Date: Tue, 27 Feb 2007 18:41:04 -0400
From: Ruthless <ruthless@nbnet.nb.ca>
Subject: Little Boy Lost, part 2

       "I'm going back to school??" Matthew was stunned. It was my third
day of being home, about an hour earlier than the time when I'd found him
curled up on my loveseat. The first day I'd called the school I'd left it
too late, so the office had been closed. I'd had to call again on the
second day.

       "You're fourteen," I said. "And you need to get a high school
diploma."

       "But, I mean, I was going to Norton."

       "So now you're going to Saint David's. It's probably a better
school," I told him.

       "But I can't go back." He looked down at the floor. "It's
November. I missed two months. I'm way behind."

       "The sooner you go back, the sooner you catch up."

       "I don't understand," he said. "Why do I have to go to school?"

       "You'll do the gay slave houseboy bit in the evening." I told
him. "In the day time I'm going to work and you're going to school."

       I took him in to the principal's office in the morning and signed
some papers. "He's been out of school, due to the instability at home," I
said, "But he's living with me for now." I signed the places where it said
Parent or Guardian. The principal was completely uncurious about the
instability at home that I spoke about. They made up a schedule for him and
I left him looking back over his shoulder at me in alarm.

       I wasn't glad to be back at work, to the whine of fax machines and
the rattle of keyboards. Cleggman had me in his office by ten-thirty. At
least he went right to the crux of things. He looked at me sideways,
measuring. "There were a couple of deaths at the base, I hear."

       "That's right," I met his eyes.

       "How many were you personally responsible for?" he asked.

       "Three," I said.

       His expression didn't change. He nodded. "You've got a lot of
material here, including the stuff we needed on Al Sadhir and the Pakistani
supply route. That's great! But I could still use a page of separate
documentation about the deaths. Can you file me a report for the beginning
of next week? It doesn't have to be your own material and I don't want it
elaborate."

       "There were no autopsies," I said. "It'll be just my statement."

       He paused, hearing the harshness in my tone. "I wouldn't worry about
it," he told me. "People get killed in a war zone. It's natural."

       I picked up Matthew at three forty-five. He still had some of the
alarmed look he'd been wearing when I'd left him to find his
classrooms. "How did it go?" I asked.

       He gave me a quick look like he thought it was a trick
question. "Uh... Good. Yeah, real good."

       "You like it?" I probed.

       "Sure," he said.

       "What did you like about it?"

       There was a long pause while he buckled his seatbelt carefully. "I'm
ready to go now," he said.

       "I've got worse news for you," I said.

       "What's that?"

       "You're going to have a tutor until you catch up," I told him.

       Unexpectedly Matthew laughed.

       "What's so funny?" I said. I was pulling into traffic away from the
cars picking up all the teenaged kids.

       "You could be like, I don't know. Telling me I have to turn tricks
to get money for you or something. Or like, telling me I'm too much of a
pain so you're kicking me out. A tutor's not so bad." He grew
serious. "Isn't this costing you a lot of money?"

       "A tutor is cheap if you get anything out of it," I said.

       "I'm lost," he admitted.

       "You got text books?"

       "Yeah."

       "Your teachers seem to be shits?"

       "Most of them seem to be okay." He paused. "There's this one old
woman, teaching me English. She's weird."

       "Bad weird or interesting weird?"

       He thought and a smile broke out slowly. "Interesting weird, I
guess."

       "What about the kids?"

       "Half of them are Catholics!" he said.

       "Something wrong with Catholics?" I asked.

       "No," said Matthew. "But they're so different. I never went to
school with Catholic kids before. And they all know each other. I'm like so
out."

       "You think you're going to make any friends?"

       "No," he said. "It's too late in the year to make friends."

       "Any kids you think you might like to make friends with?"

       Instead of answering he looked at me. "Why are you asking me these
questions?"

       "I wanna know," I said. Matthew had his eyes fixed on me
incredulously. "There some reason I shouldn't ask?"

