Date: Sun, 6 Jul 2014 12:34:41 -0700 From: will mccullough Subject: Weaning Your Boy the Alternative Way, a Dad's Story - Chapter 3 DISCLAIMER: The following story is a work of fiction. It contains erotic homosexual incestuous themes between adult men and minors. If you are a minor, it is illegal in your country to read or possess this kind of material in electronic or printed form, or offends you, please stop reading now. The author does not condone the views and opinions expressed by the characters. The following story is the intellectual property of the author. It is illegal to copy, publish, distribute, host on other websites, or alter this work without consent from the author. AUTHOR'S NOTE: Donate to Nifty! Every single penny counts to keep Nifty alive. Without your contributions, all the hot kind of stories like this and all the other amazing ones kept in Nifty's archive wouldn't be available to you. If you would like to talk to me, please do not hesitate. I am always interested in insights, opinions, suggestions and any thoughts my fiction may inspire from my readers. You may contact me at: willlnyc@yahoo.com (Thank you, Fred Briggs) ................................ WEANING YOUR BOY THE ALTERNATIVE WAY, A DAD'S STORY -- CHAPTER 3 -- In life, nothing is ideal. You plan, you execute those plans, and then you find it turns out so differently than you had thought it would. Winners learn to accept this. There is always a way a loss can be exploited for a gain you never saw coming--you know, it's the lemon/lemonade maxim--just keep your eyes open and don't stop taking chances. You throw enough shit against the wall and some of it will finally stick. Believe me, it will, you just have to look for why some of the pieces fall. When Max's strange ways began showing themselves, my first impulse was to think about where I had gone wrong. He was still so young, my first thought was that my most glaring mistake was to have had him in the first place. I found myself resenting my own child for my own mistake. Simply put, he was The Mistake. Each one of his abnormal behaviorisms verified it. This son of mine was a living anomaly, a mistake of nature. The futility in which I tried to reshape him into that of a normal boy only hardened my contempt. The character taking form in him became a piercing argument against my errors in judgement. Had I been too young to have a child? Had I chosen the wrong wife? Had my professional life become too demanding? All these questions constantly rang in my head as I watched Max becoming an unfit son. By the time Max was twelve months old, my marriage was already imploding. The woman I loved and chose as my wife and mother for my child had become a toxic waste-case before me. Her downfall was swift. Sure, now I can see the writing had been on the wall from the beginning. She; the intelligent and creative beauty, the woman who understood sides of me like no one ever had before or since, the woman who thought I was the man to save her. Yes, I should have seen it. It's the kind of thing in the business world I would have seen coming a mile away and steered clear. But I'm human and I make mistakes like everyone else. And Jean--well--how do describe such a woman? Max clings to my leg as I write this. The mysterious, strong need from his father for something essential--essentially something which I cannot find within. "It's OK, little buddy." I muss his silky hair with the palm of my hand. Your mommy isn't here to love you. Is this the essential thing missing--maternal love? Is this the thing a man cannot give? But at least, you have a parent. You indeed have a roof over your head. Every material need will be provided. You will have the best schools, the best neighborhoods--the best father figure to set an example of how to succeed in the world. As I watch him, I am really scared for him. He has everything but a sense of love. How will this pure, innocent boy ever love himself if he doesn't feel loved? And try daddy does to mend this. But the more I try, the more I feel him disappearing from me. Max is mercury, amorphous. His pretty exterior is tangible, but underneath he escapes my grasp. The Max I try to grab on to and shape resists the Max I touch. I look into his darting eyes for clues for where Max is. He is supple, soft, yielding, fragile. Paradoxically solid. Unbudging, unyielding. He is breakable and unbreakable. I feel if I try to bend him he will snap. His four-year-old limbs reach out to me--me, his father, his only salvation--with this hungry, selfish, willful need that is never satisfied. I hold him close to me. Feeling his muggy breath on my neck with its faint, lingering smell of apple juice while his little hands clutch hard at my shirt. "Max, no. Daddy is writing." I know there has to be the capacity somewhere for love. Surely--but everything had moved so fast. Jean started going A.W.O.L. only three months after she gave birth to Max. She was going to be the lover in our family. Everything was going to be perfect--she, being the wise and understanding lover, the nurturer who brings out the best in everyone she touches. And I, being the provider and the protector. The equation immediately started smashing itself to pieces once we moved to Connecticut. And