THEO'S TEDDY BEAR

BY DIRT

[ part 2 ]

Visit to Parnia

Theo knew that he should be VERY scared, but his Teddy assured him that everything would be OK. He could remember their last conversation.

“Theo, you will wake up in a different place. A lot of things will seem really strange but don’t get upset. The people there are just like you, well almost, and are very friendly.”

Theo of course, faced with the reality of his momentous “adventure” was having second thoughts. After all he was only 11. “But I’m scared. Do I hav’ta go?”

“Of course not. Only if you want to. But once there you have to stay at least three days. You will meet nice people and especially the boy you will be given to.”

“Given to?”

“Yes. An extensive test was done on your mind. Your likes and dislikes, and dispositions have been very carefully studied. You will be very happy there once you are trained and become accustomed to the place. This is a reward. They want to make you happy. They have also determined that you could never be really happy if you stay here.”

Theo really WANTED to go. He was just trying to overcome a bout of ‘scaredness’ and realizing he would REALLY miss here.

“But I’m still scared. And I will miss my parents and friends so much.”

“That’s why you can come back in three days if you want. You CAN stay longer. And any time you want to go back you can do that too. They only want you happy.”

Theo had always trusted his Teddy in the past. He had never given him bad advice that he could remember. So he trusted him now.

“OK Teddy, what do I do?”

“Just relax and fall asleep. You will wake up on Parnia. That is what the people there call their planet. It means dirt or earth.”

Theo, very smart for his tender years, even though few observed this due to his quiet and quite submissive nature, suddenly asked: “But how if they talk different and I can’t understand what they say?”

“Not to worry. When you awake, someone will put this globe thing on your head and soon you will be able to understand what everybody is saying.”

A day later, Theo was so excited about everything and about meeting so many nice people, that he was almost too busy to be homesick. Of course things were so strange. There were even SLAVES here. But he couldn’t understand why these slaves seemed so happy.

That big guy that everyone said was the big leader had a slave-boy who couldn’t have been much older than Theo himself. He even got to talk to this boy.

“But I don’t understand. Slavery is bad. How come you have to be a slave?”

“I just AM a slave. I never wondered why. I was just meant to be one ever since I could remember. And I got real lucky because our ruler, before he actually became the ruler, decided that we were good for each other.”

Now Theo was really stumped. “I don’t understand. You can’t be much older than me. How old is your . . .” Theo had trouble saying ‘master.’ It sounded so bad.

But the boy, whose name was Kit, laughed. “I’m almost 40 years old. It’s just my master likes me to stay young looking. They have drugs here that can do that. I will always look much like this ‘til I die.”

“And you don’t mind?”

“Course not. I am very happy being my master’s slave. I am totally cared for and never have to worry about ANYTHING! Besides, I also LIKE being a slave. It‘s hard to explain.”

“But . . .But how about doing stuff? How if you wanted to do something that your master didn’t like. What then?”

“You don’t understand. You get ‘training.’ And after the ‘training’ you only want to please your master. And anyways, my master loves me and always tries to make sure I’m happy.”

“But what if you do something wrong? What then?”

“Well I haven’t had that happen for years and years. At least not by accident.”

Now Theo was confused again. “I don’t understand again. You mean you never do anything bad?”

“But why should I? I only want to make my master happy. It was only the first year rocs when I first became a new slave, when I sometimes did things by accident. But I am a good learner. Of course sometimes I do things deliberate so my master punishes me.”

“Now I know you’re nuts. Why would you deliberately want to get punished?”

“Well, to make the sex better!”

“WHAT?”

“To make the sex better.”

“Sex?”

“Of course. Why do you think that the prince wants you for his slave? He’s almost 15 and for his 16th birthday, the king will give him his slave-boy. You must be somebody real special for the king to believe that you’d be perfect for his favorite son.”

Suddenly, Theo started to panic. The older boy had been so nice. Of course, he wondered just why the older teen had been touching him so much. But that was bad. (He was trying his best to ignore the fact that it also felt SO good).