       "It's school," he said. "It's my life. Isn't it boring?"

       "What, you find it too boring to tell me about it? I need to know,"
I told him. "Any problems come up, I'm going to interfere."

       He puckered smiling. "For real? You want to hear?"

       "Yeah, I need to hear," I said.

       "There's this one boy, I wish I could meet him," said Matthew
quietly. "He's in four of my classes. I haven't figured his name out
yet. He's not one of the really cool kids, but I like the way he
smiles. He's... you know, like he's relaxed. He doesn't care who he smiles
at. He's comfortable. He seems like a nice guy."

       A smile, that's not much. But it was giving Matthew something to aim
for. I gave a nod. Probably the smile would disappear and the next day
would be a worse one, but just for now it gave him hope.

       He didn't think much of the tutoring session I set up for him. His
tutor had better posture than my old drill Sergeant. She was a retired
teacher with white hair and she gave him a couple of molasses cookies on
his way out the door.

       "Why algebra?" Matthew complained. "Math is the one thing I'm not
completely confused about. I think I can sort out the math."

       "You're making sure you can sort it," I said. "Start with one class
that you got no worries about, and you go on from there, get a good grip on
the other ones."

       "Well, okay," he said. "But I never did do well in English."

       That night Matthew came into my room at ten o'clock. He stood
smiling faintly while I locked up some papers. I glanced over at
him. "Should I get lost or offer to suck your prick?" he asked.

       "You horny?" I asked.

       His eyes flickered, dropping for a brief second in
embarrassment. "Yeah. And I do want to thank you."

       "Come here," I said. I undressed him. The hoodie came off to show me
that smooth hairless chest. He leaned up trying to kiss me. I kissed him
down for a moment. His breath was sweet. When I got the rest of his clothes
off his cock was standing up, asking for me.

       He took my hand and brought it down, placing it on his prick. I
stroked it. His naked body was leaning against me, leaning into my arm. His
eyes were half closed. "It... feels...really...cool," he breathed. A
shudder of pleasure went through him. I felt my own hard on straining
inside my pants. I dumped him onto the bed.

       He made a sound while I undressed. "Man, you are so big and so
muscled. You look like you could crush me."

       "I won't though," I said.

       He took my prick. He rubbed it with his hand. He was touching it,
he'd taken it in his hand himself without any prompting from me, but still
he was leaning a little bit away. He was still intimidated by it.

       After another moment I brushed his hand away. He retreated, drawing
his knees up, leaning back, more tension in his face. I was rearing over
him and he thought I'd come down on him and that had him scared. After all
this time he was still scared. I leaned down on him and kissed him.

       When I broke the kiss and moved away to the other side of the bed he
looked after me bewildered. I was still on the bed, our legs touching but
he knew then that he wasn't going to get his ass fucked tonight.

       "You ever fuck a guy my age before?" he asked.

       "Yeah," I said.

       "Then what's the matter with me?" Matthew said.

       "I was your age when I fucked a guy your age," I told him.

       "You don't like a kid my age then," he said. "I am too young for
you."

       I shook my head. "You're real cute," I said. I flicked my finger at
his cock gesturing. "You're a man, and yet, same time you got this smooth
kid sweetness about you. You're new. You're a virgin. You're innocent."

       "I jerk off," he said. "That's not innocent."

       "When I fuck your ass," I told him "You're not going to find it
comfortable enough to enjoy it. And then you're going to know fucking as
something that you do even when you don't like it, even when it disgusts
you. And that'll be the end of your innocence."

       "I don't care. I'm going to grow up some time anyway. I can pay you
with my virginity," he said. "I don't care if it hurts. I owe you that
much."

       I took his wrist and placed his hand on his cock. "Jerk it," I said.

       He spread his legs, showing me and jerked it. "I don't mind," he
said. "You can hurt me as much as you want."

       "Maybe I don't want to hurt you at all," I said. "Maybe I'd prefer
to have a horny virgin coming on to me."

