Date: Mon, 22 Sep 2003 14:41:12 EDT
From: Pijito52@aol.com
Subject: Fifteen -- Part 2

Thanks, readers.  I didn't need much more than a few quick
strokes to get me back on task.  I got more than I bargained
for!

This part is also pretty slow - for a while.  In sex, I
guess it's called foreplay.  Some of y'all might call it a
stall.  The writer in me knows it's nothing more than
pacing.

Again, the issue is: what more can I do with Aidan and
Billy?  I didn't intend it as such, but that last paragraph
sure feels like The End.  Fortunately, it's a story, and
stories never really die - they just get saved on the hard
drive.

I guess I'm spozed to warn away schoolboys and chaplains.
But that seems pretty ridiculous.  I think I would have
liked the story if I had read it when I was fifteen.

                      pijito52@aol.com


                           Fifteen


                              V


     I figure if I don't think about the things I really
want, then I won't be disappointed when I don't get them.
Some might call this pessimism.  I call it insurance.
     Take Billy Rowland, for example.  I've never afforded
myself the luxury of really looking at him, not because I
don't want to, but because I've always imagined he wouldn't
look back.  He's been a fixture on the increasingly crowded
periphery of my life: we did 3rd and 6th grade together;
cassocked and surpliced, we served mass at Queen of Heaven
before the scandals. When his uncle died on American Air
#77, my mother marched us over to his house with a roast
chicken because "it was the decent thing to do."  I remember
Billy standing in a sea of cousins, sad and proud and more
than a little embarrassed.
     Now, talking in the darkness, I am unafraid to let my
eyes wander all over him.  I'm certain that even with night-
goggles he couldn't see into my thoughts.  I'm sitting and
he's standing, kicking stones - ready to leave, I suspect,
if the moment gets too heavy again.  He looks perfectly at
ease, even so.  And well he should, because all the parts
fit.  The uniform, part prep, part urban renegade, is a
total affectation, but on him it looks unaffected.  The body
underneath is strong without being bulky, tight without
being sculpted, graceful without being cultivated.  Billy's
a lot of boy, but he's not vain.
     "Yo Aidan."  Sounds suspiciously like Rocky Balboa, but
he's not laughing.  "I mean, what do you do all the time?  I
never see you anywhere."
     This is a scary question.  I'd like to dodge it, but
that might wreck the little scene we've got going.  "I don't
know.  Somehow I wind up at home.  Then I go to my room.  I
do dork things, I guess.  Read.  Watch TV.  Build model
rockets.  Just kidding."  I'd like to add that I jack off a
lot, that I've created a host of cyber-selves, that I'm
skatrrboy15 to the bald guy in Jersey, and a Russian
immigrant to the nice schoolteacher in Pomona.  And that
when I jack off, I look at myself in the mirror, and shoot
at all the fools with my giant dick.  "Not too thrilling,
huh."
     "It's cool.  My cousin David told me he spends six
hours a day on the net.  He's pretty much of a dork, too,
but I like him anyway.  I mean, I just can't sit still that
long.  My butt cheeks start to hurt."
     Ah, sweet honesty.  Billy says exactly what he means, a
skill that has somehow eluded me.  It can't be that hard, I
tell myself.  But irony is so much easier.  "Maybe you just
need a better chair.  Ergonomics, you know."
     "Nah.  I'm, like, restless."  With this he heads down
the slope again.  I think he's leaving, and I'm about to
protest, when I hear him laughing.
     "Whoa!  Beer goes right through me."  I hear faint
splashing against the tree. I imagine a bright silvery arc.
The sound is enough to stir things up in my britches.
     He comes back tugging at his zipper like a first grader
and plants himself at my side on the picnic table.  I can
feel the heat radiating from his summer-brown skin.  "I'm
still pretty juiced," he tells me.  "Like I drank a Venti
Latte or something.  I sometimes don't fall asleep so good.
I guess you don't either."
     Actually, it's one thing I do quite well, but that
feels like the wrong answer.  "It is 3:00 A.M., after all,
and I'm not any closer to my bed than you are than you are
to yours."  But I am much closer to Billy, and the molecules
are starting to dance inside me.  He smells like beer,
pheromones, and the oncoming summer, and it's all I can do
not to bite him.
     "Do you like school?" he asks.
     "Yeah.  I guess.  I mean, there's not all that much to
it."
     "That's easy for you to say.  I remember when you
kicked Mrs. Monahan's ass on those timed multiplication
tables."
     "She was two years from retirement.  It wasn't really
fair."
     "No. Get real.  You don't think we knew it?  That you
were the smartest fucking kid in the school?  You're still
the smartest kid in the school, and if you deny it I'm going
to waste you right here. So tell me, Maguire, 'cause I need
to know: does it really suck as much as I think it does?"
Billy's pretty much in my face, now, and as my personal
space shrinks, everything else is growing.  This syllogism's
out of whack.  No logic can save me.

