Mr. Jennings looked around the class, annoyed. “And, who can tell me how many people live in Germany?” He looked around the class, but no one answered... it was the sixth hour and we were all tired. “Mr. Collins, how about you?” Of course, it was me again... I didn't have my mind on any meaningless numbers. Teaching German as a foreign language was enough for me, but why should I bother with some statistics? I thought about it for a while until Mr. Jennings finally said, “Maybe you should hurry up a bit - it's getting more with every minute.”
Most of the class grinned at least, only Davey had to let off a stupid remark again: “Collins won't contribute anything, the way he is at the moment.” “Nope, why should he? I also think about other things than population growth from time to time,” I fired back - pretty weak, admittedly.
I didn't even bother to elaborate on the sentence, I was used to such comments from Davey... and not only me. He got on the nerves of everyone in our class with his comments. They were just part of the daily routine and no one really paid much attention to them. Davey had always been a bit of an outsider, he never really belonged, but he had only adopted this repulsive manner in the last few years. Much to the chagrin of our teachers... they had been on the verge of expelling him a few times. Why hadn't they done it? I didn't know...
Things had only started to go badly between us recently, around the beginning of the eleventh grade. His comments were not only stupid, but sometimes even very hurtful... especially when it came to my father. I had only seen my father in a few photos, knew his first name and knew that he lived in Germany, but I had no contact with him. Mom never told me anything about him; what I knew about him, I learned from my grandmother. However, she always told me one thing: the reason why Dad and I had no contact was not because of him, but because Mom didn't want it that way. The strangest thing Grandma had told me on the subject was, “If you ever really need your Dad, he'll be there for you.”
Most people in my class knew the story, but Davey was the only one who felt the need to keep bringing it up. It was actually strange that we didn't get along. We were both outsiders in the class, he because of his nature, and me because I had always been a loner. I had always thought that I didn't need friends, but slowly even I realized that this was utopian and that I would not get anywhere like this. I began to cautiously make contact with other classmates. Not many, but enough to go to the swimming pool together or to meet in the afternoon in some café.
Mr. Jennings' question had been answered in the meantime, the lesson was over and I made my way home. Grandma was already waiting for me with dinner. “Well, my boy, how was school today?” I waved it off. “As usual, not terribly interesting, but not deadly boring either.” We sat down at the table. “Your mom called earlier. She needs to stay a little longer at the office today and probably won't be home until around nine.”
I shook my head. ”On a Friday? Well, if she says so...” Grandma shrugged. “I don't understand it either. Do you have any plans for tonight at least?” “No, not yet. I just want to go back into town to look for a CD.” “Okay, but you have to do your homework first. After all, you have exams in a few weeks.” I grinned. “Yes, Grandma, I promise.”
At half past three I had finished everything and set off for town... well, as far as you could seriously call the center of Scarborough that. The town had simply grown over time, and so what was the center in London or Edinburgh was spread out quite a bit. But luckily there were buses that took you everywhere.
I went to the CD store I always shopped at and then strolled through the streets for a bit. I was pretty lost in thought when I turned a corner and suddenly bumped into someone. “Oh... uh, sorry,” I stammered, until I finally saw who I had just run into. Two blue eyes glared at me angrily. “It was obvious you idiot couldn't pay attention.”
I grimaced into a sarcastic grin. “Yes, Davey, I'm glad to see you here, too. Especially since we haven't seen each other in so long, I've really missed you.” For a few seconds, his gaze became uncertain, but then he regained his composure. “Collins, don't waste my time and just go, okay?”
I shook my head. “No. This is the first time we've seen each other outside of school, and I finally want to know why you always act like the biggest asshole on earth. Neither of us has done anything to you, but you act like you're King Louis himself.” He looked at me contemptuously and then spat once, just missing me.
This little thing was enough, and all the anger I had been feeling towards him over time suddenly erupted. Until just now, I had been in an excellent mood, and now this weirdo came along and tried to ruin my day. Before he could even formulate a reply, I had grabbed him by the arm and pulled him so close to me that our noses almost touched.
“And that, my friend, you do just one more time, and then you can pick your teeth up off the street. Clear?” I said quietly and - at least I hoped - as threateningly as possible. It worked. Davey was almost three inches shorter than me and considerably more slender – if I had wanted to, I could have beaten him up anytime. But I didn't want to do that at all; I just wanted him to know that there was a limit to what I would take. And he obviously got that.
He tried to pull out of my grip, but couldn't. “Okay, Collins, what do you want?” I raised my eyebrows. “First of all, Nick is enough - after all, we've known each other for more than just a day. And secondly, I've already told you what I want.” He thought for a while, and finally, when I wasn't expecting it, he broke free with a lightning-fast movement.
“Do you always have to be so brutal?” he asked, almost cautiously, considering the tone he had previously adopted. ‘You've never seen me being brutal. And I'm not keen on showing you that.’ He was obviously thinking about what to do and couldn't quite make up his mind. Then he asked again: ”What do you want from me, Nick?” “Just to talk. Is that too much to ask?”
He looked at me disparagingly. “And what good would it do?” I shrugged. “I don't know. At worst, it was a waste of time. And at best, it will be a friendship for life,” I added grinning. “You don't believe that yourself, do you? Nobody wants me as a friend anyway,” he said doubtfully. ”We'll see about that. Now come on, let's go over to the bistro on the corner.”
Reluctantly, he came with me, and we looked for a quiet place. Davey was still skeptical. However, I now had a small problem: I had been able to persuade him to come, but I didn't know how to proceed. We stared at each other in silence for a while, our Cokes arrived, we discussed this round and three more glasses on all sorts of topics to find an opening for a conversation. It occurred to me that we had a lot in common, even if neither of us would have admitted it. Then I came back to our original topic.