       We masturbated, sitting on the bed facing each other. Our ankles
touched, crossing and our hands drove up and down in the same tempo. I
looked at his face and his cock, at the smoothness of his belly. His eyes
got weird with pleasure, half focused. His knuckles flashed hard. This time
he was the one to cum first, but my cum jetted out when I saw his squirting
up, and the two streams of jism mingled.


       When I picked him up after school on Friday I was burning in rage. I
was glaring into space. The boy said not a word, threw one glance at me and
his face went scared. He scooted into the front seat and buckled his
seatbelt tightly. I drove tautly. Luckily the road was almost clear. I
wasn't safe on the road that day. I looked at a trucker ahead of me and
wondered how I could force him of the highway. I need a fucking gun, I
thought. Put a bullet through the side window, turn it into a white star of
glass, send the truck lurching straight on the bend, rumbling off the
road. The trucker had done nothing to me. I felt the tightness of my lips
as I drove.

       "Did I do it?" Matthew's voice was a whisper.

       "No," I said.

       "Why?" he said, in a voice that shook slightly.

       "I have to take a month off," I said.

       "Why do you have to do that?" asked Matthew.

       "I have to take a fucking month off!" I screamed. "Off work!
Fucking, fucking cocksucker! I'll kill that fucking cocksucker! Ram a
grenade up his ass. I fucking don't deserve this! Shit! He told me today I
couldn't come back for a month." Then I screamed like an animal. "God! I
fucking do not deserve this!"

       "You've been laid off?"

       "Fuck!!" I took my hands off the steering wheel to hold them in the
air. "I'm under disciplinary," I snarled again. "I'm going to
be. Cocksucking Cleggman called it R and R. Get some fucking rest, he
said. Ahhhh, Shit! I got to stay off work for a month!" I turned my head to
look at the boy. Matthew was cringing.

       "He said to go home," I snarled. "He said to stay out until
Christmas, he'll call me, maybe the New Year! Reward! He called it a
reward! I need to work! I want to work!"

       "You need the money?" Matthew had a mouse of a voice.

       "Money!" I screamed. "It's not money! I'm getting paid. I don't
touch even my fucking vacation pool. I'm officially not even on leave. I
just want to work! You understand that? The son-of-a-shit-licking
cocksucker told me to go fuck myself. He told me to go home. Now I don't
know if I'm going under disciplinary or not! Ah, Jesus! Jesus! Jesus! I'm
going back there with a gun."

       I took Matthew to the tutor's house and stayed outside it in the car
while he was inside. He spent an hour and a half inside the miniature brick
house while I sat in the car, shaking with rage and told myself to calm
down. I eyed a couple of guys out walking a dog and wanted to get out of
the car and kill their black Labrador. I wanted to throttle the guys. Fuck
me. I wanted to kill. Kill some one. Kill Cleggman. Kill anyone. But I
didn't want to kill Matthew. I didn't even think he could handle me in a
state of rage. He was too scared. So I sat very still and cursed my
heartbeat to make it slow down. Die. I told my heartbeat inside my
chest. Die. Just fucking die and slow down.

       Matthew came out, face trembling with terror. He had two molasses
cookies in his mitten. Big, frightened eyes, he held one out, offering it
to me. I took it.

       We didn't say a word. I drove him home, being careful not to drive
aggressively.

       Fucked up. That was my job. I'd fucked up. So didn't I deserve
disciplinary action? Of course I fucking deserved it. Fired. Charged. Put
in fucking jail. I deserved it. In the morning I fed Matthew steak and eggs
for breakfast. He loved steak and eggs. The kid loved everything I fed him.

       "What do you usually do on Saturdays?" I asked.

       He was still afraid. "Umm. I'll go out," he said quickly.

       "Where do you usually go?"

       "Just out."

       "You need a lift. Where do you want to go?"

       His shoulders twisted up awkwardly. "I don't know. Anywhere is
fine. Drop me wherever you want."