as for my son Max? I simply was not prepared for it. So here writes a thirty-four-year-old man who, for the first time in his life, is completely stumped for answers. Being in this position doesn't come easy to a man like me. I'm the man people go to for answers. I'm the man who cuts through the bullshit and has the quick solutions. Already at my age I employ senior businessmen at the peek of their careers who gladly answer to me. I'm not stroking my own ego here--it's just the way it worked out. I always make sure I've placed myself in a position with options. Yet here I am getting tripped up by the most basic of institutions, fatherhood. Max is, well--since he is my son, of course I cannot help but value him as such. He appears the perfect little boy in gallery-after-gallery of Facebook pictures I post; little Max eating his first birthday cake, in our pool swimming at the age of two, in his Spider-Man costume watching his favorite movie "Happy Feet." But there is another Max behind those pictures, the one whom perhaps, other than his father, only his nanny Ana had initially glimpsed. He has become a willful child. On the one hand, he seeks constant nurturing--this is the shy, sweet, hesitant, quiet and watchful Max. His big, grey eyes searching my own with a pleading look which often, once his immediate needs are appeased, will then cast quickly aside with the glimmer of a secret coup. I fear what he will become, sensing all the subtle ways he stubbornly resists adulthood. Put a pen and paper in his hand, the boy can entertain himself throughout the whole of an afternoon. It's uncanny this boy's focus, once absorbed by something which comes intrinsic to him. But pull him outside himself and it is like he freezes with a quiet anxiety. Until Max, I have always told myself what a natural I am at successful mentoring. But when witnessing the many failed attempts with my own son, I realize I've never mentored someone so ungrateful. In contrast, my business colleagues actively seek out my council and therefore feel indebted to me for my mentorship. Max, my greatest failure, is a continuum of disappointment. He maintains his campaigns of bed-wetting and refusing to drink anything unless it comes from a bottle. The little fucker resents every one of the strategies I employ to pull him from the infantilism in which he dearly holds. * * * So welcome to my new life with a son named Max. It is an unusually balmy Saturday afternoon in early May and six of my New York buddies have come up to see my new Greenwhich spread, play a game of Cutthroat to inaugurate the basketball hoop I just put up for the occasion and have a visit with my four-year-old son, a walking emblem of my failure at marriage and fatherhood, still soiling his pants and sucking on a pacifier. It's the first time in a while I've swallowed my pride and had my main peeps around to see Max. Hours ago, they had all finally arrived and now, reliving old times on Chrystie Street, each one of us is trying our best to dominate the court. But my Max-for-a-son is right here in the mix, which means--as always when he's around--his behavior becomes a constant interruption to any kind of normalcy, and in turn the favorite and frequent topic of conversation. The day becomes all about Max, making it impossible to enjoy what should be a simple reunion with friends. "Bro, you kind of suck at being Mommy, huh?" says James, met with an appreciative chorus of laughs when I am again trying to shut up Max's incessant crying, stopping our game for the fifth time. "One day my brother couldn't take it any longer and just threw the damn milk bottle in the garbage and that was the end of it," says Duane, looking at me with a certain curiosity intoned with undisguised relish, as if he has just discovered in me a newly uncharted weakness. "Dude, Max is cute but you seriously have to do something about that diaper. I think he shit his britches again," says Bucky at which point it had become clear we should stop trying to hit hoops and put an end to the game for good. Later, after they had gone back to their New York City lives, reverberating in my head were their words. James and Chad--back to catch the Graveyard concert. Duane--back to his new wife. Rafael--back to Bank Street to join his newborn daughter and his perfect wife. Bucky--for more drinks and probable coke somewhere in Brooklyn. Their chiding voices continued as I stood there alone a little buzzed from the weed, looking out over the lawn in the darkness while finishing a cigarette, a witness to my new future life. My best friend Ben, however, always the last to leave, is still down in the kitchen where I had left him, eating leftover pizza, talking to some dude on the phone. I walk through the dark house back downstairs to join him to find that my son is now with him. Of course the little deviant is no longer in bed but instead fully awake and gyrating like he's possessed to the rhythms of A$AP Rocky rapping on the stereo system. "Hahaha, Max is a little freak on the dance floor. Go get jiggy with it, son, hahahaha," Ben says. I can smell that He has been smoking more weed even though I told him not to do it in front of Max. Ben gets off the stool glassy-eyed and starts dancing with him. "Crank that