“What was the meaning of the saying this morning at Jennings' lesson?” ‘Maybe I just wanted to provoke you?’ I raised my eyebrows. ‘You always try to provoke everyone, at every opportunity. Besides, you should have realized by now that you won't get very far with me that way.’ He smiled briefly, but immediately became serious again. “That's right – most of the time you don't even notice me.” ‘Well, I wonder why that is. You're always saying stupid things, we're just fed up with you.’ ‘I don't care about the others, Nick. But...’ He broke off the sentence and stared into his glass of cola.
“But what? Son, just tell me what's going on with you.” I would have liked to have grabbed him and shaken him. But a look in his eyes told me that I'd better not – he looked like he was about to jump up and storm out of the store at any moment. “Nick, I've never had anyone to talk to, and I don't know if you're the right person for it.” ‘Why not?’ ‘Give me one good reason why not.’ ”You give me one good reason why you shouldn't.”
He obviously couldn't think of one. “I hardly know you,” he said. “I don't know you either. Davey, we've been classmates for eleven and a half years, living only a few blocks apart. For the first ten years, we ignored each other and for the last year and a half, we only fought when we spoke to each other at all, which was almost a rarity.” Oh man, that look... I spontaneously added, “I don't know why... but I like you.”
He opened his eyes wide and stared at me. ‘Are... are you serious?’ he asked. I had watched him many times, but there was one thing I saw for the first time now: there was a glimmer of hope in his eyes. I nodded. ”Yes, I was completely serious.” I could literally see his pulse and blood pressure skyrocketing. Fine beads of sweat appeared on his forehead, and he was getting quite nervous, you could see that on his face.
He obviously had to force himself to continue speaking. “Nick... I... promise me, please, no matter what happens, keep everything we talk about to yourself, okay?” I took a deep breath and then held out my hand. “I promise.” He shook it and held it for a second or two longer than necessary. Somehow I had the feeling that he wanted to say something else, but he didn't.
We sat in silence at the table for a while, staring alternately at each other and at our now empty glasses. “Davey, what do you think about doing something together tomorrow? Maybe then we can talk more?” If you could call the whole thing a game, then I was now playing at risk. For the first time, I had got him to the point where we could talk normally. Who knew if it would still be like that the next day? But he just nodded. “Okay, what?” “Let's go swimming?” I suggested. “Good. When and where do we meet?” “I'll pick you up at your house at two o'clock.”
We paid for our drinks and then slowly made our way to the neighborhood where we both lived. On the way there, we met a boy of about fourteen on a bicycle, who I had also seen a few times in our neighborhood. “Davey, where have you been? Dad was worried about you.” Davey waved him off. “I was having a Coke with a classmate.” Nick, this is my brother Tom. Tom, this is Nick.” ‘Hi, Nick.’ ‘Hi, Tom.’ I hated being introduced to other people. Among adults, the phrase ‘pleased to meet you’ would probably have followed, but luckily it didn't.
Finally, we were standing in front of the entrance to our house. “Okay, see you tomorrow, Nick.” “See you tomorrow, Davey. And I hope it stays that way.” He just nodded and then walked the last few meters to his house. I watched him and Tom for a while and finally went in too.
Mom was sitting in the living room going over some papers. When I came in, she looked up. “Hello, my darling. Where have you been hanging around?” I put my key away, took off my jacket and then dropped into an armchair. “I was having a Coke with a classmate. Davey, I've already told you about him.” She looked at me in surprise. ‘Davey? From Williams Lane?’ I nodded. ‘Yes, exactly.’ ‘Aren't you always fighting?’ ”Hm... I have a sneaking suspicion that that's a thing of the past.”
She closed her books, took a martini and sat down next to me. “Come on, tell me.” I took a sip from her glass - which earned me a not-so-serious dirty look - and grinned. “Mom, when you're at home, leave the psychologist in the office, okay?” I told her what had happened in a few sentences. Finally she smiled. “And you're really sure you don't want to follow in my footsteps?” she asked. I nodded. “Yes, definitely. Please don't be angry with me, but I'm dog-tired and going to bed, okay?” She kissed me good night, and then I went up.
When I was in bed, I thought a little more. On the one hand, about the conversation with Davey... I had a slight suspicion about what he wanted to tell me, and I hoped that I was not wrong about my guess. On the other hand, I thought of my father, who was not much more than a name and a face to me. Since the encounter with Tom - and his hint “Dad is worried about you” - it haunted me again. When would I finally get to hear the sentence, “Dad was worried about you?” With this thought, I fell asleep.
The next morning I woke up relatively early... if you could call nine o'clock early. I usually used to sleep in on Saturdays, but today I didn't really feel like it. I took a shower, shaved, got dressed and went downstairs. Mum was already sitting at the breakfast table and looked up in surprise when I came in.
“Good morning, my darling. Did you fall out of bed?” I grinned. ‘No, but let me have a little bit of the day too.’ I sat down and poured myself a cup of coffee. The rolls were still warm. Mom put the newspaper aside and then looked at me questioningly. ”Or are you excited because you have your first date today?”
I almost choked on my coffee and only just managed to put the cup down in time. “Mum, it's not a date,” I tried to explain. But with my mother... no chance. She was a psychologist and worked a lot with teenagers, and I was pretty much the last person she could fool. “And if it were?” I asked quietly.
“Nick, do you seriously believe that I have never thought about this possibility?” she asked calmly. ‘I don't know, Mom.’ ‘If that's really the case, don't worry, at least not because of me. I've seen enough guys your age who had a lot of problems with their parents because their parents couldn't accept that their son was gay.’ Gay... she used the word like any other, and I had always given it a wide berth in my thoughts.