       "What you going to do?" I crossed my arms in front of my chest.

       "Just hang out."

       "You got friends?" I probed.

       "No." He looked down. "I'll stay in some mall. It'll be warm."

       "I'm not trying to get rid of you," I said. He looked up,
surprised. "I'm trying to find a way for you to spend Saturday you'll
enjoy. Where do you want to go? What do you want to do?"

       "I don't care. I never did anything special on Saturdays."

       "You want to catch a movie? Go bowling? Go for a drive? Get down to
a video arcade?"

       "What do you do on Saturdays?" he asked.

       "Usually I go into the office," I said.

       We looked at each other. We were starting from scratch,
laboriously. I knew theoretically how to give a kid a good time, but I
hadn't done it before. It worked. I took him out to Office Depot, and
bought him a whack of school supplies. I eyed the computers there. He'd get
better grades if he had a computer at home he could use but he wasn't going
to borrow mine. Anyway, he wasn't going to be with me long enough to really
need one. It was a week to Thanksgiving. Maybe his mother would get some
backbone and put the step dad out and want him back with his family over
the holidays. Or something. I had no idea how it was going to end and how
long it was going to last, but it felt temporary. By New Year I'd be in a
jail on charges of homicide and he'd be in a group home getting gang
fucked.

       So like I said, I bought him school supplies and took him down to
get tickets to the football game on Sunday and then we went to the bowling
alley and rented shoes. It wasn't so bad. It was a bit like going out
gathering intelligence, going place to place, hanging out, watching. I took
it the same way. I sent the first rack of pins crashing down Matthew said,
"You do everything like an expert."

       Don't hero worship me, Kid. I thought.

       Anyway, I knocked down a lot of pins and he knocked down a lot of
pins but we were so badly matched we couldn't play together. He'd only
bowled two or three times before. But on the way out he raised his hand a
threw a salute at a short pug faced kid who was just settling in with a
bunch of other kids and the short kid flung him back a grin and matched the
salute.

       "Who was that?" I asked.

       "Duncan," said Matthew with no inflection, "From school."

       Then I bought my kid swimming trunks and then I took him
swimming. He needed sweats too. I couldn't take him up in the gym part of
the club without working out clothes, but that Saturday swimming was
enough. The boy swam like a frog, all careless kicks and a lot of churning,
but effective anyway. We swam in different parts of the pool. Our styles
were so different. He watched me swim lengths, shook his head and dived
under. He was a wallower. I joined him again as he sculled carelessly on
his back.

       "You bored?"

       "Not yet." He turned in the water smiling happily. "But if you want
to go, we can take off any time."

       "I could stand to stay," I told him. "You let me know if you get
bored."

       I went back to doing lengths. I couldn't stop feeling angry but the
lengths made me calmer. Stop being angry I ordered myself. Calm. You need
to be calm to stay in control. Kill Cleggman. Kill him. Sending me on
leave. Cocksucker. No, don't think that. Calmer. He was just following his
orders. Fucking bastard. Calm. Calm down. Let it go. Length after length
made my muscles feel good, took all the kinks out and got me breathing
steady and deep and slow. If I looked over my shoulder I could see Matthew
alone, wrestling with an inflatable raft, sliding off and going under it
and knocking it up into the air as he jumped out of the water.

       He shouldn't be alone. I thought. I swam over. By then my muscles
were warm with fatigue. I'd had a good work out. "Hey, Matthew," I
said. "You got any friends from your old school, you'd like to give them a
call?"

       The smile dropped away from his lips. He shook his head. "Everybody
dumped me when they started saying I was gay. I only had two friends and
one of them is the friend that told everybody and the other one said I
wasn't worth shit." He turned and swam away from me. I knew he was hiding
his face. I made sure not to catch up to him. I climbed out of the water
after him.

       "You hungry yet?"

