Camp Silver Pine

Long Bus Ride Back to Camp

Disclaimer

Copyright 2010. This story is a work of fiction. Any resemblances to places, people or things are purely coincidental. This story is about the coming of age of the main character, and the struggles he encounters on trying to discover his new self. If it is illegal for you to read erotic stories depicting minors, please do not continue reading past this Disclaimer. Other than that, I hope you enjoy the story and please the Author's Note at the bottom for contact info.

Camp Silver Pine

Chapter One**:**

The Long Bus Ride Back to Camp

I was completely exhausted when I awoke to the sounds of birds chirping away in song, my eyelids feeling so heavy that trying to keep them open proved more troublesome a task than allowing them to remain shut. If iron weights were hanging from them it wouldn't have surprised me, but needless to say, I wanted to find out the time. There's no way it was past eight o'clock. I mean, the sun was out shining and all, just not as bright as it could have been thankfully. Surely enough, I reached across to the nightstand that was beside my bunk for my watch and opened my eyes just a bit to glance at the time: 06:14! What? I yelled in my mind while doing a double take at the clock face and moaning loudly in disapproval. Oh my God! What the heck am I doing up so early for? If the time was right, I hadn't been asleep for three solid hours yet and here I was awake as anything. Part of it was my fault: I decided to volunteer and be a part of the cleanup crew with my best friend and his sister, so once the ten o'clock hour slowly passed by, which is the time I normally put myself to bed, I began drinking soda to help keep me awake. After the party finished and the three of us began cleaning up, I started getting hyper and so full of energy that Craig decided that we should all go for a hike up to Meeting Point rock. So, with flashlights grabbed from our cabins, the three of us ventured off up the trail leading to the rock and stayed there until about 3am, chatting about everything. It was one of the last times Craig and his sister Naomi, and I would be able to hang out and just be together since today was the first day of the camping season. In a matter of hours the camp would be filled with kids from all over the world, and the three of us would go our separate ways. This year was my first year in the Leaders in Training program, or L.I.T's as we're normally referred to as, so I would be on the boys' side of the camp paired off with two counselors in a cabin full of boys, while Naomi was the same only on the girls' side. Craig was the luckiest because he had gotten the best position the camp had to offer -- Program Director -- and although at times the program director was required to work in the office with the Camp Director, it was a position where he dictated all the games and invented all the programs the camp would do. He was also the reason why I was up at camp as an L.I.T because technically, I was too young.

A person applying to be anything up at Camp Silver Pine has to first go through the L.I.T program, something that teenager's as young as fifteen could apply for. I was in my fifteenth year, but didn't turn 15 until the end of November -- still quite a long time away since it was only the first week of July. But because of me and Craig knowing each other from way back half my lifetime ago, he immediately suggested that I get into the program.

Craig and I met the first day I essentially began my career in little league football. My parents had taken me along for the ride to the alumni hall to sign up and get fitted for the equipment, and as we drove into the parking lot, I remember staring outside the back window behind the driver's seat at two boy's tossing around an oval-shaped, brown ball that looked like the same ball used in the games on T.V. every Sunday my dad watched. I was so fascinated with how the older boy could throw the ball in a perfect spiral every time he touched it. The younger boy, who closely resembled the older one leading me to assume it was his brother, couldn't really grasp onto the ball to throw it properly and so on his return throw, the ball would wobble around too much and often fail to reach its target. As my family parked the car and got out, the older boy ran over to us and yelled, "Hey, do you want to come play catch with my brother and me?" I immediately looked up at my mother, wondering whether she would grant her approval of me running off with these unknown kids. She in turn glanced at my father, who then looked at me and said to go on and play; there was no need to keep me bored while they filled out the paperwork.

The next ten minutes really established our friendship. I learned that the older boy's name was Craig Matthews, and that he recently turned twelve years old, playing quarterback for his division team. His younger brother was six years old, though taller than me and didn't play yet because he was too young. His name though was Derek, and well more about him later. . . Craig had his brother and I stand a couple of yards apart and went over how to throw a football. "Put your ring finger and pinky on the laces, then stretch the rest of your hand around . . . No like that," He said while moving my two fingers on the laces a part from one another so that an extra lace was in between. "Like that. Those two fingers are what control the spin on the ball. If you hold it right and proper, you'll get the ball to spin in a perfect spiral and any wide receiver will be able to catch it." After the little instruction lesson on how to throw a football, he shifted into how catch a football. "Ball -- Catch -- Tuck -- Run!" Four easy words that described the entire simple process, but of course I ran into the same problems Craig's little brother Derek had when it came to throwing and catching the ball: my hands were too small. At that point thought, we were interrupted by a man who called out to Craig and Derek to bring me inside. It was time for me to be fitted into some equipment.

"Dad, I think I found you the perfect quarterback for your tyke team this year!" Craig said excitedly once we reached the guy who called us into the building. "I'll teach him everything I know. Just you watch!"

"Craig son, we'll talk about this later. Let's at least get the new star into a uniform." His father replied, and then turned to look at me. "What's your favorite number, kid?"

My favorite number was seven of course. It was how old I was at the time. But the split second between the question and my answer, Craig had brought his hands up to signify the number seven as well. "Seven, sir," came me answer. I later learned once the football season had started that the number 7 was Craig's number.

That first year of playing football, I probably practiced twice as hard as anyone else did. Coach Matthews commented at the start of the season he still didn't like the idea of putting a seven year old up against kids who were nine. Part if the conditions of me playing quarterback were I show up to the atom teams practice on top of my own teams and did the exercises with them, then watched the practice from the sidelines, paying close attention to Craig and how he moved throughout the field. When their team's coach pulled Craig aside to have him practice a drill, I would be right there beside. Craig was fast, both as a thinker and in speed, and if his father wasn't grooming him to go pro after bantam I wouldn't have been surprised. Things went along great those first four seasons I played: we won two championships and one tournament championship when I was ten. I spent a few weekends over at the Matthews' house as well and became very close to the two boys as well as their sister Naomi.

Naomi is about a year older than me -- eleven months and three days to be exact -- and been secretly admired by me for like the last two years. It didn't help my crush out on her a bit that when she began calling me on the phone and we talked for hours on end, I began to really like her more than just a friend. I couldn't let her know, that would have simply been the most embarrassing moment ever, but Craig certainly read into everything and even tried to set us up on a date once. "No, Craig," I pleaded with him. "I don't want her knowing. I'd rather have her as a close friend and nothing more."

"But you don't understand, Jesse. She really likes you. All you would have to do is ask her out and she'd say yes." He informed me.

I couldn't say anything after that but just continue to beg that he never tell her. It wasn't that I didn't like her, because God knows I did, but for some reason, I felt I didn't want to lose her through a breakup the way I've seen Craig lose two of his previous girlfriends. At school, she was the most sought after girl, and I enjoyed being closer to her than any other guy in school. Mind you, we didn't hang out with the same crowds anymore. Ever since this one occasion, I've become more of a loner while she remained friends with other popular people. Any extracurricular activity she participated in became an instant success like last year's yearbook. She added a fashion section and totally became a hit this year that even the school newspaper wanted her to write her own column; the seniors asking for her advice on what to wear to the prom was the best and I felt so excited for her when she told me that one evening. Her relationships though have been few and far between. She's had a total of two boyfriends ever: one a jock who she lost interest in in less than a month, and the other to the high school vice-president, another relationship that didn't end well for the boyfriend. Most guys see her and think, "Man is she hot or what?" I look at her and I see a girl who has integrity and a strong character. What she says, she does end of story. And because of our friendship privilege that we share, I know from at least one phone call we had after she broke up with her last boyfriend that she's tired of putting up a façade in school. She wants a boyfriend who can be her equal in everything, something I knew myself I could live up to if it weren't for my own set of problems I was going through.

My life, at the age of 12, began to morph into a continual tug-of-war battle in so many ways that it often brought me to the point of a mental breakdown, and last year an attempt at suicide. It all began at that occasion that basically caused me to start pushing all my friends away, lest anyone find out the truth about me. One day after practice when the team hit the showers, I stood underneath the spraying water from one of the showerheads and looked around at all of my other teammates in the nude, beginning to actually notice them. It was liked something just clicked on inside my head that said, "Wow, look at what he has!" The first thing that I especially noticed, was it seemed everyone had a bigger scrotum than me, and the length and thickness of their penises were twice that of my own which rested on top of a scrotum that barely fell an inch away from my body. Some of my teammates sported pubic hair, and a few were still balder than a baby's butt, but at least everyone looked like they were growing something down there. One of the two running backs for the team even had armpit hair, beating out everyone else in that department as the most mature. I had absolutely no hair on my body other than what was on top of my head, and worse, above all else, was the thoughts that came of what I'd like to do with one of my teammates, and the corresponding erection that followed afterwards.

I mean sure I saw other teammates pop wood in the showers, and I would have been able to brush mine off if it stopped at that, but it didn't. I looked at somebody's erection and wondered what it would taste like. How would it feel with its entire length inside my mouth with my lips pursed shut around its width? I tried a few times on my pinkie finger, but I doubt that could be compared to the real thing. These thoughts began occurring closer to the beginning of the season, so I was in for hell of a time considering it was a part of the league's regulations that we were required to shower after every practise and every game. Thankfully, I managed to keep my thoughts under control, and wasn't found out.

That changed the second year. Or rather it didn't become public knowledge, again thankfully. I don't know what I would have done if people knew about my queer feelings. Even when I kept them to myself it nearly destroyed me. I was supposed to be a part of the peewee team that season, but because of my stature and being underweight, I was forced to remain in the atom division. I used that as part of the reason I begged my parents not to put me into football that year. All of my teammates would be moving on and I was to be left behind. My dad didn't buy it though. "You've loved playing football for the past five years -- why all of a sudden do you dislike it?" He tried to reason. "Look, some of your teammates are moving up, and that means other kids from tyke are moving up. That means you'll get to play with Derek again," was another excuse he argued. His final argument was, "Jesse, I don't understand your reasons behind why you want to quit. You aren't, and have never been a quitter. I'm not going to have my son at home alone when he could be out enjoying himself with his friends. End of conversation, period!" I'd then shout in my head, it's not that I want to be home alone -- it's that I don't want anybody in the world to know I'm gay!! Even Craig that my reasons for quitting were ridiculous, though not the real reasons, but at least he left it at just voicing what he thought. Naomi's opinion was more, then I can focus on more important things. Derek's reaction was more something that scared me: he left the room almost in tears, swearing at me for being a stupid jerk.

"Derek has been looking forward to playing with you again, Jesse." Craig told me later after we heard Derek's bedroom door slam shut. "You don't understand who much he looks up to you. When he was behind in tyke last year for the same reason you're remaining in atom this year, it hurt him. He'd cry for days on end for not being a part of the winning team again. I don't know what's up with my little brother lately, but he's been acting extremely weird." Great, I thought, now if I don't join the team this year I lose one friendship I didn't want to. My fear of course being that if I hurt Derek, Naomi and Craig would stop being my friend. And this I couldn't bear because they were the only true friends I had.

So after reluctantly signing up for the season, our first practice came along, and with it the shower afterwards. I thought it was going to be a nightmare, but surprisingly it was the first after practice shower ever where I didn't even get an erection. I was so happy! I wasn't gay after all! Sure I continued to check out what other boys were packing underneath their clothes, but that was it. No thoughts, no erection: I'm cured! Yippee!

Ha! The happiness was short-lived however, because the second practice and what happened after turned into the nightmare I dreadfully feared, and lead to me trying to take my own life. The practice went along perfectly working on drills and plays the coach would have us repeat over and over again. Finally the whistle blew to end the practice, and we all headed into the showers in the alumni hall, me leading the way as their quarterback, renewed and confident that since my weird feelings had disappeared, we'd probably win the championship. I began to strip of my uniform until I was naked and beat everyone into the showers. The shower room was like the ones at swimming pools, a room with one drain and multiple heads protruding from the walls. I turned on mine, and was greeted by Derek as he joined beside me underneath the adjacent showerhead. I admit I began eyeing him up. He had smooth, skinny legs that had decent looking calf muscles due to the hours he spent cycling. His skin was a beautiful beige colour with just the slightest hint of a red sunburn that suggested he'd spent way too much time outside. I deliberately moved my eyes away from his dick because I already knew what it looked like. His stomach was flat, no real definition showed in his abdomen but his belly button was similar to mine -- one that went inside as opposed to one that stuck out. His nipples had a brown hue to them and were about the size of a ten cent coin. He was definitely attractive, and really hot, just like his sister. My groin began to stir and suddenly I had focused my eyes on his most prized possession of all, and I loved what I saw. He was extremely hard, his penis length stretching to the same as mine at about three inches, but his looked to be a bit thicker than mine. Thoughts came flooding back about sticking it in my mouth, even to the point where I could feel myself begin to drool. I was thankful that both of us were facing the wall because we would have been teased to no end with both of us standing beside one another with our dicks sticking out hard than the tiled walls in front of us.

There was a split second where I caught his eye staring at my hairless groin and what was sticking out from it before our eyes met. "Thanks for joining the team again this year, Jesse. It means a lot to me!" He whispered. I just kind of smiled, trying to eradicate all the sexual thoughts that rushed into my head. I mean, was it right to be thinking about Derek this way? But he interrupted my thoughts with the suggestion that since it was Saturday night, he might be able to spend the night at my house. I thought that was okay, because I wouldn't have seen him naked in my house, so the thoughts wouldn't continue was we left the showers. My parents of course readily agreed and instead of going home with Craig, Derek drove home with me and my parents. That night in my bedroom, Derek started a conversation that seemed innocent enough to me. "Jesse, do you play with yourself?"

"What do you mean?" I asked, truly oblivious to the fact that the he was talking about something sexual.

"Well, you know, like your dick," came his reply.

Do I answer this truthfully? "Um, I guess so. Why?"

"What do you think about when you're doing it?" He asked. Lol_, if you weren't here right this second, you silly because you're so damned cute!_

"Lots of things I guess."

"Do you think about kissing?"

"Yeah," I replied and then quickly added. "And girls' boobs."

"What about boys?" He whispered softly.

"No, of course not! I'm not gay!" I answered sternly. Liar...

"Then how come when you were looking at me in the showers earlier, you got hard?" He asked, and suddenly I panicked. He knew. Derek knew my secret. I felt like my life was going to end right there. All the effort I put into trying to conceal this one part of my life had now been exposed.

"I'm going to sleep now, Derek." I tried to answer as calmly as possible, but came out in an angry tone.

"I'm sorry, Jesse, I did..." He began to say before I rudely interrupted.

"Shut up man, I told you I'm going to sleep now! Leave me alone damnit!" I barked.

The lights were out in my room. My blood was beginning to boil, my mind thinking of all the possible things I could say to rebuke Derek telling the team and everyone else on the planet that I was gay. I was angry at myself, no, furious that I had allowed to myself to look at Derek that way. I eyed up my best friend's little brother! What is wrong with me? God, I hate my life, I thought. Less than five minutes later after I totally went ballistic on Derek, the sounds of sniffling arose from over in his direction. Derek was crying. I didn't know why, it wasn't his life that was over. But somehow, something deep down told me I had hurt him severely, venom spewed from my tongue that was to cause irreversible damage.

Tears began to well up in my eyes, and instead of just lying there, I got up and went to my dad's home office. I grabbed a piece of paper from the printer tray and wrote the words, `Mom, Dad, I'm sorry.' I grabbed the key from my father's desk and walk over to his father's gun cabinet. I pulled out a handgun, loaded it with a single bullet and stuck the barrel in my mouth thinking, you want to suck on a dick? Here, suck on this! The office door opened letting in light from the hallway, and as I turned around to see who it was, I pulled the trigger followed by hearing a screaming voice yell at the top of their lungs "JESSE!" The force of the blast knocked me off me feet and into the desk, smashing my head against oak wood it was constructed with. The gun fell out of my hands and immediately was kicked out of the way. I was alive, but sobbing uncontrollably into a small body frame, repeating over and over, "I just want to die."

Well, needless to say I lived through that venture relatively unscathed. I had a lot of explaining to do after that incident though. The sound of the blast woke my parents who rushed downstairs into the office, flicked on the light and saw me in Derek's arms. Before my parent's even had the chance to ask what was going on, Derek improvised saying "We thought we heard somebody trying to break in," saving me and my parents the expensive costs of a psychiatrist. After things had gotten settled down and Derek and I were back in my room, I remembered about the note I wrote. "Crap, I have to go get the note I left my parents. Otherwise they'll start thinking something else other than what you told them." I whispered softly

"Where did you leave it? I'll go and get it for you." Derek replied.

"It's okay, don't wor . . ." I began to say before I was cut off.

"Listen, you're not leaving this room. You just scared the living daylights out of me by trying to kill yourself. You need serious help!"

"Look Derek, I'm sor. . ."

"I don't want to hear it. You've been so freaking rude to me lately for no reason. First you want to quit the football team because only God knows why. The same football team that I would be joining! Then I want to ask a question that I thought you would answer truthfully, because some things are floating around in my head that don't seem normal. Then because of it, you go downstairs to try to blow your head off using a gun! You were the best friend I never had." It almost looked like he was about to cry, but then his face took on a more serious look. "I don't think I want to know you anymore! I'll find the note myself." And with that, he got up and left the room, leaving me feel more like an idiot, which I knew I was.

