Date: Fri, 19 Oct 2001 12:14:47 -0500
From: Tom Emerson <thomas@btl.net>
Subject: Michelle's First Secret

Michelle's First Secret
(M/F, M/f, m/f, M/m, inc., rom.)
by
Feather Touch


       Sure, I noticed her on her first visit, what am I, freaking blind?
Trouble is, I like boys for their wit, sass, and charm; but almost as I
learned her name was Michelle, I wondered if I was entirely right in this
regard; if I didn't see a depth to her eyes that indicated at least
boyishness.  No charge, but for sure no retreat.

       Never asked, of course, but she admitted to twenty-two.  Lot of
years for a teen, and bloody teen she looked.  Iowa farm teen, female,
curly ginger hair, light freckles, slightly round, pretty face.  Very soft
spoken, like the best boys in the world.  Her second, third and forth visit
she was squired by John, a slim, class guy.  Quite a match, and I was
almost shocked when she visited my shop a sixth time, alone, recently
broken up.  Sad.  A month or so went by, and one day she came in with
Steve.  Bigger, black-haired, rangier guy than John, just sleazy enough to
wonder where the focus was, this kind of thing is interesting in my book,
and I do mean my book, because I write the things as well as peddle the
one's others have written, and , for Michelle, probably a better match,
because, without overdoing anything, anywhere, by any amount, Michelle was
a big girl, classic farm to the genre's most exquisite tee.

       Days later she came in, without Steve, and that's where the story
really begins.

       We liked to talk about books, and I ran a bookstore, so that always
kept us chattering away, with tiny circles stitched through personal stuff.
She announced she was engaged to Steve in a way that almost seemed like a
kid half asking permission, or, more specifically, like a boy half asking,
half telling.  This was appropriate, because I was twenty years older than
Michelle, teen bod, which I maintain to this day, notwithstanding.

       And for a minute or two there, I almost thought father/daughter as I
wished her the best.

       "Steve really likes you," Michelle said.
       "Thanks," I said, not wishing to return the compliment, because I
didn't know her fiance beyond incidental contact.  (Nor he, me, but I
happen to suffer from acute conceit and always assume I'm a fascinating
meet, however fleeting an encounter.)

       She'd lingered before, and I'd been flattered, but I was drafting
"An All-New Jaws," and in spite of the ridiculous ease of running a sloppy
bookstore, time was at a severe premium. This was one reason my only
happening relationship, at the time, was with an eleven-year-old boy,
Steven.  Steven, grand marshal of the sleaze-of-the-year festivities, was
wondrous copy, and, even if I had to leave out the best parts, extending
the "Jaws" screenplay often amounted to simply typing out his visits.  Yes,
I was playing hard-to-get, I suppose; being deliberately obtuse, protecting
that ten hours a day demanded by the keyboard.  (Uncompromising bitch,
don't every marry up with anything that has 105 plastic pads that insist on
being depressed in precise order.)

       And she lingered this time.  If she was anything more like a
beautiful male teen, I was going to kiss her on the spot.  She seemed to
understand, and went in search of another book for her stack.  Nice move,
give the gentleman time to fry in his own juices.  Then she was back.  And
just what is it about farm-style dresses?  Cripes, even with a top button
and lacework at the collar.  It wasn't real Hef, but I'd been with half a
dozen of his type and learned as an absolute that all show is way no go.

       And lingered.

       "He wants to buy you, us, dinner," Michelle said.
       "I hardly know him, but sure," I managed to respond, "as long as you
like the idea."  I was never a coy one about dough and told her I had
seventy thousand and change in the bank, so I'd just as soon the treat be
mine, unless they had more loot than I did.  Michelle said she loved the
idea, not with the sparkling eyes of a girl, but closer to the glow of a
maturing boy.  Wow, it was easy to make her happy, and delightful, too.
While there is nothing wrong with ardent eleven year olds, and their
seemingly endless curiosity, Michelle was more even just standing there,
nervous and blushing.  She'd met Steven, not the secretive type so's you'd
notice, and was now obvious in her own secrets that turned out to number
three.

       She stayed mute and subdued through two hundred dollars worth of
dinner and wine.  Perfection.  At one with the chef, even enjoying the
absurdities of the server, and slowly becoming at one with Michelle, prim
as a schoolmarm, and as delectable as rich custard.  It was a walking date,
and as we returned to my place, she looped her right arm through mine and
held me ever tighter as we approached the door.  By the time we were on the
sofa, she was shaking.  More alcohol wasn't called for, so I let her catch
up with herself at her own speed.  Finally, she began to speak in a low,
husky voice.  Damn, she even sounded like a boy when she wanted to.

       "I'd like to stay all night," she whispered to me.  "But, I'm,
we're, Steve and me, we're kind of different.  We've got some secrets, and
I've got some, too, so it might make you uptight, so I'll understand if you
think we're too weird and want me to go."

       I told her about Steven, as against her Steve, and how I figured
folks might consider that a furlong or two off the straight and narrow.
"I've seen him here twice, and he was here when Steve was," Michelle
whispered, "that's maybe half the reason I'm here, tonight.  Some people
call it Free Spirit, but here in Iowa it's more likely to be called Farm
Life."

       Now remember, we'd talked numerous times over a year or more, so
this was not quite the bolt from the blue news that it might appear to be.
Nevertheless, I wasn't sure, exactly, what either sobriquet meant.  Randy
times at the swimming hole?  Bubble baths with little naked cousins?  There
weren't a thousand possibilities, but there were several.  As a writer, I
love characters who pose and answer their own questions, it saves wear and
tear on the imagination.  Of course, sometimes they need a little coaxing.

       "I lived in rural Maine for four years," I said, "so I guess I kind
of know what you mean, but it could be really different."

       I guess that was a pretty good cue, offhand as it was.

       "It's probably the same," Michelle said.  "Mostly, it's natural, one
couple in three."
       "And?..." I prompted gently.
       "As I said, Steve really likes you, more than.  That goes for me, at
least double.  On top of that, he doesn't think he's that great looking,
and he thinks he has too much personality, so, if you've been following
with an open mind, you might be getting some idea of why both of us want me
to be here with you."

