening. Tiny tremors, spasms of nervous energy like bursting
sparks of life made him quiver. I could feel his chest moving, a
shudder from each uncertain breath. Like this, he was unable to
speak, unable to do anything except be very still and wait, wait
until the shock passed and his sphincter completed the process of
relaxing.

"You okay, lover boy?" I murmured in his ear.

He nodded slightly, just enough to let me know he was able to
deal with the feeling of displacement and the unrelenting pressure
that was slowly stretching his boy-sized opening into something
much larger. Sometimes waiting was the best part.

"He's so big," he whispered after a while. He wriggled his
pelvis again to make it move inside him. "I needed him in me so bad
last night I couldn't stand it. I almost called you after dinner,
but Mom made me finish my homework."

"I couldn't have helped much, not with her there."

"I just wanted to hear your voice. You could'a jerked him off
or somethin' while we talked."

Very gently, very slowly, I tried to ease us apart by lifting
his buttocks with my hands. It was time to be patient but I needed
him, needed to be all the way inside him, needed desperately to
love him. His slender body held on, still locking around my organ
and refusing to give up even a fraction of an inch. Instead of
forcing the bond I held him like the precious gift he was, my
thumbs on his hips, my fingers stroking each smooth curvaceous
cheek, soothing him. It was the calm before the storm, a momentary
hiatus until he was ready. The pressure faded. I smiled, wondering
at the miracle that made it possible.

An involuntary spasm tightened his sphincter again, grasping
firmly, hard enough to make him groan. I sighed with him, aware of
his pumping heart, the quick shallow breaths, the intense heat that
emanated from the living flesh that encompassed me.

Then, as that contraction faded, I pressed in once more, lift-
ing higher as I pushed him down, sunk deeper, felt his tension
fade, return, slowly abating. He was sucking on my neck, fighting
the urge to cry until the pain turned to ecstasy. My hips began to
move, eliciting a soft whisper, unintelligible. Encouragement?
Beyond stopping. Impossible. Lifting up into him again. Another
inch. No more, not the way we were positioned. Five inches. Full,
so wonderfully full. Groaning, gasping, shaking, even begging.
Words of love. More, more, more. Getting faster. Harder. Smelling
him, the excretion forming, seeping down. Hearing suction, wet,
loose, becoming looser, wetter. One hand around his shoulders,
pushing him down hard. The other hand grasping his buttocks, lift-
ing him up high. Feeling the slime of K-Y jelly spreading outward
between us. Pumping in and out like a mechanical piston, power mea-
sured by bore and stroke. Suctioning with each deep thrust. Whim-
pering whenever his squat aching hardness was abraded against my
clothing. Then stiffening, clinging to me, his hips bucking madly
with the onset of orgasm. Pitifully dry, always dry, jerking fran-
tically, juvenile frenzy contorting his face, yet always gasping.
So alive it took my breath away to see him climax.

It came and passed without relief, his body shuddering, his
bowels clamping tightly with every spasm. It lasted only a few sec-
onds before he was finished. For those few seconds, his sphincter
was like a vise, so tight that I thought I could feel his blood
pulsing. Perhaps it was me. It was impossible to determine where
Austin's body ended and mine began. I felt my testicles bursting,
pouring forth their juices, ejaculating into the still shuddering
boy. From start to finish, it had only taken a few minutes, yet it
seemed like an eternity. Every second treasured, imprinted on my
mind and never to be forgotten. I kept heaving, hugging him tightly
as the last of it emptied into the boy I loved. This was my gift,
given in return for his gift of love. Panting, sweating, wishing it
could go on and on forever.

I kissed the top of his head, nuzzling silky blond hair,
inhaling his sweaty scent. His head inclined, eyes half closed,
peaceful, a hint of an enigmatic smile. Thankful bliss. We kissed
tenderly, almost chastely at first, denying the intimacy that had
just overwhelmed us. I held his body tightly, gratefully. There was
undeniable satisfaction from what we had done, desire had been
quenched. There was a lingering memory from a long time ago, a time
when we had first achieved the impossible. Despite everything in
his past, I was his first, his only lover. It would always be spe-
cial for us. A few more minutes passed in mutual silence. My penis
softened, slipped back through the flesh I had churned to a sloppy
looseness, flopped benignly onto my groin. The angry man-beast had
become a child's plaything once again.

Awkwardly, stiffly, uncomfortably, Austin climbed off me. He
was still breathing deeply, unsteadily aware of the void that had
been opened and the seed that had ejaculated into him. He smiled
shyly at me as he clambered slowly over the leather-trimmed console
and eased back into his seat. It would take an hour or more before
that part of him returned to any sense of 'normalcy'. He never com-
plained. It was just the way it was. He would be sore, but it would
go away before the next time.

I watched as he reached down and picked up his clothes, tugged
his briefs away from his jeans and began to dress.

"Okay?" I asked.

"Very okay."

"Not bad for an old man, huh A-J?"

"You really filled me up, Papaw."

"I tried hard." We shared a smile.

"I could feel you shooting a whole lot up there."

"A week without sex will do that to a guy. Even an old guy like
me. I must have had a lot stored up for you."

"You didn't jack off, Papaw?"

"Of course not. It's not the same without you, A-J."

He pulled his briefs up, wriggling to get them beyond his
moistened buttocks, positioning his now-limp penis under the cloth
before pulling on his jeans. Finally, although without his shoes
on, he refastened his seat belt. He smirked at me and raised his
eyebrows as if to say 'what are you looking at?'

"You okay?" I asked.

"One hundred and nineteen hours."

"Huh?"

"One hundred and nineteen hours," Austin repeated gleefully.

"I don't get it."

He giggled, so boyishly, so unlike the lust-filled animal of a
few minutes earlier.

"That's how long it's been since we did it the last time."

"Oh?"

"You sure made a lot of cum in a hundred and nineteen hours,"
he guffawed.

"You were shootin' up me forever. I could feel it squirtin'
out in great big gobs."

A quick glance at my watch and a quick calculation showed that
Austin was correct. It had been one hundred and nineteen hours
nearly to the minute. The last time had been on my couch on the pre-
vious Sunday. It was just before we had to shower and leave to meet
his mother for dinner. It had been fun, a lot of fun. It had also
taken a lot longer than usual, nearly an hour all told from start
to finish. When we finally stopped, his anus had been red and more
than a little bit sore, but considering what it had been put
through that weekend, it was in remarkably good condition. He was
getting used to it. Playfully, I reached over and ruffled his hair
affectionately.

"You're a great kid, A-J," I laughed. "But more than anything
I'm really glad you're a horny little guy."

He grinned at me and I started the engine. As I pulled back
onto the freeway, Austin wriggled uncomfortably. My semen had
started to drain down, wetting the rear of his briefs where it cov-
ered his butt and beginning to soak through his jeans. Little did I
know it was the beginning point for my present troubles.



**********************************************************



"I had no idea what it was at the time."

I glanced back at Tara, immediately returning to the present.
I silently promised myself to be dispassionate. My decision was
made. I would admit to the real nature of our relationship only
when I needed to. She would never be able to understand how much I
loved Austin. There was no point in making the situation worse than
it was.

"Huh?" I breathed out.

"At first I thought he might have sat in something while he
was camping with you, Dad. Milk, or something like that. You know,
I couldn't think of anything that would leave a stain like that."

"How about ice-cream?" I suggested weakly.

Tara gave me a wry look. "Then I worried he had some kind of
accident."

I breathed out slowly, confused by her calmness. "An acci-
dent?" I repeated cautiously.

"I mean,... I thought maybe he had diarrhea. He's been having
problems with his bowel movements on and off. I guess I should have
figured out why he was having problems, shouldn't I?" she added
sarcastically. "Anyway, I checked the other underpants he'd taken
with him. There was nothing on them. In fact, they hadn't even been
worn."

Tara regarded me with an ambiguous expression. Was she trying
to make me realize that my having sex with Austin had caused him
health problems? I knew about the diarrhea. It was only to be
expected that there were side effects when a young boy had sex with
a man. Loose bowel movements were part of it. Was she angry? It was
impossible to tell. She should have been furious.

"So? He spent most of the weekend in his swimming costume."

"Don't you mean out of it?" she added snidely. "It's not that
I mind Austin going around nude with you. He is a boy after all. I'm
not blind. I knew he had a suntan all over by the end of last sum-
mer. It did arouse my suspicions a little then, but it didn't mean
that much. He has such a nice body. There's no reason why he should
be ashamed of it and there's no reason why he shouldn't have a nice
tan to go with it."

I smiled awkwardly. "A nice body" was a gross understatement.
Austin was a very beautiful boy. His body was the closest thing to
perfection that I had ever seen.

"He is a bit uninhibited," I offered gratuitously.

"I know. Sometimes it can be easier to let him go around naked
than fight with him. At the time, I didn't worry about it. I didn't
have a problem with him being naked around you. I guess now I
should have."

She stopped and looked at me. Slowly she shook her head. In
despair? In denial? I could not determine.

"Anyway, then I checked the underpants he'd just taken off
before he got into the bath tub."

I felt another wave of panic.

"And guess what I found?" she said with a sweetness that made
me even more nervous.

I swallowed, now more afraid than I could ever remember being
before. I was going to spend the rest of my life in jail. If she had
any doubts up to then, they had gone. It did not take a brain sur-
geon to realize what she had discovered on Austin's underpants. I
licked my dry lips, trying to think. The only thought that came to
me was, 'you stupid fucking idiot'. The silence hung between us. I
aimlessly fiddled with the coffee cup. There was nothing that I
could say to mitigate the situation. I could feel the condemnation
in her attentive gaze.

"Well?"

"I don't know," I answered bravely. Then, having nothing to
lose, for the hell of it, I added, "Why don't you tell me?"

"It had the same sort of stain, in exactly the same place.
Only it was still damp, Dad."

I glanced down at the floor, unable to meet her eyes. There
was no longer suspicion. But there never had been suspicion. She
was merely confronting me with what she knew, playing with me like
a cat plays with a mouse before it delivers the final bite. I
breathed out slowly. She not only knew what I had done with Austin
the day before, she had the evidence to prove it. Legal evidence of
semen and DNA, the kind of evidence that a defense lawyer tries to
keep out of court because he has no defense if the jury hears it. I
rubbed my chin pensively. If Austin had not told her the truth, it
would have been very easy to tell her she was wrong, to make up a
plausible excuse that had him sitting in a puddle of milk, or wres-
tling and getting his ice-cream on his butt, or,.... However, it
was a long way past that. It was time for the truth and the longer
she looked at me with her clear, questioning eyes, the greater the
pressure I was under to admit what had really happened.

A part of me was ready to tell her that I loved Austin, that I
loved him not as a father loves a son, but as men have always loved
boys. I wanted to tell her that he meant more to me than she could
possibly imagine, or even begin to understand. The rest of my con-
sciousness screamed 'deny', 'deny', 'deny'. She could prove noth-
ing. Even the semen on her son's underpants could be explained
somehow. Perhaps I could have told her that I had a wet dream while
Austin was sleeping? It was cold and we had shared the same sleep-
ing bag. It was an accident and I couldn't clean it up because I
would wake him up. Instead, I slumped back into my chair and
sighed, slowly shaking my head.

"I could tell right away from the smell what it was." She
wrinkled her nose slightly so that I got the picture. "I went into
the bathroom and made him get out and dry himself."

She half-closed her eyes and shook her head as she tried to
control her anger. Her nostrils flared as she took a deep breath.

"I took him into his bedroom and then I looked at him there!
God! I shouldn't have to say this. How could you, Dad? "

She paused. She breathed out slowly, taking her time in decid-
ing what to say and how to say it.

"How could you do that to him?" she said acidly.

I shrugged, lost for words. Over the last year I had often
asked myself the same question. There was a price to be paid when a
man had anal sex with a young boy no matter how much both of them
wanted to do it. The price was more than the occasional bout of
diarrhea or constipation. I knew what she had seen. It was a famil-
iar if disturbing sight. There was no pink pucker surrounding Aus-
tin's anus. There had not been one since the end of the previous
summer. And since Thanksgiving, there was a dark brown-purple hued
circle around his anus. It had been there for nearly half a year.
It was a circle whose diameter corresponded almost exactly with the
width of my penis. After the weekend, for the next day or two, it
was usual for the anus itself to be puffed out and crimson-red
around the rim. It was swollen for good reason. It was not some-
thing that I was proud of. There was just no way to avoid it.

For a second I felt bile rising, tasted the sourness of my gut
reacting to the hideous shame of it, the knowledge that I had done
that to him in the name of love. Tara examined me icily, and with a
gesture, dismissed anything I might offer as explanation.

We were late leaving the Cherokee National Forest. We were
late because Austin and I had sex right before we got dressed,
broke camp and hiked back to where the car was parked. We had sex?
That was an understatement if ever there was one. We had made love,
intensely passionate love, the kind of love that one might think
that a young boy was incapable of. Austin was very capable. Not
even two hours had passed before I dropped him off at his home. He
was tired and dirty, and naturally sore. After prolonged inter-
course, his butt was worn out. After two hours the bottom of his
underpants was guaranteed to be still damp.

The last entry in our diary had been in my handwriting, made
after I dropped Austin off with his mother and went back to my con-
dominium and consumed a bourbon and coke in the hot tub while I
thought about what a wonderful weekend it had been and made plans
for the following one. It just was a week ago, exactly seven days
before Austin's ninth birthday.


       ******************************************************


#99 Sunday May 14 about 3.00 p.m. Taylor Mill Creek, yet
again. We fucked for an hour before we took the tent down. A-J
orgasmed six times! Three of them without me touching his dick. A
record for him! Next time will be 100. I am going to have to make it
something special.



Sunday was hot, far hotter than Saturday. We woke up late with
the sun already high enough in the sky to cast shadows from the
trees overhead onto the khaki and orange walls of the tent. I lay
there for a long while, silently cradling Austin's tousled head in
the crook of my arm, waiting for him to wake up. I always let him
sleep in after a long night. He stirred shortly before ten o'clock
and snuggled closer, squeezing his small pale rump against my
groin. I hugged him tighter, gradually lifting my hand along his
smooth flank, grazing his nipple, touching the sinews of his neck,
rounding the curve of his chin, admiring the delicate softness of
his cheek, stroking his hair. He lay still, barely awake, absorbing
my caresses with unspoken joy. It was no secret that he liked being
touched.

The tent slowly became hotter, but it was not uncomfortable
for us because we pushed the sleeping bag further down, a few
inches at a time until we were completely uncovered. The sun gradu-
ally climbed higher into the sky and its rays beamed down onto the
nylon tent, creating a surreal golden glow that made our sweat-
flecked bodies both look and feel very erotic. Although we were
both very hard, sex was a long way from our minds. I just wanted to
be with him, to hold him close, and whisper my love in his ear. We
shared kisses on and off, sometimes wet and wriggly, exchanging
tongues and spit like two teenagers in the backseat; sometimes dry
and tender, brushing lips against lips, foreheads, cheeks, ears,
eyes, and pert little noses. It was about eleven o'clock when we
finally staggered forth and pissed in the long grass. We were like
two kids having a competition about who could go the furthest and
the longest. I won both contests.

"I bet that feels better?" I laughed, shaking off the last few
drops.

"Man, I was dying," Austin agreed with a hearty grin as he
bounced his little weapon back and forth and splattered droplets in
the grass. "What's for breakfast, Papaw?"

"Sausage and eggs?" I replied hopefully with a downward
glance.

Like me, Austin's morning erection had eased, but with the
vigor of youth it had not gone away completely. His penis was still
lifting outwards, curving away from his small shrivelled scrotum.
His tiny reddish glans looked very exposed. The entire thing, even
when fully extended, was smaller than a "Bob Evans" breakfast sau-
sage, but to me it was far better tasting. Despite my limited expe-
rience, I considered myself something of a connoisseur of preteen
boy wiener, although Austin had recently begun to refer to that
delectable part of his anatomy as 'dick'. However, the fact was
indisputable. I had often feasted on his 'sausage and eggs' before
getting out of bed in the morning.

"No way! You're not getting my dick in your mouth, Papaw.
You're just a dirty old man," he grinned. He jumped back a few feet
so that he was safely out of reach.

"But I'm hungry, A-J," I whined teasingly.

"There's no way you're getting your mouth on this, at least
not until you've shaved and I've had something to eat," he laughed.

He placed a hand on either side of his crotch, lifting his fat
little scrotum with one finger from each side. His penis adopted an
outward view, lengthening even as I looked at it. It was a very
tempting morsel.

I growled menacingly and Austin bounded away and darted down
the slope to the creek. I laughed after him, ever content to watch
him. He was one-hundred-percent pure boy. He was irresistible and
it was all I could do not to go charging after him. From behind, his
butt looked perfectly normal, if slightly browner than when we had
first arrived. He stopped where the rocks had been gathered
together and carefully dipped his foot into the water.

"Ye ow ouch!" he shrieked. "'s cold."

"I can imagine," I laughed. "You're going to freeze your toes
off doing that, A-J."

"It ain't that cold, Papaw."

"Well I'm going to heat up some water so I can shave and make
some coffee. I can't stand shaving with cold water."

I turned away and walked to the tent. My shaving kit was in a
side pocket of my Back pack along with a spare tube of K-Y jelly. I
fitted a new blade to the razor and picked up the shaving cream
before going outside. I squatted down beside the fireplace. I poked
a stick into the silver-black coals and determined that it was
cold. At that moment, I needed coffee more than anything else. Well
almost anything else, I thought as I looked down to the creek. Aus-
tin was squatting down and facing towards me. He waved languidly
and smirking crudely, dipped one hand into the water and splashed
it over his butt. I waved back, amused by his sudden interest in
personal hygiene.

There were still a few sticks left and I hurriedly shoved them
together into a crude pile around a few handful's of dried leaves
and grass. I looked around for the box of matches, remembering that
they were somewhere outside but having no idea where I had left
them the night before.

"It ain't never gonna start like that, Papaw," Austin said
from behind me.

"Want to bet, A-J?" I challenged.

A glance over my shoulder became a lingering stare at the
beautiful nude boy. He was pale and his body was flecked with
clear-crystal droplets of water. He had his gooseflesh-covered arms
wrapped around his chest. His nipples were barely visible and his
genitals had shriveled to the point where they appeared smaller
than I had ever seen them. He looked cold, yet he grinned warmly as
he contemplated what I was doing.

"Sure. Five bucks says it goes out the first time, Papaw."

I laughed. "Five bucks, my ass."

"Go on, light it," he chortled. "I'll win! You'll see. You're
lousy at making fires, Papaw."

Despite the fact that I was what might be called an "experi-
enced outdoorsman," in one of those trendy catalogs, I barely man-
aged to win the bet, and then it was only by carefully blowing on
the dying flame. After a slow start, the struggling fire gradually
consumed the dried grass and struggled to reach branches that were
too thick to burn. Finally, I had a good blaze going and I pushed
the kettle closer to the flames and stood up.

"Where's the five bucks, A-J?" I demanded playfully, my hand
extended.

"I don't have it with me, Papaw" Austin said gleefully. "I'll
give it to you when we get home."

"That'll cost you more, A-J" I said.

"How much more?"

"Hm, well the interest rate is real high."

"How high?" He was grinning. He shifted his weight, balancing
on one leg. The toes of his other leg scraped the back of his knee.

"Very high. Of course, if you paid for it now, the interest
wouldn't be a problem."

"Now, Papaw?" Austin smirked. He stepped back warily. "But I
told you already. I don't have any money with me."

"I guess I could take a substitute for cash."

"You want my ass again?" he giggled teasingly.

"I've had it so many times, kid, it's not worth five bucks
even if we did if nonstop for the whole weekend," I chortled. Like
his butt, the look on Austin's face was priceless.

"What then, Papaw?" he giggled.

There were times when he looked and sounded like a girl. This
was one of those times. Except for the little appendage that dan-
gled sheepishly between his thin pale thighs, he could easily be
mistaken for a girl. Fascinated, I stroked my chin, pretending to
be deep in thought. I knew what I was going to demand and I expected
that he would take up my offer despite his hunger. He was never one
to avoid an opportunity for fun, especially when it involved sex. I
felt my penis stiffening with anticipation.

"Hm, I don't know? You got any ideas, A-J?" I suggested, post-
poning the inevitable.

Austin shrugged and played the part of the innocent boy,
although he was careful to stand just out of reach.

"Nope. Don't think so!"

"How much does your mom pay you an hour for working in the
shop?"

"Five bucks." He giggled. "You wanna fuck me for an hour,
Papaw?" he suggested hopefully.

"You've got a hot little ass, but you're only worth five bucks
an hour if you're working in the shop. Like I keep telling you,
fucking you is free. Heck, maybe you ought to pay me. I'm the one
who has to do all the work. Anyway, I'm too hungry to fuck." I
grinned. "It takes too much energy. I've got a better idea."

"What?" Austin asked uncertainly.

"You can give me a blow job, A-J."

"Hm, I suck your dick? That's it? Are you sure that's all?" he
asked suspiciously.

"Not quite. You've got to suck me for an entire hour."

He regarded me, still uncertain. "You're jokin' me, Papaw." He
grinned. "You're not, are you? A whole hour, huh?"

I winked and stooped to place the last of the firewood on the
fire. Another sideways glance confirmed that Austin was considering
the idea. He smiled.