I tried to prepare a speech for when he got back, but he still wouldn't listen. Derek went home first thing in the morning, which bothered me a bit. In a way, after what he had said last night about feelings he was having, I kind of felt like I should open up to him, but another part of me was completely repulsed by the idea. What if he told somebody else later on? It was so selfish of me to think that way, and ending up being the cause of Derek never talking to me since that night.

Two weeks later, when my decision to quit was finalised, I walked with all my equipment over to the Matthew's house at a time I knew Craig's father would be home, but Craig and Derek would be at the practice I was supposed to be at. Coach Matthew's tyke didn't practice on the same days that the atom does, so I thought the first person I should inform was him since he had been so kind to me over the years. After I knocked on their door, Naomi opened it and looked beyond surprised to see me. It was extremely awkward because I hadn't ever mentioned to her that I thought of quitting the team and now here I was at the door when I shouldn't have been. "How come you're not at practice, Jesse?" Naomi hesitantly asked.

"Stuff . . . But I've come to talk with your dad -- is he home?" I replied despite knowing that of course he would be. She could tell right away that things weren't going so well with me. At this point, I had already begun dropping friends, and she on a few occasions had asked if everything was okay, but I had managed to bluff her off. If I was on the verge of tearing up, she knew, but never said anything. She just escorted me into the living room where Coach Mathews was watching an old Superbowl video he had taped.

"Dad," Naomi called out. "Jesse's here for you."

The coach turned his head around to the side to see me. "Jesse what's up? How come you're not at practice?" He asked.

"I'm quitting the team." I answered solemnly.

"You're what?"

"I'm going to quit the team."

The coach leaned forward in his chair and then did a complete turn to look at me. After seeing that I must have been a little upset, he then grabbed the remote lying on the coffee table and shut the television off. He motioned for me to come over and sit in the chair across from him. "I didn't think I heard you correct the first time, and to be honest, I'm a little shocked. What happened to you? What's going on?" He enquired.

My head hung so low in shame. The questions he was asking were legitimate questions when nearly a year ago the sport of football was my life. How was I supposed to know the answers to any question when I knew myself the reason why I was quitting was ridiculous? Yeah Coach, I'm quitting because the youngest person on the team looks older than me, and because the sight of him makes me think dirty thoughts that aren't normal. Slowly, I began to cry. I'm quitting because I should be a peewee this year, not an atom. But because of my weight and how I look, I am still stuck in the atom division. I looked up at his eyes. And the worse part of it is I'm deadly attracted to your son, Derek. Amongst some sniffling I managed to utter out a few words. "I just wanted to thank you for everything you've done for me. I sincerely appreciate the time you've spent teaching me about football. If you can, please thank Craig for me as well."

Well, needless to say I don't think the coach knew how to handle a sobbing boy on his hands. But I expressed my gratitude to him, and that what I wanted to accomplish by coming to his house and talking with him. Nancy Mathews, Craig's mother, eventually heard my weeping and came into the room trying to comfort me, but that only made me feel worse. No amount of consoling could calm me down, and along with the embarrassment I brought myself, I also added being an unstable, emotional wreck to the list of things to call myself.

They must have thought I was going to commit suicide, and maybe I should have that day as well. Once I got home, my mother said that Nancy called her at work and spent the remainder of the night trying to pry out what was upsetting me, but I knew she wouldn't understand. I was an only child, her pride and joy, a gift from God. If she knew the feelings I was going through, that I was treading the line of denying her the pleasure of having grandchildren, I think she would have disinherited me. My mother and father were strict conservative Christians, and anything done outside of the norm was considered by them to be unhealthy. Dad is a human rights lawyer working for the UN while mom is an English professor at the local university. They are highly educated people, respected in both political and religious circles -- can you imagine the pure absolute shame I would bring to them if they found out about my thoughts and what I could be? I did know, and I refused to be that person that caused that much pain to the people who gave me life.

My mother that night at dinner prayed over me, wanting God to remind me that we must be thankful for every day we're given and that in his glorious gift of time, all things will be healed. I doubted her then, having lost a part of my identity to something I wanted nothing of, but can say that as I stared at the football on my cabin bunk I sleep with every night, she is also partly right.

My thirteenth and fourteenth year were hell. But somehow, I was still alive and living through life, still somewhat happy.

I closed my eyes once more trying to see if there was any sleep left inside my body, clutching tightly to the ball that acted like a teddy bear in my left arm. "The glory days of football are over," Craig told me as his acceptance letter came from a bible college out on the east coast. He had scholarships to go play football from about three other universities across the country, but decided against accepting them under the premise of wanting to `actually do something with my life,' as he put it to me. The day I quit the team, and the sport, Craig drove over to my house and took me out to the nearest sports store to buy a brand new football. I questioned him as to why since I'd never play again, to which he answered, "Keep it always to remember the glory days we once had. But also remember to look forward to the glory of the days to come in the future." It was a comforting gesture at the time, and I guess in hindsight, it also helped me get through a tumultuous chapter of my life. Every night that same football sleeps with me.

Just as I was about to be consumed by the sandman, a thunderous knock erupted off the front door of my cabin. I kind of jumped up in my bunk, startled awake by the unexpected noise. I don't remember being told to expect a wake-up call so early in the morning, but figured that it wasn't intended for me because there were other staff in the cabin, as well as today up to dinner time, was considered to be a day off for all the L.I.T's. I had just rested my head back onto my pillow when a voice seemed to just drift into my room window, saying "Jesse -- wake up!"

Wake up? Are you insane? I thought to myself. I was starting to think that this day was going to turn out badly; that having to wake up with virtually no sleep in a teenager's brain was definitely a bad omen. I don't remember responding to the voice, nor hearing the sounds of the person walking up the old, creaky wooden steps to the cabin, but a few seconds later, the voice that had instructed me to wake up stood in front of my doorway. "Jesse?" It asked.

The voice did sound remotely familiar, though in my state of being it could have well been my father and I wouldn't have known any better. At this point, all I could do was let out a groan of displeasure and wish whomever it was talking to me to go away. No such luck though -- about ten seconds later after I groaned I suddenly felt a presence around me and opened my eyes to see the camp director, my boss, squatting right beside my bunk.

"Up later than the party I see?" He questioned.

I just nodded in reply, not knowing whether trouble would follow or not. John is a fair-minded person, who has basically led the camp as director for the last two seasons. Since I've been coming up here from about age 3 with my family and then as a camper at age 6, I had built a good reputation of responsibility. Like I mentioned earlier, normally an L.I.T is accepted at age 15, because of the amount of character one needs to be a leader, but because of my knowing Craig and his position as being basically second in command, I was able to come up this year as an L.I.T at fourteen years old. With John being right in front of me staring into my eyes, I knew with staying out late last night was reason enough to be included in the bunch of people going home today who thought they could be leaders in training. Now I was beginning to get scared.

"Well, don't let it happen again!" John instructed in a stern but joking voice, and then continued in a more normal conversational tone, "Craig told me you all had fun last night and that's what the party was for. Listen, I just got off the phone with Family Services and I think I'm going to need your help. I want you to go get showered and dressed as quickly as possible, and then down in my office by 7:00. That gives you roughly a little over a half hour, think you can manage that?"

Yet again I nodded.

"Good. Craig is already aware and will be in my office with you when you arrive." He stood right back on his two feet and began walking out of my bedroom.

Talk about having so much information and yet not having any. Family Services, a government agency set up to look after the interests of children coming from troubled families, often sends some disadvantaged kids up here, sometimes for an entire summer. But why on earth would my help be needed in regards to Family Services? I'm just 14 years old -- what possible influence could I have on anyone let alone a government agency? Less is more, I guess, one of John's favorite sayings that he stuck to. Give enough information to make it seem like a lot, but also not enough to have more questions asked.

I swung the covers off my body and peeked another look at the time: 06:23. I grabbed my towel that was hanging off the back of the bedroom door and walked out into a very warm morning. There was no breeze and the temperature was probably already over 25oC. I don't know how much longer this heat wave was going to last but I knew that I was beginning to really despise it. My body in its current state was not something that I left uncovered -- it was jeans or sweat pants and a t-shirt that I always wore to keep my immature, boyish body hidden from the rest of the world.

The cabin where I had spent the night was part of four cabins that made up Staff Hill. Two were for the girls and the other two for the guys who weren't assigned to look after the twenty other cabins in the camp that housed the campers. Counselors normally got to stay in a single cabin for the entire season, but us L.I.T's were moved around at the passing of every week. I knew that the first week I was assigned to help counsel a cabin full of younger boys for the first week, and then after next Saturday, week from today, I would be teaming up with Craig and help with coordinating the programs. That was something I was really looking forward too. The third week was still not assigned, but Craig had said he would try to keep me for an extra week. The whole point of being a leader in training was so that you could either become a counselor or lead other activities that made camp so fun.

I continued to walk down the hill toward the recreation hall, when I felt something grab a hold of my left wrist and then twist it around to my back, not in a painful way thankfully, and then the person's hand came up and covered my eyes. "Guess who?" The person said a deep tone not like his real voice.

"Whitey," I answered unenthusiastically.

"Aw, you're no fun!" He replied.

"It's too hot and I'm too tired to be funny."

"Well, come catch a polar bear with me then -- that'll wake you up, dude."

"I can't. John told me to be in his office in by seven."

"How come?"

"I don't know," I said. Adam White, known to one and all as Whitey, was and has been a lifeguard up here at camp for as long as I can remember. He's in med school, about three years if memory serves me correct. He portrays himself to be a stoner/surfer, but Craig told me he's never touched any drugs or a surfboard.

Whitey kind of lifted one of his eyebrows before replying, "Nothing bad I hope?"

"I really don't know -- he knows that Naomi, Craig and I stayed up way too late last night. He said something about Family Services and helping him out, but didn't go further into it."

"I bet I know what this is all about!"

"Care to share what you know?" I asked.

"Nope," He answered while laughing. "Last week when you L.I.Ters were on that portaging trip, John received a registration form from Family Services and immediately refused it. He said this kid was a troublemaker, born and bred. But Family Services wouldn't let it go. Beyond that is anything but a guess. You can mark my words though that whatever it is John's going to talk with you about is probably in regards to that."

"So then why would he need my help? I'm nobody important."

"Jess-man you'd better stop putting yourself down like that. I swear I'll beat your butt in one day if you don't! Anyway, I'm going down to the lake to catch myself that polar bear! I'll catch ya later."

"Ciao!" I said, and with that, Whitey took off down the opposite path that went around the side of the rec hall, and eventually led to the lake. The recreation hall was a building that was built into a hill: if looking at it from the front towards the lake, you'd think it was only a single story building. Kind of like a bungalow house. When looking at the rec hall from the back where the volleyball court was, you really got to see how big this two storey building truly is.

The top floor is dedicated as an place everyone can congregate, say when it's raining outside and everyone wants to have a campfire, or if it's raining for Sunday morning chapel, then they'll move it to the top floor of the recreation hall. The basement was strictly a staff only area, with two huge washrooms and shower rooms for both the guys and girls staff team. The odd time a camper would be allowed downstairs to use the payphones but only if staff escorted them there. The doors that opened up onto the volleyball court were exit only doors, so the only way to get in the basement was through the stairs from the top floor, or if someone on the inside let you in.

The recreation hall also had John's office located on the top floor right by the stairs so whoever was in the reception room could monitor who all was going downstairs. At this time of morning, nobody would be in the reception office, and as I passed by and looked in to where John's office was, he had the door shut tightly. Walking down the stairs was like walking back in time: they had put framed pictures of all the staff members back to when the camp opened up back in 1902. The pictures back then were still in good shape despite their age, and as you continued the path downstairs, the years grew on until you got to the bottom, where it was 1947. When you turned the corner, it continued from 1948 until present day minus this year. It was also at the bottom of the stairs where the entrance to the boy's washroom/shower room was.

I walked in just as Craig was throwing on a muscle shirt. Even at 19 years old, he still looked cute. "Hey Craig, how's it going?" I asked as he turned his attention back to the mirror.

"Not bad -- you?" He answered.

"Same I guess. Just tired is all."

"Well maybe you should stop hanging around my sister until three/four o'clock in the morning?" He threw a playful punch at my shoulder.

It connected and knocked me back a few feet. "You know about that too huh?"

"Jesse, there's not much that escapes the attention of John or myself. You should know I have eyes on the back of my head, that's why I played quarterback!" He laughed.

"Oh," was the only thing I could say.

"I'm kidding -- Naomi told me this morning she had a good long chat with you last night after I left. She does like you a lot you know?"

"No she doesn't. I'm just an ear for whatever mood she decides to be in."

"Not true, mate. And I wouldn't be telling you this if I didn't like the idea of you two being together. At least I know that if it was you, you'd treat her with respect on honor her."

"Craig she's like a sister to me, just like you and Derek are my brothers -- I can't date our sister!"

"Is that what you want me to tell her?"

"No," I responded quickly. Naomi and I never really expressed how we felt towards one other. When she started talking about guys to me I got really jealous and clamed up, particularly because I wished it was me she talked about in that `liking' way. She was also about a year older and I know in my heart she wouldn't want to date a little boy. "Look, I'd better shower and get ready because apparently you, me and John are meeting together at seven."

"Okay, Jesse, you just let me know when you're ready to sit with Naomi and have a true heart to heart conversation. She's waiting on you." Craig said and then winked at me. He turned and walked out of the bathroom, and I was now left alone with too much to think about.

Why is life so bloody damned complicated? I questioned myself. You totally like Naomi. Just do it and go for it -- Craig has even said to take the chance again. But what about my deadly attraction to Derek? I can't hurt her like that -- it'd be so mean. And why is it that I'm even attracted to Derek in the first place? Craig doesn't give me a boner the way his brother does. In fact Craig doesn't do anything for me! But Craig and I don't normally play wrestle the way Derek and I used to do so maybe that's why. But then why can just being around Derek -- inhaling his natural scents, turn me on so powerfully? The same thing happens with Naomi, though not with her scent but because she wears perfume. I could argue with myself all day long in regards to that conversation. Then, alongside that whole argument, I'm simultaneously debating whether or not I'm responsible enough for the task that John has for me when less than a year ago, I put a gun in my mouth and tried to kill myself.

Even having just thought about Derek was beginning to make my private stir to life. I tried to ignore it though as I began to strip off my clothes and make my way to the shower. On a normal day at home, I'd prefer to take a bath with water on the verge of scolding. I ran the shower for a few seconds to get the water nice and hot and then hopped in, letting the spray pelt down onto my shoulders. I looked down and saw my biggest shame ever. All three inches of pathetic, hard dick, no hair in sight. What girl would ever like you if they found out what kind of a package you had? I thought quietly. What guy would like you with a package so small? I can't believe I had just thought that.

I can't be gay. I have to force myself to like girls. Being gay isn't right -- is it? The church says no. Most importantly my conscience says no.

I turned my attention away from down below the belt and began preparing to wash my hair and the rest of my body. Maybe if I just go out with Naomi, I wouldn't become gay? I squirted some shampoo into my hands and rubbed it into my hair, then took the bar of soap and spread it out all over my body. After I rinsed everything off, I turned the shower off, grabbed my towel outside the stall and began to dry myself.

Thankfully, any sign of my erection hadn't lasted through the shower. On a normal bath day I would usually inspect myself over -- seeing if any hair in my pubic region was turning darker, or if the tiny, almost invisible hairs were growing longer. Today I skipped it. I already knew that for the last two years nothing changed. My immature testicles, which couldn't produce any sperm yet, were the size of marbles.

The door to the washroom swung open suddenly, scaring the crap out of me. I was drying of my legs and instantly wrapped the towel around my waist to conceal my nakedness underneath. Whitey came rushing into the bathroom and raced over to one of the urinals, saying "Sorry to intrude dude, but I gotta piss like a race horse!" I hoped to God he hadn't seen anything. Adam, despite the fact of being in med school, strikes me as one who could be like the bullying type, or even at least the one who would tease you about something and never let it go.

"No worries, at least you didn't pee in the lake. I was just, ah . . . um," I started to say but couldn't think of anything quick enough.

"Whacking it?" Adam interjected. My towel at that moment decided to somehow unravel itself and fall to the floor. Whitey thankfully wasn't looking in my direction.

"Hell no!" I answered repulsively. Masturbating was ultra bad news in my books that led down a long line of feeling never ending guilt. "I was trying to dry myself and noticed a mosquito bit in my pubes I aggravated when washing it."

What the hell did you just say? I silently chastised myself. As I reached down for the towel now lying on the ground, I thought Whitey would begin to ask a billion questions the way doctors normally do, but as I wrapped the towel around my waist again, this time more securely, no questions came. I looked up and met Whitey's gaze that seemed to be of disbelief. "Well, I'll leave some of that After-Bite stuff on your bunk so you don't go scratching your dick like you got crabs or something, okay dude? Just take the lid off and roll the stuff on. It'll feel cold at first, but by the end of the day, the bite will be gone. Just try not to itch it for the rest of the day though, especially in front of the women."

He went to the sink to wash his hands next, and before he left the bathroom, I managed to get an audible "Ah, thanks Adam," out in a completely embarrassing tone of voice.

"No problem, dude." He replied. "I'll either see you before or at breakfast. I gotta go wake all the staff up right now."

