MISSISSIPPI STORY -- RYAN (M/b, M/f, inc., rom., lit., humor.)
by
Pen Dragon
Nothing is implied by the use of public or private figures in this story.
Since it was impossible for Ryan to be cuter than his twelve-year-old brother, Stephan, I decided to dwell on the fact that, at thirteen, he was perhaps five percent bigger. Stephan and nine-year-old sister, Janet, has spent the previous weekend with me and I was flattered when the older brother called me Monday night, inviting himself over, more excited than polite. Since polite only wears with me in adults, we chatted until he grew up a little, and, since the answer was You bet, it was a pleasant conversation.
"Just you?" I asked.
"Is that okay?" he asked in return.
"Certainly," I replied, "I just want your brother and sister to know they're welcome."
"They want to book the `Chateau Unbelievable', as they call it, for the weekend after next, if that's okay, and this weekend they're going to Racine to visit our dad."
"Great," I said, "we can slip each other booze and pills and get lawless." He laughed happily, and I tried to restrain panting aloud until the handset was securely in the cradle.
I had a little luck in being halfway through "Space Quest V" (this was '93), so the work week managed to pass. Stephen, my luridly bi-polar erasmus graced me with a Tuesday visit, leaving three days (and nights) free for anticipatory fantasizing. It takes a lot to excite me to the hands-off stage, but Ryan was a lot, and being alone with him boded nothing short of a nirvanistic counterpoint to the past weekend with a girl avid to hasten her physical development, so she could get pregnant, the little earth mother, from copious freshening (their family line was dairy farming) by Stephan and myself.
People who say dieting doesn't work have simply not starved themselves sufficiently to attract children. I wasted time reviewing nonsense like this, occasionally including an especially moronic nugget in my work in progress at the time. The venue for all these happenings was 745 Main Street, Dubuque, Iowa, where I'd moved in hopes of furthering my career as a novelist with some mainline heartland. The experiment worked, and, since Dubuque is a church town, and Catholic, to boot, the pedantic minds of the humorless tillers, with a clerical intellectual class to add little interest and less excitement, left, say, twenty-three hours a day free to play games and work on the current script. My family thinks it's worth a million dollars to keep me at arm's length (I know live 2,325 miles from home, which is why I see a lighter side to things), leaving me free to dither as I would, running a small bookstore because if you're going to live it you might as well get to know it, and how better for a writer than by operating a book store? It still makes a certain kind of sense, because how else would one come to know that a town of sixty thousand wouldn't buy a single used encyclopedia, no matter how recent, how excellent the condition, and how low the price, unless one had five A-Z sets, starting at thirty dollars, and failed to sell one of them in three years?
The Friday wasn't a holiday, but Ryan was some kind of campus superstar, so Karen, his mother, dropped him at noon, giving the entire wonderland of the John Fitzgerald Kennedy Shopping Mall a miss, in favor of me and a .32mm dot pitch monitor (my eyes hurt just recalling that wonder of its day, and I need to take a moment to add a note: I use a .25mm, today, and it's screaming fine; next to an optical, scrolling mouse, the best bang for the buck in the business).
I turned the boy loose with the puter and joined his mother for lunch. "Keep him for a month if it suits you," was the gist of her conversation, "Stephan and Janet have reinvented themselves and I think it's permanent.."
"That's great," I said, "it's a little intimidating playing papa goose, wondering of the goslings will overindulge and act out."
"You took them right to the limit," Karen laughed, "they cuddle in the Lay-z-boy, pretending she's asleep in his lap, head on his shoulder, cute enough for those home video programs, and, you know, I really can't tell." That was as far as we went, I being enough of the upper crust not to elaborate to the girl's mother how effectively the beginner had stimulated me while in a frozen tableau involving her brother, who had also remained all but motionless as he flooded her mouth the week before. The proof of the pudding is in the eating, not an explicit recipe.
I'd left Ryan flipping burgers to earn money for I now forget what, that was a stage of the game, and when I returned we had enough to buy whatever it was, which took us to some new scenes. As with his brother and sister, I settled in on the arm of the chair, serving customers as I watched him play th. "Stephan said you closed early last Friday," the boy noted after several hours, "can you do it two Friday's in a row?" Everyone should have a million dollars to realize how small a fortune it is. After setting aside a quarter of the dividends for growth, and paying taxes, it's about twenty-five thousand a year. The bookstore kicked in a net of eight, so, while I was, as a bachelor, feeling no strain, I did not like turning down money, and, more particularly, did not like disappointing, being a reader myself, customers dropping in at the last minute for something to tide them over the weekend. "Sorry, I said," and we gutted it out until a few minutes after five, which, typically enough, got us inextricably involved in figuring out a sequence, so, we stayed on for another half hour. Since the shop was closed, I let my right hand drop to the boy's lap. Guess I'd never dare creep a child in a theater, so it was nice to fantasize as I worked my way from Ryan's left knee up his inner thigh, more than half way. I pretended he was a nine year old, because I'd never had a partner that young, having first molested Stephen (as against Stephan) when he was eleven. What would such a child say, presuming four ushers weren't watching me, only, during the cartoon matinee? "Excuse me, mister, my uncle likes to do it up a little higher?" "My sister's too young to come in with me, so she's waiting in the car?" "I just went to the bathroom, do you want to see which stall I used?". Perhaps it was Ryan noodling away at "Space Quest" that incited such a psychic review, because if no one can hear you scream in outer space, why bother talking? In summary, he should have been playing "Leisure Suit Larry".
