Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2004 14:51:59 +0100
From: Adrie van Dijk <ganymedes62@hotmail.com>
Subject: Lashes of Love Chapter 4

The following story is in part fictional. It describes the relationship
between a man and a teenage boy. Sex will only play a minor part in the
story.

The story is copyrighted, but free distribution in any form is allowed, as
long as no changes are made.

All the usual disclaimers apply.

Comments are welcome, but flames will be ignored.

Lashes of love

Chapter 4. Settling in.

It was a quarter to one the following day when the phone rang. It was
Nafut.

"Hi Willem, you're home. Would you mind if me and Yatan came over? He has
brought over a game I`d like to copy. He says there is no copy protection,
so it should be easy. I've got some money, so I will pay you for a CD-R. If
you're doing something right now, we could come around later. I'm not in a
hurry, but if you have time now that would be great because Yatan needs to
go home in another hour or so."

"No problem, I'm here and not going anywhere," I finally managed to get a
word in.

"OK, we're leaving now!"

tuut ... tuut ... tuut ... tuut

I put the phone down and slowly walked over to the windows. Sure enough,
within no time, there were two boys running towards the door. Both had
reverted to wearing jeans again as opposed to the soccer shorts Nafut wore
yesterday. Yatan was almost as good looking as Nafut, but had a completely
different character. Where Nafut was extravert and outgoing, Yatan was
introvert and shy. But both boys seemed to get along together pretty well
and it was fun to see them laughing and joking.

They were noisy coming up the stairs and I told them they had better settle
down before the neighbours complained. I got two sheepish grins for my
trouble as Nafut led Yatan straight to the side room. I had thought about
Nafut's offer to pay for a CD-R and realized that just giving it away as I
wanted to might cause him to bolt. My solution was as simple as it was
effective: I offered a free copy as long as I could make a copy for my own
games collection too.

After copying the game CD twice and having played it for a while I asked
Yatan if he wanted a drink. He declined, saying that he would have to leave
soon.  I then turned to Nafut and said: "Well, I don't see anything wrong
with your arms or legs and you know where the refrigerator is. Just make
sure you don't forget to bring back a beer for me." I knew I had hit the
right button when he beamed and hurried back with our drinks. Nafut went on
to introduce Yatan to Pedro, but Dada was hiding again.

"She always does that when there are strangers," Nafut said in a serious
tone and I almost burst. I don't think he even realized how extremely funny
that remark was.

Yatan left and Nafut followed shortly after as he had to help his mother
doing the groceries. We had agreed I would come over the next day to
install Windows XP and generally help out tuning his system. He didn't know
I had a few surprises up my sleeve. I still had some parts tucked away from
when I had done the latest upgrade of my own system. There was a 20 Gb hard
disk, a single 256 Mb SDRAM bank, a 24x CD-rewriter, some cables and a 32
Mb video-card.

I could hardly wait until tomorrow.

As it turned out, the only thing I couldn't use was the video-card as both
his video and audio were integrated on the motherboard.

After the hardware and software were installed Nafut had a go at his
upgraded system. He was quite unlike his regular self, being very quiet,
his eyes glued to the screen. But when he finally did turn around and
looked at me, I knew it had been worthwhile. The warm look of gratitude in
his eyes almost made me cry.  When I asked him if he liked the new setup,
he just nodded and quietly whispered: "Thank you."

"I couldn't have a friend of mine working on an out-dated system, that
would put me to shame. And if your father says you should pay me, well, you
could always wash my car once a year for the next twenty years or so."

It broke the tension that had been building, and we both laughed.

I was still smiling as I walked home.

Back at my apartment I sat on the couch and replayed the events of the last
few days. There was this small 14 year old boy who had managed to invite
himself into my life and I had let him. My feelings for him were like
nothing I had ever experienced before and it made me wonder if I had ever
loved. Less than a week ago I had only known his name and now I was
completely hooked.

Images started to flood my mind, seeing his cute butt when he walked up the
stairs in front of me. His keenness when he had sat on the couch while I
was building a PC. The joy and pride when I had come to look over his
computer.  His immense beauty when I had seen him play, just wearing his
swimming trunks. How he had beamed when I told him he could get his own
drink. His gratefulness when I had upgraded his system. It was a flurry of
images that made me feel all warm inside.

The following days and weeks sped by and the summer holidays were nearing
their end. Not a day went by that I didn't see Nafut. Either I saw him in
the playground, smiling and waving at me, or he visited me and we played
games or scoured for games and music to download. I had joined the boys
going to the swimming pool only one more time and it had totally worn me
out. Bit by bit I had gotten to know the other boys better too and was even
introduced to Nafut's two cousins Ormuz being a year older and Halil who
was 10.

There was just one thing in the back of my mind that bothered me. It was
Nafut's complete disinterest in that part of Internet that I thought any 14
year old boy would look for. I had purposely left him on his own accord on
a few occasions but had found no traces of visits to porn sites of any type
afterwards.  Could this boy be so innocent? Or just careful? Whatever it
was, somehow I realized it wasn't normal behaviour for a 14 year old boy.

But he was like most boys in not looking forward to school starting again.
Having to get up early and getting homework clearly wasn't very appealing
to him. He told me about problems he had had with some of his classes,
especially economics. My offer to help him out if ever he had trouble with
things seemed to make him a bit more comfortable. Then it hit me that
school starting would also have consequences for me. With homework and
everything I was pretty sure he wouldn't be able to come over as often as I
had been used to.  School starting was going to be difficult for us both.

But time stops for no one, so on a Wednesday morning Nafut went to school
to pick up his books and his class schedule. As it turned out, it wasn't
that bad.  Monday was packed, but the other days he would be out relatively
early, on Friday he'd actually be off at noon.


Day Start Finish Monday 08:30 15:30 Tuesday 08:30 13:50 Wednesday 10:20
13:50 Thursday 08:30 14:40 Friday 08:30 12:00

When he showed me his books, I knew that helping him out with anything
wouldn't be a problem. Once again I told him that, if he had trouble with
any of his classes, he could come to me for help.

He packed away his books, and when I offered him to play a game he
surprised me a bit by declining. He had to go home and grab an early dinner
as he had to practice that evening. It then dawned on me and I was cursing
myself for having forgotten.

"When is your first match going to be?" I asked, trying to recover
slightly.

"It will be on Sunday next week. We'll be playing at home."

"So you and your dad are going to have a good time than?"

His expression was unreadable when he told me his father never went to any
of his games. When I asked him if he would like it if I came, he just shook
his head and told me not to bother. Not sure how to react on that
statement, I didn't pursue it and Nafut went home.