       This girl could thicken a plot faster than King could drain a
corpse.  Stupid analogy, and, yeah, I was thinking real straight when I
came up with it.

       "Well," I answered as best as I could, "before I was flattered, now
I'm flattergasted."

          When you have fifty thousand hours at the keyboard, this kind of
thing happens more often than you might think, but still I was very pleased
with myself.  Michelle wasn't a smiling girl, but, oh, that boyish glow
when she was pleased.

       "Do you want to?" she whispered from under my left arm, looking me
in the eyes, still glowing.  She obviously knew what the answer would be,
but added a few technical bits like I could be as much a dad as I did or
did not want to be, that Steve was half-assed well off, himself, so money
would never come up, and that was about it, save for one added secret that
she'd divulge at a later time.  The delicious girl actually had two major
secrets, but, as things developed, it was understandable she'd only allude
to a minor one at that particularly moment.

       By the time her brief explanation was complete, at least for the
moment, all I wanted, because it's the state I'd been reduced to, was to
tarry with just that top button, even if it was for only a single minute,
and even if it was the last thing I ever did on mortal soil.  Actually, it
was wool carpeting, but I wasn't even that vaguely focused that I would
have noticed tacks.

       "It's not free love," Michelle whispered.  "In fact, it's more like
husbandry of the kind beef farmers practice, only intelligence and
personality are the criteria, and someone who looks like a kid in their
forties, well, it sure made the decision easy."

       "I'm a great artist, too," I pointed out.  (I had left this happy
fact out of our previous talks.)
       "What kind?" Michelle asked.
       "Writer," I answered.
       "Poetry?" she quizzed.
       "I have a shot at a limerick now and again," I admitted, "but my
favorite place is a few hundred pages into a story that will run to five or
six hundred pages."
       "Have you published anything?" she asked.
       I thought for a second, then told her the truth.  "It's my personal
belief," I pontificated, "that, while the Jews invented little or nothing,
they have absorbed and amplified the very worst of every culture they
infest.  Since I'm a great artist, I cannot leave this out.  That should
answer any questions about my relationship with the bestseller lists."

       "But it must be fun, anyway," the beauty commented with one thousand
percent accuracy, adding, "maybe things will change.  Pendulum.  I mean how
long can two percent of the population violate the spirit of the
Constitution with one hundred percent religious domination of the media?"
If she'd been a genius she'd have mentioned the possibility of new markets,
but I'm a documented egghead, and I didn't think of it.  I mean, who knew
in '92?

       It was great talking to her.  Lot of blue in the big gray eyes.
Soft breath; that might have been more girl than boy.  Mentally, I was
doing very poorly by now, and when she gently took both my hands in hers, I
fainted four times and died twice, but never seriously enough that I lost
track of what she was doing at her lace collar with my shook-up fingers.
Not just doing, repeating.  Four times.  Then I was staring down at her,
rudely.

       In my less aerial days I felt there was nothing that would ever beat
Steven's eleven-year-old bubble butt in the department of sculpted, warm,
silky, tender flesh, but I had it wrong, being, in those days, a mortal
merely on the way to self-deification.

       Michelle was an absolute beauty, high and mighty, crude, but if the
adjectives fit...

       Fit?  That's what I had a total one of.  A freaking fit, and all she
did was kiss me.  Broken glass and warm syrup.  Enough promise to start a
religion.  Enough tingle for an Amazon eel.  Enough patience for a young
mother.

       "You are more than amazing," I whispered after timeless minutes.
       "Nice to know," she whispered back.
       "Does Steve quiz you?" I asked.
       "Yes," she replied.
       "How do you feel about it?" I probed, leaving no doubt by my tone
that her business was her's.
       "As long as everything is true, I love it," Michelle answered.  "How
about you?"
       "Steven likes to tell explicate stories, and he loves it when I quiz
him.  I guess I feel kind of the same. It's something that I just never
associated with a woman, before."
       "Nicest thing you could say," Michelle purred.

       "Does Steve ask you, you know, about who taught you and stuff like
that?"  By now my voice had joined the wreckage of the overall mortal I
once was, and I was yawning like an around-the-world soloist.

       "He takes my bra off, first," came the girl's whisper.  Her eyes
were huge and she looked about ten.

       In a way, I was discouraged.  It was going to take at least ten
years, and thousands more hours showing up at the keyboard, before I would
be able to even sketch her.  As a writer, I was proud the thought even
intruded, but in all other senses I was tower city at nine-ten, a.m.

       We stood, and I unbuttoned her at the back.

       "Does he have a special way of taking it off?" I whispered in
Michelle's right ear.
       "He likes to feel me up from in back, first" she responded, voice
not doing a whole lot better than mine.  Well, whaddya know?  Writer or
lover, luck favors the prepared, and there I was, standing behind Michelle,
though her shoulders seemed an impassable barrier.

       Neck and shoulders were almost too much to either bear or bare.  I
needed relief, so I finished off her dress, taking two seconds to place it
neatly on a chair, then I stooped for a second, finding the bottom of her
slip, and running my hands up under the silky nothing until I found her
waist.  Her shoulders were still beautiful, and her neck irresistible, slim
and slightly corded and muscley at the back, essential treats I discovered
with my teeth.

       "On my tummy," she whispered.  My thinking, absolutely exactly.  She
was so different than Steven, who pretty will defined slim, wiry and
wiggly; softer and more delicious -- and, nothing gross about it, bigger.
A woman.  Letting me molest her like a friendly child, quiet and happy
while I learned slowly.

       "He likes candles, and to kneel on the sofa," came a little-girl
whisper.

       Not for all the tea in china would I have let her go, but for
candles?  To do it her way?  I'd to that for a tea bag, and I started
immediately by lifting off her slip and unsnapping her, something I hadn't
done since getting dumped by my wife, a decade earlier.  Then I was off
after a pair of candelabra, which, since I come from money, I actually had
in silver, and then, pausing a moment to admire her reflection in the
burnished metal, I lit the tapers and was kneeling, facing her on the soft
buckskin of the big sofa. .

       Michelle's fingers flew down my buttons so fast as to leave me
wondering how often she may have stripped the shirt from a waiting male.
Later I was to find out the real reason for her skill, but that would be
later.  Right now I was bare chested, inches from her large, swollen
breasts adding up to an impossible combination of honey and silk with
nipples jutting enough to make me wonder if she was not perhaps just a
little bit pregnant, already.  If she was not, and I was the cause, well,
modesty intrudes.