                        He hates me.
                         I want him.
                        God help me.

     "I suck, Billy.  Okay.  Is that what you want me to
say: that it sucks being me?"
     "Damn, dude.  Touchy, touchy."  He flicks my earlobe
with his middle finger and I cringe as if he's about to
pummel me.  "Don't be so bitter.  I'm just trying to make
conversation."
     "No, I mean it: I suck.  I've been waiting for three
years to tell somebody.  Sorry it had to be now and sorry it
had to be you."
     "Jeez, Aidan.  I mean, where does all this come from?
I just wanted to know what it's like to be good in school.
You know? Research the unknown."  He's actually smiling,
satisfied with his joke.  I can't stand it.  I can't think
of a single wiseass thing to say.  I can get out of
anything, just ask my parents, but I can't get out of this
moment.  He's got to know that I need space.  And suddenly I
realize that desire feels a lot like claustrophobia, that if
I want to breathe again I'm going to have to surrender. The
night is starting to spin, so I look down at the ground and
shake my head, and puke up the truth:
     "I'm gay, Billy."
     It's just a word, I know, but to me it sounds like a
curse.  Sticks and stones and all that shit.  But it tastes
terrible on my tongue, like gunpowder or bile.  Okay, I
think, so Jack and Will are good with it, and the Queer Eyes
with their relentless hip, and the whole freakin' ten
percent saying it loud and saying it proud.  Not me.  I
don't want a hug from Dr. Phil.  I'm old school.  It's
trauma.
     "No shit?"  He doesn't punch me and he doesn't run, if
that's what you're thinking.  He doesn't move an inch.  It's
like I told him my shoe was untied.
     "No shit.  You can go now. Tell the world.  I'm sure
they'll be fascinated."
     "Would you shut up, Aidan.  Stop being such a fucking
baby."  I know it sounds stupid, but it feels good to be
called out.  "Besides, this bench is as much mine as it is
yours.  So just be a nice faggot and shut up.  You walk
around like you're the only one who knows shit.  Well I got
news for you.  You don't know a damn thing.  But you're
gonna find out.  Now.  Follow me."



                             VI

     Billy asks me to shut up, so I shut up.  He asks me to
follow, so I follow.  We're walking down streets I've known
all my life, yet I feel like I'm in Bangkok or Brazil.  The
dogs bark in French, and bats swirl around the lampposts.
Eden Glade is sleeping, but the dark things are out in
force.
     And suddenly we're in his backyard.  "Wait here for a
second," he whispers.

     The Glade was born in the late fifties.  Some intrepid
developers, a Rowland or two among them, identified paradise
in the woods across the river, 40 minutes from downtown, and
got to work.  They flushed out most of the vermin and dug up
Indian bones and gave the wealthy frontiersmen exactly what
they always wanted: security.
     They didn't bargain on the Russians, however.  During
the Great Fear, some of the Glade's early settlers decided
that the only truly safe place was underground, so instead
of gazebos or fountains or crystalline pools, they built
bomb shelters.
     Well, the Russians never came.  The shelters were
sealed or simply forgotten like elderly relatives. Most of
the young ones had no idea their swing sets were hammered
into hallowed ground, that once upon a time their childhood
games were due to be swallowed up by a mushroom cloud.

