Date: Thu, 05 Jan 2012 22:23:02 -0600
From: michaelpete@hushmail.com
Subject: Promiscuity and Purpose 11

This is the final chapter plus an Epilogue. I hope you enjoyed the story.

Don't forget to send a few bucks to the good folks at Nifty in thanks for
all the great work they've done for both readers and writers. Where would
we be without them!

And, of course, Happy New Year!


CHAPTER XI

SUMMER'S END

Tuesday night, after a longer than usual day full of emergencies that put
us behind with our scheduled work, I took a longer than usual shower which
was interrupted by the doorbell. Soaking wet, I went into the bedroom
closet and put on my too big bathrobe. It had been on sale.

Pulling back the shade on the door window, I saw Tommy Porres and a large,
round faced man. My first thought concerned the sturdiness of the door. The
guy was at least six feet tall and filled out the green shirt he wore,
though he did look fatter than muscular.

Tommy got close to the glass and said, "It's okay. He's a nurse."

As you can imagine, that was nearly as disconcerting. Was he with the city
welfare department?

My hesitation elicited, "Don't worry, I'm a friend," from the man with an
uncomfortable smile.

By then, too curious not to, I opened the door.

"This is Bill. He's gotta give..."

"Wait, Tommy," he said, "I'm really sorry coming like this. I know you
don't know me but, really, I'm a friend. I'm not looking to cause you any
trouble. It's just that Tommy has a problem you oughta know about, not
anything legal or anything, physical. I mean..."

This didn't sound like a conversation appropriate for neighbors to hear.

"Come on in. We can talk inside."

"Of course, of course," he mumbled as he nudged Tommy through the door
ahead of him.

He was noticeably disconcerted by his first view of my basement.

Tommy saw or sensed it and said, "He lives back there," pointing to the far
side.

The man followed Tommy to the open door of my apartment. I trailed along
behind, mentally scanning all sorts of reasons for this strange,
unannounced visit.

"My, this is very nice, very nice. I could live in a place like this, and
all the privacy. Was it like this when you moved in or did you have
somebody do it?"

I changed the subject. "So what's Tommy's problem?"

"Oh, I'm sorry, yes, well, basically, unprotected sex but it's under
control. Like he said, I'm a nurse and..."

"You saying Tommy's got the clap or something?"

"Well, yes, I mean no, well, he did but he's been treated. I can treat you
too if you want. I have everything here." He held up a small leather pouch.

"And you're a nurse."

"A male nurse. I can show you my papers if you like."

Did I want to know his name? "Okay."

Out came a thick wallet matching the pouch. He opened it high enough for me
to see, but not our common friend. Sure enough, he had an ID card with his
picture and `Registered Nurse' on it.

"So what exactly did Tommy have?"

"Gonorrhea but all you need is a single shot. I gave Tommy his last night
and we've done it for some others too."

I wanted to ask how many `others' but didn't want to embarrass Tommy, if
that was possible.

"Now?"

He opened his pouch. Inside were a hypodermic needle, a small glass bottle,
the type one draws medicine out of with a needle, plus another bottle
probably with alcohol and a small brown paper bag. He grinned and commented
nodding toward my bathrobe, "It's almost like you expected me."

"Not really but let's do it. Where do you put it?"

"In your backside."

He did it with me leaning over the sofa, my bathrobe pulled to the side
exposing my posterior. He was good.

He gave my ass a smack then said, "That's it. All done."

"You already gave it to me?"

"Didn't feel a thing, did you? The slap distracts your mind. It doesn't
have time to recover before I've injected you. That's why you didn't feel
it."

My mind did detect a small pocket of fullness under the skin. He'd done it
all right. I offered the two of them glasses of orange juice.

Wanting to finally converse with a New York boy lover, I asked, "You got
time to talk?"

"Sure. My name's Bill." The card had said Francis. I'd never used a fake
name, probably erroneously.

"Mine's Steve. You're the first one of us I've had the chance to meet. I've
seen a bunch but they didn't seem to want to talk to anybody. We're all
kind of paranoid but, I suppose that's good."

He stayed for an hour. Tommy fell asleep against him. Some of what he told
me I'd already surmised or experienced. It was from him I learned the term
`Forty-Second Street stretch'. The police, he explained, turned a blind eye
to the scene on Forty-Second and other places since it involved a lot of
paperwork and lost time.

"What other places?" I asked.

"Well, the Port Authority Building, a couple of swimming pools, a section
of Brooklyn, but mostly Times Square. That's where you find most of the
professionals but there are kids all over the city who'll go with a man if
he's nice to them. I met my boy, not Tommy, in Union Square a couple of
years ago. I don't remember how it started but we just began talking and,
well, we're together a lot. I know his family."

"They don't ask questions about why you're so interested in him?"

"Oh, we have a story about how we met at a clinic his friend went to. I
think they know the truth but I buy him things he needs. His mother has
five children and no husband so I'm an asset."

I asked where he took his boys.

"Mostly back to my place but I don't go with all that many. I met him," he
nodded toward the sleeping boy beside him, "through a friend. There's a
whole bunch that come from his project. You meet Estiven?"

Tommy hadn't told him much about me.

"Oh yeah."

"So he brought you Manny and Martin and William?"

"Just the first two. Who's William?"

"Oh, he's a little older but what a body. Does it matter to you if they
have hair?"

"Not all the time. What's William do?"

"Not all that much but I love the way he gets all excited when you do him."

"A lot of them do."

"Oh, not like William. He doesn't cum all that fast so he has to work at
it. He get's all sweaty and grabs your head and sits up and moves all
around and talks to you. He really likes it."

"I met one like that last weekend, about eleven from New Jersey. I thought
he was gonna faint."

"Oh, there's a bunch who come over from Jersey, a lot of really cute
blondes."

Seeing Tommy fast asleep, I asked, "You mentioned others who needed
medication." I nodded toward Tommy.

"Oh, that. You know that Estiven screws Tommy a lot. Well, we had to
contact anyone he'd been with, then boys they'd had. Well, they did that,
promised to take them to clinics, you know the free kind that doesn't ask
any questions.

"Then there three others who'd been with Tommy and a couple of other
kids. A friend and I have been at this for two days solid. I missed work
today. One guy works for Sanitation and gets up at three thirty in the
morning.  Another friend of mine knows him and called. I've been up since
then. You're the last, at least for me."

I was impressed and told him so.

"It wasn't entirely altruistic. If there'd been an epidemic the schools
might have found out and you can imagine what would come next."

By the time he left, we'd exchanged phone numbers and he'd promised to
introduce me to some of his friends, a couple of whom had been to my city
and would love to hear what I had to say about it. I wondered later if that
would be a good idea. There were enough local men cruising around. More
might attract unwanted attention.

The idea that there were other areas with hustlers was enticing. Would they
be less professional, more friendly? New bodies were always a draw.

Francis who preferred to be called Frank called back early Thursday evening
inviting me to join him and a couple of friends at a midtown restaurant. I
put four twenties into my wallet so I could be very friendly and pay the
bill.

The other two were Rick, a young primary school teacher and Aaron, an older
pharmacist, certainly into his fifties. Both were curious about my home
town. We traded stories though mine were a dramatically toned down version
on availabilities back there.

"The big problem we all have is most of them are thieves. Taking more than
one at a time is difficult. You have to keep them together at all times
and, when you're in bed, keep your cash well out of reach."

"We gotta do that here," laughed the teacher.

I debated asking if they knew about the Tenth Avenue short time hotel but
decided to keep my yap shut about it. No use overloading the desk clerk's
sensibilities if he had any.

To a question about where to take boys other than one's home, the
pharmacist said, "There are several hotels. In some you need to be a
guest." He named three in the Times Square area and one downtown. "Then
there are some short time hotels, one on Tenth Avenue that a lot of the
kids take their customers to and another on Eighth but it depends who's at
the desk. The red haired guy is a bastard but he's normally gone by four or
five in the afternoon and I've never seen him there on Sundays. The other
two desk clerks are no problem. Just tell the kids to be quiet but they
know that."

"And the men's room in the Port Authority," said the teacher with a
grin. "One of our friends, well, acquaintances, screws kids right there in
a toilet stall. He sits on the john like he's taking a crap and they sit on
him. I think he's crazy but he's been doing it for years and no problem so
far."

"What's the name of the hotel on Tenth?" I inquired.

It was the one I'd been using.

There was some discussion about particular boy hustlers. "You meet Freddy
yet, skinny kid, twelve, with an overbite?"

That wasn't the Freddy I knew.

"Stan, this other guy I know, took him out the other day and he's learned
how to get screwed," informed the teacher.

Frank thought about it. "That the same Freddy with a kid named Justin?"

"Nope, this kid's skinny as a rail. You'd never think he could take a full
sized cock. He didn't before when I had him last but, I don't know how big
Stan is but he said it was easy, no pain at all."

Then there was a beautiful blond eleven year old who Rick had picked up at
a swimming pool in Queens. "He said he'd never been out before but that
sure as hell wasn't the first blow job he ever gave, either way. He did me
first and it was as good as any of `em then I did him and he was all over
me. He loved it."

Frank left at seven thirty due to an early shift at the hospital where he
worked but the three of us went to a nearby bar and talked into the
night. They just had a couple of beers each. I had orange juice. By the
time we parted, I had everyone's phone number and Aaron's work address in
case I needed something fast or prescription only.

I had to drag myself out of bed after not getting home until after
one. Roy, the agent, came by a little after eight when the last of my crew
was leaving.

"Mr. Mandel wants to see you about some carpentry job he has. I told him
you were the best."

Did he expect a higher commission for this? He drove me to the office five
blocks away.

I'd seen the big boss a few times when I went to the office to pick up
checks but we'd never spoken.