Once he was out I breathed a sigh of relief. He could have asked to see it! I grabbed my pajamas and put them back on, and immediately took off up the stairs and out of the recreation hall, up to my cabin to get changed into something more professional for this meeting between John, Craig and myself. I chose a polo styled shirt and some khaki pants, and then ran back down again to the office with six minutes to spare.

I quietly waited until the clock on the wall read seven o'clock exactly, and then knocked on the office door before letting myself in. John liked punctuality and was expecting me, so I knew that waiting outside for an invitation to come in was pointless. Immediately after entering inside, John and Craig both greeted me before I was appointed a chair beside Craig, right across from John. I almost felt like I had been called to the principal's office for doing something bad.

Craig opened up the conversation. "Are you sure you want me to stay John?"

"Absolutely," John replied sternly. "It is to my understanding that you two have known each other longer than I've been the camp director and I feel that any words of encouragement I offer will only be enhanced by yourself and the friendship you share with Jesse.

"Now Jesse, the reason I asked you to be here is because, honestly, I want to ask how you would feel about working for the camp as paid staff. And before you answer anything to that question, let me tell you about why I need to hire someone, and my concerns about you being suggested to fulfill this role. At about 5 am, I received two phone calls: one from Family Services and the other from the board of directors that oversee how this camp operates. Family Services wants to send a kid up here -- whose name happens to be Alexander Pushkin -- for the entire summer, who, quite frankly in my opinion and experience, doesn't deserve to be up here given his past behaviors from previous years. The board of directors however, thinks differently, and have decided that if the boy is so adamant about returning to this camp, and if Family Services is willing to pay, that I provide a one-to-one staff to watch over him. Inside this envelope are the kid's registration forms, behavioral reports, and a brief history of the life this kid has lived.

"Jesse, normally I would be against giving this job to a fourteen year old teenager, but Craig has assured me that you'd be the perfect one for the job. Craig has told me you were once the captain and quarterback of your old football team, leading them to the championship trophy three times out of five. Can you elaborate on this?"

My mind was spinning - too much information to digest too quickly. Job? I'll take it! I don't care if I have to babysit some punk kid! Football -- can we not just avoid that topic completely? "Actually, it was two championships and a tournament win that was state wide. And well, um, there's not much to elaborate on considering its just little league football. The first year I guess I could have been considered obsessed because I would be at every practice I could watching and studying plays, and playing them over and over in my head. The next year, I did the same thing and the next thing I knew is we won the tyke championship that year." I answered. "It was a team effort, sir, and without my team I was no one."

"Then why did you quit?" John asked.

I immediately looked at Craig who tensed up. The emotions were flowing and I didn't know how to answer that. While trying to maintain my composure, I said, "I have my reasons, and they are still too personal to be discussed. I'm sorry."

"Hey, there's no need to apologize. I respect your feelings and don't want you to feel uncomfortable while being employed as a counselor here. And I will apologize for my intrusiveness. I am very curious about people and the decisions they decide to make. In that regard, let's change the topic... What about a testimony about your faith, and how you grew up in it?"

I thought for a few moments before answering. I didn't really have an established faith. "I grew up in a heavily Christian home. Most of the time it was just my nanny and myself who would go to church because my parents were always busy; they were devoutly religious, it's just that their jobs were very demanding. My nanny was told to take me every Sunday until I hit high school. I believe there is a God out there because it makes sense. . ."

"Because it makes sense?" John interrupted.

"Yes it does make sense. I believe this because something cannot just come out of nothing. I mean, people can argue `Big Bang' theory all they want, but I'd like to think maybe God could have orchestrated a `Big Bang'. After all, the first five words of Genesis are `In the beginning, God created. . .'" I said.

"Interesting... Curiously though, I'd like to have this conversation again with you at a different time. What is your view of Jesus Christ?"

"I don't know. I still have issues to work out regarding him. My nanny was the one with the strongest faith. It was through her that the lessons we'd learn in Sunday school really came alive for me."

"Then I hope that the staff here and I can fulfill some of that same level of faith while you're up here working. But we'll talk more about this at a different time. I want to thank you for getting down here on time, and I would also like to congratulate you on being the newest staff member for Camp Silver Pine this year. You will have bus duty today to pick up Alexander, the boy you'll be bunked with for the rest of the camping season. I want to stress this upon you that should you require any help whatsoever, Craig will be your counselor in all matters. If you both cannot decide on what to do then please come to me. Please also remember that I will not be so tolerant towards this boy's destructive nature, and I expect you Jesse to be the same way. On your days off, we will decide on who will take over the one-on-one counseling until your next day back. Most of all and above everything else: have fun. That's what camping is all about. Anything you want to add, Craig?"

Craig shifted in his chair and looked right at me. "Jesse, welcome as well to the staff team. I got faith in you and I know you can do this."

"Alright, let's end this meeting and go get ready for breakfast." John said, handing me a brown manila envelope he pointed out earlier containing all the information on my new job. "When you get a chance to read this, maybe on the bus back into the city, please do. After you're finished, just return it to me and if you have any questions we'll talk then. Please try not to let anybody else get their hands on it though."

"Yes sir," I replied, and walked out of the office with Craig.

As soon as we were out of earshot of the camp office, Craig turned to me and said, "Look Jesse, I'm extremely sorry about telling John about your career in football and about you quitting it. He asked me if I knew anything that would hit a nerve because this kid you're looking after could possibly hit one and he wanted to see how you reacted."

"And how did I react?" I asked.

"Pretty damn mature and responsible, if you ask me." He responded. "So we're cool then?"

"Yes of course -- why wouldn't we be?" I replied, shrugging my shoulders. I didn't really care about Craig sharing that little bit about my life with John seeing how it had to be done and worked to my benefit.

"I just want to make sure. You know I don't know the full story of what's going on between you and Derek." He replied. We were out of the recreation hall by this point and slowly walking up hill towards my cabin. "There is a part of me that really wants to know because both of you have forbidden me to talk with you about one another. Like you said in the washroom earlier, we're all like family and it hurts me to see you two not talking. I want to help seriously, but without either of you telling me the issue at hand, I can't really do anything."

Shame and guilt seemed to just take over my body. I looked up at Craig and said, "I know and I really appreciate that, as I'm sure Derek does too. And speaking of which, I know I said I didn't want to hear anything about him, but how did he do passing grade 8?"

"He barely made it." Craig replied. "Um, look Jess, I really want to talk to you about him soon. I got an e-mail from my mother stating he won't even come up to camp with you here. And that bothers me. This is the best vacation before the football season begins. And now he's thinking about quitting this year as well. I want to get to the bottom of everything this summer. So anyways, can I ask you a question about something other than my brother?"

"Shoot away!" I answered.

"Whatcha planning to do right now?"

"Sleep?!" I laughed.

"Seriously?" Craig replied.

"Yep, gotta get some now before breakfast, then as soon as I get onto the bus I hope to be just as dead to the world as I was two hours ago."

"Even when I was your counsellor back when you were a camper, you slept way too much! Alrighty, go get some shut eye. Want me to check up on you for breakfast?"

"Nah, if I fail to wake up for breakfast, let me sleep until the bus is just about to depart."

"Ok, see you later mate!"

"Ciao."

After we parted ways and I got back into my cabin, I walked over to my bunk and just crashed into my pillow. I had honestly thought that I would have been asleep before hitting the mattress, but after what felt like an eternity of time passed, I became aware that I wasn't going to return to sleep. My head was flooded with too many thoughts, most of which were about this new job, Derek and this troublemaker kid. It worried me to no end about Craig finding out what happened that night Derek slept over and I'm surprised he's kept it a secret this long. I was worried about Derek as well because he used to be a straight A student, and now if he's just barely passed grade 8, it could only mean something was wrong with him deep inside. Then I'd start thinking about this other kid who I didn't know. I tried searching my memory for a face to put to the boy's name, but couldn't find really remember anything. What did this kid do that was so bad up here that he had to be sent home? I thought.

Slowly the decision to look into the envelope formed and find out more about what my new job entailed. It was lying on the floor from where I dropped it before collapsing into bed and wasn't sealed shut, so accessing all the paperwork inside was easy. The first thing I went for was a neon yellow form that I recognized right away to be registration forms for the camp. The boy's name was printed in two languages, one in black ink that used a different alphabet, spelt Александр Пушкин and then beside it in English using blue ink, Alexander (Sasha) Pushkin. It almost looked as if someone had gone over and edited the form in blue ink correcting everything written by someone who had messy printing. Born on the 12th of September, Alex would be nine years old at the end of this summer. He had two addresses, again written in two different color inks. In black he had written an address not far from my own, just about a five minute drive but on the other side of the highway. Then the color blue ink scratched the black inks address out and wrote some address I wasn't at all familiar with. He was deathly allergic to penicillin, which couldn't be good because that kind of medication is normally prescribed first to fight off a bacterial infection should he ever get one when he's at camp. Have to make a mental note to chat with Whitey about this one, I thought to myself. His immediate contact was his biological father, or at least a man who had his same last name and was written in black ink, and his emergency contact was of course Family Services, written in the blue ink. I know from past experiences that whenever Family Services is mentioned on a registration form that they in fact become the immediate contact as well when something goes awry. I did wonder though, if Family Services was involved in this boy's life, why he wasn't a crown ward. I mean, normally kids that come up here in the summer that have that agency in their lives is because they are `government owned' not just in foster care. In a box marked `Would you like to stay in the same cabin with a friend from a previous year, and if so, what is their name?' the messy written black ink wrote `I don't have any friends'.

I wondered briefly on that last section of the form: Did he have no friends because of his attitude or because he was in Family Services? The future lawyer, if I decided to follow in my old man's footsteps, interest was sparked. Why did he have no friends? At eight years old you normally have a ton of friends.

At that point a memory flooded into my mind where my dad had taken me aside one day from my studies to give me a lesson on judgment. At Sunday school, we had learned about judging others from the book of Matthew. "There's a saying in the world Jesse where first impressions last a long time, and never judge a book by its cover. The two statements I have come to respect tremendously. . ."

"Yeah but every day when you're in a courtroom there sits a normal human being as a judge. What would God think of that?" I interrupted him.

"You know very well I cannot speak of an opinion that remains God's own." My father replied, a normal reply he'd say after I would ask him about what God thought about. "But I can tell you this: Anytime you sit in judgment of someone before truly getting to know them, is an absolute tragedy. If I handed a transcript of your life to all your friends, or published all of your secret thoughts that occur inside your head, how would you feel?"

"Not good?"

"Well sort of. What you would feel is beyond articulation of those two words you just used. You would feel utterly miserable, desolate and probably sink into despair so deep that it would seem like there is no hope left in the world. A judge who sits on the bench in a courtroom does not just sit there to pass along judgment to people who do wrong; he sits there to hear all sides of the story, to get all the facts in order to make a conscious decision to decide on whether there is a case the has offended the law. In a criminal case, the judge doesn't judge the bad guy -- he just merely decides on whether the bad guys' actions warrant time being safely locked up where he cannot hurt himself or others. Do you understand?"

"Yes."

"You should always get to know people for who they are rather then what other people say about them, or write about them, or think about them. Once you get to know the person, then decide on whether or not their attitude is right wrong and decide on whether they would make good friends or not."

I put the boy's registration form back into the envelope thinking, I must ask him whether he prefers to be called Alex or Sasha. I thought about what John had said, saying that I should read all the paperwork to know what I was getting myself into, and then what my dad said about deciding for myself once I get to know him what kind of person he would be. It felt like I had Pandora's box in front of me; that on the one side, I could get to know this kid before even meeting him, and then on the other, have pre-decided that he's probably extremely horrible given what John was saying and start acting accordingly now. That's it! If I decide how he's going to be before I meet him, that's totally and completely unfair to him, I concluded, closing up the envelope and setting it on my nightstand. I certainly wouldn't want my life to be publicized for the world to see, especially with the thoughts I have.

My stomach growled quite loudly all of a sudden, reminding me that breakfast was being served soon and knocking sleep off the top of my priority to-do list. My iPhone displayed the time of 07:52, so I put my sandals back on and jogged to the mess hall, where breakfast, lunch, and super were served. Just before I reached the doors to enter the hall, I could hear everyone singing one of the songs we'd sing before a meal, kind of like a prayer thanking God for the meal we were about to eat. I walked in as soon as they were finished and located Craig, Whitey and Naomi sitting at the far corner of the room. Breakfast was cereal and fruit, and I grabbed a box of Cheerio's before sitting down on the bench and pouring it into a bowl.

"Good morning sleepy head!" Naomi began the conversation.

"Good morning, Naomi," I replied.

"We weren't expecting you here." Craig laughed. "I told everyone that you went back to bed."

"Well, I couldn't sleep so I figured I'd come down and eat before leaving to the city." I said.

"The infamous Jesse Haldane who could sleep through a thunderstorm right above his head, couldn't sleep? Are you okay?" Craig continued to joke.

"Maybe your growth spurt's finally ending. You're gonna be stuck at five feet nothing for the rest of your life!" Adam piped in, and immediately began to laugh.

"I doubt it, I could fall asleep right now, but I just couldn't get some things off my mind." I shot back.

"Stuff that we talked about this morning with John?" Craig asked. "Or, what we talked about afterward?"

"Yeah the stuff with John," I answered.

"Jesse was hired on as a staff member this morning Naomi to look after one of the kids coming up later this afternoon." Craig told his sister.

"Oh, congratulations Jess!" She said.

"Thanks." I replied.

"So what's the name of the kid?" She questioned.

I at that point had already shoved a spoonful of Cheerio's in my mouth. Craig answered for me though. "Alexander Pushkin."

"Wait isn't that that kid who like, totally trashed one of the cabins last year? With like ripping apart a few mattresses inside and breaking all the windows?" Naomi asked. I now remember a bit of that story: some kid had apparently gone into one of the cabins during the day and broke all the windows and then used a piece of it to rip apart some mattresses. I vaguely remember something else about a few bottles of shampoo being found emptied of their contents onto the ceiling so that way when the kid was found, he was being rained on by soap. Rumours could never be trusted though and the boy was hauled off into John's office and sent home that same day. I still couldn't put a face to Alex though.

"Yep, and this year Jesse is going to watch over him -- Big Brother kind of thing." Craig responded.

"I just don't understand how year after year that kid comes up here and gets sent packing home, only to be allowed up here again the next year. I mean, considering the damages he caused last year and now he's coming up here today. It's unbelievable man!" Whitey said. "The stupid kid ruins the fun for everyone."

"Well, it's John's call as camp director. All we can hope for is that Jesse and all of us can try to keep him in line this year." Craig replied.

As we continued to talk over breakfast, I was becoming more and more quiet, and growing increasingly tired. Whitey was dead set against Alex returning to camp. Craig was indifferent while his sister didn't care so long as she didn't have to clean up after him. I was thinking it's a job that I'm getting paid to do and I'll do it to the best of my ability. Money is money: making it is a heck of a lot better than doing something for free.

Eventually breakfast ended which meant the bus would soon be leaving to the city to pick up all the campers. I ran back to my cabin to get a backpack and put the envelope John gave me inside and then brought it back down to the bus. The two counselors that were assigned bus duty that day were Rob and Laura. Laura was a cabin counselor on the girls' side of the camp, and Rob was on the boys' side. Rob had been my counselor once about three years ago when I was eleven. Both of them looked as exhausted as I was. All three of us sat near the back of the bus and knew that we'd all end up sleeping most of the way into the city. The driver yelled back asking as we started pulling away, "Are we stopping at McDonald's on the way in and back?"

"Sure, I could use a lot of caffeine and grease today!" Rob answered. He then turned to me and nodded his head as if approving of something. "So who would have thought three years ago, you'd be traveling on the same bus as me as a counselor? Laura, this guy here, was in my cabin, the first year I worked up here."

"Was he? Wow, I guess you must be pretty excited huh, Jesse about becoming a counselor for the summer?" Laura asked me as wide eyed as possible.

I laughed. "Yeah it's pretty amazing that I'd be here working with most of same people who were staff when I was a camper." I said.

The road into Camp Silver Pine was densely cluttered with trees all around. The dirt road that the bus drove on was bumpy and every time I had nearly dozed off, I was suddenly awoken to the sensation of flying out of my seat or bumping my head off the window. As soon as the bus hit the paved highway, I think the sandman had come to put us all asleep.

The bus had come to a sudden halt when I came too next, and once I was able to wipe the sleep away from them, I noticed we were at McDonalds. On both trips to and from camp, there was a McDonald's on each side of the highway that was kind of like the halfway marker in the journey and an additional pickup and drop off spot for campers who lived much further north than the bigger city. Laura began teasing me about how I looked so cute when I slept, making me blush a bright red. I ordered the largest cup of Coke they could give me, and since they were still on the breakfast menu, got a sausage and egg mcmuffin and two hash browns.

We all got back on the bus about five minutes later with me having gobbled down everything, and nearly all of my drink. I was really hoping that ordering a large Coke would wake me up the way it did last night. But it didn't; having a full stomach mixed in with an already tired body, I was out like a light when I shut my eyelids. The entire trip from the camp to the city was a three and a half hour drive, putting is in the city at approximately noon. It was completely uneventful for me at least because I was dead to the world in a dreamless slumber almost the entire way down. It was at some point after the bus had come to a stop at the mall parking lot that Rob began lightly tapping on my shoulders to awake me. Immediately upon sitting up in the seat, I felt like my bladder was going to explode and had to use the washroom quickly because of that Coke from McDonald's. I knew we had about an hour to kill, so as we were getting off the bus, I just turned to Rob and asked, "Hey, do you think I could run inside to the food court and use the bathroom there?"