How do boys handle things? How do you work the trade-off between a curious spirit and the potential for addiction? What is the relationship between that you bestow, so to speak, and that you deny, if you listen to everyone else speak? How many boys out of a thousand can accept this much, tolerate that much, and wish for more than they ever get? These dormant questions rise a notch in importance with each computer sold. What is the difference between sharing and inveigling ? Stephen had turned out to be a text book case, and, indeed, I wrote a book about him, "An All-New Jaws." He climbed in my lap, a perfect stranger, to look at what was on the monitor. Yes, the police have authority to eliminate "attractive nuisances", but I was writing a book on the thing, so I had laws on my side, too. Anyway, the issue was years in coming up and belongs elsewhere. I threw Stephen out, first having ascertained he was not, as he looked, lost or abandon. Indeed, his mother was a deputy sheriff. That settled, it was street city, and that lasted all of a day. On his third ricochet back through my door, I wrote his mother asking her to sign off on his hanging out with me, which she did the next day by telephone. Sex had been part of the package all along, with Stephen managing to act out right to the verge, yet never quite get flagrant. At the time and even today I was surprised at the response I got to having a catamite more or less omnipresent in a public store. Iowans may not read as they should, and the light byplay of New Englanders, for example, about Iowans, is lost, by and large, but they see a man and boy getting along well and there's no harrumphing and loss of customers, you know, not that I ever had a cute twenty year old come in and say, "Hi, I'm Al, this is my cousin Eric, he's a little younger than Stephen, but they might get along," or anything -- quite -- that dramatic.
He was an avid and outstanding lover. As soon as his mother phoned, I said Yes, he could stay for dinner, no, not overnight, this time, and he responded by talking about taking a shower. Jose had been fourteen when we met, eighteen when we parted, and he was the youngest boy I'd been with, saving two thirteen year olds, who looked nine or ten, who followed me -- not for money -- home from the park (Torreon, Mexico -- see other writings), and Stephen, at eleven, looked maybe eight. His medical and psychological files undoubtedly fill shelves, leaving him about as challenged as a kid can be and still function at all. Since this is not his story our relationship can be summarized by saying that where in the beginning, it was half a heart-attack to take him to the nearby McDonalds, at the end of three intense years, and one physical beating!!! I was able to take him to the bar at the Clarion where he'd eat grilled cheese sandwiches and drink kiddie cocktails, the m-f coolest date in town. (An ugly stepfather had him incarcerated for raping his daughter, a living doll blond with whom he slept naked and who paraded around either naked or in her panties looking a whole lot more than three years old. This was inevitable. Stephen brought seven hundred a month mad money from S.S., so, according to his father, who knew I was molesting him, there was no chance of his mother, a lady I both respected and liked,' would relinquish custody, and I could only do what I could do, which turned out to be answer questions for the police.)
Much of this happened a year later, at the moment Stephen was on his grandparent's farm. Ryan eventually found a plateau in the game and docked it, joined me in the apartment where I was cooking perfectly executed macaroni and cheese with a half stick of Land-O-Lakes, and half & half for the sauce. Slice in Hebrew National franks and add fresh ground pepper and France can to hell, on the extreme outside chance it hasn't already arrived in the only socialistic nirvana to be expected.
"My mom's is sticky," the boy noted, trying not to gulp three tablespoons in a row.
"Probably needs to use more water," I said, "read the directions. The people who make it actually know how to cook and serve it."
"It's the most addictive food there is," the boy said, proving it.
"I eat one a day," I said, "perfect starving artist's diet because he stays slim enough that if an attractive kid comes along to model, he won't gross the tyke out."
"Are you the smartest person in the world?" Ryan asked, "Stephan and Janet both say so."
"And how smart are they?" I asked. (He was getting too close for comfort. I hate telling my mensa story, so a little temporizing was in order.)
"Have you ever seen Janet draw?" the boy asked in return.
"No," I said, thinking how neat it was to have that to look forward to.
"She's a genius at it, Stephan's published a play, and they play duets on the violin."
"Okay," I surrendered. "Yes, I took the test, yes I aced it, and yes it was in half the allowed time. I extrapolate a bit because I had trouble with the third question and had to go back and change the answer, and I was taking the test totally cold, not even a hint of what it entailed, so, though I'm a maths cripple, I come up with a measured IG of six hundred. I try to prove I'm like everyone else by writing huge novels, but everyone loves them -- this is on the Net, mind you, where they don't pay a cent -- so that was pointless. Now I'm sitting here talking to the doppelganger of the most beautiful boy in the world, realizing I simply am what I am, and, like everyone else, have to make the best of it.
"Stephan thought you were trying to be funny a couple of times," Ryan said, reviewing my weekend with his siblings, "but Janet disagreed."
"Oh," I murmured, a famous motion picture line surfacing to ease my writer's mind: "Yes, it's Iowa." I didn't say anything out loud, but I was keeping score.
"Tell me about your dad," I said as we ate.
"'How many women could a woman chucker chuck if a woman chucker could chuck women?' The boy replied. "He's like six four and fit without being buff, so it's kind of girl cocktails with chicks, back."
"And hanging out with him is...?"
"Okay," the boy said, "he's kind of sullen and matter of fact. Probably still uptight we guys left, but he wasn't half-way about the stuff he did, so that's that."
"How does Janet feel about spending the weekend?" I asked.
"The half-way thing, again," Ryan said, "but this time her on fire to get there."
"And Stephan?" I asked.
"He's really changed," Ryan replied, "he used to hate to go, now this time he wanted to almost as much as sis."
"And..." I probed, looking into his totally blue-gray eyes.
"It's something new for us, now that we're older, I guess," the boy said, "wanting to go to Racine, hang out with six hundred cows. The early part of growing up seems to be cool, what say you about the rest?"
"I cancelled everything due to lack of interest when I was sixteen," I replied, "so I'm the wrong person to ask."
"Isn't that expensive?" the boy wanted to know.
"Extremely," I agreed, "immaturity costs a fortune so don't commit yourself to it without one."
"I think mom has quite a bit," the boy said. Since they lived in a house big enough to require maps on the wall, he was probably right.
"Well," I responded, "inherited money is the best thing in the world, to the extent it's better to die with it than live without it, but beware because it instills an alternative need to be useful -- to contribute -- that can be as unrelenting as poverty, and alcoholism, eating disorders, insomnia, and a long list of addictions and compulsions are the price of disobedience or neglect."
"I'll be careful," the boy said, no trace of irony in his voice.
"Pass it along to Stephan and Janet," I suggested, "I get distracted when they're around and might forget," "twenty times in a row," I added to myself.
We'd finished eating and adjourned to the couch after doing the dishes together.
"Do you take showers with Stephen?" Ryan asked as we spooned ice cream.
"Just the first time," I said, glad the boy was loquacious. Certainly I appreciate quiet interludes among lovers, but I also appreciate growing grass and drying paint.
"I guess that's pretty typical," Ryan noted.