I picked up the shaving cream and squeezed out a long bead
onto my palm. I dipped out a little of the now-luke warm water from
the kettle and applied the foam to my face. Austin continued to
watch. Like most boys, the act of shaving held a peculiar fascina-
tion for him despite the fact that it would be many years before he
would need to do it himself. I went to work carefully, removing
two-day-old stubble. My fully erect penis protruded crudely from
between my legs. For a few seconds, Austin studied it, appreciating
its size. Eight inches long. From two inches thick in the center,
it tapered slightly to my pubis and to a glans that both of us
agreed was just a little bit too big for a young boy's bottom, at
least at first. He smirked.

"I gotta suck that big hairy thing for a whole hour, huh?" he
queried again, this time more callously, but also unable to hide
his growing excitement. I nodded, still watching him from the cor-
ner of my eye.

"I hate getting hairs in my mouth." Suddenly his expression
changed. His eyes sparkled with merriment. "Okay, I'll do it,..."
He paused deliberately, teasing me my slowly licking his lips. "But
I got a condition first."

"What's that, A-J?" I muttered through soapy lips.

"You gotta shave all the hairs off'a him first, Papaw." Austin
burst into a fit of giggles.

"You want me to shave it? You want me to have a bald dick? You
want mine to look like yours?"

"Yep! Then I'll suck you whenever you want, and for as long as
you want."

"It's a deal, A-J!"

Perhaps he was playing a game, perhaps he never intended for
me to go through with it, but I did. He watched, mesmerized as I
settled back on my haunches and applied a thick foamy covering of
soap and warm water to my genitals. Sometime in the last minute,
his penis had responded. It stuck like a little pink lever, waiting
to be pulled. I felt a thrill that made my penis throb. Fifty-five
years old, and I was acting like a kid. We were both excited in a
way that was quite different to what we usually felt before we had
sex. I expected we would be having a very late breakfast.

I brought the razor to my groin and carefully began to make
long sweeps. Each deft stroke removed more of the dark pubic hair
that spiralled in the white foam. Scraping the razor along the
sides of my penis quickly deflated my erection, and the soapy
warmth relaxed my scrotum until it hung in loose folds. Austin, on
the other hand, seemed to get even more aroused.

After a minute or two, my pubic hair had all but vanished and
I turned my attention to my scrotum. This was more difficult and
required considerable concentration. Austin stepped closer and
dropped to his knees to obtain a closer view as I manipulated the
razor up and down and around my testicles.

As soon as I wiped the last of the soap away, I lay back on
the leaf-strewn ground. My genitals felt very strange in their
denuded state. I felt as if I was exposed to the world. Austin
started giggling as he knelt down. His hands brushed across my
chest, playing lightly with my nipples, then he grabbed my penis
and gave it a few jerks. I quickly became erect again. He knew what
he had to do. He did not need to be asked or cajoled when temptation
was staring him in the face. He had almost a year of practice at
sucking my penis. Playfully he pushed my legs apart so that he had
unobstructed access. He moved into position, squatting down with
his back to me, his knees wide apart, his feet on either side of my
chest. He held my now-hairless penis momentarily before his lips.
His eyes half-closed, concentrating, entranced by the unexpected
and unfamiliar smoothness of my sex organs. I lay silently, willing
his body to join with mine, wanting him to take me all the way into
his hot wet mouth. His tongue came forward, touched the tip of my
penis, hesitating slightly when my glans kissed his soft lips. My
hands caressed his bare buttocks, gently urging him, guiding him
down. His mouth opened instinctively, swallowing even as the glans
bulged into his mouth. He pushed down on it, a relentless effort
until the first few inches had all but disappeared. Only then did
he breath through his nose. He struggled for a few moments, ready-
ing himself. Then further. Sinking slowly. Pushing into the back of
his mouth. It was hotter there, and tighter too, but it was a very
different pleasure to another place that was even hotter and
tighter. He backed away and licked slowly. Up and down, around and
behind, in front. His tongue swirled over the soft clean-shaven
skin at the junction of my penis and pubis. It was unlike what he
was used to.

"How does that feel now, A-J?" I teased.

His head lifted away and he swallowed, soothing his mouth and
trying to find more saliva. My penis had reached deeply into him.
His face changed, a grimace, pretending he did not enjoy the taste
of my excreting juices.

"It don't taste no different, but it sure seems different,
Papaw. It's a bit like sucking a boy," Austin chortled.

"As if you would know, lover boy. The only boy you've ever
going to suck off, at least while I'm still around, is the one in
your dreams. Besides, your brother that is," I added as an after-
thought. It was an idea whose possibility I had recently begun to
think of as being very interesting.

And Austin laughed as I knew he would. Then, taking a deep
breath, he immediately went back down on me, all the way until his
nose nestled into my scrotum. It had taken him several months to
learn how to go all the way down, but it was something that once
learned, was never forgotten. He eased back a little and settled
his chest and shoulders down on top me. His sweaty, now softened
sex pressed into my chest, his buttocks split apart to reveal his
special treasure. His scent, the sight of his small slightly
dilated opening, invited my tongue to taste him. I rose to the
challenge. After a few minutes of licking around the rim and along
his crack, I gently probed into the hot crimson tube that gave
access to the depths of his body. It was like sticking my tongue
into a funnel, a sleek canal, wider at first, then narrower. Aus-
tin's muffled sigh showed his contentment. We started to suck and
lick each other with increasing urgency. Within a minute I had
pushed my tongue into him as far as it could reach. It was never far
enough.

We stayed like that an hour. He brought me to the peak several
times, and backed off at the last moment. Each and every time he
licked me until the immediacy of my orgasm faded. He planted a
thousand passionate kisses on my now-smooth scrotum with his soft
lips. He nibbled my fat purple glans with his sharp little teeth.
He massaged my testicles mercilessly with his deft, surprisingly
strong fingers. What I felt was the most incredible pleasure and a
modicum of pain that was truly unforgettable. Austin was a master
of torture and he delighted in exacting his cruel torment of pre-
venting my ejaculation. His own climax was not so easily avoided
and when I finally reduced him to a mind-shattering orgasm, it
probably incited him to ever-greater efforts to please me.

An hour had long passed when he finally stopped. He sat up,
grinning crudely as he wiped the saliva from his chin and cheeks.
His eyes sparkled. He looked like a little satyr, perched above me,
still slowly stroking my aching erection with one hand while he
inquisitively prodded a little fingertip into the slit at the end
of my penis. His finger nail scratched the bulbed tip, then fol-
lowed the hollow to the underside, then back around the flare. He
leaned forward and slurped across my glans with his wet soft tongue
before kissing it. He giggled and clambered off my chest.

"I'm hungry, Papaw," he announced.

"You had plenty of chances to take care of that, A-J," I
replied greedily.

Having been so close for so long, I wanted to ejaculate so
badly that it physically ached.

Austin shook his head, grinning shamelessly. "I want real
food, Papaw."

"The nutritional value of cum might be about zero, but it'll
still fill you up," I laughed.

"No way!" Austin retorted. "I need to eat somethin' before I
pass out from hunger."

I chuckled. I had missed my chance. One of the greatest sights
in the world was watching Austin gulp as my semen spurted into his
mouth.

"Okay, I guess I can wait to get rid of my load until later on,
A-J. I'm hungry too. Let's get something to eat."

We got up and dusted the dried leaves from our bodies. I could
taste Austin's special place in my mouth. At first, it had been a
sweet, slightly acrid taste, although certainly not unpleasant. It
just took some getting used to. After a year, I was more than used
to it. In fact, I relished the taste. I licked my lips and breathed
out slowly. I knew most people would think that what we had done
was disgusting, but for me, for us, it was the most wonderful thing
it the world. It was a special way for a man to show a boy how much
he was loved.

"Can I wear that thing you made for a while?" Austin asked.

I had just finished putting wood on the fire. I stopped and
turned to him. This was not unexpected. At first he had not been
too keen on wearing it, but that had changed over the last few
weeks. The thing was a small penis-shaped piece of wood that I had
made carefully out of a piece of walnut using the lathe in my shop
above "Smokey Mountain Tee Shirts and Sweats". When it was per-
fectly shaped, I smoothed and oiled it until the surface was bur-
nished. It was only about four inches long. It was as thick as two
of my fingers, and it was more than adequate for Austin's slim
body. A piece of nylon cord passed through the blunt knobbed end.
It could be tied around his waist so that the little dildo was kept
firmly in place when he moved about.

"Are you sure A-J?" I asked. "You don't have to."

"I kinda like how it feels when I'm walking around," he
explained. He smiled shyly.

"I thought you didn't like it wearing it. You weren't too
happy about it yesterday?"

Austin shrugged, dropping his eyes. "My butt was sore. I think
it was from having you in there for so long the night before,
Papaw."

"Well, I guess it won't hurt you if you wear it for a little
while, if you want to."

"Through breakfast?"

I nodded and told him to make sure it was well-coated with K-
Y before he inserted it. He grinned and headed off into the tent to
locate his favorite toy. When he came out again, he strutted around
the fire, moving his slender hips with an oscillation that was not
unlike a teenage girl on the make. That, his uncertain smile, and
the thin nylon cord knotted around his waist were the only indica-
tions that there something lodged between his firm buttocks. The
object itself was far enough inside him that there was no sign of
it. Only his movements showed that it was sufficiently deep to give
him pleasure. He wore it during our much-delayed breakfast, will-
ingly impaled and constantly aware that the thing was deep inside
his rectum, working its magic on his muscles and nerves.

It was his expressions that changed, from mild discomfort when
he first sat down to eat, to the realization that the thing buried
in his bowels was rubbing harder against his already prostate when
he leaned forward. At times he pushed back at it, forcing it out
through his sphincter until it filled his already well-stretched
anus and threatened to escape from the tight confines of his rec-
tum. His pleasure was readily apparent, although his arousal was
intense, it never peaked. It left him in a state of continual plea-
sure, awaiting the greater joys of anal intercourse. From his
expression I could easily tell when he used his internal muscles to
move it around, enjoying very familiar sensations that did not
diminish while the day wore on. He was happy, with or without
orgasm. If Austin had not tied the cord tightly, I was sure that by
the time our meal was finished, it would have either slid right out
by itself or disappeared up inside him.

By the time I cleared away the breakfast dishes, he was visi-
bly enjoying it. Unlike the previous afternoon, he made no effort
to take it out. Instead, when he stood up and it eased out far
enough to reduce his enjoyment he was quick to push it back inside
him. I made a mental note to check out the Internet to find a jun-
ior-size butt plug. There had to something in a `boy-size', even if
it meant buying one intended for a woman to use. It was about time
he graduated onto bigger toys. I got an erection just thinking
about him wearing a real one, ideally brightly colored and with a
rippled surface to simulate the real thing. I watched him amble
down to his favorite place, his buttocks pinching as he squeezed on
it. He walked uncertainly, as if he still felt my penis embedded
inside him. I poured the past of the coffee into the fireplace and
went down to join him.

As hot as it was, we stayed close to the creek. We played
together in the water, intending to finish the construction of a
dam to catch fish but mostly serving to hold water for us to lie
back in and splash each other. The next few hours passed quickly.
Since we had eaten breakfast so late in the day, we skipped lunch
and stayed in the creek where the overhanging trees kept the sun
away. For the rest of the day, like the previous day, we were
naked.

Just before three o'clock we stood up, knee-deep in the water
that had gathered in the dam. We were silent, suddenly feeling the
mutual need, reaching out, joining hand in hand like well-
acquainted lovers. We seldom talked beforehand. I gazed down on his
small tousled head, very aware of how much I loved him. Austin's
small fingers entwined with mine, his thumb locking around my thumb
and pressing it into his palm. It was his sign, the secret gesture
that conveyed what he wanted. He wanted to `do it'. My thumb was
held in his firm grasp just as he wanted my penis to be held within
his body. His thumb stroked possessively against mine. I sighed,
trying to decide whether I had ever experienced such intense happi-
ness. I was content, well almost content. Only one thing remained
for me to achieve complete and utter happiness.

With one hand I tilted his head back sufficiently that when I
leaned down, my lips could meet his. He was an accomplished kisser,
like me always preferring a very-wet French mode to merely touching
lips. I sucked his tongue into my mouth, duelling with it in a
playful game that had a single outcome. My other arm clasped his
buttocks, gently rubbing across the small rounded wooden knob that
still plugged his bowels.

"God, I love you so much," I whispered. "I think I would die
if I couldn't do this ever again, A-J."

Austin slurped his tongue over my face, from chin to forehead.
His hand tightened urgently on my thumb, demandingly, shamelessly
leading me on. He breathed heavily, barely exhaling before he
filled his lungs again. His hips moved slowly, a sensuous pumping
against my thigh, a motion that mimicked mine against his belly and
left no question as to what he wanted. That his thrusting caused
the plug to intensify the sensations in his bowels was entirely
deliberate. When he smiled at me, I was his to command. It was
always like that, building up to the inevitable, to a point where
there was no other option but to satisfy our mutual need. How often
had it happened that I could not remember any alternative. It had
always been this way it seemed.

Trembling with excitement, we returned to the tent and did
what we had done no less than 98 times before.

More than an hour of constant pummelling left Austin's anus
red and sore. In all, he peaked half-a-dozen times, each dry orgasm
racking his body. Again and again, until he was physically
exhausted, until he lay quiet and subdued, until his eyes closed to
mere slits, and then still demanding more until he breathed through
gritted teeth. It seemed he had no more to give, yet he would not
stop, not until I was done as well, and I intended to hold back as
long as possible. It was not that often that I had then stamina to
do it, postponing climax for the sheer pleasure of pistoning back
and forth within him and watching him contort in shameless eupho-
ria. Finally, in a furious burst, we shuddered simultaneously,
grunting and gasping as my penis pushed all the way inside him and
began to spurt. His bowels clutched at me as I pounded away, pump-
ing out my seed. And then, I collapsed over him. I was just sane
enough to keep my weight from crushing him.

My orgasm left me drained. I had emptied my testicles until
they hurt. It had been very enjoyable and a fitting way to end the
weekend. Austin also hurt, but it would last much longer. It had
been the result of his demand for more. He had begged me, imploring
deeper, harder thrusts until my penis was all the way inside him
and his anus was forced deeply between his cheeks. On the out-
stroke I dragged against him, pulling through his tender flesh as
my organ receded. At times it felt like I was tearing his small
opening out of his body. Back and forth until the rubbery band of
his sphincter had lost its resiliency. When I climaxed, it was
overwhelming. A vicious frenzy that lasted for nearly a minute,
frantic powerful thrusts that drained my energy and emptied my
gonads. Afterwards, it felt as if I had aged several years. It was
the 99th time and a wonderful way to end the weekend.

*************************************************************



"Are you going to answer my question, Dad?"

Her voice was raised, loud enough to get my attention if not
everyone else's. I glanced quickly around the restaurant, hoping
that we had not been noticed. At the same time, I tried to think of
something to say, anything. Tara seemed oblivious to my discomfi-
ture.

"Well?"

"Tara,... It's not what you think," I said awkwardly.

I glanced guiltily around the restaurant one more time. Other
than the woman working at the counter, two men in a corner booth,
and a trio of elderly tourists at a table near the front door, it
was deserted.

Tara smiled superciliously. "Oh, for goodness sake, Dad. Don't
even try to tell me it's not what I think."

I sighed and shook my head in disbelief that my relationship
with Austin had come to this. One wonderful year was reduced to a
miserable defense, to finding excuses for what had always been deep
and passionate love from the very start. Tara would never believe
that her little boy was capable of such intensity, of giving freely
and taking what he needed. It was not a simple matter of him being
sexually precocious, although his sexual urge was certainly far in
advance of his peers, or of me taking advantage of his innocence.
It happened because it was needed at the time. It fulfilled both of
us, satisfying a deep need. It took away the loneliness. For me,
the long years of living only for myself vanished overnight. Sud-
denly, I existed only for a little boy's happiness. Our love
emerged swiftly and blossomed within the space of just of few
weeks. I managed to keep the most depraved aspects of my lust under
control, although it was hardly in abeyance. Sometimes, in fact
very often, it was all I could do to control myself. It was far
worse when we were alone. I was tested every time when we were
together, alone. When intimacy occurred it was nearly impossible to
hold back the rush of emotions that would lead to the inevitable
conclusion I so much wanted to avoid and attain. It did not matter
whether we were lying on the couch together, my front to his back
with my nose buried in his silky hair, or sharing the joys of
mutual masturbation in my bed, the need to go further was always
there. I lasted until the physical need to be joined together was
simply overpowering. Then, when I finally gave in and suggested
doing something more, that final act that would satisfy my yearn-
ing, I was not surprised to discover he was also interested in that
perverted possibility as I was.

Austin had always been as eager as I was to explore the
unknown.

"Tara,..." I tried again. I breathed out in growing frustra-
tion. "It's not the way you think,... God,... I don't know. I don't
know what to say. I'm sorry."

"Sorry? You're sorry? That's all you have to say, Dad?"

"Of course I'm sorry. I just don't what else there is that I
can do."

She shook her head slowly, her voice toneless, filled with
sadness. "I trusted you with him, Dad."

"I know I betrayed that trust and I'm sorry. I don't know what
else to say," I muttered.

She stared at me mercilessly with her cold blue-gray eyes.
Like her son, she had beautiful eyes, although Austin's eyes were
far more expressive of his feelings. For a moment that hardness,
the resolve I saw there, seemed to soften.

"Look, I know I owe you a lot," she offered graciously. "I
didn't have a choice. You came through when I needed you most, Dad.
The kids and I wouldn't have made it these last twelve months if it
hadn't been for you. I really didn't want to come back here, but I
knew you would help us. That's why I came to you in the first place,
instead of going to Mom. You've done so much for us, much more than
I ever expected."

I shrugged and tried to act as if it was unimportant. I had
done only what any decent person would have done in the same cir-
cumstances. While it was my parental duty to help, my motivation
was much stronger. I was not wealthy by any stretch of the imagina-
tion, yet I was happy to share what I had with my daughter and her
sons, with Austin. To that day, I had never totaled up what I had
spent. Indeed, I had always thought of the entire thing as an
opportunity. In one way, buying the old three storey

building on River Street was a fortunate purchase for me as
well as helping her. It provided an office for my business on the
second floor.

Beyond my desire to provide for Austin and  Tristan, Tara's
welfare also had suddenly become my responsibility in a way.
"Smokey Mountain Tee Shirts and Sweats" was on the first floor. The
ramshackle apartment where she lived with Austin and  Tristan dur-
ing the week was on the third floor. She occupied both floors rent
free. However, that was only the start. Her business had also been
funded by me to the tune to $52,000 for equipment and operating
funds during the first year. Had I needed a tax shelter, it would
have been a good one. For the last month, she had broken even, and
the tourist season had yet to start in earnest. While it was the
first time, it implied continuing profitability was possible as the
season progressed.

"It doesn't matter, Tara," I said absently. "I only did what
any father would have done under the circumstances."

The cold look returned. "I've always wondered if you were
doing it as much for Austin as helping me out," Tara added.

I shrugged. "That was part of it I suppose. I am his grandfa-
ther after all. Someone needs to,..." I fell silent. I wanted to say
`love him', `take care of him', `be there for him'. The words
seemed empty.

"I thought you were good for him, Dad. Like a father would be.
Should be, at least." She closed her eyes as if unable to stomach
the very thought. "And I was happy to see it. He needed to get to
know you. You are his grandfather, after all. Now, you're the only
man in his world. That's why I didn't mind him spending his week-
ends with you. He,... he loves you."

I smiled slightly, happy to accept even slight praise.

"But this?" She sighed again, shook her head again, still dis-
believing.

"Tara,... It's,... I don't know how to say this. It's not
something I planned, or something I set out to do. It just hap-
pened. Things got out of hand."

"You can say that again."

"He's a wonderful kid," I added emptily. "I couldn't stop
myself."

"Yes he is a wonderful kid, despite what you've been doing to
him."

I wanted to tell her that simply was not true. If anything, it
was as much because of what I had been doing to him. I gave him
love, more love than person could reasonably expect in a lifetime.
Instead I closed my eyes and silently prayed that she would allow
me the time to kill myself before she informed the police. Suicide
was my only option. I could not drag Austin through the terror of
going to court and being forced to give evidence against me. In
contemplating death, there was a singular joy in knowing that
everything I owned would go to Austin and  Tristan. The boys would
not be rich by any stretch of the imagination, but they would have
more than enough to go to a good college when they were older.

"I always knew you were different, Dad," Tara said dryly. "I
just didn't know how different."

"Different?" I asked self-consciously.

"Oh, I knew you were gay, a long, long time ago, Dad. I mean,
I had to didn't I?" She regarded me. "Knowing what you used to do
with Phillip, I guess I should have expected something like this."

I winced uncomfortably. How much did she remember from her
childhood years? I did the math in my head. It was more than
twenty-five years ago. I was thirty when it started. Phillip was
just nine years old, so Tara had to be getting close to five years
old. It ended when Phillip was fourteen, when Tara was ten years
old. At that age, she had to have forgotten most of it, yet she was
old enough to remember some things. Did she remember how often I
slept in her brother's bed? Why had she never told her mother?

"I know what he was like, Dad. If it wasn't you, it would have
been someone else. It would have turned out the same. He was into
it just as you were. That's why I never said anything to anyone.
I've always believed that it just some temporary thing you went
through with him, because you and Mom were always fighting. I know
it stopped when he started high school," she continued dryly. "I
watched you, Dad. For years. I was scared you would,.... You did stop
after we moved away, didn't you?"

"I tried, Tara," I said simply. "God only knows I tried. I
didn't touch any other boys, but I wanted to. I didn't want to be
found out."

"You made him the way he is, Dad," she stated bluntly.