       That made him turn around. He nodded. I wanted to put my arm around
his wet body and pull him up against myself, have his pointed chin in under
my throat and his bare wet arms and legs tangling with mine, feel the
warmth of his belly against me. But this was the pool, public and I
couldn't do it.

       "Burgers?" I suggested. "Or you want to try something really
different?"

       "What were you thinking?"

       "Indian food."

       "Indian food?" He was uncertain.

       "Really, really weird," I told him. "Curry and vindaloo and
chapattis and mangos."

       "What's that?" he said.

       "Weird food, from India," I explained. "Some of it's pretty spicy
but then you eat the bread or some rice and that takes it off your
tongue. Can you handle your chili hot?"

       "Sure," he said.

       "Let's go try curry," I said.

       He followed me curious and willing.

       Sunday was the same kind of day. I thought about getting myself a
lawyer, seeing if I could dodge out of being held responsible for the guys
I'd killed at Kunzaraih, and decided I was being paranoid. But we took in
the football game. That was great but we damn near froze our asses off. The
stadium was outside and the fog came out of Matthew's mouth like steam from
a kettle when he got excited.

       Our team won. As we clattered out of there in the hubbub of the
crowd Matthew took my arm and leaned in close. "I'm willing to let you fuck
my butt any time to thank you," he said. "Honest."

       I just looked at him. I thought, thank me for what? But I knew
what. He meant for taking him to the game. "Your dad take you to the
football games?" I asked carelessly.

       "No," said Matthew like it was a stupid question.

       "Nothing like that?" I explored a bit more.

       "That would have been his weekends," Matthew told me. "He needed his
weekends off."

       "Right," I agreed. I kept my arm around his shoulder but I didn't
take him home and fuck him. It was all right to have my arm around him
casual like that in the excited crowd. I was old enough to be his father,
so it didn't make anyone look. By the stairs down we had broken apart. He
was still happy. It made me grin to see him happy.

       It was the next week -Tuesday that Matthew came to me in the evening
with a problem. He always came in to me in the evening and we always jerked
off together. That was all we did. Whenever I rubbed his butt his cheeks
were clenched up and whenever he offered to suck my cock I could see him
visibly screw up his courage before he asked. But he was at ease with the
jerking off and it was the finest thing seeing the slim, burgeoning shape
of him that was turning into muscle and manliness. In the week he'd been
there he'd lost most of the gaunt look to his flanks and cheeks. It had
only taken a few decent meals to replace the ones he'd missed. This time we
jerked off and afterwards he lay with his head on my belly, both of us
stretched out and our sticky cocks sagging.

       Matthew looked at me sideways. I caught the seriousness on his face
and waited for it.

       "Duncan thinks I'm cool," he said.

       Duncan again. That should have been a good thing, but not the way he
said it. I waited.

       "It's those clothes you bought me," Matthew said. "Duncan thinks I'm
cool because I'm wearing the right things. I don't have my own clothes so
he doesn't know. And he knows I'm living here on the Mollay Road with
you. This is a good neighborhood, so he has the idea this is where I
belong."

       "What do you need to be cool then? A Game Boy and a skateboard?"

       "I need to be someone other than me." His mouth was glum.

       I couldn't fix it so I stroked his head. His hair was satin smooth
and clean now. He showered every day. I had heard him just that morning in
the shower bellowing exuberantly. Now he was still and quiet.

       "What's Duncan going to do when he finds out you're not cool?" I
asked.

       "Tell everyone I'm a fag," he said.

       "Maybe we could find a gay youth group for you," I said.

       "Maybe we could get me some therapy and turn me straight." He
hunched his shoulders.

       I kept petting his head. He sat up suddenly, smiling. "Oh well. I
gotta go to school to get a diploma, not to find some buds to hang out
with." Still smiling he reached down and put his hand on my head. Copying
my gesture he stroked. He leaned in for a kiss. He went belly down and
French kissed me. His warm lips pulled at mine hungrily. Then he realized
that he'd rubbed his belly with the sticky mess of cum on my comforter.