"With the computer so close to the shop windows," I said, "and it is a shop, so people look in, we didn't dare go too far in front of the computer. That probably be even more typical, these days."
"Do you like to tell about stuff that happens, you know, graphically?" he asked, "some people think it's weird, but it seems like there's just more to it if everything isn't private and secret."
"There'd be less," I said, "if everybody told everything at the drop of a hat, but I think there's a middle ground for a new couple to share a few stories."
"Did Janet and Stephan tell you a lot of things?" the thirteen year old with the softly red hair wanted to know.
"How much did they tell you?" I asked, so curious my manners took a hit.
"They're so cute now," he replied, "that I think it's cute to let them be a couple without trying to intrude. They're cool about promising it won't last too long, and I'll be included, again, but meantime I just know that they spent the weekend, and it was even the both of them who suggested the trip to Racine."
"Well," I responded, "you've already mentioned `graphic', so, with a little imagination, you can considered the question asked and answered."
"Total VGA, eh?" the boy said.
"Millions of colors," I affirmed.
"We do share one thing, as a result of their staying with you," Ryan said.
"What?" I asked, as we finished our ice cream and placed the bowls on the coffee table.
"A new game, so I can take part at least a little," he explained.
"What kind of game?" I asked, no creepy tone in my voice, though I'll have to admit fantasizing, a wasted effort it turned out.
"It's kind of intimate," the thirteen year old said with a slight blush.
"Duh'uh," I wanted to intone, but remained silent, waiting for my young weekend guest to continue. He did in a minute.
"They cuddle up in the easy chair, pretending they're asleep, you know, while we're watching the theater. The game is to see if I can tell when it happens between them. I remember what was being said when I think he's, you know, letting it into her tummy, and he remembers when it happens, and Janet tries to remember, too, so, just before we go to bed we get together in the bathroom so see if we all remember the same dialogue on television. Does that make sense?"
"It reminds me of the story my special forces friends told about Vietnam, but they did it for money. They'd get a prostitute under a table where six of them were playing cards. She'd use her mouth on one of the six. The others tried to guess who the girl was with, but if they guessed wrong they had to ante fifty dollars."
"They must call the game `Poke Her Face'," the boy said, "and thanks for the money tip. It would be fun for Janet and I to bet against each other."
"Don't you think she'd have an advantage?" I asked.
"She says she can only tell if she hasn't been with him for like half a day, otherwise she can't always actually feel it."
"Have the three of you ever agreed?" I asked, the writer in me always intrigued when the young display ingenuity.
"The first time was pretty obvious," Ryan replied, "but only once after that during the swimming hole commercial that reminds us of dad's farm."
"Is it just nostalgia?" I whispered.
"No," Ryan whispered back with a blush.
"You like looking at the boys?"
"Yes," he said. "Stephan does, too."
Again with the duh'uh, but I kept it to myself.
"Has anything ever happened between you and your brother?" I quizzed.
"No," the thirteen year old said, "but I think we kind of want it to when we get more experienced. Together with Janet, I don't know about alone."
"Something for the Z-list," I commented, "and the most unimportant thing that will, or will not, happen to you if you live to be a hundred."
"That's the hard part to understand," my young friend observed, "it seems so much at the time, and it just isn't. No more than whether the ice cream is vanilla or chocolate."
"It's built on ancient biological models," I said, "so as not to interfere with the hunt, yet insure the survival of the species."
"How'd they get that so right?" he then asked, "and screw everything else up with strip malls?"
"Religion not only gives us permission to sin," I answered, "it is founded on our doing so. If you build it, kingdom will come, and it costs a mere ten percent of everything you earn or inherit to insure words guaranteeing the outcome."
"What if you gave fifty percent?" Ryan wanted to know, which is the reason he was sitting on my sofa, in the first place, fantasy body and angelic face, notwithstanding.
"You've heard of The Mall of America?" I asked rhetorically.
"So god pretends to forgive," the lad mused, "then says, `A-ha, I bequeath you this in its multitude.'"
"We've danced with a few wrong partners," I acknowledged, "and picked up a number of disorders, many of them dietary, but, on the very bright side, even a boy your age has experienced more than an oil sultan of my generation, so if it tumbles, hey, we lived through the best and don't have to be jealous of those leaving us behind."
"Does mensa have an eight hundred?" the exceedingly intelligent -- in all probability a genius, himself -- boy asked.
"You could get by with the mind of two ants and a frog," I replied, "something not to worry about, similar to your future involvement with your beautifully developing nine year old sister."
"I forgot to tell you," Ryan said, "she got two new bras this week. It was when she got the second one that we had kind of a little talk in the car, you know, when she told me it was just temporary, her wanting to be alone with Stephan, even after having spent the weekend here."
"One facet of graphic sharing," I said, "is a higher level of general openness and honesty; muted, not throw it to the wind, and I'm glad it worked out to your benefit."
"She even said it was okay to be creepy," the boy added, "and spy on them and listen at her door. She said she'd do the same thing if the shoe was on the other foot."
As a teacher I'd be quite taken with my pupil's apt adaptation of the suggested and implied, but Janet held no status as a pupil, so it was a moot point. Besides, we had other things to talk about.
"How do you feel about kissing, strip tease, and foreplay?" I asked.
"I just like getting molested from behind the regular way," he replied. "A dry shower. It's the best for whispering in.
I've heard hallelujah whispered, several times by those who spelled it correctly, but didn't even dare utter it as a sound. Hoping I could soon think of something else, I stood and began unbuttoning my shirt, nodding toward the door of the bathroom. Ryan smiled shyly and closed the door behind him.
