






Truckin’-eh

by Feather Touch

(M/b, mast, oral, rom.)
       
       
       “Morality is for the affluent,” I said, “and given a choice I think most of us would choose to have children raised without so much as a salacious thought or carnal experience of any kind until they fell madly in love with a proper partner and married and lived happily ever after.  That’s a golden ideal.  No dating, no time wasted on romance or emotion on pursuit or escape, no posing, no posturing, no finagling or stalking for eighteen or twenty years.  That’s my moral ideal and it’s as common as salt, but only as an ideal.  What really happens is perhaps one person in ten is handed the fairy-book options, the combination of prosperity and parent and peer involvement that amounts to a best-case scenario.  The rest of us have to make it up as we go along.  Is that kind of how you feel?”
       “I guess I don’t know how to feel, because I don’t know what the worst-case scenario is.”
       
       His name was Johnny Lane.  He hadn’t gone off with a tale of abuse or misfortune or anything like that, but did seem to have something on his mind.  I’d picked him up in what amounted the warming tail of a freakish mid-September blizzard and spent the previous ten minutes trying to figure out whether I should add or subtract years from his calendar.  On the one hand, his mind was of not only an older teen, but a brilliant older teen.  His voice, however, pegged him as possibly as young as ten.  Since I’d spent the night at Little America, the truck was cold soaked and Johnny had remained buttoned up to the maximum until the heater began to kick in, so there was a mostly brown lump of overcoat, collar, scarf, and hat; could even have been a girl.
       
       As you might expect, I’d quizzed on home, family, and tried to keep it short of the what-the-hell-are-you-doing-out-here routine, instinct telling me he’d had enough (or he wouldn’t be out here).  
       
       “Have you got a step-father?”  That was one of my first questions when he hadn’t just up and come out with a plausible story.  It had elicited a nod, and I’d left it at that as we’d scampered over a list of favorite authors and actually high-fived across the doghouse at the mention of a mutual favorite.  He was both precise and pithy, criticizing our favorite for writing a scene in which the narrator suggests that a woman should never walk from her lover while wearing a scanty costume.  I’d never figured that one out, either; what’s a gal meant to do, back away from el buffo for the rest of her life?  
       “But you know, half the time he was probably right,” Johnny peeped from the shotgun seat, “they don’t look so hot from the back.”  A mere minute or two brought us to the conclusion the writer was half sexist and half man.
       
       “I don’t like what he said about not inviting anyone of dubious sexuality on a trip in his hero’s boat,” I said, “especially when another of his principal characters is a devoted disciple of Keynes, who, I suppose, wasn’t dubious about being gay.”
       Johnny hadn’t said anything in response so I knew I was intruding, at the same time he seemed worth intruding on.  I delivered my morality speech, because something was cooking, I could tell by his body language.  The weather was breaking, the sun beating back the early storm, and his hat and scarf came off.
       
       “Well,” I replied, “the worse case I’ve read about is a young boy in Chicago who wore four pairs of pajamas to bed every night hoping his father wouldn’t touch him.”
       “It probably didn’t do any good,” my new friend said.
       
       “And he probably grew up like anyone else,” I countered, “when I was your age I had to eat half-cooked Brussels sprouts sitting in a pool of cold water.  They used to make my stomach heave, but I choked them down and never actually hurled.  You have to remember that ninety percent of the fun of being an adult is not being a kid, anymore.  It’s a hideous state of life; school, for openers, then a minefield of alternatives from cigarettes to being gang-banged by bikers and left for dead.  On top of this are the morality plays with their theoretical perfection in a hypocritical and deviant world, yet with many people playing by the rules, coloring inside the lines, and making out just fine, so you can’t say they’re all lies and nonsense.”
       
       I wanted, a, to get him home, and, b, get him some safely.  At the same time, it was a long run out to the coast – I was headed for Boeing – and I’d be back through Wyoming in a week or so.  He was out and about when I picked him up, so it was easy to rationalize any kidnapping or inappropriate-interference aspect to the situation.  Hat and scarf off, he was okay to look at, something that actually wasn’t important because of his bookish nature, but if someone’s going to share the cab of a truck for a week, well, it became a factor.  “What I’m going to do, if you want,” I said to Johnny, “is take a digital photo of you and send it to the sheriff in Sheridan saying I’ve picked you up and giving him our itinerary.  If anyone’s burning up his wires with the hots for you, we’ll be pulled over, otherwise, we’re covered – you’re not running away and I’m not abducting you.”
       “That would be okay,” the boy said after a moment’s thought.
       “It’s one gorgeous trip west,” I said, “and running Wyoming in fresh snow is not something you’re likely to forget.”
       
       I was being a little cute here, and it probably was exploitive or at least manipulative.  I cued up Smetana’s Moldau on the player, let the six hundred horsepower Allis Chalmers run as it would, and we dove off a mesa as the speedometer wound slowly past a hundred, and the dead cute part was a long freight I’d seen in the mirror that was rushing through the snow a quarter mile off to our right.  The instant we cleared the cut the engineer saw the game was afoot and his six engines belched a ton of black smoke.  I hit the Play button and the music crashed from eight speakers.  The race was on.   
       “Holy shit,” Johnny remarked in an awed whisper, “I mean, ye gods and little fishes.”  And there was a lot to try to fit into an exclamation, the blue and sliver string of diesels unequalled as a snow dragon, now pegging it at a hundred and ten, as we were.  
       “Uh-oh,” the sharp eyed kid said.
       He was right in his own way, a bear now discernable as a bear at half a mile or so.  
       “No one can blame this man,” I quoted.
       
       “George at Willy’s funeral,” Johnny shot back, not adding “from ‘Death of a Salesman’, as we were already high-fiving over the doghouse.  The distances and rate of closure looked right to me but I gave the boy a shrug to be on the safe so.  My confidence in him didn’t stem solely from the grandeur of the picture, I would have trusted him in a less intense situation, but it was nice to see him responding positively to the obvious, which he did by grinning happily.  
       I moved the truck into the passing line with its six inches of fresh powder, and eased down to a hundred to let the freight pull a little ahead.  The tracks obligingly narrowed on the Interstate, so now our adversary raced within a hundred yards of us.  The bear was doing about fifty as we crashed by him, train on his right, semi on his very immediate left, both blasting through the loose snow as if hell had long-since frozen.  I was taken aback to see the cruiser spin out from the blast of the cabover, but the bear took it in good stead.  I held my mike up to one of the speakers to heighten his experience, ran the race (I think we might have won) for a few more minutes, then settled back to the posted limit and the hardpack of the traveling lane.  
       
       “Don’t ever try that if it’s windy,” I advised Johnny who still had a happy smile on his cute face.
       “I don’t think I’d try it on Salt Lake,” the boy responded.
       “I guess it was kind of a morality play, itself,” I said, “most of the time you do what’s right and proper and moral and descent and good, but once in awhile you free yourself and take a chance.  The smokey could have had a fight with his girl, could be a rookie out to establish himself, could have just been reamed for this or that and have an attitude, and wouldn’t have been in the mood to be swung around, whatever the circumstances, but we won out; he was an okay guy, liked the show, and realized no one meant any harm.”
       
       “I get it,” Johnny responded, “and I’m glad there’s no chance involved in doing over a hundred miles an hour in six inches of snow.”
       “That amount of snow being spun through the tires,” I said, “gives them a fair amount of grip, plus the fact they’re spinning fast enough to clear themselves by centrifugal force, so, with good rubber, it’s not inherently dangerous.”
       “And sometimes it’s good to just pretend a tire won’t blow or an antelope jump from behind a guard rail,” the boy murmured (I’d lowered the music) with a nod.
       “I’d prefer thinking in terms of having used up all our good luck for the trip, so we’ll be extra careful from now on.”  That seemed to hit a positive note with Johnny and he nodded again, more enthusiastically.  By now the train was pulling well ahead, still a thing of rushing, hurricane beauty, and we sat back and watched, the “Moldau” at medium volume.  As the interior came up to normal temperature Johnny kept shedding, folding his discards neatly and placing them in the sleeper behind his seat.  He emerged as a slim early teen, more interesting looking than what they call eye candy.  To me the common ones are more intriguing than the cuties, but that’s just a matter of taste.  I also have a romantic notion of mind coming before face or body, and here was a hand in spades.
        
       “So,” I asked after a quiet half hour, “is it okay to quiz you about gross and embarrassing stuff, or should we stick to subjects like does ‘A Prayer for Owen Meany’ have the silliest ending of any novel, or not?”
       “Yes and no,” Johnny said, “yes it has a wacky ending, and no, I don’t mind if you ask me stuff about California politics.”
       Well, I happen to like them – not that there has been a number that would support a “them” – razor sharp.  I’d been off cable, even the occasional weekends I got off it between trips, for over a year, the theory being there was a finite amount of exposure to Israel endurable by the healthy mind.  I kept up by logging onto MSN every day, always looking for a piece titled: “Seven signs the jig is up,” before branching off into the absurd, so I had an idea what my new friend was talking about.
       
       “So many monkeys, so little money,” I responded, often finding, as evidently did my precocious  friend, considerable gallows humor in the folkways of the urban socialist.  Like Buster Keaton, I  refrained from laughing out loud – some people are so easily offended – but that didn’t detract from the merriment part and parcel of the theater of the striving-to-be absurd, but, since O.J. consigned to the realm of the pathetic if not the outright desolate.  I mean, hadn’t they voted for that?  The neutral gray of nonentity?  What, pray tell, did they want to replace it with?  California beaches verged on gray, murky water, the rocks covered with an algacic slime that seemed to suck all color from the world; what were they thinking of?  It was no place for the slightest tint or most subtle hue, never mind brilliance.  Not even a bright place, the slag heap of the leftists, yet someone wanted to govern it.  Imagine.  Of course, on the opposite coast the governor of Massachusetts’ inbox was choked with fourteen billion dollars in accounts payable to those working-class heroes, the thirty-dollar-an-hour sandhogs, so it was good to be truckin’ for grins and dreamin’ of leavin’.  See, I’m a pie-in-the-sky optimist by nature, and heaven knows life has been good enough to me, but a prerequisite to being positive or negative was being alive, in the first place, and remaining amongst the quick didn’t seem very likely in an atmosphere of ultra extreme materialism.  Better to get a nice little Lund sixteen footer, rig it with oars and a sail, and substance fish somewhere on the ample coasts of Mexico, luxuries confined to a couple of steamer trunks full of books and perhaps a friend who wouldn’t burden the camp with futureless children.  I know, optimism at a childish level, but what with the trawler-size diesel, racing the thundering train, the friendly laugh of the trooper,  the Smetana, and the nice young hitchhiker, well, who wouldn’t feel a little upbeat?  Yes, it was the first day of the rest of my life.
       
       “I hope,” I said after another comfortable pause, “you haven’t been so badly tampered with, tackled, abused, assaulted, molested, or raped, it’s an issue.”
       “That’s probably what you meant by ‘embarrassing’ and ‘gross’,” the boy responded.
       “If it’s worse than spelling ‘Schwarzenegger’, feel free to skip it,” I advised the boy.
       “It seems more like a joke when I’m with you,” the neat kid answered, and I carefully – so they wouldn’t spill – opened my cupboard reserved for gold stars in order to add another.  By this time we’d reached another major cross road and I pulled off.  It was not Middle America, but the parking lot verged on what amounted to tundra at that time of year, vast and sweeping to low hills, which would make an admirable background to a few photos.  I continued slowing on the traffic-free off ramp, finally pulling to the right and stopping.  I reached across the doghouse, grabbed the ninety-pounder, and hauled him into my lap, showing him how to set the axle button and move the shifter for first gear.  Tall boy.  He was able to take my place on the clutch, and, with his overcoat retrieved from the sleeper and placed under his butt, reach the pedals and see at the same time.  Explaining how the very thought of an accident would put me off me feed, I told him I’d meet him in the coffee shop, looped the strap of the camera bag over my shoulder, and left the truck, assuming the parking brake was plainly enough marked and obvious enough in function not to confuse the boy.
       