"Yeah sure mate, go ahead," came his reply.

"Thanks!" I said, and then took off running toward the entrance to the mall. I also wanted to get back as quickly as possible because once this Alex kid arrived, I wanted to see how was in a form of his own environment, before camp so to speak.

I was only wearing shorts and a t-shirt with camps name and emblem on it but as soon as I stepped inside the mall from being bathed in heat, it felt like I walked into a refrigerator! I made it as far as the escalator before noticing that my skin was starting to get goose bumps.

The way the mall was designed was weird. When looking at it from the outside it looked like it would have two floors of store all throughout, but that was not true. Because of its age and the numerous amounts of renovations and extra space added over the years, some stores did in fact have two floors. However, when getting into what is considered to be the center of the mall, there is a giant fashion store for women, and above it, an open food court that allows you to see down the two `L' shaped hallways and the countless stores lining them. It was a decent food court, a bit of everything. There's an independent pizza place there that you can't find anywhere else that makes one awesome tasting Hawaiian pizza. The owner must have had a head for business smarts because the entire food court always smelled like pizza when I was there, and the store was situated right at the top of the escalator I was now going up. And just as I reached the top end of the escalator, my nostrils filled with the aroma of baking pizza.

That was when I first caught sight of him: the most breathtakingly, beautiful boy in the world. He was hanging around just in front of the washrooms, leaning up against the wall with one foot planted firmly on the floor and the other on the wall. The ray of sunlight that shone down on him from the glass windowed roof was like a spotlight indicating he was the center of attention, that everyone else walking around was dimly lit compared to his existence. I was still a little too far away from him, at least twenty yards, to get a really good look at him, but he was wearing blue denim shorts that ended just below his kneecap, grey and white ankle socks that showed off his brilliant tawny colored calves. This boy had to have spent a lot of time in the sun because he was tanned so perfectly. He was wearing a multi-shaded blue T-shirt that in big navy blue letters had X-treme written on it. His slightly blondish, brown hair, keep in a kind of undercut with the top cut only about an inch longer, glistened in the sunlight shining down on him. He couldn't have been over four feet tall, but his frame looked as I got closer and closer to him, to be so delicate and yet, contained some muscular definition, especially in his legs, that set my heart pumping. I can't believe how this stunningly attractive boy, simply with the sight of him, was stirring such powerful emotions inside me that up until now, only Derek and Naomi were able to bring out.

It was around ten yards away that I suddenly became aware of just how gorgeously handsome this boy was. I mean there are people that are cute, pleasing to the eye, like Naomi. Then there are people who are attractive and the mere sight of them beckons you to want to get to know them and pursue them, much like Derek. Then there are people who are the pinnacle of beauty; how the word `beautiful' becomes defined by. His hair upon a closer inspection was completely a mess, and yet it looked orderly with a wavy, feathered look that suggested it wasn't just bed-head. He had stunning greenish-yellow eyes that as soon as he noticed me gawking at him, seemed to melt down all my defenses. His smile revealed surprisingly straight teeth -- neither pearly white nor having the slightest shade of yellow. On his right cheek was the smallest brown mole the just accentuates his cuteness. What totally scared me now was the feeling of starting to get butterflies in my stomach. I could slowly feel all the blood in my body pumping into my groin, making my dick throb so intensely it ached, begging for a release I wasn't mature enough to do yet. It was so unbelievably hard I could feel my heart's pulse in the shaft, and as I continued to stare at him with him having caught my gaze and smiling back, I could slowly feel my soul melt away. I wanted, no, I needed to get to know him. My body was lusting over this young boy's existence. His eyes, I noticed, made a quick glance in the direction of what was happening down south on me, and I immediately looked down myself to see if anything was noticeable, but for once my small size worked to my benefit and didn't reveal anything through the material of my shorts. I looked back at his eyes which met my own, then he advertently shifted his eyes elsewhere, knowing that I caught him staring where he shouldn't have been. I didn't stop as I walked by him and continued down the hall to the men's washroom, but holy crap I just felt like I had gone up to cloud number nine.

Once in the washroom and into one of the toilet stalls, I unbuttoned my fly, and tried my hardest to relieve my bladder. It is so hard to piss with an erection that wouldn't let up. About a minute had passed and finally some liquid began flowing from my still hard dick. Just as I was finished up my business and did up my fly, I heard the entrance door swing open, followed by what could have been an angel's voice saying, "I know I saw him come in here Billy, now screw off and leave me the fuck alone!" Okay so maybe he wasn't an angel, but the tone of his voice certainly was beyond perfection! I thought.

The second voice that spoke was deeper and raspier than the first. "So what? I don't want to be dragged into this fucking bathroom just because you see something you like, you little faggot. You know Miss Jennifer hates it when you wander into public washrooms every single time we come here!"

"I don't wander into the washrooms every time we come here, stupid." The younger voice said in a condescending way.

"Yes you do and you know it," replied the older voice.

"And you follow me in here every time expecting me to give you a five minute quickie!" The younger voice shot back. I opened the stall door at that point because I felt I had heard enough of the younger sounding boy being picked on, and suddenly I had a loud thump on the stall door. To my right stood the handsome boy from outside I walked past a few moments before, wincing at the expectation of something and then as the stall door slammed shut, stood another older boy clutching his knuckles in his other hand. The younger boy, after realizing that nothing had come opened his eyes and shouted, "See there he is!"

"Why the hell'd you do that for?" The older kid said looking at me. He was probably about an inch taller than me, and looked like he could do a lot of damage in a fight. I was starting to feel uncomfortable and intimidated by him, but held my ground.

"Sorry, man, didn't see you there." I replied, not letting the fear in me show. Finally, I began feeling my erection subside, and made a conscious effort to not look in the direction of the younger boy for fear of it returning.

"No shit, Sherlock, you were in the fucking stall!" He said and then looked up at me, stretching out his fingers on his hurt hand. I watched as his eyelids stretched open as a surprised, croaky voice began saying, "Hey, your shirt says you're a staff at the camp my brother and me are going to today for the rest of this summer!"

I glanced at both boys quickly, and the two looked nothing alike. "You guys are brothers?" I asked with skepticism written all over my face. The older boy, whom I guessed was named Billy, had a kind of native complexion, a darker brown, almost black hair color, and his eyes had more of a dark brown tone to them. Billy had a white shirt on and khaki shorts, plainly styled hair cut that must have been a buzz cut about a month ago. If they were brothers, the younger boy must have gotten all the genes that said gorgeous because Billy was far from being even remotely attractive to me.

The younger boy stepped closer to me, telling me with wide eyes and a bright smile, "We're not really real brothers; we only live in the same foster home together!" Wait a second. . . Foster home and going to camp for the whole summer? Oh my God, this cute little boy is Alexander Pushkin! I can't be his counselor for the summer -- not the way he turns me on. I thought to myself. This is not good. "Hurry up, I want you to come meet Miss Jennifer," he exclaimed and then practically ran out of the bathroom. I followed him out of the bathroom, and Billy tagged along behind me.

"Don't you think you're a little too young to be a staff member?" Billy asked. It was only him and me side by side. "Or did you steal that shirt from your older sister?"

I could tell this kid is a fighter. That comment was meant to push some buttons, but I didn't let it get close. "No, I'm an L.I.T up there for the summer."

"How old are you?" Billy shot back.

"Older than you and wiser than you," I replied just as quickly. If he wanted a game of wits, I would win.

"That's a joke, because you look like your eleven. You have to be a teenager or an adult to be a staff member up there."

I turned my attention away from this repulsive being who just continued to talk and looked around for Alex. He was standing beside this hugely obese woman, jumping up and down saying "I found one of the camp counselors," over and over again, try to get her attention.

Both Billy and I were now within hearing distance of the woman replying, "Alexander would you please be quiet. I'm trying to eat." But even asking the boy nicely was a waste of breath; he continued jumping around hyper as can be and so excited. "Where's Billy?"

"I'm right here Ms. Jennifer." Billy answered as we approached closer from behind.

"Good, now sit down. Alex you too, get your butt in this chair pronto!" She directed in a stern voice while pointing at a chair beside her. Her attention turned back onto me, looking me over thoroughly with her eyes. "You look a little young to be a counselor in charge of other youth." She shrugged her shoulders.

"Well, I'm not a real counselor this year. I'm part of the Leaders in Training program the camp operates before the main camping season begins." I replied.

I thought I would have to have a bit of a conversation with her, but she seemed satisfied with my response. A few moments followed in an awkward kind of way as I watched her gobble down a slice of pizza, and I really thought I should get going back outside to the bus, but before I could even say anything, Alex was right there bombarding me with the next question. "Is the bus to go up to camp really here right now?" The excitement in his angelic voice was enlightening and made me chuckle inside. I remember feeling same excitement when I was his age.

Miss Jennifer seemed to have been startled by this comment and leaned forward in her seat, pointing her thick, stubby finger at the kid, talking in a forceful and unorthodox manner, "Alexander, you sit right now and finish your lunch, understand! You'll go and get on that bus when I say so! Now where is my drink I asked you two to get?"

Billy had a smirk on his face that looked as if he thought the whole situation was funny. He spoke in such a confident way that he knew what was going to happen once he said it. "Miss Jennifer, Sasha was off wandering around through the bathrooms again. I had to go fetch him from one when you told us to go get the pop. That's why we don't have any!" His voice didn't even squeak like before.

I stood in front of these three people in utter awe, taking and breathing in the situation of what was all being said. The little boy's name was Alex, and I thought at that point there was no mistaking him to be the kid that I was supposed to look after for the summer. I watched as a belittled Alex jumped to his own defense, lying so blatantly saying that "No I wasn't and don't you ever call me Sasha you asshole," while sitting down quietly and shoving a piece of pizza, probably cold by now, into his mouth. He looked at Billy with hateful eyes and ate without saying another word. People walking by us began watching. Miss Jennifer proceeded to lecture him about the dangers of going into public washrooms alone without a grown up with him, and I noticed that Alex was mocking her in his own little way. I could have laughed because as Miss Jennifer addressed him, Alex was mimicking everything she said, sneering his face and making hand gestures under the table to say she talked too much. He knew that I was watching him, but I wasn't laughing. I couldn't imagine Ms Jennifer not seeing it simply because it was all happening in front of her but she didn't seem to care, kind of like she knew she was talking to a brick wall. I really hope he doesn't do that with me, I found myself thinking.

I was starting to feel really uncomfortable and embarrassed now, especially with other people watching us. "Well, I guess I've got to get going back to the bus. It was a pleasure meeting and chatting with you Miss Jennifer," I said after a couple minutes passed by and not having a word spoken to me. I looked at the boys, "And I guess I shall be seeing you two shortly!" I then started to walk away from that whole situation, knowing that a few people in the immediate surroundings were staring at me. I hoped nobody going to Camp Silver Pine had witnessed what just took place here between this very obese woman and the two kids. Alex was clearly outnumbered by two people bigger than him and he didn't stand a chance.

"No, wait," Alex called out to me. "Maybe you can take us to the bus and Miss Jennifer can have a break from us for the rest of the summer." He turned and pleaded with the woman beside him, repeating the word please like a broken record.

I was absolutely surprised with what that woman said next. "Alexander Pushkin, stop kidding yourself. You know you won't be up there for the entire summer. You haven't ever been able to stay up at camp for an entire week because you're a bad kid! No matter what the camp does because of what your social worker requests, you'll never change, grow up, and act responsible!" My heart sank for him and then I noticed Billy was just giggling with humor. I wondered in disbelief at how such a person was allowed to work with kids with such a demeaning attitude.

"I'm not a bad kid!" Alex protested, though I really hoped he knew that he couldn't win this battle.

"Well, I have no problem taking them to the bus if you don't mind Miss Jennifer. It won't be long until the bus leaves anyway, so I'm pretty sure I can handle them until we get to the bus and the other counselors." I said, trying to rescue the little guy from Miss Jennifer's grasp. Billy I couldn't care about. That kid totally freaked me out, and I noticed that his grin disappeared out of the corner of my eye with what I had said. Heck if I was going to being looking after this charmingly young, attractive boy, I might as well start by joining on his side of arguments.

"Good, rid me of these pests for a couple weeks! Your camp knows how to reach the group home these kids live in so the second they start misbehaving, let us know and somebody will come pick them up." She said, getting up to leave. Alex almost knocked over the chair standing up reaching over to give Miss Jennifer a hug, to which she called him a clumsy fool and not to ever touch her with his filthy hands, then he ran over to me and grabbed my arm. I would feel so privileged if he'd ever hug me. Wait, what are you thinking?

"Let's go!" He said, sliding his hand down to mine, grabbing it firmly and pulling me away, and then whispered, "I have to go to the bathroom again!"

Billy didn't hear that last thing but just followed behind me again. I got that sense that Billy was watching me, so I tried to make Alex release my hand before we went into the washroom, but his grip was strong and he begged me to come in with him to help him. I got a twinge down in my private area when he said this glaring into my eyes, but tried to ignore it. When we got into the bathroom again and found that nobody was in there, Alex tried to make Billy feel embarrassed. "Billy, you should stop staring at his butt! He probably doesn't like it!" He said while stepping up to the urinal.

I heard his zipper as he pulled it down. Billy's face was all red, probably filled with both anger and embarrassment. "Shut up you little fucker!" He exclaimed. "I'll beat you up if you piss me off. You're not within the protective grasp of that bitch anymore!"

At that point, I had heard enough of Alex being condemned and picked on. No kid deserved to be treated like that, especially if they had no way to defend themselves. I tried to muster up all the strength I had in me and put on a threatening look. All the pain I sensed Alex felt forced words out of my mouth that I never thought I would have the courage to ever say. "Alright, that's enough!" I growled, turning to Billy and looked intently into his eyes, trying to make it seem as cold and ruthless as I could. I pointed at Alex, "He may not be in Miss Jennifer's grasp anymore to keep you from beating him up, but now he's in my grasp and if you even dare lay a hand on him, I will make sure you are only at that camp for not more than a single day!" I saw Alex turn from the urinal with a mouth stretched in a wide `o' shape, completely shocked at my reaction. Billy cocked his eyebrow at me and I saw him clench his fists together. I turned my entire body stance to look at Alex, who still stood awestruck with his little dick hanging out of his fly. I let out a breath to release whatever tone my voice would have so as not come across as me being mad at the kid. "Hey, are you finished peeing yet? You should put that thing back in your pants you know, if you're finished and all."

He looked down and began laughing, swaying his hips about making his penis swing around in circles. I watched as it became more difficult for him to flip it up and down, each time growing a little bigger and a little harder. "Alex put that thing away right now." I said, realizing that within my own shorts my dick was hardening. This is nuts: I'm starting to get erection to this boy who's making himself hard! I watched him grab his hard penis and put it back into his pants and pull up his zipper. I was starting to feel uncomfortable being in the bathroom alone with these two, and hoped nobody would walk in.

"See what I mean, he's a little faggot! Why would you protect him?" Billy asked, still angry from being put in his place.

I turned back to him expecting to be met with a fist punching my face, but Billy still stood there tense as can be. "First of all, he's too young to be anything but a little boy. So, name calling stops right here, right now! Second, he's younger than you and weaker than you, and should be protected against people who threaten him and make him feel like shit!" I answered in the sternness voice I could muster up.

"You won't be saying anything like that after he's sucked your dick!" Billy said then walked out of the bathroom.

Alex turned to him and told to f-off, to which I said, "And you -- that mouth of yours better stop now as well! No more swearing, name calling or bad mouthing anyone, got it?" We were staring into each other's eyes for a few seconds before he slowly nodded his head that he acknowledged. I sighed to myself, not completely knowing what to do, but knowing that we had to catch up with Billy and get to the bus. I motioned for Alex to follow me, and then we left the bathroom.

The thought of little Alex sucking my dick was almost repulsive, but yet was a thought that seemed to delight me. What I really wanted to do after seeing what his dick looked like, was to get it in my mouth and suck on his the way I've always dreamed about. It was what I've wanted to do to Derek so badly, and now also fantasized about doing to Alex.

Not only did he have his beauty to make others like myself crumble at his feet, but he had the most amazing looking private I have ever seen. His dick while soft resembled a kind of arrow with extra skin sheathing the pointed tip underneath. He was uncircumcised, and literally the first one I had ever seen. I was cut, and same with Derek and the rest of the players on the football I used to play with. He didn't have any hair like anyone else I knew and was as bald as I was in that region. As he became harder by swinging his dick around, it still had that arrow look to it, and the concealed treasure hidden by his foreskin was trying to peek out. He was only able to reach a state of semi-erectness before our little blow up in the bathroom, but I could guess that when he was fully erect it was a sight to see. I wonder how far his skin retracts over the top of the dick, I thought.

Oh man, everything I'm thinking about this boy is so wrong! How on earth am I going to manage looking after him without feeling this intense lust toward him? Should I quit this job now before I even begin it?