"Roy tells me you're a good cabinet maker. That so?" he asked amicably.

"Yes sir. Proud to say I am. Whatta you need?"

He showed me a rough drawing of a large cabinet shelving complex he wanted
to put behind his desk. I was to quote it.

Leaving, Roy said, "You give him what he wants and he'll pay whatever you
charge. Just quote him as soon as possible while he still wants it."

"He ain't gonna change his mind, is he?"

"He's been talking about this for a year but always forgets it. When I told
him about you, he got interested again. Quote it today."

"And my work? I'll do it tonight and have it here first thing in the
morning."

"Fuck your work. Do it now and have it here by lunchtime and the job's
yours. Anyhow, you like this kind of stuff."

Walking home, I looked over his plans. I hadn't asked him what kind of wood
he wanted. Whatever, this would take a week at least. It was huge. I
called. He wanted mahogany but dark. I suggested he go with walnut instead.

"You're the carpenter. You know what's best. Go ahead."

It took over two hours to figure time and materials. The figure was higher
than I expected, especially if he chose the pegs instead of screws as
fasteners though I could countersink screws and cap them so they looked
like pegs. He took the latter option, not for the price but because it
sounded sturdier.

 "When can I have it?"

"Two or three weeks depending on my other work for you."

"Don't worry about that. Tell Roy when you need help and he'll send someone
over."

That didn't sound promising. I liked to turn in a certain level of quality
I knew others didn't. But, he was the boss. If I worked ten hours a day and
through the three day holiday weekend, it could be done in five or six
days. That, of course, greatly reduced time for boys but the only real date
I had was with Estiven and whoever came with him, hopefully Martin and
Tommy. With that in mind, I stopped on my way to the lumber yard to buy a
dozen condoms. No sense in taking chances, even with a recently vaccinated
rear end.

By a late bedtime, thanks in great part to the expensive table saw I'd
bought in May, I'd been able to cut all the major pieces and apply
sealer. Friday morning, after assigning work to my crew, I called Roy to
find me a carpenter to handle a broken door, then began the assembly of the
basic unit in three sections, the easiest part of the job. That was
complete without screw plugs by mid Saturday morning. 12 drawers, the
smaller curved shelves, trim and a light varnish would take several days.

That evening, Estiven appeared with Martin and a new kid named Silvio, only
ten, pretty, who smiled a lot. They immediately caught the walnut essence
in the air.

"What's that?" was answered by turning on the light. They hadn't known what
I did until then. I told them this was it, just carpentry with no mention
of real estate maintenance or employees. They were impressed.

When asked, Estiven said Silvio had permission to stay out
overnight. "Where'd you tell his mother he would be?"

"Nah, she don't care long as he tells her."

"She lets her ten year old son just go off over-night and doesn't want to
know where?"

"She gots eight kids. He goes out, she don't gotta feed `im."

"He been out with men before?"

"Sure, lots. He come with me when he was seven. Wanna know what he can do?"

"Whatever he wants with me."

"Everything but he wants four if you fuck him. He lets me for free `cause I
get him fags like you."

So Estiven was admitting to being a pimp, at just thirteen years of
age. That hit home. He wasn't the only one. Back home there were at least
two kids I knew, one, a girl, barely eleven when she started, who did just
that. I knew both because I was one of their better customers. In fact, my
friends and I created them by always asking one kid to find or arrange
another. They learned it was profitable so got good at it. The girl,
thirteen at the time, had a string of about a dozen boys who only went with
men she `approved', that is, paid her. She even trained them, using candles
and other smooth round items as well as the growing phallus of her eldest
to widen their anuses. He probably got sucked off more than any other kid
in history, training he bragged. We all figured he was fucking his pimp as
well. She gave us blow jobs and allowed us between her silky thighs but
never inside, front or back.

The idea that he was being pimped, possibly against his will like Sean,
greatly dampened my desire to test Estiven's claims for little Silvio. But,
when the time came, I fucked him, right up to my balls. He didn't seem to
mind, even wiggled his ass back and forth as I did it. I'd been inside
smaller boys but it still made me wonder if any damage was being done to
the colon I had to be well inside of. Worse, the condoms I'd purchased lay
unused in my drawer as though this apparently often screwed child couldn't
have been pierced by a diseased cock. My enjoyment was tempered by a
concern that I was being an abusive `schmuck'.

Nonetheless, holding his slim hips in both hands, feeling my cock slide in
and out of that tiny body was incredibly erotic. Surprisingly, he didn't
feel all that tight inside, just pleasantly enclosing, the walls of his
rectum and wherever else I was going gripping me fully, warmly. Orgasm was
one of those that seem to reach toes to eyeballs. I stayed inside for a few
minutes during which Silvio caressed my buried organ by squeezing his butt
cheeks and arching his hips up and down. He was much too good not to be
enjoying it.

Moments after I withdrew, Estiven hopped on the youngster and took
advantage of the lubrication I'd injected, possibly training him further?

One fear I harbored was what Martin had to be thinking of me screwing
Silvio. There I was being a `John' with any boy Estiven came up with rather
than acting like the concerned boy lover I hoped Martin would see in me. I
wanted to apologize to him but couldn't come up with a way to phrase it
that wouldn't affect my business relationship with Estiven. To make matters
worse, Martin only allowed brief cuddling before rolling away to sleep.

In what could be called an empty gesture, I stuck an additional dollar in
Martin's pocket as they left.

I tried, by working very hard on the cabinet, to get the bad deed I'd done
the night before out of my mind, but found myself making mistakes that
required the purchase of additional, expensive walnut lumber. Stopping to
get hold of myself, I scrambled the last two eggs left over from the mass
breakfast then went for a walk up to Central Park.

The harsh judgment I'd foisted on myself was gradually softened by memories
of the effect my friends and I had had, despite playing the numbers game,
on many of the boys we'd taken out, several of whom almost certainly would
have gone very bad if we hadn't been their friends, listened to and
counseled them, often put up the money or other resources needed to keep
them in school or, in some cases, out of reform school. One example that
popped into my mind was Benny Lochlear, an eleven year old bully, thief,
truant and realistic candidate for drug addiction when Phil met him. It
helped that he'd also been good looking with a strong body, the kind Phil
liked. The relationship had lasted well past the end of sex. Benny
graduated from high school and, last I heard, was a supervisor in a large
warehouse.

But what about the rest, the not so attractive who didn't like more than
getting sucked? A lot of them needed help too. We'd all helped a few but
not nearly as much as the pretty, sexually precocious Benny Lochlears. But
wasn't it society's responsibility to take care of kids in need of a caring
adult? Outfits like Big Brothers did some of that but, from what I'd seen,
a lot, if not most of the men provided to the boys by that group were, in
fact, boy lovers although sex may not have been included in many of the
relationships. Stanley, another carpenter, was one. He swore to me he'd
never done more than hugged his little brother during their five or six
years together. But, then there was another who I didn't know that well who
bragged of screwing his little brother every time they were together. I
don't know how that relationship worked out. The guy was still on the
streets so word of his side activities had never gotten back to the
organization's office.

Jamie Pazorsky slipped into my brain as he often did. I'd really tried to
do the right thing by him but society itself prevented it, saving him by
causing his death. So what was I supposed to do? Christ, what I was
`supposed to do' were the words of Sergeant McNally but look where that
led.

There was little mental resistance to my heading off to the Square, picking
up a pair of boys and taking them to Tenth Avenue. They just wanted to get
done so I didn't suggest more, no offers of more money for more action. I
felt upright for not pressing for something the boys might not have liked
but found myself in need of sexual relief so I checked out the Port
Authority Bus Terminal where I found a boy twelve or thirteen in the men's
room where I'd gone to take a leak. He came up to the urinal beside mine
and pulled out his growing organ, making sure it was visible then proceeded
to masturbate it to full extension extending my estimate of his age to
fourteen.

He made no attempt to stop me from reaching over to feel it. He held up his
left hand over mine with two fingers extended.

"Okay. We can go to a hotel I know."

"No, let's do it here, back there." He nodded toward the toilet stalls.

We were alone. It was a new adventure, something I could tell the guys.

While I sat on the toilet with my pants around my ankles. He stood on the
sides of the seat, hands braced against the marble walls and dropped his
pants exposing more cock than expected with a growth of pubic hair
surrounding its base. It took a while and hard sucking to be able to taste
his semisweet young sperm.

With mine still boiling in my balls, I went out into the halls and walked
around. On the third, and planned to be last, circuit, I spotted two boys
more within my age of interest, one very blond, both pleasant looking, both
hustling.

They looked me over as I approached. The not so blond came up to me and
asked, "Where you gonna take us?"

I laughed to myself. What if I'd been a cop? Were boylovers that obvious?

"Hotel on Tenth."

"Five?"

"For both?"

He looked back at his friend who was then standing behind him watching my
face. Without taking his eyes off mine, blondie nodded agreement.

Five was just the down payment. Blowing me was two more. Screwing between
their legs, both of them alternately, was another buck. They weren't
interested in small talk, cutting it off with suggestions or statements of
additional charges. Blondie had rough legs. His buddy was smooth. I got off
between his into a wad of toilet paper.

That allowed me to go home.

Labor Day, following five hours working on Mr. Mandel's cabinet, taking a
shower and donning fresh clothes, it was back to Forty-Two which was
strangely empty of boys. I'd assumed this would be a big day for
them. Maybe they'd all been picked up. The Port Authority was bare as well,
not even many travelers. They were probably all wherever it was they were
going to enjoy the holiday. I went to a movie, double feature westerns but
left shortly after the second began.

I bemoaned the fact that I hadn't thought to call on one of my new friends
to see what they were doing, maybe join them. Of course, that might have
been intruding.