       Can I pick ‘em, or what?  I hadn’t walked fifty feet when I heard the pop and hiss of the brake being applied.  As I continued up the artificial grade  there were a couple of experimental rumbles of the engine, then the hiss of the releasing brake.  He almost stalled it once, slightly over revved on the second try, and the third time I heard the normal sounds of a thirty-five ton truck starting out from rest.   I hurried along in case Johnny had the wit to find second gear, and he steamed slowly behind me as I entered the front parking lot of the restaurant.  Realizing he’d probably be smiling, I changed my course and jogged to where he was beginning to back into an open parking slot.  I slowed to a walk to give the boy time and readied the camera, vaguely tuned into the snorting of the truck as Johnny experimented with moving the trailer (with its two fan-jet engines) in the mirrors.  Easy, of course, if you just take your time while you’re getting used to it.  He did, so I had no trouble being there when he dropped the left air window and, sure enough, smiled happily down at me.  I got the shot and he reached in to set the brake and kill the engine.  We took turns shooting each other, and, when he found out what the cargo was, boy that he was, nothing would do but he un-tarp the big Pratt and Whitneys so he could pose dramatically.  We used the tripod and self-timer to get a couple of group shots, then I exchanged the camera bag for the laptop, uploaded the images, got out the little snake of a battery-operated printer, and left my friend to re-tarp our expensive load while I adjourned to the coffee shop.
       
       “God, they’re just beautiful,” the thirteen year old whispered as he moved into the booth beside me.
       “It’s almost free to practice with a digital,” I said, but they were pretty good.  I rubbed his right thumb with ink and stuck it to the back of a print, doing the same on one of the pictures he’d taken of me.  Since cheek swabs are such a cinch, why not? even though I felt pretty stupid, and we smeared a little saliva beside our prints, then both signed our names.  I didn’t quiz Johnny about his provenance, but did include my family brokerage (I’m from old money)  as an always-current contact source.  I wrote a few paragraphs about what was happening and Johnny added a crisply penned some lines about how so far he was having a good time.  We signed again, stuck in four of the better pictures, and addressed the envelope to Sheridan, because when the conductor asked where to put Cheyenne, the stationmaster said: “Anywhere you want,” and it didn’t sound like a trustworthy place, somehow.  I ticked my logbook and Johnny ordered french toast with a grilled cheese back, rounding out his perfection in my eyes. 
       
       At that moment a bear entered the shop.  Tall, lean and sharp.  “Saw your rig,” he said, and placed a camcorder on the table.  Johnny looked up attentively, but kept studying the menu.  I plugged the camera into the laptop and the trooper pushed the Play button.  Pastoral wastelands without limit came up on the screen, then, on the right, the smoking train shouldering aside a ton of snow every few seconds, then an audible blast as we passed, a dramatic fade-to-white, and a surreal kaleidoscope of imagery ending with a long shot of train and truck disappearing in their twin clouds of snow.  “I was wondering if I could dub the Smetana,” the young man asked.
       “It’s not locked,” I said, nodding in the direction of my Marmon, “can we order you something?”  He opted for grilled cheese and milk and headed for the truck.
       “Did you copy it while it was playing?” Johnny asked.
       “Of course,” I said, and we replayed the sequence four or five times before the boy’s order came.  Ned Jerris, for that’s how he introduced himself as he returned.  I explained we’d made a copy for our own use, but he’d done the heavy lifting and had rights to the film as far as we were concerned.  I gave him the unsealed envelope for Sheridan and he penned a note on the paper, signing it over his badge number.  We took some video of each other in the both, then settled down to eat.  Old money or not, I hadn’t had many mornings like that in my life.  Heck, it wasn’t even nine-thirty.
       
       “We keep getting off the subject,” Johnny said once we were again traversing the wastelands.
       “I guess I’ve been kind of devious,” I admitted, “because I find you attractive as a boy.  I am interested in what may have happened to you, but my motive for asking is salacious, and I want to give you plenty of wiggle room if that’s not your cup of tea.”
       “Have you ever experimented with a boy my age?” he asked.  By the way, I’m thirty-two, slim, and okay looking.
       “Twice,” I said, “but a long time ago.  To get the matter out of the way, women find fault with me and I think I’m top molecule of cream in a conical bottle, so that reduces that issue considerably.”
       “They never fall for your modesty?” Johnny asked.
       “I don’t know,” I said, “I’ve tripled my inheritance with long-term investments, and added half a million a year from a little franchise I dreamed up, so to go around all awe-shucks, well, it just wouldn’t be right.  If you have an ego, you can let people get closer than if you don’t, because your vanity, of and by itself, will prevent ‘closer’ from becoming ‘too close’.  Theoretically, this should yield enduring friendships which don’t end in maudlin regret when separation finally occurs.”
       “It does keep things from being cut-and-dried, I can see that,” Johnny allowed.
       “Well, it’s my own invention,” the older male nodded, “tall tales that turn out to be true tales, but you have to stick around to find that out.  So far, none have.  And driving a truck was meant to be the answer: a good-bye to what is a very beautiful country in its western regions, and maybe finding someone who wasn’t all cocktail parties and country clubs, which gets pretty industrial after awhile.”
       “I guess I’m all library,” the boy noted.
       “Proactively or reactively?” I asked.
       
       “I started spending more time there when he moved in with my mom,” young Mr. Lane said, “but I was hooked in a week, especially on the magazines, so it kind of saved my skin.”
       “How big was the ‘p’ in predator?” I asked, not loath to trying a little soft-shoe syntax where it might keep things on a mild footing.
       “It was the ‘b’ for ‘belly’ that was the problem,” Johnny replied.  “I mean, I’m not a body-beautiful freak.  You don’t have to be Rick Schroeder to be my friend or anything, but there wouldn’t even have been room for the two of us in the shower, if I had wanted to, and that has to be a limit.”
       “It’s definitely my pet peeve,” I responded.  “Obesity, even over materialism, assuming it’s not the ultimate form of the latter, in the first place.”
       “It’s more like soggy cereal than material,” the thirteen year old added, and we high-five over the dog house, this time Johnny retaining my right hand, and insisting he be dragged along with it as I brought it back to it’s proper place on the steering wheel.  He released his hold and lay on his back, his hands linked behind his neck and his sneaker-shod feet stretching into the shotgun seat.
       “But there was enough ‘p’ that you ran away?” I asked, toying with his hair for a moment here and there.
       “It was probably more Huck Finn type of stuff,” the boy replied, “running to, not from.  Yes, Nestor was after me, and yes, he really strained the lock of my door one night, but, as you implied earlier, lots of boys go through that and it doesn’t make them walk like crabs or emit phosphorescent vapors.  I mean, I guess it wouldn’t have been any worse than a marine biologist messing with a walrus, or a hospital orderly dealing with fat patients, and probably wouldn’t have been any big deal one way or the other.  It was more an overall feeling of congestion.  Then you start reading about boys who did split at young ages, and made out just fine.  So, on balance, the risks and potential risks seemed about the same whether I stayed or left, while at the same time it seemed realizing any positive facet of the future likely meant hitting the road.”
       
       “And your mom?” I asked.
       “She half suggested it,” the boy laughed, “she ran away for two years when she was only eleven.  She kept in touch and brought me home when she was thirteen, then went back to school as if nothing had happened, except she won every writing contest open to kids her age, as well as several for adults.  She moved in with The Heap because he had ten thousand books in his digs.  When she found out I had two reasons for spending so much time at the library, she opened up on what a big world it was out there, and how many nice people there were, and how few bad ones, when you got right down to it, and further noted that for a boy an extended excursion over the horizon was best attempted before he grew hair on his legs.  She said she’d had the time of her life when she was on her own, but do send a continuous stream of messages, because mothers like to worry.  Then she left a thousand dollars under my pillow without actually giving it to me by way of encouraging me.”
       
       “She sounds like a keeper,” I said, perhaps never having heard so much common sense in so short a time.
       “Yeah,” the boy agreed, “but there’s also what you said when I first got aboard.  You know, no dating or anything until you get married when you’re twenty.  I can’t see that that would be too bad.”
       “It would be great,” I agreed, “so long as you, the male, remains faultless.  Women are like acid, they eat relentlessly at any defect, and the next thing you know, your soul leaks out and you catch hell for spilling on the carpet.”  As noted, I’m a card-carrying optimist and so didn’t go on about the less metaphysical leaking often associated with marriage.  Hell, he was old enough to read the papers.
       
       Now it did start to blow.  Warm.  From the south.  The remote thermometer was inching its way past 25 degrees Fahrenheit.  “This may sound a little convenient,” I said to Johnny, “but it turns out the weather forecast was wrong.  They said the North would continue until tomorrow, but it’s giving way, now.  That means winds and wet ice, and, not to put too fine a point on it, shacking up, probably for a day, maybe for two.”
       “Can we go back to Little America?” the boy asked.
       “Ah, yes,” I replied, “a boy with a thousand dollars and a truck stop with a roomful of arcade games.”
       “A boy with two thousand dollars,” he responded, “I had some money of my own, and it never occurred to me they might have games there.”
       “They have everything there,” I said.
       
       “A pool?” he asked.
       “Sure,” I replied.  “It’s probably the most interesting resort in the country.  We can kick back and at the same time be in tune with the pulse of an industrialism that exceeds a factory-perfect Manhattan.”  Johnny nodded up at me from his improvised bed and in less than forty minutes we came to an overpass and were able to head back east, nursing along at about fifty as the temperature kept climbing.  He rolled over on his stomach and fell sound asleep.  I parked, registered, left him a key, and settled in, having apparently completely rearranged my world without having accomplished anything.
       His key clicked in the lock just before noon.  He said thanks for letting him sleep, that he felt great, and disappeared into the bathroom.  
       “A honeymoon on our first date,” he chirped as he emerged, now dressed in a tee and gym shorts taken from his backpack, and barefoot.
	
	“I’ve never been a bride before,” I responded, and he thought that was way funny.  For my part, what was “way” was that it was way nice to have the issue laid to rest, as in assured, so I didn’t end up having to play creepy games, which I would not have wanted to play, but would have played, as it’s one thing to saunter the moral high road in the abstract and quite another to walk the straight and narrow in the presence of a leggy thirteen year old.  Meantime, the weather had turned to gusty rain.  We were lucky to have the rig parked, a cozy room, and a menu of diversions at hand.  Further cause for relaxation was the weatherman’s now solid report of a new high and a cold night ahead.  No place out there for a white man.  It was hard not to feel a little smug, and, when Johnny chose to look through the collection of paperbacks in my awol bag, instead of grabbing the remote wired to the table between the beds, impossible.  He pulled out Clavell’s “Shogun”.  “I just read this,” he said, “and I mean it’s a great story of an Englishman succeeding in Japan, but there’s a scene where a boy does something with a man and the result is ‘clouds and rain.’  I didn’t get that.”
       Totally impossible.
       
       “Did you get a boner when you read it?” I asked.
       “Yes,” Johnny whispered with a light blush.
       “Then you were on the right page,” I responded, “and the description will make sense to you one of these days.”
       “Can you tell me more?” he wanted to know.
       “If you want,” I said, “but it does bring the subject up again, The Heap notwithstanding.  I’ve been mulling it over and it seems to me it boils down to three choices.  The first is whether or not you’re happy to go on hanging out with me, or whether you might prefer to hang around the pool and sauna and explore on your own.”
       “With you,” the boy said immediately.
       