Billy had already reached the top of the escalator by the time Alex and I caught up with him. We followed behind him, not too closely, just enough to see where he was going. I was trying in my head to think of doing some damage control, but part of me just said to let it die off. After all, Billy wasn't my responsibility -- he was just some punk kid who probably had a volatile temper, a bully who probably fed off of others' fears and enjoyed it. On the other hand, maybe he had issues himself. Children in the system always do, according to my nanny.

Just before we left the mall, I finally decided to call out to him. "Billy, wait up for us." I said, and as we caught up to him, I tried to repair things. "Look, we're getting off to a wrong start. I don't want it to be this way so I'm apologizing to you for being rude to you. But you need to realize that your actions toward Alex will not be tolerated at the camp. And that goes for him treating you like crap too. Everyone needs to respect each other and get along."

"Whatever, ass wipe! I've heard it all before and don't want to hear it anymore of it. That kid always gets his own way," Billy snapped back at me.

"I understand how you feel, but I can only say that that won't happen with me." I tried to reassure him.

"You understand me? How the fuck can you understand me? You're like the same age as me!"

"Then help me understand how you feel."

"Listen, just fuck off and leave me alone."

Billy took off ten paces ahead of us again. I think I just made things worse, and the situation was becoming too complicated. What did I get myself into? All I wanted to do was use the bathroom?

I felt something warm grab my hand and looked down to see Alex's right hand within my left hand. As we headed across the parking lot and headed toward the bus, I tried to turn my attention away from the issue I was having with Billy to trying to engage Alex in a conversation in order to get to know him better. "So, Alex, I noticed this morning this morning when I looked at your registration form that you wrote your name down using letters that aren't from the English alphabet. What language were you writing in?" I asked, hoping this would be a good way to build up some trust between each other.

"It was in Russian and they use a different alphabet than the Roman letters the English use. In Russia they use the Cyrillic alphabet," he answered confidently.

"Have you have been to Russia?"

"Once, but it was so long ago I don't remember it."

"That's too bad. I also noticed that someone put an additional name on the page for you. What name do you prefer to be called by? Alexander? Alex? Or, Sasha?"

He laughed. "My daddy says I should only let my true friends who care about me, call me Sasha. My social worker put that on the form, didn't she?"

"Yes, I assume she did. So I take it that you don't like to be called Sasha?"

"I don't know. Ms. Tessier -- that's my social worker -- calls me Sasha and so does my dad." He seemed to pause for a second, than asked, "What are you to me: a friend or another Billy?"

"Well, I will hope that I would never become someone who treats you the way Billy does, so I guess that would make me your friend then. The camp put me in the position of watching over you for the summer." I answered.

"So, you'll be my one-on-one counselor?" He asked enthusiastically.

"Yes, that would be me?"

"Awesome!" Alex practically yelled. "You can call me Sasha then, but only if you promise to be my friend forever!"

"Forever, huh? Well I did notice something else written on your registration form ..."

"What?"

"There were two addresses of where you live. If I have to be your friend forever, then I want to be able to communicate with you forever."

He flashed a brilliant smile at me. "My daddy when I live with him lives in the city by the movie theatre that looks like a giant space ship. The other place I live at is the group home my social worker put down."

"You and I live very close to each other; I know the theatre you're talking about because I live on the other side of the highway from it."

"Awesome!"

"So, it looks to me Sasha that you and I will be friends forever!"

He began jumping around with joy. I felt a mixture of happiness, arousal, and guilt. I mean, I was so elated to be with him and to even know him. I was in a state of bliss knowing that he acknowledged my existence and paid some attention to me. I felt completely aroused by him because he was the most beautiful creature that I had ever laid my eyes on. To look at him and not have desires was a sin.

And of course the guilt that I felt at that point feeling anything at all towards Sasha began. The feelings I was having were wrong, and I knew it. All the desires I had that I didn't even know existed were wrong. He was such an innocent boy! Or is he? Going into bathrooms to give Billy a five minute quickie, probably referring to the blowjobs Billy talked about a few moments ago. Was he really that innocent? Does it matter? He's eight years old for crying out loud. I knew nothing about sex when I was eight! But how, or why, is this god of a boy so sexually charged up?

He must have known how I was attracted to him. And if that was the case, it was time I strap on a mental chastity belt and try my hardest to lock out all impure thoughts about this wonderfully, handsome boy jumping around me.

We were getting closer and closer to where the school bus had parked. Campers and their parents were scattered about everywhere, some that were going to our camp and some to other camps. Billy of course reached the crowd around our bus before Sasha and I did, and as soon as Rob noticed that I had brought along two extra people I didn't leave with, he curiously asked, "No group home staff to accompany them?"

"It's a long, embarrassing story. . ." I answered truthfully. "To make a long story short, I ran into them in the food court because of Alex here recognizing my camp T-shirt. Then after meeting the woman who looked after them, I volunteered to bring them here myself."

"How irresponsible," Rob replied. "Well, Billy, Alex, go and put your stuff over there by where the driver who is loading up the other campers' gear. After that, go see Laura and get her to check your names off and then feel free to socialize with your friends from camp last year. In twenty minutes we'll be leaving."

I stayed with Rob and observed the two boys follow through with the first set of instructions Rob gave them. Almost immediately, another camper headed over to Billy and began chatting with him, and then another. "Rob, I have a bit of a confession to make that makes me extremely nervous and uncomfortable." I said softly, just barely audible for only him to hear. "I need to talk to you right away alone."

"Can we talk about it here like this quietly?" Rob asked.

"I guess, but just don't put on any looks of surprises or give off the impression that something's up." I answered. I needed to express my concerns over Sasha's safety with regards to Billy. As like in playing football, a good quarterback has to be constantly aware of his surroundings and plan accordingly if anything changes suddenly. How he adapts to the ever changing environment can be the difference between a fumble or sack, a first down or a touchdown.

"Okay, what's up?" Rob replied.

"On the way out here after leaving the worker that Billy and Alex were with, we all kind of had a disagreement. The one with Alex didn't last long, but the one with Billy I think is going to continue. It was over name calling -- it's like they, like the worker and Billy, bully Alex into a state where he can only think of revenge or retaliation." I continued watching the interaction with Billy and the other two campers. Once they dropped off their bags with the bus driver, who loaded them into the compartment underneath where everyone sits above, Billy and his posse went over to Laura and then ventured off continuing to chat close to the entrance of the bus. It seemed like Billy was trying to stare me down from where he stood, but I know he must have been talking about me because every few seconds his two buddies would turn to look at me.

Sasha stayed together with the bus driver, talking to him. Nobody attempted to say hi to him and it suddenly dawned on me that he probably didn't have many friends. I continued my little talk to Rob. "The bickering was mostly one-sided and dominated by Billy, and I kind of stuck my two cents in after a threat was made to hurt Alex. On the way over here I tried to confront Billy on the argument and try to patch things up, but he was still angry and wouldn't hear me out. I don't know what I should do."

"Well, you did the right thing by coming and confiding this to me. I'll also let Laura know once we get on the bus to keep an eye on Billy. You know we have zero tolerance for abuse, no matter what shape or form it comes in." Rob assured me.

Sasha now walked over to Laura and stood beside here. He never interrupted her or disturbed her in any way, just stood as still and as quiet as possible. How could a boy like this be so bad to destroy a cabin? I wondered. "I know," came my reply.

A few moments passed in Rob's and my conversation while I debated on saying the next issue: the possibility that Sasha was being molested. His comment about bathrooms and a five minute quickie; Billy's comment about waiting until he blows me -- I didn't have any concrete proof if anything was going on. And yet, that is exactly what I wanted to do to Sasha myself! Well, not molest him because that would be wrong. Making love would be a better way to say it but then again the truth still lies behind the picture, even making love to him would be molesting him according to the law. He's six years younger than me.

Rob must have sensed something was still up with me because he asked, "There's more to this concern of yours about Alex's well-being isn't there?"

I nodded while I thought of an answer. "I don't know how to articulate it yet."

"Can I ask a question?" Rob asked, and then I nodded again still watching Sasha. He still never moved away from Laura at all. "Did John give you anything to read on Alex's background?"

"Yes, but I decided against reading it because I thought it would be better to get to know him first, rather than know everything about him before I met him."

"Well, that may not have been the wisest choice but I admire your decision. I guess I should kind of tell you what I know about him. Jesse, Alex is an extremely messed up kid. You are absolutely right about him being constantly picked on. But there's more to it than that. I suspect Alex has been and probably still is being sexually abused by someone, probably in the group home he's in."

"How do you know?" I asked.

"There is something that we are taught in teacher's college to look for when we suspect a child is being abused. Something called body language. It may take a while before something becomes evident, but body language never fails."

"And what kind of body language is he showing right now?"

"Well, right now he's saying that he's really shy and nervous. He doesn't want to disturb the order of things, so he'll stand there until Laura acknowledges him or until something else catches his attention."

"How do you know he's been sexually abused then?"

"That's the thing: I don't really know for sure, I only suspect it. Last year he came up here with Billy and another teen from his group home, and I caught all three of them coming out from the washroom on a few occasions that first week before he went ape-shit and destroyed Red cabin. The last time I saw him, he limped out of the washroom alone crying, and when I went up to him and asked him what was wrong he only said `I want to go home and see my daddy.' Then he took off and the next day was sent home. The way he was limping though was as if someone had tried to put something up his butt."

"Ouch!" I replied. "Did you say anything to John?"

"I couldn't. There wasn't much to say unless Alex allowed someone to look him over. I'm guessing he knew the only way to avoid that was to do something so bad John would have no choice but to send him home."

Sasha still hadn't moved and I began to worry about what my body language showed. Laura finally turned around and saw Sasha standing there, and within a few seconds, she wrote something on her clipboard and dismissed him. He started heading back over towards me, but turned around quickly in Billy's direction as if he had just been called, and then walked over to him. Billy stared at me the whole time, and at that moment I wish I could have read lips. The two friends that were hanging off of Billy walked around Sasha as if to trap him. Rob had turned his attention to a parent of one of the really young kids who was travelling up to camp as a first year camper.

Maybe about a minute had passed before I began to realize something bad was about to happen. Billy's two buddies standing behind Sasha started to move their arms up upwards from their bodies and pushed forward at Sasha's shoulder level until they contacted his body. Billy moved one of his legs forward in front of Sasha, and just before the actual push from behind came, I said "Rob," before starting to run towards the door to the bus. I was too late -- the two boys pushed hard so that Sasha's neck whipped backwards and since there was no space for him to try and regain his balance, stumbled over Billy's leg and began to fall forward into the stairs of the bus. I noticed thankfully that Sasha hands came up with his sides and just before impact, was able to intercept his head from making a full crash landing on the steps. Immediately a howl erupted from Sasha's lungs, and Billy began to laugh alongside his two accomplices.

I was in earshot to hear Billy say, "Did you have a nice trip last fall?" virtually adding insult to injury, and then I was there right up in his face.

"What do you think you're doing?" I yelled.

"I didn't do anything -- he tripped trying to get on the bus. He didn't lift his foot high enough!" Billy lied. I bent over to attempt to help Sasha up to his feet, but he didn't want to move from the step; instead he just kind of lay stationary on the steps crying.

"Yeah, right after he was pushed from behind from your two friends here and then tripped by your foot. I saw the whole thing . . ." I started to say before was rudely interrupted by Billy.

"And what are you going to do about it?" Billy said angrily.

"Well, I'll tell you what I'm going to do about it," Rob interrupted. "In case you forgot, Camp Silver Pine has a zero tolerance policy in place for abuse of any sort. Count yourselves lucky this time -- next time, you will be sent home regardless of whether we even reach the camp or not."

"He fucking tripped trying to get on the bus!" Billy lied again.

"Second thing -- watch your mouth; there's younger children around. Third, I understand that Jesse here has already given you one warning earlier Billy about Sasha. Consider yourself sent home if you even dare step foot near him again. You are sitting front row of the bus," Rob said while pointing in Billy's direction, and then looked at me and Sasha. "Alex and you will sit at the back."

"That isn't fair!" Billy shouted.

"Life isn't fair, neither was you tripping a kid much younger than yourself and almost injuring him. Smarten up. End of story."

Sasha had just started to move and slowly began to stand up. I so wanted to somehow comfort him, to grab him in my arms in a hug and say something, but no action or words could come. He slowly climbed up the stairs and turned down the row in between the seats and starting walking slowly towards the back. I doubt he would have had a concussion, but I thought about keeping a close eye on him just in case. When I reached the back of the school bus shortly after him, I noticed that my little Sasha was seated with his knees at his chest, sobbing uncontrollably. If it wasn't for his hands blocking his head from smashing against the stairs up the bus, he'd probably have some swelling the size of a goose egg on his forehead by now. "It hurts too much, Jesse!" He cried. In between his sniffing and wiping his tears away with my hands, his crying became much slower, and I noticed that another emotion was forming in him. He collapsed into my arms, saying, "I'm going to get him back for that! He'd better watch himself!"

What he felt was completely natural, and he had every right to be upset. Heck if someone tripped me just before getting on a bus I think I'd freak out as well. But he couldn't do anything to jeopardize his staying at camp no matter what anyone did to him. He had to be more mature than that, and it was my job to ensure that. "Sasha, you won't do anything because then you won't be allowed to stay at the camp. Let us grownups handle the situation. I promise I will do everything in my power to prevent Billy or anyone else from hurting you, but you gotta trust me first. If you trust me, then let it go and let what's coming to Billy come to him without your interference. Do you understand?" I asked.

"Yeah, but he hurted me!" Sasha answered, his bad grammar making me smile.

I pulled him out from my arms, almost regretfully, and looked at him straight in the eyes. "He also hurt me, Sasha!"

"How?"

"By hurting you."

I could see from the look on his face that my comment sent him deep into thought. Other campers began coming on the bus at this point as the time for departing was drawing near. I hoped that no one would come right to the back with us, and sure enough, the few that ventured back saw Sasha and immediately retreated as if he were the opposite polar end of a magnet. It wasn't that I hoped to be alone with him; I wanted time to get him settled down, to wash away the pain and anger he felt. I felt so sorry for him.

"Why do you care so much about me? You hardly know me!" Sasha said.

I looked him straight in the eyes again. "Because I want you to have fun this year. These past two years that you've come up here have been unfortunate for you having been sent home because of other people doing stuff to you. Camp is supposed to be a memorable experience for you and everyone else, which is why I'm guessing your social worker keeps trying to send you to camp." I replied.

"And what stuff do you know people do to me?"

"Sasha, I might be young but I'm not naïve. You and Billy both made comments earlier about a certain sexual act that yes I caught on to."

"Then you should hate me and not want to be around me just like everyone else!"

It was almost as if he felt more pain and alienation inside than I could ever imagine. What I suspected was true and I didn't hate him for it. "Sasha, I don't hate you. But what is being done to you is wrong. . ."

"No it's not! My daddy says I can do whatever I want to make myself happy!"

"And your father is right, you should be happy. But what Billy and the others are doing to you is not acceptable and their actions could put them in jail." We were talking in hushed tones so that way nobody else could hear us. I knew it was approaching departure time, and pretty soon Rob and Laura would be getting on the bus, announce a few rules for the bus, and then we'd be on our way. "Look, Sasha, the only thing I don't want to see is you hurt, and I want you to be up at camp with me for the entire season. I like you that much."

"I want that too!" He replied softly, the tear tap I think tightened to stop the flow of tears.

All the campers that were registered to travel aboard the school bus to camp had surprisingly arrived on time, and the bus began to pull away about five minutes early. Rob explained the rules were simple: everyone should have their seat belts on and remain seated while the bus was in motion. Nobody should be up running around or sticking their arms out the window, all pretty much plain and simple. I was surprised that from the back row of the bus, the nearest people sitting close to us were three rows ahead. Normally you get on a school bus and everyone's fighting to sit in the back, but I assumed nobody did because of Sasha's bad reputation and him being there. The noise on the bus from all the campers chatting away began to rise, the excitement building for campers and the three staff. I no longer felt as tired as I did on the way down, and was happy to be seated next to the most beautiful boy on the planet.

While Sasha sat in quiet contemplation, I tried to come to some sort of affirmation regarding any temptation I had in regards to the little boy beside me. I could never do anything to hurt him, and even if he tried to initiate anything with me, I'd have to somehow turn him down. It wasn't right and like I told him before, actions like those warrant the person to be locked away for life.

Out of the blue, Sasha asked "So how long have you been going up to camp for?"

"Since I was six years old, like when you first came here." I answered.

"Do you know any of the people on the bus besides the counselors?" He asked again.

"Yep, most of the faces look familiar though." I responded. "There's a kid a few rows up ahead whose name is Elijah, who last year every time we played Capture the Flag, we were unbeatable." Capture the Flag is one of my favorite games. Campers and staff would be divided into two teams, and then two staff would be in charge of hiding the flag. Last year with the game I was telling Sasha about, Elijah had come up to me when we were in `jail' (what happens when you get caught by the other team) and said he knew where the other teams flag was. So we devised a plan that as soon as both of us were freed, we'd scout into the lake and make our way to the craft cabin, which sat right at the water's edge. I would hide behind one of the bushes so that way Elijah would sneak in at the right moment, snatch their flag and run like a speeding bullet to me. I would then take the flag and carry it to no-man's land and win the game for our team. The plan didn't really go according to plan the way we planned it though. Once Elijah grabbed their flag, he was nearly caught, and instead of handing me the flag he had to toss it up in my direction, but of course the wind took it further out into the lake. Immediately I started to swim over to the flag with about five of the other team's players heading in the same direction. Elijah still hadn't officially been caught -- once he threw the flag the person chasing him stopped and went after the flag instead. I had reached the flag and began swimming as fast as I could towards the canoe docks. Once I was there I hopped up and began running as fast as I could and then noticed Elijah standing at the stairs up to no-man's land (the volleyball court in front of the recreation hall) and threw it to him. I watched as the flag sailed through the air and land safely in Elijah's hands -- if we were playing football I'd be able to say the ball landed right between the numbers. He bolted up the stairs three at a time, and ran it in for the win. After that game, they decided anymore Capture the Flag games that were played, the lake was going to be considered out of bounds.