Before I could say anything, however, she continued: “Nick, a few years ago I had a case like that again, it happens more often than you think. In this case, I couldn't help him. The boy threw himself in front of a train because his parents made his life a living hell. That's when I swore to myself that I would never let it come to that.” I looked at her, quite speechless – I first had to process what I had just heard. ‘Did that really happen?’ I then asked in a whisper. She nodded silently.
“How old was this boy back then?” ‘Sixteen, the same age as you are now.’ I hardly dared to ask the next question. ‘And why couldn't you help him?’ She took a sip of coffee and then thought for a moment. ”We had already had a few sessions, and I actually felt that at that point he was ready to accept himself. His parents didn't know anything at that point, but he was terribly afraid of it because his father got upset again and again when the topic was mentioned on television or in the newspaper. Then came things like 'The gays all belong castrated' and so on. But this boy assumed that his father would see it differently if he knew that his own son was one of them.
He had written his parents a letter before our appointment and told them what was going on. We had barely started the session when his father came in and dragged him out of my office, swearing at him wildly and calling me names – what I had put into his son's head and so on. I only saw how he twice slapped the boy on the way to the car - I still remember the cries of pain to this day. I then called the police and sent them directly to his parents' house.
But it was too late: when his father parked the car in front of the house, he jumped out and ran away. I can only guess what happened next. The police arrived just as he was running away. They followed him in the patrol car and almost caught up with him at the level crossing behind Yorkshire Crescent just as the barriers came down. I guess he saw the train and decided that was his only way out. The police tried to get him off the crossing. The parents came running. He was hit by the train right in front of them.”
I stood up and hugged my mother. “Thanks for not being like that, Mom.” She hugged me tightly. “Nick, you're my only child and I would never let anything happen to you.” We just stood there for a moment before we finally broke away from each other. ‘Hey, if things work out with Davey, you're welcome to bring him around sometime.’ I smiled – I couldn't think of anything else to say.
But one question was bothering me. “How would my dad react if he found out about it? I don't even know if he has any other kids.” Mom lit a cigarette and then blew out the smoke slowly. “I think your dad would feel the same way about it as I do.” Silence. Finally, I asked, “Why don't you tell me more about him?” She sighed. “Okay. I'll tell you a little about him, but only on one condition: never ask me about him again, okay?”
“Do you hate him?” She shook her head. ‘No, on the contrary. I think I'm still a little in love with him.’ ‘I'll never ask you about him again if you promise me something too,’ I suggested. ”And what?” “When I turn eighteen at the latest, I want to try to find him. At least tell me his name then and if you also have his last address, okay? And please don't forbid me to do so.”
She nodded slowly. “Agreed.” She got up, went into the study and came back a few minutes later with a pad and an envelope. Then she pushed the newspaper across to me. “So, you can take a look at the sports section, I have to make a quick note. And don't peek.” The tone of voice allowed no contradiction, so I leafed through the newspaper. There was nothing particularly interesting in it.
Finally, Mom was finished. She folded the sheet and put it in the envelope, which she then sealed. “So, I wrote down his name and address for you. I'll keep this envelope and give it to you on your 18th birthday. Okay?” I nodded. “Okay.”
She poured more coffee and then began to tell her story. “Your dad and I met in 1964 at the high school in Los Angeles. We were together for a few years, it was a wonderful time. But then the chemistry was no longer right, and we decided to separate. It was definitely also because we had both started college. I met Jörg, who was also studying in L.A., and in our youthful recklessness we decided to get married in the summer of love. We went back to his hometown, Hamburg. The marriage didn't last too long, and we divorced in 1972.
I stayed in Hamburg for a while longer and was out with a couple of colleagues one evening when I suddenly ran into your dad in a bar. We both couldn't believe our eyes. He was already married at the time and had a son. However, the atmosphere at home between him and his wife was so bad that he had moved out for the time being. Well, as the feelings and the spirit of the wine would have it, our old love flared up again. We spent a few days together and finally gave our feelings free rein. It was only the next day that we both realized what had happened.
Then your dad got a call from his wife – she was pregnant again. It was a real blow to him, because he didn't know how he would manage. I encouraged him to go back to his wife, because I didn't yet know that I was already carrying you inside me.” “Did you tell him later?” I asked. At that moment, I was terrified that he had no idea I existed. Mom nodded. ”Yes, he knows about you. I wanted you to be born here in England back then. Nick, you are my planned child and your father is the man who should always be the father of my child.”
“How did he react?” ”He wanted to meet you, and you did see each other once, but you were still quite small. The fact that you have no contact was simply because of me – I didn't want to destroy his family. I know Catherine, we were in the same class in high school. I think they're still happy together. And your dad has always supported me when I needed it. When I didn't have a job, he was the one who kept us both afloat.”
“And why are you no longer in contact?” I didn't understand my mother. Apparently, my father was exactly the man I had always imagined. ”I think it was just my wounded pride. I had the opportunity to set up my practice here, and that made me independent of him in every way. I just didn't want to be dependent on him. And I didn't want you to be dependent on him either.”
If she had asked me if I could understand that, I would have had to honestly answer “No.” Fortunately, she didn't ask me that question, and I decided not to press the matter further. “When do you want to meet?” Mom asked me after a while. “Around two, I'll pick him up.” “Okay. I have to go back to the office in a bit, there's been a lot of work to do in the last few days. But Grandma should be here soon, too.”
Ever since I could remember, Grandma had helped us wherever she could. She was 73, but still pretty spry, and she just had the shop under control. I usually liked spending time with her, but right now I needed a little quiet to think about everything Mom had told me... I had thought about the possibility that I might be gay a few times, but I had always dismissed the thought pretty quickly. As I lay on my bed, I tried hard to think of the pros and cons – I guess when your mom's a psychologist, you automatically start analyzing everything over time.