Stephen hadn't been over since Tuesday. Dumbest thing I could think of, thinking of the flawlessly perfect, milk skinned boy planning not to use up the landlord's hot water. Would he be naked, or wearing underpants? If he was, would they be white cotton briefs, the perennial favorite, or less? How did I want him? Shy and innocent in the white, or a bit more brash in perhaps something red? How would he be standing? The two extremes were, a, leaning back against the tile, hands behind his neck, legs widely spread, back arched, hips thrusting, totally naked, to, b, half cowering in the corner, briefs pulled up high, pretending he was a little boy by cupping his hands in front of himself. The lurid would have him openly jerking off,, the obscene, lingering over a fallen bar of soap, the sublime standing quietly, facing the tile, arms stretched high over his head, and the ridiculous, standing on his head. So many choices, so much time, even with the ethereal Jose and problematic Stephen I couldn't recall a weekend getting off to a finer start. It's a theory of mine that the reason thousands permanently damage their bodies in running marathons is so they can talk about cameling-up before the starting gun, and, because trendyisms like this are so exclusively liberal, I felt chagrinned at being a fellow traveler in the sense I was pre-ingesting imagery and bunkering fantasies so that, should my eyes be closed while we were together, I'd still have some kind of pictorial reference to see me through. Much of this thinking was ridiculous, of course, and I moved around lighting candles knowing even in a small city like Dubuque there were probably hundreds of boys who's share a shower with a man over the weekend, i.e., it was no hugely original and unprecedented deal that was going down. How many boys in Wisconsin, for example, would hear the soft click of the little plastic locking tab on the shower door? It was appalling some would wait tense with loathing, the way I remember feeling when forced to eat cold, half-cooked Brussels sprouts, or when a man vomited macaroni and cheese into my mouth while I was giving him CPR. "Wasn't it strange children could be so twisted," I clearly remember thinking as I sat on the arm of the sofa letting a little time pass before clicking the shower door myself. In a neutral environment all ages enjoy sex together, you must be taught -- indoctrinated -- not only to not like it, appropriate partners and circumstances assumed, but to hate it so that a chance encounter can ruin one for life. That's the end-game of the church, terrorism against so nearly nothing I could easily have gone to the bathroom door, called, "Hey, Ry, I changed my mind, let's go out to the arcade," and he would have been dressed and at my side before the door was unlocked. I don't see it as farfetched to say I could have been going in to help him build a model ship, because that would have been closer to my feelings than any kind of lust or perversion. Quite naturally, my body felt differently and I was actually harder and bigger than I got lying on my left side next to Stephen while he skillfully masturbated me, fantasizing over his teen climax from between childish legs as I masturbated his slim, slick, four inch penis.
Moving on, I rose, crossed to the door and tapped on it, then opened it a crack. "It's okay," Stephan whispered hoarsely from the shower. I checked the mirror as I walked by, looking not quite athletic, but pretty teen, and good, if I say so myself. The soft click of the little plastic lock, I wondered how long it would be before a like shower door signaled Ryan's entry to a waiting child. He was facing the wall, arms at his side, head against the tiles, wearing on of my small, gray towels around his waist. "Hi," he whispered softly and in obvious welcome. "Sorry about the towel."
"It looks good," I said, "did you wear one the first time this happened?"
"Yes," the boy said, nodding.
"Did he come up behind you quickly or slowly?" I queried.
"Slowly," the boy replied.
"Did he talk to you?"
"Yes," Ryan said.
"Did you like that part?" I went on with my examination (it was hardly cross).
"Yes," the boy said, "he told me about what happened to him the first time he got molested."
"Could you tell me who it was?" I asked.
"It was Marshall," Ryan said, "I met him because the Bears have summer camp in Dyersville, and one of the players knew him. He, the quarterback, was pretty frank about what might happen, but I said I wanted to, anyway, because the riff about Harlem and Boston in "White America" is the best music ever, so I was a big fan."
"And you don't think Shady's as smart as I am?" I asked, standing a foot behind the slim beauty.
"He sort of barks where you sort of ripple," the cutie replied, "you get deeper while he got, you know, not shallower, or anything, but not deeper; it was like unweaving cloth instead of weaving it."
"Was he gentle with you?" I queried.
"Very," the boy replied, "Haley was with us, it was her first overnight with him, so everything was, you know, real slow and careful."
"Were there any other males present?" I asked, or just the two of you."
"Just us," he said.
"Do you think the bodyguards and those guys knew what was going on?" I wondered.
"Haley did," Ryan said with a shy giggle, "she hoped it made the columns so she'd have a chance to not deny anything. She thinks they should be open about how they feel about each other so that other girls who have things happen to them will know at least one girl in the world loves being alone with her dad."
"Had she been alone with him before?" I asked.
"No, not that way," the boy replied, "that's why I was there, so he wouldn't hurt her, because, you know, he's kind of extra."
I felt precisely and exactly like Jack Webb. "Son, I need the details." Of course, I didn't say anything quite so crude, but, rather: "It sounds like a long story, maybe we'd be more comfortable on the sofa."
"That would be better," the boy agreed, but disagreed with himself by raising his arms high against the shower wall. Since more than I'd fantasized in my psychologically weakened state was being spread before me, I couldn't resist a side bar into immediacy, and stepped close behind Ryan, my hands going gently to his sleek, slim waist.
"I'm pretty comfortable here, too," the boy whispered. For males, activity is better while standing because it tenses the thighs, so I was happy to stay, myself, thinking, the while, that I needed more tension like a moose needs a hat rack.
"Did Marshall come up between your legs?" I whispered.
"Yes," Ryan replied, rising, cool kid, high on his toes.
I eased closer, squatted slightly, and as Ryan felt me against him he brought his legs tightly together, letting me force my way between his silky legs. Perhaps The Force was helping out, elsewhere, because it took over a minute of gentle thrusting before I was fully against his bottom. By this time, I was openly molesting the child, both hands all over his perfect young body from his long, slim neck to very low on his belly. I found him after some minutes with my right hand, shocked at how full and hard he was, slightly more so than his spectacularly developed twelve-year-old brother, and probably for the same reason. Damn!
"From the beginning," I coaxed.
"I used to ride my bike over to the training camp and the U. stadium," the boy began, "just to hang out and watch. Jeff, the second quarter back, asked me to buy some stuff at one of the stores, so I became an errand boy, plus I'm pretty okay with a digital camera, so I got some good pictures; different than the pros. Anyway, one day he told me Eminem was going to play a series of mid-west gigs, and Haley was going to be joining them, and he, Marshall, had asked Jeff to find a boy for her to date and stay over in their suite once in awhile. I thought it was made up, like "Jimmy Cracked Corn," in "Vacation", but he had some pictures of them together, and he wasn't a make-it-up kind of guy, in the first place. I still thought it was made up, but Marshall had called my mom to invite me, so, still thinking it was made up, I went into a trance and when I woke up he was showing me his collection of digital pictures and I showed him some of mine I'd brought on a disc. Then we found we both like flying RC models, and he knew mom was okay for money so I wasn't going to ask him for stuff, and, we just got along."