"Tara,... I don't,... Maybe I did make him gay. I don't know. Some
males are,... well they're born that way."

Tara shrugged. "He might have been able to convince Mom that
he was too busy for girlfriends, but he simply wasn't interested,
was he?"

"Not much," I agreed.

"Not much?" Tara repeated sarcastically. "Don't you mean not
at all?"

"I guess not at all."

"And I presume that you're gay too, Dad?"

"I'm not sure what I am."

"I would have said it was pretty clear. If you prefer to fuck
your own sex, then you're gay."

"I haven't, at least not with another man," I explained
weakly.

"Never?" Tara smiled slightly. "That's helpful. And I presume
the same goes for other women since the divorce."

"Okay," I admitted with sigh of resignation. "I haven't. So
what? That's unimportant. It doesn't make me gay."

"You mean besides being a boy lover and having a,... um, I
don't know. What would you call it, Dad? What you've been doing
with my son?"

"I don't know."

"An affair?"

"Probably."

"So other than having sex with little boys, you don't get
off?"

"It isn't like that. I haven't done anything like this
before."

"And you haven't had sex with any one else?" she asked tes-
tily. "Besides with Mom and Phil I mean?"

"Of course not."

"Never?" Tara asked in disbelief. I nodded slightly. "I find
that hard to believe. Well, I guess that's the only good piece of
news I've heard. At least he doesn't have to worry about AIDS."

"For God's sake, Tara. What sort of person do you take me for?
I would never put him at risk like that."

"At risk? You were always one for understatement weren't you,
Dad? I guess the big question is what happens now."

"Yes, I guess it is." I smiled weakly, not that I had anything
to be happy about. "All I can say is I'm really sorry. I'd like to
say it won't happen again."

"But you won't say that, will you Dad?"

I regarded her silently, filled with an inane dread that pre-
vented me from saying a single word. It was all I could do to
breath. I would not beg her to forgive me. It was not because of
pride. Perhaps that would have been the best course. Throw myself
at her feet and plead for mercy, implore her not to inform the
police. Somehow, I knew it would be a waste of effort. Her mind was
already made up.

"You never were any good at lying, Dad, especially about the
things that were really important to you."

I shrugged awkwardly, unable to deny the obvious truth.
Finally. Barely more than a muted whisper. "What are you going to
do?"

Tara pursed her lips thoughtfully. "Really, I don't know.
You're my father. Austin's grandfather. I know I should hate you. I
was so angry at first. Last night, when I saw the marks on his bot-
tom, I was ready to kill you. Then, as I talked with him, well,
I,... Now, I don't know what to do."

"If it makes any difference, I think you know that I care
about A-J a great deal, Tara. If you don't want me to ever see him
again, I'll understand."

"That's very generous of you, Dad. But then what happens? You
see, I've thought about it all last night. I'm quite certain that
won't solve anything. It's no secret that Austin is the most impor-
tant thing in your life."

"And?" I prompted with a vain hope that all was not lost.

"I also know he's very fond of you as well, and he's happier
now than I've ever seen him. I was glad that the two of you were so
close, Dad. He thinks of you more as his father than his grandfa-
ther."

"I think of him like that too," I said softly.

She appeared not to hear me. "He loves you a great deal. When
he talks about you, which he does non-stop, by the way, his eyes
light up. I'm surprised I hadn't figured out what it meant sooner."

"Figured what out?"

"What do you think?"

"I don't know." I wanted so badly to tell her what I was
thinking. I blurted the words out before I was able to stop myself.
I heard the pride in my voice, the deep-down conviction of what I
had known to be true for nearly a year."It's because he loves me,
Tara."

It was a different kind of love to the love that men and boys
were supposed to share. It was the kind of love that transcended an
emotional relationship, the kind of love that became intense, phys-
ical, sexual. It was not puppy love. It was the kind of love that
was against the law. Sometimes it happened anyway.

"That wasn't so hard now, was it Dad?" Tara smiled curiously.
She seemed to understand. "In his own way, I'm sure Austin does
love you. Of course, that's what makes this whole thing just more
difficult."

I smiled slightly. It was far more difficult than she could
imagine. If only she knew how much her son loved me, and how much
that love was returned in full measure. If I was forced not to see
Austin again, my only recourse was suicide.

"I guess so." I met her eyes. "I am sorry about what happened,
Tara. I didn't want you to find out like this."

"I'm sure you didn't." She shrugged ambiguously. "I'm being a
bitch, aren't I?"

I shook my head. "You have a perfect right to be angry. I
really am sorry. I didn't plan it this way. I couldn't help it," I
said after a few moments of silence. "I am what I am. I can't change
it, Tara."

"Meaning if you get the chance, you're going to keep on doing
it with him, I take it?"

I sighed. "Probably."

I slumped back into my seat. Even if I tried to resist as hard
as I could, I would not be able to stop myself.

"Probably?"

"No," I smiled weakly. "I think you'd better make that defi-
nitely."

"It doesn't bother you that having sex with you may not be in
Austin's best interests?" Tara asked suddenly, sarcastically. "He's
a nine-year-old boy, damn it! He's still so young. If you really
loved him, wouldn't you worry about that? About the possibility of
hurting him?"

"Of course I worry about it. I worry about it all the time.
Only it's not like that. What happens,... well, I'm very careful- I
don't expect you'll understand, but it's only because he loves me
and I love him that we do anything at all."

"And that makes it all right? It's okay for him to have sex
with you because you love each other?" she asked with cruel sar-
casm.

"No! I didn't say that."

"Then what are you saying?"

"I don't know. I'll do what ever you want me to do, Tara," I
pleaded. Tara raised an eyebrow. "Anything you say. If you want me
to move away, I will. I'll do what ever you think is in his best
interest."

"That's big of you."

Her sarcasm struck me and I shuddered inside. "God, Tara, I
love him. I love him like he's my own son. It's like,..."

"Don't! Don't say it! He's my son. He's your grandson. I can't
help that no matter how much I wish it wasn't the case."

"I'm sorry."

"God! He's nine! He's so young. He's a little boy! He's sup-
posed to be innocent."

I breathed out slowly. Would she ever be able to understand
that his age was unimportant? He proved that every time he melted
into my arms, so warm and soft and lovable, when he pressed his
hard little penis into my thigh and grinned impishly, when he
kissed with more passion than seemed believable and opened his lips
and sucked and slurped on my tongue, when he lay on his back and
pulled his ankles up to his ears. When he groaned and gasped as my
penis eased through his opening and filled him until he was barely
able to breath. When he whispered his words of love into my ear,
when he writhed uncontrollably, when he timed his frenzied gasps to
every thrust, when he screamed in shameless ecstasy. That was love.
Real love. Would she ever understand how a man could love a boy?

"Yes, he is," I mused. It was hard to think of Austin as being
innocent. Perhaps he had never been innocent. "Tara," I began ner-
vously. "There's one thing I have to say. I never forced him to do
anything he didn't want to do," I added.

"You're saying he's gay?" she demanded after my words had sunk
in.

"No! I'm not saying that." I took a deep breath. She had a
right to know. "All I'm saying is that he was willing. I didn't
force him to do anything. Phillip was the same way," I added.

"But he is gay, isn't he?" Tara asked nervously.

I could not lie to her, not about that. What Austin did, he
did only because he loved me. He did it because he was loved.
Already he knew he was different to other boys. He knew what he
was. He had never been ashamed of it, not like some boys. He simply
accepted that he could not change what he was.

"What do you think?" I asked. "You're his mother. You've seen
him every day of his life."

She closed her eyes. She tried to shake her head. She tried to
deny the obvious conclusion. "I,... I don't know," she managed
finally.

"Yes you do. Are you that ashamed of him?"

Tara breathed out. "God! No! No Dad! I'm not ashamed of him. I
don't,... Why, Dad?"

"Why? Why is he gay?"

"Yes."

"I don't know. I think that more than likely, he was born that
way. I'm sure Phillip was as well."

"Or because he didn't have a father around," Tara said guilt-
ily.

"Lots of boys don't have fathers and they don't end up gay.
No, Tara, it's not your fault. If it's anyone's fault, it's mine.
If I hadn't,... well given in to temptation."

"That's one way of putting it, Dad."

"He's a beautiful boy, Tara. You've said that yourself often
enough. Don't kid yourself that he doesn't tempt men like me. I've
even seen other men looking at him."

"God no! You don't mean,... Not again,..."

I started forward, the question forming before I realized the
meaning of her words. I bit my tongue. Her eyes wavered, looked
away, down into her cup of coffee as if the answer could be found
there. The silence hung between us.

"No. At least not yet! They've certainly looked at him, how-
ever. He's told me.

"He's told you?" she asked in exasperation.

"Yes. I've seen them too. It really doesn't bother him. Actu-
ally, I think he rather enjoys the attention. But eventually, I
expect there will be other men in his life. Hopefully not while I'm
around. I couldn't stand by and watch that."

Tara sniffed and looked up to meet my eyes. Something had
changed. "You really do love him don't you?"

"Of course I love him, Tara. I've loved him since I first saw
him. That night when you appeared my the doorstep with a black-eye
and that old busted-up suitcase, and two sleepy little boys."

Tara winced. "I haven't forgotten. God, I hate men!"

"Gee, thanks."

"Not you, Dad!"

I remembered that night above everything else. They had driven
almost halfway across the country (going north) in two days. Austin
was sick. He had vomited several times during the afternoon. Per-
haps it was something he had eaten at one of the gas stations where
she stopped for gas. He was very pale and constantly sniffling. I
lifted him up and carried him into my house, barely cognizant of
the strange feeling that swept over me. For some strange reason, I
thought of carrying a bride across a threshold, although his slen-
der body was more like a bird than anything else. That night,
eight-year-old Austin slept in my bed for the first time. His
mother and younger brother, suffering from symptoms of the flu,
slept on the couch in the living room. It turned out to be a good
thing, despite the fact that it started with an unfortunate inci-
dent that Austin had never quite forgotten. He wet the bed a few
seconds before he woke up from a nightmare. He soaked his 'super-
hero' pajamas from his knees to his navel, and he cried. I instinc-
tively presumed that his sobbing was caused by the ignominious
accident rather than the nightmare so there seemed little point in
comforting him until he was cleaned up. Taking off his wet pants
seemed like the best thing to do at the time.

*********************************************************



Austin lay on his back, whimpering as I unfastened the button
and methodically pulled his pants down. Even though I could see
nothing in the darkness, I felt a sudden strange surge of excite-
ment. It came just from knowing the beautiful little boy next to me
was exposed. My hands trembled slightly. I sniffed at his shirt,
immediately recognizing the tell tale odor of urine even though the
cloth was dry. From the smell I suspected that bed-wetting was a
familiar problem. I stripped the sleepy boy hurriedly, wanting only
for him to go back to sleep. I wiped him dry with the top and tossed
it on the bathroom floor with his wet pants. It was hard not to
smile as I settled back into the already cold damp bed. I shifted
away from the wetness, looped one hand around Austin's skinny waist
and pulled him against me. Instinctively my knees lifted up behind
his slender smooth legs, creating a full embrace and offering my
warmth to console him.

"It's okay," I whispered. "It was just an accident."

Austin was immobile. I imagined I could feel his heart flut-
tering. I could sense his shame. It was a perfectly normal
response.

"I'm sorry," he mumbled after nearly a minute had passed.

"Honey, it's not a problem. Try to go back to sleep, okay?"

"I'm sorry," he sniffed.

Suddenly, something within me changed. Until then, I had slept
alone. Just the physical contact with his soft skin charged my emo-
tions in a way that I had never felt before. I wanted desperately
for him to be happy. Unbelievable though it is, the undeniable fact
that slowly ventured into my mind was that I wanted him,...

"If you don't stop that, I'm going to tickle you until you
really cry," I chided gently.

"I can't help it!"

"It's okay, beautiful. Don't worry about it."

My hand closed on his bony hip and drew him closer until his
buttocks were hard against my groin. My penis lurched and immedi-
ately sprang to life. Within a few seconds it was fully erect. Per-
haps the added heat behind him was what caused Austin's reaction.
Certainly, I preferred to think that it was not the recognition of
my hardness. He wriggled, pressing back naturally as if settling
into a more comfortable position. I felt my penis being wedged
between his soft cheeks, parting the roundness to fill his hot
moist crevice. It was all I could do not to groan aloud. We lay so
tightly together that it seemed impossible that we could ever be
apart again. It was the first time we shared our body heat, yet
being so close together felt natural. I was overwhelmed by his soft
warmth, basking in the contact of bare skin, appreciating the unfa-
miliar intimacy, content yet not complete. Intuitively, I realized
what it would take to make everything perfect and I did not recoil.
Instead, I breathed deeply and tried to control a desire that raced
ahead.

A minute passed. Then another. It became warm between us, a
moist, human heat that sealed our flesh into one. It was impossible
to tell what was in Austin's mind, yet I knew he was as happy as I
was. His crying stopped. I felt his chest rising and falling,
slight stirring. He eased away until my groin was a few inches from
his buttocks. I was very surprised by what happened next.

His small hot hand inched between us. His fingertips grazed my
thigh, slid slowly downwards, caressed my pubic hair with a
feather-like touch. I heard myself sighing, a million thoughts in
my mind clamoring for attention. I froze, yet my body was incredi-
bly heated. My penis jerked, suddenly very stiff. How long had I
been erect? It seemed impossible, but I was. His fingers stroked
it, danced along the swollen hard length. The tip was poking into
his crack. It had been there all along, buried between two silky
smooth mounds, but now it was pointing directly at his anus, bur-
rowing into his enclosing heat. I felt it pulsing, swelling even
more as blood surged into it. I shuddered as his little fingers
pressed harder, his thumb encircling, holding me in his grasp. I
wanted him to move his hand, not to remove it. I silently begged
him to do it.

Instinctively, I flexed the shaft, jumping eagerly, hungrily,
almost unable to restrain the urge to move back and forth within
his tender hand. I knew he was thinking about it. His fingers
tightened, his thumb stroking the bulging veins. I wanted to push
against him, push my penis into the soft absorbing indentation,
push through the firm cheeks between which it was buried.

It was only when the final moment arrived, the slow pulling
against my skin as his hand began to creep down towards the base,
that I stopped him. My hand, shaking slightly from the sheer effort
of restraint, prevented his hand from moving further. I felt his
small body tense, uncertain of whether he was being denied or
encouraged.

"No," I whispered firmly. "Not now. Go to sleep, Honey."

His hand pulled back quickly, guiltily. I regretted the words
almost as soon as they were out of my mouth. How could he know what
I wanted him to do? He was eight years old. I breathed out, feeling
a strange sense of deja vu, wondering what would have happened if I
had not stopped him. My brain churned as I wondered whether I
should say something, anything to break the prolonged silence.

It was only a few minutes later that I realized from his slow
breathing that Austin had dozed off. By then, I knew what I should
do. I needed to be by myself to think about what had almost hap-
pened. What I was feeling, what I wanted to do, was incest. Was I
prepared to do to Austin what I had done to Phillip? The thought
chilled me almost as much as it made my blood run hotter. I had to
get away from temptation.

Not willing to risk him waking up again, I was unable to move.
Gently I stroked his bare flank, intensely aware of how much I
needed to touch him despite the implications. It was with great
trepidation that I finally succumbed and allowed my fingers to
gradually creep over his hip and across the flat mound of his
belly. His navel surprised me when my fingertips first grazed it.
It was an 'outie', a tiny whorl of tender lipped flesh that made me
shiver with anticipation of the other treasure, just a little lower
down his slender body. I swallowed, took a deep breath, tried
momentarily to convince myself that I was not going to do it, then
immediately submitted to an urge that was stronger than any I had
known. The five inches between his navel and the start of his boy-
sized penis seemed to take forever as my fingers slipped downward.

His skin was completely hairless and unbelievably soft. I
detected a slight swelling when my curious fingers neared his
penis, the roundness of a childish pubis, a tiny fold of delicate
skin that marked the junction of his male member. There I stopped,
my heart pounding frantically. Did I dare touch that special part
of him, appreciating that no one would know if I did. I listened
carefully, not wanting to detect any sound that might suggest he
was not asleep, hoping that he was awake, that I could deflect that
overpowering desire that had sprung up within me.

"God," I breathed.

I licked my lips, closed my eyes, felt myself being swept
along. It was impossible to believe I was doing it. My fingers
caressed his little penis. Soft, softer than anything I had ever
touched, except perhaps his scrotum. Even softer. Softer than warm
silk, soft like a baby is soft. Tender. Delicate. Impossible. My
hand trembled as I groped his tiny parts. His testicles were tiny,
barely large enough to distinguish under the sensitive folds of
skin. Back to his penis. Exploring with the tips of my fingers. So
short. Maybe an inch. Half of it was glans. Circumcised like Phil-
lip had been, circumcised like all boys I had ever seen. Child-
sized. Immature. Perfect. Unresponsive in sleep. I removed my hand.
I was breathing hard. My penis was as hard as forged iron. I
pressed up against his delicious buttocks, wriggling slightly to
position it between his little cheeks. Guilt and shame welled up
inside me. Finally, unable to stand being so close, I shifted away
and rolled onto my back. I needed to masturbate but I was afraid I
would wake him up. It was a long while before I could go back to
sleep.

***********************************************************



"Dad?"

"Huh?" I looked up again, expecting that she would see the
guilt in my face.

"Well?"

"Well what?" I shrugged. "Look Tara, I don't know what else I
can say."

Tara sniffed. "You haven't been listening to a word I've been
saying, have you?"

"Sorry. I was thinking,..."

She stirred her coffee despite the fact that the cup was
nearly empty. She filled it up again from the carafe, added some
milk and smiled.

"Did you fuck my brother too, Dad?"

"Did I what? You mean Phillip?" I asked awkwardly.

"Who else," she confirmed. I nodded. "Did you? Did he like
it?"

"What do you think?"

"I don't know. That's why I'm asking you. I knew you slept in
his room when I was younger. Even though you said you slept in his
room because there wasn't any where else for you to sleep when you
and mom were fighting, it wasn't that. I could hear sounds through
the wall. I knew you did something with him at night, but that's
all. I used to think you were wrestling with him. I didn't know the
details of what you did with him, but I knew it made him happy." She
smiled ruefully. "Both of you were always in a good mood. It was
like the two of you shared something special. I knew it had to be a
secret from every one, especially Mom. By the time I was old enough
to understand, you stopped going into his room."

"He got too old for me," I said bitterly. "It wasn't that I
didn't want to be with him."

"You were so close to him, Dad, right up to when he left for
college. It was because you had sex with him, wasn't it?"

"Probably," I reflected. "I loved him, Tara. If it hadn't been
for him, I don't know what would have happened to me. I want you to
understand something. It wasn't just about sex. I really did love
him. I know he loved me back. He proved it often enough. He
wouldn't have gone to college for one thing. He went because I
wanted him to."

"I always knew that you loved him more than me, Dad. It took
me a while to understand why."

I regarded her patiently and wondered where this discussion
was going. Tara smiled slightly and looked askew. Absently she fid-
dled with a strand of hair at her brow.

"Do you know where I was this morning, Dad?" she asked. She
examined her watch as if making sure of the time, calculating how
long she had been somewhere.

I shook my head. This was unlike her. Usually she came right
to the point. Austin was the same way. He didn't beat around the
bushes when he wanted something.

"I was at the library for more than an hour."

She regarded me with an unsettling stare. It was as if I was
expected to know why she had been at the library for nearly the
entire morning.

"I think I read just about everything they had on homosexual-
ity," she explained pointedly. Her hands tightened into fists.
"Most of it was,... well it wasn't what I needed. But there was one
thing I did see."

She closed her eyes and slowly shook her head in silent
denial, or perhaps in acceptance of some important truth.

"I didn't understand a lot of the article. It was about biol-
ogy and that other stuff, about chromosomes."

"Genetics?" I suggested vacantly.

"Yes. There was something about a theory that the gene was
carried by the mother, at least when it's inherited." She breathed
out slowly. "It makes sense, of course, when you think about."

"How?"

"Well think about it, Dad. It's the only way to explain Phil-
lip, and then Austin being that way too."

"I don't understand," I said simply.

"If the father carried it, then his son might very well be gay
wouldn't he?"

"I suppose so."

"And then he wouldn't get married and have babies, so it would
gradually die out. Instead, it goes on and on. I read stuff about
homosexuals going back to before Christ, Dad. So you see, it has to
be carried by the woman, if it's inherited."

"Maybe."

I suddenly understood what she was saying. Her mother carried
the gene and passed it on to her son. She also passed it on to her
daughter. My role was unimportant, at least in passing the gene to
the next generation.

"That could explain Austin, couldn't it?"

"I guess. I really don't know, Tara."

"Dad? What about  Tristan?"

"I don't,... Hell, I don't know."

"He's a lot like Austin," Tara remarked nervously. "You know
he is. I'm not blind. He's acting exactly like Austin did at the
same age."

"Acting how?" I asked awkwardly.

Tara reduced me to silence with a cold stare. I was supposed
to understand. I swallowed dryly. I had noticed a few things that I
had tried to disregard. He was seven years old, after all.

"If he is, he can't help it," I said gently. "You probably
don't remember what Phillip was like when he was young. You were a
toddler when he,..."

"When he what?"

I shook my head slowly. "Tara,... I don't want you to hate me
any more than you do."

"Tell me!"

"No!"

"Dad? I need to know. Austin,... and  Tristan too? God,... I don't
know what I did to deserve this."