       “Okay,” I said, “that narrows it down to two.  Things that could happen as and when you want them to here in the room, or we could go hang out in the sauna, together.  This place is going to be packed to the rafters with stranded truckers and motorists.  It is likely a holiday atmosphere will ensue, for any other would be pointless.  An unrelated man and boy, both reasonably attractive, together in the sauna, the steam room, and at the pool are likely to attract attention, which could be quite open and maturely expressed, especially in the steam room which allows semi-privacy.  Add to this that there won’t be rooms for everybody, so any invitation we might extend to a fellow traveler would likely be readily accepted.  In short, there’s the potential for many clouds and much rain, if you are up for a full and satisfying entry into the nether world that’s such a distraction at your age if kept half secret and half hidden.”
       “Cool,” Johnny said, “as long as I can stay close to you.”
       “I think the standard rule in such a situation,” I explained, “is that you owe two things.  First, a polite dismissal if your fancy leads you off with someone else, and, second, a graphic description of what happens if you do end up alone with someone else for awhile.”
       “Don’t just disappear,” the boy rephrased, “and kiss and tell.”
       
       “I can’t think of any other,” I said.  “The balance thing will assert itself as it will.  I used to believe in nurture over nature, about ten to one, but I’ve seen so many beautifully nurtured people amount to nothing, and so many claw their way to success and fulfillment despite great odds, I’ve come to view them as about fifty-fifty.  Yes, all Hottentots are Hottentots, but in a complex culture kids are going to demonstrate what they’re really made of in a wide variety of ways, having more to do, I believe, with their genetic makeup than with their upbringing.  This is the long way of saying that you will find the level of your supposed instincts whether it’s truck-stop boy pussy or devoted husband.”
       “We went out at a hundred,” Johnny noted, “and came back at fifty.  Each made sense at the time, though the first was certainly more engaging.  I think I learned from the lesson.”
       “I think you learned before the lesson,” I responded.   
       
       While he’d been napping I’d checked MSN to catch the latest on the hurricane.  I’m kind of allergic to the reporting of these storms, having twice partied far inside the red donut to light and variable winds, with less than an inch of rain.  It’s s simple sales tool; take a natural vortex, speed it up a thousand times, then color it red and report the winds at twenty-thousand feet, not actually saying they are winds aloft, but instead comparing them to categories such as four and five.  Whoever makes money off this marketing gimmick, interspersed with inflammatory photos of Galveston, and the like, does so at the cost of enormous human suffering, because evacuation is purely hell on the way away from home, whatever the weather.  Well, we had a ruling class of notorious worry-worts and something like a hurricane fit neatly into one of their worry boxes (while obesity and materialism were hardly worth mentioning).  It was jumped-up, whacked-out, and time to get out.
       
       Where had we gone hopelessly astray?  At the precise moment in history: when Ford had been dumped for pardoning Nixon.  This affirmed our new leadership’s power to nitpick and destroy, but, simultaneously placed the entire country in the delicious position of deserving what it got.  An easily manipulated, disgruntled, subliterate citizenry, well, weren’t they but a toy one wouldn’t mind breaking?  Silly Peanuts had won the ensuing election and history had repeated itself when another good-ole boy had won over a ninety-six percent approved president whom the Leadership held responsible for a two percent rise from historically low (and internationally laughable) levels of unemployment.  Two wrongs may not make a right, but two jokes of this size will both inspire and sustain a comedy.  You bet I was feeling a little smug.
       
       “Do you want to watch them sell generators at Home Depot?” I asked the boy sitting beside me on one of the beds, “or go adventuring.”
       “I like talking to you,” he answered.
       “Well,” I responded, “it doesn’t all have to be books and politics.”
       “So you could tell me a little about the steam room?” the thirteen year old asked, coloring.
       “You mean what it’s like to be in a room with a dozen or two young guys dressed in towels, and no females present?” I asked.
       “Is that true?” Johnny whispered nervously.
       “Not normally,” I said, “on and average night you might meet a person or two to chat with, and once in awhile a cute guy who wants to visit in your room, and maybe once a month or so, and I’m extrapolating from anecdotal evidence, a man and boy, probably not father and son.  But with the road conditions, it will probably be very different.”
       “Glad I got a nap,” Johnny noted.
       “Well,” I said, “if you want the good ship Future launched to a tumult of popping champagne bottles, this is probably the best place you could be.”
       “This is the best place I could be,” he responded, wriggling against me to drive home the point.  And yes, it didn’t help with the smugness issue.  He asked how many times I’d hung out in the steam room, and I said four times in the last year, plus hearing some stories and most notably stories concerning holiday traffic.
       “And this will be even better,” he mused, then asked what we should wear.  Yes, he had trunks in his backpack, as I had in my luggage, and so that’s how we went, bath towels around our waists.  Bare chested, he was a lithe beauty, his sinewy torso actually accented by his plainer but still cute face with its conventional short, brown hair and eyes that were far more intelligent than photogenic.  He had bigger, slightly stick out ears and knobby knees; big feet.  He transcended cute by a country mile, an actual masterpiece of provocatively gawkish hobbledehoy; Norman Rockwell, couldn’t have chosen better to represent a farm boy in overalls.  His bathing trunks were just that; the modest, baggy style, nor did I, hairless teen body notwithstanding, sport anything resembling a thong.  Just a regular old bathing suit.
       
       I may have been dressed conservatively for the occasion, but it was a lie.  Honest to god, I’ve never been half so excited in my life.  Al Gore giving a graceful concession speech, outlining the vagaries of trying to count two hundred million of anything, and standing firm to the precedent set by Richard Nixon on the occasion of his highly suspicious loss to the playboy, wouldn’t have thrilled me as much as the sounds of the approaching pool and Johnny’s right hand instinctively finding my left.
       
       We passed an alcove for an ice machine and I pulled him in.  “There are a lot of people there,” I said, “so I want to be sure you know what you want.  
       “I just don’t want to wake up,” he said pinching one hand with the other.
       “Well,” I responded, “my knees are shaking and I’ve never had that happen in a dream.  And this should be the more exciting because it’s a fickle-finger selection – just who happened to be in the area of the storm – not like holidays when the semi-professionals are out stalking.”
       “How can you tell who they are?” Johnny asked.
       “I don’t know, exactly,” I replied, “as this is essentially a first time for me, but I would imagine they say too much, too fast and sound a little too plausible.”
       “Like the thugee?” he asked, and we high-fived in front of the ice machine, then marched on.
       
       As a boy I was an indifferent hunter, confining myself to knocking an occasional red squirrel out of a tree as a test of marksmanship, but never experiencing anything approaching the thrill of the stalk and shot.  On the door to the domed pool, there was a note.  “Do to weather emergency,” it said, “normal bathing-suit restrictions are lifted.”  It was signed: The Management and someone had carefully penned in Top for The, and several others had added exclamation marks.   The thrill of the hunt.  I suddenly felt fully qualified to write a book on the subject, at the same time knowing I was unable to write porn for its own sake.  In fact, the title of anything I could actually set down would likely be “Beyond the Beacon”, for that’s where we are.  The glow on horizon is now directly overhead, and the ocean or desert ahead, take your choice, displays no others.  In common terms, the beacon was lighted about 18880; this being a time when technology, primarily steam and the telegraph began to influence the lives of ordinary people on a daily basis.  For forty years, thereafter, there was a string of fiery future lights, dozens of major points surrounded by a glowing field of bonfires.  Not the slightest chance of getting lost.  But we passed cars, roads, electricity, radio and television, finally homing on a single source, the personal computer and Internet, at which we have arrived.  For the first time in well over a century, and from an academic standpoint, well over two centuries (dating from the first chronometer and steam engines), there is not the vaguest trace of light on the horizon.  Where the government should have, for example, been assiduously at work getting fiber optic cable “the last mile”, it dithered on socialism, so this possible beacon is as far off as electric cars – invisible.  The glare is all behind us; does its light pollution obscure a star or two?  I don’t think so.  I think there is nothing out there.  We have a hundred times more than we ever expected; that which was barely conceivable twenty years ago is now a commodity and of little future interest.  The syndrome can even be measured by desperate-measures excesses exemplified by the Segway power scooter; design for its own sake.  NASA is yet spending billions on a space empire for the sake of a space empire.  Iridium pulled together maximum credentialed brilliance from a hundred fields, none having the remotest grasp of common sense.  These are all flags at the end of the track.  The industrial and digital revolutions are over.  We’d better get used to it.  To wandering in the dark, very likely to fall victim to those who build fires for the sake of building fires, far different from the beacons of Westinghouse, Ford, or Singer.  Now I know it’s silly of me going around pretending a writer has the answers, when that’s my craft, and, truth to tell, I don’t look it that way.  I think what a writer knows is the pitfalls and crags of history; how inclusive and merciless political and religious insanity can turn into whirlwinds, and, in our mega-complex present state of being, how such formerly regional disturbances could now throw the entire mechanism out of kilter without the ballast of a large agrarian population.  This heightened awareness of danger and calamity inspires a passion for alternatives, and though the writer is a mere writer, and not some kind of giant utopian-web spinning spider, he feels he should not comment, leaving it for others to pull their heads out of the sand, take a look around, and react.  Ideally, these would be the elected representatives of the populace action conscientiously for the goals of the general public, but you can’t even type out a statement like that without coming off as sarcastic or pathetic.  So it becomes a default issue.  Your duty is to inform the bridge, not steer the ship, but you notice no one else is on the bridge, and, if luck is with you, when you swing the wheel to the right, the ship will turn to the right, just like your car does, so, hallooing to be sure no one’s dozing in the chart room, you take the wheel and resume the course while you figure out what’s going on.  Our course should be a political marriage with China, to the extent our official national title becomes: Emersonia, First State of China, and China’s official name becomes:  China, First State of Emersonia.  This becomes the beacon, and there are others listed in other writings.  Otherwise, it’s dark and dangerous and the chance of survival, as any real desert wanderer or ocean drifter could tell you, amounts to zero.  
       
       I’m quite happily writing this to myself.  I’ve done Nifty for 1.2 million words; that seems like enough.  David didn’t acknowledge my last submission “The Last Farewell” which I assume means he wasn’t interested, likely because it had a long discourse on colonialism, plus it may have been lighter on the sex than my usual work.  In any event it either brings to a close or represents a hiatus in the most significant literary amalgamation in history.  This amounts to great writer, huge archive, and, while it would be nice to have a “thanks, but no more” note, that would be gilding a most extraordinary lily.  To start from zero in published fiction, and in less than three years become the most widely read new writer of a generation, not because of some colossal fluke effort like “Frankenstein” but through an accumulation of two dozen titles is a singular achievement.  The tortoise and the hare.  It could have naught but a brilliant ending, and it, at the end, I drive off the lot like Spencer Tracy (he was an s.o.b. over contracts and technicalities), with the barest wave from the security guard, well, that’s how I drive off the lot.  
       
       How sad for writers to need to be popular, Mr. King, et al, who do it for money and recognition.  Not the milieu of the artist, not by a million miles.  David has been extraordinarily flexible and tolerant, even allowing me to publish his e-mails without permission; in fact, has eliminated but a single sentence in a huge pile of manuscript.  But even this becomes a trap, because I nurse no frustrations (beacons, if you will) over things I haven’t said, been unallowed to say; trapped, because the willful child has been given his head at all junctures.  In other words, the slate is wiped flawlessly clean.  No residual issues, and, far from regrets, a level of satisfaction that goes: did I really do that? like some diligent Alger character.  Leaving what else to do?  Isn’t the fate of the willful child to have nothing in reserve?  Nothing he hasn’t been allowed to do?   No looking back to say “what if” or “if only”.  No looking forward, either: “I need to, I should, I ought to, I want to, or even, I don’t want to.  
       
