ARCADIA ACADEMY FOR BOYS
                                     Chapter Four
                                 "The First Day of School"

        I stood in the hallway outside my classroom door, afraid to enter
or even peek through the window.  It was my first teaching job, after all.
Was I up to the task? Moreover, I hadn't expected to begin immediately and
had only packed for the weekend.  I telephoned Jeff to let him know I'd
been hired, and he made me promise to write often and send photographs in
exchange for his shipping my luggage and closing my apartment lease.  It
wasn't a problem: I owed him a debt I coud never repay.
        So there I was in the hallway, without a lesson plan and afraid to
enter my classroom, dressed in a regulation school uniform.  It was a
matter of necessity but I felt ridiculous.  Frank and Harrison had
encouraged me to wear a shorts suit, saying that my youthful looks would
help me relate to the students -- and I didn't really resist, wanting to
indulge my fetish -- but gazing down at my naked, muscular thighs framed
between the charcoal gray shorts and knee stockings I felt certain that the
boys would razz.  As it turned out, I would never wear long pants again
during my stay at the school.
        The late bell rang.  There was nothing to be done.  I gripped my
briefcase tight, took a deep breath and opened the door onto my new career.

        The children stood up respectfully beside their desks as I entered,
chairs scraping.  I walked quickly to the blackboard, my hard leather shoes
clicking against the dark wooden floor.  I took up a piece of chalk to
write my name, hiding my anxiety while trying to project authority.  I
wasn't ready for this.  Arcadia's school week lasted six days, from Monday
to Saturday, and summer and winter vacation was limited to a few weeks.
The students had to be kept busy, and the long week was the reason why our
students consistently scored near the top on national tests.  I had to deal
with several grades, elementary through high school.  Weekdays began with
breakfast at 7:00 sharp, the first of two hour classes at 8:00, lunch at
noon, then more classes from 1:00 until 5:00, an hour of study hall and
tutorials at 6:00, then dinner until 7:00.  An exhausting day for teachers
and students alike.
        "Good morning, children."
        "Good morning, Mr. Wilson!"
        I turned to face a room of wide-eyed middle grade boys, each one
staring at my legs and shorts in disbelief.  In like manner, I stared at
their legs and shorts, too.  Row after magnificent row of bare boy legs.  A
bubble of silence engulfed us, then popped when a dark, painfully skinny
mexican boy in the front row yelped, "You're wearing shorts!"
        I blushed and shuffled, swinging my briefcase like a lunchbox.  I
was criss-crossed with a double sense of reality.  Somehow, when I hadn't
been paying attention, I'd become a man, and I did not know how it had
happened.  But then I had never spent much time around boys, always keeping
my distance, alone with my yearnings.  Not knowing how to bridge the
arbitrary, paranioa-wild gap.  I was not used to being perceived as an
adult: moving from high school to university without time-off, I had awlays
been a student, too.
        "What's your name?" I asked.
        "Emiliano," the mexican squeaked, childishly bending at the hips
and to the left to survey my uniform unabashedly.  I must have looked so
alien to the child, while he himself made an adorable sight in his shorts
suit, twiggy cocoa-colored thighs agleam.
        "Hello, Emiliano.  Children?  Please sit down."
        There was a shuffle as the boys sat behind old-fashioned wooden
desks.  I set my briefcase on my own desk and hopped up to sit on its edge,
my shorts sliding high and tight around my crotch.  I noticed a bright red
Michigan apple beside me.  I picked it up and polished it on my bare, gold
thighs.
        "Thank you, children, for making me feel welcome," I said, and not
knowing what else to do, took a bite of the crisp apple, smiling dumbly at
my class.
        "Mr. Wilson, what are you doing?" Ethan asked, sitting in a back
seat of the row to my left.  His brows were knit in confusion.
        "What do you mean?"  Desperately, I took another bite of the apple,
munching.
        "Grown ups don't wear short pants," Ethan declared strongly.  He
sounded as if I had offended some religious belief.  My heart sank.  I
gulped and swallowed without chewing fully, then went into a fit of
coughing.
        "Sir?"
        "Your name?" I croaked, clearing my throat and pointing to a tiny
asian boy.  My eyes were watering.  I wanted to run away.  Instead, I began
to swing my legs back and forth, frantically stroking my thighs.
        "Jimmy Wong.  I thought grown ups only wore shorts at the beach or
when they played sports."
        "Is that right?  What about women?"
        "Women?" Jimmy blinked, small face unpetalling with puzzlement.
        Then it hit me: I had nothing to fear.  After arriving at the
academy many of the boys had never seen a woman or a girl.  They had no
access to radios, newspapers or outside media, and discussion of females
was carefully limited in their studies.  It was difficult for the children
to even conceive of the opposite sex.
        "What I mean to say is that, of course, short pants are for boys,
but some men like wearing short pants, too.  I hope none of you mind?"  The
children shook their heads in unison like a flock of little birds, merely
learning a new lesson.  Their eyes remained glued to my legs, and I spread
my thighs to give them a better view.  They exchanged glances, shrugged,
leaned forward across their desks, processing the unusual appearance of
their new teacher.  I can't say what thy thought about it, but they
accepted my instruction without question.  They were well trained.
        "Let's begin, shall we?"
        The boys had been studying American frontier history, and they had
prepared oral reports while the substitute -- Harrison, no less -- covered
until the position was filled.  The last instructor had left after a month,
adopting two boys aged 6 and 9, and Dwight had let him go, the man a caring
individual but unfit for teaching.
        I called the boys to the front of the class to read and had them
stand on a chair.  Naturally, they were giggly and shy, fidgeting and
pulling at their ties as they recited.  I remained seated on my desk,
listening soberly, my nervousness fading.
        When it was Ethan's turn -- the final boy to recite -- I could
barely sit still.  I swung my legs incessantly.  It was the first time I'd
seen him in his school uniform, and he made such a perfect prince as walked
to the front of the class, olive, narrow thighs shimmering.  His pants were
neatly creased, his shoes and the brass buttons of his coat polished.  The
little boy paid great attention to his appearance, another sign that he was
on the verge of puberty.  He stepped onto the chair, smiling at me
crookedly.  I melted.  Dear Lord, he was an angel.  I tried to be
objective, eager to hear the naughty, mischievous boy's report, curious
about his academic talents..
        Ethan read with surprising composure and animation, telling of the
Indian wars and their tragedy.  He spoke of the nobility of Chief Joseph of
the Nez Perce.  My heart quickened.  The little boy was a scholar after
all!
        "Chief Joseph and his people fought the U.S. government but were
eventually forced to retreat to the Canadian border.  Chief Joseph
surrended with the following speech, and I think that it sounds like a drum
beat.  It is the best thing I have ever read.       It is so horrible what
happened to him and his people that it breaks my heart."
        I kicked my legs wildly, barely able to contain my admiration.
Little Ethan was so open and sincere!  And I knew the speech that he was
about to read very well, it, too, one of the best things I'd ever read for
it's eloquance and nobility.  But hearing the speech spoken by the
beautiful little boy in his high, unchanged voice, it was like hearing the
speech for the first time.  Ethan's beauty was beyond the merely physical:
his spirit was resplendent, and somehow I loved him even more.  He cleared
his throat, daintily smoothed his short pants, gripped his report in his
lovely, tiny hands and recited the following:

