Stevens School Runaways - Part 1 (hist, tort, CBT, psych)
By Platypus (formerly Dark Man) 
plupy@surfbest.net

copyright 2005 by Platypus, all rights reserved

(Originally posted to the Eunuch Archives website although
no actual castration occurs in this story.) 

* * * * *
This story is intended for ADULTS ONLY.  It contains
explicit depictions of sexual activity involving minors. If
you are not of a legal age in your locality to view such
material or if such material does not appeal to you, do not
read further, and do not save this story.
* * * * *

Two runaway thirteen-year-old boys eventually get their
rather unjust desserts while inmates in a brutal but
politically correct reform school.


Stevens School Runaways - Part 1

Nestled deep in the Adirondack foothills, the impressive
three-story brick edifice housing the Alexander X. Stevens
School was quite a distance from Perkins, the nearest town –
almost twenty-six miles. For most of that distance, only a
two-lane road led to Perkins. Thick woods filled with thorny
underbrush or buried by deep snows in winter otherwise
surrounded the school on all sides. More than seventy years
since the school's founding, only 34 boys had managed to
escape. Every "lost" boy had been recaptured and punished. A
reputation for meting out swift correction to absconders had
always been spoken of in hushed tones; what mattered most to
the school's conservative board was not so much the details
of such punishment regimes as their effectiveness.

"Stevens" housed 78 boys aged 12-17 in January 2001 when
Thomas Bridges and Richard Hansen were sent there by stern
"law and order" juvenile court judges. Although they came
from different states, their individual cases shared certain
unsettling similarities.

Tom, a blonde, hazel-eyed seventh grader -- had turned 13
only a month prior to his incarceration at Stevens. This
'B+' student and star athlete was well liked at his middle
school and had never been in serious trouble until his
prying mother found his diary. Discovered in his bedroom,
the shocking entries confessed to various "dastardly deeds"
-- mostly vandalism and shoplifting committed with peers,
but also "disgusting" sex acts with male and female
classmates and even a neighbor's cat. When confronted by his
strict Fundamentalist Christian parents, Tom denied
everything. "I made those things up. My diary's private – I
never thought anybody would actually READ it!" he pleaded.
But to no avail. Believing that their son "needed to be
taught a lesson," they called the police. A hop, skip, and a
court date later, Tom had been ordered by the judge to leave
his familiar home and school environs for the Alexander X.
Stevens School – an option suggested to the judge by Tom's
own dad. Like all boys sent to Stevens, he'd become a ward
of the state "until such notice as your new caretakers
should decide to release you – but not before your fifteenth
birthday." The state had abdicated responsibility for the
boy's well being and placed him entirely in the charge of
Stevens authorities.

Rich – brunette, a brown-eyed eighth grader -- was several
months older than Tom. Having an August birthday, he was
nearly thirteen and a half when sentenced to Stevens for
"wantonly firing a handgun at school." Although Rich
admitted bringing his father's .32-caliber weapon to school
was "a stupid thing to do," he argued that the chambers had
been empty and in any case, the gun had been stolen from his
locker and fired in the schoolyard by "an idiotic ninth
grader" – not him. Like Tom, Rich felt his consequences to
be "real bullshit" even if his liberal parents were
staunchly supportive. They'd protested the harsh decision
labeling their son "an unremorseful young felon," as the
judge expressed it. Rich. He'd been a straight 'A' student,
played junior varsity basketball -- even had a girlfriend,
Maria, whom he'd proudly kissed twice at a Halloween dance
while dressed as a stylish Casanova. The slightly older
boy's fate, however, wasn't in his parents' control. Handed
over "without restrictions" -- Richard's court-ordered
sentence was scheduled to last until his sixteenth birthday.