     "Voila!" says Billy.  The flashlight casts crazy
shadows on walls lined with shelves.  32-ounce cans from a
bygone era wink at me like shrunken heads.
     "This is awesome."  I'm fifteen again.
     "My family never talks about the shelter.  Specially
since 9/11.  When Uncle Paul died, I guess they realized how
stupid it was.  Anyway, I've always known where the keys
were.  I figured since they didn't want any part of it, it
could be mine."
     "You come down here all the time?"
     "Yeah, pretty much.  It beats the crap out of a tree
house."
     He starts to light candles.  The room - several
discreet spaces, really -takes shape before me.  Billy has
rescued a sofa and an old LazyBoy.  In the middle of the
floor is a mattress, covered with what look to be clean
blankets and pillows.  I wonder how many of his friends have
been down here, smoking bones, drinking warm beer, and
hatching ridiculous plots.
     "It's like a fort, Billy.  Check that.  It is a fort."
     "I'm not ten anymore.  I don't need a fort. Sit down,
Aidan."
     "Sure.  This where you bring Meghan Whatsername?  This
where it all happens?"
     "Nope."
     "So what's the bed for?"
     "Sleeping."
     "Yeah, right."
     "Don't believe me, then.  This is my place.  You're the
first person I've ever brought down here."
     That has to mean something, but I'm not thinking so
hot.  The bed looks like an invitation.  It looks like a
giant mouth open to receive a kiss.  "I'm honored."
     "How honored are you?"  Shadow-flames jump up and down
on his lovely face.  The perpetual smile is gone.  "How
honored are you?" he repeats, though I don't think he
intends for me to answer.  "Take off your shirt, Aidan."
     "That's okay.  I'm not hot."
     "Take off your goddamn shirt.  Please."
     "All right."  I pull off the Polo and fold it gently
beside me.
     "Take off your glasses."
     "Billy, I'm blind as a fucking bat."
     "Bats have sonar.  They don't need glasses.  Hand them
over."
     I'm feeling crippled and overwhelmed.  Dead air and
candlelight have sucked all the blood from my brain.  I'm
going somewhere I've never been before, and I don't have a
passport, and I don't speak the language.
     "Billy," I squeak.  "Are you gonna hurt me?"
     "I don't think so.  Take off your pants.  And your
shoes."
     "Billy, I told you I was gay.  That's all.  It just
slipped out. I'm still Aidan."
     "And I told you to shut up.  I know what I'm doing."
     I untie my laces and slip off my sneakers.  I unhitch
the belt and slide off my Levis.  I think I'm wearing the
Bart Simpson boxers, but I'm afraid to look.
     "Nice boxers.  My cousin goes to U.V.A.  God you're
skinny."
     So this is it.  I thought it would be Joey or TyRon or
Stuart.  Bashing the fag.  Teaching him a lesson.  Reminding
him of his terrible inadequacy, of how lucky he is that
they're going to let him live.  Or Father Perrault in the
sacristy with sick blandishments.  Or some sweet-talking
dude in the alley behind the Odeon.
     "How does it feel, Aidan?  All that stands between you
and naked are those stupid Cavalier boxers.  Tonight's about
the last step.  I want us to take it together."
     Off comes his shirt.  His khakis.  He's wearing briefs,
goddamnit.  Billy's wearing briefs.  The world is a blur,
but I'm thinking to myself that I won't be raped by a boy in
briefs.
     "Aidan?"  My name sounds like a song, like the
invocation of a deity.  "Come here.  Come to me, Aidan."
Now I am sure that I am safe, because Billy is crying, and I
know that crying boys don't hurt each other.