It was close to five when an interesting figure rounded the corner from
Seventh Avenue. He seemed relieved to see me though we'd never met. I was
probably the only BL around, identified by the stare. I smiled. He
smiled. We made a deal and went to Tenth Avenue.

On the way, I learned Brian was eleven, in fourth grade starting the next
day, had an alcoholic father whom he felt didn't really like him and lived
above 200th Street in Upper Manhattan. He'd been hustling here and in other
spots for over a year.

In the hotel, I further learned that, other than a very pleasant face, he
had very little physically going for him including a skinny body, small
dick and nearly flat tusch. However, that became much less important when
he crawled on top of me and began frenching, rubbing his nail hard dick
into my gut then slipped down me, kissing both tits on the way, finally
giving me an excellent blow job well worth the three dollars he was
charging. Then, being all business, a professional boy prostitute, he
didn't wait for me to get him off but said he had to get back to the
Square.

On the way to my partment, I added this kid to all the other reasons I
shouldn't be partaking in such a scene. Back in my hometown, it had been
different, less professional albeit with fewer boys willing to suck or
fuck, but with a far more relaxed, friendly atmosphere. The problem was my
business. It was thriving, making me a lot more money than I could dream of
making before moving to New York. I worked on a pair of drawers, cutting,
routing, fitting and sealing each.

Then, at seven thirty, hornless if not satisfied, on my way back from the
`tienda' (store) with the Clark Bar my mouth desired, still wrestling with
whether or not I should feel manipulative, I was ambushed by Juan Carlos
waiting on the stoop above the stairs down to my basement entry door. He
got up and met me at the gate.

"Who were those kids come here last night? And they didn't come out." There
was nothing accusatory in his query but it became obvious someone had
noticed if not the boy accosting me.

"Just some kids I'm helping," was the quickly trundled together reply. I
started down.

Juan Carlos followed. "Can I come in?"

I stopped. "It's seven thirty, Juan Carlos. Gonna be dark soon. You're
supposed to be in your house, aren't you? Anyhow, you can't go into
somebody else's house without your mother's permission." Talk about
trundling.

The last part of my excuse not to let him in opened me up to, "She don't
care long as she knows you and she does. Anyway, I wanna see your
house. Don't you got rats down there?"

"No, Juan Carlos, there's nothing for them to eat so they don't come in."

"Our basement gots lots a rats, even in my house."

Not daring to call his mother a pig, I said, "Maybe some of the other
apartments leave food out. Look, son," another bad choice of words, "it's
late and..."

"No it ain't. Anyway I just wanna see is all."

He won. I led him in and over to my side of the basement. He went straight
for the television and started fiddling with the controls.

"C'mon, Juan Carlos, just a look then you gotta go, okay?"

"Where's you bathroom? I gotta go."

I showed him.

"Wow!" he exclaimed from inside. How come the shower's so big and ain't got
no curtain?"

I waited outside. "Go ahead and pee then you gotta go."

Juan Carlos wasn't accustomed to following orders. He came out struggling
with his zipper. "How come you got such a big bed? All o' us, even my
mother, can sleep on that."

"I like to stretch out, now..."

He leapt onto the bed, turning over in the air, landing on his back with a
slight bounce. "Can I sleep here one night? My mother'll say okay. Anyway,
I wanna go with you one day to your work. I can get tools and stuff."

Perhaps that was what this was all about. "Sorry, but they don't allow
children to go on jobs."

"I was there when you fixed our sink."

"It was your apartment." I had fond memories of him naked and wet.

"So, that means kids are around when you go to a place. I'm a kid." Juan
Carlos was sharper than I'd given him credit, a virtual budding salesman,
or hustler.

The discussion went on for several minutes with him rolling about my bed,
pulling one of the two pillows out from under the covers and lying on top
of it.

Then, the predictable, "Let me sleep here tonight. I'll tell my
mother. She'll say okay. Anyhow, I know those kids was here yesterday
stayed here `cause they didn't come out until the morning. I seen
`em. Okay?"

Was there a threat in there somewhere. I did a quick cover. "I slept on the
sofa when they were here." Now, why would I say that? Was he wise enough to
see my remark for what it was? I tried to cover the cover. "Their mother
gave me a letter giving me permission to have them here."

Didn't work.

"Okay, I'll get my mother to make a letter. Anyhow, it's plenty big for us
two."

"Look, I got work to do. Maybe some other night but right now you gotta go
home."

He fussed a bit more but finally left. I breathed a sigh of relief. There
was no way I was going to sleep with a kid from my own neighborhood, a
screwed up, sharp one at that, from a few houses right up the street. Weak
as I was, he'd receive his first blow job before midnight.

I turned on the television to divert my mind from boys. It should have been
easy after getting off a few hours before. A Jack Benny re-run was on. It
helped, a lot. I really loved Jack Benny having grown up with his radio
show. The radio show, however, had been funnier. TV couldn't pull off the
basement moats and vault or as many of the hilarious Mel Blank voiced
characters.

However, the show hadn't ended when somebody rang my doorbell. Estiven with
Tommy? A return engagement with the lisper? No, Juan Carlos with a note
from his mother. I'd been beaten by a nine year old.

I tried the sofa but, "You gotta sleep with me. It's too scary in there all
alone. I ain't gonna do nothin'."

Hummpf! Him? What about me? With my back to Juan Carlos, I imagined a stone
wall was between us and began counting sheep. I'd heard it worked, but it
didn't. Within minutes, he was breathing the deep breath of sleep. I
wrapped my arms around my pillow and thought about the work scheduled for
the short week ahead. We were supposed to replace several apartment doors,
doors I was going to manufacture on the spot with double sheets of good one
side three quarter inch plywood, strips of inch and a half lumber and lots
of white cement plus all the necessary hardware. I'd clamp the new door
together and go do the next while the glue cured then come back, install
its hardware and hang it. It was what the landlord wanted. They were nearly
indestructible when I finished. I could do two a day and make almost a
hundred dollars each, but there was Mr. Mandel's cabinet that was also due
that week. It was going to be difficult.

That didn't get me to sleep either. There was a boy in underpants behind me
with a long worm between his legs. Was it hard? How long did it get when
erect? Sound asleep, he'd never know it had been touched. I rolled over. He
was on his belly. That should have settled that, but my rapidly improving
skill at rationalization kicked in. He was unconscious, probably wouldn't
be aroused by a gentle nudge onto his side. The moment he was halfway over,
his arm came up and fell over my neck, gripped and pulled me close. We were
face to face but the heavy breathing indicated he was still in
dreamland. It had just been some automated reaction, probably slept like
that with his sister. I waited then put my hand on his upper thigh. He
didn't budge. I pulled it up so the palm was over his crotch. Still no
movement but his dick was soft. I moved my palm up and down against where
it had to be. That didn't produce anything. I was already there. He showed
no indication of being aware of my presence, except, of course, for the
neck embrace. I sought the opening in his underwear, had to move slightly
back to twist my hand around enough to locate it then slip my fingers
inside. There it was, soft and warm. I gently tugged it upward, keenly
alert for any sign of wakefulness, but there was none. I pulled it out
through the slot and massaged it. Within seconds it was hard as mine had
become. He still didn't move. I began masturbating him. It got harder,
slightly flared across the top, and seemed to get longer. Measuring it with
my finger, I calculated it was a slim three incher.

Could I get him off? When my hand didn't seem to be getting him farther
along than very hard, I lifted his arm and slid down until my mouth was at
crotch level. I'd done this semi-successfully before back home, once to
Timmy who never did climax nor have any recollection of it the next
morning. There'd been two other similar attempts with other boys but they
too hadn't reached orgasm, just close. I'd surmised that sleeping boys
couldn't get off except during the infamous night emissions but that needed
an erotic dream. Could I take this boy all the way? I opened up and licked
the soft bottom. It was nice. I closed up, enclosing his organ gently
between my tongue and the roof of my mouth, I stopped and waited. Juan
Carlos was still breathing heavily. I began to fellate him. He rolled back
slightly, his arm flopping just above my head, but still very much
asleep. I pressed the cloth of his underwear against him and began sucking
in earnest though not enough to move his body. His dick was delicious, felt
wonderful slipping in and out of my mouth. A few minutes later, his legs
straightened. He rolled almost but not quite onto his back. I let go and
backed off but again saw no sign he was coming to. I moved forward again
and sucked him back in. His cock immediately stiffened. Moments later, he
seemed to moan and fell flat onto his back. I followed. Even if he sat up,
there was no way I wasn't going to take him the rest of the way. There was
a final bloating, a further stretching of his legs then the throbbing of
orgasm, and throb it did, almost like it was popping inside. I stayed on
him until it stopped.

Was he awake? He didn't say anything or do more than relax. The breathing
which had seemed to stop for a few seconds resumed. I let go of him, again
measuring the length of his organ with my finger, poking a finger nail into
the point on my hand where it ended.

After sitting up slowly, I used my other hand to pull up the fabric of his
underwear until his cock slipped inside then got up, careful to barely move
the bed, and went into my little office to find a tape measure. His cock
was almost exactly three inches long. I beat off with no difficulty.

In the morning, I watched for any indication Juan Carlos might have known
what I'd done the night before but there was none. But what an idiotic
thing to do!

Now, though, I had to deal with the problem of leaving to work without
him. My crew showed up moments after we'd finished eating. I should have
been in my office with their work orders for the day.

After enduring remarks about bed sheets and possible overnight female
visitors, I was again alone, almost. I had to get rid of my guest who
continued to argue that, with him along, my work would go faster and we
could have lunch in a restaurant. Someone had told him rich guys like me
always had their lunch in restaurants.

"I never been in a restaurant, C'mon." Another ulterior motive.

I took him home. The delivery was unsuccessful.