       It can’t have happened to too many.  A handful of entrepreneurs, mostly of recent vintage, who ended up, with no heroic struggle on their part, emperors of vast industrial kingdoms, having surpassed by an unlimited number of times what was expected of them or what they expected of or even dreamed of themselves.  In the world of art, the competition, to use a simple word, exists not at all.  Nothing great is being turned out by anybody, and when the subject is writing, nothing that is even good.  Where the King of Biff was “The Greatest” I end up being “The Only”.  I tower oppositely.  Others are boosted by their egos, mine bends me.  Ego gets lost in a Dostoyevsky or Faulkner, they were miserable round-and-round; mine stands out like a sore thumb because it is my only defect.  I fail perfection only to the extent of three-quarters of a pack of cigarettes a day, and two U.S. dollars worth of marijuana.  I, for example, keep my hands off my underage girlfriend when I could easily tie her in place with a little financial extortion (seeing as how I’m sole supporter her entire family).  It doesn’t happen.  I gamble no dollar, consume no pint, chase no skirt, and dally, more than once in awhile, a little bit, with no boy.  Colorless.  A grinding scribe.  Only being the greatest who ever lived to separate me from the masses, and leave me a little nonplussed over how I should act, in light of this, because there is no one to teach me.  By the same token, there is no one to teach; as far as I can see, no one capable of learning ten percent.  I suppose this is some kind of default mechanism at play; lacking anyone with whom to engage (I mean, they can’t even find anyone to replace those old sopchowders Mailer, Bellow, and Updike) the most sensible option seems to be quietly tell the truth; just plunk the puppy down in black and white.
       
       Is Total Success to be counted among the hazards faced by those who get what they wish for?  Does it completely stall the psychic processes?  I’ve done so much I don’t have to do any more.  Shouldn’t that attitude, if you ever attain it at all, come in the mid-seventies?  Is that why some artist develop opulent lifestyles: because it keeps them producing to pay the thick stacks of bills?   That works against my general theory of the artist, and that is that he must be too lazy to produce anything but his absolute best.   And there is another bug in the formula: adhering to the doctrine yields a simple lifestyle, in so many words, a modest lifestyle, and modesty breeds popularity, and it may be possible to think of a bigger waste of time than popularity, but I can’t do it.  So, to repeat, it’s a sad life for the commercial boys: producing what others want and making popular.  No place for an artist.  
       
       While I’m thinking in terms of trying a stint at ASSTR, my self-indulgent whining over having done-it-all, notwithstanding, I do approach with some caution.  They recently sent a note to writers (I have one story, “Jimmy and Frogger” on the archive, posted in Dec. of 2000, and so am on the mailing list), promoting a contest for anniversary stories.  There was a link to artwork that was suggested for story themes, so I clicked it.  It turned out to be a commercial site for some guy hawking what was probably rejected Playboy material, drawings of luscious lovelies no more alternative than boo.  What has impressed me is the high level of readership of “Jimmy and Fogger” (usually over 500 a week, after nearly three years.  In fact, I use that readership to gauge my overall downloads, which I peg and 15 to 20 thousand a week).  Now, whether or not they can tolerate the “political stuff” is another matter.  I won’t write porn without it, because someone else has already been there and done that.   
       
       I frequently write to other writers in various essays, and usually in very negative terms.  I slipped into it under complex circumstances, and, though I have had the opportunity and the tools to develop my skills beyond those of any other, it’s an accomplishment only satisfying in its own right.  No one, for example, has ever written to say, hey, I like your dialogue, if you can pep up this screenplay I’m working on, I’ll send you ten grand.  In other words, you can excel to your heat’s content, and you’ll be shrugged off, even by your editor, as if you didn’t exist.  How do you react?  You mumble a quick prayer of thanks for the time thus freed up and keep working.  You know things about yourself, at this level, no one can tell you and no one has to tell you.  For example, your iron grasp on immortality.  Who remembers the emperors  and bishops, the kings and popes?  But we all remember Mozart.  And not only to work at that level, but to be able to tell of yourself and your art as you do so.  No other artist can; his work is everything, his life and thoughts only of interest to scholars and aficionados.   Whereas the writer gets to even tell what he’s not thinking.  If he doesn’t think civilization can exist much longer on its present course, he can say so.  If he doesn’t think it’s worth saving, he can not only say so but do so in mocking and derisive terminology, getting a hell of a kick out of the kicking.  It’s the world’s only unlimited license, being a writer; more specifically, being a pornographer.  A thirteen year old boy in white, cotton underpants is the most tantalizingly beautiful of natural or unnatural creations; such a bait the readerfish will swim in pursuit through a maelstrom of rapids and churning boulders; over falls and through stagnant pools, imbuing the writer with tacit permission to say everything and anything he wishes, beat and bruise as he will, so long as that glimmer of white flashes within possible reach.  All of which is a polite way to say I’ve outdone myself with this little Truckin’ script, having the inexperienced schoolboy at the very door of a “rules-off” pool of a rainy afternoon, an unrestricted license (seeing as how thrilling is more engaging, in our common era, than killing).  
       
       The search for something nice to say.  Trying to keep it from becoming a frustration.  Knowing, at heart, you’re happily optimistic, yet being unable to look in any direction and find the least sign of positive activity or anything to be optimistic about.  How thin is this ice?  Well, in “Slate Magazine” (on the MSN browser) the Segway makes an appearance, a small group and a writer trying them out in Paris.  Now, I’ve written this device off as symbolic of the end of the Industrial and Technological Revolutions; of a vehicle built because the gyroscopes and sensors make it possible, not because it might serve a useful purpose.  And here is the machine rolling around in Paris.  It would be nice to be wrong about this, to have erroneously dismissed the transporter as ludicrously dangerous and overtly impractical, and find it, after all, at least a glimmer of light on the vacant horizon: sales in the tens of millions, a virtual new paradigm of the magic carpet variety – step and scoot – and an industrial engine kicking in just as personal computers are descending through appliance to commodity.  Oddly, I could make great use of a Segway.  I live two miles from town and am pretty well crippled up by chronic phlebitis, making walking more of a chore than even the burden of a lazy nature would have it.  Tilt and go.  Tilt and return.  Tilt to the store and test the gyros and logic chips by tilting, tilting, and seeing if it would get me home all nice and stable and upright.  So, on this one, I’ll hope I’m wrong.  Yes, I still have great concern over the safety of the machine; it’s unavoidable capacity to slam you down on your face, your legs trapped between the big wheels, at the slightest miscue, but maybe that just doesn’t happen very often.  I worry about it as a tripping hazard, its handle parallel to the floor in its stored condition, but maybe it has some sort of kickstand so it can be parked in a vertical position.  As “It” the Segway was hyped as, a, having a revolutionary new power source (hydrogen was hinted at) to give is useful range, and, b, that it would be able to climb scares.  What has emerged is a side-by-side wheels scooter with the short range typical of battery-powered devices, and the only way it would handle a staircase would be to launch the rider bodily half-way up.  
       
       Continuing on, Amazon has several pages of info that seem to put the transporter in a maybe category.  Five thousand dollars is something of a barrier, but a good power wheelchair probably costs about the same.  It does seem to have a kick stand, which is good news.  The sensors, motors, and gear train are perhaps more than incremental advances and may turn out to have other applications.  The safety aspect is addressed, you have to take a rider course before you take delivery, while the various writers deem in easy and intuitive; hard to do wrong.  Damn, it would be nice to be wrong about something.  With obesity, materialism, and socialism putting us down for the count, it would be nice the see a product I deem highly dangerous if used en-masse take off and become the very something-out-there I claim does not exist.  Amazon, it should be noted, does not stock them or offer delivery, perhaps a position on a list.  This brings back memories of the BD-5, a one seat rocket of a light aircraft supposedly able to cruise at nearly three hundred miles an hour on a snowmobile engine.  As I recall, a few advanced hobbyists were able to make their kits fly, but the machine never approached commercial distribution.   So, for once, I’m hedging my bets, letting one optimistic puppy out of the kennel.   I do not go so far as predicting success, I mean a basic principle of walking is leaving nothing behind you, and thousands of people arriving anywhere, and leaving something behind them, has philosophical ramifications akin to occupying two places at one time and engenders nightmares of one more vehicle to park.  A forest of bicycles is, for example, one thing, they’re probably worth, on average, a hundred dollars each.  But a forest of easily-carried machines worth several thousand dollars apiece?  I mean, isn’t that almost funny?   Its carrying capacity is limited to 250 pounds, severely limiting its appeal to those who need it most, but this is obviously revisable in future models.  One thing it’s hard to tall about at this point, is comfort.  I once spent ten minutes in the kitchen of a fellow who lived in an ancient house with 5’10’’ ceilings, and even having to bend-over but an inch was extremely tiring and uncomfortable.  If you have to ride the thing bent forward, you’ll be hearing from your back if you use it much.  And this need not be a sales issue.  The big motorcycle makers sell huge numbers of street-legal racing bikes, whereon the rider holds his legs in a position of tortuous discomfort in order to look cool.  
       
       An essential characteristic of something new is its ability to inspire the poet.  Here the transporter becomes almost exciting, for, as AOL was built on the proclivities of the pedophile, so is this option open to the Segway.  “Sunday in the Park with Seg”.  Why doesn’t it practically write itself; the magnetic appeal to bright eye children?  Teaching this or that favorite as you might teach archery?  Inviting the brightest of the bright or cutest of the cute, depending, again, on proclivity, home for advanced lessons?  In other words, are we to be, once again, the heroes and salvers of humanity as we were with our monasteries, with our going down to the sea in ships (in search of likely middies), and our avid support of the nuclear Internet as it transitioned from government and industry to the subdivision and den.  For me, this is going to be an ego nightmare.  Already ranking among top Web contributors, if not defining number one am I now to be faced with an additional major contribution though the mechanism of a series of Segway-based stories, leaving little doubt as to the attractive power of the machine in urban, suburban, and rural environments?   
       
       As veteran readers from over Nifty way know, I’m an artist-king; long list of stove-bolt credentials.  I’ll delay dithering on provenance, it’s all out there, somewhere, but, rather, cut to the chase by saying if I were and empowered king, rather than court jester, I’d emulate about the only thing I’ve ever heard good about the French.  Specifically, the government bought the patents of the early photographer, Daguerre, paying him handsomely with a lifetime annuity, and distributed Daguerre’s patents without restriction.  I’d do the same with the Segway.  Buy the patents an a plump price, and let the markets bring the price down to the six or eight hundred dollars the machine is actually worth.  In other words, the profile is identical to personal computers and the Net.  Pedophiles to get things rolling, a thing they can do since they are wealthier and smarter than the public at large, then crash the price with clones.  Sales goal, twenty million units in six years.  
       
       As a prolific inventor, myself, I do have one specific suggestion.  A battery strap (or belt).  This could be worn around the waist or suspended from a point on the steering column; and would simply be plugged in to add considerable power and range and, also, to allow a convenient way to carry the batteries to and from a charging location that is removed from the location of the parked machine.  Taking this a step further, would be a backpack mounted battery, a unit which could weight ten or fifteen pounds (with room in the pack for luggage).  One additional step and we have a storm suit with a number of battery packs both to keep the rider warm, and power his machine.  So, machine, battery belt, and backpack, and you’d have a fifty mile range, plus great flexibility when it came to re-charging.  
       
       I’ll do my bit in future stories – leave out the politics and ego tripping, but I think Segway would be smart, you know, just to help out, if they’d take a high road on advertising, emphasizing the fashion over the engineering; for example, an appealing male model showing it to preppy kid (like Mazda’s zoom-zoom boy) in Central Park. “GQ”, that kind of deal.  One generation had the Gibson girl, another the Marlboro man, and in my mind it’s time for the Segway Boy, complete with licensed tee shirt.
       
       Additionally, there’s hacking and tricking.  Not that it would ever be capable of a wheelie, but say a little gas-powered two-stroke running a generator that would hop the voltage up from 72 to about 150 with a top speed of about thirty miles and hour.  This leads to racing and competition which would be several steps ahead of existing robotic warrior events.  At the high-voltage end, how about a pantograph that connects the machine to overhead wires like an electric bus or dodge-em cars, for drag racing.
       
       Do we all see how this is the key?  Marketing strategy over vibrating gyro design?  Maintaining a high profit profile while serving the affluent and savvy  perv market, then rolling the extra loot into getting the price down?  It isn’t shooting fish in a barrel, but it could work, it could be a reprise of the Model T.  All it has to do is inspire the poet in all of us.
       
