Date: Sat, 14 Mar 2009 14:14:46 -0700 From: StoryDad <storydad@gmail.com> Subject: Love on the Net (part 2) ============================= Love on the Net ============================ Copyright: 2009; All rights reserved. Comments: Email can be sent to StoryDad@gmail.com Flames, hate mail, and similar things will be ignored. ========================================================================== Dedicated to a beautiful loving boy whose man doesn't appreciate what he has and is unknowningly throwing away. ========================================================================== CHAPTER 2 ========================================================================== I came home from work with a feeling of dread. I had been told that I needed to attend a business conference in New York City the following week. I had been avoiding crossing the border ever since the US had lost its sanity and degenerated into a mindless savage recklessness. Everyone knew what it was like to try and cross the border now. Laptop computers scanned and searched, supposedly for items of dubious or seditious nature, but everyone knew that if you had company secrets on your machine those were being checked for and recorded as well. The customs officers now retrained or replaced with what could only be charitably described as arrogant Gestapo. And god help you if you had ever posted a comment anywhere on the net even remotely critical of the insanity being perpetrated in the name of enhanced security. We all knew that the indefatigable electronic vacuum cleaners located in Virginia and Maryland had recorded your name and were ready to blink red on the screens of those same officials manning I am in the IT field, so I knew what needed to be done. I took my work laptop home with me that night. The work files that mattered I recorded onto a couple of CDs and put them into a drawer. Then I wiped the hard disk clean, rebooted the machine from a disc I had borrowed from the security fellows at work, and then using that wrote random patterns over the entire disk multiple times. Finally I reinstalled a clean OS thereby rendering the machine pristine once again. Now it could withstand the worst that might happen. There was still the question of myself however. I thought back carefully, what had I done online over the past seven or eight years that could possibly be held against me? I had submitted a somewhat critical editorial article to a non-aligned website shortly after some of the worst abuses began to come to light. I had not written anything like that before and I was rather pleased with how well I had worded my thoughts. There was even some pride on my part when it had been chosen for publication even in that admittedly limited arena. Was that enough to land me on the alert list? The US seemed to be slowly stirring from the nightmare it had descended into but the automatic machinery was still in full thunderous motion. I would just have to hope for the best. The next night when I got home from work I connected my home machine to the internet and logged into IRC. Would he be there? I had had a lot on my mind with the impending trip but I was hoping my boy would be there; I needed to spend some time forgetting my worries with the boy that I loved. "You're here!" the screen suddenly said. My fingers flew over the keyboard. If it can be said that two people could cling to each other over a piece of wire we were doing just that. It had been three days since we last spoke, an eternity for both of us. The relief, the excitement, the pounding of my heart, and the other all too obvious evidence of my desire were unmistakable. My boy was in pain though. Before we could be together the way we both needed to be he wanted to talk. Something had happened. Something that had disturbed him deeply. My boy needed to be held and comforted while he talked and let out whatever it was. My immediate desire subsided and I told him that I had all the time in the world for him. He did not like talking about his man with me he said, but his man had asked him to do something. His man had asked him to do some things for a friend. The friend would pay for it his man had said. Hearing this I recoiled. Asking your boy to service a friend, and for money? My fingers froze. I did not want to make my boy feel worse about the situation, but I knew how I felt about it. If I had been physically present I would have wrapped my arms around him to reassure him, to tell him that he did not need to do something like that to retain the love of a man that truly cared about him, that he was more precious than any price that someone could pay. I knew I had to be careful what I said and how I said it. A boy can be very strong, but at the same time they are very fragile. Full of energy and excitement and promise but easily shattered if a man were to do or say the wrong thing. "What do you think you will do?" I temporized still unsure how to say what I was feeling. He admitted that getting a hundred dollars was attractive but he also said that some things he could never do for money. I breathed a sigh of relief. I did not want to directly criticize his man because I knew my boy had been with him for a couple of years and still had feelings about him but at the same time I could not avoid saying something. "If I was there and you were my boy, I wouldn't share you with anyone for anything," I typed. "I know you wouldn't," read the screen in forlorn reply and reading it my heart ached. What he had there was real and it was hurting him, what we had was not quite real but nevertheless I could feel his longing. We talked about it a bit more but then he needed a break. Just to spend some time together with me and not think about it. "I need to tell you