"Tell him it's okay for me to go help him in his work. Tell him!" It
sounded more like an order than a request.

"Sure. You take him" said his overtaxed mother. "Maybe I don't gotta make
him stop his shit all day." Mommy wanted him to go as much as he did.

The day's jobs were for the most part in hallways. Work on the cabinet was
put off until after five. I took Juan Carlos with the understanding that it
was just for that day since classes opened the next.

He was moderately helpful, carrying tools and hardware up to the third
floor. He wanted to do some of the cutting with my power saw. I let him
hold the edge of the plywood while I cut. All in all, he was amazingly
obedient considering how poorly he behaved at home.

Taking a kid for his first meal in a restaurant was too much to pass up. He
was only able to eat half the hamburger steak meal he ordered but still
wanted an ice cream dessert.

It was during our lunch that I brought up the topic of school. "What grade
are you in?"

"Third."

"You in that school on Forty-Eighth?"

"Uh huh."

"You looking forward to getting back to the classroom?"

Shoulder shrug.

"What's wrong, don't like school?"

Head shake.

"Why not?"

"I just don't like it."

"C'mon, Juan Carlos, why not?"

"They `spelled me."

A surprise.

"What happened? You can go back, right?"

"Unh uh. I'm `spelled."

"What happened?"

"They said I was always in trouble but I wasn't, always."

"What kind of trouble?"

"Just stuff."

He didn't want to talk about it. "Your mother talk to the principal so you
can go back?"

"Unh uh."

"You mind if I talk to her about it?"

"I don' wanna go back."

"Son," whoops, "you're only nine. You need to go back, graduate from high
school."

"I can read okay."

There wasn't much more conversation on school. His answers prevented it.

When the second door was in, painted and tagged, we drove back to
Fifty-Second Street. Again, I broached the unwanted subject.

"You know, Juan Carlos, without an education you're not going to be able to
earn much money when you're a man."

"That's okay."

"No, it's not. You'll be very unhappy."

Shrugged shoulders.

Back in my apartment, "Can I use your shower? I got sawdust all over."

I was tempted to go in with him but there was enough prudence left in me
not to. "Sure, go ahead. Put your clothes on the bed." At least I'd get to
again see him in the altogether.

It was nice. He had a slim but well formed body. The way his long cock
flopped back and forth warmed my cockles.

I shook out his clothes in the shop then returned to wait for his
re-emergence which he did after at least twenty minutes, a towel draped
over his shoulder, water dripping from his body onto the rug when he got to
the bed. He was so pretty wet. I assumed he wanted to be dried so I did it,
careful not to linger where I shouldn't have.

He put on his clothes as I handed them to him, tee shirt, socks, then, with
an internal sigh, by me, of course, underpants and pants. I noticed that
both his sneakers had holes in the bottom. It was five thirty. I needed to
get to work on the cabinet but there were shoe stores two long blocks away.

"Where we going?" he asked as I led him out.

"You'll see."

He didn't want Keds or something simple preferring expensive Jack
Purcell's. I bought `em. He ran ahead on the way back, beating me by a
whole block. He'd gone to his apartment to show off his new, intact
shoes. By the time I passed his house, he was back outside on the stoop
with one sister who waved at me. Juan Carlos followed me back inside. The
moment the door was closed, he gave me a ferocious hug. The immediate
thought was: had I opened one huge can of worms? I returned the gesture but
he held on. When I turned to go to my apartment, he wrapped his right arm
around my waist and came along. He didn't, however, say thank you. Was that
phrase in his vocabulary?

I sat him on the sofa knowing I was about the diffuse his bliss.

"One reason I gave the shoes to you was so you had something nice to wear
to school."

His expression turned somber. "I don' wanna go to school. I can be a
carpenter like you."

"I learned most of what I know in high school," was a gross exaggeration
but seemed appropriate.

He looked over at me. "You can teach me."

"Juan Carlos, there's a lot more to being a carpenter than cutting plywood
and screwing in door latches. There's a lot of math in carpentry. You've
got to learn about the different types of wood and what they're like. You
need to be able to read a lot better than I'll bet you can now like
contracts and instructions, all that. You need to go back to school. I'll
help you if you want, with your studies." I didn't want to get anywhere
near school officials.

"They won't let me," he mumbled with a shoulder shrug.

"I'll bet if your mother talks to them and you promise to behave yourself,
they'll say you can come back."

"My mother ain't gonna do it."

"Of course she will. Let me talk to her, okay."

A combination shoulder shrug and facial grimace but, basically, an okay to
proceed.

"You wanna go with me?"

He shook his head but belatedly raced to catch up as I walked out the
basement door, probably out of fear of being alone down there more than
anything else.

His mother greeted me with a semi-smile and a subdued "thank you" for
buying her son shoes.

"Juan Carlos tells me he's had some problems at school."

She shook her head in frustration. "'Cause a him I got them social workers
always coming here and making me go see the principal. They ain't gonna let
him back."

"What did he do that was so bad? He's only nine."

"Everything! He was always fighting with some other boy and use bad words
at the teachers and never don't do his homework. And I'm tired a always
going down there `cause a him. His sisters don't get in no trouble.

"What if I talk to him, help him with his studies? Why not try one more
time. If he gets in trouble, well, then he's out."

"You gonna talk to the social workers and go see the principal? I ain't
gonna do that no more."

The expression on her face said `case closed'. I knew not to pursue it
further. Still, something had to be done to get the boy into a school
somewhere. He'd been in the one closest to his home. Any other would be
considerably farther away.

His mother asked Juan Carlos in Spanish if he wanted to spend another night
with me. I knew `su casa' his house, `quieres' want. It was enough to cause
my gut to jump. This couldn't be a good idea. Of course, her son tried to
play less enthusiastic by muttering his okay as coldly as he could. No
sense letting his mother know she was offering something he wanted.

She'd also given her approval in English to his working with me again. That
was easier to deal with.

"I'm sorry but I can't have him with me during school hours. It's a crime."
That last part was a guess, later proved incorrect. Letting him work with
me at all, that was a crime.

Disappointment was all over her, from her face down to her slumping
body. Without her daughters to run interference, she was going have to put
up all morning and half the afternoon with a nasty son who hated her. I had
to find a way to get him back in school. You'd think she'd help.

While Juan Carlos watched television, I sat on my bed and called Patty. She
could be a fountain of ideas for things legitimate. I explained the
problem.

She asked, "How close are you to him?" meaning was I having sex with him.

"Not," I hedged. After all, he wasn't involved in the events of the night
before.

"Why not just tell the school people you are a concerned neighbor. You know
anybody else could go with you, a woman would be best?"

"Sort of but I don't know how sympathetic they're going to be. Juan Carlos
generally pisses off everybody. He gets along with me because I can provide
things he likes, and maybe `cause I'm a man. He hugged me after I bought
him his shoes. I doubt he does that very often."

"You're not trying to replace Jamie, are you?"

I thought about that. "In a way, yes. I told you what Walt McNally said
about this was what I'm supposed to be doing. And this kid's not nearly the
mess poor Jamie was."

"Or as smart?"

"Of course not. Jamie was one in a million intellectually. Marsha Grant
murdered someone who could've been of great benefit to a lot of people,
that bitch. Any news about her?"

"Nothing. Walter is keeping track of the court bullcrap. There's still no
date for trial."

We chatted about each other's current events. I told her about the cabinet
I wasn't putting enough time into. She told me about unruly students in her
class. "I got a couple who could use somebody like you."

"Call Ned."

"Yeah, right. The originator of the four F's."

If I haven't mentioned them yet, they stand for `Find `em, feel `em, fuck
`em, and forget `em'.

"So," she asked, "you know a woman you can convince to go with you. There's
got to be someone around there who feels sorry for the little creep."

There was one possibility, a young woman with a single baby and a husband
living with her. I had the impression she was somehow related to Juan
Carlos' mother. It wasn't all that late. I told Juan Carlos not to touch
anything while I was away but, as earlier, he was quickly behind me.

"Maria Elena a `tia' (aunt) of yours or something?"

"Unh uh. Maybe she's my mother's cousin. How come you wanna know that?"

"I'm gonna talk to her about going with me tomorrow to see your principal."

He pulled up and grabbed my arm. "Unh uh! I don' wanna go." He was almost
crying.

I stopped and had him sit beside me on the stoop, just below a trio of teen
girls chatting away in Spanglish, a combination of the two languages.

"Look, son," there it was again, "You can't be with me during school hours
and I know you don't want to be with your mother all day. I told you I'll
help you with your schoolwork and get you whatever you need, clothes too. I
want you to be happy when you're grown up and I know damn well you won't be
if you don't go to school and finish high school.

"Now, I'm gonna talk to your principal tomorrow and I want Maria Elena to
go with me. I'm gonna promise the principal to help you and, if she'll let
me, be the one responsible for how you behave so no social workers will be
coming to see your mother.

"You gotta go. That's it."

I half expected a remark like `you ain't my father' or `you can't make me'
but it didn't come maybe because he was crying. I put my arm around him,
another first.

"And what about all the kids hittin' me? Anyway my teacher hates me."

"Kids don't beat on kids who don't bother them." I knew that was bullshit
as I was saying it. Bullies picked on the weak who didn't bother
anyone. This boy was probably weak in a lot of ways and did bother
everyone, one very bad combination. A lot of talking, guidance, convincing
was going to be necessary.

"Now, I gotta go on up to see Maria Elena. You can come if you want but
only if you're gonna behave."

He wiped his face on a bare arm. "I'm going with you but she ain't gonna do
it, I know."

Maria Elena, a pretty mid twenty something, was surprised to see me.

"What's wrong?" she asked probably thinking I was there regarding a leaky
pipe or other run of the mill tenement disaster.