Boys. Girls. Boys. There were more boys than girls in our class, but I couldn't remember ever flirting with anyone, or even thinking about it. The thought just seemed absurd to me... and so far I had always been able to blame it on the fact that I didn't want contact with the others anyway. But when I really thought about it... I looked around my room. Lots of posters on the walls... Ewan McGregor in “Trainspotting”, Jason James Richter in “Free Willy” - I still remembered all too well how I had cried my eyes out at the movie -, Elijah Wood in “Flipper”, some posters of the Backstreet Boys and Hanson... but no girls or women among them.
And then Davey. What had I said to him yesterday? “I like you.” That was pretty much it... for some time now I had felt a slight, warm tingling in my stomach when I thought of him. Sometimes I saw him standing in the schoolyard, far away from everyone else, looking into the distance. A few times I had felt the urge to go to him and take him in my arms, but usually something had happened shortly afterwards that had destroyed that impulse. And now I was glad that we had stumbled across each other so unexpectedly yesterday afternoon.
I fell asleep on this thought until Grandma finally called me from downstairs: “Nick, don't you have a two o'clock appointment?” I jumped up - it was twenty to two. I hastily packed my swimming things and, after saying goodbye to Grandma, set off for Davey's. He was already standing on the corner waiting for me. When he saw me, he smiled shyly. “Hello, Nick.”
It was the first time I had seen that smile and not a grimace or mask. That smile stuck with me. Again, there was an impulse to hug him, but I pulled myself together. Davey got on his bike and we rode to the swimming pool together.
The parking lot was surprisingly empty. “Hm, is it closed today? There's usually more traffic here on weekends.” I nodded and looked around. There was a poster on the front door with information about the town festival. Of course, that was taking place this weekend, which was why there was no one here. Since I had never been interested in such events, I hadn't even noticed it.
We paid, changed, and met up again a few minutes later in the shower. I caught myself looking at Davey from top to bottom a few times when I thought I was unobserved. He was actually quite well built, a bit skinny, but he had nothing to be ashamed of. I slowly let my gaze wander from top to bottom and back over his body, and when I came back to his face, I looked him straight in the eye. I felt myself blushing. Neither of us said anything, instead we went into the water in silence and did a few laps.
The pool was pretty empty, too. The lifeguard was lying in a deck chair, looking around every now and then to see if everything was all right, but he didn't pay us any special attention. We had a little swimming and diving contest, and after a while we had completely forgotten what had happened in the shower. I enjoyed the sight of Davey's body gliding through the water. I felt as if the conversation I'd had with my mother that morning had opened up new doors for me.
“Once across the pool, without taking a breath, always underwater?” Davey suggested when he'd arrived next to me again. I nodded. ”Okay, go.” We both took a deep breath and dived in. As on the previous occasions, I was a good two seconds faster than Davey, but when I arrived at the bottom, he didn't surface behind me. I looked around, searching – which wasn't that easy, because my eyes were burning from the chlorinated water – and suddenly felt a hand on my back. Before I knew it, I felt someone taking off my swimming trunks. A few seconds later, Davey emerged from behind me – at a certain distance. He grinned. “Missing anything?”
I grinned back. ‘Yes, for now.’ Without waiting for an answer, I dove in, and since I had been standing right at the edge of the pool, I was able to push off. But Davey had expected that – when I resurfaced, he had already moved well away. He was still grinning. “I'll give them back to you, but only for a ransom.” Why not? ‘Okay, I'll buy you a coke. Deal?’ ‘Okay. Catch!’ The next moment I had my swimming trunks in my face, but the throw wasn't meant maliciously or anything. Davey doubled over with laughter when he saw my face.
I put my swimming trunks back on. “Come on, let's get going. Who knows how long the shops will be open today.” He nodded and then swam past me in a wide arc, obviously afraid that I would retaliate for his little attack. I didn't, and I think that was a good thing.
Just as we went to shower, Davey realized that he had lost the key to his locker. “I'll be right back,” he called to me. “Do you want me to help you look?” “No, I think I know where it is.” Sure enough, just as I finished showering, he came back in holding the missing object like a trophy. “Okay, see you in a minute,” I grinned and disappeared in the direction of the cubicles.
Slowly it became more crowded - I thought I remembered seeing something about senior swimming in the entrance hall. Well, I didn't want to change in front of all those other gentlemen, so I grabbed the last free cubicle. Just as I had finished drying myself, I heard Davey's voice. “Nick, are you around here?” I opened the cabin door and waved my swimming trunks. He pushed past two other bathers and then came into the cabin with me. “Phew, it's a bit quieter in here.”
He took off his swimming trunks and began to dry himself off without paying any further attention to me. I just stared at him for a few seconds, then turned around and started to get dressed. When I looked over at him out of the corner of my eye, I thought I saw a smirk on his face, but he didn't say anything. I wondered for a while whether I should say something, but in the end I got dressed in silence. When we were outside, a rather cold wind blew towards us. “Do you mind if we have the coke at my place?” He shook his head. “No, not at all.”
To my surprise, Mom was home when we arrived. I introduced the two to each other – the usual banter when you bring a school friend home. Mom didn't let on about our conversation; she gave Davey a warm welcome, then handed me a bottle of coke and two glasses and sent us upstairs. Davey looked around my room while he took off his jacket. “You seem to have a thing for boys, don't you?” I filled our glasses to the brim, hoping he wouldn't notice how much my hand was shaking.