       In sum, it is more than a collection of off-the-self gizmos tricked up to make a gadget, as I once alluded.  Sorry.  Good stuff, and, while Amazon’s boldly stated refusal to ship anywhere outside the U.S. is a predictable drag, I’ll keep my eyes open and hope the puppy makes it across all eight lanes of freeway traffic before he decides to turn around and come home.  Meantime, even as a non-owner, I’m a beneficiary by dint of having reached a point in my writing where I stall out unless I’m thinking two stories ahead, thus finding the inspiration to finish the one I’m on.  
       
       
       I pushed the door open for the boy.  “Minnows,” was his first word, whispered excitedly.  Having read Clavell, myself, I knew my young teen beauty was referring to a number of boys ages six to eight, the likes of whom, in a previous age, had graced the bathing pools of the Sumari, their lithe, fishlike bodies undoubtedly adding to the attraction of a more mature male partner.  Cute minnows, and apparently a whole Cub Scout troop of them.
       A security guard got our attention as we entered the noisy den.  “Begging your pardon, gov’nor,” he said in a real British accent, “all the bars will be closed for the duration, and we request any overt activities be confined to the sauna and the steam bath.”  Sometimes top management can be defined in a well spoken sentence.  I nodded our thanks and handed him a hundred dollar bill, realizing, as I did so, if the world were an excellent place, I’d be one broke dude.
       
       We took our bearings.  I’m too old to yip with excitement, and Johnny too inexperienced.  The group was for the most part male and was an interesting display of natural selection at work.  By this I mean birds of a feather flocked together, the huskier and older in one area, grading to the cub cuties splashing in the shallow end.  There was no nudity, and half the swimmers appeared to be in swimming togs of one kind or another, while the other half wore either underwear or cut-offs.  Displaying was similarly restrained, perhaps half a dozen of the younger men being pretty open with their child partners, anyway, enough to tell, but no open fondling or bad touching.  The minnows thought my fish was the cat’s meow, so I stole his towel, grabbed him by the elbows, swung him in three tight circles, and launched him into the middle of the yelping scouts in an attempt to break the ice.  He tucked into a neat cannonball while airborne, and that was it for the cold stuff.  I was begged, beseeched and implored to repeat my performance by a tribe of sixty pounders, and did my best, powerful glad when their two male leaders came to spell me.  In the water, the kids were all over both of us, all of them.  I don’t know if I was reverse engineering my theory on juvenile sexuality, at the time, or not, but my theory has it ALL boys gently introduced in friendly circumstances, exactly such as a pool, will to only happily yield, but happily lead if they know what will happen.  There were no hangers-back, no wall flower, the entire dozen were all over the two of us, and the tighter and more openly we hugged this child or that, to a boy, the more enthusiastically they wriggled and the more avidly they returned for more.  Fortunately, they’d also developed a new interest in their two attractive young leaders and it almost seemed as if the two twenty-somethings in charge were learning a thing or two about prepubescent male children, at the same time.  What began to seem strange and improper was the thought that, under ordinary circumstances, we would NOT end up in private and naked with the youngsters.  Downright weird.  But, of course, not the case or I’d hardly be going on and on about Mickey, Stan, Renaldo, and their younger troop mates.  
       
       After awhile, our energy levels waned and we sat along a wall at the shallow end, Mitch and Hal, the leaders beside Johnny and me, the scouts gathered in front of us, backs against our knees as they seemed interested in looking in the same direction as the big folk, and that was toward the doors to the men’s steam room and sauna about fifty feet away.  What I said before about the thrill of the hunt?  Forget it.  Thrills are for roller coasters and fireworks.  This was nothing like that.  Way too cheap.  Nine year old Renaldo for example, a shyer golden Hispanic with raven hair, huge brown eyes, and a smile that could best be described as insatiable, because it would be impossible to get enough of it, and touching him inside his bathing suit, first in back, then, when he gave permission by turning, in front, then peeling him naked, why that wouldn’t cost a cent, on the one hand, and was so obvious an attraction, on the other, that it was cheap and common as dirt.  He was seated against Johnny’s knees, and I was aware of my guest’s muscles flexing almost imperceptibly as he returned the subtle pressures of the boy in the water.  
       
       The routine at the twin doors of the spa facilities seemed settled and organized.  The males would strip modestly out of their suits, underwear, or shorts, under their towels, hang the wet garments on the provided hooks, and enter.  Again the Darwinian thing kicked in, a group of second string, i.e.,, bigger and older, exited together, and what that probably meant did nothing to attenuate the rising tension in all of us.  All that was needed to light the powder was a spark, and we were rewarded with a pair, an athletic swimmer looking about twenty five and a lean, willowy boy about sixteen.  They whispered together for a few moments at the door to the steam room, then they boy removed his underpants as his partner steadied him with his hands, the younger male moving subtly against his friend as the older male got naked under his towel.  A moment before they swung open the door, they turned and looked directly at the group of us, looked into the room, then turned and looked at us again, nodding imperceptibly.  The boys against both my knees wriggled, pushing back as hard as they could, and, to sum up, twelve out of twelve, plus two leaders, and not a dissenter in the pack. 
       
       “We really should say something to them,” the older leader, Mitch said.  “It’s not something it would be good to be wrong about.”  He looked at me as if cueing me, and, in truth, I was sort of senior guy present, so I decided to help out if I could.
       “Boys,” I said, “do you all want to go into the steam room?”
       They nodded as one.
       “Okay,” I responded, “you can, but we have to talk for a few minutes first.”  Again, they nodded.
       
       “It may be pretty graphic and explicit in there,” I began, “things you’ve read about or heard about or seen in pictures actually happening in the absence of females.  Do you get the picture?”  Yes, they all whispered.  “And you know the door’s not locked, there are no guards, and no one’s going to think thing-one about you if it’s not your cup of tea and you want to leave, okay?”  Nods.  I’m a great believer in anticipation, the wish about half the time exceeding the reality, so I prolonged my role as ad hoc master of ceremonies.  “Boys,” I continued, “do any of you know what’s going to happen after we leave our bathing suits on the pegs and go inside?”
       
       Two boys raised their hands.
       “Do you know from experience?” I quizzed, not having to let my voice get a little husky, for it did so automatically.
       “From experience,” they both whispered.
       “So you know what the man we just saw is going to do with the boy when we go in to watch them?” I then asked, and they both nodded.
       “Is there any reason you can think of,” I said, “based on your experience, that any of your friends shouldn’t go in with us?”  To this they both shook their heads, an immediate No.
       
       “When you got molested,” I went on, “was there semen involved?  Did you get sperm on you?”  Here they both nodded.  “Okay,” I added, “that’s the last thing I wanted to warn you guys about.  It’s one thing to fantasize and even to watch, but it can be different when a young adult starts cumming all over your chest or on your lips or your penis.  If you’re ready for it, you’ll probably like it, but, when you get older and are teaching boys, in your turns, be careful, because it can be really gross for a kid who isn’t prepared.  Okay?”  There may be something more exciting running around loose than twelve nascent pedophiles nodding thoughtfully, but I’m doing the best I can with what I have to work with.  As far as I could see, there was no possibility of any place in the world offering a higher high than this pool and spa in the middle of Wyoming.  It beggared the poor old language.  Yes, the artists got away with it, especially the religious dudes, with their portraits of biblical figures all arched in sinewy display, but the writing crowd got short shrift.  Instead of millions of colors, and infinite varieties of shape and form, we get a few dozen words, most of them of now use at all in describing what was to happen beyond the frosted glass door leading into the steam room, the self-same room as had now six pairs of underpants, all looking pretty small, and two swimsuits hanging on the adjoining wall.
       
       To have walked in, alone, would be to challenge every skill of the scrivener; to do so with a coltish thirteen year old, two attractive young scout leaders, and a dozen Cub Scouts, all nicely indoctrinated and desensitized, well, the language just gives out.
       
       “One last last statement,” I said as we began standing.  “Besides getting semen on your bodies, you can get it in your mouths.  The fluid is heavy, salty, and cloying, especially in adults, so if you’re interested at all, ease into it and don’t count on an older male being able to warn you when he cums.  Okay?”  If there’s anything cuter than minnows it’s agreeable children and their syncopated nods were beyond music.  We emerged from the pool, found our various towels and spent a minute drying off a little and wrapping the towels around our waists, then headed for the steamed-up door.  It would have been nice to have more privacy as I would love to have molested Johnny a little while I reached up under his towel to get him naked, but, as you might expect, every eye on the place was on us, so any funny business was out.  
       
       Yes, we could have been a Sunday school outing changing into cress costumes, neat towels, quick motions, all so matter of fact it hardly warrants description.  I opened the door for the tribe and they entered Jonah, the steam room (the dry sauna was Ahab).  The lower benches were white tile, the upper, teak.  The room was maybe twenty feet by six, the seats separated by enough of an alley to allow movement but close enough that it would be possible for adults, sitting forward, to touch knees.  The upper wooden benches were low, at shoulder height when sitting and comfortable to lean against.  The interior was free-form and cave-like, rather than geometric and clinical, softly bathed in flattering light.  It was steamy and warm, but not oppressive.  But it this way, if god’s done half such a job with heaven, the chosen are finally in for a treat.
       “Hi,” everyone said nervously, half struck dumb by a reality beyond comprehension.  The four we hadn’t seen turned out to be a thirty year old uncle, his nephew, Todd, Johnny’s age, and his two best friends, also thirteen.  Jeff and Neil were the man and boy couple who’d nodded to us, and that was an inventory of the cave dwellers.  Once again, everyone looked to me as the oldest, and, since I had no one to look up to, I did the best I could.
       
       “Two of the boys with us,” I began, nodding at Mitch and Hal, “have done secret things with older males, so maybe they’d like to tell us a little about what happened.”  If I say so myself, it was just the right touch, because I don’t think any of us wanted to go rostering off like cheap-thrills lowlifes, while just sitting staring at each other and the big tents in all the towels would have been uncomfortable after awhile.  “And,” I went on, sensing permission from my audience, “while I’m sure their stories are exciting, it would probably add to the sense of occasion if we were to drop our towels, fold them, and sit on them.  Allowing time for a nod of approval, I wobbled to my feet, took a deep breath, and led my tribe, my circumcised seven inches feeling about twice as hard as anything I’d experienced, freaking ever.  We followed by age, and in a minute were all naked, staring at each other, and obviously ready for the soprano voice of an eight year old telling about his first time alone with a mature male.  The two boys who’d acknowledged having been manhandled looked at each other, the older, his name was Tim, accepting the honor of going first.  Instinctively, the boy seated himself in the lap of Hal, the younger scout leader, and, as the man’s arms went around him, began his story, his voice a sensual combination of squeaks and whispers.
       
       “We were on a long drive,” he said, “my art teacher and I, taking some pictures of his to a state exhibition.  A few days before, in my regular class, the teacher suddenly got very nervous one afternoon and said she had to teach us some special things.  We’d heard rumors about ‘the dolls’, so we got nervous, too.  Anyway, she gave us the lecture and showed us the anatomically correct – at least I learned how to pronounce it – boy and girl.  It didn’t get less embarrassing,” the boy went on, “but it did stop.”
       
       He paused for a moment, and we all shuffled around getting comfortable and nodding for Tim to continue.  By this time, I had Johnny in my lap, and he had Renaldo in his.  We kept our hands on each other’s flanks and tried not to wriggle too much, afraid that Tim might take it as impatience with his story.
       