"You didn't do anything. It isn't a bad thing, being gay. It
isn't a matter of doing something to deserve it. It isn't a punish-
ment. It happens. There's nothing you can do to change it. It hap-
pened to your mom and me with Phillip. In a way, perhaps he was
lucky that I was there. I understood. I could see the special side
of him, Tara, especially when your mother couldn't. He's always
been artistic. He's sensitive and loving, and gentle. Do you think
it really matters that he's gay? That some how it makes him infe-
rior to other men?"

"So is Austin."

"Only more so, if you asked me, Tara. He's very talented. He
can already draw better than either you or his uncle could when you
were the same age. He's done a few things that looked like he was in
high-school."

Tara licked her lips, dry, nervous, yet savoring an unpleasant
taste. "He's very good at drawing people, Dad. I've seen some
sketches he did of you."

"Oh!"

Tara smiled knowingly. "Yes, Dad, those sketches. I don't
mind. Art seems to run in the family. I guess if he's going to be an
artist, he might as well start getting used to drawing nudes. It
looked as if he did a better job in certain places by the way."

"Sorry," I said meekly.

She shrugged. "Dad?-." She took a deep breath. "It is my
fault, isn't it?"

"Your fault? Because of the genes and all? No, Tara. It's not
your fault. You're blessed with having a wonderful boy as your son.
Two wonderful boys in fact."

I wanted to stop there. I knew I should have stopped there. It
seemed that her anger had finally dissipated enough that we were
beginning to communicate again. The question was, what should I
say?

"Dad," Tara began hesitantly. I looked up. "Before when I
asked you about  Tristan? About whether you had done anything with
him? It was the truth, wasn't it?"

I nodded immediately. I hadn't touched  Tristan, not like
that. Not that I hadn't wanted to. He was very much like his older
brother. In some ways, he was even more exquisite, his features
softer, his eyes larger, his straight hair so blond that it was
like spun silver.

"He knows, though, doesn't he?"

       ******************************************************

#37 Saturday February 15 9.00 p.m. Papaw's place. He put him
in me when we were lying on the couch and watching tv. Better make
that I put him in me, because that's what really happened. Tris was
lying down on the floor so he couldn't see us, but I think he knew.
We were watching Toy Story. Papaw lasted thru the whole movie.



It was a bitterly cold day, with an occasional ice shower that
belonged much farther north. The roads were treacherous, and tour-
ists still ventured out to shop. On days like that it was better to
stay indoors, build a fire, and play games. It would have been dif-
ferent if  Tristan was not with us. Very different. Austin and I
would still have played board games, but we would have been naked
the entire time. That was one of the joys of being alone with him.
He liked being naked. Although he had always been uninhibited, even
something of an exhibitionist, since Thanksgiving, my grandson had
become demanding. He had also become sexually more aware, flaunting
his arousal whenever it occurred. It occurred a lot and it usually
provoked a similar reaction in me. He was becoming an extrovert,
and so long as it was in private, I had no problems with it.

However, with  Tristan spending all Saturday and a large part
of Sunday with us, we needed to cool it. With that as a guiding
rule, I reassured Austin that if an opportunity arose, we would
take advantage of it. I explained that  Tristan would probably
expect to sleep in the same bed as we did, and if he did, we would
have to behave ourselves until he was asleep.

And so we played games, not too different to our ancestors who
had lived in the nearby densely forested mountains of Tennessee, in
log cabins hewed from the wilderness. Yet unlike them, we had the
advantage of central heating and the fireplace was as much for dec-
oration as a means of providing heat. Unlike the boys of a hundred
years earlier, my grandsons were warm and comfortable, dressed in
fleecy sweat pants and tops and wrapped up in toasty blankets. We
alternated between Playstation, my Christmas present to Austin, and
kid's monopoly, checkers, and a number of other board games.

How often did Austin and I share looks, knowing looks that
conveyed our needs? It was very frequent, frequent enough that I
realized Austin resented his brother's presence despite the fact
that they were usually close. A few times I caught them whispering,
the spiteful tone of Austin's voice unmistakable. His brother
demurred, reluctant to take on his sibling when there was no chance
of winning an argument. My response? I probably made Austin's petty
jealousy worse when I pampered  Tristan. I helped him win at Monop-
oly, encouraged him to play Spiro-2 against his brother, and com-
forted him when he was trounced. We stopped for pizza shortly after
6.00 p.m. and settled down for the rest of the night to watch the
two movies I had rented.

It was only to be expected that they fight over which one to
see first, and naturally it fell to me to resolve the situation. We
resorted to the tried and true method of sibling dispute negotia-
tion-the simple version of drawing straws.

"It's T-J's turn to pick, isn't it?" I suggested hopefully.

Austin looked at his brother with contempt. "Papaw," he
whined. "It's not fair."

"Why not?"

"Cause he always gets his way."

"Do not,"  Tristan disputed hotly.

"Do so!"

"That's enough guys." I laughed. "Okay, both of you pick a
number between one and ten. The winner gets to decide," I inter-
vened.

Again, Austin looked testily at  Tristan. He had the advantage
in almost everything that they did. He expected that he would have
the advantage this time as well.

"Five!" he proclaimed swiftly.

Typical, I thought. He was always one to take the initiative,
and by taking the initiative, he had an advantage again.  Tristan
looked thoughtful for a moment.

"Hm,..." he said in his soft little-boy voice.

He pursed his lips. Smiled slightly. Looked at me, melting my
heart as he met my eyes. It was a questioning look, searching for a
hint. My gaze wavered, to Austin, back to him, trying to decide. He
was irresistible. I smiled, glanced at Austin again, a little
longer this time. It was the only hint that I dared to give, other-
wise I would awaken Austin's ire and he would go out of his to `pun-
ish' me.

He thought a little bit longer, his head tilted slightly to
one side. His expression was quizzical, amused, fully engaged.

"It could be six," he said softly. "'cause that's my age. Or
it could be nine too," he smiled. "Or it could be two `cause of both
of us, and you don't wanna play favorites."

I shrugged as nonchalantly as I could under the circumstances.
I had looked at Austin two times. Had he picked up on that as well?
If he said `six' or `seven' or `eight' he would still be closer
than his brother.

"It's him! I know it is. Nine!"  Tristan giggled.

"T-J got it. What movie do you want to see first?"

"The dog movie."

That settled that. Austin was irked. He sat on the far side of
the couch, leaving me by myself, or rather sitting next to  Tristan
who had taken up a position close to the fire. Austin gave me the
`treatment' for the best part of an hour before he relented.
Finally, he crawled across the couch, curled up, and placed his
head in my lap.

"You know something? You're spoiled rotten," I whispered in
his ear.

"Whose fault is that, Papaw?"

"Mine, I reckon A-J."

I grinned at him and he smiled back. It was his special smile.
The all-too-familiar knowing smile, the smile that he gave when he
expected something or wanted something, but wasn't about to ask for
it. I reached down and gently stroked the back of his neck. My fin-
gers played in the silky hair between his ears. He purred, murmur-
ing under his breath. I felt his warmth exhaled every time he
breathed. On the other side,  Tristan wasn't about to be left out.
He snuggled closer as well, demanding the same attention as his
brother.

So there I was, in Nirvana. A beautiful young boy on either
side of me, each wanting to be held close, caressed, given the
affection that every human needs. And I was content to provide it,
expecting nothing in return, nothing except the opportunity to bask
in their physical presence and ensure their happiness. I reveled in
their boyish softness, appreciating their inner qualities as much
as outer beauty. I was proud of the way they were growing up. It
seemed a very long time ago when they had first arrived on my door-
step. The movie ended before I wanted it to.

I eased Austin's head away and stood up to change the movie in
the video player. Behind me I heard lowered voices. Austin suggest-
ing, inviting, finally commanding him to take up a different posi-
tion for the next movie. It was a position that would relegate him
to lying on the floor and leave Austin and me together on the
couch. Not that I was averse to having Austin to myself, but momen-
tarily, I wondered whether I should even the balance. It wasn't
fair to the younger boy.

He slid off the couch, tossed his older brother one of the
blankets I kept on the side, and dropped down onto the floor a
half-a-dozen feet away from the fireplace. I came back to the couch
to find Austin grinning. His eyes flashed a warning. I knew better
than to enforce fairness. Being older had some advantages, and the
ability to order his brother around sometimes was one of them.

He stood up to make room for me. "Lie down, Papaw," he
instructed seriously.

I did. Austin sat down again in front of me. He stretched out,
lying full length before me. He pushed back slightly, wriggled,
shifted down a few inches, pushed back again. He glanced over his
shoulder, smirking crudely as he wriggled his buttocks and squeezed
back against my crotch deliberately.

"You had better put a blanket over us," I suggested quietly.

He nodded, half sat up, began an extended exercise of unfold-
ing the blanket, arranging, rearranging, covering us. All the
while, his bottom massaged my groin. I was hard, of course. He set-
tled back down again, exerting pressure where he touched me. I
could feel a slight movement. He was playing with himself, giving
himself pleasure as only a boy can. I smiled, nuzzled the top of
his head, resisted my instinct to take over. There were some things
that a boy was quite capable of doing for himself. The movie
started. His hand moved from in front him. It paused on his side,
slowly drifted along his thigh, reached down between us.

If you have never had a boy initiate sexual contact with you,
you will not understand the rush of adrenaline I felt. The incredi-
ble joyful surge of knowing, of being the source of his pleasure,
that I was the one person who he truly loved. His hand brushed,
lingered, slipped away guiltily or teasingly it was impossible to
tell. Then, without warning it returned. This time more aggressive.
Insistent. Grabbing my penis through my sweat pants. Holding it
tightly. Squeezing gently. I kissed the top of his head, willing
him not to stop there, silently encouraging. His hand pulled away.
He teased me. He always did. A little at first, always just enough
to get my attention, to let me know he was interested. Then coy.
Testing my patience. Playing his game. I sighed, feeling my excite-
ment increase exponentially.

His hand crept back. This time higher, slipping underneath the
elastic waistband, tugging away, pulling downward, exposing. He was
callous in a way. Most young boys fail to understand that a man's
much larger penis and testicles are just as sensitive as their
smaller parts. Perhaps they do, and it is just anther way that they
try to exert their maleness. My penis, so hard that it was painful,
caught in my sweatpants. Austin did not care. His hand yanked
eagerly, forcing penis and cloth to go where neither wanted to go.
My penis finally escaped its mistreatment and slapped back against
my lower belly. It seemed so loud to me that I even worried that
Tristan might have heard. He ignored us, intent on watching Woody
and the toys undertake military-style manoeuvres in preparation for
the arrival of Buzz.

His hand felt foreign when it first met my bare flesh. Warm,
strong, his small fist embracing, fingers stroking languidly. He
had masturbated me so often that he practically knew what to do in
his sleep. It was going to be messy, ejaculating over our clothes,
over the couch, but I didn't care. The clothes could go in the
washer, and the couch. Well, there was upholstery cleaner for that.
I took a deep breath as his hand glided up and down slowly. He
tugged against my glans, rubbed his finger over my oozing slit,
scratched a fingernail under the flared rim until I trembled. He
was very good at it. His fingers stroked along the extended length,
circled over the glans again and again, pulled against the loose
skin to extract more of my slick juice. I groaned softly. Like
this, if he kept it up, I would not last more than a minute. I
flexed that inner muscle that caused my penis to lurch. It was the
same muscle that Austin used to do his `dick dance', jerking it up
and down until we were both laughing. It had a different effect on
my. By squeezing down I was able to increase the sensations as much
as the flow of slime that seemed to be dribbling out of my penis.

He moved his hand away again. Cheated. I sighed. It had been
fun while it lasted. He eased away so that my was not pressed
against his buttocks. A moment later h moved again. This time I had
no doubt. He was pulling down the back of his sweat pants. I did not
need to touch him to know that his bottom was bare. I found myself
wondering `what next'? Was he really going to? Did he dare, while
his younger brother was only feet away? His upper leg lifted up,
dropped behind my legs. His lower leg pulled up close to his chest.
It was all I could do to stay calm. His hand reached behind him
again, took hold of my penis, pushed it downward.

Levered down, realizing what he was going to do, my hardness
increased. My heart pounded. Was he really going to go through with
it? I decided to leave it up to him. He wriggled, rubbing my penis
into his hot crevice, smearing my excretion over his opening. Every
few seconds he pushed back. Not hard, but not too gently either. He
was testing himself, trying to achieve penetration without hurting
himself. We had never done it dry. Once or twice we had used
saliva. It had not been very effective. He needed more lubrication
that spit could provide. But like this? The very possibility was so
far fetched that I believed it was a waste of time even trying.
There was no disputing that he had become a lot looser in the weeks
that followed Christmas, but he was still a boy.

Austin pushed back harder and grunted softly. There was no
question that my penis was burrowing into his tight hot hole, but
getting the head into his anus was a long way away from penetra-
tion. I squeezed down, clenching my muscles as I strained to get
more of the slipperiness to ooze out where it was needed. What I
needed was excretion on demand. What I had was an aching penis and
an over-eager boy intent on doing the impossible.

"Take it easy, A-J, or you'll hurt yourself," I warned as I
whispered in his ear. "We can do it tonight when he's asleep."

Austin shook his head slightly. I could not tell if he was
disputing the fact that he might hurt himself or whether he did not
want to wait until later. He pushed again, suddenly, forcing back-
wards, making it dig into him far enough that it occurred to me
that it might actually be able to go inside. He jerked away,
breathing quickly.

"You okay?" I whispered again. Austin's response was to nod
curtly. "I don't want you to hurt yourself, A-J," I added gently,
just loud enough to be heard.

"Don't you want to?"

"I didn't say that."

"Okay, you put him in, Papaw," he breathed.

"I think we need something,... to lubricate you."

"You've already got me real slippery," Austin chided with a
soft giggle. "Your slimy stuff is leakin' all over me."

"Are you sure?"

"Just go slow, Papaw. I'll tell you if it hurts."

Doing it `dry' is something that should carry one of those
`don't do this without adult supervision' warnings. At the very
least, the adult needs to be careful, patient, and very attentive
to the boy's reactions. You can tell a lot from a whimper or a moan.
I was all of this and more. And it worked, not that it was `dry' by
any normal sense, because it was far from it. Moving slowly, gen-
tly, never pushing too hard, taking more care than I could remember
taking in the past, letting him adjust at his own rate. The first
inch was easy, a bit like inserting Part A into Slot B, because the
tip of my penis slipped right into Austin's anus. It had been that
way ever since he had become used to it, months earlier. However,
getting past his outer sphincter was a lot harder. It was also dif-
ferent to when we used K-Y. Then, the special lubricant reduced the
friction to manageable levels. This time, we relied on nature's
lubricant.

We depended on my secretions more than ever before. While
there was a copious discharge, it was a long way short of what we
usually needed. The solution? Lots of gentle prodding, back and
forth, massaging his opening with my glans while I tried to force
out more of the slippery fluid. It came, as nature intended it to
be expelled, leaking a droplet at a time. My slow cautious thrust-
ing served to spread the slime around Austin's anus, loosening him
enough to allow a little more of my penis to enter him. He was very
quiet, concentrating, focusing on his enjoyment, oblivious to the
sight and sounds of the television. Occasionally, he rotated his
pelvis, working against my erection, trying his best to get the
head of my penis through the constricting band within him. Tight?
Yes, he was tight, but the sensation was also unbelievably good. A
few times, when he winced or barely stifled a groan, I almost
stopped. It was all I could do to keep the pressure on, pushing
firmly, not giving way when his sphincter tightened and squeezed
resolutely. He could not stop his body's impulsive rejection, but
each time when the spasm faded, he had weakened, and he relaxed as
much as he could to enable me to recover any ground we had lost.

Fortunately there was no rush. Embedded partially, I stopped
pushing and held his hips so that my penis stayed in place. Austin
assisted by levering his upper leg behind my thighs, keeping us
together like a `G-clamp'. We stayed like that, waiting until
nature achieved what brute force could not. Minutes passed. Long
minutes. I watched the movie with vague interest, grateful that my
penis remained erect. We tried again while we watched Buzz and
Woody get into trouble at the Pizza restaurant. It came with a
rush, oozing copiously when it was most needed. I held him tightly,
contentedly, very aware that my penis had finally penetrated. I had
taken a long while to get that far. Another push beyond his barrier
and Austin gasped despite his best efforts to be quiet. He always
gasped when I breached his rectum, pushed through his inner muscle
into the lush heat inside him. I felt his sphincter clamp down
behind my glans, but it was too late. I was inside him. A few more
minutes and he would be unable to stop me, even if he wanted to. We
were much more relieved than excited by that point.

"What was that?"  Tristan demanded as he twisted onto his
back. He studied us with a questioning look.

"Nuthin'," Austin managed to get out.

"What are you guys doin'?"

"Just watch the movie, Tris,... like I told you," Austin replied
haughtily.

I squeezed his thigh even as I prepared to withdraw should
Tristan begin to get up from the floor. He tightened instinctively,
closing his anus to keep me there. Luckily, his brother shrugged
and rolled back onto his side to watch the television again.

"Okay A-J?" I asked quietly.

Austin nodded, pushed back again, breathed deeply as he felt
my penis slowly, forcefully expanding inside him. There was even
more slipperiness than there had been before we disturbed  Tristan.
As much as an inch had slid through his still tight orifice. He
stopped, trembling. He tried to control his body's response, eyes
closing to mere slits, teeth clenched, willing the pain to go away.
I flexed my penis and he shuddered as it jerked inside him. For
some reason, a memory from many months earlier drifted back. He had
been a virgin then. Still, as in all our sexual experiments, he was
eager to find out how it felt. He knew what to do. He had always
knew what to do even if he did not know how to do it. It was as if
he came preprogrammed from the womb. Taking my penis into his body
was the ultimate goal. He would try again and again, placing my
penis at his opening, inserting but not too far, just far enough
that he felt himself being stretched open. He would hold his
breath, trying to stop himself from pushing it out again. He wanted
to have it inside so badly that he couldn't stand it. He used to cry
when he finally gave in, conquered by pain.

It was different now. He had attained his goal. He knew what
to expect. Every few seconds, his body shuddered. It was sudden,
spontaneous, random spasms igniting. A little deeper, then out
again. Exquisite pain, nearly but not quite becoming pleasurable,
always tortured by his desire to keep on. Getting looser. A little
bit at a time. Barely noticeable. Trying not to push too hard or go
too deeply. I could feel his stress, waves bursting, washing over
him, settling closer until our bodies were tightly pressed
together. Stopping then, waiting, breathing as one, sharing our
heat. I could feel his pulse, his heart beating. So alive. Incredi-
ble heat. Soft, yet hard. Pulling on me. Pushing back ever so
slightly.

"I love you."

The words were whispered because neither of us wanted  Tristan
to hear, to raise his interest enough that he might decide to get
up of the floor. Watching him watch television. Our secret was safe
for the moment. We were joined. My penis was inside his hot squeez-
ing canal. It was part of him. My lips brushed over his head,
delivering a thousand kisses to his hair, his ears, the nape of his
neck, the soft skin of his bare shoulder.

The movie droned on, endless despite the animation. Barely
moving, an occasional gentle pressure that served as an inward
thrust. No sudden pushes. A broken sporadic rhythm that was mea-
sured in fractions of an inch. He quivered, then quaked when my
penis reached all the way, deep and unyielding inside him. I
levered it against his innards, stretching the taut tube of his
rectum, pressuring his bladder and the tiny gland beside it. It was
immature, but not without its unique sensitivity. If I did it more
than once or twice in quick succession it produced a muted whimper,
a sudden shiver, a hasty gasp. He was close to the edge. We both
were.

Inside his rectum, it felt very slippery for being `dry'.
Sometimes, when we postponed relief, took our time and used my
penis to loosen his bowels, he became soft and mushy, but that was
when we used K-Y. This was different. Softness was replaced by
slick firmness. `Canal' and `anal', strange how close those two
words are in meaning as in spelling, so essential to the conduit to
the very core of his being. My penis reached up into him, into that
special place, the pleasure zone reserved for men and boys. We did
not need to move back and forth. Just being there was enough. Yet,
I seldom stopped completely.

Time stretched. By that, I mean time did not drag on and it
certainly did not stop. Instead, sensations became extended, drawn
out along my elongated organ, moving at a snail's pace on a film of
snail-mucus. However, like anything stretched, time also recoiled
like a spring. It returned in a rush every time I found myself
pulling back from an orgasmic chasm. Never a problem for Austin.
Little boys are like that. Endless arousal, going well beyond the
point of being painful before they call a halt to their torment.
When he became agitated I would slow, retreat, tend to his discom-
fort with gentleness. He recovered quickly even when he peaked and
achieved that temporary relief that is associated with immature
orgasms. That night was no different. He came one time when I was
not paying attention, and then came again when I was too concerned
with postponing my ejaculation to worry about him.

It made him cry. That was usual for Austin. A whimper, like
air escaping as his buttocks clamped, twitched and quivered with
the sudden onset of orgasmic spasms. Sometimes he held his breath
until it was over. At other times he gasped for air, lifting his
body from his ankles to his shoulders off the bed as he arched in
silent surrender to the rushing current. He would be quiet after-
wards, sometimes only for a minute or two, at other times lying
exhausted from the stress until he fell asleep. That night, like
most nights, he dozed sleepily and I dutifully stayed inside him.
Even limp, my penis was long enough to maintain the connection if
we stayed close together.

The movie ended.  Tristan clambered groggily to his feet and
stood uncertainly surveying us. I wondered what was going through
his head as he looked at us. Could he even begin to understand what
we had done, and in a way, were still doing.