"Your brother said you played the violin," I noted.
"No music," Ryan said. "He encouraged me not to take it seriously because of the hours and lifestyle. It's only for the poor,' he said, to work that hard at something you don't like, and all music becomes unlikable after awhile, is only to get ahead. If you have any other options, even factory work or bus driving, take them. Where you probably won't have to make money, see if you can compose. Then you can hang out with your family, and not have to live like a zombie.' I was surprised, of course, but thought it was great that he was so honest with me. Most people in the same position say You can make it if you want it enough and work hard enough, where he says Don't bother."
I told Ryan about my first job, writing copy for a larger radio station. One of my duties was playing unsolicited records that arrived at the rate of a shoebox full a week. "There was never anything good on them," I pointed out, "never. There is an awful lot of music out there, " I added, "so my guess is he's right on the money unless you have an extraordinary combination of gift and drive, in which case no one can tell you anything, nor hold you back with anything short of chains." (I definitely, definitely, definitely know from experience in this department.)
"He said I should be an accountant, if I want to work at all," the boy said. Now a note here, a little something to chastise the uninvolved reader. We have a major time-line problem in that Meatloaf was the rage back in the early Nineties, while Marshall was kifing from his mom's purse. There is a class of reader whose sole objective in beginning a book is to seek out inconsistencies. Other writers neglect these stalwarts, but I'm a dancing bear, out to please all and sundry. Actually, serious readers love unedited mss as the winnowing and smoothing process yields a different product, much like farm butter and farm eggs are very different from those stocked by the supermarket. I intensely dislike raw butter and raw eggs, so I make a stab at editing my own work, which is like a doctor treating himself or a lawyer representing himself. In the end, perfection would be generally smooth copy with occasional human touches, i.e., what you're reading right about now. Enough back to the future stuff.
"It's the entirety of things left out that's important," Marshall said to his young guest, "not just leaving out a little of this and that to do such and such, but leaving it all out so you become sort of an ape on a banana plantation, unswerving in your devotion."
"If I could leave out diagramming sentences, that would be good," the boy responded.
"You've got me there," the musician replied, "because a math guy like you still has to communicate, but it does work the other way; if you aren't strong in math, you should leave it out, so you can be good at something else, not music. And ," he continued, "that's where the danger lies. If you maim yourself by leaving things out, you better be sure of your alternatives because it's dead easy to find yourself more useless every day."
"Is that the no particular cause' from White America'?" Ryan asked.
"Probably more rage at the SATs and test teaching rather than instilling general literacy," Marshall replied, "five hours homework and ending up a cultural zot has to instill something in someone."
"But that amounts to an entirety of things, you know, like life, left out, or the next thing to it."
"Exactly," the superstar said, "and we have cheap goods and vaulting, or at least formerly vaulting, technology as a result, but we also have extreme levels of overtly dangerous lifestyles, so we've missed something along the way whether we get fifty million transistors into a square inch, or not."
Ryan didn't know how to respond and was thrilled to find it didn't matter. He felt comfortable with the handsome and wolfish young male whether conversing or just sitting in the easy chairs of the Chicago suite.
"I've been talking about this with you for a reason," Marshall said, breaking the pause. "About not leaving anything out. It's the most genteel way I could think of to bring up the subject at hand, by assuring you, indirectly at least, that we want you're here for the entire weekend, so nothing ends up half. Only idiots deal in halves, especially when it comes to a nine year old girl being with her father."
"I half to agree," Ryan murmured, so lesserly intimidated by the star he felt he could get away with being a little cute.
"Well, I'm glad" the twenty-nine year old said, "because we're going to be leaving out visitors and phone calls and the entire world for the weekend. The kitchen's stocked and you'd better believe I can cook, so no room service, and making the beds would be like shoveling snow against the wind. No liquor, no outrageous pot, no television, no cards, no pets, no barbecue. Whatever will we do?"
"If we leave out prayers they're sure to be answered," the twelve year old (at the time) said.
"Cute," Marshall grinned. "And it brings up a touch of irony because if we left Haley out, the prayers of millions would be answered, leaving them out as no longer interested."
"So there's a difference between engaging an audience and pleasing it," Ryan observed.
"Basically," Marshall said, "the masses are pleased by lottery tickets, it's always been so. Since they're imbued by liberals with a multitude of choices and outlets for fulfillment in this vein, they, Mr. and Mrs. Average and all the little Averages, can be written off as satisfied, or, if they aren't, disgruntled, recalcitrant, and not worth the effort. All this shakes down to leaving a handful of people who actually have some kind of life. They tend to be a challenge because of ingrained doctrine and skewed breeding, so it's at least entertaining to try and inspire this one and that one to turn over a new leaf. This brings up the question of which leaf would that be. The guys with the plastic pocked protectors have done for us as far at tech stuff goes, and we've gone from innovation and invention to incremental enhancement, with nothing new out there for the first time in two-odd centuries. New gods are a dime a dozen -- aroma therapy and feng shuy, or whatever they call it, for example -- and the old ones are becoming so tattered and shopworn even the Archbishop of Canterbury capitulated in public, acknowledging, in the most gracious way possible, the irrelevance of old doctrine and ritual to a new world. So, religion finally filed under Superstition, that leaves politics, where the files are in lock-step for more socialism more sooner. That, in turn, leaves art suddenly bearing the entirety of what used to be a tangential burden, in other words, all the straws. The fact things are getting pretty thin in this discipline is illustrated by "The New York Review of Books" trotting out Marsden Hartley, as if the pen labors of Levine weren't ugly enough even for the New York schmo.
"That's a lot of trouble," the writer went on, "and where do we find any hope -- anything to live for beyond food? South Beach stands in for sex, and there can't be good prospects for a culture so show-and-tell oriented that over fifty thousand families spent half a million dollars or more, each, on frippery for their daughters' weddings."
"Most of the girls eat so much any investment that gets them out of the house is money well spent," Ryan said.