       “My art teacher’s name was George and I asked him why Miss Ireland had gotten so nervous,” the eight year old said, “and he said that he had a different opinion on that than most people, but that it, his opinion, was very mature and he shouldn’t talk about it with a boy my age, because it was gross to some kids, and others just weren’t ready for it.
       “I sensed he wasn’t being evasive or tempting me with reverse psychology, he wasn’t that type, but rather that it was serious and he’d tell me if I was serious about wanting to know, and would be willing to accept a lot more than the demeanor of one teacher if we discussed it.  I read a lot and I tend to snow adults without meaning to, so I sat there hoping I hadn’t be too erudite for my own good.  George smiled, asked if I was absolutely sure, sort of like you did out by the pool, and then told me that the dolls were symbols of very intense feelings and feelings that were often in a very confused state.
       
       “He went on to explain why, emphasizing he was telling me his opinion and I should keep my powder dry until I knew enough to have my own.  In his opinion, the tension all of us felt over the anatomical dolls was a symptom of unnatural lifestyles wherein what should be natural, if private, is not only denied but made to seem some kind of big, weird taboo and ultra colossal sin of degenerate and unspeakable loathsomeness.  Boiled down, the natural instinct for, and the extreme cultural bias against, caused the conflict in Miss Ireland’s attitude.”
       
       “Do people do it because they’re persecuted?” I asked George, “you know, the way the Mormons and others drew strength from the hatred they engendered in their communities.”
       “That’s a good guess,” my teacher responded, “but I think it’s actually the other way around.  There is nothing in religion but sham sold as faith, whereas a man who enters into a relationship with a willing boy has the article and not the faith.  In fact, I think the outrage of the morally superior isn’t an amalgamating force, but rather a humbling one, allowing otherwise white and normal men to feel the sour breath accorded the despised minority and thus come to endure travails of victimization otherwise denied them.”
       “Multi-faceted,” I murmured, and George reached across and squeezed my knee.
       “The supple lad and the chance to role play as the scum of the earth,” he laughed, “I’ll work with that as a definition of multi-faceted, any day.”
       “It’s nice to be needed,” I said, and he thought that was pretty funny and squeezed my knee again.
       
       “Tim,” he said, his voice serious, “two things are true.  First, if it happens reasonably well with a boy, it becomes a highlight of his life and the very definition of a lasting memory, and, second, it doesn’t mean a thing.  That’s part of the reason your teacher was uptight.  She knew she was making an issue where none existed, because the actual act between an adult and child amounts to about a hill of squat.  It’s intensely exciting, yet it means nothing.  That’s the enigma.  I mean, you’d think with sports we’d be used to a high level of engagement in the frivolous, but it doesn’t seem to transfer over to sexual relationships.  Those we take penitentiary serious in twenty-year installments.”
       “I know it’s really illegal and stuff,” I said, trying not to let utter contempt for the law show in my voice, because I’m a regular kid and like do what’s right and what everyone else is doing, at least most of the time. 
       “It’s actually highly tolerated,” George responded, “and you’ll find open secrets in almost any group; the priest with his favorite altar boy is a classic example, or the neighbor who lets the kid next door come use his pool anytime he wants.  Even our taking this trip together; give everyone who knows about it truth serum, and they’ll probably admit to a high level of suspicion, yet no one will say anything when we get home other than what you’d expect them to say.”
       
       “It all sounds better than it would be if it were socially acceptable,” I said.
       “That’s the ultimate irony,” George responded, “the very tut-tutting of the morally superior, even in the abstract, adds just the right degree of something extra over and above what we’d feel if it was kosher and legal.”
       “Sort of mostly secret but once in awhile you can tell, too,” I said, trying to summarize my thoughts, and this was especially hard because we’d just passed a sign saying ‘Rest Area – 2 Miles.’”
       “’Rest area, two miles.’” George read off, looking over at me.
       “Cool,” I said, “I’m not tired a bit.”
       “Are you excited?” he asked.
       
       “Totally,” I replied, “more than I ever imagined I could be.  More than Christmas and birthdays and having my watercolor selected for the exhibit – one of them was mine, I forgot to mention that – and I can’t think of any more because life isn’t very exciting these days.”
       “I feel the same,” George whispered, “and it’s our old friend ‘multi-faceted’.  On the one hand, I’ve never molested a boy as young as you, and the last time I touched any boy, he was twelve, was over two years ago.  On the other hand, teaching you, indoctrinating you, well, that probably means you’ll grow up to want to touch willing boys once in awhile, yourself, so I’m excited for that gift I’m able to give and for the feelings you’ll have, and the boy will have, when your turn comes.”
       “How long to I have to wait?” I asked.
       “Until you have sperm,” George replied, “that’s when you’ll become very exciting to boys your age now, especially curious, intelligent, and artistic boys because they can imagine the beauty of a young male spilling his seed.”
       
       “I’m glad you’re young,” I said as he put on the right blinker and we began slowing down.
       “I guess I’m kind of lucky that way,” George admitted, “but the way it is, even the thought of touching a boy your age is exciting and enduring enough to keep the pizza man at bay.”
       We pulled into a space and he stopped the engine.  There were a couple of dozen cars parked and a few people coming and going to let their dogs run or use the restrooms.  
       “Tim,” he whispered, “it can happen two different ways.  Privately and secretively in the back seat.  I have a light blanket in the trunk to cover us up in case anyone walks by.  Or, I can molest you in one of the stalls in the men’s room.  We can spill a little Coke on ourselves, grab some paper towels, and if the wrong person comes along, we can say I’m just cleaning us up, and have the wet shorts to prove it, you know, if things got more exciting than we want them.  Otherwise, I’ll molest you as we’re pretending to clean up, and since it would be perfectly normal for me to help you, since I got Coke on me, too, we can leave the door of the stall open.”
       
       “That sounds like the most exciting thing in the world,” I said, at a total loss to think of anything even half so awesome.
       “I’ll get you bare chested here in the car,” George then explained, “and we’ll walk to the toilet.  When we’re in the stall, I’ll be wiping you off from behind with your shorts down around your ankles.  If someone nice looking comes in, you signal me, and I’ll pull your underpants down and take them and your shorts all the way off.  He’ll come in the stall with us and I’ll sit back on the seat with you in my lap.  He probably won’t be able to get naked with us, but he’ll still be able to masturbate on you and cover your chest and belly with his cum, okay?”
       “And you will, too?” I asked in response.
       
       
       “It may be just me,” he replied.  “But if you’ve never watched a young adult cum before, it’s pretty exciting, and if you have, it’s twice as exciting, so, if we engage in our little theatric exercise – I wouldn’t necessarily call it a game – you’ll probably get to watch at least one attractive male ejaculate while his semen slicks your chest and belly with thick, white fluid.”
       “I’m glad you’re an artist,” I said.
       “What happens can range from pig sticking to Rembrandt,” George observed.  “It’s intensely complex and exciting, yet means nothing, so appreciating it from the aesthetic viewpoint is, next to having kids with a good wife, and here’s to that, the ultimate aspect of the expression.”
       “And I’m not allowed to go off on some tangent,” I said, “and start drawing nothing but men cumming on boys or drooling over pencils, am I right?”
       “The higher level of mental health you retain, throughout,” George replied, “the more explicitly you’ll be rewarded as you mature.”
       “Shoot,” I responded, “lots of psychiatrists think psychosis is largely self-inflicted – deliberately self-inflicted – so I was hoping you might tilt me into lala land where an idle mind is a happy mind.”
       
       “If you don’t take it as what it is, beautiful, and nothing else, I’m not responsible,” the man said.
       “Half secret and all beautiful; totally exciting, and buck-naked free,” I mused.  It did seem pretty wonderful.
       “Okay,” George continued, “first piece of evidence.  It happens like this.  We’re play wrestling over the soda can.”  He got one from the cooler and I crossed to his seat behind the wheel.  “As we’re fooling around, pop, it splits and leaks.”  This we did, tussling until the can ruptured.  “I’d better get that shirt off,” he said and I raised my arms.  “Thee are towels in the trunk, just a minute,” he said, then pulled the latch and got out of the car.  He came back and knelt on the seat, stripping out of his shirt as he handed me the roll of towels.  Then I got out the driver’s door, he locked the door, and we started walking down the path.  “You’re very beautiful,” he whispered as we approached the rest rooms.
       
       “You are, too,” I said.  He put his right arm around my waist and I put my arm around his legs, then we got inside.  First, we rinsed our shirts in one of the sinks, then we – I think it was to reinforce the appearance of innocence – took the first stall.  He went in first and stripped naked, pulling me gently against him so I could feel his penis all big and hot and hard against my bare back.  “If a cop comes, it will go down extremely fast,” he whispered, his tone saying not-to-worry.  But that didn’t happen.  He undid my belt and unzipped my shorts and dropped them to my feet, then he started molesting me by running his hands gently all over my tummy and chest.  A door opened and a fat man came out.  George pulled my shorts up and said, “sorry, just finishing,” when the man looked up.  He kept going.  Then he took my shorts down again and started touching me, this time up high on my legs.  I put my arms behind me so I could pull him closer, because I really like the feeling of his boner against me.  This time the outer door opened and he reached down to pull my shorts back up.  It was a shy looking boy, about nineteen, with kind of a lot of acne scars.  He had black hair, kind of medium cut, and was sort of rangy and craggy looking, not all neat and cute.  He used the toilet for a minute, but looked over at us.  I didn’t have to say anything, George fondled me while Sam – that was his name – watched, then he pulled my underpants off and picked up them and my shorts – I was barefoot – and hung them over the door, moving a little from behind me, so the older boy could see he was naked, too.  “We’re just cleaning up a little spilled soda,” he whispered to Sam.  He hesitated a minute looking toward the door, then came over to us.  “If you have a few minutes, could you help us out by rinsing off these clothes?”  He nodded at our shirts and shorts and underwear hanging on the wall of the stall.
       
       “Sure,” Sam said, and took the wet things to the sink.  We left the door open and Sam watched George teaching me.  It was just a little cola, so in a minute he was done and brought the cloths back.  “Thanks,” we both said.  “Would you like to come in with us while they dry a little?” he asked.
       “Okay,” Sam whispered.
       “It’s Tim’s first time,” he said as the teenager pulled the door closed behind us.
       “He’s really beautiful,” Sam said, no longer trying to hide the huge bulge in his denim shorts.
       “Have you ever molested a child before?” George whispered.
       “No,” Sam replied, “I’ve just let a couple of guys do stuff under a blanket.  Mostly I study, but once in awhile I guess I get thinking about something happening, so I drive out here and get in someone’s car for a few minutes.”
       “So you’ve never been naked while it was happening?” I asked.
       “No,” the boy blushed, “just with my zipper open.”
       “I think Tim would really like it,” my teacher whispered, “if you’d be naked with us for just a few minutes.”
       “The two guys who did stuff with me both told me that the squad care peeps his wailer as he drives in,” the boy told us.
       “Awesome,” I said, and, yeah, I know the word is trite do to mega usage, but the thought we were safe with Sam was kinda way beyond ‘cool’.
       
       By this time, George had me in his lap, is penis jutting up between my thighs.  He took my hands in his and guided them to Sam.  Sam bent over so he could undo his top button, meantime, I undid his belt and unfastened his shorts.  It was like the painting we were talking about, you’d need a hundred colors to  stand for the feelings of unzipping the shorts of a tall, slim teenager and leaving him standing in his white, cotton underpants.  George guided Sam into displaying for us, and he leaned back against the door with his hands behind his head and spread his legs.  We sat back just to look for two or three minutes.  He was so beautiful, you could see why any kind of picture or photograph is forbidden.  They’d stop the world.  Nothing could be that exciting, yet he was.  We sat forward on the seat and Sam moved to us.  George taught me how to touch him, especially his nipples and up high on his legs.  “Do you want to experiment with kissing?” he whispered in my ear.  I nodded and he lifted me so I stood on the rim of the bowl, that made me the perfect height.
       