       We knelt, staring at each other for long minutes, then she changed
her position, jockeying until her back was against me, my left cheek buried
in her strawberry hair.  She felt more beautiful than she looked, more
shaped and purposeful than little Steven; more interesting, more mature,
more exciting, and she looked out of this entire world, and the next one.
This was obvious the second she shrugged her bra to the buckskin.  Einstein
may have passed a test or two in his time, but no one was going to pass
this beauty.  Just the view of her over her shoulder was beyond "Playboy"
dreams at any age.

       Michelle didn't posture or preen; she didn't moan and sigh with
drama.  She knelt, still and panting. nipples matching what was happening
as I found them with my creeping fingers.

       "Does he ask about the first man that did this to you," I whispered.
       "It was Nancy Ridgeway, when I was eleven," Michelle answered in her
own whisper.  "A man came to me soon after."
       "Does he ask you about all the details," I went on.
       "Yes," she acknowledged, her voice lower and hotter than ever.
       "Is it okay if I do?"  Nothing like being sure.  Creeps creep.
Yankees don't.
       "He likes to push his penis against me," Michelle prompted, causing
be to oblige.  Then she began her story.
       "Nancy was a friend of my best friend, and we were getting to like
each other.  She want away to camp, and when she came back, at noon on the
first day of school, she called to invited me over because Naomi was
delayed getting back from vacation.  Mom said it was okay, so I took the
bus to her farm.  When I got there, her mom said that her little girl was
starting to grow up, and we could have complete privacy upstairs, if we
wanted to talk... that it was okay to lock the door.  I was kind of
surprised, but it was the most exciting thing anyone ever said to me.

       "Nancy's door was open, so I went in and sat on her bed while she
finished a game.  Then she jumped beside me, and kissed me, and said she
was glad I'd been able to come.  We talked about stuff for awhile, mostly
Naomi, and listened to music.  Finally she whispered that she had some
secrets to tell her, Naomi, about what happened at camp, and asked if I
wanted to hear them.
       "I said as long as they didn't involve mailing powder in envelopes,
and she thought that was pretty funny.  I do to, so I'm leaving the joke in
as a glaring inconsistency, entirely consistent with reminding you that
this is a work of fiction.  A story, through and through.
       "So," Michelle went on, "I told Nancy okay, and she went and locked
the door.  Her eyes got really big, and she came and sat back down beside
me. `They had a club,' she whispered, `it was called Erotic Dancing with
Young Men.'  They should have called the camp by that name, because over
half the girls wanted to join. "

       				. . .

       "What's erotic?  Like Eros?  Love?" Michelle asked.
       "More explicate," Nancy whispered.  "Not dancing around and posing,
but, you know, talking quietly with your counselor in the woods, and then
in groups that have different interests besides dancing and Young Boys.
Like some girls want to be virgins, so there's a religious side for them,
then there's like spanking and things, some girls go for that.  Then if you
want to cut your hair and be butch, your counselor will tell you about that
club.  Then there is the most secret club and the very most secret club.
The most secret club is for girls who want to take their bras off in front
of another girl, and the very most secret club is for girls who want to
take their bras off for their dads or brothers.  That's the Farm Life
club."
       "Did you get in it?" Michelle whispered to her friend, taking in her
pretty school girl face framed by mouse brown hair to her waist.
       "Look around," Nancy giggled to Michelle.  Indeed, there was little
to see out her bedroom window that wasn't Iowa farm.
       "You've got to tell me," Michelle whispered, "unless you want to
wait and tell Naomi, first; she's your best friend."
       "It's not that big a deal," Nancy said.  "That's the first thing
Joanna told me.  She was my counselor.  I mean, you know, it is, but it
isn't.  Some couples are happy, and never do it, and others are miserable,
and do it all the time.  Everything, in between.  They try to tell that to
all the girls, even the virgins who don't even want to talk about it.  They
recommend, all the counselors, finding a partner, young, and concentrating
on all the other stuff in life, mostly reading, and mostly not clothes,
hair, music and boys."
       "Are you going next year?" Michelle asked.
       "Next year," Nancy whispered firmly, "I'm going off with my dad.
Just him and me and mom.  Meantime, the girl stuff is really nice, too, if
you want me to teach you.  It's okay to have a few special partners, and
even a group of partners, once in awhile. `Let your conscience be your
guide, and remember how many diseases and misfortunes are on tap as a
reward for bad choices.'  That's Joanna."
       "How old is she?" Michelle asked.
       "Nineteen," Nancy replied.
       "That's a really good age to be a teacher," Michelle commented.
       "Perfect," her hostess agreed.  "She was old enough to really
remember about being our age, but, you know, mature and sensible, too."

       Nancy appended her description with a dive into a drawer for a photo
that showed a Nordic beauty with long, blond braids.  Michelle was
delighted with the friendly face.  She knew about boy-boy, but girl-girl
seemed like it must go with a hard beauty and calculating demeanor.  Not
so, Joanna; why you hardly even needed to see the photo to tell she was no
skin o' nothin'.

       "Show me how she taught you," Michelle whispered.
       "You sure," Nancy queried, "it could make you a lesbian."
       "No law against that, but I'll never be the butch tugboat type, even
for Naomi, assuming she's interested in the first place."
       "We'll both work on her," Nancy whispered.  "And, like I said, it
doesn't make any difference.  Joanne was the best teacher a girl ever had,
and we didn't get as excited together as I do watching a home game.  In the
old days, they called them sporting houses, but they'd empty out ten
minutes before post time, boys and girls.
       "Speaking of boys," Nancy went on, "have you ever seen one, you
know, not exactly dressed."

       The two girls on the bed felt comfortable and equal, but now they
were to become all but identical.

