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Tales of the Summer from a Childhood Far (Far) Away
growing up, all the kids across my country played pretty much similar games during the long summer school break. we played cossacks & bandits (russian version of cowboys & indians), but the most popular game, this being russia, was always fashisty & partizany (nazis & resistance fighters). it was during one of these games that no self-respecting little terror would ever miss, that i tasted the first precocious flashes of my sexual awakening the summer i was 12 years old. now, i always played on the side of the resistance, and few boys volunteered to be a kraut. with one notable exception: there was this kid who lived in the apartment building across from mine, two years my senior, who was always the lead nazi. and it didn't hurt that he looked the part: narrow face, cut cheekbones, aquiline nose, piercing blue eyes, and flaxen blond - almost platinum - hair, in short the picture of the aryan german nazi propaganda films such as triumph des willens popularized. and during those games, i was his favorite prey. it wasn't every time, every now and then he would go for a different 'resistance fighter,' but there is no doubt in my mind i was his favorite 'partizan' to capture. and he always did capture me, being two years older, he was way faster and overall very athletic (if i recall correctly, he was a mid-distance runner for our local olympic reserve club), so even if i'd really wanted to escape capture, i wouldn't have been able to.
and not that i REALLY wanted to, i guess. he would zero in on me immediately and run me down pretty fast, grabbing a squealing me bodily. that had always been the case, ever since his family had moved 'next door' a couple of years before. that summer though, it was to be different. there was pretty a standard ethos when it came to our play, with captured 'partizans' taken to hq for a 'dopros' (interrogation), the purpose of which was to find the location of the resistance banner, whose seizure meant a forfeit. but instead of the standard interrogation, he started saying torture that summer, as in 'i'll torture you, melkiy (squirt), till you tell,' or 'now you're my own torture patsan (boy).' it was exciting as it gave us both a taste of the forbidden, and we both knew it and felt it, even though it went unspoken. pretty much the first game that summer, when he captured me just 15 minutes in, he force-marched me to the out-of-sight gazebo that served as nazi hq, and boy was i in for the surprise of my young live! he'd stashed away a length of rope there with which he proceeded to tie my hands behind my back. after making sure my hands were tightly bound - and they were, i don't know how, but he definitely knew his ropework - he lightly slapped my face several times, and circled me in heavy silence, the only sounds being my bated and his sharp breaths. after the pro forma questions about the location of the banner, to which i replied, 'i'd sooner die than surrender,' i felt his fingers on my sides digging into my ribs. now, i was - and still am - devilishly ticklish, which was common knowledge among the neighborhood kids, and older boys often took advantage of that to make me get lost by threatening to tickle. but nobody ever had actually deliberately tickled me like he was doing. he moved one of his hands around to cover my mouth, and tickled me for what seemed like an eternity, but in reality close to 10 minutes i guess, it couldn't have been much longer than that, until i was a blubbering heap on the floor, glaring up at him and him smirking down at me and making mock lunges at me as if to continue the torture. after giving me some time to recover, he pulled me back to my feet and started to tickle me again. i think he did it 3 or 4 times before the sounds of the arriving gaggle of boys signaled the end of the game. he did manage to untie me in time, but i think everybody saw just by looking at the mess i was that it had been a lot more than just an interrogation, and as exciting as the prospect of discovery must have been for him, the near miss prompted a change of venue to a secluded clearing in the thick tall shrubbery of the neighborhood park.
and the game was never the same for the two of us afterward. not satisfied just to tickle me to exhaustion and exert control by covering my mouth with his hand while doing that, he escalated it to other activities. i think it was midsummer, and at our latitude that time of year nights are pretty much non-existent, the sun sets after 11 pm and rises around 4 am, with dusk in between. since the general rule at the time was for the kids to come home only after dark, we could stay outside past midnight without the 'rents herding us inside. that day, the game started pretty late, around 8 pm, i think. i could feel his patented smirk trained at me the whole time it was being decided who would be nazis and who resistance. every time our eyes met, i could read in his the unspoken threat 'you can run, squirt, but you can't hide,' which made my heart skip a bit in a mixture of apprehension and nervous anticipation. we both knew perfectly well i couldn't even hope to outrun him, but i was always determined to make him work for it and gave it my all, and i think he wouldn't have had it any other way.