"So how come he doesn't come and say hi to you?"

"Well, he's two years younger than I am, and it's not like we were friends or anything. We just played games together really competitively, and usually won when we were teamed together."

"Who don't you know?"

I looked at most of the campers as they came on, and most looked familiar. "Well most of the campers coming up here for the first time. I also don't know who Billy is sitting with up at the front. Do you know who those two are?"

"That's easy! They were at our group home back in February and March. The taller one is Owen, and the shorter one is Rodney."

"Were they nice to you when lived in the same home as you?"

For the next few minutes Sasha became really quiet. I could tell he was mulling something over in his mind because the inside of his cheeks. "Promise me that anything I say to you will only be between us! Pinky swear it!" He said raising his hand farthest from me across lap and stuck out his little finger. I noticed right away that Sasha was probably never a nail biter -- his soft looking hands were perfect.

"Sasha if they hurt you then I won't keep anything in secrecy." I told him.

"Nobody has ever hurted me, I swear. Now you swear to keep my secrets as secrets!"

"Okay," I said taking his pinky finger and mine together, locking them together and then shaking them together.

"They hung around Billy because they're all the same age. Billy came to live in the group home in November while I was living with my dad. When I was taken from my dad and put into that home again, Billy wanted to be friends with me because the oldest boy in the house, James, tells anyone that lives there that if they want a blowjob, to come to me."

"Sasha that is not healthy; you should have told someone that they were doing that to you." I interrupted him.

"No way, I love the feeling I get when someone's dick is in my mouth. I wouldn't tell anyone on earth unless they raped me!" He replied quickly.

I didn't know what to think or say now. What I suspected before was true: this little eight year old boy was being sexually abused, and apparently loves it. "Okay so continue on."

"Well Billy said that he would protect me and beat anyone up that touched me if one day, I would let him stick his dick up me bum. I told him I would think about it and let him know, but the truth was I wouldn't ever allow it to happen. Only one person besides my dad should stick his dick inside, and my dad says it should be a person I truly love and want to share the rest of my life with, because he won't be around forever. Billy kept pestering me every day whether I decided to go along with it or not to the point where I was getting extremely angry at him that I threatened to even stop sucking on his dick. He didn't take that too lightly, and as soon as the other two found out about what I was doing to James and Billy, the three of them planned a night where after bedtime they would all come into my room and one by one would get a blowjob. While I was sucking on Rodney's dick, Billy began to finger my hole. Eventually he stuck two fingers in, and then two hands grabbed the back of my hand and shoved Rodney's dick as far into my mouth as it could go, while Billy climbed on top of me and tried to get his dick in me."

"Did it hurt?" I asked.

Sasha just laughed. "The second I felt Billy's dick touch my bum and figured out what was going on, I bit down on Rodney so hard he screamed so loud. Well that scared the crap outta Billy and he put his clothes on faster than ever and ran outta the room. Rodney got in a lot of trouble for being in my room, but never explained why he screamed so he got in even more trouble. I just said that I was sleeping and didn't hear him come in."

"Wow, that's pretty bad!" I said in reply. "I still don't understand why you would want to put somebody else's penis in your mouth. Doesn't it taste gross?" What better way to settle my curiosity than to ask someone who has done what I dream to do. I mean, despite the fact that I really wanted to try sucking someone's dick, preferably Derek's or Sasha's, two thinks stuck out in my mind the most: firstly the whole issue of urine. That has to taste awful since it's the waste that's inside you. Second, is the issue of that part of the body always being covered and mixed in with a bit of sweat. I've noticed on one or two of my former teammates a nasty odor after games where the sun has been out the entire time. Surely if it smelt gross it would have to taste gross?

"Sometimes it does, it really depends in how the person cleans themselves."

"You know it scares me how you know all this stuff, especially for your age!" I said wanting the conversation to end given it's affect on the region south of the belt. That whole time I was harder than a rock.

"Have you ever tried it?" Sasha asked.

"To be honest, I've never done anything with anyone."

"Do you want to try it with me?"

Yes, I do, I thought to myself. "Sasha, if did any such thing to you, I would hate myself for as long as I lived. It would be so wrong!"

"Why?"

"Because I am older than you and in a position of trust and authority over you. If I were to do anything with you and if anyone had the slightest feeling that something was going on between us, it would be me in jail and you as the victim. That wouldn't be fair to you, and even more, wouldn't be fair to me. Not for a few seconds of pleasure."

"So what if I initiated it?"

"Sasha it doesn't matter who initiates anything in the end because in the eyes of the law, I would still be held responsible."

My level of discomfort was shooting through the roof with all this talk, not to mention having an uncontrollable, raging erection pumped up so hard that it hurt and being seduced by an eight year old boy god. "So then what if you weren't a staff and were only a camper? Would you do something with me then?"

"No I still wouldn't. However, I would still have wanted to get to know you as a friend because I think you are a very special person who needs someone to look after you properly and genuinely care about you."

"You can still do all of that and love me in another, more special way. My daddy does. He cares and loves me unconditionally."

The bus was driving along a stretch of highway where farms dominated the scenery. I left the conversation at that, because although I knew what was happening to him was wrong, I don't think I could have convinced him it was. I simply didn't have the skills to influence him yet. As we watched the landscape pass by traveling at a hundred kilometers an hour, I marveled at his facial reactions to seeing cows and horses. "One day, I want to ride on a horse the way cowboys do!" He told me excitedly. His grin stretched from ear to ear as he said that, and I can imagine how his mind would have instantly begun picturing himself on the back of a horse. I had never ridden on a horse either, but I even imagined myself horseback riding together with Sasha.

A question began to form around my mind about how Sasha's dad treats his son. If he were doing all these sexual things, how come he wasn't in jail? And if he wasn't in jail, why was Sasha in foster care. I had to say it in a way not to offend him. It already felt like a wedge had been driven between because I was refusing his advances on me. Finally, drawing enough courage to ask, I began another conversation that would end up with having my dick in another pulsating state, just as the most recent one had completely subsided. "Can I ask you a very personal question, one you don't have to answer if you don't feel comfortable enough?"

"Sure," He replied.

"You said before how your father loves you in a more special way, and that he still takes care of you and everything. Why are you in a foster home then? He's not in jail is he?"

"No, Daddy just has some issues that hurt his head from his days in Russia. My daddy loves me with all his heart and I know it's not his fault that he goes through his problems. He just can't have me around when an episode comes."

"What kind of episode - like an epileptic seizure?" I asked.

"No -- I don't know what epileptic is. His episodes cause him to black out weeks at a time. When he wakes up he thinks he's back home in the USSR, and he's never happy. I normally get taken out of my house way before he wakes up though."

"How does someone know to take you out of the house?"

"I don't know. Family Services shows up at my school to collect me normally."

"What about your mother? Isn't she around?"

"I don't have a mother."

"Sure you do. Everyone has to have a mother."

"No, I don't have a mother!"

I thought I should drop it. There was no sense pressuring him. His mother, for whatever reasons, was not involved in his current life. "So, how long has your dad been doing those things to you?" I asked. "I'm sorry, I'm just so curious."

"Well, first of all, he doesn't do those things to me, we do them together. We make love together. We have sex together. He never forces me the way you're talking about; we consent to engage together as one." Sasha answered, totally blowing my mind away with his words.

"Aren't you scared of someone finding out what you two are doing together then?"

"Why would I be? I wouldn't tell another living soul, and I know daddy wouldn't because he knows this world doesn't understand him."

"But you've just told me about what you do. What makes you think that I'm trustworthy to keep your secret?"

"You're my friend, it's that simple. And besides you're the only person I've said anything to you. I think I know how you are, and I trust you with all my heart to keep this secret."

"I guess I should say thank you then for putting your trust in me so quickly. I feel honored to know you."

"Well, you stuck up for me when no one else would, or ever has. I appreciate that about you and it makes me admire you more!" He said and then reached over to give me a hug. As soon as his arms wrapped around I felt as if I could melt into him. He squeezed onto me tightly, making me feel like he did need me. "So how about a game of cards -- I got some in my knapsack?"

"Okay, sure, what card games do you know how to play?" I answered. What was yelling and screaming on the bus before as we left the city was now all chit chatter in audible voices, but not any conversation could be picked out and dwelled upon. Everyone on the bus including the counselors was drawn into playing catch up over what's happened over the past year away from camp. The only ones on the bus who weren't talking about past experiences of some kind, was Sasha and me. We were just starting to know each other.

"I can play Go Fish!" Sasha answered as proud as ever. I looked at him and laughed.

"That's the oldest game in the book. Don't you know how to play any other game?" I asked.

"No, at the home, card games are banned from being played except for Go Fish because all the older kids like Billy and James like to gamble their stuff away." Sasha said truthfully. "All the older kids at the foster house wreck everything for everyone."

"Kind of like one bad apple spoils the whole damn bunch, huh?" I replied, not sure if he would understand what that cliché meant or not.

"What does that mean?" Sasha said squinting at me. Damn, I guess that cliché is too old for him to know what it means.

"It means that something everybody likes can be destroyed by one person who makes it look bad, and thereby spoiling the fun for everybody else." I said.

"That happens in the house a lot." Sasha replied. "So, can you teach me any other card games?"

"Of course, do you know a game called Crazy-8 Countdown?"

"I've heard of it but don't know how to play it."

"Okay, get your cards out, and I'll teach you by playing an open-handed game first. Then whoever wins that hand will be the one who deals the following hand when we'll start from the beginning again." I told him while he reached into his backpack, pulled out a deck of cards and began shuffling them. "Great, now at the beginning, we are both dealt eight cards each. When we play for real, once we are out of cards, we pick up seven more cards until we have none left. Then we pick up six and then five and once you reached one card being dealt to you and throw the card away, you win the game. Now deal the cards."

Sasha dealt each of us a set of eight cards. "Now in the game, there is something called Aces Download, which means for instance, since you have the ace of clubs, you can drop all your clubs down on top of it. When you have any twos in your hand, it means that when you play them, the other person has to pick up two. If I played another two on top of it, then you would have to pick up four. If I had three twos to play on your one, then you'd have to pick up eight. Any suit of Jacks make the other player miss their turn, a Queen of spades is pick up five, and eights are your wildcard at the beginning of the game. Once you beat the eight wildcard hand, then your next wildcard will be a seven all the way down to one. When two is your wildcard, you'll have a choice to either change the suit, or make me pick up. Do you think you'll understand it all?" I asked him.

He looked me straight in the eye, saying, "I'll remember it all." We played out the first hand which I helped him with to win, and began wondering whether I should let him win on the countdown game. Alas, I decided I was going to let him win.

I was stuck at seven when he reached a three wildcard hand. He was laughing hysterically at the possibly of beating me that he dropped his cards, one falling onto the floor, the second card landing face-up on top of our discarded pile of cards. The third card landed face down inside my lap. I went to grab it to take it out but Sasha stopped me. "If you grab it, I'm going to say misdeal and take three more cards." Sasha said reaching out for the card. I withdrew my hand and watched his glide past the card and immediately grab a hold of not only the card, but what lay underneath: my semi-erect dick.

I gasped for air, my eyes opening wide and searching around to see if anybody was looking at us with his hand wrapped around the shaft of my dick through my pants. It started growing immediately on contact, pumping full of blood, and when I forced his hand away thinking maybe it was just an accident, Sasha came out and whispered directly into my ear, "You know what else would be awesome? Is if whoever wins the game has to suck on the loser's dick!" to which I swallowed a huge gulp of air, trying to make sense of everything that was currently happening. What was going on? Had I not already told him that I was not going to allow that to happen? "Deal?" He said now winking at me and returning his hand to my covered private.

No, Sasha, it is not a deal and it's not going to happen. I wanted to say, but couldn't.

As Sasha continued to stare at me with his seducing green eyes, playing tenderly with the tip of my dick, I lost all my senses and began to slowly move my groin up and down again, trying to get more contact in between my dick and his small hands. I slowly began to forget where we were and fell under his charming spell. All the noises around me, the chit-chatter, the engine, became silent as I closed my eyes and melted down into the seat. The circular motions he was making through my shorts continued, setting off electrical impulses everywhere throughout my body. It was almost as if I was a living firecracker whose fuse was being lit and let off every second. I could barely feel the contact he had while massaging the top part of my dick, and craved more attention. My head started leaning then falling towards Sasha's shoulders, followed by him cradling it into his lap; the aroma from his body sending me into a state of arousal that clouded my thinking. As my state of bliss continued, and just shortly after my eyelids closed, I felt something warm and wet come across my lips while the hand that was slowly playing with my hard-on lifted off and slid into my shorts. A kiss, my first kiss, sent off feelings of ecstasy, and as he began to suck gently on my lower lip, his hand inside my shorts made contact with my dick, the time anyone other than myself had touched it, making me shudder all over. I could feel all my defenses break down. I was his to do with what he pleased. No more fighting the resistance, I was his slave and he was in control. And he wasn't finished with me yet.

"Sasha, you have to stop please!" I managed to beg in a barely audible voice between him kissing me full on the lips to moving to my ears. Oh God, if he doesn't stop . . .

"No," He whispered pressing his lips against mine once more. Just as I thought my dick couldn't pump it's self harder than it already was, something began prodding my closed lips until I finally let the intruder in. Sasha was tonguing me, and trying to find my own tongue to begin a wrestling match with. Our saliva began to mix and the taste of him was like heaven. I don't know why or how, but suddenly I began to suck on his tongue, which caused Sasha to moan out in pure pleasure. Suddenly, I felt so happy inside that I could induce from him a moan that erupted from deep inside him. Not only was he capable of producing such powerful feelings inside me, but I know knew I was having the same effect on him. His feather like motions on the most sensitive part of my erection began to stop despite my trying to grind my crotch into his hand harder. Then while we continued to French and tongue wrestle, I felt his soft fingers leave from my shorts and begin to crawl up underneath my shirt, lifting it higher up my chest. They lightly traced further up my stomach until they reached my hardened nipples. He rubbed them ever so soothingly, before tracing his way back down my chest where he stopped for a moment to stick his finger in my belly button, then continued further south until he reached the edge of my pants.

He dug into my skin a bit in order to get underneath the waistband, where he then slipped beneath the elastic band of my underwear and came into contact with my fully engorged boner for the second time. Sasha wrapped his hand around the shaft and held on somewhat tightly as he manipulated his fist up and down my length. This time it was my time to moan, and it came out so loudly that I could swear the whole world had heard it. The sensation of his tongue sliding every which way in my mouth combined with a groping hand jerking my entire penis' length nearly sent me soaring up to cloud nine. He must have sensed this because he stopped playing with my dick and withdrew his hand out from my pants. As our lengthy tongue consumed my soul, I felt by belt buckle being loosened, followed by the button to my pants being undone. The sound of the zipper being pulled down followed next, and then the fumbling fingers began attempting to bring my most hidden treasure outside of my underwear for Sasha and the world to see. I was extremely thankful now that no one sat close to us.

Once I felt his fingers begin their circling motions on the bare skin just below the tip where the scar of my circumcision was, Sasha took his tongue out of my mouth and moved his head over to my ear, where he whispered in the most lovely, passionate voice, "You have the most beautiful cock in world, Jesse. I need to feel it in my bum so badly. I want to feel you slide in and out of my asshole until you fill me deep inside with your cum."

"Sasha, I can't cum yet." I whispered back.

"You will when I'm through with you." He replied, and then began moving slowly down my body, where he reached my nipples again and this time began toying with them using his tongue. He then put his lips around one and began to lightly suck on it, then journeyed further down my belly planting tender kisses along the way. His kissing stopped inches away my dick he was jerking off. I opened my eyes now in anticipation of the feeling that was about to come, and slowly, Sasha's head lifted up off my lower abdomen and lowered it over my erection. His moist lips contacted my private's skin, and then slowly slid down all my length until all three inches of my dick was engulfed inside his warm, hot mouth. A few moments before his mouth was giving me pleasure through kissing, and now it was working its way up the length of my erection until only the tip was inside before plunging it back into his mouth right down to the base. His tongue found the hole where my pee comes out, and he began flicking it, causing my stomach muscles to convulse at the sharp pleasure Sasha was giving me. Suddenly, an intense feeling began arising from my nuts, and I jolted upward, shoving my hard dick all the way inside Sasha's warm mouth.