"You'd better get to bed," I said gently. "It's way past your
bed time."

"Why can't I stay up?"  Tristan whined. "He is!"

"He's nearly asleep. It's late as it is," I returned. "I'll
carry him in to bed in a while, T-J."

"Doesn't he have to do his teeth?"  Tristan demanded petu-
lantly. He was always afraid of being left out of what he perceived
to be either fun or an adventure.

"Yes. He'll do them before he goes to sleep, T-J."

"What's that smell?"

"Huh? What smell?"

"Can't you smell it? `s weird."

"No. Maybe it's me. I cut one a minute ago."

I felt Austin strangle his mirth. There was no sound, merely
the tense quiver of his body as he held back from laughing. We both
knew what that smell was. It was much stronger under the blanket.

"Can I sleep in your bed tonight too, Papaw?"  Tristan asked
distantly.

"Papaw?-" Austin complained tiredly. "Make him sleep on the
couch, please."

I smiled. It sounded as if the night was far from over despite
Austin's otherwise sleepy voice. He was increasingly like that. I
was beginning to realize that once was not enough for Austin.

"Why should I?"  Tristan demanded.

"'cause you move `round too much."

"No more `n you do. Papaw?"  Tristan retorted instantly.

His voice challenged me not to play favorites. It was hard not
to give in to that softly spoken request, so superficially inno-
cent. He had slept in my bed before when both of the boys stayed for
the night. When he was like this, saying `no' would get his atten-
tion as much as anything we might do during the night.

I gave in with a shrug. "It's okay, A-J," I said quietly.

He looked at me, a little angry, eyes pleading, nostrils flar-
ing with each breath as he tried to control himself from blurting
out the real reason why he did not want his younger brother in the
same bed. I smiled at him, reassuringly, tried to communicate that
he should stay calm.

After a moment he shrugged, wriggled slightly, pulling his
anus against the only part of my penis that remained inside him. I
felt him tighten, squeezing with those wonderfully strong muscles,
ejecting my maleness from the hot tube of his rectum. Ousting my
penis was the only way that he could show his annoyance. It was
followed by a little wet-sounding fart, gurgling through the fluids
I had so recently deposited inside him.

"Gross,"  Tristan said as he wrinkled his little snub-nose.

Austin was ready to scream at him. I could sense the tension
in his body, the nervous energy about to break loose. I placed my
hand on his hip, caressing him lovingly under the blanket, slowly
slipping down to cup his small soft buttock, trailing my fingers
into his hot crevice, seeking, finding the spongy looseness that
identified his opening. It was slimy, oozing out of him. My hand
moved to his other cheek. It was pressed against my thigh, not dry
and warm but hot and wet, slippery like an eel. There was a good
chance that there would be wet marks on the couch beneath him. I
liked him like that. So full of my semen that it dribbled out of
him, so loose that I could thrust my penis in nearly all the way and
have no fear of hurting him.

"T-J, you go do your teeth," I said firmly. "And put you jams
on."

"Do I have to wear jams?" he asked cheerfully. "Why can't I
sleep in the nude like you and A-J?"

"Because he's older," I answered.

"I can sleep in your bed?" he implored.

"Yes, I already said you could."

"Papaw?" Austin whined. "He's a pain in the goddamn,..."

"A-J!" I exclaimed curtly. "Behave yourself."

I squeezed his buttocks deliberately. Despite what he might
think, I wasn't finished with him, not by a long shot. However, if
anything happened while  Tristan was in the bed, we would have to
be very careful.

His younger brother wandered off, meandering with that dreamy
unfocused look that both boys had when they were sleepy. Austin
sulked, lying very still, not speaking. Without seeing his face I
knew his bottom lip was pushed out. It was how I knew he was pout-
ing. Luckily, his bad moods seldom lasted more than a few minutes.
"You sure squirted a lot that time, Papaw," Austin said gleefully.

"Yeah, I guess I did," I admitted.

It was impossible not to be proud of what we had done. At
first glance, it was easy to think that it was physically impossi-
ble. A grown man's penis fitting inside an eight-year-old boy's
rectum defied nature, or at least it seemed that way. Physically
impossible at first glance. That after only a few brief minutes it
could move back and forth so freely, give so much pleasure to both
of us and produce such incredible sensations that there seemed to
be nothing else living for, made it nothing less than a miracle. It
was more than just having sex. It was confirmation of our love. My
semen was inside him, or at least some of it still was inside him.
Part of me had become part of him. Perhaps it had gone deep enough
into his intestines that it been absorbed into his blood-stream.
Genetically related, bodily connected, spiritually bonded.

I smiled happily, contentedly. There was no satisfaction, at
least none that I knew of, that compared with being inside the boy
I loved. We shared far more than words could ever describe. It made
life worth living, gave purpose where none had existed for many
years, made me complete.

Lovingly, I patted his firm rump.

"You have a hot little ass, A-J," I said.

He giggled the way he always giggled. I felt the familiar
surge in my heart, the deep engaging love that came knowing that he
was mine, and that he loved me. Lovingly, I eased my thumb between
his firm rubbery cheeks, seeking the slick moistness and the heat
of his crevice. My thumb slid along the depth of his semen-streaked
fissure, locating the spongy entry. It was still wide open. In just
a few minutes it had begun to resume a more normal appearance, no
longer gaping but still a larger concavity than it was supposed to
be. I pressed into the hollow, testing the weakened verge. It was
tender. It was always tender afterwards. No matter how I wished it
was not the case, there was always a ring of blue-green-brown
bruises that matched the girth of my penis. My thumb gently circled
his anus, rubbing in the lubricious flesh. It would have been very
easy to penetrate him again. Austin groaned softly, wriggling back
slightly, pushing deliberately, encouragingly. He often did that
just to greet me, to let me know that he was willing and eager.
Sometime during the last few weeks be had become insatiable.

"We'll do it again when  Tristan's asleep," I added placat-
ingly. "If you want to, that is."

"Sure. I reckon you oughta know what I want. Wake me up, if
you gotta, Papaw," Austin said with a soft sluggish sigh.

I rubbed around his little weakened orifice, not too hard, not
trying to get my thumb deeper than it already was. I was satisfied,
if only until we got into bed, until  Tristan was asleep. The urge
would come back again soon enough. For the time being, my sole rea-
son for being was to pleasure Austin, to reward him for giving me
the greatest gift of all. As my finger rotated, massaged the tender
rim of his anus, he sighed deeply. I felt the wetness oozing from
his body every time that I pressed into the breach. I pushed again,
curiously, fascinated by the wet suction that had formed against my
fingertip. It felt as if his anus was French-kissing my finger.
More wetness seeped out, drawn from the depths of his rectum by my
pumping motion. There appeared to be more semen inside him than
ever before. I had expected some, but not as much as this. My thumb
squelched in the soft, juicy tissue and Austin groaned, forced down
with his inner muscles, exerted the pressure necessary for defeca-
tion. A wet gurgle of air escaped. I smiled, thinking of later on
when we would be joined together again. Would he want to repeat the
events of the previous weekend, leaving it inside him all night?
Yes indeed, he was definitely insatiable.

"Maybe you ought to wake me up this time instead," I sug-
gested.

"Why?"

"'cause it's getting harder to keep up with you. I'm too old.
I think I'm worn out."

"You're not old, Papaw." Austin smirked as he delivered the
coup de grace. "You're ancient."

"Very funny." I smiled back at him. Playfully I squeezed his
bare rump. "Come on, let's go brush our teeth and get ready for
bed."





"He knows, doesn't he?"

"Huh? Who knows?  Tristan? You mean he knows about us?" I
asked cheerlessly.

"Does he, Dad? Does he know what you've been doing to his
brother?"

I shrugged, knowing that I had to answer her sooner or later.
With the truth? Was it better that she heard a lie? Had Austin told
her? It was so long ago, perhaps he had forgotten. Had it really
happened? I breathed out slowly, trying to think, realizing the
impossibility of applying reason to what was so obviously unreason-
able. Shake my head. Deny the fact. All she had was conjecture,
assumptions.

"Well Dad? Does  Tristan know?" She paused a moment, perhaps
she was as reluctant as I was to accept the truth that my silence
conveyed.

"Tell me what happened?" she persisted.

"Uh,... there's not a lot to tell," I began awkwardly.

"Did he see you?"

I wanted to shake my head again. Slowly, I nodded. For a
moment, she half-closed her eyes. Nodding, almost accepting the
inevitability of it. Common sense told her that after almost a
year,  Tristan had to have seen something.

"What did he see, Dad?"

What did he see? I was not absolutely sure. Enough, that was
certain. Enough to know that his older brother and I were doing
something unexpected. I did not know how long he had been awake.
All I knew was that he had not lying asleep the entire time.

"He saw us, okay."

"And?" she prompted.

"And yes, we were having sex," I added awkwardly.

"How could you, Dad?" Her voice was pained and I looked away
guiltily.

"I didn't plan it that way," I tried to explain. Even to me,
my voice sounded weak.

"I hope not." She smiled a little, barely moving the corners
of her mouth. "It was during February wasn't it? That weekend that
I went away to Asheville?"

I nodded once, then again, remembering. I had offered to take
both of the boys to help her out, to give her some time by herself.
I was well-intentioned. However, even the best intentions often
went awry. I should have known better. I should have known that
something would happen. I should have known that things would get
out of hand.


       ******************************************************


#38 Saturday February 15 2.00 a.m. or thereabouts. My place.
God! What a night? I actually got my cock all the way into A-J while
Tristan was still awake. We couldn't do much, so A-J fell asleep
with my dick still inside him. I fucked him on and off but I didn't
cum. I'm sure I slept part of the time. Nothing rough. We finished
up four or five hours later.  Tristan was awake at the end. It
frightened the hell out of me, seeing him sitting up watching over
my shoulder. He probably woke up while we were doing it hard. He
wanted to know what we were doing. He thought we were `making
babies'. He seemed to accept fucking was something A-J and I did to
have fun when we couldn't sleep.



At night, when I was in bed with Austin, I was always consumed
by desire. Unless a person has felt the intense need that comes
from loving a boy, the word `desire' has no meaning. For me, boy-
love was overpowering, all conquering. It was so strong that there
nothing I could do to resist the urge. There were times when I
tried to stop. Being naked in bed with A-J was a bit like standing
before a a tidal wave, thinking you could hold back the flood. As
always, I ended up losing. I always yielded when he took the lead.
It was more than a old man's yearning for the warm soft flesh of
youth. It was irresistible lust that night.

I watched Austin shed his clothes, grinning as he discarded
them haphazardly on the bathroom floor, until he was stark naked, I
was Priapus-like with an erection that any man my age would have
been proud of. He cavorted before me, fully aware of the effect he
had on me. He flirted shamelessly, draping his underpants over his
little love-spike. I tried to concentrate on brushing my teeth, yet
when Austin came up beside me and began to brush his teeth, all I
could think of was the sweet freshness of his boy's breath and the
delicate softness of his lips when he kissed me.

He gargled loudly, smirking gleefully as he dribbled foamy
water into the basin, showing me the pure white of his teeth. Per-
fect in every way. He wiped his face dry with a towel, still with
that irresistible smile of his that left me powerless. He darted
over to the cabinet, searching through my medicines and other
things until he found what he was looking for. For the life of me,
I could not remember putting the tube of K-Y there. He found it
even as I was about to tell him it probably was not there.

He almost always took a controlling role when it came to
applying the lubricant. Getting himself ready was, as he put it,
his `job' because he `might be dirty'. He used lots, probably twice
what he needed to, but I did not have the heart to stop him, or sug-
gest that he use less. I could easily clean up the excess. I was not
surprised, therefore, when he removed the cap, lifted his right leg
up onto the side of the bath tub and placed the end of the tube
between his cheeks. It was cold, so cold, that he winced as he
squeezed the bottom half of the tube with his small fist.

Then, almost as instinctively, he straightened up again, smil-
ing gleefully at me as he replaced the cap on the tube.

"Cold?" I teased.

Austin wrinkled his nose. "An ice-cube would feel better."

"Do you think you got enough inside?"

"I reckon I did. You want me to put some on him, Papaw?"

"If we need more, I've got some next to the bed."

With a quick flick of his very-stiff penis, he dropped his
underpants on the tiled floor next to his shirt. He stepped clum-
sily into my embrace, my arms outstretched, enclosing him, pulling
our bodies together, his legs astride my right thigh. He wriggled
against me, rubbing his hardness into me. Playfully, I squeezed the
two halves of his buttocks together. It was a one-handed task,
although my fingers were stretched apart as far as they could go.
Then, my middle finger traced the line of his crevice, lingering at
the base of his spine.

"Carry me, Papaw," Austin instructed sleepily.

I scooped him up, one arm beneath his back, the other support-
ing his knees. So light. Sixty pounds? Maybe a little heavier? His
arms locked around my neck and he clung to me as I started into the
bedroom. The only light on in the room was the bed lamp on my side
of the bed. As we came around to that side,  Tristan rolled onto his
back and sat up.

"Why's he bein' carried?"  Tristan demanded groggily.

"'cause he's sleepy," I explained.

It was not unusual for the boys to exhibit some petty jealousy
when they thought they were competing. Not that there was a lot for
them to compete over. As a result, I went out of my way to try to
maintain a balance and avoid indulging them. It would have been
very easy to spoil both of them, even easier with Austin given our
relationship. I wanted to pamper him, to give him things that
showed how much I loved him. Instead, I held back. Alone, I coddled
him, treated him with a special familiarity, let him know that he
was cherished. I switched off the lamp and sat as close to the cen-
ter of the bed as I could manage, then eased Austin down onto his
side before I lay down. A boy on either side of me. One boy was cool
to touch. He was naked as the day he was born. The other boy was
already warm under the comforter. The slightest caress of
Tristan's nearest flank confirmed that he was dressed only in his
underpants. Paradise, by any other name.

They squirmed closer at the same time, each taking an arm to
lie his head on. I drew them even closer, until their legs were
against me, wrapped my arms around their shoulders, stroked bare
satin-smooth skin, fondled the silk-like hair on the nape of their
necks. For a while I would have to remain on my back, but it would
be even longer before I managed to fall asleep that night. A minute
passed. Two. Three. Many more. I lost track of the time. In the
darkness, time became endless.

"Do spoons, Papaw," Austin purred in my ear.

`Spoons'? He wanted more than spoons. I knew what he wanted.
He did not have to say it. A boy does not lubricate his anus with K-
Y jelly without wanting that. I felt his warmth, melting my
resolve. Reason said `wait', at least wait until  Tristan was fast
asleep. Carefully, just in case  Tristan was ready to drop off, I
turned onto my side. Simultaneously, Austin also rolled onto his
side so that my front was against his back. He wriggled down
slightly, pulling his knees higher, nearly to his chest, assuming
the position we used at night.

`Wait'! `WAIT'! WAIT!! The voice inside my head was unable to
stop me. He squirmed again, shifting back, bringing his buttocks
into the concave curve of my body. Not touching. Not yet.

I smelled the scent of his hair, lingering from the last time
he had shampooed. I smelled the sweet sweaty smell of a young boy.
Fresh. Alive. Hot. I could feel the steady rise and fall of his
chest as he breathed deeply. I felt his small hot hand slip between
us, exploring cautiously, seeking my penis with his outstretched
fingers. I was soft, useless, nervous with his brother so close
behind me. He squeezed, stroked, coaxed the blood to flow and fill
it. His thumb rubbed, teasingly playing in the groove around my
glans, fingernails lightly scratching. Tempting it to come forward.

There were some nights when I took Viagra. Not often. Austin
did not know, and more than likely would not have understood. Erec-
tions for him were nearly instant, if not yet spontaneous. It only
took a few seconds before he was hard. A minute at most before the
inner shaft was inflexible. Then it felt like a half-inch steel
bolt sheathed in baby soft skin. That wonderful part of him, that
part defining his gender, that part was the part that I loved the
most. It functioned to be loved, if not to make love in the future.

"Papaw?"  Tristan whined from behind me.

"Shut up," Austin growled.

At eight years old, his voice was anything but menacing. How-
ever, in produced the desired reaction in his younger brother.
Silence. Austin's hand grasped my penis. His little fingers glided
up and down, tugging on the rounded end as he completed every
stroke. He knew that the glans was the most sensitive part of a
penis. He knew what to do. He was persistent.

Slowly, surely, my penis shrugged off its sleepy stupor and
began to grow firmer. It lengthened, stretching out into Austin's
hand, expanding, hardening. He squeezed deliberately, triumphantly.
His first objective was attained. I listened carefully, hoping to
hear the sound of a boy slumbering, slow deep breathing from behind
me. No sound. Awake? Asleep? Might be either. Should I stop Austin?

His right hand had placed the tip of my penis where it needed
to be. His left hand was between his thighs, positioning my penis
from underneath. His pelvis pushed back. His fingers spread his
cheeks, opening the way. I felt his moist heat. My penis was a
heat-seeking missile. I smiled to myself. It was something that
Austin might have said. I felt his encompassing softness. The meet-
ing of flesh, engaging, joining, marrying our bodies. I felt the
slipperiness before my penis, realized that he had been using his
sphincter muscle to push the lubricant out, already sliding further
and I had yet to push. I stayed still, letting him do all the work
until the tip was past the tight area. It wasn't anything like his
first time. Austin rotated his hips, working himself down onto it,
pushing the head of my penis into his rectum, wanting it deeper,
driving the now-thickened stake all the way into him.

He stopped when he was past the halfway point. There was no
stopping now. I felt him breathing deeply, trying to control his
spasms, resist his muscles efforts to reject what he had worked so
hard to accomplish. My heart was pounding. All I had done was to
lie there. I was drained, as much by the wonderful sensation of
impaling him as by the knowledge that  Tristan was lying right
behind me. His slender arm was draped over my hip. Barely inches
away from his fingers, my penis was held tightly within his
brother's body.

Now it was my turn. It was hard, wonderfully hard. It was dif-
ficult to penetrate further without moving my hips. Even the
slightest movement on my part might have aroused  Tristan's atten-
tion. So I lay as still as I could, placed my right hand on Austin's
hip, my other arm under his shoulders, and pulled him down and onto
me. Another inch inside him. A little muffled gasp escaped his
lips.

"W'as that?"  Tristan demanded groggily.

"Nothing, T-J. Just go to sleep. I'm just getting comfort-
able," I answered over my shoulders.

So tight, so wonderfully tight. His body has a vise-grip on
mine. It squeezed. Seemingly relentless, yet easing as he relaxed.
Each time he did so, I pulled against him, keeping my penis ramrod
stiff and pointed in the right direction. By then it was far
enough. I felt him shudder, his body wriggling as he tried to pull
away. It was usually like that when my penis first nudged against
his prostate. It always took some getting used to. It was time to
be patient. He needed time to adjust, for his body to stretch, for
his sphincter to slacken far enough that greater movement was pos-
sible.

"G'night,"  Tristan cooed softly.

"Good night, beautiful," I answered. "I love you."

"Love you too, Papaw," he faded off.

Anyone who has slept with a boy like  Tristan, knows what I am
talking about. For an hour he could lie perfectly still, unmoving,
barely breathing, not stirring in the slightest. He has to be
asleep because no one can stay awake and not move at all. But
Tristan could, and did. He did that night. He exhaled with an occa-
sional slight sigh, the same way that his older brother did when he
slept on his back. I gave up waiting. I was too tired to care. I
waited a few more minutes and carefully eased back. My penis
stretched like a worm, a worm caught in a hole, pulling gently.
Instinctively, the little opening closed, young muscles clamping,
holding my penis captive.

"I love you," I whispered.

"Uh huh." He was very close to falling asleep. "Love you too,
Papaw," he murmured. He sighed softly. "Don't take him out, `kay."

Nothing stopped me, nothing except his subdued voice. I set-
tled closer, placing my hand on his hip, then around his lower
belly. I kept my distance from his sex. I wanted only to keep us
together, to prevent us from separating during the night. I lowered
my head into the pillow beside his, nuzzled the silky hair on his
neck, kissed his bare warm shoulder, and told him that he was my
`lover boy'.

I woke up again in the middle of the night. Hard. Still inside
him. So hot. So alive. So tight. I was too tense to move. I counted
off the seconds, minutes, got all the way to 832 before I gave up.
I eased back, trembling as I felt the ripple of his anus along my
withdrawing penis. Untrammeled, overpowering pleasure. There was no
equal to that sensation. It was soft, firm, hot, wet, yielding,
resisting. No wonder men have `fucked' boys throughout history.

Barely inside, yet still part of him, a narrow band inside him
always holding on to the most sensitive part of my penis. That
swollen plum-colored helmeted head was the first part in and the
last part out. I smiled absently, relishing the moment, knowing
what I would have to do next even if it meant waking him up at some
point. A few times I had even given him an orgasm while he slept. I
pushed slowly and began an inexorable return. Once started, it was
unstoppable. Not all the way inside, but far enough that my penis
was bathed in his slippery wet heat, reached into the looseness
within him. Then out again, drawing back through his slick canal
until my penis was ready to pull free. After a couple of thrusts it
had regained full erection, throbbing mercilessly.

I was careful not to go too far. Not too quickly, and never
too hard. Slowly, always slowly, using gentle pushes that were cal-
culated to give pleasure to him rather than provide immediate grat-
ification to me. He stirred slightly, waking partially, realizing.
Still drowsy, he shifted and moved his upper leg closer to his
chest. It had the effect of lifting his buttocks, placing them in
line with the axis of my penis. I eased back inside him. He sighed,
closing down as my penis bottomed out. I stopped there, feeling his
muscles clamping, reacting, momentarily resisting, trying to relax.
With an arm around his narrow chest, I could feel every movement,
every breath he took. I held him lovingly, aware of what he was
feeling.