The snow fell only quite timidly on the city, which was already completely snowed in. On my city! I stepped outside, and my gaze fell on my new, used sports car, which was parked at the side of the road. A thick layer of snow had already covered it, with only a little of the wine-red, metallic-looking paintwork showing through here and there. I stretched and took in the fresh air. Okay, as far as you could talk about fresh air in the middle of a big city with around half a million inhabitants and traffic for at least a million. Even now, after this sudden onset of winter, the traffic was still snarling across the four lanes of the road, which had been my new postal address for a good month now, as befitted a decent rush hour.
And yet, the fresh snow seemed to have really cleared the air. Only the slight smell of diesel from the countless trucks that made their way to the A2 wafted through the air, seemingly confirming the completely unjustified reputation of this city, which is that it is not really a city at all, but in fact just the largest motorway service station in the world.
This city constantly had to struggle with all kinds of prejudices. Provincial, sleepy and “nothing going on” were the most common clichés. I don't think there is a city in the world that is as underestimated as my new hometown. Once again, I held my arms up in the air and enjoyed this very unique atmosphere that had set in with the beginning of the snowfall. Dusk was slowly setting in. It was finally shortly before half past four and one week before Christmas. It wouldn't be long before it was pitch black again. Although pitch black was what it was like in the backwater where I had spent most of my life until now. Here, however, real darkness didn't come quickly due to the many shops and the street and Christmas lights.
I looked across to the light rail stop, which was located in the middle of the main street and had just been inaugurated a week ago with a new elevated platform. A huge digital display on the platform showed that the next train to the city center was expected in four minutes. So I didn't have to hurry much. At that moment, the train in the opposite direction pulled in with an elongated screech.
How do they do that, I wondered, to make such a loud squeaking noise even when the rails are wet with rain or, as they were today, with snow? It must be some kind of technology that I don't understand. Although I did understand a bit about technology; after all, I had been a freshly graduated mechanical engineer for a good six months. I also had a job, had just passed the probationary period and was now the proud owner of a permanent employment contract. A rarity in this day and age and proof that my employer was really into incalculable risk or was really satisfied with my work, or maybe both.
The loud ringing of the train starting up again pulled me out of my thoughts. As if the noise when starting up wasn't enough to warn pedestrians. Man, I thought, these things are brand new and make more noise than an old steam locomotive. Especially at night, the things could be heard constantly. But that didn't bother me in the least. Just like the flickering neon sign of the hotel across the street. It shone directly into my bedroom. It was a great idea of mine to beautify my bedroom windows with these longitudinal lamella curtains. The blackout factor was close to zero, and the first night in my new domicile taught me that a few sheets of white paper would have achieved the same success, namely none. In addition, one of the neon lamps was actually constantly broken, so part of this huge hotel advertisement always flickered in a rather unrhythmic way. This had something of a kitschy American movie about it, if the surroundings of a cheap flophouse were to be depicted.
Well, I have to vehemently deny the cheap flophouse part. After all, I had put a lot of effort into my new apartment! And the fact that I was living in the middle of nowhere, right in the middle of the city on one of the busiest main traffic arteries, was something I had deliberately chosen. So the squealing of the train and flickering neon attacks were actually quite convenient for me, as they were signs that I had finally arrived in western civilization from German West Siberia, or in other words, from my oh-so-quiet hometown.
With this thought in mind, I set off in the direction of the bus stop, passing the shops on my block, the kiosk at the end of the row of houses and continuing towards the district's indoor swimming pool and leisure center, which were directly opposite the bus stop. Man, I couldn't get enough of the big city atmosphere and was already looking forward to the hustle and bustle in the city with the Christmas gift shopping, the three Christmas markets and the it's Friday and only one week until Christmas chaos!
I could have hugged the whole world, I was so happy! All my wishes had actually come true. Okay, I had worked pretty hard for it over the last few years, and then there was a bit of luck. So to be honest, this story could actually be over by now. I wouldn't have to keep using my patented three-to-four-fingered eagle search system on my new laptop to click this story in. And you, dear esteemed readers, could do something more useful than listen to my life story. And both little and big Jan-Phillip could live happily ever after.
Well, they could! But little Jan-Phillip in particular had a completely different opinion. So how come? Well, then I'll have to go back a little. With my story, of course, I mean. But first, I think, I should probably introduce myself to the esteemed audience.
My name is Jan-Phillip Böhm, I am an only child, yes, a really spoiled one, 25 Lenze young and just on the way to my independence. My contemporaries actually consider me to be quite sociable, some even attest to a certain charm. The girls from my old gang even said that I look quite sweet with my tall and slender appearance, my honey blonde hair, my snub nose and my sky-blue eyes including the dachshund look. As if I would be interested in what the girls say, I mean. The fact that they refer to my giant nose as a snub nose disqualifies them in my opinion as a truly serious jury for questions of appearance.
Well, so much for the great Jan-Phillip. We'll get to little Jan-Phillip later. Just this much: he was one, if not the most important reason why I left my small, tranquil hometown for the big, wide world, or rather for the state capital, which is about an hour and a half's drive away. Because little Jan-Phillip had not really come into his own in our twenty-five-year forced community, with the exception of regular pats with more or less satisfactory results.
Mmh, it wasn't that easy with him either, after all, little Jan-Phillip had his preferences and they didn't fit into the preconceived world view of the people in the backwater where I came from. Here in the Expo and trade fair city, I simply hoped for a little more liberal views. What preferences do I mean? – Well, as most of you can probably already guess, I'm not only a mechanical engineer, which is bad enough in itself, I'm also gay. Really gay and what's even worse is that I'm also a virgin! I didn't choose the first thing, being gay, nor could I change it, to be honest I didn't want to either, but I didn't choose the second thing, being a virgin, either, but I definitely wanted to change that!