shit, bro!" (meaning the volume) "Oh, sorry, I keep forgetting about my mouth, I mean... crank it up. Your boy is pimpin' here--aren't you, Max, brother?" Little Max, in the camouflage pajamas, has his arms raised from his sides. They have become wings as he now moves across the floor like an airplane. The flight course he has set includes intentionally bumping into Ben and me in its loose figure-eight pattern. I'm not quite feeling the scene, but trying to be cool with it, I turn the volume up just a bit and go over to the refrigerator and open another beer. Coming out of the speakers: " `Cause I'm always talking fly shit, fashion be the topic. That's why all these hoes wanna hop and jump on my dick. Then she looked at me and said how lower can your eyes get? Let me know who's chipping in this before I cop it." I'm standing there watching my son Max cutting loose in a wholly unfamiliar way. It seems a part of him which has all this time laid dormant is being unleashed tonight. There is none of his usual watchful hesitation. Around my friend, he has become uninhibited, a willing participant. "I've never seen Max buggin' so hard. He really likes you, Ben." It comes out of my mouth before I realize it and as soon I hear my voice above the music, I wish I hadn't made the statement. The weed is making me feel paranoid, or just kind of weird with everything. "It's `cause he needs to hang with a real homie, ain't that right, son?" Ben grabs my beer and takes a big swig. I go get another beer as the track ends and "Touch It" by Busta Rhymes comes on. "Touch it, Bring it, Pay it, Watch it, Turn it, Leave it, Stop, format it." I had decided to turn off the stereo after the one track ended and take Max back up to bed where a boy his age should be at this hour. But now, I think--for better or worse--this might be in some way good for him. I mean, he seems unusually... happy, one could even say. Besides, I reason, the dancing will probably tire him to the point he will finally go to sleep. I like seeing Max bonding with someone besides his nanny. If there's anyone who's my main bud, it's Ben. He may not be a father's first choice for the kind of man he'd like to see his own son look up to. Ben smokes too much weed. He is pretty much a trust fund fuck-up. But at the end of the day, he's one of the most decent guys a person could ever meet. He's probably the only friend of mine with whom I can talk about the deep personal stuff. He knows the real story about Jean--way more than anyone else. He knows about most everything I've been going through, all except my increasingly alarming situation with Max. Ben may be a very open-minded person but there's private stuff I'm certainly not about to go sharing with him. Like I know there are things about himself he doesn't talk to me about. Actually, it makes perfect sense Max is connecting with him. When it comes down to it, Ben is still a kid himself. Ben is now copping the move of his idea of a gangsta stance. He is looking down at Max with this ice-grill expression on his face. His hips are thrust forward. The words continue to pour out explicitly filling the room: "When I come, I be doing it and doing it well. Then I beat up the coochie and be making it swell." Little Max has a crazy grin on his face. He is grabbing some fabric of each of Ben's pants legs in his fists and is swaying back and forth looking up at him. I'm sitting down, realizing I'm pretty toasted but feeling pretty good. Ben looks over at me and winks and pulls my son up in his arms. "Come 'ere, you crazy fucker." "Come on, dude, watch your language--please!" "Bill, I'm so sorry. I keep forgetting. Seriously though, it's not like Max's not hearing about `ho's gettin' banged and sh-stuff." Max is now clutched against Bill's chest with his legs wrapped around his waist as Ben begins spinning around. As the track fades out I go over to change the playlist. Jean's playlists are still all over iTunes. More than half of them are hers. As my eyes scan down through them all, trying to decide the right thing to play, it feels like she is in the room gently mocking me. One of her selections would probably be the perfect choice to chill me out but I can't find it. Nothing feels right and I want to call it a night. So instead, I simply hit the pause button and everything is stilled. I turn around and find Max has Ben's middle finger in his mouth sucking on it. Each of their gaze is mutually locked while my son continues to suck it. Ben apparently seems OK with what is happening for his eyes are glued with interest to my son's mouth while he methodically slides his bony digit slowly in and out between his lips. I am momentarily frozen in place while I think of what to say. I can feel a trickle of sweat running its way down the back of my neck. "You ready for your milk, monkey?" I hear my voice trying to sound natural breaking the silence in the now very silent room. The kitchen counters are strewn with empty shot glasses and beer cans, dirty plates, pizza boxes, an uneaten salad and Max's carton of milk. Through the windows I can see the pool lights are on. The pool and the tree branches above glow blue. I move quickly for Max's bottle in the dishwasher. I hear Ben say in a slightly blurred voice, "I think