       "Oh shit! You're going to kill me." He sprang off and tugged at the
comforter. I rolled aside so he could get it. "Smeared it!" He blew out in
exasperation. "I'll get you a clean one." He took off with it lumped up
under his arm, his naked ass unselfconsciously visible as he headed for the
stairs and the washing machine below. He wasn't exactly good at household
chores, but he took his responsibilities seriously. I never told him to do
the clean up. If he saw something he did it. When I was cooking he would
watch me carefully waiting until he could spring up and grab the dishes and
take them to the sink. He might even have smeared my quilt so that he could
demonstrate what a good houseboy he was; only it wasn't just a show he was
putting on. He really was trying to earn his keep.

       I had no one I could ask what a teenager needs to be cool, and
Matthew himself was sure it was personality. So I didn't know what I could
buy him and it was probably true that consumer goods weren't always enough.

       "If you pass all your courses at the Christmas exams," I said. "I'll
get you a PS2 or a Game Boy. Which ever you want."

       He looked at me as if I was crazy. "I'm going to pass them all."

       "How does Mrs. Beall think you're doing?"

       "She's trying to help me get my marks up, not pass," he said.

       Of course it was a dangerous promise. Suppose he was gone by
Christmas? Suppose he'd been reported a runaway and the cops tracked him
down? I had no right to have him there. It was legally abduction. It was
vicious making a promise like that, that might become impossible to keep.

       "What do you do when I'm at school?" he said.

       "Swim."

       "All day?"

       "No, not all day," I said. "I swim five miles. That makes me feel
less angry. You know how sometimes I've flipped out over little things?
Well if I swim hard, then I'm in better control of my temper. I don't have
such a hair trigger."

       He looked at me, head turned at an angle. "You ever hit someone? You
know punch them out?"

       I gave a nod. "How many times do you think?" I asked.

       "Maybe a couple of times," he said.

       "Kid, I've killed people," I said. "That's why it's important for me
to keep my temper. I won't just rant and yell if I lose it. I might kill
someone."

       "You ever kill someone here, in the States?" he asked. His voice had
gone very soft.

       "No. Not yet. And hopefully never."

       "In the war?"

       "Uh-huh," I said. "I murdered three men in September. Right now I'm
on leave until they decide what to do about that."

       His eyes went huge. "You didn't!"

       "Yes I did."

       "Why?? Were they American soldiers??"

       "No. They were Saudis," I said. My voice didn't go up.

       "They were terrorists?" he said.

       "I think so," I said.

       "Then it wasn't murder!" he said. "It was war, wasn't it?"

       I just shrugged. He looked at me for a long while. Then he said, "Do
you feel bad about it?"

       "I don't feel anything except angry," I said.

       Friday morning was the last day of school before Thanksgiving
break. I had it set up so Matthew wasn't going to get much of a break. He
was going to be sitting down with Mrs. Beall every day but Friday that
week, working on catching up. Otherwise there would have been two of us
roaming around the house with nothing to do. Also, he may have said that he
was going to pass all of his courses but I was far from certain yet. He'd
gone from admitting to being totally lost to being sure he wouldn't flunk
anything in just one single week. I wanted to get some reports from his
teachers before I'd believe it.

       Friday morning Matthew looked at me nervously. "Ummm... Could I, I
mean, could you pick me up somewhere else after school, later?" He was
scared to ask.

       "Where do you want me to pick me up?" I looked at him wondering why
he was scared.

       "At a guy's house," he said.

       "What's the address? What time to you want?" I gave a shrug.

       "I don't know the address yet," he said, talking quickly. "But I
could maybe call you after I get there? Would that be all right?
Four-thirty? Do you mind?"

       "I don't mind," I said. Matthew lit up like I'd bought him a big
expensive gift. I just looked at him. It made him happy if I let him make
plans. I suppose he figured that he wasn't going to be allowed to have a
life, being a slave houseboy, like that. But why would I care, picking him
up an hour later, somewhere else?