        I am tired of fighting.  Our Chiefs our killed.  Looking Glass is
dead.
        Toohulsote is dead.  The old men are all dead.  It is the young men
        who say no and yes.  He who led the young men is dead.  It is cold
        and we have no blankets.  The little children are freezing to death.
        My people, some of them, have run away to the hills and have no
        blankets, no food.  No one knows where they are -- perhaps they are
        freezing to death.  I want to have time to look for my children and see
        how many of them I can find.  Maybe I shall find them among the
        dead.  Hear me, my chiefs, I am tired.  My heart is sad and sick.
        From where the sun stands I will fight no more forever.

        Ethan's voice quavered and his long legs trembled, sunshine dancing
along the smooth, child-moist skin along the flat backs of his thighs.  His
pert rear-end flexed and clenched reflexively, as if his anus was being
stretched and penetrated, which it would be -- by me -- a few months from
then.  I noticed that the class was silent and still, attentive to his
every word, and that Ethan was popular and admired.  He was an intelligent,
passionate, and highly moral child.  A gifted, magnificent boy.
        "Thank you, son," I said breathlessly when he was finished.  Ethan
turned to me to hand in his report, his eyes distant and moist, swept away
with the power of his own oratory.  I ached to hold him, to comfort and
praise him, but instead I only patted his head solemnly as he stepped down
from the chair.  It was clear that the boy was more intelligent than most
of his teachers and that his pranks were an extension of this.  I watched
him drift back to his desk and sit dazedly, the boys around him leaning
across the aisle to murmur their approval.  I was spellbound, intimidated
and respectful: I had never met a more marvelous human being.
        I hopped off the desk and did my best to follow Ethand performace,
lecturing on how western settlement was primarily accomplished by men and
boys.  I spoke of "peg houses," places where frontier men surveyed displays
of conical wooden pegs of varying lengths and thickness in order to choose
a boy they wanted.  The children dutifully wrote in their notebooks, not
understanding but quiet in Ethan's wake, holding their fat wooden pencils
in their tiny hands.  Only Emiliano smiled and I realized that the skinny
boy had 'presented'.
        I apologized for being ill-prepared and assigned the next chapter
in their textbook, having them read quietly for the rest of the class.  I
moved among them, walking the aisles.  I patted their heads or squeezed the
backs of their necks as I passed.
        Then I came upon my Ethan.  I stood behind him for several minutes,
admiring the impossibility of his being.  I tweaked his tiny ears that were
pink and transluscent with light and squatted behind him, spreading my legs
around his chair then bringing them together so that my knees press firmly
against his naked thighs.
        "Behaving yourself?" I whispered.
        Ethan nodded, holding his textbook tightly and bounceing his legs
rapidly, made shy by my closeness.  I swooned.  The boy's skin was cool
velvet gliding between my knees.
        "Easy.  You'll need a seatbelt."  I dropped my hands over his
thighs just below the hems of his creased, crotch-tight shorts.  "Your
report was wonderful."
        "Thank you," he whispered.  "History is my favorite subject.  I'm
not just saying that, either."
        I squeezed his thighs strongly, fingers sinkinging into his lush,
resilient flesh.  Goosepimples sprang up along his bouncing legs, making an
arcade of texture.  "I know you're a good boy.  Don't disappoint me."
        "I won't," Ethan promised, setting his book down.  A strong vibe
passed between us as the boy patted my knees.  "You did good today, Mr.
Wilson," he peeped as the bell rang, clutching my knees.  "And it's O.K. if
you want to wear short pants."
        Then, like the other children, Ethan raced to collect his materials
and stuff them into his backpack, slinging it over his shoulder and dashing
away to his next class, his narrow, tender thighs slipping once more
through my fingers, suddenly much to empty.  I watched him shuffle though
the door, then I touched his chair as if touching a religious icon to feel
the residual warmth of his tiny, pure, child's bottom.