There was a long period before I moved again. It was difficult
to do anything when I was so overwhelmed by joy. Austin was so vul-
nerable that I wanted nothing to disturb the sheltered haven we
enjoyed. For that was what it was, that special place we shared
within him. A haven. A sanctuary where we sought refuge and came
together.

He drifted off to sleep again as my penis slowly deflated.
Another hour passed, perhaps two, perhaps longer, before I awoke
again and gradually became conscious of the heat and aching hard-
ness. My penis was still inside him despite his turning onto his
back. I smiled ruefully. Had he been awake while I was asleep? It
was possible that he could reposition himself from lying on his
side onto his back while he was still asleep. Perhaps it was possi-
ble that he could even lift his legs up and drape them over me. One
leg was over my thighs, the other over my hips. However, to do so
while keeping my penis inside his anus was another matter.

What else had he done? I moved carefully, flexing my penis as
I probed his bowels. Had he brought me to climax there would have
been a different feeling. It felt smooth and slick inside him, his
tender flesh clasping my relentless maleness, embracing me securely
as only a young boy can. I smiled again as I realized the possibil-
ity now presented to me. In this position my penis could move much
further, and with even less effort on my part. It was even easier
when he was asleep. Musing, I reached between his legs, lightly
fingered his penis and the tiny silk-skinned pouch below. His tes-
ticles were hard to find, so tiny that they momentarily escaped. My
hand cupped, sheltered that precious boy-part, fondled the slack-
ened moist membrane. It was so soft that I could barely feel the
folds of skin, so different to the furred casing that swung beneath
my penis. This was a boy. Slender yet surprisingly strong, lacking
worldly experienced yet intensely curious, androgynous yet not sex-
less. He was beautiful.

"Do it, Papaw," Austin whispered.

"You're awake?"

"No!" He giggled. "I talk in my sleep."

"Some people sleep walk but you sleep talk," I whispered.

"Uh huh. But I only do it when I'm horny."

"Do what?" I teased softly.

"Huh?"

I leaned into him, kissed his smooth cheek, lovingly licked
his delicate ear. He giggled, absently stroking his fingers against
my chest. In the darkness, I could barely make out the outline of
his head, a profile against the white pillow. His fingers teasingly
twisted in my chest hair. Unlike me, like his uncle, Austin would
be relatively hairless. That came from his grandmother's side. His
leg muscles tightened and pulled us closer together. I took that as
a hint and pressed against him so that me penis entered another
inch.

"Is this what you want?" I said with my lips still pressed
against his small ear.

"Uh huh." He squirmed, clamped his inner muscle, relaxed his
buttocks, showed me what he wanted just in case there was still
doubt.

"You fell asleep before."

"I promise I won't this time."

His southern accent, Louisiana-south, was as innocuous as it
was sensuous. He would not fall asleep this time. He was in the
mood. I should have known to be more vigilant but lust got the bet-
ter of me. My arm was around his shoulders, cradling him, support-
ing his head, restricting his movement. Each careful thrust was met
with trust. He knew I would never hurt him, at least not deliber-
ately. Slowly, I regained the depth I needed. Succulent, sublime
joy. His flesh yielded, conquered by the engorged thick stake of my
manhood. I sank into his rectum, reached up into the spot that made
him come alive. I felt him shudder, felt his limbs writhing, the
sudden hot flush, the anxiety. He was close, desperately close. I
started doing it faster, pumping.

I listened to his whimpered cries, his urgent breathing,
understood his need. His little penis stayed limp. On reflection,
it was only logical that it remained flaccid. There was no reason
for it to stiffen. For this, only one of us needed an erection.

He groaned, tightening his rectum, clasping as hard as he
could as he struggled to reach the peak. There was always a point
where it seemed just of reach, where no matter how hard, fast, or
deep, it was impossible to get what he wanted. And there was fear,
fear that he could not do what he wanted so desperately to do, and
fear that he could. I clutched him forcefully, thrust into him as
hard as I dared, gave him what he wanted.

I wanted it to be over quickly. I wanted it to last forever.
It hurt him, that final rush. He was too young, too small, too
innocent.

"Are you okay?"

"Faster," Austin hissed through gritted teeth.

Another stroke, and then another, stabbing into his weakened
bowels. He was trembling against me, his body wracked by erratic
spasms. Timing was everything. I felt it rising, the gnawing ache
in my groin, my penis stiffening into a solid, irresistible stake
that I plunged again and again into Austin's body. This was love?

"Oh-h-h-h-G-o-d," Austin groaned.

His bowels slackened. That was the sign. Another frantic
lunge. He squealed, trying his best to hold it in. Then the savage
cramps, meeting the jerks of my penis as the fluid spurted out. Six
pulses. Slowing down. Stopping. Sinking into the tranquility that
followed and sharing the boundless joy that came from knowing we
had made love. Although he was sure, he quivered like a leaf, hold-
ing my hand firmly in his feeble grasp, his distended anal muscles
still making pathetic efforts to work against my shrinking penis,
to avoid the inevitable end. He must have felt my semen leaking out
because when he finally turned his head and gazed into my eyes, he
grimaced in consternation.

"What are you doing to him, Papaw?"

Tristan was awake. God only knew how long he had been awake.
God only knew how long he had been watching. Because he had been
silently watching us, sitting up, looking over me, hidden in the
darkness. The comforter had pulled halfway down my thighs. Even in
the darkness he could have seen enough. He was close enough to have
seen much more. The realization of what he might have seen chilled
me. I panicked. He had to have seen everything.

"Nothing,  Tristan," I answered brusquely. "Just go back to
sleep, okay."

However, it was not `okay', and I knew it, knew it before the
words were out of my mouth. He was curious like his brother. He
would never take `nothing' for an answer.

"Papaw?"  Tristan persisted. "But that were you doing?"

"Lie down and go to sleep."

"Why was your weenie in his butt?"

Austin wriggled away. It was bad timing. The entire situation
was bad timing, and bad judgment on my part. My `weenie', slick,
slimy, soft, suddenly slid out. The sound was unmistakable. The
sound of loose suction, a sound that was not unlike the slurping
sound that a boy makes when he sucks the last of a milk shake
through a straw.

" Tristan!" I grumped.

Anger was a bad idea, I realized immediately. I sighed, gently
patting Austin's bare flank, the side of his uppermost buttock. It
felt slippery. How on earth did he get it all over his rump? There
was only one way to ensure  Tristan's complicity and that was to
satisfy his curiosity.

"I was making him feel good," I answered uncertainly. My voice
did not sound reassuring.

"Why?"

"Because he had a bad bream and woke up."

"Why does it make him feel good?"

"Because it just does." I paused.

Was I digging the hole deeper? There was nothing I could say.

"But why?"

I took a deep breath and wondered where it would end.

"Because he likes how it feels."

"How does it feel?"

"Nice. It feels nice, T-J," Austin murmured. "Now go to
sleep."

"I'm not sleepy,"  Tristan chirped. "Doesn't it hurt?"

"Not any more," Austin said.

"But it used to?"

"Yes. When I was tighter. Papaw, make him go to sleep."

I smiled. "I wish I could."

I shook my head as I gently dabbed the edge of the sheet
between Austin's buttocks. Even though only five or six hours had
passed since the last time, I had ejaculated more than enough for
it to ooze out of his dilated opening whenever his inner muscles
tightened.

"Papaw, isn't it dirty?"

"Not really."

I cupped my hand over Austin's cheeks. Both of them were
barely enough to fill my hand. His cheeks were firm, pinched, baby-
soft. It was difficult to think of anything we did together as
dirty. Even that, the most intimate and invasive act that two males
could perform, was part of our love. Certainly, there had been
times when it was messy. There were even a few stains that were
slightly yellowed, one or two bloody smears that left discolored
spots on the living room couch. Yes, there were times when I was
grateful for the towel placed underneath Austin, but such accidents
were becoming increasingly rare. The only thing that was essential
was to change the sheets on my bed before his mother came to my
house on Monday morning to straighten up for me.

"Doesn't his poop get on your weenie?"

"Not really, T-J," I answered calmly.

Not much, I wanted to say, and it would not bother me if it
did. It was part of loving him, accepting that it could sometimes
be messy.

"Why not?"

"I guess because he goes to the bathroom first."

"Oh." He paused, considering. "Papaw, why does it feel nice?"

I breathed out, then filled my lungs again. It was a bottom-
less pit. However, sheltering him would only lead to misunderstand-
ing and ignorance.

"Because it does," Austin answered flatly. "It's supposed to
feel good."

"Papaw, will you do it to me too,... I mean when I'm older?"

"Um,... I,..." I swallowed dryly.

Was it possible that he realized how I felt about him? Did he
understand why I looked at him the way that I did? Did he sense what
was in store for him if he chose to follow in his brother's foot-
steps. The boys were so much alike at times that they could be
twins rather than brothers separated in age by nearly two years.

"He will if you want him too," Austin giggled. "And I bet
you'll like it as much as I do."

"Is it like with Mommy and the man who lived with us at the old
place?"

"Yeah, I guess," Austin answered vaguely. "Except Papaw puts
his weenie in my butt. That's because boys don't have a hole in
front. They're different to girls."

"Oh. And you can't have a baby,.... Can you?"

"No. `course not. Don't be a dummy!"

I smiled. What little I knew of their lives before they
arrived on my doorstep about nine months earlier, I had gleaned
from passing comments. Things had happened to Austin, perhaps even
to  Tristan, but it was like barrier existed for them to tell me
more than that. I had tried with Austin, pressing him to talk about
what it was like in New Orleans. He told me very little. And his
mother? When I asked, she told me to mind my own business.

The old house was a ramshackle wood-framed house on the west-
ern bank of the Mississippi. The ground floor was occupied by some
one who the boys called `Mister Jake'. My daughter and her sons
lived above. There were two bedrooms on the third floor, one of
which was apparently frequently occupied by `Mister Jake'. With
paper thin walls and a shared bathroom, I imagined that the boys
saw and heard more than they should have.

**********************************************************



"And  Tristan?" Tara asked uncertainly. "How much does he
know?"

I winced. "He saw us having sex."

"You let him watch you?"

I tensed, waiting for her wrath to build enough to explode.
She looked at me with glowering eyes. Silence seemed like the best
course of action.

"No, I didn't let him," I said at last. "He woke up one night
and saw us."

"You were fucking Austin, weren't you?"

I nodded awkwardly. Strangely, she smiled slightly and slowly
shook her head.

"It's funny how things have a way of repeating themselves."

"Huh?"

"Nothing. How long was he watching, Dad?"

"For a while I guess. He was lying behind me. I didn't know he
was awake. I'm not sure how much he actually saw. It was dark," I
said shamefully.

"But he was looking, wasn't he? He saw you doing it. What did
you tell him?"

I told him as little as possible, at least at first. There
were more questions later. There were enough questions over the
next few weeks to show that he had been affected by it, that he was
not worried about it, indeed that he was very curious about what he
had witnessed.

I shrugged, pretending lack of memory, thinking of my answers.
Eventually, I had told him what he wanted to know. He was not dis-
gusted. Most boys would have rejected it as disgusting, but not
Tristan. He was mildly amused, as much by the somewhat ridiculous
concept of a penis going inside his bottom, as by anything I said.
At six years old, there is humor in almost everything, and the
penis and buttocks are amusing body parts for a six-year-old boy.
He also saw the serious side. In a moment of candid honesty, I told
him that what I did to Austin, by putting my penis inside his bot-
tom, was the most wonderful thing that we could do together. We did
it because that was how a man showed a boy how much he loved him.
The boy also wanted to do it as well for the same reason. With a shy
smile,  Tristan promptly informed me that it was probably something
that he would also do when he was older.

Tara regarded me with disdain. She scratched her neck, half-
closed her eyes the same way that Austin often did when he was
faced with a particularly vexing problem.

"Okay," I said slowly. "I'll tell you what I told T-J."

"I already know," she replied blandly.

"Oh?" I swallowed dryly.

"I'm not angry, Dad. Well, that's not true, I am angry. I'm
his mother after all. However, what you said to him, well,... it was
a nice way of putting it. And while I think Austin is still too
young to understand what being in love means, I think he knows he
feels good inside by making you happy."

"I appreciate your honesty."

I wanted to say more, to try to explain to her that her son was
old enough to love someone, that he needed affection of a kind that
she could not provide.

"Tara," I began.

I stopped, wondering. There were a lot of unanswered ques-
tions. A year ago I had questions that had never been resolved.

"You're wondering whether I'm going to report this to the
police?"

"No. Yes. I think that's entirely up to you. I think you'll do
what's in the boys' best interests. I do have one question, Tara.
What happened in New Orleans? Before you came up here?"

"That's none of your business, Dad. For God's sake, leave it
alone."

I shook my head curtly. "I think it is. The first night you
were here, I should have known something was wrong. That's when it
became my business."

"How?"

"Because,..." I chewed my lower lip.

Outside, some tourists were gathering in preparation to making
a foray into the Main Street Coffee Shop for a mid-morning snack.
Or was it lunch time already? One of them, a fat lady was pointing
down the street and making a voluble case for an alternative estab-
lishment. She would definitely be happier at the Gatlinburg Bar and
Grill. They served larger portions of everything except salads.

"Why?" Tara asked softly.

"That night, the first night, A-J slept in my bed, remember?
Because  Tristan was sick and you didn't want him catching it."

"I remember."

"He wet the bed," I said fondly. "So I cleaned him up, Tara. I
took his clothes off and changed the sheets. He started crying when
I got him back into bed."

"And?" Tara prompted accusingly.

"Tara, I din't do anything."

"Did he?"

"Yes."

"What happened, Dad?"

"For a while, before I got him back to sleep,... I wanted him to
stop crying. He played with me,... with my penis," I ended simply.

It was exactly the way that it happened. Tara nodded slightly,
inclined her head, considered me with her dispassionate eyes.

"And you let him."

"Tara, I tried to stop him. All I could think of was how it had
been with Phillip all those years earlier."

"Oh! First you seduce my brother, and then my son. At least
you're consistent about incest, aren't you Dad?" she said sarcasti-
cally. "I'm sorry. That was uncalled for."

"It's true," I said ruefully. "Except that I didn't seduce any
one. It's just that I can't help it. I thought I could stop myself.
I really thought it was finished once Phillip and I stopped. Then
along you came."

"And the next weekend, I went back to pick up the rest of our
things. It happened again, didn't it?" she asked. I nodded. "What
did you do with him?"

Again I remembered how easy it had been. It was so easy to
give in to my desires. Years without satisfaction, tormented by
urges that could result in spending the rest of my life in jail. A
beautiful blond-headed boy prancing shamelessly naked through my
house, pretending to be,... What was he pretending to be anyway?
Other than an little exhibitionist? He flaunted his body, becoming
a juvenile whore intent showing off the merchandise, and it was
easy to see what was being offered for sale. And what wonderful
merchandise it was. What man would not give everything he possessed
for a few moments with that beautiful boy?

That magnificent male part of him captured my attention and
demanded my homage. I was swept along by the mere sight of it until
there was no escape from the inevitable. In its intricate perfec-
tion, his little penis embodied the rest of him. In that respect, a
boy was very different to a girl. Instead of mystery that defined
the opposite sex, a boy was revealed, displayed to the world, natu-
rally proud, sexually triumphant. Austin had a beautiful body, just
like Phillip when he was young. He was hairless and lithe, deli-
cately featured, thin-boned, sufficiently muscled to have firmness
under his skin. He was a sculpted form in human flesh. He grinned
wantonly, observing and drawing my attention to the obvious indica-
tor of a male's arousal. Shamefaced and guilty that my body had
defied my resolve yet again, I capitulated. That time was the
breaking point. It was also the starting point.

"What happened while I was away?"

I glanced at her, wondering if she would believe. It seemed so
far-fetched. Austin was eight years old. Eight-year-old boys do not
seduce their grandfathers. It's usually the other way around.

"He,..." I was unable to say more. I sat there, consumed by the
secret knowledge of what had transpired.

*********************************************************



It rained all of Saturday morning. It started out as a misera-
ble day. It was one of those days when the rain clouds hung close to
the ground. The surrounding hills were veiled in mist and the moun-
tains to the south were shrouded. Austin was feeling low, avoiding
my gaze, sitting in front of the television as if Nickelodeon held
the answer to all of life's problems. Perhaps it did for young
boys. Perhaps he had good reason to be unhappy. For a while I
endeavored to amuse him, but my attempts to cajole him into
responding were a waste of time. He shrugged off any and all
efforts to restore communication. Finally, I ignored him and I was
met with barely restrained contempt. I presumed that he was sulking
because his mother had left him behind and taken his still-sick
brother with her. He would have to start school on Monday and he
was not happy about that either. How could I be so far from the
truth?

Around noon, I suggested that we have some lunch. Austin
turned up his nose, vaguely implying that anything I would have in
the refrigerator was not something that he would want to eat. I
changed course and suggested that we go out for a hamburger. He
warmed to that idea with a barely observable shrug.

I hate McDonalds. Even if they have clean bathrooms, their
hamburgers are unpalatable. However, most kids love McDonalds,
didn't they? I took Austin to McDonalds for lunch. So there we
were, waiting in a long line of tourists to buy hamburgers and lis-
tening to the ubiquitous `do you want fries with that'. Austin
stood beside me, his shoulders hunched, kicking aimlessly at a
stanchion.

We were only one person away from being served. She was fat,
displaying a huge rear end that shook every time she moved. Rolls
of fat were miraculously compressed into a pair of tightly
stretched stretch-pants. She ordered three burgers, two fries, and
a large soft-drink. It was enough to turn a person's stomach. All
that food was destined for a single stomach?

"I hate McDonalds," Austin grumbled. "Why do we have to eat
here?"

"We don't," I answered as nicely as nicely as I could, given
that we had just waited in line for nearly fifteen minutes.

"Can't we go somewhere else?"

"Yes."

I stepped out of line, of what was now an even longer line
than when we had first entered the store. Yet, the mere thought of
eating the same food that the lady in front of me was about to eat,
even if it was much less in quantity, made me feel quite sick.

I placed my hand on Austin's shoulder and directed him out of
the queue. I hoped he was serious about going somewhere else, oth-
erwise I would be very angry. He turned, looked up at me, and
grinned. His gray-blue eyes were radiant.

"Sorry, Papaw," he said.

"About what?"

"Everything. Mostly about being mean to you."

I shrugged. I didn't know it at the time, but I would always
be quick to forgive him. Our love was like that.

"It's okay. I'd like to know what I did wrong, though."

"You didn't do nuthin'. I was just actin' dumb, I reckon."

"Did you see the butt on that woman in front of us?" I asked
with a smile.

"Uh huh. All that food were her's, wadn't it?" Austin drawled.

I made a mental note to begin working on his language skills.

We went to Main Street Coffee Shop, the same place where his
mother and I now were. We sat at a table at the rear of the dining
room. They served great sandwiches. Fresh bread, cooked right there
on the premises so there was always a delectable aroma that did
wonders for the appetite. Austin picked the Appalachian Club so he
had his hands full with smoked ham and slices of pickles. I had my
usual turkey on rye. And we sat there, looking out the back window,
looking over the stream that splashed over a rocky ledge and disap-
peared.

"You reckon there's fish n'there?" Austin asked.

His mouth was half full, giving me a prime view of masticating
boy. He had very nice teeth, white and small. And his tongue? That
little pink tongue of his had the most amusing manner of darting
out and licking over his perfectly shaped lips every few seconds to
clean up the crumbs that had escaped.

"Probably a few," I remarked.

"Ah never bin fishin'," he added.

"Never?" I queried.

Austin shook his head and took another bite. He had made good
progress but he was slowing down. It looked very much as if he
would not be able to finish his sandwich.

"You don't have to eat all of it."

"Do! I gotta eat everythin' or Mom's gonna be real pissed,...
sorry I meant,... mad at me."

I grinned at him. There was something enjoyable in hearing
Austin say that. He was beginning to accept me and treat me as
someone he was familiar with.

"Ah cain't waste nuthin' when it costs this much," he added as
an explanation.

"Well, I'm paying, so it's okay," I replied.

The food had not cost all that much. However, I had a sudden
insight in Austin's life. They had been struggling to make ends
meet when they lived in New Orleans. It must have been very diffi-
cult. Right there and then I made a promise to do my best to help
them as much as I could. My daughter would not take charity. She
was the same as me in that respect. However, she might take a loan
if I could convince her that it was only to be used to build a busi-
ness. Perhaps I could convince her to take up a business in Gatlin-
burg so that I could be close to my grandsons. For an obvious
reason, I wanted Austin to be close, more than I wanted his younger
brother or my daughter. I smiled at him and he beamed back at me,
still chewing with his mouth half-open. I would also need to do
something about his table manners.

Only one thing continued to haunt me, and that was what had
happened earlier in the week. For two days now, I had been unable,
reluctant, to discuss it with him. It hung between us. Sooner or
later it would have to come to the surface. Sooner rather than
later.

"Austin," I began slowly. He looked up. I had his attention.
"About what happened?"

"I was wonderin' when you was gonna bring that up," he mum-
bled. "I'm sorry, okay?"

"No, not okay. We need to talk about it."

"What if I don't want to?"

"You don't have a choice in what you do all the time," I
replied.

"Well, I don't wanna talk about it, so I ain't tellin' you."

"Okay," I answered.