"It isn't that you're cute," Marshall said, "that's what Jeff said when he was scouting for a boyfriend for Haley, it's that you're, first, very nice, and, second, he was impressed by the fact you are not only bright, but a engaged. Since we were just speaking of money, you might be interested to know he's receiving a million-dollar bonus for digging you out of the woodwork."
The ravishing boy smiled shyly, recalling the line introducing "Shady's Back": "You really wouldn't want to be anywhere else in the world right now." "Right now, or ever," he soliloquized in response.
Marshall returned to the subject at hand, one Ryan had assumed all along was going somewhere.
"It all leaves one niche for the artist," he said, "everything else having been said and done, sometimes, more than once, and that has to do with the family. The way it is now, eighty percent of dads leave their daughters alone, and the girls fatten up, as you so adroitly noted just now, and head for the mall. I'm not saying there's a better way, food is awesome stuff, and the chemists have tinkered it beyond that, just that there might be another way for some families. That's my new career goal. My daughter and myself. And she could be my sister, niece, step daughter, half daughter, adopted daughter, ward, or god daughter, or, to carry it too far, so you'll know where I'm coming from, my son. The idea is we throw everything away, as I've been saying, except the books and each other. Life becomes free of rules, the lot of them being left out as clothes are left off. Once we've reached that state, well, it's so uncomfortable to go completely naked only the aboriginals of Terra Del Fuego are categorized as going completely undressed all the time, so, yes, we return to the primal state, the three of us, then we build a little something for comfort. I don't know if Haley's old enough to need a bra, I haven't seen her for three months, so that might or might not be an issue, but my theory is that all of us would want to advance at least to the state of wearing the modern equivalent of loin cloths, which, by the way, are briefs, not thongs, for he boys."
Ryan nodded, glad, for the moment, he felt so comfortable with his new friend he felt no obligation to respond.
"I may have a prejudice against a father with his son," the older male went on, "because it seems to me it would be likely to interfere with disciplinary issues, but not against boys. You, in particular, have reminded me how smart I am to feel this way, as an aside. So, we begin to come to the crux of the matter, the three of us being mutually entombed on the fortieth floor for a minimum of seventy-two hours, you know, so we're sure nothing is left out.
"It's no longer that things come out perfect, it's that you add a new dimension. It used to be that society added them, steam, electricity, and jets, but that's over, and guess who's left holding the bag if we aren't to tread water in circles, oxymoronic as jumbo shrimp, for the next one thousand years, a joke, because we're getting too fat to last fifty.
"Even if it doesn't work, it will be going out in style," Ryan said, beginning to grasp specters beyond nirvana.
"The double-hard part is that the status quo is so utterly and irredeemably wrong," the vocalist said "You can't be a little critical and allow as to how a tinker here and an adjustment there might tune the old jalopy up and get her over the mountain. All mainstream philosophies are practically soup to nuts religion, which, everywhere and always, has never amounted to more than thin soup for superstitious nuts. The whole thing is copy and paste, some fanatic about scroll spelling, others in selecting the most comely maiden for the volcano, but all unchanging within the sect, generation after generation. Breaking the mold, admittedly a risky business, can only succeed if a small number of artists grab the bridle and say, Giddyap, big fella, let's bushwhack this path, it's overgrown with taboo and the nettles of neglect, but is finely graded and well ballasted, for all of that, and we should try it on the slightest chance it leads from the ravine.' And yes, that's a lot of words for a horse, or for half of today's teens, but there's an old adage of liberal philosophy that argues, what price a human life?' so it can be adapted to ask What price a free family?"
"And eclectic originality isn't an issue?" the likely twelve year old asked.
"Definitely," Marshall Mathers replied, "but the answer is chemistry over impact. Not in trying to shatter the square-jawed model of self esteem, but to erode him, dilute his overblown soul, so, while his druthers remain his druthers, he at least is less of a role model, and leaves alternative avenues unpoliced, preferably by default, much as the dinosaurs leave our fields of corn by simply not showing up."
"Well," the cute younger boy mused, "at least I was right about the originality."
"Easy for you to say," the older male responded, "but think twice before you get out the hammer and chisel. You're here, sure, because you're cute and neat, but also as a buffer against just that, excessive originality. You are the half legitimate partner for a nine-year-old girl, you are also a legitimate partner, more or less, for a guy my age. Your link between my daughter and me can be construed to by various media entities in ways giving it different spins, with plenty of peek-a-boos in anticipation of drawing wide the curtains. Just a little coyness when they ask you how much time we spend together - wouldn't you like to know -- is all it will take to bring the subject to the sideboard, then it's but a short trip for the tureen, onto the table, with appetites whetted by, a, waiting these few thousand years for the dish, and, b, the tantalizing scents giving off by the steaming broth."
"You're going to have to really soup up the lyrics to message the morons," Ryan noted: "may I suggest a play?"
"Christ," said Marshall, "I'm going to end up married to you. How's about we forge up some paperwork, first thing Monday?"
"How's about we forge a script," the boy rejoined, "assuming those things left out don't include a computer or at least a pencil and pad."
"I told Haley she could bring her laptop so we can play Pajama Sam games," the hero to millions explained.
"Then Scene One of Act One is two guys waiting nervously in a suite," Ryan said, "let's try to commit it to memory."
"No," Marshall corrected, "that begins Act Two. In Act One it is established the girl won't arrive for a period of time, leaving the nervous guys to talk things out on their own."
"Don't plays have Acting?" the boy asked.
"They sometimes have wedding bells and everything hanging happily together in the last scene," Marshall acknowledged, "and I suppose that does depend somewhat on how the characters act."
"Maybe a motion picture would be better," Ryan said, "then, you know, a director calls out: Action, and everyone gets up and starts doing stuff."
"Yet love can invoke stupor," the millionaire mused, "leaving the knees weak and the loins flaccid."
"Then write it for kids and make it a bedtime story," the bright boy suggested.
"That's a little like saying, `Sarge, a guy could take out that nest if he circled in from the northeast and chucked a few grenades,'" the older male noted.
"It would beat writing term papers on dolphins," the student allowed.
"Call it: `The Tree, Our Forest Friend," Marshal suggested, "just make it so compelling all the other trees gather around."