"Nothing, well..." I moved so she could see Juan Carlos with me.

She frowned. Her husband, a wiry but handsome man probably a few years
older than his wife came up behind her. He nodded a greeting.

"It's something `bout Juan Carlos," she told him. To me, "What he do now?"

"Nothing. Actually, he's been good for a whole day."

Mary Elena's husband grinned and saluted Juan Carlos.

They invited me in. Sitting around the dining room table, the only place
with four chairs, I told her the situation. She hadn't known he'd been
expelled.

"What I'm thinking is you and me go to the principal and see if something
can be worked out. I'll promise to make sure he has everything he needs and
the three of us," I looked at her husband, "can be his friends and help him
improve his behavior and studies.  Whatta you think?"

Maria Elena looked at Juan Carlos who was staring unhappily down at his new
shoes.

"Juan Carlos? Look at me."

He did but only briefly.

"If I do this, you gonna try to be good and not go getting into fights or
actin' bad in class?"

"I don' wanna go back there," he grumbled softly.

She looked at me.

I said, "It doesn't really matter what he wants. He's gotta go to school."

Hubbie said something to him in Spanish drawing a head down, eyes up, dirty
look.

Maria Elena said, "Steve's right, Juan Carlos. You gotta go and he's gonna
help you. You heard him, and me and Chepe too."

Not knowing his name, I'd hoped someone would mention it so it wasn't
necessary to ask.

"So, you gonna try to be a good boy?"

There was no response. It didn't matter. Husband and wife agreed they'd
both go with me in the morning. Chepe would call in sick. As an employer,
I'd have rather heard he was helping his kin than some obvious bull about
being sick.



In the morning, leaving Juan Carlos behind with his mother, not telling her
what we were up to, Maria Elena, Chepe and I left the block for Juan
Carlos' school.

As soon as we were down the street a ways, I asked, "What's the problem
between Juan Carlos and his mother? Why's he hate her so much?"

""It's not all her fault. Juan Carlos has been a pain in the ass since he
was little. When he was a baby, he cried for every little thing but that's
because Letty gave him whatever he crying about as soon as he started
crying. That mighta been `cause his father left her when he was
born. That's what she said. Don't make no sense to me.

"Then, when she started going out with Marvin, that's the girls' father, he
got worse. I don't think he ever liked Marvin maybe `cause he didn't want
Letty to give in to the bastard so much. I didn't like him
neither. Sometimes he hit Juan Carlos if he got on his nerves, hard on the
head sometimes. So, when he got maybe four, he'd scream and throw things
but just when Marvin wasn't around. Didn't like his new sisters very much
neither but he never hurt `em or nothin' but when his mother said to watch
them for just a few minutes, he'd go off to where he couldn't see `em.

"I told her to take him to this psychiatrist for kids at Roosevelt (nearby
city hospital), but she never did. She really loves him, you know. He's her
son, but he makes her crazy sometimes."

"Do you know where his father is?"

"In jail, I think. He beat some guy up bad is what they said, almost killed
him but that's just what I heard."

"So, you know what really happened in school?"

"Just that he was cussing at his teachers and was always getting' in
fights. Letty had to go to the school almost every week about
something. She hated that and then these social workers come and was
telling her she was a bad mother. She really got mad about that and was
always yellin' at Juan Carlos `cause a that."

"So the problem is Juan Carlos more than his mother?"

She sighed. "Sometimes she'd say some pretty bad things to Juan Carlos and
he'd go into the hall and cry and she never tried to talk to him but it was
so hard for her with all that shit goin' on."

Chepe had been silent. I asked him for his opinion.

"Just what she said."

I could see he was deferring to his wife though he probably had another
opinion, possibly from Juan Carlos' point of view. I didn't press it.

We had to wait in the hallway nearly half an hour for the principal to see
us. Since we'd had to say why we were there, she probably wasn't all that
anxious about hearing us.

When we were finally let in, there was another woman with her. She was
introduced as Miss Escobar, a social worker who had been involved in Juan
Carlos' case the year before. The principal, Mrs. Eunice McWilliams, didn't
appear in any way sympathetic.

As planned, Maria Elena stated our case. She described me as the
maintenance man for the five buildings where she and Juan Carlos lived.

Once she was finished, Mrs. McWilliams asked, "Why isn't his mother here?"

Maria Elena looked at me.

I answered, "I think she's given up. We talked to her but she didn't
believe there was any hope."

The principal then asked an expected question. "Why are you involved,
Mr. Daily?"

"I've done work in their apartment and, like just about everybody in the
neighborhood, I've seen Juan Carlos on the street behaving badly with his
mother. So I volunteered to help. His mother's really poor. She gets a
check from the city each month but it's not very much so I figured I could
at least cover his and his sisters' school expenses, you know, like books
and clothes."

"That's very nice of you but, to be honest, I don't think we can accept him
back here. Juan Carlos needs a special school for problem children." She
looked at the social worker.

She described a program at a school in lower Manhattan that she felt was
the right approach to helping Juan Carlos.

I asked, "He's only nine. How's he going to get there?"

"Can't his mother take him?" asked the principal as though it was just
something a mother was supposed to do.

Maria Elena stepped in with, "Mrs. McWilliams, all three of us are ready to
help Juan Carlos, you know, talk to him, help him with his studies, do
things with him. Mr. Daily took him to a restaurant for lunch last week and
he really seemed to like it. We think if we give him a lot of attention, he
can change. He ain't got a father. My husband and Mr. Daily can spend some
time with him. Both of `em get along with him pretty good. Just give him a
chance, you know a month and then if he don't get better, you can send him
home."

Mrs. McWilliams looked at me and frowned. Was she going to ask me if I was
married?

She didn't. I got the impression she was considering our proposal. She
asked the social worker what she thought.

"Without the mother's cooperation, I don't see how this can work. I've been
to the house several times and all those two do is fight. You might think
about placing Juan Carlos in a home."

Maria Elena jumped on that. "I'll take him in with me before I let somebody
do that."

Chepe grimaced at the idea. Mrs. McWilliams didn't give any sign that she'd
noticed.

Staring at Maria Elena with an amused expression, the principal asked,
"You're willing to take him in? He's a handful."

"If I have to, I guess but maybe we can help him, you know talk to his
mother too. She's not all that bad. It's just been very hard for her."

"Well, you have to understand that we can't do anything unless Juan Carlos'
mother comes and requests it personally so before we can do this, she must
come to my office."

"That's where we have problem but..." I had to think, figure out something
that would work for these people and Juan Carlos' mother. "Can we arrange
it so any calls from here or social worker visits go to one of us?"

"Why?" inquired the principal less amused.

"The calls and visits are one of the reasons Juan Carlos' mother hasn't
wanted to put her son back in school. If I can promise her there won't be
any, maybe I can convince her to come in the morning. If she comes, can
Juan Carlos start tomorrow?"

The debate went on for another quarter hour or so but in the end, we were
given a month, thirty days to improve Juan Carlos behavior.

"Unless, of course," threatened Mrs. McWilliams, "he hurts someone. Then
we'll have to let him go right away."

She gave me a list of scholastic items he needed then again insisted that
Juan Carlos' mother accompany him in order that he be allowed to
enter. That was going to be a challenge.

The moment we were out the door onto the street, Chepe burst out with a
stream of staccato Spanish, apparently, since I heard the words `casa',
house, and Juan Carlos name, angry about Maria's offer to take the
troublesome boy into their house.

They argued back and forth for a few minutes until, in English, Chepe said
to me, "That kid never gonna come into my house. I don' care what she
say. I talk to him and all but tha's it," followed by a few Latino cuss
words.

Maria Elena was shaking her head. "He wants us to let that boy, our blood,
get put into one a those homes. He jus' don' know how bad it is. The kid
come out of there crazy or a delinquente."

Delinquente is what it sounds like.

Rather than get in the middle of that familial donnybrook, I asked them how
they thought we should approach Juan Carlos' mother.

"I don' know, man," answered Chepe, "that lady is kinda crazy and one bad
mother."

"No," differed Maria Elena, "She's just frustrated with all those social
workers and the school always makin' her go over there an' Juan Carlos
treat her like shit. No, we do like Steve says and we promise her we tell
the social workers they gotta come see us, not her. An' you gotta talk nice
to him," then some Spanish.

I wasn't convinced we could convince Letty to come in the morning and began
planning a look in the yellow pages to see if I could find a nearby private
school that would agree to take our problem child. But, they'd probably
want to see his mother too.

Letty seemed to know why we'd come before any of us opened our mouths. She
spoke in Spanish while shaking her head. I heard `escuela' (school) a
couple of times along with several `no's'. A brief acrimonious discussion
followed.

Maria Elena turned to me. "You talk to her. She don' care if her kid goes
to jail one day."

I was unprepared, had no idea what to say since it appeared Letty was
rejecting everything Maria Elena said. I tried, "Look, Letty, this isn't
gonna cost you anything. I'll buy everything he needs. They want money or
something, you tell me and I'll take care of it. I'll buy him new clothes
today so he'll look good tomorrow." I didn't add `instead of like some
street kid' It wasn't her fault he was wearing crappy clothes. She couldn't
afford to buy anything better. But, it appeared I'd opened a door to a
compromise.

"So what about my girls? Juan Carlos gonna look good and they gonna be
wearin' the same shit?"

Instantly it became apparent I'd stumbled onto a workable negotiating
point. Maria Elena's expression confirmed it.

"Okay, you come with us and Juan Carlos tomorrow morning and I'll buy all
three clothes, shoes, two sets of socks and underwear and all their school
supplies but you gotta come tomorrow, okay?"

Maria Elena gazed at her cousin expectantly. Letty, probably feeling she'd
been trapped, maybe calculating what else she could worm out of me, sucked
in her bottom lip.