I watched him chew the last French fry. Mastication was a lit-
tle like masturbation, only it gave a different sort of pleasure to
the senses. It also gave me pleasure to watch him eat. His eyelids
fluttered, Delicate veils over his pale-blue eyes, eyes that darted
back and forth consumed by interest in the world around him. He
tended to eat with his mouth open, at least it was open more than it
was closed. He had small white teeth, perfect except for a missing
molar or whatever that tooth to the side is called. I made another
mental note to work on his table manners. `Uncouth youth' seemed to
have been invented for the sole purpose of describing Austin. I
smiled.

"What's so funny?"

"You are."

"Funny how?"

"Nothing in particular. You're a very good looking kid," I
added boldly.

"Not beautiful, huh? I'm just good looking?" He smiled at me.

I wondered for a moment before I spoke. How many boys of Aus-
tin's age would refer to themselves as being beautiful, or even
want to be considered as being that. Yet, Phillip had been beauti-
ful and very aware of the fact when he was not much older than Aus-
tin. He noticed the way people looked at him even before I did. He
was not embarrassed by the glances that frequently came in his
direction, sometimes lingering stares, that I found disconcerting.
Indeed, if anything, he seemed to enjoy the added attention that
people paid to him. Men looked at him as well, but some of the
glances were particularly invasive, as if they were mentally
undressing him, comparing him to some paragon of preteen sexuality.
Phillip relished those looks, occasionally even smiling back as if
to say, `I know what you are thinking. I'm beautiful aren't I?'

Yes, Phillip was beautiful, and Austin, even more so. I had
not noticed other men looking at him in the same way, but I had
spent only a very short amount of time in his company. Men had cer-
tainly looked at Phillip. Sitting there, aware of the sensuous aura
that he exuded, seduced by an appearance that was nothing if not
exquisite, I realized it would be only a matter of time before Aus-
tin attracted attention.

"Papaw?"

I broke out of a fantasy. What had I been thinking? For a
while my thoughts had been of Phillip, remembering what he was like
as a young boy. And Austin? When had he taken Phillip's place?
Those distant memories suddenly seemed like déjà vu. I smiled,
still enraptured.

"Huh?" I mumbled. "Oh. Well, boys are supposed to be good
looking. It's girls who are beautiful."

"I don't like girls," Austin said flatly. He regarded me for a
few moments, inclining his head, implying a degree of objectivity.
"Do you?"

"Do I what?" I asked. "Oh? Like girls you mean?"

Austin nodded seriously. "Well, you ain't married no more."

He was barely eight years old. He was innocent, at least I
thought he was. There was no possibility that he was mature or
worldly enough make the connection between marital state and sexual
orientation, yet as my mind rushed through a hundred conflicting
thoughts, all I could think of was `how could he possibly know?'

I shrugged and pretended to be disinterested. Perhaps I should
have told him that I had been married, that I had been married for
many years before I was divorced, that I had to have liked `girls'
to get married in the first place.

"Some men like boys," Austin added quietly.

His head was lowered, but I could still see his eyes looking
at me with a dogged concentration. And his voice? Barely more than
a conspiratorial whisper. I blushed. I felt the red flush rising up
my neck, a weight pressing down on me.

"That's because they're fun to play with," I said.

I intended it to sound innocent. Somehow it came out sounding
very different. It sounded depraved, and the type of playing that I
had in mind was worth ten years in the state penitentiary.

Before I could say anything else, Austin smirked. What hap-
pened after that should never have been allowed to happen. It would
be easy to blame it all on my lack of self control. For nearly a
minute we both sat in silence. It was like a truce had been estab-
lished, the table between us a no-man's land of used plates and
glasses. I needed time to think.

Finally. "It looks like the rain has moved on." That from me.

"Yeah, seems ta'have."

"You said you've never been fishing," I suggested.

"Can we, Papaw?" Austin asked excitedly. "Please."

I have never been able to resist a boy in the `begging mode'.
Austin had it down to a fine art. His eyes went big, big enough to
show that he was excited by the mere possibility of doing something
that he had always wanted to do. He gave me the patented little boy
smile that was custom designed to melt the most determined resolve,
showing perfect if gapped-in-the-front teeth. He would have trouble
whistling for the next few months. And that face, strikingly
attractive.

It was hard not to give in to anything he wanted. All he had to
do was ask. I was his to command.

"I suppose so," I agreed. "At least we won't have to drive
back home because I have some fishing poles and stuff in the car."

We paid the bill and walked up the street to where I had
parked. Wouldn't you know that some dumb city-tourist had parked
his Cadillac right in front of my Jeep. It was so close that it
would have taken a dozen turns to wriggle out of the narrow gap he
had left for me. There's a reason why Jeeps have four wheel drive.
In low gear, that car can push or pull just about anything that
needs pushing or pulling. With Austin in a fit of giggles, I bumped
that big ugly Cadillac three feet forward despite its grim mechani-
cal protest and pulled into the street. The last thing I saw was a
well-dressed but overweight woman hurrying up the footpath. She
scowled at the back of my Jeep.

"Fat old bitch," Austin chortled. "You really showed her,
Papaw."

We laughed for the next fifteen minutes, inventing scenarios
that had me pushing her fancy car into the creek, oncoming locomo-
tives, even all the way back to the freeway. When we finally pulled
of the road next to Buckley's Creek, Austin let out a `whoopee' and
demonstrated a level of enthusiasm that made me love him even more.

We fished, or rather undertook a series of activities that
pretended to be fishing, because the act of fishing implies and
outcome that gives rise to the word, 'fishing'. Namely, fish as
caught. They simply did not bite. That in itself was strange. Nor-
mally, the fishing along Buckley's Creek was good, sometimes great.
After rain, it tended towards the latter, but this time there was
nothing. Perhaps it was a warning, the absence of fish portending a
sign for the future that we should not have been there. After an
hour, it started to rain again, not hard just a slow but steady
fine drizzle, that was unpleasant but not enough to risk Austin's
dismay if I suggested leaving. So we stayed, moving further along
the creek in the dim hope that there were fish elsewhere.

I wanted him to catch a fish. It was the reason why we were
there in the first place, that and some obscure and barely discern-
ible need on my part to bond with him. Clearly, he enjoyed learn-
ing. He seemed to relish instruction. He grinned constantly, asked
a thousand questions of which only a small portion actually had
anything to do with the matter at hand. I was patient. It was nor-
mal for young boys to be like that. Phillip had been the same way,
so much so that I used to joke that instead of a brain, he had a big
sponge inside his head, soaking up an ocean of unimportant trivia.

After another hour, there was still no fish. By then, Austin's
constant stream of questions was beginning to wear me down. I had
no idea why the runners on the fishing rod he used were placed at
the intervals they were at. The one at the end made sense. It had to
be there, but the rest? Why did they become smaller and closer
together? Of course, there had to be a reason, didn't there?

I was about to admit a complete lack of knowledge on my part,
when the drizzle transformed into heavy droplets and the rain began
in earnest. If our clothes were already damp, within seconds they
were soaked. I took one look at Austin. His appearance verged on
amusing, and I would have laughed but for he fact that he would not
have appreciated being laughed at. Water streamed down his face in
rivulets. His hair was a mess. His clothes clung wetly to his small
body. He looked like he was ready to scream. It was too much. I
smiled. And of course, he did scream. And then he grinned. It was a
big grin, a grin that said he had enough, but he wasn't going to
admit defeat. So we stayed ten more minutes, watching the water
splashing as if bullets were being fired from the heavens. There
had to be a fish somewhere in Buckley's Creek. It was just a matter
of finding it. We laughed for most of the ten minutes, despite, or
maybe because of the pouring rain. We weren't cold, just wet, very
wet.

"Had enough?" I finally asked.

Austin, still laughing, looked at me with a slightly hysteri-
cal expression.

"Nah. I figure that the fish're gonna be jumpin' real soon,
Papaw."

"Why's that?"

"'cause there's more water up here than in that creek."

And we laughed again. I loved the sound of his laughter. It
sounded like a bell ringing, a very special bell.

"What if I promised to take you fishing, the very next time
it's sunny?" I suggested.

"It'sa deal."

We packed up and started back to the car. To show you how com-
pletely stupid people can be, we actually ran the last hundred
yards. As if running could somehow keep us dry? Fortunately, it was
only a few miles back to where I lived.

Water was still dripping from us when we went inside. I closed
the door behind me. Already pools of water had began to form under-
neath our feet, spreading outward over the tiles in the foyer.
There was no way I was going to get the new carpet wet.

"We'd better get our clothes off, Austin," I said without
really thinking about it.

"You mean right here?" Austin squeaked.

"Don't be bashful," I joked. "We're both guys. You don't have
anything that I don't have."

It's strange how often men have used that argument to convince
boys to take their clothes off. There had been a few times that I
had used it with Phillip, not that he needed a lot of convincing.
Then, the line of reason incorporated the fact that I was also his
father, that I had seen him naked all the time when he was a baby,
that I had even changed his dirty diapers. There's a reason why it
is used, of course. It works! Not because of any great insight or
convincing logic, but simply because most boys have an innate
interest in showing off their bodies to men in the first place. And
for those inhibited boys who are not natural exhibitionists? It
becomes quid pro quo. There are very few boys who are not motivated
by voyeuristic instincts. The urge to see a naked man and to be
seen themselves almost always wins. All they need is an excuse to
do so.

So there we stood, exchanging mutual interest with a silent
perusal that ended only when Austin smiled shyly.

"Okay, but only if we do it together," he said teasingly.

I nodded agreeably. In my mind there was no other way to do it
the first time.

"And I don't want you to laugh, Papaw," he added.

There was a trace of anxiety in his voice, but it did not con-
ceal his excitement. I smiled at him, trying to keep a sincere
face, an expression intended to reassure him.

"Why would I laugh?" I asked.

"'cause mine's small." Austin licked his bottom lip. "'n yours
is `normous."

"I promise I won't laugh," I answered seriously.

He smiled again. His hands crept slowly to his waist. This was
it! I felt an overpowering surge, a thrill that made my heart
pound. Within a minute, two at the most, I would see him naked, as
naked as the day he was born. I breathed out, ran my tongue over my
lips with unbridled anticipation.

"You too," Austin instructed formally. "We gotta do it
together."

So I began to unfasten my belt at the same time as his fingers
fumbled to undo the metal button of his jeans. It was a peculiar
sequence of undressing. Our shoes were still on so there was no way
that we could take our jeans off. Yet, we moved simultaneously.
With his zipper opened, Austin waited with his hands on his hips
holding his jeans up until I caught up.

"Now," he said with a broad grin. "On three."

It did not strike me as anomalous that the act of stripping
was being orchestrated by a boy who was not even eight years old. I
was too nervous. I was also more excited than I had been for many
years. It had been a very long time, and the need was overwhelming.
Even as we gawked at each other, wondering who would initiate the
counting, I realized what a bad idea it was. My penis was getting
hard.

"One- Two- Three- " Austin said in a loud clear voice.

One. Two. Three. Was it really that simple? Was that all it
took to reveal myself, half erect, to the curious eyes of a small
boy? One. Two. Three. Austin was so slender that even though his
jeans were damp, they still dropped halfway down his thighs. He
wore white underpants with nothing to show he was male. His eyes
widened.

"Now we do our undies," he added. "On three."

In the space of a few seconds, his demeanor had changed. More
excited, confident, eyes unwavering, staring at the curved bulge in
my briefs. His intense gaze was disturbing. Again he licked his
lips.

"One, two, three."

Fast, so fast that I had no chance for second thoughts. Watch-
ing him, his hands tugging at his underpants, so white and pure,
overwhelmed by impure thoughts. Virginal youth. Not a quick peek,
but a long stare, ogling that tiny part of him. He pushed his
underpants down until he reached his bunched up jeans. His sex was
barely distinguishable with my glasses. A scrotum shriveled to the
appearance of half a peach seed by exposure to the dampness and
cold. A penis shrunken to glans and nothing more.

By contrast, my penis was enormous. Austin gaped, eyes wide,
focused on a single thing. After a few moments he blinked.

"Wow! Your cock's really huge!"

I winced inside, not in shame but from the `c' word and the
sudden despairing realization that he had a basis for comparison.
There was no other explanation for the awe, the enduring fascina-
tion. If I was responsible for instigating, Austin had not been far
behind.

I swallowed and tried to pretend there was nothing out of the
ordinary in a man standing exposed and nearly fully erect before a
young boy.

"We're both the same, see?" I said awkwardly.

"'ceptin' you got a hard-on, Papaw," Austin giggled. He did
not need to point, but he did anyway.

Another shock. Phillip referred to an erect `dick' as a
`stiffie' until he was nearly eleven years old. Only then did he
migrate to adult terminology. The only possible explanation I could
think of, beside the obvious, was that it was different down south.

"Well, let's get the rest of our wet clothes off and go get
dried before we catch chills."

"It ain't cold `n here," Austin remarked.

Without hesitating, he kicked off his sneakers, levering one
foot against the other until he stood in his socks. Ignoring me, he
shoved his soggy jeans and underpants down his thin pale legs, all
the way to his feet. He had to sit down on the tiles to remove his
socks and pull the ends of his jeans past his feet. By the time he
was finished I had my shoes off and was quickly catching up. He
stood up and watched as I took my jeans and briefs off. By then, my
penis was fully aroused and so hard that it wobbled every time I
moved. With a little less than eight inches, I was better endowed
than most men if the average penis was really six inches long,
rather than the nine inches that most men claimed to have. Austin
continued to stare. Had Phillip been as engrossed? Certainly, he
had been amused by it. And there was an undeniable yet respectful
fascination when he was confronted by my erection, but I could not
remember him being so reflective.

"Now we gotta take off our tops," Austin demanded boldly.
Then, by way of excusing his impertinence, added, "'cause they're
soaked too."

I nodded, giving in and perfectly content to let him take con-
trol of the situation. Fixing me with a steady gaze that warned me
not to challenge his authority, Austin began to lift up his soaked
sweat shirt. It clung to his body and it had to be peeled from his
skin. Far be it for me not to follow suit. We stripped to our
`birthday suits'. He was scrawny and pallid, yet he regarded me
with a bold awareness of my arousal.

"Why's your's hard?" he asked audaciously.

I shrugged. "It's gets like that sometimes."

"So does mine." Austin smirked. "So I can play with it."

"That's okay. Most every boy does that sooner or later."

"Is your's hard `cause of me?"

I reddened instantly. I was confronted by the innocent voice
of a child and it arrested me. I mumbled something with guilty
vagueness, not even beginning to dare to answer his question. I
walked away to get some towels, leaving him standing in the foyer.

By the time I returned from the bathroom, Austin had relocated
his nakedness into the living room and dried himself off on the
couch. He grinned at me, totally devoid of shame as he rolled back
and forth wresting with a large pillow and making growling animal
noises and squeals of pain as he was attacked. I laughed as I con-
tinued to dry myself.

"You want a knife to finish it off?" I asked playfully.

Austin shook his head, doing his best not to laugh as he
struggled bravely to subdue the unidentified pillow-monster.

"Cain't kill it, Papaw, `cause it's `ndangered `n all."

"Oh," I chuckled. "An endangered pillow? And a vicious one
too, I see."

"Terrible vicious," Austin squealed as he fought even harder
but was still pinned on his back.

"Does it eat little boys?"

"Nah, just their cocks," Austin gave in and chortled. "It's a
cock-sucker, see Papaw."

"A what?" I asked in surprised disbelief.

"A cock-sucker. You know, Papaw," he said conspiratorially.
"They try to suck your cock off," he explained gleefully.

"Oh! I didn't know they lived in these parts," I replied.

"Just this one `ere," Austin shrieked. "I gotta be careful he
don't bite me."

Then, he lifted the pillow high above him and brought it down
hard onto his lower belly and crotch, shrieking as he did so. He
buried one end between his slender thighs, locking his legs around
it. What followed was hilarious. With a motion that was somewhere
between humping the pillow and attacking his crotch, Austin pro-
ceeded to fight the `cock sucker'. It was a losing battle, and one
that he had no intention of winning despite his writhing and con-
stants shrieks of pretended pain.

Finally, instead of fighting, he begged me to help save him.
It was all the encouragement I needed. I kneeled down on the floor
beside the couch and with some difficulty managed to pry away the
cushion-creature from his groin. With an immediate and gratifying
relief, I realized that I was not the only person with an erection.
Warmth and physical stimulation had combined to produce a healthy
little erection. It was very hard, and it was smaller than my lit-
tle finger. Two inches of rigid boy-flesh poked up at me. His glans
was slightly reddened from being rubbed against the pillow. It was
a minute yet perfect helmet-head with a pronounced flare that gave
way to a straight narrow shaft. I could not divert my eyes. His
absolute perfection was marred, and then only marginally so, by a
brown-tinted circumcision scar more than half of the way down the
short projection.

"Are you a cock-sucker too, Papaw?" Austin asked as he gig-
gled.

He realized I was absorbed. I felt uncomfortable as he
regarded me with his big blue eyes. They should have been the eyes
of a child. What should have been trusting and innocent was not. He
licked his lips again, unconsciously signalling. Or perhaps it was
deliberate seduction, conscious communication. The possibility both
excited and frightened me. Before I could say anything, he contin-
ued, still giggling.

"Now I've bin bit, I'm just like a vampire."

"How so?"

What did I expect him to say? He smirked knowingly, looking as
if he was privy to a secret of great importance.

"'cause," he whispered. His eyes flickered thoughtfully. "Now
I turn into one too."

I was stunned. Did he really say what I had heard? Was my
imagination running wild?

"No, I don't think so, Austin," I returned seriously.

He heard the firmness in my voice. Immediately, his expression
changed. I had stopped the game. Bewilderment became apparent as he
endeavored to understand something that was beyond his comprehen-
sion. He blinked, pursed his lips, averting his eyes. He was visi-
bly uncomfortable. He tried one more time. He glanced down.

"Your cock ain't hard no more," he observed.

If for nothing else, I was grateful for that and I sighed
inwardly. "Austin," I began awkwardly.

"You're no fun!"

He pushed the pillow between his legs, covering himself shame-
fully. I felt terrible. I really had not wanted to stop him. I did
not want him to be ashamed. The way he had looked at me had startled
me, shocked me, aroused me. I had to say something, anything to
divert his increasing discomfort. But what?

"Look Austin,... I don't want to be mean to you. I want to be
your friend."

"Then why did you say no?"

I decided the best way to handle what was happening was to
answer his questions. In my experience it would not take very long
before he became bored.

"Because there are some things that you and I shouldn't do," I
explained.

"Why not?"

"Because men and boys aren't supposed to do those things," I
answered.

"Why?"

I panicked. `Why?' For one reason it was illegal. That should
have been reason enough, but it did not stop Phillip and me. `Why?'
Why not? Like Phillip, Austin was not being forced to do anything.
It was only a game to him.

"You got that hard-on `cause of me," he said matter-of-factly.

Another bombshell. I did not need to see what part of my body
had become hard again. I could feel it, throbbing, almost painfully
stiff. He had not looked down. How did he become aware of the
effect he had on me? It seemed as if he could sense my arousal.

"Um,... well that happens sometimes when I don't have clothes
on," I said.

"Like when you're in bed?" Austin asked. I nodded. He thought
about it for a few seconds. "'cause he likes being naked with a
boy?"

"Ah, I guess," I agreed.

My hope that Austin's curiosity would diminish if I answered
his questions was fading.

"You're a precocious little kid, aren't you?" I added.

"What's that mean?"

"Precocious? It means you act older than you really are," I
answered.

He shrugged disinterestedly. For the moment, and much to my
gratitude, his attention had been distracted.

"Can I watch tv now, Papaw?"

*********************************************************

"Dad?" Tara asked. "What happened?"

I sighed. "Tara, I'll tell you if you really want to know."

"I want to know."

"What happened before you moved up here?" I blurted out.

She blanched.

"Tara?" I insisted.

"Dad, I can't," she answered quietly.

"Tell me."

"It's none of your business," she said emphatically.

"Are you sure?"

"What did he tell you?"

"He? You mean A-J?" I inquired. Tara nodded slightly. "Noth-
ing. He never talks about when he lived in New Orleans."

"Never?"

"Well, not very much," I admitted. "He's told me about, uh,
what's his name, his friend-."

"Jake?"

"He mentioned someone he called `Mister Jake'. He lived on the
ground floor or something."

"Good."

"What happened, Tara?" I demanded.

"Jake wasn't a friend, at least not how you would think. He's
close to forty."

"Isn't it time you started trusting me?"

She gave me an antagonistic look. "Trust? After what you've
been doing to him?" Yet, even a she spoke, she was reconsidering.
"Dad,... maybe it's time you knew."

I nodded understandingly. "Please tell me. Something happened
there, I know it did. I have to know about it, Tara. I love him."

"He never told you about it? About Jake?"

I shook my head slowly. Did she mean about her sharing a bed
with him? It was none of my business, although I would much have
preferred for the boys not to know what was going on.

"Thank God. Maybe he's forgotten," she reflected quietly. She
shook her head. "I guess you have a right to know if anyone does. If
you love Austin as much as you say you do maybe it's for the best."

She stopped and placed her hands on the table. Her fists were
tightly clenched.

"Jake and I, well,... he was a faculty member at the Art School.
He and I,..."

"Had sex," I finished. "So? You're human, Tara. It's been
years since the boys' father,..." I trailed off as I saw the dismay
blanket her face.

"I thought Jake and I were close, Dad. I wouldn't have trusted
him otherwise." She let out a long sigh. "How could he?"

"How could he what?" I asked.