something too," I typed. "I won't be able to be online to see you next week. My company is sending me away on a conference. It's going to hurt not being able to see you while I'm away." "Where are they sending you?" "It's in New York," I replied. "The last time I was there was twenty years ago." "New York City?" the screen read. "Yes," I replied. "It's in a hotel called the Marriott Marquis on the island of Manhattan. I was there once a long time ago." "We never talked about where we both live," said the screen. "No, we've both avoided things like that," I replied. "We both wanted to just concentrate on who the other person is inside." "You never tried to check?" the screen said. "We have a special relationship," I replied. "I'd feel like I was spying on you if I were to do that." "Check," said the screen. I did not understand but I certainly knew how to check. I did a status display, copied Ricky's IP address, and then ran traceroute. I suddenly sat back in my chair as I scanned the results. "Just a moment," I typed on the screen. "OK." I looked up the URL for a security website and reran the traceroute using their tools and activated the visual mapping option. The results checked a second time. It was not possible, or was it? "You're in New Jersey," I typed. "It looks like a suburb of Newark." "I know what you're thinking," said the screen. "It has to be a trap. But don't worry I'm not saying we should meet. But maybe we could talk on the phone when you're here, just to hear each other's voice." My boy was right, that had been the first thing I was thinking. It was too coincidental and I did not believe in coincidences. I looked again at the traceroute results. The DNS names on the terminal nodes appeared residential in nature but being in the field I knew enough to know that it was trivial to inject fake information into DNS. "Talking would be safe enough I guess," I said cautiously. "Even if we thought it was safe we can't meet for real," said the screen. "If we did I couldn't let you leave after. It would hurt too much. Even the phone will hurt but if you're that close I need to hear you." I agreed. It would not be safe. But to be that close and do absolutely nothing about it did not seem right either. And a simple phone call could not harm anyone. We talked some more after that, had an hour of special time together, and then we parted. Before we disconnected my boy asked me when I would be flying in. It might have been foolish of me but I told him that I would be flying direct on Sunday and that the conference would start the next morning. He said that he would try to phone me at the hotel on Sunday night. I felt uneasy but at the same time I felt certain that I had been correct in my judgement, it was not a sting and I really was talking with a boy. My precious boy. Sunday arrived and I got up early and went off to the airport. The flight would fill the entire day, taking the time zone changes into account, so I dressed comfortably in jeans and a t-shirt. Things were going to be stressful enough without adding the discomfort of tight fitting clothing. I parked my car and entered the airport gritting my teeth and putting on a neutral face for the interrogation I would shortly be facing. Where is your passport, where were you born, why are you travelling, who do you work for, why do you need to be at this conference, who are you going to meet there, turn out your pockets, remove your shoes, open your suitcase, a dozen other questions and orders thrown at me. The days of enjoying travelling were obviously in the past. My laptop was taken away into a back room and I was told to wait. Twenty minutes my laptop was handed back brusquely by an obviously disappointed face. I had noted that others with laptops had not received the treatment I had and I could only speculate on the reason for my popularity since explanations or apologies seemed to be an extinct courtesy. The flight was long and tedious but given the economic times the airplane was only filled to half-capacity which meant that I had plenty of room to stretch out. I pulled a paperback novel out of the laptop case and began to read. The airplane would land at seven o'clock in the evening and I wondered if I should have perhaps brought along a couple more books to help relieve the tedium. Finally the announcement came, the plane banked, and came in to land. I put my tray up, put my seatback into an upright position, and remembered to take along all of my personal articles. Making my way to the baggage carrousel I began looking for my bag. It had been years since I had gone anywhere and my bag still had a large maple leaf pasted on both sides from when I had been younger and thought it would help me to spot it. I thought it looked a bit silly now but decided that in the confusion of an airport the practicality of it outweighed the appearance. My bag finally came into view and I moved to grab it. My fingers closed around the grip and I pulled it free. Taking a breath I then stepped out from amongst the throng searching for their own bags. Remembering New York from when I had last visited twenty years ago I had decided against renting a car and began to look about for directions to the exit and a taxi. My gaze finally lighted upon an information display and I walked to it. I was looking it over when I suddenly felt a smallish hand gently take hold of mine. Startled I turned my head to the right and looked into the deepest bluest eyes I had ever seen in my life. My heart seemed to skip a beat. No, it was not possible. It was too cliche, too improbable, the sort of thing that only happens in cheap novels. "Ricky?" my lips whispered unbelievingly as a pair of young arms wrapped themselves around me in a bear hug.