       “I’ve never done this, at all,” the older boy whispered, and then we tried it.  It was a little bumpy and silly at first, but that didn’t last.  It was everything we wanted to do with each other, give to and take from each other, but sort of in miniature, I guess.  In a minute I knew he wanted my lips and tongue on his penis and that he wanted to experiment with me that way, too.  It was like we asked each other a lot of questions, and trusted the answers, so then we just settled down to mash and fool around for its own sake.  Then I was ready.  George could tell and lowered me slowly down, letting me lick and kiss Sam all over until I got to his underpants.  I touched him on the outside.  I’d have to describe it as as big as a fill grown ear of corn, you know, without the husk, of course, and he was just as hard.  I went back up to kiss him and make him another full promise, then spent a long time molesting him with George before we pulled his briefs down, waiting a second for him to hang them on the door hook.  Then he displayed again, leaning back against the door of the stall. 
       
       “I couldn’t take gym and do sports because I got this way when I was about eleven,” he said.  I don’t think his boner was nine inches long, but I’ll bet it was over eight.  George was huge and beautiful, but Sam was unique; not gaunt at all but very tall and slim, and just hugely male.  His slightly craggy face, his boyish body, and his huge, thick penis so hard it glistened like steel, well, I didn’t need to have my art teacher along to know I was looking at something impossible to equal, but it was nice, and especially so when George lifted me up and turned me around with my feet on the edge of the bowl like when we’d experimented with kissing.  Sam came up behind me and pushed his boner up between my legs, then he started molesting me with both hands, kissing me on the head and shoulders.  There goes that ‘awesome’ again, and if not right then, for sure when George rose up to kiss me while he fondled me with both hands and started jerking me off, his bare chest against me.  And it wasn’t so much the feelings of their hands and lips on me, it was knowing they were both full of sperm and I was going to see it, I mean it seemed impossible, that there could be more, but I could sense them getting hotter and more excited and I knew it was going to happen all over me unless there was a tornado
       
       Most of all, I wanted to do what I’d promised Sam with my lips against his tongue, so after a about five minutes I turned and George lowered me back to his lap  to while Sam came to me.  George guided my hand to him and taught me to masturbate him, then lowered my head really gently, and I started touching him with my tongue, especially where there was a lot of seminal fluid.  Sam leaned forward and braced himself on the wall, then spread his legs wide and pushed to me.  I could just get some of him in my mouth, but George reached around from behind me and showed me how to cup him just right with my left hand and continue masturbating him with my right hand.  That was perfect, especially with George’s huge penis hot and hard against my chest while I had Sam in my mouth and hands.   
       
       While we’d been whispering and getting naked, a couple of people had left the restroom, and now the door opened again.  Two males – we assumed because it was the men’s room – crossed to the urinals.  We stopped, which I thought was great because I could feel George and Sam both really tensing up and I wanted to get molested a lot more before they got me wet.  Then we heard voices.
       “I don’t really have to use this,” a soprano voice said.  I wouldn’t have guessed either George or Sam could have gotten any harder, but they both did, instantly, when they heard that high voice that was a little bit croaky.  “I just wanted to ask you some things about the camp while we weren’t driving and I thought maybe we could sit in a stall and talk for awhile.”
       
       “If it makes you nervous, Mel,” an older voice said, “we don’t have to even go.  There are lots of regular water parks and adventure parks.  It’s your vacation.”  
       “No,” the boy said quickly, “I’m dying to go with you, it’s just that I have some questions.”
       “Fine,” the older male said, and they took the stall next to ours.  If I bent my head I could see the older guy sit on the seat and the boy sit in his lap.  They were both barefoot like all of us were, so it was easy to tell from more than their voices they were young.  
       “So what’s on your mind, cuz,” the older voice said as they got comfortable.
       “Okay, say I’m walking around by myself and a guy wants to like take pictures of me or go for a walk or something?”
       “How would you feel,” the older cousin said “if that didn’t happen?”
       
       There was a long silence, and I think all of us sympathized with the boy, me especially, because he sounded only a few years older than I was and I knew how hard it would be for me to admit that the wholesome option never even occurred to me, I mean how would that sound?
       “Mel,” the older male went on, “that will happen.  Guys will invite you to their rooms to play computer games or watch videos, go for walks, go swimming at one of the hidden pools, and those are just a few of the choices.  The whole point of having your first experiences there is to teach you that; to let you go wild a few times, if it’s in your makeup to do so, and it is, for most of us, and then to learn what the limits are by negotiating the slippery slope for yourself.  No one there will give you any kind of disease, not one there will even pressure you to do anything, much less force you.  In many cases you won’t want to accept the invitation, and a polite shake of the head and No, thanks, is all the armor you need.  In other cases, you will find the other male attractive, and go with him.  In some cases, you will be proactive and invite someone, who, I absolutely guarantee, will go with you.”
       
       “And if I go with anyone, they’ll want to touch me?  Does that always happen, Donny?”
       “Yes,” the older boy said (his voice wavering between boy and man as Mel’s was between child and boy), “but to varying degrees.  When I took your cousin Frank half the time they physical part was over in a few minutes, but they ended up spending hours or days together because they liked each other.  Other times he got molested for an hour, then it was over and not much was said.  Usually, it’s about in the middle.  You spend an hour or two with a new partner, may visit with him a time or two more, then lose interest.”
       “But not with you, Donny,” the boy said quickly.
       “That’s why they did the phone interviews with us,” the cousin said, “they run them through a polygraph, and only let us come if we’re a dedicated couple, I mean in the sense of being friends, outside anything that might happen while we’re at the nudist camp.  About once in seven or eight hundred times a boy and his older partner split up and exchange partners, or one goes home without a partner, while attending, and they want to keep it that way.”
       
       “Nothing they’ll have to worry about with us,” Mel said.
       “We passed pretty high on all their tests,” his cousin agreed, “and it will be interesting to see if it can be reduced to science.  If it’s like chemistry right; you get all the ingredients and solvents and temperatures exactly right, and poof, you get perfect plastic, or something like that.  But in this case the ingredients aren’t sodium and copper, they’re related to lifestyle and physical characteristics.  Chuck Werner told me even if we hadn’t been cousins, we would have passed the screening in the high ninetieth percentile, then he added ten percent because we’re redheads and look ten and fourteen instead of being thirteen and seventeen. “
       
       This was so incredible.  Just listening.  It was echoey, so we could hear even when their voices got really hoarse and low.  We had our backpacks with our extra clothes – the drying thing was kind of a ploy to keep Sam with us – on the floor, so no one could see our feet; I mean, it could have been one hippie using the stall, you know how they like to travel, plus they always wear headphones, so Mel and Donny wouldn’t think anyone was listening.
       
       
       I should interrupt here just for a moment, because we were.  First, we all wanted to give young Tim a round of applause, not exactly clapping, but nodding and touching him, in appreciation of his extreme articulateness and his excellent pacing.  As we were lauding him in our own quiet way, there was a gentle tap and the frosted door and an older teen looked in.  “My dad says it’s okay if I hang out here for awhile, is that okay?” he asked.  
       “Sure,” I said.  We’d all used towels to hide ourselves at the boy’s thoughtful tap, and so I added: “Tim here’s telling a mature story about something that happened to him at the beginning of the summer,” I added, “if that’s okay with you.”
       The young athlete introduced himself and Nathan and entered, letting the door close behind him and standing for a moment.
       “I asked the scouts,” I said, nodding to the group who nodded back, “if any of them were experienced with older males, and Tim raised his hand, so he’s telling us about what happened to him.”  The new boy had calm eyes and a shy smile.  He fit in immediately and two of the eight year olds spontaneously went to him and pulled down his white briefs, guiding him in close to the rest of us and then sitting in his lap.
       
       “Have you molested children before?” I whispered to him.
       “There’s a boy who lives down the street that wants me to,” Nathan said, “but I’m afraid I’ll get in trouble or mess him up or something.  My dad kind of encourages me to, you know, not saying anything direct, but just encouraging our being together and saying it’s okay if we use the bathroom together if we want to; stuff like that.  When we got trapped by the storm and he found out from the security guard that there might be something happening in the steam room, he suggested I come down and hang out for awhile.”
       “That’s almost exactly like Sam’s story,” Tim continued, and we all nodded for him to continue, meantime, stripping away our towels and displaying for the new boy, who was beautifully hard and big, himself.  “We found out because we started whispering a little while we were listening to the teenager and his little cousin in the next stall.”
       
       
       “Donny,” their voices went on in the echoing men’s room, “if I do like someone that invites me, what will he do when he gets me alone?”  
       “He’ll probably ask you a few questions,” the older male replied.  “First, he’ll ask if you like to share your secrets, because some boys don’t like to, then, if you nod your head, he’ll ask you about the first time you were touched, and, if you want, he’ll tell you about his first time, to.  Sometimes it goes on from there, the whispering part, but usually it’s just one or two stories as a couple gets to know each other.”
       “Can I tell him?” Mel asked.
       “The rule at ‘Totally Scientific’,” Donny replied, “is that you don’t have to say anything, but if you do want to whisper to him, you should tell only the truth.  You can be very graphic, but don’t make things up or exaggerate.  Don’t be phony.”
       “I see,” the boy responded.
       “It’s not really a game,” the older cousin went on, “but in a way you play it like one.  By acting shy and reserved; not quite flighty and innocent, that’s overdoing it, but, for sure, not bold and aggressive, because that’s the realm of the dollar boys, the hustlers: ‘hey, Mack, how’d you like me to muckle on to your man meat and suck your eardrums into your balls;’ that kind of thing.  It has it’s place, but not at ‘Totally Scientific’.”
       
       They were quiet for awhile, I think we hear Donny putting his hands up under Mel’s shirt and their breathing got a little heavier.  That’s when we whispered ourselves, and Sam told us about a ten year old name Sebastian in his neighborhood, and how he thought the boy wanted him, Sam, to teach him.
       
       “Do you think you’ll like this in the hands of another cute guy?” we heard whispered.
       “I want it to be with you a lot, first,” Mel whispered back.
       “What happens a lot,” the older voice responded, “it that the older partner stays with his boy the first few times he submits to another man or boy.”
       “You’d watch?” the beautiful voice chirped.
       “If you wanted,” his cousin said.
       “That would be so – perfect,” Mel hissed, “because I’d like to experiment a little, but I don’t like the though of anyone else touching me the way you are.”
       “Would you like to watch me touch another boy this way?” came the hoarse whisper.
       “As long as I could be right beside you,” Mel said.
       
       “I should ask you about that,” Donny said, “how you’ll feel about the most personal part of being with another male, getting his seed on your body.  If I was molesting a boy while you watched and he started to ejaculate, would you want me to hold his penis against you, or let him spray off somewhere else?”
       “No,” the boy again hissed, “on me.”
       “Where?” the older cousin husked, “where would you like his sperm?  On your chest and belly or on your thighs and penis?”
       “Could there be more than one?” was the child’s next question.
       “A few times,” Donny said.  “The camp has a special arrangement with the military, and sometimes as many as fifty young guys show up at one time.  Since they seem to deem us alpha material, I guess it means you can have several mature guys cum all over you.”
       “Could you hold me like this while it was happening?” came the pretty voice.
       “I could masturbate you and two or three males could sperm on my hand while I’m jerking you off.  Semen’s very slick just after a buy sprays, so it would feel really nice.”
       “Let me feel how it feels without any sperm on me,” Mel said.
       
       I didn’t know what anybody else in our stall might have been waiting for as far a cue went, but that was enough for this kid.  I knew that my little bare foot would be the best way to bridge the gap between the two stalls, so I wriggled off George’s lap.  Mel had spread his legs wide to show he was ready for his cousin to touch him, so his foot was almost over in our stall, anyway, and I ran my toes into his and began wiggling them.
       
       
       Once again we interrupted our brilliant young purveyor of oral legend.  We all petted and stroked him as he smiled shyly, a magnet for us all but to an extra degree to the new boy, Nathan, who seemed somewhere the far side of transfixed.  Everyone sensed it, and Tim’s avid response, so in a moment or two the older teen was sitting across from Johnny and myself, his huge penis jutting up between the eight year old’s tender, white thighs, the hot, purple tip of his erection slicking Tim’s now panting chest with seminal fluid.  By now we were all masturbating each other openly, maintaining a gentle surge with our underage boys as we felt them slowly tense on our laps and in our arms while they handled we adults with equal care.
       