"It works," the precocious boy nodded, "you and Haley have a special tree, right? It gives you a reason to disappear every once in awhile, you know, hiking and camping. At first you seek privacy and shelter, so you huddle by the trunk, then you think to yourselves, wouldn't it be breezier and freer of bugs if we were up a way? Next thing you know, as the story goes on, you're slicing and dicing the branch and twig set, no longer huddled in the shadow but ever nearer and nearer the sun, chirping birds, and blue sky. Then you rain on the audience with an eagle metaphor, going about your business so quietly and carefully the big, dumb raptor accepts you as part of the scenery and doesn't come down and peck Haley's eyes out while she's flat on her back."
"You know something?" Marshall said, "I've been around people who steamed talent and smoked genius, for years, and, compared to you, they were those little toy engines that run on an impregnated fuel pellet. I thought I might try this, Haley and me, as a public service for all the kids caught in complex situations -- provide some signage of others having tried this way -- but I never thought of it as a new career, anything for personal benefit, then you come along and casually outline the greatest play in god knows how many decades, five, six, seven, and suddenly it's me, me, me -- the star, the poet of household liberty, the sage of the stage, and you're twelve."
"Well," Ryan responded, "I'm on a quest for the world's smartest man so I have to be as smart as I can to attract attention."
"What are you going to do when you find him?" the superstar asked.
"Tell him all about you," the boy replied.
"Do you think he'll be smarter than you?" was the next question.
"That's the whole purpose," Ryan said, "to find out."
As we know, this particular quest is filled in the child's thirteenth year while the boy's play was still in pre-production. Since the scene, a luxurious hotel suite, is familiar to us, we can cut to the face of Ryan as Marshall stands in front of the slightly reddish-haired boy beauty and extends his hands.
RYAN (Standing.)
I feel like I'm leaving my skin behind.
MARSHALL
It's the body's largest organ. Let's
go in and pretend we're taking a
shower together, with, you know,
more modest aspirations in the
leaving-behind department.
Both exit Stage Left. Darkness with voices.
RYAN
Can we leave them off for a few
Minutes?
MARSHALL
Sure.
RYAN
Thanks, it fits this incredible
dream I was having.
MARSHALL
I know the one. Where you're
sent into the coal mine to see
if the workers are taking good
care of your little sister. I
have the same one about Haley.
RYAN
It was geologist spelunkers
scoping out a cavern. That's
the kind of money I come from.
MARSHALL
New territory to me, dude, do
you think I should raise Haley
rich?
RYAN
Buy her a cave, there must be
some on e-bay, then salt it
with relics. That way it would
be subtle and endearing.
MARSHALL
And where should I touch her,
first?
RYAN
A little higher, She's a girl.
MARSHALL (turning on the lights)
So much for caves.
The young man turns the child to face him, his adult fingers going to the buttons on the boy's shirt. RYAN bids his male partner welcome by arching and linking his fingers behind his neck as he leans against a tile wall of the luxurious facility.
MARSHALL
Has this happened before? You
know, sleepovers, uncles, preachers,
coaches, anything like that?
RYAN
Only in my dreams.
MARSHALL
Do they involve a shower?
RYAN (blushing, shy)
I just can't help it. I hear the
click of the little plastic locking thing,
and it's hot and wet, but no matter
how much I stamp my feet, there's no
splashing.
MARSHALL
That's an easy one, shower with an
elephant.
RYAN (looking at MARSHALL'S waist)
Easy for you to say.
MARSHALL
You think I'm speaking rhetorically?
RYAN
I think it would be metaphorically, but
Either way, great idea.
MARSHALL (as both now strip quickly to their underwear)
Who masters you in your dreams,
Anyone particular?
RYAN
My mom just sold six thousand
books to a guy opening a new store
across the river. He's old New
England, dead cute, and seems to
think life is worth more than one
joke.
MARSHALL
Across the river would be Iowa,
if my geography's correct. If he
can find more than one about a
place so pretty you don't need
funny, he sounds like a keeper.
RYAN
I've only seen him, in passing,
four times. It's just a
fantasy that pops into my
head while I'm sleeping.
though, come to think of it,
I've never dreamed of my
brother's friend, and he's a
six-four Arab with no extra
pounds and black eyes.
MARSHALL
I'll try not to be jealous. Some
guys think it's awesome to be
a rocker, but what it amounts
to is holding a dozen girls you
want to hold forever, then letting
them go for another male to
hold, no restrictions, for life
RYAN
Hire mom's friend, Tom, to teach
Haley on the road. Easy as
showering with an elephant.
MARSHALL
And I thought the play was the
thing.
So did I, but it's becoming too much of a good thing, however generously I've been treated. The real Ryan and Marshall, not RYAN and MARSHALL, now stood, hands gently on each other's waists, staring into each other eyes. "Kissing?" the older male whispers softly to the boy in his white underpants.
"No," the pre-teen replied in a like voice, tilting his beautiful face to indicate No to experience, not his feelings. The lips of the harsh, hard-eyed stage demon and the silken twinkie met in a syrupy puddle of ambrosia, and it must have been a special, oxygenated recipe for neither displayed symptoms of drowning, minutes though they remained submerged, other than a hard, steady panting.
"It can happen either of two ways," Marshall whispered after a quarter hour. "Do you want me to tell you about them, or do you already know?"
"I think I know one of them," the child beauty replied, "but I'm not sure which one."
"You could try the one you know," the older male suggested, "and I could tell you if it's right or wrong."
This was getting them nowhere. Another time, another circumstance, they might have lingered long over their byplay, but time was something they were running out of.
"Let's try it the first way I did it with a man," Shady suggested, "because Haley'll be here before long and I don't want us so excited we get the least bit suggestive, impatient, or demanding."
"And it will last longer if it turns out she's that way," the younger male said, "as I would be if I were a girl and you were my dad."
"Her last letters have been on the candid side," Marshall admitted, "that's how I know she's started wearing a bra, so you get everything behind curtain number three."
"I always wanted my own Brownie troop," Ryan said, "you're a peach."
"Just one, dude," the elder cautioned, "it's too hard letting them go, and, if you don't catch them in the first place, it's not an issue."
"No music, no fourth-grade harem -- is it possible to leave out too much?"