       "Two," Michelle, not prefacing her statement with You've got to
promise not to tell.  Unnecessary.  "A man and a boy."
       "Totally no way," Nancy hissed.
       "My dad, and my cousin Ralph, he's thirteen now, twelve, then.  It
was just after school got out, and he came to visit."
       "And you saw them.  Like everything?" the young hostess wondered.
       "Do you know what molesting is?" Michelle asked.
       "Joanna did it to me while we were talking in the woods," Nancy
whispered, her voice shaking.  "We were talking, like you and me, and she
asked if she could see how, you know, developed I was.  Then she took my
hand and put it up under her halter.  We went down on our knees in the
clearing, and I let her unbutton my blouse and do what she wanted."
       "Did you like it?" Michelle asked.
       "Yeah," the brown haired angel said to the very gently carrot
topped, "especially when she started asking about my dad."
       "What did she ask?" Nancy quizzed.
       "Really private things," the girl replied, "I mean, at first, did I
love him, then, did I like him, then, did I really love him.  That was
pretty tame, I guess.  Anyway, she made real sure I was in love with my
dad, then she asked if I ever had dreams about him, or if he'd ever been
extra affectionate with me.  Then she asked if I ever had mature feelings
when I was with him, you know, like not just being his kiddo.
       "That sounds like Dad and Ralph," Michelle whispered, excitedly to
her friend beside her.  "They talked.  Dad was cool.  I mean, I'd noticed
Ralph looking at him, and trying to be close to him.  It was cute,
squared."

       The girls exchanged comments on how they couldn't believe each
other's story was true, because they fit together so perfectly.  Michelle
had never been touched, and Nancy had never seen a male.  The young hostess
broke a long, staring silence, not by speaking, but by slowly standing, her
hands finding Michelle's, bringing her close as they came gently together
in a frightened embrace.
       "I didn't mean to imply," Nancy whispered, `that when it's special
it isn't very, very exciting.  I mean, sure, it's no big deal, but do you
feel everything else, like I do?"
       "You mean like the academic part separate from the physical part,"
Michelle answered, instantly cueing Nancy as to why she was Naomi's best
friend.
       "It's not a game, to try to remain cool and intellectual," Nancy
whispered, delightedly, "but even so, it feels really nice.  Like, right
now, I want to show myself to you, like I did to Joanna, but, at the same
time, my mind is working, too.  I want to hear about your dad and your
cousin."

       Try running that through a pinball machine and you'll tilt machines
on either side of you.  Racking up engaging characters is the sign of a
life misspent in the library, not the pool hall, so I'm no expert, but, as
I remember, you pull back a spring-loaded plunger on the right side of the
machine, and let it go.

       "I was fixing the hay lift so I could use it for a swing.  I heard
them coming up the ladder, and I was just about to call out, when I noticed
something strange in their voices.  So I hooked the block to the wall, and
spied down through the cracks in the loft.  Then I heard my dad up closer,
and I was glad I was lying down, because I suddenly knew how much I wanted
him to talk that way to me.  Do you know what I mean?"

       "Yes," said the now all but biological twin named Nancy, "that's
something Joanna asked me.  If Dad's voice ever got different sounding when
I sat on his lap, or if he ever whispered secret things to me.
       "I told her that I heard him sound different with my mom, especially
one night before Christmas when I was excited and couldn't sleep."
       "That's how Dad sounded," Michelle exclaimed.  "Ralph, too.  And
they were both yawning.  They dragged a couple of hay bales into an empty
stall, and I had to slide back real careful so no dust would fall, so I
could look down, then I had to move over some, but then I was right between
them.  They'd put a saddle blanket on the bales and were sitting astride,
facing each other."

       "So you could hear everything?" Nancy quizzed, delighting Michelle
who was getting to like the story telling part more with every passing
minute.
       "It's a loft," Michelle explained, "only about a seven-foot
ceiling. and rough planked for circulation, so I could hear even most of
what they whispered."
       "Joanna said sometimes that's the best part," Nancy said.
       "Yeah," Michelle agreed, instantly.  "Ralph was asking Dad
questions."

       Sensing her pretty, slightly older friend was getting to the good
part, Nancy's fingers went to Michelle's blouse.  Michelle responded in
kind.  Showing off their new grown-up skills, both girls separated,
spontaneously, then unfastened their own training bras and dropped them on
the carpet.  "We're both starting to grow," Nancy whispered.  "Can I touch
you?" Michelle husked in response.

       "Yes," the brown-haired little doll responded.
       "Did you see Joanna?" Michelle queried as her fingers went to her
friends bare chest and found Nancy's swollen girl nipples.
       Nancy found Michelle, and for a minute they stood a foot apart,
staring into each other's eyes as they experimented.  "She's bigger," the
girl finally said, "but her nipples are just like ours, just, more, you
know, around them, but not baggy, like in "Playboy," more fresh looking."
If Michelle didn't know exactly what Nancy meant, she was able to use her
imagination to fill things out.

       Slowly, by accord, the girls came together to dance, though the CD
had ended.  As they swayed together, learning to kiss, Nancy prompted
Michelle to go on with her story.  Michelle described the events she'd
witnessed in such compelling narrative we can hardly do better letting
Ralph and Paul, Michelle's dad, speak for themselves.

       "Have you talked about it with your mom?" Paul asked, gazing down at
the twelve year old sitting a foot and a half from him.  He was coming to
love the boy in an actual way, a way Hallmark didn't exactly make cards
for.  The more disturbing, then.  Harrowing.  The bright return of love,
not a strut or preen or pose in it, but the longing was impossible to
ignore.  And now The Subject had come up.  Casual references to his band
leader had reoccurred as they guys went about the business of running a
farm.  His name was Phil Fenn, Ralph said, and Paul was amused by the boy's
efforts not to describe his teacher as cute.  Twenty-three, tall, athletic,
black hair in a pony tail, all the kids liked him, and he wasn't cute?  If
he'd known where his affectionate teasing of the boy, who obviously loved
every silly remark, was going to lead, he'd have dropped the subject.  Come
to think of it, he had dropped the subject, several times, and, somehow, it
had always tip-toed back.  Since it was a farm, largely corn, not a ranch,
there was no bull to grab by the horns, and Ralph's lack of confidence made
a bantering response inappropriate, so it seemed only the man-to-man talk
was an option.