Not that I wanted to screw around here until the doctor came. No, that was not my thing at all, I'm really quite romantic and have been dreaming of my dream prince for life for years, or at least of a really nice guy and a long-term relationship for a nice long time. In the small town, on the other hand, where I was “out,” it was out of the question. Not to mention the scandal of having two fags in our beautiful town. It was simply a question of statistics. Assuming that only one in ten young guys with a hot ass has the same orientation as me, and then subtracting all the idiots in our area, well, then I ended up with a relationship-critical mass of 0.0000.
Okay, I've known I was gay for about ten years, thanks to the internet and its, admittedly, sometimes quite smutty pages. And so, for about exactly that time, I held out in this homoerotic diaspora. Military service wasn't really a big deal either; I quickly realized that I'd better not come out to these leisure-time rambos. Well, because of the shortened period of service, I had to start studying right away, so I had enough on my plate anyway, so I didn't get bored at all.
Then I quickly studied. Since I had chosen a fairly good university of applied sciences in the neighboring federal state just around the corner and was able to continue living at home, this saved a lot of time and money. The rather good half-orphan's pension that I received (unfortunately, my father had died when I was twelve), and the good food at Hotel Mama made a part-time job unnecessary, so I was able to get off to a flying start. However, I postponed my sex life again until later, with the exception of the already mentioned caresses in combination with the also already mentioned world-wide madness.
But that was definitely in the past and I was really keen to throw myself into the gay scene in my new city. I had no idea exactly how I would do it, but the mere fact that there was such a thing as a gay scene here made me quite euphoric and, I admit it, also a bit horny. Gosh! After ten years of living like a monk, I was allowed to be one, wasn't I?
So I did a little googling and was delighted to discover that there were quite a few locations for my type here. I quickly planned a route for tonight. Just to check it out, of course. Finding my dream guy on the first night was something you only found in those gay love stories you find on the internet. Like on “nickstories.de”, for example. I love these stories and I love this site. Man! It had really helped me a lot through my difficult time as an involuntary monk. But they were just great stories. I wanted to stay grounded. Just take a little look around, maybe dream a little. But otherwise, take it slow with the ghostly... um, young horses!
Okay, there was still something nagging in the back of my mind. What would happen if I happened to meet someone from our village? My new town wasn't that far from my old home. I was and am not a coward, but I had decided to lead a double life for the time being, especially with my mother's heart condition in mind. After all, I was still in close contact with my clique. It wasn't that I didn't feel comfortable in our village. I had a great childhood there. When my father suddenly died, my friends really gave me great support. We had all known each other almost since we were kids, and for me as an only child, my closest friends were more like family than just a couple of buddies to hang out with. Yes, that's how it is in the village. With my best buddy Stefan, I also had something like a family connection. At the weekend and during the holidays, I often stayed with him. I was something of a third child and really took part in family life, such as the big family breakfast on Sundays. I enjoyed this very much. I think my buddy Stefan was also very happy to have an ally against his big sister. Much to the annoyance of that very person. Her name was Stefanie (parents can be so funny!), she was two years older than us and was mutating into that kind of irritable, pubescent brat that unfortunately nobody understands, a state that most girls, in my opinion, never get out of in their whole life.
Be that as it may, I enjoyed that time very much! Stefan and I were inseparable. And when our hormones slowly began to stir up our beautiful, orderly rascal life, he became my first great, but unfortunately unfulfilled love.
Man! Was that torture. I was completely smitten, I craved his closeness, had many a powerful, unseemly thought, but unfortunately knew only too well that he was pretty much the most heterogeneous person in our pack.
No sooner had he realized that the thing between his legs was good for more than just standing up to pee than it was already over with the girls in the area. While I still wanted to play with Lego, he had already secretly obtained the relevant literature (yes, exactly the ones with the many instructions in a glossy format and to fold out, of course). Together we had once used the storm-free place at his house to try out our devices properly. It was just strange that I had to squint at his device the whole time. The great glossy photos namely could not really lure little Jan-Phillip. Little Stefan, on the other hand, who incidentally was no longer so little at the time, made a much more stimulating impression on my little, pampered rascal.
Okay, this experience really worried me and I had to think about it for days. At the time, our friendship almost broke up because of it. I constantly caught myself wanting to see my buddy Stefan naked at every opportunity. Since he was quite proud of his body and rarely embarrassed and I also often stayed with him, I also had a lot of opportunities to do so. However, to my great regret, we no longer looked at pictures together and then checked each other out. Nevertheless, I constantly tried to have some kind of physical contact with him. When we were alone, I started some kind of tussle, tickled him and did all the things that seemed to be harmless. The only problem was that little Jan-Phillip didn't find it so harmless and reacted bolt upright regularly. My preference for wide boxer shorts gave way to reason during this time and since then I have been squeezing into tight-fitting retro shorts. But at some point, even this model of a heterosexual found my behavior rather suspicious. As we were once again romping around and I couldn't keep my hands to myself, he pushed me aside a bit roughly, stared at me and asked: “Hey Flip, are you gay or what?”
Bam, I'm busted! It's exactly this question I've been asking myself for some time.
I was getting pretty hot. A traffic light would probably have gone into standby mode out of envy at my healthy complexion, and Stefan seemed to have noticed my good circulation, too (yes, I mean the one in the face, but really, what else?). He looked at me quite strangely.
“Are you crazy?” I tried to refute the look on my stupid face. ”Are you serious, that I'm a fag? You'd like that, wouldn't you? You're not getting any more action from the girls, you old cactus?”