At Stevens, the 12 and 13's, 14 and 15's, and 16 and 17 year
olds were segregated -- each to a floor, two to a room.
Since Tom and Rich were about the same age and arrived
within a day of each other, they became roommates. Their
room, 14c – a 10' X 12' cubicle really, was at least near a
bathroom at the rear end of the ground floor. The boys liked
each other immediately. But since Tom was a 7th grader and
Rich in eighth, their periods in common were gym and math.
"At least we get to shower together," Tom made an early joke
after being at Stevens for about a week. "Yeah, you get to
sneak peeks at my naked body," Rich would shoot back, never
loudly or seductively. This was just boys being boys with
only a hint of the homoerotic. Sex play between the two
remained virtually unthinkable – a taboo fantasy never acted
upon, always unspoken, not really desired. But they'd talk
about everything under the sun while lying on their backs in
their alien beds at night. Everything was fodder for
discussion --including their new daily regimen. As might be
expected in a reform school, structure was the rule. Lights
went out at nine o'clock sharp when armed and uniformed
guards – mostly burly adult men -- began patrolling. There
were unpleasant discoveries. Running was permitted in the
halls – but dangers lurked for bare feet due to the rough
texture of the old-fashioned wood floors. "Crap! I think I
got a splinter!" Rich said one night at about 8:58. So Tom
came to the rescue by digging a tiny sliver out of Rich's
tender sole. Without a knife – the boys weren't permitted to
own anything sharp – he was forced to use his fingernails
and sharp eyes. "There. I think it's out!" Tom exclaimed. A
burly guard spoke up then from just down the hall. "You kids
in 14c – get that light out! In bed – now!" "The rest of you
– quiet!" Suddenly, a buzz of voices turned off like scared
chickens. No response. "You'd think there'd be at least one
wiseass mouthing off," Rich said.

A half hour later, the boys were still chattering in soft
tones. "I got to pee – bad." Thomas held his hand on his
penis as if to stop the flow, but he sure didn't want to get
up and draw attention to himself. Only he had to. "Can I use
one of your passes?" "I guess, but what happened to yours?"
"I can't find them. They're not in my pants." He'd already
gotten out of bed and was feeling around in the dark. If you
had to go to the bathroom down the hall, you showed your
"bathroom pass." This ubiquitous scrap of recycled paper
could be checked off three times in a given night, no more.
A guard would be waiting just outside the communal bathroom.
"Now I'll have only two chances tonight," Rich added in a
mournful tone, "I guess they'd expect me to hold it after
that." "What happens if you wet your bed?" Tom whispered.
"It'd be your fault," Rich said, the way kids do. When Tom
returned from the bathroom, Rich was still awake. He'd been
thinking. "Remember that kid the other night? The one they
took away? I think they took him to that place in the
basement where they punish kids. Maybe he's a bed wetter."
Tom suddenly felt a bit anxious. They both knew about a
"dungeon" of sorts -- a locked area in a subterranean part
of the building from which emanated the most disturbing
sounds. "Yeah, I swear I heard him screaming his head off
for awhile afterwards."

"No shit,"said Tom, "It sounded like he was being tortured
or something. I can tell you who it was. Kid's name is
Carter – he's in my Math class. Sure was acting strange
yesterday --like a freaking zombie. First time he was in
class all week. I wanted so bad to ask him what those
bastards did to him, but Cousins was on me like a hawk. He
always is."

"Torture you say? Like what you did to my foot. It still
hurts! I shouldn't have let you dig that splinter out with
just your nails. What if the ball of my foot gets infected
or something?" Rich was half serious.

"Oh, you poor baby! Want me to kiss it better?" Rich didn't
feel that crack merited much of a response. "You're stupid,"
he managed. Back to Cousins. Both boys had Alfred Cousins
for Math -- a gaunt and gangly man with strawberry facial
blotches, Nazi-like wire-rim spectacles, and bad breath.
While teaching 7th and 8th grade algebra, he paid inordinate
attention to the most handsome students – peering down at
them over his glasses. "The creep is always staring at me
too," Rich admitted, "He calls me Ritchie and likes to
squeeze my neck. I mean constantly!" "Wait 'till he knows
you better," Tom said smart-alecky in a sexy voice, "that's
when he'll give you a nice bj." But then came another
thought. "I wouldn't cross him," Tom warned his newfound
friend, "What if he gets to help with punishing boys?"

