Date: Sun, 24 Dec 2006 15:20:47 -0600
From: Tim Stillman <novemberhourglass@yahoo.com>
Subject: Winter Elf

				Winter Elf

				    By

			     Timothy Stillman


Maybe I was dreaming happy or sad, but I knew immediately his name and where
he came from, his age and where he was loneliest and where he was so bright
it would hurt your eyes, the elation coming from the huge light in his head,
his hair of gold, his eyes of brown, and he naked standing at the Christmas
tree in the last hour of Christmas Eve. He was silent, his eyes looking up
at me as I stopped on the last stair from my attic.  He waited. I could see
that he was a boy, though ten, who had waited a long time, and who had a
long time of waiting ahead of him, so he came to my house, to stand before
that ridiculous fake green tattered Christmas tree, to stand there with his
eyes quite certain, and me knowing that I had never seen him before, and had
never seen anyone other than him in my life.

His name was Joel and he was a golden sun, his chest was long and his legs
as well, as he stood there unashamed, as he stood in the revolving Christmas
tree lights on the circle that turned him red and green and gold and brown
as the circle revolved, and I thought I would take gifts never again and
would be thankful for that, that I would never in my life have any concern
for anyone but him as he put his hands on his hips, and his penis, no pubic
hair yet was small and hooded and not close to erection, his balls were
perfect tiny circles, for he waited for my hands and my heart, as it seemed
I was to come to him, all that vast elation of four or five ft. away from me
he stood, certain that he would not be turned away, when he had been turned
away at so vastly many other places. A kind of hushed happiness surrounded
him, as the snow and night cold were hushed around us, and the living room
warm from the space heater. No cars outside starting or stopping or plowing
through the snow. No music playing. Blissful.

We talked without saying a word. We communicated in a kind of evanescence
that was almost prayerful, and thoughts came about what this was all
supposed to be about, as I fell almost descending that last step, and he
rushed to me rapidly, and caught me with firm strength and helped me sit
down on that treacherous step, as he mock-ordered me out of my clothes as I
tried to say, wait, but he would not have it, for he was like an English
schoolmaster in some old movie of black and white, as he would not take no
for an answer and he tumbled onto me and he felt warm indeed hot in places
and his face was smooth and pink as the rest of him, his body smooth as
satin, as I felt his penis touch the back of my hand, his penis like a small
conch shell on a naked boy beach somewhere very far from here.

I felt worlds inside him and I felt him unbuckling my belt, and pulling down
my jeans and it made me feel so giddy and happy, and he pulled them off as
he sat on the floor beside me as he gazed intently at me as I did the same
with his naked silhouette profile, and I touched the hard bone of his hip
and I felt a surge of electricity that could light the world if this boy
would consent, and I felt as though there were hope for mankind if he could
only give his blessing and they were wise enough to understand pure and
untrammeled benevolence without a price tag on it, without a gimmick or a
bad joke to end it or lies to corrupt it or one power over another power, as
it seemed the last he was doing, but, no.

We were equal, and it was such a bizarre thing being an equal, and equally
bizarre for him, as we now were both naked and lying on our sides. I kissed
him and he put a bit of tongue tip in my mouth and I felt the wetness of
that tongue as he took my hand with hardly a quiver in it now and placed it
on his abdomen, and there I could feel the shadow of his penis erecting, and
he felt my own hardening against his stomach, and it was surely after
midnight now and surely the first minute or two of Christmas Day. We felt
each other all the way down our bodies and then, for good measure, all the
way up.

Christmas Day--2,006

We had done everything we had ever wanted to do. His boy private chamber had
been so tight, as I had held onto him as he had stretched his legs over my
shoulders, and clamped kiddingly my ears now and then with them, and I had
felt his little penis gravitating like a small cylindrical planet into my
hand and lurking there when I moved my hand away, and watched him masturbate
himself with such assurance, his feeling good and secure and at home that I
was in him, and the look on his face as I fucked him was the look of all
beauty, of all contentment, of all the love that was not phony or obtuse or
having a fish hook hidden in the center of it waiting, always the perpetual
game of waiting, and I put my hands to his nipples and I squeezed the little
hard berries of them, as I watched him rub his tongue tip across his berry
red lips as his face suffused with blood, and his eyes closed as his legs
upended from my shoulders in a shudder of what utter and total delight, felt
not just where my penis was, but all over him and through him, he
celebrating what no one had ever noticed in him before, that he counted,
that he was a person, that he was a nice kid and other kids don't like nice
kids, makes them nervous to be around such easy targets--