The question remained in the air. By accord, the males knelt in front of each other, Marshall slowing removing the twelve year old's underpants then leaning, shaking, against the wall as the young beauty's hands fondled him curiously, then stripped in hesitantly. "This is the way," he whispered, wrapping the slender torso of the pre-teen gently in his left arm, then finding the child's frank-sized, circumcised penis with his right hand. He fondled his juvenile partner's swollen glans, wetting the boy, then began to stroke him gently as Ryan shook and heaved in the athletic young adult's muscular embrace.
"He didn't take me all the way the first time he did this with me," Marshall whispered, "because he wanted me to watch it happen with him while I was still super excited.
"How do you feel about that?"
"Yes," Ryan was able to whisper.
"And the other choice," the singer went explained, "is for me to be in your mouth, but Jay and I waited until about our tenth time to go that far together, so no pressure."
"I like talking to you," Ryan responded, far too excited to be ironic.
"Tell me what you think it's going to be like," his liver encouraged, "standing at the foot of the bed, with me lying on my back, my daughter naked in my arsms, her legs widely spread with my hands helping hold her nine-year-old legs apart, then kneeling on the bed and looking over her left shoulder into my eyes as you approach. Her hands will guide you. Yours will be on my athletic shoulders, watch your grip, because we'll both be sweating. After she's guided you, her hands will settle low on your flanks, partly in fear, then in encouragement and welcome. Think of my penis along side yours as you begin to mount her virgin body, how the motion of your childish bodies against me will effect me, and how it will look if you rise on your arms and gaze down over our three bodies and I start cumming off all over you and my little girl."
"Show me the other way it happened with Jay," Ryan whispered.
"Okay," Marshall responded, gently guiding the boy from a legs-spread position in front of him to his, Marshall's, right hip. Instinctively, the child's left arm went around the sweating, panting athlete, his right hand also obeying feral command. "If you want me to cum on you, step in front of me, or pull me against you when I tell you it's going to happen," the star suggested.
"I do," the boy said.
"The advanced thing at this stage would be for me to lick my semen off you, then kiss you the way we were kissing before. My tongue will be very salty, if you want to try."
"I hope it's not too advanced," the boy responded, "because I'm like totally, awesomely ready for it to happen now."
"Are you picturing us, positions reversed?" the older male panted, "Haley on her back in your arms, with me over her, supported on my arms, looking down into your beautiful gray-blue eyes as I go all tense and rigid over the body of my nine year old child?"
"Yes," Ryan whispered, staring up at the infectiously cute entertainer.
"Do you want to know what you'll see if you look away from my eyes and down between our bodies?" Marshall asked.
"Yes," the boy repeated.
"Then look down," the older male panted with his last coherent breath, "I'm cumming."
The adult was so huge, hot, and hard, there could be no other outcome, he was gasping and trembling as if testing chairs for Florida, sweating as if the testing was conducted in the July sun. Ryan moved in front of the tall stallion, now using his left hand low on the adult, finding, gripping, and almost immediately feeling a hard, jerking pulse. A fraction later, the first of the young father's sperm gouted in a ling, slick streak, a white path from the young boy's belly button to over his left nipple.
Still attuned to instinct, Ryan ceased pumping the seven inch erection of his partner, instead sliding his right hand low and gripping hard. This caused Marshall to buck and cry out, and spray hard and fast, again and again, all over the bare chest and thighs of his twelve-year-old lover..
Shady, staggering against the wall of the carpeted bathroom, dropped to his knees, pulling Ryan to him, then pivoting the child to brace him in his turn. His mouth found the boy in a moment. Ryan arched and laced his fingers behind his neck, giving himself entirely to his first orgasm and, in minutes, spraying his hot pre-teen seed as copiously as, at thirteen, he was cumming off in my hand, a year later.
"Janet wants to come by herself next weekend," the boy said as we returned to the shop to find books for the evening.
"Good," I said.
THE END
About the author.
Thomas Cochran Emerson is entering his third year as a Web contributor. Under the pen name Feather Touch he published "Jimmy and Frogger", "The Flyyy", "Dennis the...", "Ropeyarn", "Creative Camp", "Blissy's Song", "Michelle's First Secret" and "Michelle's Second Secret". As R. Forbes Emerson, he has published "Hollywood Stories", "Santa Fe Stories", "Stonington (Me.) Stories", "The Tarzan Mushroom Hunters", and, most recently, four hundred thousand words of "One Fish at a Time", a work in progress. All his files can be found in the "Nifty.org" Archive. Most are listed under Bisexual, Adults/Young Friends. Others may be found under Bisexual Camping and one or two may be filed under the heading sf/fantasy. "Boxers or Briefs?" is listed under Gay Incest, and his latest, "Rebecca", under Bi Incest. "Fullerton Park & Ride", bi/incest. Latest addition adds yet another pen name in Pen Dragon: "Mississippi Stories -- Stephan, again, under bi/incest. In total Mr. Emerson's contributions run to some 1.1 million words. The author lives in Belize, "slightly addicted to the Caribbean." While his stories never cheat in upholding the alternative tradition, readers sallying forth with optimistic outlooks would be well advised to always download alternative material. It can be many miles of rough road between this boy losing his underpants and that girl letting big brother experiment under her training bra. Yes, you have been warned.
Emerson was born in his ancestral home of Concord, Massachusetts, in 1946, "The Year of the Porsche," in his words. An absolute devotee of the craft of leading English astray, thus providing gainful employment to those who would lead it back, he admits to being a hot-house artist with the modern word processor his soil, water, air, light, and enabling nutrient. "Hell, all I need then is a seed," he says.
Directly descended from the leading activist of the Revolutionary War, and scion of a family that includes the most quoted man in history, his poet and philosopher great great grandfather; the CEO of AT&T during the heyday of Bell Labs and Western Electric, and other luminaries ranging from two governors (Winthrop and Bradford) of the Plymouth Colony to the founder of American Standard, he views his (native) countrymen as his subjects, and writes of and to them accordingly. His hobbies are limited to photography and trying to explain Samantha, his fifteen-year-old girlfriend, to an unamused father. Since flattery got him everywhere, he likes the occasional reader letter.
Quote: "Was the phrase `adult entertainment' coined just for me?"
Posted by Thomas@btl.net.
xxx