                             VII

     So this is foreplay.  Staring with hot hands.
Listening to the sweat.  Exploring.  It's not at all like
the videos, I think.  A kiss lasts forever, or at least
until it's time to breathe again.  Tongues battle on.  We
clean each other's teeth, recently stripped of orthodontury.
I keep after Billy's ears, and he keeps mussing my hair.
Looking into his eyes from a distance of eight inches, I
feel like the world's tiniest astronaut gazing at continents
on the big blue marble.  There's so much here to keep us
busy that we haven't even gone down there.  I'm still
wearing my boxers; Billy's still wearing his briefs.
     Now we're on the bed, and I'm the one telling Billy to
take them off.  He stands over me, and I watch as he pulls
them over his distended cock.  He reaches to cover up, and I
say, no, let me look, please, let me look.  It's not huge,
but it's lovely, perfect in every way like the boy it
belongs to.  There's a bubble of pre-cum oozing out of the
slit in his dickhead.  He's circumcised, as I guessed he'd
be, and that flaring glans looks like a gumball from heaven.
You want to scream at me now, in my ecstasy, tell me to get
on with it, cut the crap, but I'm telling you that I have
proved the existence of God.  Mere physics could never
design a body like Billy's.
     "You, too, Aidan.  I want to see you, too."  This is
communion, and his voice, like mine, is hushed, even
reverential.
     "Oh my God," he murmurs when he sees it all.  I know
he's been sensing it, but there's always a hundred miles
between the imagination and the truth.  For the first time
in my life, I am controlling it.  It belongs to me like my
terrible mind and my awkward heart, a friend in need.
     "Yeah.  Who'd a thunk it?  But you know what they say
about guys with big feet."
     "Oh my God."
     "Touch it, Billy.  I promise it can't get any bigger."
     We're back on the bed, checking each other out.  My
fingers walk on his brown and sweaty chest like the first
man on the moon.  His dick points straight up like a beacon
in the night.  I kiss it - but only to acknowledge it.  I
know there's time now, time I didn't used to have.
     Billy's conducting his own private examination of my
penis.  I don't think he knows what to do with it yet, which
makes two of us.  He's clearly intrigued by its heft, by its
floppy-hardness (so different from the solid onyx I am
kissing).  And I have to guess that he is mystified by my
foreskin, the way he slides it too gently over the crown and
back, as if it might tear away in his hands.
     "This is pretty cool.  I mean, you're ginormous, and I
didn't know that, but you're not cut, and that's really
cool."
     "It's all I've ever known.  I don't even know if it's
cool."
     "It's cool, Aidan.  I mean it's not like I've known
that many dicks."
     "Slut."
     "I am not."
     "Ho-Bag."
     "Am not."
     "Okay, my vestal virgin.  Do you want to suck it?"
     The answer is immediate.  He opens his mouth and
swallows the head.  The delirium of his tongue swirling
around my foreskin and burrowing in my pee slit distracts me
from the damage his incisors are wreaking on the frenulum.
     "Billy - Stop - Please, " I say, and I start to laugh
again because I now know that reason is just a minion in the
service of ecstasy, and because I know that I never want him
to stop, never, never, never.
     He doesn't pull away in time, though I'm guessing he
understood at some pre-conscious level what he was up
against.  A few jets go down his throat.  A couple of spurts
wind up on his tongue.  One blob drips comically from the
tip of his nose.
     "I'm not sure I like it."  Then he wipes the cum from
his nose with his index finger and places the dollop like a
communion wafer on the bed of his tongue.  "But I guess I
could get used to it.  At least it doesn't taste like
chicken."  And there's that smile again, the one I think I
love, the one that convinces me God's in his heaven and
all's right with the world.
     "How big is it?" he asks, as if this is the next
logical question.
     "I don't know, Billy.  But I'm guessing it's a keeper.
Sounds funny, but until tonight, it's been my enemy.  I
mean, not really, but I've always treated it like a retarded
little brother.  Fuck, all the porn books say it's awesome
to have a big dick - but that always happened to the other
guy, the one who winks at me every time I hit
bearsntwinks.com."
     "You're bigger than TyRon.  Bigger than Coach Hiller.
You're the fucking King of Dicks, Aidan.  And you know
what?"
     "What?"
     "I'm gonna take care of your dick forever."
     "Why, Billy," I croon in my best magnolia drawl,  "I do
believe that was a proposal."
     "Yeah, so it is.  And I'm gonna take care of you, too,
genius boy."
     "He likes me.  He reallllllllly likes me!"
     "Yeah.  But you better shut up about it.  I could hate
you in five seconds."
     "Oh!  So strong!"
     "Fuck you, Aidan.  Four.  Three."
     "Yes, Billy.  I'll shut up.  I know.  I talk too much."
     "Two."

     Then I do to him what he did to me, and I think he
likes it.  I think I've got a gift.  It's like I've been
sucking dick for years.  I can go all the way down his shaft
without gagging.  I can sense exactly when he's about to
explode, and squeeze.  When he cums, I drink it all, and it
doesn't matter that it's pretty nasty, because it's Billy,
and at this moment I'd drink Drano for him.  And when I look
up at him, half-smiling, half in tears, I know the answer to
the riddle.  It's nature, Billy.  It's nature.  Such wonder
cannot be anything else.
     pijito52@aol.com