       "Mom's cool," the boy said, "but, you know, that's for everything
else, except buying underwear.  This is different.  Phil has two special
students.  He wants me to be one next year, so do both the other boys.
They spend weekends at his place and he takes them on trips, you know,
theme parks and ball games.  But he does stuff to them.  Everybody knows
it.  At night, when he's got them alone in his room."
       "And you think he'd want to do thing with you, too, eh?" Paul asked.
       "I dunno," the boy said, bashfully.
       "How would you feel if he did?" the quizzing went on.
       "That I really don't know," Ralph responded, his pubescent voice
cracking.
       "And you think I can talk you into or out of something?" the older
male asked.
       "I guess so," Ralph replied.
       "I think I'm under-qualified," Paul said.
       "Yeah," Ralph acknowledged, "but you're a guy.  You went to middle
school.  What if you'd had a teacher that really liked you, and you really
liked him, and he wanted to get you alone?  And everybody knew he liked to
do things with boys?"
       "I'd measure it by the other boys," Paul replied after some thought.
"If they're okay, well, what more would you want?"
       "They're track stars," Ralph said.  "Shaun in the mile and Josh in
the ten-thousand meters."
       "And I assume they didn't train by running away from Phil," Paul
intoned.

       The boy giggled.  Okay, so he'd loosened Ralph up for a second.  Now
what?  Shirtless in his Oshkosh work suit, he did, as the English say, look
a treat.  Was that what the boy wanted?  To be physically close?  Or just
talk.  One was one thing, and the other, the other.  Thoughts of the
tongue-tied.  Two little metal clips, that would be one way to find out.
Metal clips and iron gray straps.

       "They were fat, like me, before they started hanging with Mr. Fenn,"
Ralph whispered.

       Was that part of it?  The boy wasn't fat.  If he was three pounds
overweight, Paul would have been surprised.  Perhaps a bit childish in the
stomach, judging from his profile in the work suit, but not even husky,
much less fat.  Paul pointed this out.

       "Yeah," Ralph replied, "but they're like jungle cats.  They run with
him every morning.  Josh is in my class and all the boys try not to look at
him after gym.  Shaun is in sixth grade, and the girls in my class whisper
about him, too."

       That seemed pretty healthy to Paul.  He hadn't had the pleasure as a
boy, either a more restrictive time, or just a focus on the conventional.
Center furrow, center field.  Fair enough, but it didn't seem as if the boy
sitting in front of him was exactly headed off into a thicket of nettles
and snakes.

       "You're doing a pretty good job of answering you own questions," the
man pointed out to his young nephew.  "It seems to me you are very lucky,"
Paul continued, "I never did anything exciting until I was sixteen, and
even then it was pretty much movie quality.  I finally lucked out when I
met your aunt, Mary."
       "She had the luck," the boy blurted, reddening slightly.
       "Thanks," Paul replied, "and, like I said, I think you've figured it
out for yourself.  By next summer you should have some exciting
experiences, and you probably won't even want to come to a boring place
like this."
       "I'll just be able to work twice as hard," Ralph said, "because I'll
be... "
       "A jungle cat," Paul finished the sentence.
       "Yeah," replied the boy, "but not if I keep feeling embarrassed
every time Mr. Fenn looks at me or talks to me.  I'm too scared to act
natural around him."

       Paul thought for a minute, then said he thought a boy as cute as
Ralph would probably warrant a level of interest that would overcome all
obstacles.

       "Except one," Ralph intoned.
       "Except what?" Paul queried in response.
       "Josh and Shaun both had to be with someone else before they could
hang out with Mr. Fenn.  He's a teacher, so, you know, seducing boys in the
band, or other boys at school, is against his code.  Both of them got their
uncles to teach them, and they've lived happily ever after.  That's why
it's so embarrassing to talk about it with you, Uncle Paul, because I don't
just want to talk.  I want you to show me about it."

       "Odds fish," Paul murmured to himself, having picked up the British
expression somewhere along the line, "if I were into that kind of thing,
I'd have some videos to show the lad."  But he wasn't, and hadn't.  Might
as well face it.  Stupid man, all he was doing was facing it.

       "Because I love you," Ralph added.
       "I love you, too," Paul replied, immediately.  And with that, they'd
said enough.  Paul's hands went to the straps over his nephew's naked
shoulders, and the boy reddened as he unfastened the clips from their
buttons.  The boy did the same, and in moments, they were staring at each
other, the adult tawny and wiry, the child sleek and meltingly soft.

       As Michelle watched down through the crack, her father tipped the
boy's face up, and leaned to kiss him.  As the girl inched to a new
position, her dad started on Ralph's forehead, then worked down over his
cute kid nose and to his lips.  They nibbled each other for a few moments,
then the experimenting was over and they locked more firmly as the man drew
the boy's bare chest to his own.

       Michelle kept inching, instinct guiding her.  The kissing man and
boy rose as if she were pulling a cord, and Paul guided his twelve-year-old
nephew up on the hay in front of him.  He worked at the child's boots, and
soon had him barefooted, with Ralph helping by holding his coveralls out of
the way.  A little scared, he pinned his arms to his side, thus holding up
his garment even when he needn't.  Paul sat and worked on his own footwear,
soon standing barefoot in front of the boy, his coveralls also held at the
waist.  It worked.  Ralph reached to his mature uncle, and the boy's suit
fell to his ankles.  He touched his uncle at the waist, and met no
resistance when he went to pry away the offending arms.

       Both males were wearing white cotton briefs, both were swollen
hugely.  They posed, staring each other up and down, then Paul stepped to
the floor of the stall, and took a moment to hang up their coveralls.
Looking at Ralph still standing on the bales, he pulled down his briefs and
hung them alongside the other clothing, turning to face the young boy.

       Ralph stared for long moments, then pulled down his own underpants,
reaching to balance on his naked uncle.  Paul helped the boy, hugging him
and kissing him, running his right hand all over the supple adolescent body
while he helped skin the child out of his remaining garment.

       "Oh," breathed Nancy, "that must have been so awesome."
       "I thought I would get pregnant, just looking at them," Michelle
confessed to her friend.
       "Was you dad much bigger?" Nancy quizzed.
       "It took me awhile to figure that one out," Michelle said.  "He,
Dad, was all I could look at for at least a couple of minutes.  I mean it
didn't look abnormal, like a horse, you know how they get, but it was
really big, and, you know, like potent.  That's the only thing I could
think of, other than how come I didn't have about fifty brothers and sister
because if I'd been mom I would have wanted to heap many rewards on
something so beautiful."