-- and not use such a godsend as bb gun practice, and I heard his sigh and
his calling my name as I was lost in him, and then he was pushing in on my
penis, hard, and out and in and out and he was going so fast and rubbing his
penis so fast that it seemed he was ready to ship out to another world, the
vibrations of him that were not silent, the way I held into him and let him
do the wondrous work, my hands on his tits and his stomach and then his ass
and feeling, watching in amazement, his fucking my penis hard as it stayed
there ready to cum itself but I was determined to not do so until he did and
he rushed, the race of sex, the race of not having to hide anymore or be
ashamed because such so self-proclaimed moral people who wallowed in filth
and made us feel guilty for everything, while they felt guilty for nothing,
had indeed made both of us feel guilty for being just--for being-for
existing--and the oh so kind nebulous THEY letting us live at their
sufferance --

We were beyond that now and the Christmas lights turned and we dipped into a
psychedelic place that was filled with undersea castles and merboys of
beauty and eyes of gold doubloons, and fish of bright and gilded colors and
lights dipped out of a painter's box of rainbows you find only in the skies
of other planets, colors that cascaded into the sea we were in and we
breathed and we held to each other and he called me his darling and it was
not coy or off putting or effete for it sounded and it was real, in the sea
of Christmas all round us, in the sea of wintertime of the sea that was
contradictory warm as it was cold, we moved slowly and the magic waters
rippling around us, total joys in being naked in the sea and our hair waving
in it and the taste of freshness and newness in our nostrils, and he held to
my chest with his hands and his fists were doubled up and he beat in
happiness on my chest as I lowered myself down further so he could tweak my
nipples as we swam and hours took on glassine protection and presentation
and time was not a murky thief robbing every breath every eye blink, but
something far more, something that stretched the membrane of itself over us
and protected us and said--time is our friend-

--you can have winter and love forevermore and no one can take it away from
you, no one can take it away by their indifference to you, their turning
their backs and walking away without a second thought and feeling quite
grand about it, or saying this is how it will be or you will be caught
without me and don't you want me to be happy? And us wanting to say but
never saying it FUCK NO, I WANT ME TO BE HAPPY--cut the guilt crap that you
run on us instead with a huge gall measure of impunity, but none of that
here and none of that cut to cloth we had to hide in, as I knew him as he
came his ass onto my penis and I bent even lower and I rushed my cum into
him, and he let go of his penis and it spasmed and shook and he cried out
and I held it as his penis bucked and bucked, as the sea that was winter
eternity of lights bright and bold and somber and restful and Autumnal and
mournful were all around us--

-- and we breathed in the skin, the soul, of each other and I came and he
continued having orgasms, and we held and we were together so tightly we
were a proto-human screwdriver and we were making holes in the hurts all
round the world, making in place of absence and gone forever, fullness and
contentment and hearts' delights, and dreams come true, and success and
laughter and looking up at the sun and saying thank you God for the sheer
zest of being alive, thank you a billion times over, and our tits were hard
against each other, and I rushed my cum into him as his ass had tightened
round my penis over and again and his golden face was against mine and he
said everything right with his moans of joy in wanting to have the all of me
and the sea was kind and breathed for us since we had had more important
things to think about, and he pulled at my graying hair and I pulled at his
sun gold long hair and in time we slept and in time we slept in each other's
arms and dreamed each other's dreams. Dreams of running through forests.
Dreams of nothing at all pursuing us, even that would have been--something.