"An' I don' gotta talk to no principal or social worker?"

"Don't worry," I said, "We'll do all that."

That's when we heard from the main player in our little drama.

"I ain' going back and' you can't make me."

We all turned to the small figure with the sleepy eyes standing in the
doorway to his and the girl's bedroom.

Maria Elena went to him and squatted in front. "You wanna be a street
cleaner or some bum? You gotta go to school an' we all gonna help
you. Steve gonna buy you new clothes and shoes and all you need. He gots
the list an' he's gonna buy it..."

"I ain't going so he don' gotta buy me nothin'!" He folded his arms across
his chest.

I walked over, "Let me talk to him."

I lifted him up from under his arms and carried him back into the bedroom
all the while listening to an increasingly tearful, "I ain't gonna go. I
ain't gonna go. I ain't gonna go!"

I sat the both of us on the bed and put my arm around him. He jerked
loose. "I ain' goin' over there so they can just go an' beat me up again. I
ain't goin'." At least he sounded less adamant. It was time for reassurance
and possibly some more bribery.

"Look, son, this is something you need to do. And nobody's gonna beat you
up. I'll talk to your teacher so she can make sure. And you can stay with
me two, three nights a week and I'll take you to work with me Saturday
mornings and I'll help you with your homework and when you don't understand
something, but you gotta go. You gotta graduate from high school and I'll
help you all the way."

"When can I stay at your house?"

I'd probably offered too much but it was working.

"Tonight if your mother says okay and I'll make you whatever you want for
breakfast before we go." That was a mistake, a small one, just a hassle.

"I wan' pancakes and waffles."

"I can make you..."

"An' eggs gots stuff in `em all mixed up and chocolate milk."

"I'll make you pancakes and eggs with ham. That's all I got."

"You can buy that other stuff."

"I can buy you a nice shirt and pants and good leather shoes but they're
just for school and Sunday go to meetin'." Where that last phrase came from
I'll never know.

"I ain't goin' to school Sunday, what's meetin'?

I covered my mental mess. "That's just something that means they're for
special things like if we go to the movies or something." Another mistake.

"When can we go? I wanna go Saturday."

It was a costly victory. Then I had to take him out to lunch, a steak lunch
but at a cheap place, Tad's, on Forty-Second Street halfway to Sixth
Avenue. I walked him down the far side of Broadway to avoid running into
someone who'd offer me his body.

He was cheerful enough when we ate then cheerfully demanding when I took
him and his sisters to Bloomingdales for outfits. The girls cooperated by
allowing me to buy more economical dresses and shoes. One Juan Carlos cost
me more than two girls.

We bought school supplies at a store on Eighth Avenue; more than needed at
you know who's insistence.

All three girls gave me hugs when we got back to their apartment then ran
off to try everything on. I was required to wait and admire. Their mother
said `thanks' but that was it. I hoped she wasn't having second thoughts.

The one I should have been worrying about more was Juan Carlos. After a
dinner of grilled cheese and ham sandwiches and chocolate milk, he watched
television while I got some work done on the nearly abandoned
cabinet. Around eight thirty, he wandered into my shop with tears in his
eyes/ I asked him what was wrong.

"They gonna beat me up, I know."

That ended work on the cabinet. I picked him up and carried him to the sofa
where I sat him on my lap and held his head to my chest.

"Juan Carlos, if you don't say or do anything, why are they gonna beat you
up? Just stay away from them. Stay close to your teacher."

He was silent for a moment or two then, "They said if I come back they're
gonna beat me up and the teacher don' care."

"Don't worry, I'll talk to you teacher. Who are the boys who wanna beat you
up?"

"Benny and Jose and them in fifth grade but they're in sixth now I think."

"Okay, I'll talk to the principal and she can talk to them and their
teacher so nobody bothers you but you can't bother anybody either."

"I'm scared," he whined.

The only good side to his fear of returning to school was the cuddling when
we went to bed, well, partially good. I didn't get much sleep but managed
to keep my hands above his waist.



At school in the morning, with Juan Carlos handsome in his new duds and his
sisters prettier than many, his mother would only go in as far as the main
hallway. She flat out refused to go meet with the principal so I went to
the office. Mrs. McWilliams was not there. The four of us waited. Juan
Carlos' sisters went off to their class, five year old Marta down the hall
to kindergarten.

There were some very handsome boys other than my new charge. I worried that
some kid from the Square was going to appear and spot me. However, it
didn't seem likely a hustler was going to admit anything there at the
school about what he did to earn money though he might surmise that Juan
Carlos was a fellow street worker and talk shop during recess or lunch.

When the principal did appear, Letty was visibly up tight. I rushed to meet
Mrs. McWilliams.

"Mrs. Valle isn't happy being here but she's here. Please don't try to talk
to her today. Let's give Juan Carlos a chance to behave himself so you can
say something nice about him to her."

She chuckled a very proper chuckle and went in to speak to a
secretary. "Please take Juan Carlos to Miss Delgado's classroom."

As diplomatically as possible, I said, "Juan Carlos is afraid of some boys
who were in fifth grade last year. They told him if he came back, they`d
beat him up."

She shook her head. "Do you have their names?"

"Benny and Jose plus some other friends of theirs."

"Don't worry about those two. Benny's expelled and Jose is being closely
watched. Nobody's going to do anything to him unless he does or says
something to them."

"I told him that. Let's hope he listened."

Juan Carlos was gone when I left the principal. Maria Elena confirmed that
a woman had taken him upstairs.

My crew was waiting for me when I got back to the shop.

"We thought you'd been arrested or something," grinned my Irish boozehound.

Once they'd gone off to their jobs for the day, I got back to the cabinet,
worried all day that Juan Carlos was going to come home early with a black
eye or a note of dismissal from Mrs. McWilliams. There was also an
underlying concern over what motivated my plumber's `arrested' remark. Was
that local Irish humor or did he suspect, or know, something? Paranoia.

The school day, for my nearly adopted child, apparently, went well. The
four kids came home happy, Juan Carlos with his new book bag over his
shoulder and a happy expression on his face when he came to my door.

"So how'd it go?"

"It was okay. Miss Delgado was talking about dinosaurs and tomorrow she's
gonna show us some pictures she gots in her house."

I asked for a full accounting. He was fully forthcoming, so forthcoming
that I continued my work while he talked. He obviously liked his teacher.

"She's old an' ain't married or nothin' but she's nice unless a kid talks
too much like Michael and Nancy was talking a lot. An' she's real good in
`rithmetic. She was adding stuff in her head an' done it before any a us
could an' we was writing in our copybooks. An' she knows all the names a
all the planets and a lot of stars like where we are is the Milky Way just
like the candy bar."

His enthusiasm broke my concentration a couple of times forcing me to stop
filing the base trim which I needed to do anyway so he knew I was paying
attention. But I heard every word he said.

It seemed a great victory had been won, that all was going to be just fine,
at least until, after a few moments silence when he said, "I wanna live
with you."

That stopped me cold.

When I looked up at him he said, "My mother hates me an' I hate the bitch
so how come I gotta live with her. I wanna live with you."

With a great sigh, I sat on the floor, staring at my fine file. Lifting my
eyes to him, I motioned him to me. He put his book bag down and sat in my
lap.

"Son, you can stay here some, like three nights a week but Letty's your
mother. She doesn't hate you."

"Yes she does!"

"Look," I sought the right words, "last year was really difficult for her,
you too, and, well, it's hard to raise four children alone with just a
welfare check. She wants to go to work but she has to stay home to take
care of you kids..."

"Then why is she always yelling at me and she hits me an' I din't do
nothin'."

"It's like I told you. She's under a lot of stress." Did he understand that
word? "She has to make sure you eat right and have clothes and do all the
cleaning like the dishes." I added dishes because she certainly didn't do a
lot of house cleaning. The apartment was filthy. He picked up on that
immediately.

"Then how come it's always dirty and stinks in the kitchen? It don't stink
here?"

"I don't have four kids to clean up after."

"I'll wash my own dishes, and make the bed an' I know how to mop."

"Juan Carlos, son, you can stay here three nights a week, tomorrow night
and go to work with me after. It's gonna be Saturday."

Juan Carlos stood up angrily. "How'm I gonna do homework with that bitch
yellin' at me an'..."

"Juan Carlos, stop calling your mother a bitch. She..."

"'Cause she's a bitch is why. An' she hits me so how'm I gonna do
homework?"

I stood and put my arm out to draw him to me but he pulled away.

"You don' let me live with you an' I ain't gonna go to school!"

That was scary. "Son..."

"An' how come you're always sayin' son if I can't live with you? Huh?"

"'Cause I love you." Scarier.

"No you don't you. You just say that so I'll go to school is all. So if I
can't stay here, I ain't going to school no more!"

"Three times a week is..."

"Fuck you!"

Before I could reach out to stop him, he dashed out the still open door
leaving his book bag on the shop floor. I debated whether I should chase
after him but decided that he'd calm down and come back on his own. That's
what I expected.

The cabinet was almost done. Just two final pieces of base trim and a thin
coat of hand wiped on varnish was all that remained. I was too tense to
continue with the fine filing needed to perfectly fit those two last pieces
of wood, so I went to my office and made my daily call to the office for
work orders. My bulletin board was covered with them, more than half ,
things I should have been doing personally.

When Yanga and Santoni came in at four fifteen and four thirty, I asked if
they wanted some overtime. Anthony, as usual, was eager to earn the extra
cash. Guido wanted to know doing what.

"Just light a couple of switches and a hall fixture, couple hours."

He accepted. Anthony went off to fix a window that wouldn't close and
change a lock.