       "Joanna got naked with me," Nancy whispered, "do you want to?"

       Both girls made short work of their skirts and panties.  Stood by
the bed, staring down at each other, then resumed the soft sway of their
dance, kissing frequently, hair all over Michelle's shoulders, as the girl
finished her story.

       "With Ralph standing on the blanket," Michelle whispered, "and dad
on the floor, they were just the right height to experiment by touching
each other just at the tip.  Dad was bigger than Ralph, but Ralph was
really well developed, too.  He even had a little hair, you know, where
boys do when the get older."
       "How did they touch," Nancy asked.
       "Sort of like play dueling," Michelle whispered back.  "Sometimes
they's swing a little, side to side, trying to just touch tips as they went
by each other, then, the sort of thrust straight at each other, but they
were so wet, they'd always slip off when they tried it that way."
       "How big was your dad," Nancy queried.  "I mean big like what?"
       "I guess a medium ear of corn," Michelle replied, reddening at the
inappropriate reference.  But she was an in for a penny, in for a pound
kind of girl, so she added, "and Ralph was a little bigger than a Ballpark
frank, until the end, then he got bigger."  Nancy endeared herself to her
new friend and brand-new lover by not indulging in frivolous comments.  An
ear of corn and a super-sized frank gave her as much of a mental picture as
she could handle, and stalled her brain in a dizzying spectral zone she had
no wish to leave.  Michelle went on with her whispering as they danced.

       "They played with each other that way until they were both sweating
and panting, then Dad stepped over the hay and helped Ralph lie down on his
back.  Then he knelt on the stall floor at the end of the blanket, and
Ralph jockeyed to my dad so they were touching again.  I had to shift my
position another foot to see everything.  When I could see again, Ralph had
his legs around Dad's waist, and his fingers behind his neck so he could
arch his back and show he wanted to be touched.  Dad went all over him with
both hands, while they rubbed themselves together at the same time.

       "Then Dad found Ralph, you know, with his hand and started going up
and down on him, what they talk about in health class, masturbating.  Both
of them in his right hand while he played with Ralph's body with his left
hand.  By now, they were both panting and sweating, then I saw it happen,
after just a couple of minutes.  Dad started being a man all over Ralph.
Ralph craned his neck up to see, and dad's sperms went right over his chest
and splashed on his face.  That made him get even closer, so it was getting
on his shoulders and neck.  I guess it got him really excited, because he
started cumming really hard, too.  Both of them.  I could tell the
difference, `cause dad's was, you know, sort of thicker and whiter, and
Ralph's was more like hot water, and it went further, all over dad and
everything else."

       "Let's do what they did, and I'll tell you about Joanna," Nancy
whispered.  Both the eleven year olds fell to the waiting bed, and Nancy
maneuvered Michelle so she was lying on her back, with her hands stretched
up under the headboard and her long, pale legs spread wide.  As she began
to teach her pretty guest, Nancy's voice dropped to a whisper.  "They were
out fishing in a canoe, Joanna was nine.  One of her friends in fifth grade
had told her some secret stuff, so she'd brought along an extra tube of
sunscreen.  She'd been flirting with her dad for a couple of months, and
the sunscreen gave her an excuse to get him to touch her.  Then she started
rubbing gel on him, noting slut-like, but not exactly prudish, either.
Then she invented a boyfriend named Ricky Adams, and said he wanted to kiss
her and she was afraid because she didn't know how to kiss, and would he
teach her.

       "By that time, both of them were slippery with the lotion, so she
could be accidental about sliding down on him, to see if he liked her
flirting, and she did that while he tried to push his little girl away.
She found out he liked her, and then reached around his neck to ask him
again about the kissing.  He didn't say anything, so she went after him,
scared, because she didn't know how to kiss, but excited, by the way she
felt him when she pretended to slide down.  That made her brave, and Joanna
showed me just how it happened, with me playing her dad.
       "Her friend, Abby, had told her they had a mirror behind their sofa,
so, when she got home, she'd get in her brother's lap, while she watched
television in the mirror, and they'd get excited that way.  She'd told
Joanna to be sure there were life jackets in the canoe, then her dad could
use them to make kind of a chair, and she could get in his lap, like Abby
did with her big brother.  Is that too complicated?"
       "Just sounds like getting your money's worth out of a canoe,"
Michelle giggled, still slightly giddy after her first tentative orgasm.
Nancy kissed her tenderly, setting Michelle panting again to her touch as
she whispered more about Joanna.
       "They arranged the life jackets while they were kissing.  Joanna got
one behind her father, so he could lean across the cross bar, and one for
underneath him.  Then she dragged one under each of her knees.  By this
time they were sweating and frenching and he was untying her top.  Abby had
told Joanna that her brother really liked to look at her when she didn't
have a bra on, so she pushed away so her dad could see her.  She said she'd
only grown out a couple of inches, but her father still liked it and
touched and kissed her there a lot.  Then he looked into her eyes to see if
she was ready, and she nodded, and leaned against him, using her hands to
get him free of his swimsuit, while he played with the panties of her
bikini.  Then they went back to soul kissing while he took her by the hips
so he could get her high enough on him.  Then she used her hands, so he
could find her.  When they were ready, he broke off the kissing and looked
into her eyes.  `Are you sure, darling?' he asked.  She was too excited and
happy to talk, so she just nodded her head.  He whispered it might sting,
and moved his hands so he could feel her up while she took him inside her.
She made me cum a lot while she was telling me, do you like me doing it to
you?"
       "Yes," Michelle gasped.
       "She said it's sweet with another girl, but deeper and much more
intense with a man.  She had two because her dad thrust against her very
gently but very fast while he was teaching her.  That covered up the sting
and made it take a long time.  After about five minutes, she felt him
against her bottom.  Then they lay together a long time, like Abby did
after school with Jordan, her big brother.  Joanna whispered to him about
her friend and Jordan, and her dad asked her about the boy, and she said
she really liked him, and her dad told her he didn't want to interfere with
her, Joanna's, life, so she could do what they were doing with him.  That
made Joanna super happy, and by then she was ready to experiment with doing
something with her dad that girls can learn to do to a man if they
practice.  Only practice wasn't needed, because the third time she was able
to do it to him, he pushed her back and looked into her eyes.  `Are you
sure?' he asked her, again.  She nodded and a few seconds later she felt
him get bigger and he started shaking and grunting and having really hard
spasms in her like a bad earthquake.  She knew what he was doing inside
her, and that made her go all the way with him and her dad had to pull the
lifejacket from under her right knee, real fast, so she could scream into
it and not scare the whole lake.
       "Can you imagine it being more than this?" Nancy whispered as she
stroked her pretty friend into a final hoarse climax.