A distinct mystery there – what DID happen to bad boys?
Several weeks into their stay, Tom and Rich knew precious
little about the basement quarters where punishments
occurred. Without being punished themselves, they didn't
even know what the chamber might contain. "They always keep
it locked," Tom said, "There's no way you can get in there
without attracting a lot of attention." What they did know
about the regime of the place they'd learned at an early
assembly attended by the entire student body. Stevens boys
were required to wake up every morning at dawn, excepting
Saturdays when "sleeping in" was permitted -- until 8 a.m.
Schooldays meant the same uniforms for all age groups –
white dress shirts, brown corduroy pants with matching itchy
brown socks and stiff, tight-fitting leather dress shoes.
More leisurely dress – for instance, jeans, were permitted
on Saturdays – but white cotton briefs and white undershirts
were always worn unless a boy was showering, peeing,
crapping, or instructed otherwise. Even to bed. "I guess you
can't crash in the nude," Tom muttered to Rich in a low
voice. Rich almost started giggling at that one. (They'd
found each other in the auditorium.) Students were required
to maintain a "B" average, eat all meals, exercise
correctly, maintain proper hygiene, expend maximum effort
while playing games or sports, and perform assigned chores.
It was expected that students would refrain from
masturbating, cursing, fighting, or swearing. Bedwetting
wasn't considered an infringement if the act was deemed
"accidental," but other steadfast rules included obedience –
anyone caught sassing or adopting even the slightest hint of
an insolent tone to an adult authority figure was "asking to
be punished." Another compulsory requirement -- attending
Sunday services – was heavily stressed. While it was stated
that all infractions would be severely punished – the
roommates detected no big surprises, not even the fact that
absconding, any attempt to escape from the premises or head
for the town of Perkins – was deemed the worst single act
that a Stevens student could be guilty of. Somehow, the boys
were lulled into a false sense of security. Mr. Alex Taylor,
the school's deep-voiced and pattern baldness-afflicted
headmaster, spoke in singsong tones like an earnest
grandfather -- provoking looks of – in the opinion of Tom
and Rich -- utter blandness from the entire assembly. He
didn't seem threatening at all. Besides, although mildly
dictatorial at first blush, he seemed normal -- not at all
peculiar like Cousins.

But as the days and weeks passed, Tom and Rich noticed
something else. They weren't mixing, or making new friends.
The other kids seemed to more or less ignore them. Everybody
was so close-mouthed, so clannish when you asked other boys
anything, especially about the punishments meted out, or
about the particulars of the punishments meted out. They'd
whisper among themselves, or say something like "Screw up
and find out." It was unnerving – like the other kids were
egging them on. "Christ, I used to be freaking popular!"
Rich said to his only friend. "Ever see that movie, the
Stepford Wives, where there was this town and everybody
acted weird all the time?" Rich asked one night while lying
in bed, "Well, compared to this place" – he didn't finish
the sentence. "I don't think they've forgiven me since I
tried to ask Carter what happened to him," Tom said at last,
"I can't help it. I'm getting curious. Maybe I could mess up
on purpose. Then we'd know." But then the fear of what might
happen – the unknown -- would set in, like a cold feeling in
the pit of your stomach.

It was – after all -- a reform school. As the days became
weeks, queasiness, if not a sense of actual terror, began to
grow in the gut of the newcomer boys along with the bizarre
curiosity that tantalized them. When their courage to do
something radical began to mount, the two outsiders would
hear the screams. These awful shrieks of pain began to
become more frequent – usually on Friday or Saturday
evenings. Although no more than two or three unfortunate
boys (out of the whole school) were ever punished at the
same time, it became a regular occurrence all through the
February weekends and into March. Still, the newcomers could
learn nothing. For Tom and Rich, it became an itch. While
engaged in some wholesome activity – like playing ping-pong
or reading a book about Christian heroes or heroines –
mischievous thoughts came and went. It – the fear mingled
with the craving to know – usually worsened after being sent
off to bed at nine o'clock sharp. Bedtime was no guarantee
of quiet. The screams of the miscreants might continue for
hours unabated – sometimes until two or three in the
morning. "I can't stand it anymore," Rich said while lying
in bed one Friday night, "We have to know. It won't kill us
to be punished. What can they do to us? The punished kids
always come back from the infirmary or wherever. Sometimes
it takes a few days, sometimes a whole week."

"Yeah, and have you noticed that once they've been punished,
they don't shower at gym – in fact, every one of them gets
excused from gym. Like permanently."

"I don't like gym that much -- especially not in this place.
Besides, it's our only way to find out. We'll run away –
then let them catch us. That way, they'd have to punish us,
but probably go easy on us too. Yeah, it's ingenious. Like a
test. "

"I don't know," Tom said.

"Chicken-shit. When or if you get the bone up, I'm ready.
You decide. I can be patient too."

"Can't we talk about something else?"

"Yeah, I guess." But, mused Rich, there was a certain
excitement to the whole idea, a kind of thrill. Shit, I
don't even deserve to be here! Neither does Tom. It's
totally unfair! Rich began to feel tears starting. Neither
of them were punks – not even tough kids. Rich started
thinking of his old life – of his normal boyhood – missing
it -- even Trish – his big sister who sometimes teased him -
- she was fifteen – and Mom – and Dad – and their kitty cat
Delores – the best brown tabby that ever lived. I can't even
pet my cat anymore, he mused, and now the tears really
started coming. Finally, a new idea. Why run away to get
caught or punished? Instead, we could freaking escape! Now
that would be cool. When Rich finally fell asleep, the whole
building was quiet as a tomb, and he could no longer hear
the one comforting sound. Tom. Snoring softly.

End of Part 1