Finally somewhat tranquil, I completed with base trim on the cabinet and
mixed thinner and varnish. Using a painter's fluff glove, I got to wiping
down the entire unit. By six fifteen, I was able to stand back and admire
it. All that was needed was to wrap it up in the morning and, with my crew,
get it into my pick up. It would take two trips. I looked forward to seeing
Mr. Mandel's expression when he saw it against the wall behind his desk.

By eight o'clock, I was itching to go to Juan Carlos' apartment and talk to
him but resisted. He had to come to me. I'd already given up too much in
purchases and attention. He had to know I cared about him and would come
around. But what about his homework? His bookbag still lay on my shop
floor. That had to be done. I took it up to the apartment. Juan Carlos
wasn't there, hadn't been since coming home from school.

"He done this before. Probly at one a his friend's house. He gonna be here
soon," explained his mother. "He always doin' this. He gonna sleep at your
house?"

"Maybe, if I have to. Let me know if he doesn't show up by nine, okay?"

At ten with there'd been no news, I assumed he'd gone home and was in bed
so I did the same.

Then, at about ten thirty, the doorbell rang. I was still wide awake
fretting over what to do if Juan Carlos didn't go to school the next day. I
jumped out of bed, grabbed my bathrobe and went, expecting Juan Carlos to
be humbly standing outside.

It wasn't him. There stood Martin and Tommy looking humble.

"This guy din't give us no money for the train and anyhow my mother don't
let us come in after ten. Can we sleep here?"

It was not a good time but I ushered them inside anyway. "What about school
tomorrow?"

."We just gotta get up at six and get our books at the house then we'll be
there at a quarter to eight. Okay?"

In the kitchen, while I fixed half a sandwich for each, they told me what
happened.

"It was this guy from Jersey. He said six for us and took us to his house
in his car. Then, when we're all dressed again, he puts his hand in each a
our pockets like he's puttin' money in there and says don't look `cause
it's gonna be a su'prise so we din't an' he takes us to the train station
an' when we looked, it was just a dollar in Tommy's and nothin' in mine. So
we hadda walk all the way here from the Garden."

That was only eighteen blocks.

"So why didn't you go straight home? You guys are always sneaking into the
subway."

"Like I told you. My mom don't let nobody in after ten."

"So why'd you go with that guy on a school night?"

"He just took a long time," explained Tommy. "He was doin' it to me for a
long time like he never was gonna cum an' now I'm all sore an' maybe I
can't do nothing' with you on Saturday."

"Don't worry about that. I'm just happy to have you guys here."

In bed, all three of us naked, me because that's how I liked to sleep,
really; them because they'd just showered and didn't want to put on
anything until they left in the morning. Tommy had a thing about being
clean. He probably wouldn't get dressed until after he'd eaten breakfast
and was about to leave. I'd get to watch those gorgeous buns bob up and
down while he walked around. I loved it.

We were in bed for a few minutes, me thinking both were sexually satisfied
and just wanted to sleep when Martin said, "We din't cum with that
guy. Wanna do us? You can do yours between my legs."

That was new and exciting. Martin, the boy I'd been planning to be my
number one, had wonderfully smooth skin. Pushing my dick between his
beautiful legs was a dream come true. I sucked him off first then turned
around to do Tommy when the doorbell rang again.

Were Estiven and Manuel out there too? I asked. They didn't know. It
couldn't be Juan Carlos this late. His little body was always asleep by ten
or before, but not tonight.

Wrapped in my bathrobe, I was disheartened to see Juan Carlos through the
door glass. The moment the door opened, he pushed past me. "I tole you. She
din't let me in." He spoke too softly for that to have been true.

"Why aren't you in bed, son." I was trying to be friendly rather than
accusatory while worried what his mother's reaction would be to my bringing
her son home at this late hour.

Juan Carlos didn't answer right away. I squatted in front of him. Tears
formed.

"I was scared."

"Of what?"

"It was dark an'..." He began to cry. "I wanna live with you."

There was no way I couldn't cradle him in my arms. I sat in the sawdust and
hugged him close.

"Juan Carlos, I know you do but little boys need to be with their family,"
a word I chose over mother. "You can stay with me a lot, maybe four times a
week but you gotta be with your family too. You'll see in a few days with
you going to school each day and doing your homework and nobody calling to
say there was a problem at school, your mother's gonna relax and you two
will get along fine." The fact that I didn't believe that worried me as I
spoke.

"Can I stay here tonight? She gonna be real mad if I go home now."

That was a foregone conclusion the moment he walked in the door. The
problem was how to explain the presence of two other boys in my bad, and,
egad! Naked! Oh, how I wished I'd told them to put something on. Somehow,
it had to be done.

"Wait here a minute, okay, and then you can come in."

Stupidly, incredibly stupidly, I didn't turn on the light for a boy I knew
full well was terrified of being alone in the dark.

He was standing right behind me when I told Martin and Tommy, "Quick, put
on your underpants."

As I said it I sensed Juan Carlos presence.

"How come they're naked?" asked my latest guest.

"They, well, that's how they like to sleep. It's how they sleep at home."

"They're the ones who come Saturday, ain't they?" He was no longer a
frightened little boy. He was now a inquisitive, perceptive little boy.

"They had a problem. They lost their money and couldn't get home on the
subway and it was real late. They were at the movies." All neatly sewn
together.

"They go to school?"

"Of course. They'll leave early in the morning so they can get home and
change before class."

Martin and Tommy looked on amused, neither saying a word. I worried they'd
think I was having sex with this boy too and say something I couldn't
wiggle out of, something that he might mention to someone, my sexually
innocent little nine year old possibly surmising that sex with boys was
just something people did. Was he that naïve? Living in this neighborhood,
he'd almost had to have heard something about `fags'.

"I gotta get naked too?"

That's when I remembered that, under the bathrobe, I too was naked. "Uh,
not if you don't want to. I gotta go to the bathroom. Why don't you go too
so you won't have to later."

"Nah, I jus' went outside." I hoped he meant in the street.

I backed off a tad and put my finger to my lips, hopefully communicating to
the boys in bed not to say anything compromising. They were pros. They had
to understand.

With Juan Carlos walking toward the bed, pulling up his jersey, I quickly
snatched my underwear off the floor and went into the bathroom for a quick
change. I stayed long enough to have peed and flushed the toilet. On
returning, there was Juan Carlos climbing onto the bed, bare ass in the
air.

He accepted my suggestion that he sleep on the outside with me in the
middle.

Standing at the top of the bed, he lifted the sheets and looked underneath
confirming the nudity of the others. With that, he changed his mind
regarding location.

"I wanna sleep with them," he declared and slid under the covers along side
Martin.

Once again, I indicated silence to the two hustlers. Tommy nodded
affirmation.

Juan Carlos lay close, on his side facing Martin. I turned off the room
light leaving the bed's reading light on and got into bed hoping to cuddle,
for only partially romantic reasons, with my curious nine year old. He took
hold of the hand I placed on his shoulder but stayed put. I snuggled up to
him to intercept any difficult questions he might ask. I wasn't expecting
what he did and asked next.

Reaching behind him, he felt my boxers. "How come you ain't naked too?"

"I just like sleeping with something on."

He turned over and whispered into my ear, "You do stuff with them like you
did with me?"

`Oh shit!' I groused to myself. Little boys don't climax when they're
asleep! He'd been awake that night I sucked him off.

All I could muster up was a weak, "C'mon, Juan Carlos." No `son' this
time. "It's late. Let's go to sleep."

"Do you? I'll bet you do."

"Shhh, they'll hear you. Now, go to sleep."

Tommy had his head up on his elbow, staring at me with eyebrows raised.

"Let's do it," said Juan Carlos a bit less quietly. He grabbed my hand and
pulled it to his crotch where it encountered a very stiff cock. Admittedly,
I hadn't resisted.

Tommy pointed at himself then waved his hand indicating I was to do him
after taking care of Juan Carlos.

I fondled Juan Carlos sizeable hard on. He pushed my head downward, clearly
wanting to get to the main act. I obeyed.

To Juan Carlos, Martin said, "You gotta turn around. It's better that way."
Did he think he was helping.

Could I manage to keep my own organ soft inside those loose boxers?

Juan Carlos didn't understand. Martin explained what he meant. Juan Carlos
quickly crawled around, head to crotch with me. I went down on him, excited
but tremulous.

Juan Carlos sat up. "Take off your pants. I wanna see yours." You gotta
love a nine year old's curiosity. He lay back down and pulled on the
fabric. I lifted my hips. He still couldn't get them off. "You take `em
off. I can't."

I complied and continued sucking, hoping to get him to fruition as quickly
as possible, and that Tommy would be fast too.

But, climax needs at least some concentration. Juan Carlos took hold of my
dick, felt it all over, causing a blood flood inside, then sniffed it. It
was good I'd taken a shower earlier. I felt his nose against it, the
sniffing. Then his tongue briefly licked the bottom of my glans before his
lips slipped around it. That completely broke my concentration on his. The
first blow job with a new boy is always special, especially with a kid as
close to me as Juan Carlos was becoming.

He copied my actions though only getting halfway down my shaft. It was
still incredible, wet, warm and loving. He ran one hand through my pubic
hairs, down to my balls which he handled a bit too roughly, then back up to
the hairs on my gut, never stopping the back and forth of his head in time
with mine. I had to breathe heavily through my nose to keep from filling
his mouth with semen.

I nudged his ass to fuck my mouth. He didn't catch on so I pulled and
pushed his hips back and forth. He got it and pumped into my mouth, his
cock and belly hardening, legs straightening. I turned my head side to side
to increase his pleasure. He did the same. There was no way to stop it by
then. A few moments later, I had to withdraw and grab hold of the head of
my cock to avoid spraying cum all over the bed.

"Let me see! Let me see!"