"Because of his teaching schedule, he used to baby-sit the
boys for me. I worked at a restaurant on

x street. I had to, after classes finished, until late some
nights. He would take the boys when they got home from school. I
thought he truly liked them. He took them to the playground all the
time. I,... I didn't know."

"What didn't you know?" I questioned apprehensively.

Tara gave me a cold stare. "He was fooling around with them at
night. I didn't know. Not until,..."

"What happened?"

"I came home early. It was Friday, the week before I came up
here. Normally I wouldn't have come home until after midnight. God
only knows what he did later." She took a deep slow breath and sum-
moned her courage. "He had them both stark naked, Dad. Even little
Tristan. Like he was going give them a bath, except that wasn't the
reason. He was lying on his back and Austin was, he was,... God! I
still can't believe it. Austin was sitting on his legs and leaning
over him. I couldn't see at first, not until I walked closer."

"And?" I prompted mercilessly. Suddenly, I saw reason where I
had been confused.

"Austin was sucking him, Dad."

"So that's how he learned about cock sucking," I thought
aloud.

"Huh?" Tara queried immediately.

I looked up, suddenly aware of what I had said. "Nothing."

"I was so angry I could think straight. Of course, I blamed
Jake," Tara added earnestly. "Little did I know at the time."

"About?"

"You didn't know you weren't his first, did you Dad? At least
with oral sex, that is."

I shrugged resignedly. "What about?-"

"No. I don't think so,... no I'm certain about it,... I'm sure
Jake didn't go all the way with him."

I had expected something like this all along. Austin was too
sexually aware, too uninhibited, too willing to experiment for it
to be otherwise. I nodded vaguely. I was lost for words, but I was
not surprised. Perhaps the candid way she talked about it was what
shocked me. It sounded as if it was the most natural thing in the
world to discover your eight-year-old son sucking a middle-aged
man's penis.

"Tara," I tried weakly.

"I don't know how long it was going on for. A couple of months
at least I expect. Maybe a year. He never said a word about it.
Looking back I can understand why."

My lips formed the word, `why', even though no sound came out/

"He liked it, of course. I could see it on his face, the
way,...the way he was doing it."

"I don't know how,..." I tried to finish the thought but the
words were hollow.

"He liked it. That's why I'm sure he's gay. Because that's
what he likes."

"How can you be so sure?" I asked.

"Dad, did you seduce him?"

"I,..."

"Just answer the question. Go on. Did you?"

"No," I replied meekly.

"Was it your idea? The first time, I mean." She smiled with a
barely noticeable movement of her lips.

"I guess. I,... I don't know. It just sort of happened. One
moment we were sitting on the couch watching television and the
next,... well,..."

"And?" Tara prompted.

Her previous agitation appeared to have calmed. In a way, her
serenity was even more disconcerting.

"It was my fault," I said responsibly. "I should have known
better."

"What happened?"

"Neither of us had anything on," I said with an uncomfortable
feeling that she would understand. "It's a long story how we,..."

Tara interrupted me. "Austin told me about going fishing and
how it rained so much that you were both soaked to the skin. I know
all about him taking his clothes off. He told me you were naked
too."

"I'm sorry," I said apologetically.

"There's no reason to be. I've known about since the day I got
back from New Orleans. I didn't mind at the time, and I still
don't. He is your grandson."

"After a while he scooted over and sat in my lap," I contin-
ued. "I shouldn't have let him stay there, knowing how I was,... but
it had been so long,... He felt so good. He was warm and alive, and I
thought all he wanted to do was cuddle with me till the movie we
were watching ended."

It seemed like a long time ago. Austin had taken up his posi-
tion on top of me like a cat sits in its master's lap. He was
relaxed, totally oblivious to the fact that his bare skin was
against my bare skin. The only problem was that I was not unmindful
of the contact. I could not avoid the inevitable response. Of
course, Austin felt it becoming hard beneath him. He wriggled
around, squirming directly over me.

"I should have stopped him before it got out of hand," I
added.

"But of course you couldn't, could you?" Tara acknowledged.
"What did you do?"

"What did I do?" I repeated expressionlessly. What didn't I
do? "The first time, you mean?"

Tara nodded.

"I got an erection," I admitted.

She smiled a little. "Why am I not surprised by that, Dad?"

I winced, but there was a vaguely assuming side to it. "He uh,
asked me if it was because of him," I remembered fondly.

There had been pride in his voice, and no trace of embarrass-
ment, but instead I was mortified. The more he wriggled the more I
became harder, and the more ashamed I was. I made one half-hearted
attempt to get him off. However, it had simply been too long.

"And?"

"He said something like `I must really like boys a lot'," I
replied glumly. "Because it had gotten so big and hard so quickly."

I breathed out, still remembering how he had been. He had no
shame. Indeed, he seemed to take delight in my discomfiture. If not
that, he was delighted that he was responsible for the hard hot
thing underneath him. The surprising thing at the time was that he
seemed to know exactly why it was hard and what to do with it when
it was in an aroused state. Finally, he climbed off me and back
onto the couch to sit beside me. My relief was immediate, but it
lasted only a matter of seconds.

"What happened, Dad?" Tara asked persistently.

"He started to,..." I began.

He started to rub my penis. How had that started? It seemed
like magic at the time. One moment he was sitting beside me and the
next? He put his small hand on it first, just his fingertips with a
feathery touch that almost felt like he was not touching it, yet he
was. I was consumed by lust at that point. There could have been a
half-dozen policemen in the room and I still could not have stopped
him. His hand could not enclose me, but he did not need to. He was
perfectly capable of giving me all the pleasure I could stand
merely by running his fingers slowly up and down my throbbing
shaft. Not really masturbating me, at least not with the full
fisted attack that I used myself. He was gentle and slow, and his
fingers had a way of detecting my most sensitive places.

"Masturbate me," I ended.

The word made it seem clinical, somehow remote. It had not
been that way. It had been intense, unforgettable, incredibly
arousing. He took his time, occasionally doing nothing but rub a
single thumb around and around my very swollen glans. It was cov-
ered in slime by that point and more oozed out as he caressed it.
When he shyly put his little thumb in his mouth and licked off my
fluid, it seemed like the natural thing to do. It was, however,
only a precursor to what followed.

"I didn't expect him to suck my cock. I should have stopped
him."

I had not intended to say that. My thoughts had become words,
dry interpretations of one of the most powerful sensations that a
male can experience. It would have the same effect even if I had
said that he had performed oral sex on me.

"He did that?"

There was no surprise in her voice. No outrage. Even the way
she had said it sounded more like she was ascertaining that she had
heard me correctly. I nodded once.

"Oh!" She thought for a moment. "And you let him, of course."

It was a statement, not a question. It needed no response. It
deserved an explanation.

"Tara, I couldn't help it," I said awkwardly aware of my weak-
ness. "It's like a drug. Like I'm an addict or something."

She nodded slightly. "He was good at it though, wasn't he?"

Now it was my turn to nod. "Tara,..." I stopped. "Because of
Jake?"

"I expect so. He'd had quite a lot of practice by the time we
left New Orleans, I imagine."

Suddenly, a lot of things that had previously been very con-
fusing to me, became crystal clear. My daughter had gone to New
Orleans and had left a little blond time bomb in my care. If she
knew about Phillip and me as she obviously seemed too, then surely
she had to realize that might happen when Austin was alone with me?
What I said next was predicated on nothing but assumptions and
wishful thinking on my part. It was a leap of faith, not of reli-
gious faith, but faith in myself.

"You knew what would happen, didn't you?" I asked.

As soon as the words were out of my mouth, my confidence began
to ebb. It was impossible conjecture. Yet, the sudden change in her
expression suggested otherwise.

"Dad,... I never thought,... I didn't know what to do."

Tara rubbed her hands over her head, brushing back her hair.
Both boys had hair like their mother had when she was a girl, like
Phillip's hair. I remembered his hair, straight and silver blond
like corn silk. He was well into puberty before it started to
darken, and even then, it was the color of gold.

"They were,.... I don't know how to put it,... Austin was sucking
him when I found them. Deep throating, I guess you'd call it. He
was going all the way down Jake. To this day, I still don't know how
he did it."

"He's done that to me as well. Right from the first time," I
ventured heedlessly. "I've never encouraged him," I added quickly.

Tara smiled slightly. "Jake taught him. I wouldn't do it. God!
I didn't even like the idea of putting it near my mouth, let alone
into it. We fought about it a few times. Then he stopped asking for
it. I guess he was getting his need satisfied by my son by then."

"You knew what would happen if Austin stayed with me," I per-
sisted. "Why did you leave him with me, Tara?"

"Because I had to, Dad. He was sick."

"Oh, come on, Tara. He was better by then, you know he was. He
had a bout of stomach flu. As soon as his temperature went down he
was okay."

"That wasn't what I meant, Dad. After I found him with Jake, I
tried to get him to understand. With Aids and everything, you have
to be so careful nowadays, so I talked with him about how dangerous
it was. It was, I don't know,... it was like he wasn't listening to
me. Like his mind was made up and there was nothing I could do to
change it."

"He can be a bit on the stubborn side sometimes," I agreed.

Tara thought for a moment. "It was so worrying, watching him
from then on. He'd look at men, Dad. I used to catch him doing it
when he thought I wasn't noticing. Wherever we went, he was doing
it. A lot of men would give him the same look back."

"You were probably just imagining it," I said without convic-
tion.

I had noticed it too, at least for the first few weeks after
they had arrived. Austin flirted. Voraciously. If it wasn't so wor-
rying, it would have been amusing. Eight-year-old boys were not
supposed to be enticing men with meaningful glances at their
crotches, and making eye contact at every opportunity. It stopped
eventually, when Austin realized that I really loved him and he had
what he wanted.

"There was a man at the supermarket where I used to shop, Dad.
I swear I knew what he was thinking. Every time we went in there
he'd stare at Austin and practically salivate over him."

"Austin's a beautiful boy. It's really not all that surprising
that people look at him."

"Maybe, but they shouldn't look at him like they want to rip
his clothes off and rape him on the spot?" Tara joked.

I smiled. "He's also a very sexy boy," I added. "I think he
knows exactly what effect he has on men. He thinks it's funny even
if it's kind of weird."

"Oh, I'm quite sure he does, Dad. It's not funny to me though.
On the way up here, we stopped at a truck stop somewhere in Geor-
gia. I was tired of driving, and Austin said he felt like he was
going to be sick any moment." She paused with an expression that
reminded me of someone looking into the past. "It was only a few
minutes."

"What happened?"

"He had to go to the bathroom. I knew it was a bad idea to let
him go by himself."

"You could hardly go with him," I said.

She shook her head. "I had to get some gas. So I told him to go
ahead and I'd meet him inside the store. It was only a few min-
utes," she repeated. "I don't know why I did, but I asked one of the
truck drivers to hurry him out for me. As soon as he went inside the
men's toilet, I heard voices through the door. They were arguing
about Austin. I heard someone say `filthy little cock-sucker.' And
then Austin came running out."

I nodded. I was saddened, but I was not surprised. "You still
haven't answered my question."

"I'm trying to, Dad. It's not easy." She paused for a moment
and collected her thoughts. "Okay,... Well, the man who I had asked
to go in and get Austin came out a moment later. He started to push
past me, and then he stopped and said, `I had better get that kid on
a leash before it's too late.' Right then, I knew what had happened
in the toilet. I knew what he meant, Dad. Austin likes men. You
were right earlier when you said some boys are like that."

At first, and for the next few weeks, I had reassured myself
with the argument that Austin was merely uninhibited and naturally
sensuous. He was spontaneous and open in other ways, so why not in
that way as well. It was certainly enjoyable for me and I was not
about to `kill the goose'. Every time Austin was with me, there was
another `golden egg'.

However, it was more than a matter of a precocious boy having
fun. From the outset Austin had been wanton in his search for a
man's affection. That was what Tara was telling me. It was part of
his psyche.

"So you changed your plans?" I asked.

Tara looked at me with surprise. "You knew I wasn't planning
to come here?"

I nodded. "Austin told me you had a job offer in Chicago."

"I did. I was so worried about him after that. I didn't know
what to do. I thought about you and Phillip and I guess I realized
you were the one person I could turn to."

"I'll always be here for you and the boys. Why didn't you come
right out and tell me?"

"I don't know. I expect because of what I saw between you and
Austin. I really didn't think that you'd have sex with him."

"What did you expect?" I asked calmly.

"Expect?" she repeated. "I don't really know, Dad. I guess I
just hoped that you'd know what to do about it,... about Austin and,...
everything,... I don't want him with a stranger, doing it with some
man he finds in a public toilet somewhere. I guess I wanted him to
know what it was like to be in love with someone. Then, it simply
isn't a matter of having sex, is it?"

"It's about love then."

Tara nodded. "It'd like it to be that way for him. I know you
and Phillip loved each other."

"I do love him,.... You know I do. And unless I'm very mistaken,
you also know that he loves me back. I made love to him, Tara, only
because I loved him. I did it because he wanted me to, and because
I knew he loved me. It might have been something else for the first
few weeks after you'd moved up here, but not for much longer. By
the time, well,... when we went all the way, it was right for him. I
would never do a thing like that otherwise. Despite what some gay
men do, it shouldn't be like that."

Tara nodded. "Last night, Dad, when I found the spots on his
underwear, I was shocked. I suppose I'm naive. Maybe after all this
time, I should have expected it. It took me by surprise, finding
out that he was, well,... experienced."

I smiled weakly and wondered whether Austin had also divulged
the existence of the diary. I hoped not. Apart from the anatomical
evidence, it was the only physical proof that I could think of.
That and,...

"Austin said you'd taken photographs," Tara said coolly.

"Uh, um, yes," I admitted.

She smiled. "He's very photogenic," she commented without giv-
ing any indication of whether she intended it as sarcasm.

I nodded. I waited. She regarded me dispassionately, as if
trying to decide whether she should be angry.

"You took photos of Phillip too, didn't you?"

I nodded again. I waited again. There was no sign of anger. I
observed her hands, one hand at least, with her ring-finger, but
without any sign of a ring, extended. Casually she drew circles in
a coffee spill, around and around.

"What about nude photographs, Dad?" she asked in a neutral
voice.

Again, I nodded. What boy lover did not take nude photographs
of the boy he loved? Youth lasted no time at all. The years of pre-
pubescence were the precious years, the years that would soon be
gone when hormones began to percolate through his body. The photo-
graphs were the only way of capturing him as I always wanted to
remember him. In a way, they were memories of not of immorality but
immortality. The boy preserved forever.

"I hope you've never posted them in one of those Internet
groups," she added. "I couldn't deal with that. The idea of some
pervert masturbating over pictures of Austin. It's too gross to
think about."

"No, I'd never do that," I answered truthfully. "I've put some
photos of Austin on the net, and  Tristan too for that matter, but
they aren't nudes. I told you about those at the time. I think
there are a few where the boys are just wearing boxers, and there's
a couple of the boys peeing, but all you can see are their backs,"
I added quickly. "But that's all I've posted."

"The other photos, are they,..." She stopped. "They're in a safe
place, I hope?" I nodded. "Why did you take them, Dad?"

"For me, for something to look at later on when he's older. I
want to remember him the way he is right now. He's very beautiful.
For him too, so he has something to look back on."

Tara smiled. "I hoped you'd say that. Not now, of course, but
later on, I'd like to see them too. He has such a beautiful body,
and I'm his mother," she joked. "Are there pictures of the two of
you together?" she asked pointedly.

"You mean sex photographs?" I queried. Tara answered by tilt-
ing her head. "Yes," I answered. "I've taken quite a few of them
over the last few months."

"That's what Austin said," Tara said. "He said there were some
photos that showed,... where you were,... doing it?"

"Yes. Are you angry?"

"Not really. Not any more. I was upset last night. The whole
thing was rather unexpected. After all this time, I guess I thought
nothing had happened, so nothing was going to happen. He's been so
good since he's been spending time with you, so I began to think
that there was no problem."

"I don't think of it as a problem," I said curtly. "He can't
help what he is, Tara. Neither can I for that matter."

"I know that, Dad. Actually, I'm glad you've been there for
him. The mere idea of him being with someone else, like that man in
Georgia. It makes me feel like I'm going to throw up."

I nodded. "Me too. Tara, he needed someone. If it wasn't me,
it would have been someone else. He can't help it."

"I know, Dad."

"It's very dangerous for a boy like Austin. I've heard some
very unpleasant stories about gay boys growing up. Some are terri-
ble. I know of one boy who was raped. He ended up dying from AIDS."

"I worried about that too," Tara admitted. "He's safe with
you, isn't he?"

"I don't have AIDS," I replied immediately.

"Do you use a condom with him?"

"No," I answered. "There's no need to. He understands why he
should take precautions if he's with someone else. Particularly if
his partner is sexually mature."

"Huh?"

"A boy his own age isn't likely to understand the mechanics of
anal sex, let alone have a penis that's large enough to make him
bleed. However, it's a very different story once a boy is sexually
mature. There's a much bigger risk because of the size for one
thing. Pubescent boys are very active. It goes with the territory."

"He's not even close, is he?"

"Huh?"

"Austin. He's not even close to starting puberty, is he?"

"Hardly. He's still three or four years away. Most boys start
when they're twelve or thirteen."

"That's what I thought. It'll get worse then, won't it?"

"What will get worse?" I asked.

"The sex thing. You just said his sex drive would be even
stronger then."

"It's very likely, though it defies my imagination how it
could possibly be any stronger than it is now," I quipped.

Tara chuckled. "He must keep you busy, Dad. No wonder you look
so worn out when you drop him off on Sunday evenings."

"It isn't always because of sex," I added swiftly. "We do lots
of other things. Like last weekend, we must have hiked thirty
miles."

Tara looked out the window for a moment, watching the passing
parade of tourists.

"What happens now, Dad?"

"I don't know, Tara," I answered. "It's really up to you."

"No, Dad. I've been thinking about it. It's up to both of us.
We both want what's best for him."

"Which is?" I prompted.

"Please don't make me say it."

"I'm not sure you need to say it, Tara," I said gently.

"I want it to be you who's with him, Dad. Not some stranger
who doesn't care for him other than what he's got between his but-
tocks. I want you to love him the same way that you loved my
brother."

"Tara,..."

"Dad, let me finish, okay? I've been thinking about this for a
long while. You were very good for Phillip. It was hard enough that
he was gay, but you made it easier for him. You're wonderful with
Austin, and  Tristan too. You're been the father they've never had.
Okay, so you're more than a father in some ways," she added and
smiled. "I don't see anything that's all that bad. You make Austin
happy. You give him what he needs. Maybe it is against the law, but
maybe it's the law that is wrong."

"Tara,..." I tried again. She was close to tears.

"No, Dad. I have to say this. I've seen his face when he comes
home from spending the weekend with you. His eyes sparkle. It's
like he's discovered what real happiness is all about. If he came
home crying I'd be talking to the police right now. But he doesn't!
He comes home and does nothing but talk about how wonderful you are
and what a great time he has with you. He's like that until Friday.
Then he's so excited, it's all I can do to get him off to school. I
swear, Dad, if I didn't see it for myself, I wouldn't have under-
stood. I guess what I'm trying to say is that boy of mine really
loves you."

"Tara,..."

She shook her head urgently. "Dad, he loves you so much I
think it would kill him if you stopped seeing him. I want him to be
happy. It's all I've ever wanted. For him and  Tristan to be happy.
I panicked last night. When I saw him, when I found out what the two
of you had done together, I didn't know what to think. Not that
there was any sign that he'd been hurt, of course."

"Tara,..."

"Dad, I need to get all of it out, okay? I guess I had con-
vinced myself there was nothing to worry about. For a long while,
I've worried about him doing those things. I worried I was going to
lose him."

"And?" I prompted, finally giving up on my attempt to quell
her acknowledgement of what we both understood.

"I don't want anything bad to happen to him. I don't want to
lose him." Tara paused. "He'll be nine next weekend."

"Yes, I know."

"You were planning on taking him away, weren't you?"

I nodded. "We were going to the Aquarium at Chattanooga. We'll
be back early on Sunday afternoon, so he can have his party."

Tara sighed. "This morning, when I was getting ready for this,
I was going to tell you that you couldn't take him. But now, well it
wouldn't be fair, would it?"

"He's really looking forward to it, Tara. It was going to be a
special celebration. Just the two of us."

"Yes, I know." Tara hesitated. She smiled slightly. "One hun-
dred times."

I reddened. She knew about the diary.

"You know about that?" I mumbled.

"You of all people should know he can't keep a secret, Dad,"
she chided. "One hundred times?"

I winced. I met her eyes. There was no anger, just a maternal
interest.

"It just seems so much. He's had sex with you a hundred times
and he's not even nine years old. He's still so small down there.
I'm not wrong, am I? His cock is tiny, isn't it?"

I shrugged uncomfortably. Austin's sex organs might be a lit-
tle bit smaller than those of the average nine-year-old boy, but
well within the normal range.

"It's hard to understand how there's any pleasure in it for
him," Tara added. "But I guess there must be, otherwise you
wouldn't do it, would you?"

"Tara,..."

She smiled. From her hand bag she pulled out a small blue tee-
shirt. She held it up in front of her. From behind it looked per-
fectly normal. It was small, the size that Austin wore.

"I made this in the shop, before I came."

Slowly she turned it around so that I could see the front.
There was a picture of a hand in the center, a finger pointing
downward. It pointed towards where a boy's crotch would be if the
shirt was not tucked in. And the text?

"Sometimes the best things come in small packages."

THE END