Ouch, that had stung! Stefan had been having real problems with his hormones for some time. No, not the kind that could be remedied with an extensive, one-handed special treatment in the shower, but the kind for which the resourceful cosmetics industry had brought corresponding teen products onto the market. That is, ointments and creams that seemed to help mostly only the wallets of the cosmetics companies. In short, Stefan's pretty face suffered mightily from the effects of puberty-related acne. Which was pretty hard for our pretty boy, and it was pretty hard for me to bring this up as a heavy weapon.
But what the heck, said was said and it had an effect.
“Stupid asshole,” was his reply, and he sulked back to his bed in the farthest corner of his room. I then retreated to the other corner of the room, which was at least a million kilometers away. The mood was in the toilet. We then zapped through MTV and VIVA for about an hour, then I left. We hadn't said much to each other all evening. From that day on, our relationship changed fundamentally. Stefan watched me very critically, if not suspiciously, from that day on. It also seemed to me as if he always tried not to be alone with me since then. I, on the other hand, tried to avoid any physical contact as much as possible, and I finally stopped my lustful looks with a heavy heart. I haven't stayed at his place since then either.
Somehow, our relationship seemed to have suffered a major setback. We drifted apart more and more. Stefan now invested a lot of time in his constantly changing affairs. He was already a real heart-throb before, but now he literally mutated into our small-town Casanova, as if he wanted to prove that he was 100% heterosexual. Even Stefan's parents and my mother noticed this change, but attributed it to the natural development of two pubescent boys. So we went more and more separate ways. Only our village clique was still a connecting element.
It was only much later, when we had both long been active members of our local volunteer fire brigade (we had certainly avoided each other like the plague in the youth fire brigade), that our relationship improved again due to joint training courses. Today, it can actually be considered pretty normal again. Incidentally, Stefan has been in a relationship for a good four years. His girlfriend's name is Susanne, she's a year younger and a really sweet girl. Somehow the two seem made for each other.
Nevertheless, we never spoke about that evening again. It's a shame, really. Stefan would have been the first person in our town to whom I could have come out. Today I am sure that he would have understood in the end and might even have been of real help to me. How I would have liked to have had someone back then with whom I could have talked about everything. Oh well, it just wasn't meant to be.
My mother, by the way, also didn't know about me. She still believed that one day I would come home with a daughter-in-law and that our hut would soon be full of a bunch of cute little rug rats. My mother loves children, which always made me wonder why I'm an only child, since I wasn't that bad as a little boy.
My enthusiasm for these little rascals, who are always leaking out of some orifices, is pretty limited. The fact that I myself will not have any because of my sexual orientation is therefore the least of my problems, which my being gay brings with it. For my mother, on the other hand, I believed that this would certainly be the biggest shock. I was sure that she would still identify me as her son even after a possible outing, well, at least if you were to ask her clearly and explicitly.
She couldn't disinherit me, practically speaking. Strangely enough, my father had left everything to me, so she was effectively living in my house, but that wasn't so important. What was important was that she would still love me, and I was absolutely sure of that. She does have a rather rough exterior, which meant that as a child and teenager I didn't really come to her with all my problems. On the other hand, she didn't have it so easy as a young widow either, and in truth she has a rather soft core. So I didn't expect any problems from her. But why make a fuss about it now? It would be enough to tell her when I had found a real sweetheart and could introduce him to her... sigh... yes, if!
What would they say in our little town if I turned up with a sweetheart on my arm? I have to grin at the thought. The scandal would be inevitable and, of course, our local editorial team would have plenty to talk about for at least half a year. Local editorial team? I'm talking about our local bakery. You can find out the latest gossip there while you're getting your rolls or standing at the counter for a “cup of coffee”, long before you know it yourself. They are always up to date, especially bed stories were and are always presented so vividly as if the person telling them had been there himself. Well, at least with the beautiful Mrs. Bäckerin, the thought was not that far-fetched.
I was pretty curious to see what kind of sick fantasies they would come up with regarding gay sex. Maybe I could learn something, I thought, after all, my experiences up to that point were pretty limited. In any case, I shouldn't care about the talk, after all, except for occasional visits, I didn't plan on coming back. I was only a little sorry for my mother. It would probably be quite a gauntlet to run, at least at the beginning. I could already imagine the sharp-tongued chatter.
“Oh, the poor woman, what a shame. It looked like the boy would grow up to be a decent person. Well, he always was a bit strange. And what do you expect when a young lad grows up without a father...”, and so on and so forth.
Not that my mother really had much to endure. First of all, she was actually quite well-liked in the village and besides, her refreshing manner would ensure that the gossip would quickly die down. Oh dear, I felt sorry for anyone who would dare to say something stupid to her. Granny would simply eat the poor person for breakfast, and without mustard and pepper!
Well, I would probably be thrown out of the fire brigade in disgrace. Who could imagine a fag as a firefighter? I once googled something about an association of gay firefighters. I went straight to their site, but found that it hadn't been maintained in millions of years. The association probably no longer exists. It is much more likely that the gay firefighters no longer exist either. They were probably sunk during the last Oder flood to reinforce the dikes.
Well, I would actually be sorry if I were kicked out of the fire department. Somehow I had resolved to manage the balancing act between living here and staying in the fire department there. Almost all of my former clique was actively involved there. Some were even in command, Stefan was even a platoon leader and deputy fire chief. He had really made a career for himself, the little one. And I had also been a member of the command for a few years and was responsible for security. I wanted to continue doing this work, even if I couldn't regularly participate in the service anymore. Well, we'll see then. Actually, they weren't all that wrong. If only they weren't such terrible machos. And then there were always these prejudices. I could already imagine my next security briefing in front of this bunch, once it was known that I was gay. I'm sure I'd get a lot of stupid comments about safe sex and always having your back to the wall and all that. It wouldn't take long before I'd find a few condoms and lubricant in my locker, haha very funny! And of course that's just for safety reasons, of course.