Juan Carlos pried my fingers apart and stared down at the mess in my hand.
He sniffed it, his face clearly showing he didn't like it at all. He wasn't
going to be swallowing my sperm any time soon.

I went to the bathroom to clean up, Juan Carlos right behind, dick pointed
straight ahead. He watched me studiously as I let the goo drip into the
toilet then leaned over the sink as I washed my dick and hand off.

"Ata and Lefty got that when they jerk off in the basement." Not so
innocent after all.

"You do it with them?"

"Sometimes. When Guacho is there, he won't let me." I assumed at least one
or more of that trio to be one of the teens who'd beat off in one of the
basements the day I was working on the building's breaker panel. I just
hadn't paid that much attention to their faces.

Forgetting that Juan Carlos hadn't gotten off, I went straight down on
Tommy. As usual, he grabbed my head and fucked up into my face. Juan Carlos
walked to the far side of the bed, dropped to his knees beside it and
calmly watched, head in his hands. I usually fingered Tommy's asshole to
help him along but was inhibited by the eyes observing us. Tommy, less
concerned, grabbed at my arm, pulled it up, took my hand and opened his
legs. Considering the apparent rape he'd endured earlier, I was gentle.
Apparently, he wasn't that injured. He pressed my finger against his hole.
I took in out, dribbled spit on it and returned, sticking the tip inside
and pulling every which way on his anus. He stopped pumping and pressed and
released my head. I was to do the work. Tommy's thick cock got thicker.
Juan Carlos rushed around to the back of the bed and crawled up close to
see what my finger was doing. Taking hold of my middle joint, he pushed it
in a little farther. Tommy urged my head to go faster. A dozen ups and
downs and he pressed my head into his groin. His body jerked several times
as his cock thumped inside my mouth.

Juan Carlos let go of my finger and reached in to feel Tommy's
perineum. "Anything come out," he asked into my ear.

I waved the finger I'd just pulled out of Tommy's hole. Juan Carlos grabbed
my hand, pulled it to his face and sniffed, this time shrugging his
shoulders. The finger washing of assholes I'd trained them to do had
worked.

"Now me."

Juan Carlos laid on his back and opened his legs. I lay head to toe beside
him and began sucking on a cock as hard as it had been when I yanked mine
out of his mouth. He took my hand and pushed it down between his legs. I
took it out, wet it thoroughly, and found his opening. He pressed my finger
inward, jumping slightly when the tip went inside. I moved it back and
forth to loosen him up then pulled it out and applied more saliva, curious
about how far inside he could handle. As I sucked slowly, it seemed his
attention was more in the back than the front. He took hold of my finger
and moved it in and out, gradually pushing it farther inside. Once again, I
removed it, put on more of my personal lube, then replaced it. Once again,
he pushed and pulled it, by then past the first joint. I pulled upward. He
revolved his hips upward and poked at my finger. I went into the second
joint, broadening his hole more as I fucked his not so little anus and
sucked his thick cock. It worked. Seconds later, his anus gripped my finger
and his body went rigid as his cock throbbed.

Sleep came quickly for the three youngsters but not for me. On the surface,
it didn't seem there was anything to worry about. Juan Carlos was fully
aware that I'd sucked him off the previous Friday night yet hadn't said a
word about it to anyone, at least no one who'd talked about it with anyone
else. After six days, if he had, you'd think there'd have been some
reaction from somebody in the block but there hadn't. Neighbors still
greeted or smiled at me. The fat Puerto Rican who ran the local tienda was
friendly as ever. But what about the teens Juan Carlos had mentioned: Ata,
Lefty and Guacho? He'd been involved in at least masturbation with them. I
tried to remember any contacts with any of that group. Lefty had been with
me in the tienda and nodded my way. I knew he and Ata lived on the second
floor of the second building up from mine. I'd seen Ata and Guacho, if I
was right about who the latter was, on a stoop but they'd been too involved
in conversing about something to notice me.

So, why couldn't I get to sleep? Maybe it was the three boys changing
positions, bumping into me. But, I'd slept in a smaller bed with four, no,
five once and one or two plenty of times. I couldn't recall any difficulty
then. Juan Carlos' age shouldn't have concerned me. I'd sucked off a couple
of five year olds, a number of sixes and sevens, some of who did me right
back. Then there was that one Westside tyke, seven at the time, who, after
I'd given him a quarter for sucking him, returned it so he could do
me. Yes, I gave it back.

Was it that I had two boys there with me who were specials, might be
jealous and leave me? Granted, Juan Carlos was special. He was a boy in
need. I had assumed an obligation with him.

Martin was a special boy because I adored his magnificent body and
wonderfully silky flesh, but possibly as much for his intelligence, sweet
personality and how he related to me. And, he wanted to be a teacher,
something very rare, if not totally absent, among hustlers. Sure, he was an
experienced hustler who probably was skilled at manipulating men like me
who wanted his body but, I sensed something more, that he was a genuinely
nice kid who could benefit from a relationship with me. It would be nice if
he stopped going with other men but that would take time. After a year on
the Square and trysts with who knew how many boy lovers doing who knew
what, it would be difficult to stop cold turkey. I was a prime example of
that. Even having Martin, I was out scoring others every chance I got. Even
with the realization that the reason men like me existed was to care for
individual boys in difficulties, to change their futures from one of
failure and frustration to one of success and happiness, or something like
that. Damn Sgt. McNally!

The alarm went off at a quarter to six allowing me to get up and start
breakfast for Martin and Tommy. I roused them at six, fed them and got them
on their way before awakening Juan Carlos who was surprised, and regretful,
the others weren't still there. I think he wanted more info on our sexual
activities, or more sexual activities.

I spoke to him briefly about that.

"What we did last night is just between us, you..."

"Shit, I know I ain't s'posed to say nothin' to nobody."

"What about Ata and Lefty?"

"Unh uh. I say something to them an' they gonna tell everybody. Can I stay
here tonight?"

"Friday is never a problem if you go to school all week and you can go to
work with me in the morning. But you gotta go to school."

"But the teacher's gonna be mad at me `cause I din't do no homework."

"That, my friend, is your fault. And don't tell some lie about it. Just
promise you'll do it every day from now on."

On his way out after giving me a big hug, he said, "I still wanna live with
you," and walked up the stairs to the street.

After visiting his mother to tell her that her son had been with me all
night but not mentioning the hour he arrived, I got my pickup from the
garage in the next block and parked it in front. The crew and I lugged two
sections of the heavier than expected cabinet up and into the back then
wrapped it in moving quilts. At the office building, we hauled them in one
at a time and up to the second floor on the freight elevator. By nine
fifteen, I was assembling it. Mr. Mandel came in at nine thirty while I was
still at work.

He loved it and handed me a check before I left, the fastest I'd been paid
to date, anywhere, by anyone since I was a teen. At twelve thirty, I took
my team out to lunch in an expensive restaurant near Broadway on my
street. I worried the maitre d' wasn't going to let us in wearing our work
clothes but he just sat us in the rear. The food and service were great. A
ten percent tip cost me eight dollars.

Juan Carlos was back at my door a few minutes after three. He'd been kept
after for a brief lecture by his teacher. He went to the dining room table
and dove right into his homework. I'd hurried my last job in order to get
home before he arrived. After admonishing him not to touch anything in my
shop, I went down Ninth Avenue just below Forty-Eight Street to replace a
banister the little Irish darlings in the building had ripped off probably
struggling down the stairs on the roller skates they used in the halls,
damaging the floors Mr. Mandel refused to refinish, the only time I knew of
he'd refused to do a requested repair. It didn't affect safety and was
caused by children doing what they were specifically prohibited from doing
by the super, the agent and a sign on the wall by the front door. I
couldn't have agreed more.

The expected sex didn't happen that night. Juan Carlos fell asleep watching
TV on the sofa a few minutes after eight. In the morning, he had no
recollection of my carrying him into the bedroom, stripping him down to his
underwear and tucking him in bed.

That morning, we changed a door latch, repaired another and fixed a leak in
a kitchen sink drain. James was working too repairing a large hole in a
lath and plaster wall as was the case in most of our buildings. The hole
was caused by a fight between cousins over something they were unwilling to
explain. The one had slammed the other repeatedly against the wall, then
ripped out pieces and threw them at him.

Remembering the restaurant bill the day before made it easy to fix Juan
Carlos and myself peanut butter and jelly lunch at home. But, as we ate,
the old urge came on me, the need to go out and find a boy or two and take
them to the Tenth Avenue hotel. It didn't matter what they'd do or not do,
I just wanted fresh unknown bodies in my hands. I knew I should stay with
Juan Carlos, do something with him. Martin and Tommy or Estiven or Manuel
or all of them would be around that evening, probably having been with a
man or two, cocks sucked, asses fucked, gullets full of sperm but ready to
make love to me. Why in the world would I need to have more? Was I so
addicted to boy flesh that I couldn't appreciate what I had? At least one
of my boys actually loved me or was starting to. Better still, he really
enjoyed the sex, didn't mind sucking me off, had right off been good at it,
of course, following the lead of a master cock sucker, me.

I got up and walked around the table. I lifted Juan Carlos, sandwich still
in his hand, sat, and lowered him to my lap. The embrace was one of
desperation. It was like I was begging him to keep me there in the
basement, prevent me from going to the Square by his presence in my arms.

He took another bite, smearing peanut butter on his nose and hugged me
back.

"I love you, son," I half whispered, my face buried on his shoulder.

"Me too," was the reply. I knew what he meant but it could have gone either
way. I chuckled to myself.

"Let's go to Staten Island."

I'd never been on the ferry or Circle Line around Manhattan. It was time to
change that and do it with a boy I was beginning to actually, truly, deeply
love.

THE END