your son thinks my finger is a..." then pausing to give the thought more consideration before he continues stammering, "Max... I think... he thinks my finger is a like a... tit. He must be a titty-man like his old man, dude." His eyes seek mine out for the safety of an agreement. "He always does that when he's getting sleepy, it just means he's ready for his milk and then bed. Don't freak out, bro." I make an attempt at a chuckle. My palms are damp as I'm screwing the top back on Max's bottle after filling it with warm milk I just microwaved. "It's cool, you're just thirsty, right, baby boy?" Ben says. He then leans in and plants a loud kiss on his forehead. Looking back at me, "I love this cute little freak!" Max snuggles into Ben. I'm kind of amazed how Ben is acting so indifferently towards Max's freakishness. But my wariness of having people around my son for extended periods of time is intensifying as each minute passes. I have to get him to bed as soon as I can manage. "Yes, Max is a big boy now and needs to drink from a sippy cup, not a bottle, right son? You're not going to be drinking from a bottle much longer are you little guy? " Max looks into Ben's face as I hand him the bottle, "Daddy doesn't like me to drink from my bottle anymore. He's mean." "Daddy isn't mean, he loves you and knows what's good for you. Hey bonehead, after you drink your milk, you want to go up and show Ben your T-Rex? Ben, let Max down, he's too big to carry, you're getting tired of holding him, surely." Then Max says coolly, audibly, "Ben's not tired, He's strong." I watch as he feels up Ben's bicep like he does mine. "He's got guns like you, daddy." With mounting stress, my mind is becoming occupied with the feat of finding ways to make light of each new surprising situation as it presents itself. So I down the rest of my beer, place it on the counter, then with exaggeration swagger comically over to the two of them and flex my bicep. "Now feel this, son. See? Ben's got nothing on your dad. These, my boy, are guns. Not like Ben's. His are like a little girl's." And actually, it is the truth. It's kind of unfair to compare my buddy's physique to mine. Ben's a party boy, but me? I've always worked hard on my body, from mixed martial arts fighting to boot camp training, like everything I put my mind to, I'm proud of the results. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't. As Max starts feeling my fully-flexed sixteen-inch bicep, I pull him off of Ben's lap who's now sitting on the stool and swing my boy back to his feet. Ben gives me a smirk. "Yeah, whatever. I got muscle where it counts," says Ben. He continues to look at me with that smirk on his face but his eyes are studying mine like he's picking up on something. Ben always has this way when he's getting loaded -- his facial expressions and words often weighted with intimations. He thinks he's got it all figured out and starts reading into everything. Max leans back over into Ben, sucking on his bottle and rests his head on Ben's thigh, with his eyes glazed like they always do when he's sucking like he's getting high from it. I'm getting more beer for Ben and myself when I realize Max's little hand is resting on Ben's crotch, kneading it like a kitten does when it nurses. Ben looks at me and lets out a surprised laugh. "Jesus, what the fuck? Hahaha." "No, Max. Stop that." I yank him away and turn him to face me. I crouch down so I'm on eye-level. Max, be careful where you touch people. People don't like you to touch them there." I grab my crotch. "Here, Max. This is a person's private area, we don't touch other people there." Max blurts out, "But Daddy, you... you..." And then his eyes tear up and the waterworks commence. Ben, always the peacemaker, interjects, "It's nothing, kid. Don't worry about it. It's all good. You didn't know, buddy." Ben looks at me, his head cocked, like I'm the one, not my son, who has crossed a line. "Bill, he's just a kid. Whatever, dude. It's cool." I grab onto both of Max's arms. "No, it's not cool. You don't do that son. It's alright, you didn't know. Daddy's not mad at you." Max is blubbering, tears streaming down his face, looking up at Ben, trying to catch his breath between sobs. I pull him up into my arms. "Okay, buster, that's enough. Time for bed. Ben wants you to introduce him to T-Rex up in your room. It's OK, monkey-monk, don't you want to show Ben your T-Rex?" I'm searching Ben's face, my eyes round, trying to display disbelief of the weird thing my son just did. "Yo, grab those beers and let's take Monkey up so he can show you his pet dinosaur. Max, stop your crying, nobody is mad. You're our bud. Let's go up and show Ben your new dinosaur." Holding him, I can now smell the giveaway trace of urine. Of course--I was expecting it. When Max gets upset he pisses himself to get back at me. I don't say anything, I just want to get Max to bed--out of sight. Again and again, Max demonstrates to myself and whoever is around the strangeness of what our relationship is becoming. It's like he's on a mission to humiliate himself and fuck his father up. "Actually, Ben, I'm going to give Max a quick bath, so stay down here and roll one up. I'll be back down in a minute after I put him to bed. Let's go, buddy."