       When he called me it was ten after four. He gave me the address, not
too far from my house, but up on Heron Ridge where the new houses had been
built to get the view of the reservoir. His voice on the phone was alive
and electric as if he had been laughing recently. "Alright," I said. "You
want me coming up to get you now, or you want to stay a little later, maybe
until five?"

       "Ooh, yeah!" Matthew's voice left the mouthpiece abruptly. "Duncan,
can I stay a bit more? Is it alright if he comes at five?"

       I heard another voice, cheerful and young, but not the words.

       "He says that's great," Matthew reported, excited. "Hey thanks,
Currier! Thanks! You are the coolest guy!"

       I disconnected and stared at the cell phone in my hand. He thought I
was cool for letting him hang out with a school friend for half an
hour. What kind of a leash did he think I was keeping him on?

       It was inconvenient picking him up after five. I was taking him down
to the grocery store afterwards to get the fixings for Thanksgiving. And by
the time we got there the stores were a madhouse. It was solidly jammed
with women and shopping carts. I looked in at it like it was a tactical
exercise. How to get in without getting trapped? Wire carts clashed and
small kids in the booster seats clawed the shelves to grab cereal. I
steered and Matthew darted about grabbing the groceries. He flung soup
cans, spaghetti sauce and noodles into the cart when I pointed at the
shelves.

       "Eggs," I ordered and he grabbed a box, probably breaking at least a
couple when he dropped it onto the soup.

       I steered us in near a crowded refrigerated bin, "A medium sized
turkey," I ordered. Matthew went squirming in boldly between women loading
their carts. He came back with what looked like it had probably been the
smallest bird in the bin.

       I pointed him back: "Take it back and get one twice that size." He
dodged back carrying the cold carcass shoulder-high like it was a
football. He came back grinning with a much bigger bird.

       When I had him throw -and he really did throw -a pumpkin into the
cart, Matthew asked. "Don't we get pumpkin pie?"

       "We're making it," I told him.

       "Cereal," I ordered in the next aisle.

       "What type??"

       "What ever you want."

       He grabbed three boxes, looking at me for permission. There was
Captain Crunch, Froot Loops and Cocoa Pops. I looked at his choices in
consternation. He was still kid enough to think the best cereal was
candy. He looked down too, beginning to be aware. "I'm going to be sick!"
he announced happily.

       He grabbed four bags of bread off the shelf at my instructions. "Why
so much bread?"

       "We need it for stuffing."

       "Woo!" Matthew cheered. He was practically leaping. His eyes flashed
brilliantly. His face was alive in the roar of white noise and ticking
registers and bawling kids.

       "Okay." I steered the cart sideways so that he got the handle and
then steered him to join the line. I peeled bills out of my wallet and
passed them to him.

       "You trust me with money?" he was surprised.

       "Sure," I said. I started to get back. It was the tight check out
aisles. They say avoid your trigger points. That was a trigger point for
me, but he didn't care if the narrow lanes boxed him in. "I'm getting the
car. You take care of paying for it and I'll meet you."

       "Okay, but I'm going to sneak some gum into the order!" he
threatened weakly.

       I just laughed.

       Sitting in the car, with half light and a hard freeze in the parking
lot, mobs of people thronging the electric doors I wondered what I would do
if I was sitting there for an hour, for two hours, if Matthew never came
trotting through the doors to find me. What would I do if he took the bills
I'd handed him, abandoned the groceries and made off to try living on his
own again?

       I'd wish I'd given him a bigger handful of bills, I thought.

       He came out and we took the groceries home.

       In my kitchen, Saturday, making pastry and cooking cut up blocks of
pumpkin Matthew said to me. "I think you can do every thing. You're a hard
ass soldier, you swim, you talk Urdu and Arabic, you bowl, you drive like
James Bond, you own this big house, you take in unwanted kids and you can
cook. Every thing you do you do really well. And you seem to be able to do
every thing."