so on that particular night, after going for me right off the bat and cornering me in a cul-de- sac 15-20 minutes into the game, i knew i was in for something new from the excitement he showed in manhandling me into the clearing in the thicket. i knew he would tickle torture me again, that much wasn't new. however, he did take it to another level. whether it had been pre- planned, or he just winged it, compelled to go further by the burgeoning desire to control, i don't know, but this time instead of silencing my yips and squeals with his hand, he decided to put a sock in it, literally. as you can imagine, a boy outside in summer heat all day in athletic shoes would soak his socks with foot sweat, and he didn't prove to be the exception to the rule. once he had me inside the clearing, he tied me up and threw me on the grass. keeping me in place by sitting on my legs, he took off his trainers (sneakers for the americans) and wiggled his sweaty socked feet in the direction of my face, saying 'you wanna sock in your mouth, squirt? that'll keep you nice and quiet.' and proceeded to do exactly as advertised. a brief but spirited scuffle ensued, with me drawing upon some inner reserves of strength i never knew i had to fight off the inevitable, but i did wind up exactly as he wanted me: nice, quiet and with his sweaty sock in my mouth after just a couple of minutes. he secured the sock with some electrical tape he must have hidden there in advance, which he wound around my head several times, and then stood aside to admire his handiwork. i had tears in my eyes and rolling down my cheeks at this point, something he didn't fail to see. i saw a struggle within him, with a part of him knowing it was wrong to do that to a smaller weaker boy and enjoy it, and the other rushing big time on the power and the sheer dominance of the act. i honestly don't know which part i wanted to win at the time, but definitely there was a big part of me that despite the revulsion of having his sweaty sock in my mouth and being forced to swallow his foot funk, and the obvious tears in my eyes, enjoyed what he was doing to me. well, maybe not enjoyed, but was excited by it, that much is true.
and as it turned out, predictably, his dominant sadistic side won out. he said something like, 'oh, my little boy is a crybaby, too.' and despite the sneering tone of the voice, and demeaning connotation of the words he chose, the fact that he said 'my,' and claimed ownership however obliquely, did something to me. that realization calmed me down and allowed my own dark side, one seeking and enjoying being passive, submissive, to take over and enjoy the show. he made sure i got my money's worth, and did he ever! with both his hands now free to tickle me, he had a lot more of my body to explore and roam over, and the sock muffled much more effectively than just his hand the audible end products of his fiendish efforts. and i'm pretty sure my muffled screams and giggles were music to his ears, egging him on to torment me relentlessly, without any breaks like he'd done before. i guess the sense of power, of control, was intoxicating to him, and he did take it very far that time, making me pee my shorts on the process. my shorts were dark, so he only noticed when he'd smelled the unmistakable scent of urine, and his reaction to the realization that he'd made me pee myself was instantaneous: his nostrils were flaring, cheeks flushed, breathing rapid and erratic, and the giddy, sadistic delight in taking me to this new depth of humiliation very much self-evident in his eyes. high on power, he threatened to force- march me outside and parade me around for everyone to see in my compromised condition, but after savoring my panicked reaction and enjoying my muffled pleas for a bit, he relented and took me home, shielding me from public view with his own body, and protecting me from the ridicule he'd threatened to subject me to. a painful smack on the butt and an enjoinment to be good (vedi sebya horosho) at my apartment door was how the day ended.
it was all downhill, or i guess uphill, after that, for me and him. before the summer was over, he would strip me, too. not fully, of course, so i'll explain. the next game after the sock incident, he took away my shoes, saying i wouldn't be able to run away without them. now, i wouldn't have run away even with the shoes on my feet, for i wouldn't have been able to explain my bound hands in a way that wouldn't have exposed my own complicity in, and enjoyment of, the tickle torture at his hands. but as a symbolic gesture, it had immense power and underscored his uncanny ability, as a 14 year old boy, to understand power dynamics and the importance of symbolism in them. in effect, i felt mentally hobbled by not having shoes on, and even more at his mercy than before. the next article of clothing to go was my t-shirt, which he would remove now before tying my hands behind my back. and the way he tied my hands also evolved: not only were just my wrists bound, but elbows now too, rendering my upper extremities completely useless in shielding my body from his tickling hands, actually presenting my body to them now more than ever. as an added bonus for him, it also threw by balance off, which made it easier for him to control me and keep me in whatever position he liked me in to get as much out of the tickle torture as he could.