He must have known what was happening to me at that point because I certainly hadn't a clue. He started sucking me off like I was piston, taking me in and out of his mouth repeatedly. A few slurping sounds escaped from his mouth, causing a few giggles that produced a light vibrating feeling. Whatever happened from that point on was out of complete animal instinct. I grabbed the back of his head and began thrusting my hips in and out. Sasha met each thrust perfectly: as the entire length of my dick slid fast into his mouth, his lips collided into the hairless skin at the base of my dick where my pubic hair should have been. On the pullout from his mouth, Sasha began to suck on my erection harder than anything I've ever felt before, as if he didn't want my boner to leave his mouth. And just before the thrust back into his warm mouth, he would loosen up on the suction until his face was planted at the base of dick, all of me being swallowed whole, and then the process would itself over and over again.

Then without any warning whatsoever, my whole began to enter a state of euphoria I never felt before. My legs, despite the fact I was lying down with my head resting comfortably in Sasha's lap, began bucking at the sudden increase of stimulation. My stomach muscles began tightening and loosening repeatedly, while my breathing quickened. My hands instead of helping to pull Sasha's mouth up the shaft of my dick, held his head firmly at the bottom of my hairless boner. All of my cock was inside his mouth, and yet I kept trying my hardest to get even more inside but to no avail. Sasha began tickling my scrotum with one of his fingers, lightly tracing around in circles and about a second later a muscle in my groin began convulsing so violently, I lost consciousness before drifting into space.

Now I don't know what on God's green earth that little boy did to me, but that orgasm sent me up to cloud number nine, and then quite possibly, up to cloud ninety-nine. If I had died and gone to heaven, nobody told me, but when I came to, Rob was standing over us, lightly tapping on my shoulder, telling me, "Jesse, we're at the McDonald's pick up point. Do you have to use the bathroom or anything?"

I immediately began to panic. My head was no longer resting in Sasha's lap, but was on the bus seat with Sasha's stomach right next to the side of my head. Sasha himself was practically laying right on top chest, his ear placed directly on the upper left portion of my chest where my heart was. I sat up as quickly as if a jolt of electricity shot through me, looked down and noticed that the zipper to my pants was already been done up and my t-shirt was pulled over the waistband as if what Sasha did to me never really happened. "Um, okay, thanks," was all I could mutter out.

Sasha had also begun to stir; I guess having his head drop down from my chest when I sat up so quickly woke him. "What happened?" He asked a little groggily.

"Well, it looks like you're learning from our champion sleeper how to start off an excellent way to begin the camp season!" Rob replied. "Don't worry, Jesse, we got a few pictures of you two?"

"Huh? What pictures? And who's we?" I asked rubbing the sleep from my eyes.

"Laura. She was like `Awww, look at those two -- they're so cute together sleeping like that,' so she grabbed her camera and snapped a few shots of yah. How long did you guy's sleep for?" Rob said.

"Seriously, I don't have a clue." I responded.

"Alex, you gotta watch Jesse here `cause he's a sleepoholic!" Rob said breaking out in laughter.

"I am not!" I tried defending myself.

Sasha just giggled and then a moment later, said, "I have to go to the bathroom..."

"Okay, Jesse, I'll let you handle that. Just be back here in twenty minutes, and get the kid a Happy Meal or something, and get a large coke to wake yourself up!" Rob said and then turned and left.

When I was sure Rob was out of earshot, I looked over at Sasha who was smiling brightly. "I guess I should thank you for that!" I said.

"For what?" He asked.

"You know for what! And also for straightening me back up once you were finished." I answered.

"I don't know what you're talking about Jesse!" Sasha responded.

"Yes you do, and don't think I'm going to let you off that easy!"

"Why? Because you know owe me one now?"

"I never asked for what you did to happen. In fact I was against it!"

"You were not! You liked it and wanted it to happen just as badly as I did!"

"Lies!"

"Nope, and you wanna know what?"

"What?"

"You squirted your boy juice! It wasn't a lot, but it was very tasty and delicious!"

"Okay, let's get you into that bathroom." I replied wanting to change the topic immediately. Nobody had come back onto the bus, but I began to feel recently soft dick begin to inflate fast. "No more talk about that!"

We got up off the seat and heading out of the bus in the direction of the restaurant. If Sasha was right and I did actually ejaculate, I'm mighty pleased with myself. Well, then again, maybe not. I promised myself that I wouldn't allow myself to do anything sexual with Sasha and now not only am I guilty of doing something, Sasha had to look after me because the orgasm I had was so powerful in knocked me out. I had to talk with him and apologise.

He's just so perfect, I tried to convince myself as we walked into the restaurant. I hope that I can please him just as well as he did me one day. WAIT A DAMNED MINUTE! Are you for real? Seriously? What the heck are you thinking? You should never ever think something like that again! You've worked so long to keep this part of your life a secret; the desires and the thoughts and this eight-year-old boy just ripped all that apart instantly.

I don't know why I was falling for him so hard and this bothered me. This summer starting to look great compared to the past year: I passed all my courses at school with a 97% average, got acceptance into the L.I.T program and now became a counsellor at the last minute to look after just one little boy. How was I going to keep myself in control, especially considering that I lost so much of it just by looking at the cutest boy in the world back at the mall, the one who just gave me the most pleasurable blowjob? I used to jerk-off maybe once a week -- it was never something that I wanted to do too much -- and right now while Sasha held onto my hands in the most meaningful and loving way, my mind was craving to re-live those same sensations that happened just over an hour ago. I think more than anything, I was scared because all this was new to me and I was alone in trying to figure it out. I couldn't just go around saying I liked Sasha the way I did.

We got into the restaurant and I immediately looked and headed for the long line-up to order a snack. Sasha had other things on his mind and starting walking in the complete opposite direction. "Where are you going?" He asked.

"I'm going to get into the line-up so we can grab a bite to eat. Dinner won't be served until six tonight, so what would you like here?" I replied, trying not to look at him.

"But I have to go to the bathroom."

"Okay so then go, I'll just be in the line up over there waiting to order for us. Did you want anything?"

He let out a disapproving sigh. "Just Chicken Nuggets," he replied and then slowly walked toward the bathroom with his head down. I watched him trying to understand why he would have been so happy moments before and now suddenly depressed. Do I even confront him on this? I thought as I joined the line to order.

The whole process to order took about thirteen minutes. When my turn finally came around, I ordered a ten pack nugget meal with a side order of ten with large fries and another large Coke. I seriously had to stop drinking so much soda -- I'd consumed more in the past 24 hours than I would in a whole year. Sasha still hadn't come out from the bathroom yet, and I began to worry a bit. I looked around the restaurant, and then outside by the bus when I unexpectedly realized that I couldn't see Billy or his other two friends anywhere. I started walking toward the bathroom wondering what if he was inside there with Sasha and what I would do to him if he was.

I lifted my hand to the panel to push the door open, and just as I was about apply some force to open the door, it swung open and I saw Billy laughing with his two buddies tagging behind. His smile remained on his face as he locked eyes with me. "Oh look, if it isn't the hero, Jesse." Billy said mockingly. "You'd better go rescue the little cry baby, Alex!"

"What the hell did you do to him?" My teeth were clenched together as I said this, and my anger slowly beginning to rise. If they hurt Sasha in any way, so help me God . . .

"Wouldn't you love to know," Billy chuckled, and then turned to his goons saying, "Come on guys, our business is done with these idiots!"

I rushed through the door brushing past the three of them, worried and angry. I couldn't find Sasha out in the open so I immediately began pushing in all the stall doors until I came to the second last one, where I saw a crying Sasha scrunching between the toilet and the stall wall. I saw a few drops of a scarlet coloured liquid on his hands, and almost screamed for Rob. His head was wet, and as he looked up at me I saw that the blood was coming out of his nose. My first reaction was of disgust: How could Billy hurt this poor creature? My second reaction was sympathy for him because he was always being picked on. The last thing I felt was guilt that I left him alone.

The look on his face though was one that looked like he was more than angry with me. I walked the few steps over to him, crunched down and tried to help him. "Don't. Fucking. Touch. Me!" Sasha practically screamed. "It's all your fault! I hate you!"

"What did they do to you?" I mumbled softly trying to soothe him. I grabbed a handful of toilet paper from the dispenser and directed it at his nose and tried to tilt his head backwards but he refused. "Sasha, you have to tilt your head back to stop the bleeding."

"Shut up shut up shut up!" He whined.

I helped him up to his feet, again meeting a very reluctant and uncooperative little boy. "Come on let's get this bleeding stopped, that hair dried on the top of your head and back to the bus before it leaves without us!" I tried to say cheerfully. I got him to stick his head under the blower that would normally be used to dry your hands for a few minutes before we finally left the restaurant. "I want to know everything that happened in there Sasha. If Billy or any of his friends hit you, I will make sure that they all go home right away."

Silence followed in the most uncomfortable way. I remembered him saying that only his friends can call him Sasha and he hadn't corrected me yet to call him Alex, so he still must have thought of me as a friend. "You betrayed me!" He finally said at last. "I made you feel so good and you then broke you promise to me saying that you wouldn't let anyone hurt me anymore!"

"Sasha I'm so sorry. I truly had no idea that they were waiting for you in the bathroom. Please forgive me and allow me the chance to prove myself to you again."

"No, I will not. I told you I had to go to the bathroom and even held onto your hand trying to tell you to follow me. But you ignored me and allowed me to get hurt!"

"Sasha, I don't really know how to convince you otherwise but I can swear to God I had no idea that you were trying to tell me to follow you. I don't understand a whole lot about you yet, but if you would find it in your heart to look me straight in the eyes," which thankfully he did, "This is going to be the only screw-up you will see me do. I promise you that -- and I promise you that I will work my hardest to ensure you are not harmed again. Cross my heart, hope to die."

"Stick a needle in your eye?"

"Stick a thousand needles in my eyes!"

His angelic face began to form a smile. "That would hurt a lot."

"Yes it would, and I mean it. You are my only priority this summer." I replied feeling a little bit happier that his feelings had shifted a little. Most of the kids were of the bus at this point, and as we walked closer to it, I told Sasha to go wait by the back tire because I wanted to talk with Rob and Laura privately. He just shrugged his shoulders and said okay, and I thanked him for listening.

Rob was a little concerned that we were almost late getting back to the bus, but when I told him how I found Sasha in the bathroom shortly after Billy and his other friends left, and what their comment to me was, he became very serious. "Has he said anything of what happened in there to you?" Rob asked

"Rob, I swear it's like they dunked him into the toilet, and at some point, punched his nose hard enough to make it bleed." I answered.

"But he hasn't said anything to you yet?"

"No, he's blaming me more for whatever happened in there. I left him alone so I could get into the line-up and get some food ordered. I didn't know anything would happen to him otherwise I would have gone in with him."

He seemed to pause in thought for a few moments before replying. "I tell you what, if Alex says anything about what occurred in the bathroom before we got to the camp, I want you to try to remember it verbatim. Tell me, and the second we got off the bus, you can be assured John will send all three of those kids home packing."

"And what if he doesn't say something? Do they just get off scot free?"

"Unfortunately yes, Jesse, they do." Rob said.

I collected Sasha who sat by the tire I told him to, picking up the small stones and throwing them a few feet away. "Come on you, back on the bus we go!" I said a little enthusiastically. I had to think of how I was going to get him to open up about the situation, but foremost wanted to cast away all doubts about him hating me. The only problem was that now the bus was pretty much a full load with only two seats available in separate areas of the bus. Laura fixed that, asking another kid to move so Sasha and I could remain seated together, but the lack of privacy kind of hindered anything but small talk. I wanted to talk with him about a whole lot more than just what happened in the bathroom, like some boundaries for instance.

"Thanks for getting me some food," Sasha finally said after devouring the side order of nuggets I bought him.

"No problem, little buddy, it's the least I could do!" I responded.

More silence passed, my hopes of a conversation somewhat dashed but not quite knowing how to start one off. I looked over at him just as he reached for the cup of soda and took a couple sips through the straw. It was so cute the way he'd purse his lips together around the straw and start sucking up the liquid, his cheeks caving into the pressure on the inside of his mouth. Then he'd swallow, lifting his head up slightly to allow the soda in his mouth to transfer past his throat. "Um. . . I didn't really mean what I said about you Jesse." He said, breaking the only quietness that existed on the bus. Everyone else was still chatting away with friends from previous years.

"It's no problem Sasha; I know you were quite angry and you had every right to be." I answered him.

"How I feel about you is the exact opposite than what I said. I'm sorry for being an asshole. If you don't want to talk with me anymore, I completely understand." He said. Tears began to form in his eyes and I recognized the look of fear on his face. "I'm sorry for taking advantage of you earlier as well. I just want you to like me"

"And trust me Sasha, I like you a lot!" I replied instantly. "I know you have issues -- we all do -- but I will not ever regard you as a butthole or stop talking to you because of your emotions. You're only human, like the rest of us on the bus. However, don't think I'm going to let you off the hook that easy either for what happened earlier. We'll talk about that when we have time alone."

"So you don't hate me?"

"Heavens no!"

"Okay." I brought my pinkie finger up close to his right eye to wipe away a falling tear. "I don't have any friends because nobody likes me."

"Well, I like you and I'll be your friend as long as you're willing to keep me as a friend."

"No matter what I do, you'll still be my friend?"

"Sasha, at this point I don't know of anything you can do to stop me from being your friend."

"Okay." He said.

It seemed like he was done with having his little insecure moment, so I thought that since we at least were talking again I'd begin trying to probe into the events that unfolded in the McDonald's washroom. I told him about what Rob said, that if Billy or his two friends with him had laid a hand on him and caused him the nosebleed, or flipped him over and dunked his head into the toilet that as soon as we got to the camp they wouldn't even be able to unpack because they would be going home. "It's essential that you tell me the truth Sasha so that way I can help you."

"I can't tell you anything. It's part of the rules." He replied.

"Part of what rules?"

"No tattletales on each other. In the group, Jesse, it's us versus them. They don't want us; they just want the money they get from keeping us. If I tattletale on Billy I'm breaking the rules."

"But he punched you? How can you let him get away with that?"

"Maybe he didn't then -- maybe I tripped over my shorts while trying to pee and landed on the toilet seat, face first."

"That's bullshit and you know it!" I said. "Our friendship, I hope means more to you than that lie you just told me."

"It does, but I'm the one that has to go back and live in that house at the end of camping. I'll have to face the people I've tattletaled on, not you. What happened to me in the bathroom was just a simple thing because I refused to go along with what Billy wanted me to do. If I tell on him, I could be dead when he sees me next."

He's right. "So how can I protect you if you refuse to tell someone that you're being hurt by someone?"

"That's easy. You have to catch them in the act." Sasha said. "I have to keep to my own set of rules I've learned. If they get caught, then it's not my fault and I can't be blamed for them getting into trouble."

"But that would kind of be like blackmailing them."

"I don't know what blackmailing means."

"It's kind of like having some private information on someone and using that information to make the other person do want you want. In the movies, you might see the big boss of a company be blackmailed into giving some criminals millions of dollars for instance."

"Well, that's the kind of thing Billy would use. He's a bully; he gets off on picking on me because I'm smaller. He won't stop until he gets what he wants, won't accept the word no for an answer and does what he wants to you without fear of the staff because they won't do anything. You have to pay attention to me. I know when things are going to happen because I can feel them in my gut."

"Then we're going to have to devise some sort of action for you to alert me to your gut feelings. I'm not used to what you live through every day of your life."

"It's not every day, only when I get taken away from my daddy's house." He said. I kind of sunk into thought at that point in the conversation. I kind of felt a little overwhelmed actually. How could Craig and John trust me with a job like this? Granted I was becoming completely infatuated with this boy, to the point where even Derek was being erased from my memory. But he's lived a life that has been so much more complicated than my own. How do I relate to him? I've never been bullied, and this is something I'm kind of happy about. Being the quarterback, I was often then person that took charge; my decisions resulting in either a game being won or lost. If it was a win, I was the hero -- a loss meant I would have to be proactive and keep the team's self esteem up despite everyone giving their best and still failing short.

Sasha lived in fear of the kids he lived within the foster home, and worse, he couldn't turn to anyone for support. I slowly felt an aching pain in my chest, like something was wrapped around my heart and began to squeeze the living daylights out of it. How can I really help him out? An idea came to my head about getting my parents to adopt him, but that would never work. And seriously, him living with me is not all that good of an idea especially considering my deadly attraction to him. I wanted to love him, as human being who deserves it, not as a toy used to pleasure myself. I totally lusted over him like no other though in the most unhealthy way. You're getting involved too fast, Jesse. You are almost at the point where you want to tell him the `L' word, I thought to myself. But how do I not? He doesn't have anyone that loves him when he's not in the care of his father?

"Jesse, you're not answering my question: How much longer before we get to the camp?" Sasha asked.

I looked out the window and recognized where we were. "About another hour and a bit."

"I'm bored," he replied. "I want to play a game but we can't play it completely here."

"What game is that?" I asked.

"Truth or Dare." He answered.

"Sasha, I'm not going to play that game with you. That game always ends up in having stuff happen that's not good."

"I know. . . I play it with all the new roommates I get that are my age. We could play the Truth part of the game here though."

I thought about that for a few minutes. Playing the Truth part may actually help me learn more things about him. "If it's just Truth then fine I will play. But anytime it switches into an `I dare you', I'm calling it game over. Got it?"

"If I can never dare, then we can ask any question even if it can't be answered with just a yes or no."

"Deal -- so who's going to go first?"

"I will because I thought of it." Sasha said chuckling. "What is the best memory you have?"