       "So, I guess boys are as advertised." Nancy summarized.
       "And how," Michelle replied, "at least half as nice as you, and I
feel pretty sure about that."
       "I want to be with my dad," Nancy said.  "like Joanna was with her
big brother.  That's what the Farm Life club is all about.  Incest with
someone you love, and even more than one, because it's experimenting and
learning and not so much romantic and responsible and permanent, with kids
and stuff, but I want the kids, and stuff, or a least a kid."
       "With your dad?" Michelle whispered, unaccountably, more excited
than ever.
       "We're rich," Nancy said.  "You know, not mega millions, or
anything, but okay in the loot department.  Joanna said that was the only
reason not to have a baby young.  If you had help it wouldn't be a burden,
just a thrill for everybody.  Plus, when you want to get married, in your
twenties, guess what? you have, a, a little helper for your next baby, and,
b, a definite way to keep your husband on the right side of the threshold,
every night of the week.  Call it scheming, if you will, but radio was a
scheme in its day, and so were a hundred other things, including ways to
live."
       "Sounds more like a plan, to me," Michelle commented, and both girls
giggled.

       I had been kissing my beautiful twenty-two year old farm girl,
Michelle, for an hour.  By this time, we were both naked and rolling from
the sofa to the carpet, making out furiously, then clambering back to the
couch so she could continue her story as we lay sweating and panting.  The
thought of more, more than her instinctive touch, more than her instinctive
mouth, more than her girlish beauty, was more than I could handle.
Fortunately, an ovulating twenty-two year old woman, who'd latched on to a
built-to-last male who happened to be a bit of an artist, was so ready to
be handled, my options were limited to one, and that was kissing her like a
baby sister as she wriggled under me, dropping her right foot to the floor
and raising her left leg over the sofa back.

       She was impossibly tight, a secret that was closely related to her
offhand skill at unbuttoning my shirt.  I didn't know it then, and
certainly didn't need to.  If had been so long, yet, if it had been an hour
ago, it wouldn't have made the slightest difference.  I started cumming the
instant I entered her, if not as sharp and fast as when Steven masturbated
me to wet his five inch boner, with a slower and more deliberate bone
rattling exhausting completeness that more than equaled my passion him.  I
was shocked and about to apologize when she focused and looked hotter and
more wanton than ever.

       "Shh," she whispered, seeing the anguish in my face, "that's the
greatest compliment a girl can have.  Any ski bum can ride you through a
bear rug, but what you just did inside me defines lover.  And to think,"
Michelle concluded, "Nancy is just one of my secrets."

       We shifted to lying facing each other and Michelle got a very soft
and mellow look on her face.  "If you want to marry me, instead of Steve,"
she whispered, "I'd say definitely, yes."
       "No," I said.  "It's going to take me forever to write about you,
without you.  If you were around, I'll be making fifty bucks a day selling
books until I drop.  Not what I'm here for.  And you'd regret it, soon
enough.  Writing can suck the Lyme out of a tick, there'd be nothing left
for you, on a day to day basis, and I have a feeling Steve has plenty for
you.  That's more important.  I'll be here for you, and take an interest in
the child, if that's how it works out, but Steve's going to make you
happier in a week than I could in a year."

       She had to agree and thankfully did so quickly, admitting that he
was pretty awesome when you got right down to it.  We dozed with a little
tease keeping me on the verge of consciousness.  How many secrets did
Michelle have?

       				. . .

       I don't know what art is, but I know it's not the same old same old.

        Veterans of "Blissy's Song" and other works will groan Here he goes
again.  New readers?  Well, not to put too fine a point on it, I tend to
join my stories from time to time, usually to read you the riot act about
something.  This time it's to break my arm, again, by patting myself on the
back.  I've managed to write the most pugnacious copy in print, any media,
for ten months before downloading my first flame.  What took about fifteen
seconds in golden-age Napster chat rooms has taken nearly a year on Nifty.
The sad thing is it's just the usual `sick fuck' scrawl.

       Since it's the first, let's give it pride of place, and respond.
According to the anonymous scribble, I'm boring.  All I can answer is try
"Moby Dick," or any and all classical literature.  If that doesn't give
perspective, try ninety-nine out of a hundred of today's movies.  Boring
also describe the touchy-feely media coverage of recent events.  If I'm on
the list it's unintentional.  I am a clown, little more; just trying to be
funny.

       As to being sick, well, ya got me there, dude.  I suffered a
significant workplace trauma while trying to get my friends here (I live in
southern Belize) set up in the fishing business, and, although I haven't
had an aspirin or used a bandaid in the last five years, I am significantly
disabled due to this injury.
       As far as `sick' in a cultural sense, I figure I'm a bit on the
wild-child side for a banker, but very much like a banker if measured
against my artistic peers.  It would definitely be safe for you to leave
your kids with me for a weekend.  But since the subject is in play and the
ball is in my court, let me tell you my definition of cultural sickness.
It's the Catholic church, whose educated clergy have done an extremely
effective job of psychic castration on hundreds of millions of Catholic
women, especially Latinas.

       They lie in grim duty for their males.  I was coming back from the
market in Torreon one night, and by the play of the street lamps happened
to catch a glimpse of a Mexican girl, perhaps seventeen, masturbating her
boyfriend.  That poor muchacha's face showed what corruption is, and I know
where it came from.  It translates into a society in which men routinely
take mistresses and wives take over the sons (not sexually), creating a
culture of momma's boys, which would be pretty much it for the
sickness/Catholic connection if it weren't for the stress and poverty
caused by having too many kids.  This phenomenon is so intrusive, village
girls won't go with boys who have not been to jail.  How ironic that for
all their daring-do, they lie as grimly as their mothers.