       
       There was a moment of silence from next door, then a whispered, “Hi.”
       “Hi,” we whispered back, George taking the lead and continuing on to say that there were three of us.
       “Have you been listening to us?” Donny asked.
       “Yes,” I said, feeling my canary voice would be the least threatening.
       There was a little excited but inaudible whispering from their stall.  “Would it be safe for us to get together?” Donny asked.  George told them Sam’s story about the polite trooper who kept an eye on the rest area, then suggested we move down to the last two stalls, more on the basis that we didn’t want to freak anyone out than because it had to do with safety.  They replied that that was cool with them, and we could hear them standing up.  “We’re naked,” George then informed them.
       
       “I’ve just got Mel’s shirt open,” Donny said as we gathered our things and opened the door to our stall.  Theirs opened at the same time, and we gathered around, George and Sam both standing behind be and touching me while they came out.  They hadn’t been fooling, they looked like a boy and a kid, only the kid had a huge erection in his gym shorts.  Donny, looking maybe fourteen, quickly stripped out of his clothes and got his cousin bare chested for us to see, then we moved down to the end of the room, finding, because of the wheelchair thing, there was room for all of us.  Indeed, with our packs on the floor, even someone looking carefully couldn’t see any feet, much less how many there were.  We huddled around Mel, still in his gym shorts, the three older males molesting him while George held me up so we could experiment with kissing.  “Try it this way, first,” he suggested as he lifted me, indicating I should link my fingers behind my neck and arch toward Mel.  He did the same and the brought us very slowly together so just our bare chests touched.  That was incredible, and it was about two minutes before we even wanted to experiment with our lips on each other.  That was another five minutes, then George lowered me off the rim of the good old toilet bowl, and I pulled Mel’s shorts down.  He was wearing a supporter strap, and I pulled that down, too, getting him naked while the others hung his clothes over the door.  Now he was definitely at least thirteen, and, even though he only had the tiniest wisp of red hair, he looked almost like an adult and almost as big as his cousin, who was as big as George and almost as big and hard as Sam.  For a few minutes we just looked down at each other and tried a little touching.
       “Mel,” Donny whispered, breaking our panting silence, “this is the way it will start with males you’re alone with at camp.”  He demonstrated what he meant by standing behind his cousin and putting his hands on his inner shoulders, I guess his collar bone.  “The rule is, if the touch makes you uncomfortable, say so right away, and move away.  If you agree to more than a few seconds of this, they you’re promising your partner to go all the way, not change your mind five minutes later.”
       “I understand,” Mel responded.  “What should I do if I like it.”
       
       “Not too much,” his cousin answered.  “Just stand still and let it go on.  In a minute or two, once he’s sure of you, the older male will ask if you want to whisper.  Same rule applies.  You’re free to say, “sorry,” but if you do nod your head, you should let him quiz you quite a bit and answer without embellishing.  He’ll ask you how old you were when you started and who taught you.  If you have a steady partner, which is just to give you an opening, because you wouldn’t be there if you didn’t, and probably if you’ve started teaching younger boys.  He’ll also ask you what kind of language you like to use, again, this is rhetorical because the camp doesn’t think it’s the right place for funk talk about wads and loads and the words monkeys would use if they could use words in the first place.  This gives you a chance to say ‘sperm’ and ‘penis’ for him, which is culturally very exciting.  After that, he’ll ask if you’re old enough to have adults cum in your mouth and if you’ve ever had anyone up inside your bottom.  It may sound a little cut and dried, but science has a way of leading you through the initially apparent to more fundamental truths, and  Totally Scientific has fined-tuned the science with their super polygraph, you know, the one they used to categorize our phone conversations, so they know not only what best suits most, but what best suits the limited range of paranormal guests they accept.  So, yes, the list of question complies to a formula, but also, yes, it’s the best list.”
       
       By this time we were standing slightly apart from Donny and Mel, letting him be the only one to touch his beautiful redheaded cousin.  I was glad I had two athletic young adults molesting me, I can tell you, because it kept things at least half even.  Donny’s hands went down over the thirteen year old’s shoulders, and came to rest on his flanks, just above his waist.  “If it happens at school or somewhere where you’re dressed,” he advised the boy, “the man will hold you for a minute or two like this, pulling you gently to him so you can feel his penis against your back, then slide his hands around in front, low on your stomach, and start pulling your shirt out of your pants.  You’ll understand better when you’re older, but the feeling of a young boy’s body and the softness and warmth of his bare skin are more intense than most erotic alternatives, in their entirety.  In fact, if it isn’t possible to do more, many men will just fondle your bare belly and chest for a few minutes, and then kiss you on the neck and be satisfied.”
       “I understand,” the boy repeated, his handsome cousin now pulling him close and openly fondling him as we watched.  It was the most beautiful thing you ever saw in all your born days.  George guided Mel’s hands up around his cousin’s neck and the boy spread his legs wide and arched.  That made it even more beautiful.  
       
       “In a situation like this,” George said, taking on the role of leader because he was a little older than we were and Donny was panting too hard to do much talking, “the older male always cums off while the younger boys are still fully excited.”  As he said it, he pulled me against his right hip, placing my left arm around his waist and my right hand on his hard penis.  “Masturbate me on Mel,” he whispered.  Sam huddled behind me, pushing his penis up between my legs and then guiding my right hand as I started stroking my art teacher.  This time it was different, not temporizing while we listened to the whispering next door, but really doing it, jerking him off, because someone was going to die of excitement if we kept getting over stimulated.  I liked doing it fast and hard with George, listening to his breath start coming in gasps as he began to tense up in every muscle of his body, especially his penis which got hotter and harder.  Sam helped guide me so I was holding George against Donny’s hand as he jerked Mel off.  We kept balance by leaning against each other and the walls, and tried to keep from making too much noise.  It went on and on, two minutes, then three, then George whispered, “I’m cumming.”  Donny stopped masturbating his cousin, holding him still, and Sam showed me how to hold my teacher still by sliding my hand to the base of his boner, then gripping really hard.  It took a little while, but all of a sudden we all gasped out loud and there was hot sperm splashing everywhere, but most of it filling Donny’s cupped fist.  There was never anything so perfect, not ever, and it kept going on and on.  I think both us kids were surprised, and Sam, too.  You know, two or three spurts, that’s what we were expecting, not that we knew much about it, but after two or three it was just starting.  I was so excited watching him be mature I would have hugged him right in half if I’d had the strength.  It went on so long, Donny started fondling and stroking his little cousin while it was happening, so for half a minute Mel was getting jerked off and having a young athlete cum all over him while it was happening.  Then it was pretty easy to tell the thirteen year old was tensing up to cum in Donny’s hand.  Sam whispered to me: “His sperm will be lighter and gentler than mine,” he said, “why don’t you take him in your mouth, first?”  George and Sam both held me in position as I nodded, and I took the head of Mel’s six inch penis in my mouth.  “Hold him against the tip of your tongue,” Sam advised me and I did as he suggested, letting his cousin keep jerking him off while I licked and kissed him and sucked him a little, too.  That didn’t even last two minutes.  Then he started shaking all over and said, “it’s happening with me.”  By now I had to be dead and floating.  All the preaching against, and this was the reality, the totally wildest thing possible, then suddenly a hot, fast, hard, slightly salty gusher that filled my mouth.  It’s not as nice with a man, I’ll tell you frankly; the sperm’s too thick and salty to take more than a few drops, but with a thirteen year old, well, all I can say, is if you know one, even if he might be a little fat and not the best friend you ever had, rope him and hog-tie him, then get him to ejaculate on the tip of your tongue.
       
       With Mel, it lasted almost a minute.  At first I swallowed his sperm, then when I knew it was starting to end, I let my mouth get really full.  When it finished, Sam kept jerking him off and I kissed George and Sam, letting them both get lots of his thin, watery semen on their tongues.  By this time, Donny was cumming between Mel’s legs, splashing all of us, then the same thing happened with Sam, and he began to spray without anyone touching us.  George was jerking me off with his fingers, and I had my first kid cum while I was watching the two older males spraying.  By that time, I was ready to croak.  I’d seen and had the best thing that could ever be imagined.  The experience was total and complete and as we busied ourselves carefully cleaning up with paper towels I knew that if anything like it never happened again in my whole life, it wouldn’t matter because it had happened.  I was free to live without questions, hang-ups, frustrations, and all the malarkey that goes along with those whose moral stature doesn’t allow them an occasionally wild experience.
       
       That’s the end of my story.
       
       
       Now, as oldest male, and according to the lore just promulgated, it was my turn.  I stood and positioned Johnny at my right hip.  Tim lay back in Nathan’s lap, and my boy held me against the eight year old’s heaving, sweating chest.  Like the boy in the story, he began masturbating me harder and faster than while we’d been listening.  His tension and stroking were perfect, and his right hand feathered my swollen glans as his left arm went vice-like around my waist.  “Cum on him, I want to watch you,” he coaxed in an urgent whispered.  “Yes,” hissed all the other boys, “get him wet.”  
       
       “Hold me high on his chest, almost at his throat,” I said to Johnny, and thrust my hips forward as he complied.  I guess the science aspect of Tim’s story had gone to my head; must have, for me to be scheming at such a moment, when I could feel every muscle in my body rapidly contracting from the boys avid stroking.  It took two more minutes, then I warned in a whisper and a few seconds later began cumming hard and fast all over Tim’s delicate white chest.  Never half so much in my life.  Instinctively, my thirteen year old slid his hand to my base after I’d begun spurting off hard and fast, gripping me like iron.  “I’m cumming,” I grunted involuntarily from the hot new pressure, and, indeed, what was happening got yet more graphic.  It must have gone on for at least a minute, but then it began ending.  I moved Johnny in front of me the second I was able, holding him around his panting chest with my left arm and masturbating him with my right hand, holding the tip of his hard boner high against Tim’s belly.  Again, it was a couple of minutes of turn-blue excitement, then his guttural warning, and a hot flow of his juvenile semen pooling on the belly of the eight year old.  Just as his spray began diminishing, Nathan started cumming off, his first sperm jetting fully to feet up between Tim’s legs.  I covered his flaring, hot glans with my palm, slicking Tim’s lower belly with the teen’s showering sperm.  That lasted an amazing time, but was eventually over, leaving Tim with three more-or-less distinct smears of cum on his front, mine high, Johnny’s in the middle, and Nathan’s low on his belly.  The scout leaders guided each of the boys to their fellow cub, holding and petting them gently while they dipped their tongues and sampled the sperm of adult, boy, and adolescent.  It worked perfectly, my little experiment, the boys, easing in, even though for each it was a matter of really no more than a few seconds, and thus ending up ready for the seed of their two young leaders.  They quickly jerked Mitch and Hal off on Tim, then again attacked with their now avid tongues, being free in kissing each other and we adults with their salty lips and tongues.
       
       When it was over, it was as over as anything could be.  We smiled shyly at each other as we carefully cleaned up with our towels, agreed to meet for dinner in a couple of hours, instinctively knowing nothing erotic would happen between us in the future, and left the steam room.  The way I figured it, Johnny and I were cleared for our trip to Mexico, in fact, all of us were cleared – maybe “empowered” is a better word – to live our lives with sex neatly pigeonholed at the back of a lower desk drawer, exactly where it belonged.
       
       				THE END
       
       The Nifty.org Archive has lots of my stories.  Most are in the Bi files under Adult/Young Friends and Incest.  Different pen names, or anonymous.  Yes, many of them have essays too.
       
       
Posted by Thomas@btl.net

xxx
  
  	
       
       
       
       


       
       
       


        
       
       
       
        
       
       
         
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
        
       
       
       