The best memory I have is all my fourteen years of living was the first championship game I won. Derek was a part of the tyke team, and the memory was actually of him who won the game for us. My team was down by a field goal, and we were sitting at the 2 minute warning. The offence was on the field after a kick-off at our own 25 yard line. I am the kind of quarterback who loves finding holes in the defensive line and exploiting them. I knew the linemen on my right side were slow, but they were big so they could easy interrupt a solid run if the halfback couldn't get buy them fast enough. Our halfback though, the same guy who started puberty before the rest of the team, was lightning quick and built like a brick house. The problem though, was I got caught sending him up their side one too many times. The linebackers started to cover the hole, resulting in what could normally be a 5-7 yard gain into a 1-3 yard gain. So I started to devise an alternate plan that when the linebackers covered the defensive line closely that I would change the play to a pass up the inside. This two plan combo had often helped getting a new set of downs and another chance at scoring. So we worked our way up the field, and by the time we got to their 35 yard line, there was twenty seconds left in the game. Coach Matthews called a time out -- our last one -- and I went over to the sidelines and talked with him about what plays I could use. `In the huddle, I want you to call a Hail Mary. If the line plays close I want you to take five steps back and look around. It there is a hole on your left side, I want you to run through and get your butt out of bounds to stop the clock. Tell your flankers to be on the defensive -- I don't want them out running the cornerbacks that are covering them. If you can get even 15 yards in before going out of bounds, I bet we can get Colton to kick a field goal to force this game into overtime. Now get out there and make it happen!' He said. I relayed the plan to the team and they were happy with it. Derek, I should mention, played the center position so he would be giving me the ball when I called hike. We broke the huddle and got to the line and into position. I called hike and got the ball, then back pedalled five steps, and just as the coach said, a whole did open up of the my left and I took off sprinting diagonally across the field. The line backers noticing I was going to pass moved to help the back field coverage, giving me a wide open field. "He's running the ball!" I heard a bunch of players start screaming. All of a sudden though, I started falling. I threw my arms ups and in the process lost my grip on the football, and landed flat on my face. I rolled over as quickly as I could to see where the ball went, but couldn't see it anywhere. The whistles to end the game blew and immediately I fell back onto my back and looked in the direction of the sky, completely disappointed in myself. I lost the game, I convinced myself. I could hear people screaming on the field and I assumed it was the other team. A referee came up to me and knelt down beside me, saying, `Hey kid, you alright. Are you injured?' I never responded, so of course he called over the paramedics and my coach. Coach Matthews was first on the scene. I had a lump so big in my throat that holding me back from crying. I wasn't injured, but I was very unhappy that somehow I fumbled the ball causing the other team to win. As soon as the coach asked me what I wrong, I immediately began wailing how sorry I was I lost the game. The Coach turns around and says to get my sorry butt off the ground and go celebrate with the rest of the team; that his son Derek recovered the fumble and ran the ball into the end zone. Talk about an emotional roller coaster, I went from being depressed to feeling so elated, especially for Derek.

"Who's Derek?" Sasha asked.

"He's the brother of one of my closest friends who you'll meet at camp. Craig Matthews got me hooked onto football." I answered, feeling a bit of pride about that game.

"Sweet, that's an awesome memory!" He replied. "So I guess it's your turn now."

"I guess it is. Hmm, let me see . . . I know! What is your favourite memory?"

He sat in the seat and thought for bit. "Can the memory be of today?"

"I guess there's no reason why it couldn't." I said.

"It's just because well, my life isn't full of a lot of good times. The second something starts becoming good for me, it turns into something bad." He explained. "So, my memory is when I stood in front of entrance to the bathrooms at the mall when I saw somebody come up the escalator wearing a Camp Silver Pine shirt."

"Oh, you're talking about me." I interrupted him, slightly blushing that he viewed me as his best memory.

"I'm not finished so don't interrupt me!" He laughed. I made the motions to zip my mouth shut. "And the person I noticed couldn't keep their eyes off me. My daddy says one way you can tell somebody likes the way you look is that they will quickly examine you with their eyes. You did exactly that, and I knew right then you were interested in me. When you walked by me, I caught the whiff a chocolate chip cookie dough, and that's when I realized I was interested in you. So eventually Billy found me and I dragged him into the bathroom to look for you, and you saved my life. Not only with Billy, but with Ms. Jennifer also. Then we went back into the bathroom because I had to pee. You were practically drooling over me, but somehow managed to get Billy off my case. And then here on the bus, I discovered that I loved you. The cookie dough I smelt earlier was from you. That's how you smell to me. And when I was making love to you, that is how you tasted. I wanted to strip down naked right at that second and feel you in my boy pussy, and that is something I've not allowed anybody to do but my daddy. You are heaven to me, and that's why I say you are my greatest memory!"

My face must have turned red. Not only did I begin to feel special, my sleeping dick began waking up.

"So my next truth question is: Did I do a good enough job?" Sasha said.

"I don't really know how to answer that question, Sasha. I don't have anything to compare it too. You're the first person who has ever touched me down there, and the first person who put my dick in their mouth. I think I will remember it though for the rest of my life."

"Can it happen again?" He asked looking at me straight in the eyes as if pleading for it.

"I don't know, buddy. You're right that I'm interested in you, but I have to sort through some things in my head first. I can't believe I'm telling you this, but you don't understand how much what I'm attracted to bothers me. I started having the same desires I guess you feel towards some of my teammates, and it scared me so much that I quit playing football."

"They're normal you know?"

"Maybe they are, but it doesn't feel normal to me. I mean, don't get me wrong: the way you handled me earlier was out of the world and part of me wants to do it again plus a whole lot more. But there's another part of me that feels disgusted and guilty that, in this instance, I never stopped you and allowed everything to play out."

"You wouldn't have been able to stop me anyway. I may not be going through puberty, but I have sexual desires as well. I think I can satisfy all your desires once and for all."

"How?"

"You'll have to make love with me to find out!"

"Well, that might have to happen, but not before I'm completely ready."

"It's your turn now, Jesse."

"So how long has your father been doing stuff to you?"

"Since I was born I guess, I don't really know. For as long as I can remember we've done things."

"Don't you feel it to be wrong? I mean no offence but, if my dad was doing those kinds of things to me, I would feel really bad. I just want to try to understand why you don't think it's wrong."

"I don't know. I guess that's just how I grew up. My dad is a like any another dad: he loves me and takes care of me when he's able. He takes me out places, like the zoo or the movies. And sometimes when we feel up to having a really good time, we do the other things together."

"Ok this is going to sound really weird: When your dad sticks his thing in your bum, doesn't it hurt a lot?"

"Kind of, but he doesn't do it that much. He uses his fingers mostly to try and find that button inside me that drives me wild when he taps on it. My daddy's dick is really thick: he's only got about an inch inside me before I've screamed in pain. He says it's because I'm really tight, but after attempting to stick it up me, he'll just pump it between my thighs instead."

"Oh." I said. "It's your turn now."

"Do you love me?"

Yes, I think I totally do. "Sasha, I like you very much. Love is a very strong word that I've been taught not to use so carelessly. Right now the love I feel towards you is hard for me to express, because for one I've never felt like this before and two, I haven't accepted the feelings yet. And I don't know if I ever will because they make me feel bad."

"Bu it's okay if you're attracted to me because I'm attracted to you. It's okay if you love me, because I love you too. What's your biggest fear right now?"

"Being found out."

"And yet you've told me a lot about your life."

"That's what scares me Sasha. I've never disclosed my feelings to anyone, and somehow you've opened me up like a book and began reading."

"My biggest fear is you not accepting who I am and not liking me because of how I am." Sasha said before turning to look out the window.

I reached over and grabbed a hold of his left hand and brought it up to my lips. I planted a kiss on all five of his knuckles, and then one more on the back of his hand above the wrist. He slowly turned and looked back at me. "Sasha, I accept you as you are. I may not agree with some of the things you do, but that will not ever stop me from liking you. You're the most handsome boy I've ever met, and losing you as a friend would be devastating."

He smiled brightly, and then asked, "Can we have sex later? You're really turning on me on!"

"Um, I don't think so."

"Will we ever have it?"

"Um, I don't know."

"Will you get mad at me if I initiate something like I did earlier?"

"Probably not." I looked around the bus to ensure nobody was paying attention to our conversation. "But I doubt I'll be able to stop it from happening."

"Yay!"

"But I do want to find some time together alone to discuss how we're going to handle ourselves regarding affection. I don't want anyone to clue into what we're doing -- not even Billy!"

"Okay, that's no problem."

"And I do have to apologise to you now. . ."

"Why?'

"Because I am not as experienced as you so I will probably not be able to pleasure you to same intensity that you do to me."

Sasha's face turned beet red, and he smiled once again. "That's okay . . . Because the mere sight of you alone is all I need to be pleasured." He replied, making me blush. I smiled at him, and felt like I should kiss him for giving me such a compliment, but couldn't. Not here on the bus at least.

Our conversations kind of came to a halt at that point, which I wish would have been the case for the territory below the belt. It was hard for almost the entire time we played Truth. I certainly wished for the same attention I was receiving earlier but knew it couldn't happen due to the bus being full.

For some unknown reason, I started to wonder how my parents would view me looking after Sasha if they had known about the fantasies I had. I wondered what they would say if I told them that I was gay, and the word `disown' came to my mind. They definitely wouldn't be able to accept me for what I was. If was lucky enough to get a lecture, they'd refer to the Bible and say that I was lucky I wasn't living in those times otherwise I would be put to death. If I was a year older, they'd probably throw me out on the street to fend for myself, saying `you are no son of ours'. I'd probably lose all my remaining friends as well. `We're not hanging around or talking to a gay boy' they'd probably say. The sad thing is I would be the exact kind of person to say the same thing. It scares me.

Part of this fear was because of watching television. I remember in the news back at the end of June doing a story about the Gay Pride Parade downtown. Guys were dressed in very skimpy clothing, flashing their exposed buttocks into the camera, while other guys were dressed like women and danced over the moving floats. That was all gross. I would never ever dress in that kind of clothing, nor would I ever dress like a girl. First of all, I am a guy, and second if I am supposed to be gay that means I'm supposed to like other guys. Guys play football, hockey and other sports, not dress like women. I want to climb a mountain face, ride a dirt bike, surf in the waves in Australia; all the gay people I see act like girls in one form or another. I also don't talk funny. Why do I have to have attractions to guys in the first place? It's not normal!

Yet, for some reason I was able to feel comfortable with myself when I was around Sasha. I doubt at his age he could make the decision to be gay. If getting your dick put in somebody else's mouth felt as good as it did when Sasha did it to me earlier, that maybe he just liked the feelings it brought him. I mean, I was 8 years old six years ago; I wanted to always be happy and have good feelings. I don't remember being attracted to either girls or boys back then. Well, I lie a little because I thought girls had cooties just as they thought us boys had cooties. It wasn't until I noticed that all the other boys' bodies were looking different than my own that I started noticing how much I was staring in places I shouldn't have been. All the desires overwhelmed my mind. I was obsessed with dicks and thought they were the most beautiful thing on the human body. And in comes Sasha who has a kind of dick I've never seen before, with an extra piece of skin that covered the top. A boy who almost didn't care about what others thought of him so long as they didn't hurt him. I wonder what would happen to my arousal of him if he dressed like a girl. My best guess is it would diminish quickly. But what about if he dressed in the kind of clothing that is just shy of exposing yourself in public. Just by seeing his legs and arms gave me a boner that wouldn't quit . . . How much more hard could I get if he was wearing a modified Speedo than allowed his butt cheeks while the front part was so tight against his skin that it would show the outline of his dick and buts? And would I still like him as much?

That was a stupid question. Of course I'd like him. I'd probably become a little jealous because he'd be showing off his little gorgeous body when I wanted him to keep it covered for me and me alone. Oh my God, please tell me I'm not starting to envision a budding relationship with him! I think as soon as I get to the camp I should quit the babysitting job altogether, and the L.I.T program to leave the camp and get away from this new temptation. I would at least be safe again and not have to deal with a very disgusting part of my life, but how much more will I hurt Sasha? Sasha was slowly beginning to change my mind, in a way that was making me think of someone else besides myself. Granted the reason was probably because of how much I desperately yearned for his companionship. But at least it was a change to my normal selfish responses that always made me flee situations instead of dealing with them. I wanted to protect Sasha beyond anything else. I wanted to rescue him from the group home, and provide for him. I wanted him to love me and only me. Maybe I was still being selfish in that regard.

The bus began to slow down, getting ready to make left turn; a point in the journey I knew was a fifteen minute marker until we'd be at the camp. "We're almost at the camp now, Sasha. Are you sure you don't want to say anything about what really went on in the bathroom back at McDonald's? Rob will ask me before we step off the bus because he'll have the Camp Director John deal with Billy and his two friends right away." I asked.

He just shook his head no. "John doesn't like me much because of what I did last year. He was the person who refused my application that my social worker kept giving the camp."

"So if he kept refusing, how come your social worker didn't give up?"

"Because I asked her not too. She sent a letter then to John's boss and asked if they could help, and I had to write out a letter stating how sorry I was, and why I continually wanted to come to this camp and no other one."

"So, how come you want to keep coming up to Camp Silver Pine?"

"I don't know. But I feel peaceful at this camp until other people keep bothering me and messing it up."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, like last year with Billy. He's the only reason why I went into that cabin and tore it apart. The year before that someone played a dirty trick on me when I was sleeping so I beat the crap out of him. If people would just leave me alone and let me be I wouldn't have to be sent home."

"What happened with Billy?"

"He wanted to stick his dick in my bum. I wouldn't allow him, so he tried to force me to it. He's obsessed with trying to fuck me, especially because I keep telling him that the only person who will be able to take away my butt's virginity is the boy I fall in love with."

"But you're not really a virgin; your dad has stuck himself in you."

"Not really. He can't get it in completely because he's too thick. He's only been able to get the knob in and then it becomes too much for me to handle. When the boy I love comes around to stick his beautiful dick inside my hole, I want him to bottom out so I can feel his nuts rub up against my butt. I can't lose my virginity if the dick can't get all the way up inside me. Billy knows this is what I think, so he's always trying. But now I don't care anymore, because I found you. When you come around, I will forfeit my entire body to you because I love you that much!"

"You keep making me hard you know that!" I said while he giggled. "Pretty soon you're going to have to deal with that you know."

"You just name the time and the place, and I will be there waiting for you!"

The bus made a right turn at that point up into a steep hill. The road turned from asphalt to dirt, and most of the campers on the bus who had been to the camp before began screaming loudly at the top of their lungs, `We're almost there! We're almost there!' I lowered my head to Sasha's ear and whispered, "Thanks for being so open and honest with me. I truly appreciate it."

A few campers started singing songs, getting all pumped up for the arrival that was minutes away. Because the song that was being sung repeated itself, soon nearly everyone on the bus was able to join in. Sasha motioned me to bring my face closer to his. I stupidly obeyed, my cheeks being held within his grasp, the palms of his beautiful hands adding more warmth to my face. He brought his nose up to touch mine, while wetting his lips with tongue and then saying, "You're the boy I will love for the rest of my life." He gave me a slight brush on the lips with his own moistened ones. "I love you, Jesse." Now as his lips connected with mine, they locked together in a kiss that seemed to melt away at my heart and my soul. He lifted away for a brief second, enough to utter softly "I love you so very much!" and then planted his sweet lips right back onto mine. My dick was yet again pumping so full of blood aching for some kind of release; Sasha seemed to realize this immediate problem and reached down with one of his hands and began stroking the shaft back and forth, up and down through the material my shorts while trying to open my mouth with his tongue. As soon as I realized what he was trying to do, I opened my mouth and allowed his tongue to enter, his saliva reminding me of the taste of chicken nuggets we ate earlier, and began searching out my own tongue to wrestle with. Suddenly the bus pulled to a stop, but I never wanted this kiss to end. He withdrew from my mouth, slowly, mouthing the words "We have to continue where we left off later," but no sounds following. I was truly having a hard time in stopping myself from pushing it further. I wanted to rip his clothes off right then and there just so I could taste him. If there is such a thing as true love that can be shared between two boys such as ourselves, I was certainly was falling for him big time. The kiss that this little eight-year-old boy gave me though got me all hot and bothered, but it felt so amazingly wonderful almost reminiscent of the last one we had. How on earth could Sasha be such a bad kid according to everybody else? I thought to myself.

I slowly came to think that this summer was going to be the hardest summer of my life; more hard than showering with a bunch of boys I was attracted to, more hard than trying to keep my secrets from those I loved and those who were close to me. Sasha, I do love you, with all my heart... I just don't know how to tell you this yet!

~

***Author's Note*******

I hope you enjoyed reading this story. If you have any comments or suggestions, including stuff you'd like to see happen, please send an email to 2boys69@gmail.com. I will try to respond as quickly as possible to you. I hope some things in the story make sense despite me knowing virtually nothing about some topics, in specific, the scene where Jesse puts a gun in his mouth, intent on killing himself. I've never operated a firearm before and was hoping through a little bit research on the internet that there would be such a thing as the bullet getting jammed before leaving the gun. Alas, I couldn't find anything that said such an event could occur, so I'm leaving it to being a divine act from heaven. Anyway, thanks for reading and I hope to talk with you all soon!