       "Cooking is a basic life skill," I said.

       "My dad can't cook," he said.

       I thought about that one. "Do you miss your dad?" I asked.

       "I really wish he was missing me," said Matthew.

       That's another thing I do better than his step dad, I thought. If
you were gone I'd miss you.

       I got a couple of calls on Saturday, friends who just found out I'd
gotten back in town asking me if I wanted to have Thanksgiving dinner with
them. I hadn't gotten in touch with anyone. Part of it was I didn't feel so
close to them and part of it not having a good explanation for the kid I
had living at my house. But now I had to admit it, so I told them a lie.

       "My godson is staying with me," I said. "His parents are going
through a rough patch. -Frankly I hope they make up their minds to
divorce. Anyway, he's here with me indefinitely and we'll be spending
Thanksgiving together."

       Of course, they didn't know I had a godson, but they didn't know
that I didn't either. The lie worked. The relationship was just close
enough and just obscure enough that they were surprised, maybe even a
little flabbergasted but they didn't doubt it.

       "If anyone asks," I told Matthew. "I'm a friend of your family's and
your godfather."

       "Right."

       "You don't want to tell anyone you're having a gay relationship with
me. They'd make you move out."

       "I know that," he said. He blushed. "But I already told one guy you
were my uncle. I hope that won't foul things up."

       "Just don't repeat it and he'll probably forget," I said. "We'll
stick to the godfather lie."

       "Are you going to make me an offer I can't refuse?" He gave a wicked
grin. 'I gotta whack some guy for my Padrone?"

       "Remember -Omerta," I teased back. "You tell no one about our family
business." I paused. "I didn't know you were into the mob. I was going to
watch the game tomorrow. You want to take a run out to Blockbuster and see
if we can pick up some mafia movie and watch that too?"

       Thanksgiving was good. Matthew ate enough turkey to make anyone
sick, and then brought a plate full of the cold meat to munch on while we
watched the game. We stretched out, opposite sides of the couch and watched
the worst play I could remember in my lifetime. Matthew kept smacking his
forehead. "He ran right over the ball! He ran right over it!" We ended up
laughing. And if I might have got tense and pissed off to see my team
losing the Super Bowl 28 to 2, all I had to do was look over at Matthew
going bug eyed with a dropped jaw. "These guys are supposed to be
professionals?!"

       Later, when Sonny Corleone got gunned down, Matthew moved wincing
into my armpit. He stayed there snuggled, tilting his head towards my
chest, his leg on top of mine. We shared the turkey. The house creaked with
the frost, and the room was dark except the flickering TV. It was eleven
o'clock before the movie ended.

       "I am so happy," said Matthew. "It has been over two weeks since
anything bad has happened. I keep expecting an explosion, boom! Everything
is going to blow up in my face, but nothing bad has happened at all." Then
he turned his face around and kissed me in the armpit, which was a
ridiculous place to kiss me. So I kissed his face and he pulled my neck
down.

       "Can I sleep in your bed, with you tonight?" he asked, "Even if I am
too much of a twink to fuck?"

       "Alright," I said. So we lay out in the bed, side by side, elbows
and knees touching in the darkness and we each jerked ourselves, feeling
the other guy's rhythm. I heard him breathing as he slept. It didn't
disturb my sleeping at all. A couple of times I got out of bed and sat on
the edge of it in the dark. That was when I heard the memories of bombs
going off, of bits of concrete slowly pattering down in the broken houses,
of men breathing in bad pain. But I also heard the kid breathing there,
relaxed and comfortable. And so instead of groping empty handed, wishing I
could close my palms around a gun, feeling my palms sweat for the feel of a
gun, I crawled back into the bed again beside him. I'd lie and listen to
him breath and smell the boy smell, his spunk and his clean skin and then I
went back to sleep again, at least for a while.

End of Part 2 of "Little Boy Lost" by Ruthless@nbnet.nb.ca