and then, with inexorable logic, the time came for him to take it further and take off my shorts, leaving me in my boyish tighty-whities. he wore boxers, of course, in russia at the time called semeinye trusy, family man underwear verbatim, which he showed me by lowering his track pants to better drive the point across that he was an adult - a man! - and i was a mere boy in comparison, a point he gleefully verbalized six ways from sunday for me. wanting to milk it as much as he could, he threatened to pull my undies down to my ankles to expose me completely. he played with the waistband while enjoying my pleas for him not to. i think it'd gone on for 10 minutes before he said, 'don't just tell me you respect me, show me, and then maybe i won't take away your nappy and expose your pisyunchik.' (little pee-pee; nappy is a diaper, for the americans, he said polzunki in russain, again to humiliate me by infantilizing what i was wearing) and i couldn't think of anything else but get on my knees and bow my head to him. after a minute of soaking in the sight, he grabbed my chin and raised my head to meet his eyes. and i will never, for as long as i live, forget the look in his eyes. that was a look of almost crazed glee, sheer joy , ultimate satisfaction of conquering me and bending me to his will completely. and i also saw pure unadulterated power in his eyes, so much power that it scared me shitless but drew me in none- the-less.
he never did take way my underwear during our games, and i believe he never would have, but then the summer was over and with it the freedom to roam outside from dawn to dusk. the nazi vs resitance games continued for a bit after school started in september, but soon petered out as the chill of the fall set it. and without the guise of the games, there was no built-in reason for us continue with our own private games. i'm sure he would have been happy to had i asked. but i never did. as the little boy tightie-whities showed, i didn't have the balls to go for what i secretly craved. however, my demeanor around him had changed. if before the summer i had been frequently lippy and bratty with him, earning me the occasional smack upside the head (podzatylnik in russian) for my troubles; but afterward it changed, in subtle ways maybe, but with a dramatic effect: i became very respectful toward him, not diffident or kowtowing, nothing like that, but then again, it's hard to give somebody lip when you'd knelled and bowed your head to him. on the occasions when the two of us hung out together, we would to what he wanted: go the movies he wanted to see, play the games he wanted to play. he didn't bark orders, but by unspoken agreement if he said what he wanted to do, that was that. and i also tried to be useful to him, in ways i had never been before. when he was caught smoking by his dad and ordered to clean the apartment from top to bottom as punishment, i helped. volunteered to help. he didn't ask, didn't have to. i was also happy to share with him some of the little perks i had access to by virtue of having parents who travelled abroad frequently, which was rare in russia at the time. once dad brought back a case of coca cola, and you can't imagine how big a deal that was! we had pepsi, and i dare say it tasted better bottled in russia compared to when i tasted it during by first trip to a non-eastern block country, yugoslavia the summer before. but coca cola was an exotic commodity, and as such tasted better to me because of its scarcity than pespi ever could. and out of that case - don't remember if it was 10 or 12 bottles - i gave him 3. i also shared bananas and pineapples that my parents could buy and the general public only saw on tv, and comic books and super hero decals from the west (russia didn't produce any) which were the ultimate treasure to any teenage boy. again, he never asked for any of that, never coerced or otherwise manipulated me to share. and i WAS sharing, not giving him everything or the last i had. if i had more than i needed, i shared with him. it made me feel good to do something for him, and i enjoyed his happiness when i could give him something he didn't think he could have. once i even asked mom's youngest brother, my youthful uncle, to bring me a pack of camel smokes for my friend from his trip to the west. he did me one better, and bought marlboroughs! we had just been exposed to western commercials through the tv feed from the seoul olympics showing commercials, and everybody was talking about marlboroughs, as an american brand it carried an enormous cachet. he was over the moon when i gave him the pack! it was the only the time he truly hugged me and he didn't let go for the longest time. of course, he flaunted that pack of ciggies and milked it to the max as any teenager would, especially one as cocky as him. he became quickly the cock of the block and the envy of every teenage guy in a 10 mile radius. when asked where he'd gotten it from, he would say, 'from a friend.' which upset me some, because i wanted him to tell about the special connection , the bond that we had, but he said he didn't want me to attract the unwanted attention from older bullies, older than him, who wouldn't think twice of beating me to a bloody pulp if they thought they could get stuff like that through me, and from whom he wouldn't be able to protect me. that showed me he cared, and i was very happy about that. in short, i was very much looking forward to the next summer with him, and to having the games back on to provide sufficient cover to engage back in the sort of activity he clearly enjoyed and i no less than him.
but it was never to be. his dad was in the military and got a new billet shortly after new year's. my friend and his mom stayed until school year was out in late may, and by early june he was gone from my life forever. i never saw him again. we wrote to each other for a while, but as is often the case with teenagers, with so many things going around all the time, out of sight led to out of mind depressingly quickly. for him. not for me. i will never forget him, and the things those ever so fleeting three summer months revealed to me about myself. and i cannot help but wonder where it would have led to, and how different my life would be now, had he not moved, had he stayed and we had explored our opposing but complementing psychosexual personalities next summer when we both would have been in the full throes of hormone-charged puberty. that is a question that more than just once in a blue moon keeps me awake at night.