Dreams that had been. That would never be again. They had been of an
absence. Of a descent into oneness. Of seeing someone taking on a phone in
your house, to your true love not seen in so long and hungered for so much
it seems you heart would break into a million more pieces, and your wanting
to talk with him, take the phone, go to him, but the dream ends with the
person pushing you away and down and you try to hear his voice from across
the room, on the phone, you scream his name over and again, and the person
whoever it is slams the phone down and you sweat to scared awakeness, and
god dammit all to hell, why is everything so fucking fucked up all the
time?..no one was meant to live like this, you'd think if there was a real
god and if he was worth anything at all, he would really send his son down
here and really help everybody and let Christmas and all time be happy and
contented and with someone you love who is glad you and they are in love,
and who won't just hurt you and tell you it's your fault because you haven't
grown up when in truth it's they who have grown up too bloody much while in
other ways not at all and for that matter who is growing up better than not
growing up anyway? Who says? It's much harder not growing up than the other
way round.

And on waking that cold Christmas morning at dawn, I knew all the rest of
it, how he had run away, how he had cadged some money, how he had gotten
onto a bus and headed out to anywhere and I knew he had come to my house,
picked the lock to get in, had taken off his clothes and plugged the tree
light in to start revolving and stood there awaiting me upstairs not in bed
yet, reading an Acolyte Reader and feeling lonely, with my jeans unzipped,
my chair next to the bed, my legs on the bed, masturbating with the words
about two young boys on their gay uncle's farm  in Utah in cold deep winter,
they visiting him for Christmas--

And I stopped in mid read, in mid rub, and zipped up and came downstairs,
caught, as we laughed about it later, almost mindlessly as Joel beamed me
down the stairs and then I fell and then he caught me; that fall was not
supposed to happen, I had felt I had fallen from a tall mountain a long time
ago and right now finally at long last heart burst and he had caught me
right in the nick of time, as if it had been meant to happen and
choreographed to right that very second, but it was really just my sudden
fear and always clumsiness.

And we woke and went to the bathroom and we brushed our teeth and then we
performed the other ablutions, kissed each other long time, feeling our
bodies turned on, and then we went back to the tree, my hand on his stick
out cock, his hand on my stick down cock, just the tree there, no presents,
why would I give myself presents, kind of kills the thrill, cause I know
what's in them and I laughed as I said let me fix some coffee and he asked
me, laughing himself, what was so funny, so I told him and added, yes, and I
could gift wrap the boxes of the presents from me to me, so we rubbed each
other as we walked into the cold gray kitchen, and he asked as I fixed the
coffee pot, standing Joel was against my right side and feeling my penis in
his warm pink soft hand, his fingers day tripping on my cock making it hard
and me saying, now hold on don't let me burn myself here...and then coffee
made as we sat naked by the tree and listened to winter outside.

He and I talked. Really talked. Not just words about nothing while you're
being used as a stopgap measure till someone better comes along, not about
things who the hell cares? But important stuff. And he added that my house
looked the nicest so he thought he would stop here.  I started to ask him if
he would stay a while--but before I finished he took both our coffee cups and
sat them out of the way, we had been sitting cross legged in front of each
other, and snuggled into my lap, the beautiful bundle of naked boy, and he
put the index finger of his right hand to my lips--and he thought this one
word and he meant it and it was what the magic of Christmas was all
about--and it was what love and happiness and eternal winter and eternal
youth were all about--where there were no more tricksters or manipulators or
hypocrites so hypocritical they don't even see it, where there would be no
more men mad enough to slaughter and torture and destroy and maim and see a
Christ child somewhere in this insanity, approving--the word Joel said--as he
looked at me, his face so close to mine--so approvingly--thought that one
word---forever. Blue snow. Kind shoulders. A day. A world made for us.
Heaped full of snow. And love. And waking up every single morning and
knowing the world is made only of December mornings for us and we will run
into it willingly and happily and we will do something we had done little of
in our previous lives--smile. And not because we have to.

And I hugged him and he hugged me. And we actually both together at once
meant it. Then after a time, he got off my lap and put my hands to his hard
on and said, candy cane, mister? I smiled all the way up at Joel, all that
tall mountain, all that long long fall had been nothing at all, had been
worth it, every moment of it, and I started to pull him to me as he pulled
even closer, and I felt his boy heat and taste like baked bread on a
childhood first day of winter break morning, and my hands were on his poke
out butt, as I put him in my mouth, as he all but trilled, and it was
Christmas--thank you for Christmas, Joel, and for all of my life, thank you
for again reminding me that I am alive really and truly, and of some worth,
for I forget these things sometimes--

(For my friend, Joel.  I never stopped loving you, forever)