“Sorry Theo, maybe I shouldn’t have said about the sex stuff until you got more used to the idea of being the prince’s slave-boy. But I guess I sort of thought you had an idea. Your world must be really strange.”

Theo was thinking: “My world was strange?”

After dinner that night, eating with the entire royal family, king, queen, and all six kids, Theo kept looking over at Jett, the oldest boy who wanted him for his slave-boy. He couldn’t quite stop himself from looking at the bigger boy. Somehow he wanted felt drawn to him. And that was so wrong. He decided to go back home. Tomorrow was the third day.

That night he was invited by Jett to go for a trip around their “estate.” It was surely BIG. They were on horses -- the very first time he’d even been on one -- and after an hour they were not even gotten back yet.

“Hay Jett, how come everything looks so much like earth? I mean my earth.”

“This entire planet was terra-formed about 200 years ago. Most of the plants and animals, you see, are from my earth. Only a very few have been genetically grown to help with the terra-forming process.”

“What’s terry-forming?”

The discussion when on in that fashion for awhile. Finally Jett broached the subject of sex. He looked over at his boy, and felt a strong yearning. Just like his father’s. Well almost. Unlike his other brothers and sisters, he was his fathers 96% clone. (And they were really only his half-siblings. They were produced by his uncle to keep up appearances of the royal family. His father only wanted sex with HIS slave-boy). They had to keep the line relatively pure. Only those few differences which wouldn’t really matter were allowed to be different. Thus he was a little shorter than his father, and his sexual tastes were slightly different. Though he still had a yearning for boys. The differences were more in what he wanted to do to his future slave.

Theo, Kit told me earlier that you didn’t understand about these parts. I guess your planet is quite different. Sex between a man and a boy isn’t too common.”

Theo didn’t know what to think or how to answer. He was so embarrassed about this topic to begin with. So he did what he normally did.

“Jett, how come you’re a clone?” He learned about all that reading science fiction. Only it was for real here.

Jett stopped at the huge horse barn (he insisted in calling it a stable), and a small boy took the horses away. Theo though the kid rather cute. Jet led them to a big rock where they watched the beautiful sunset. Though the stars at night were all different, with that strange dark spot in the middle of the sky, the sun looked so much the same. Just the color was a tiny bit off. Jett said it was the air that caused the color to be different. Theo decided to think on that later.

“Theo,” when the new colony decided to set up a new government, they realized that democracy, after a while, just don’t work anymore. And it gets too expensive too. So they decided they would pick the government that was a combination of working most efficiently, and being good for the country.”

Theo HAD to interrupt. “But that’s not right. Democracy is the best. We know that from school.”

“Well, not when the people elected get too rich from special groups that “buy” their votes, and the regular people don’t care enough to change things.”

Theo was not especially convinced but the whole thing was more complicated then he could figure out. “So that doesn’t explain the clone part.”

“Well, they decided that they wanted a benevolent dictatorship, with only separate court system.”

Jett spent a while explaining that.

“But Jett, you STILL didn’t get to the clone part.”

“Well, they did find someone eventually whom they could trust to be a dictator and still not let the power corrupt. Someone who would still look after the interest of the people. But how could they then trust his SON who would become the next ruler?”

Theo needed no more prompting. ”OH! Hay, that‘s neat. Now I also understand about the 4% thing that don‘t matter.”

Then Theo, being the type of kid he was suddenly asked: “How come you want a boy for sex?”

That took another long explanation and it helped that Theo understood about being gay. “But Jett, my Mama and Dad always said it was wrong.”

Well Theo, what do you think?”

“I don’t know. Yesterday I would have said it was bad, but now I don’t know.” And in almost a non sequitor added: “And you have such different religions here.”

It was only much later that night, as he was snuggled up to his boy Theo -- big promise NO sex stuff -- before Jett understood that Theo’s comment WAS germane to the previous topic. He also realized that they might have to include a few changes in the boy’s understanding of right and wrong during his ‘training’ to insure he’d longer be troubled by such an insignificant thing as believing boy-boy sex was somehow wrong. It was how the two people cared for and loved each other that decided the morality of their relationship. Everyone knew that.