       Again, for new readers, I go back to my source material to put
sexual depravity in perspective.  The bonobo, cousin of the chimp, which
take free-spirit sexuality, affection, peace and happiness to its feral
core, and the Masai, who send six year olds to the village hut, where they
stay until married.  About the only tribe Margaret Mead identified as free
of adult perversion.  (Regrettably, this science is defective because the
M. also castrate their females.).  Final evidence that free-spirit
alternatives are not all negative is provided by Net archives which house
literally thousands of happy-camper stories, undoubtedly representative of
millions of such stories.  And yes, as an artist, I bring a modest number
of personal experiences to the table, starting when I seduced a comely
young adult male at the age of eight.  It is especially easy to cope with
this issue against the background of a twenty percent molestation rate for
juvenile females and a fifteen percent rate for juvenile males, as the
status quo, and in a culture in which the `taboo' factor is probably
seventy percent of the reason for suffering and dysfunction in the wrecks
documented by the behavioral-science community..

       Of course, `sick' could also refer to racial or other social
attitudes.  Liberals deify the old at the expense of the young, which is
sickness at its most unnatural.  It is sick for an auto company to spend
more on pensions than it spends on steel.  Very sick.  A country that takes
a slashing sneak attack from an orchestrated and double-talking enemy, and
goes in search of evidentiary baselines is sick unto death.  Gluttony is
sick as are addiction, rape, and forty-seven year credit cards.

       What ever I am or am not, I am a writer for my time, and smart
enough to know that the dizzying increase in the size of today's children
is a mortal sickness, if every other facet of our culture were right out of
"Mary Poppins."

       Any charge of sickness related to pedophilia I would answer this
way: most American children are so unattractive and obnoxious, no one will
ever want to touch them.  Slap them, yes; molest them, Not!  There hardly
seems room for another disease, but we've saved the best for last.  It's
called Democracy.  This is a virus that only survives under optimum
conditions, a hothouse fluke, if you like.  The virus has no resistance to
canny, clever parasites, which latch on so's you'd think they were
umbilicalally correct.  Oops.  For you that say we've survived wars and
depressions, strikes, fires, earthquakes and riots, I'd simply point out
that it was democracy that caused these costly ills, and that anyone who
navigates by looking over the stern is certain to meet a rock, whether or
not they're booked on the "SS Anthrax."

       .  As to reader mail, in general, I received twenty-five raves in a
row when my first story was published, and ten months later, this one
flame.  I wrote my brother pointing out if I'd earned a 96% average in math
I'd probably be getting laid off from Boeing about now.  Please, if you
take the time for water sports at my expense, share something that can in
turn be shared, or, better yet, write your own story for Nifty and piss on
me at your leisure.  David is a dream to work with, and you'll never have
so much fun.  (Read my novels and look at the obvious pleasure I get at the
expense of my sainted mother.)

       Wish I'd written that.  Know what it is?  Think Plano, Texas, ever
so in step with the times.  I saw an aerial film of it awhile ago, and am
still wondering how one orders a pizza, if the delivery boy has to make
fifty turns between Dominoes and a particular cul de sac.  I wondered at
the dread of a tired mother finding she was out of salt or mayonnaise,
facing two hours of burning gas to get to the mega mall, park, make her
purchases, and navigate home through her massive subdivision, so free of
landmarks.  But there's one thing I no longer have to worry about, thanks
to the talent of another.  That is what to call the utterly gigantic houses
of Plano, each representing numerous semi-loads of drywall.  They're called
`McMansions.'

       The only thing my little wit can add is that they definitely come
with super-sized cheese while I wonder at the work necessary to pay the
McMortgage.
       Offhand, I can think of no greater emblem of liberalism than today's
excruciation zoning laws and building codes, yet a single person or small
family is allowed to dwelleith therein.  Every account exec, a king, every
real estate agent, a queen.  :You know, I think I can set things straight.
My family started the Revolution, we were instrumental in the development
of The Bell System, Bell Labs, and the transistor.  It doesn't take many
more luminaries to render me a prince, but they're there, plus, I've lived
in everything from a five story house with an elevator to barracks and
tents, much preferring the latter.  The message is simple and enduring:
Relax, live modestly, and put your resources into your kids, or
somebody's. Anything else is an absolute nightmare for everybody, and don't
I know it.

       By the way, if it happens you're against whitey in a generic sense,
try remembering how inclusive we are, and how willingly we incorporate the
achievements of others in our own wonderful fineness.  Give credit, too,
and let anyone live in any size box they think they can afford..

       Jingo.  That's a term overdue for defining herein.  Edward Beach was
a jingo.  He's the author of "Run Silent, Run Deep" (among others), a
classic account of his service as a junior submarine officer.  He gets,
this is real, now, his first command in late '44 or early '45, at the tip
end of the war.  He runs so hard to get into the fight, he ruins the
diesels on a brand-new sub.  He should have been court-martialed and in all
likelihood, shot.  Would have been, in any military that comes to mind.
That's a jingo.  Dropping twenty five hydrogen bombs in retaliation for a
savage and symbolic attack, well sponsored by many states, is simply
survival.  Ask Mother Nature.

       "Frazier:" Garbage man theme.  Well, it was half cut out by rain,
but the gist of the story is hierarchy, my job's bigger than your is, my
degree also is.  Self-appointed master of ye olde Arte of ye English, as I
am, I, of course, get to look down on neurosurgeons and college presidents,
but it wasn't always that way.  See, it's like this, because I read so much
as a kid I was constantly told I'd end up on the back of a garbage truck.
This has had a notable effect on my career.  To make a long story short, by
the time I'd undergone the million folds of a Sumari sword, my country had
deteriorated to the extent that as a writer, I end up on the back of a
garbage truck.  Nice going, you-all, with `going' the operative word.

       Anyway, Roz has a cute, for once, new boyfriend and I was intrigued
to see if the producers were smart enough to carry him over.  They were.
Now Roz also has a daughter of a freshening age.  Hmm.  Good thing Michelle
has more secrets.

Posted by Thomas@btl.net

xxx