But on the other hand, they're all a pretty nice bunch and I'm not a wallflower when it comes to messing with others with a few pithy sayings. So I would probably survive, because if you dish it out, you have to be able to take it. Um, I'd better not say that in front of the whole team in that context. Some joker might misunderstand it very quickly.
I was so absorbed in my thoughts that I hadn't even noticed how I had gotten on the train completely subconsciously. Thankfully in the right direction, so on line 1 towards the city. Well, I had probably already become a real city dweller, I could actually ride the subway, and even without thinking too much about it. Well, admittedly not particularly difficult with two possible directions. Monthly tickets in the annual subscription also saved me the daily hassle with the fussy ticket machines.
So, I was really looking forward to the upcoming evening. First of all, a bit of window shopping (haha, I wanted to do that figuratively all night), I wanted to shop for Christmas presents later. My Christmas principle has always been that as long as the gas stations are still open, you don't have to start thinking about Christmas until the 23rd at the earliest. My mom always drives me crazy with this. But what the heck, I only have one really stressful day and can enjoy the mulled wine at the Christmas markets during the other days. Besides, if nothing else, with the fuel prices, gas station gift certificates are worth more than the most expensive scent cocktail from one of those would-be luxury shops of those stinky water retailers. After all, I had to know what I was talking about, since I had been calling a real gas monster my own for two months. Along the lines of, what do I care about the greenhouse effect, it's way too cold here for me anyway. Nah, I'm not really that kind of idiot. But my new used one was a must. For years, first as a student, then as a federal soldier and finally as a student, reason had triumphed and I had settled for a small rice cooker. As big as a hatbox, three coke cans placed next to each other formed a cylinder-shaped engine with a performance of the brand irascibility. However, the good piece was pretty outdated and I finally craved a set of wheels that really deserved the title automobile. It suited me perfectly that two things happened shortly after I finished my studies. The first was that I found a job right away. Four applications, four invitations to an interview and I already had two offers to choose from. Not that I was that good, well, my diploma certificate was not bad and that with a degree within the standard period of study, but I think I was also just finished at the right time. Long live the economy!
And the second thing was the fifth crop rotation that befell us, that is to say, Mother and especially me. Fifth crop rotation? Okay, I'll explain that briefly. As I said, I come from the flat country (well, not that flat, it's a low mountain range after all) and in addition to our little house, I had also inherited a bit of land and even a small grove. The land was leased. I occasionally took on the small grove myself with my chainsaw. Man! A chainsaw massacre like that can be quite relaxing.
Well, and part of the land was suddenly chosen for building. It was to serve young families for their own homes. Well, and since I myself will not contribute very much to the preservation of our species, I agreed to this, of course, selflessly as I am, immediately. Anyone who knows a little about agriculture has probably heard of the four-field system with its coordinated crop rotations. Well, the most productive crop rotation is undisputedly the fifth, namely building land! Okay, so my selfless contribution to the construction of homes for hopeful families was not really so selfless after all.
The property development company also realized pretty quickly that although I occasionally look extremely stupid, I'm not really stupid at all, and suddenly I had a reasonably acceptable offer. That was a bit like winning the lottery. So after the tax office had received its more less than less more rightful part, after my mother had also received her more than deserved share, and another part had been well invested for security, there was still a nice little sum left to sweeten my start in the city of my choice. That meant I didn't need to save on the apartment. With my salary, rent shouldn't be a problem anyway, and the deposit and furnishings could easily be financed now anyway.
So, and then there was still the car. Well, I was a reasonable guy and new cars were a horror to me with the loss of value. So it should be a solid used one.
Okay, I had exaggerated a little in the end. The result was a four-year-old A6 station wagon. Wine red metallic, light leather, wood trim, snazzy V6 engine with almost 180 hp and 2.8 liters displacement, automatic climate control, automatic transmission, electric glass sunroof and a bunch of other gimmicks. Wow! After six years of a rice cooker, I finally had automotive heaven on earth. I loved this car, even though the speed orgies on the A2 were quite expensive. In terms of fuel, the engine was more of a water heater than a combustion engine. But what the heck, you only live once, “and not for much longer if you keep driving like this,” as my mother remarked acidly when she once had the opportunity to take off with me on the A2 and then fly in the direction of my new apartment.
So, now I had just exchanged my great speedster for the silver tapeworm, which noisily prepared to torture itself through the underground bowels of my city, only to release its contents, that is to say us, the enthusiastic users of public transport, at the main train station. The Christmas market at the station forecourt should then also be the first stage of my train journey through the city today. Not only did I have a hopefully eventful night ahead of me, but I also had a two-week vacation. It was my first as a recognized member of the taxpaying population. I definitely wanted to spend the first week in my city. I would spend the Christmas holidays and the time until New Year's Eve with my mother and, of course, with my friends from the old gang. On New Year's Eve itself, I wanted to take the ICE to Berlin early in the morning to take part in the pancake run and, of course, to party at the Brandenburg Gate later. Well, I admit this too: I'm not just a Masch'bauer and gay, I'm also an enthusiastic endurance runner. I haven't tried a marathon yet, but I have already done several half marathons and I really do it with growing enthusiasm. Now I just need to find a gay running group. As for motivation, nothing is better than a really hot ass in front of you from kilometer ten. The only important thing is that it is at about the same level of fitness, otherwise you either lose your footing or you have to catch a branch. Well, so much for my training concept.
Underneath the stairs that led up to the next level. When I finally reached the upper level, however, I could only shout: “Great! Half of Germany has the same idea as me again!” Well, Friday afternoon at the main train station was just gigantic. If someone had shouted, “There's free beer for everyone, but only for half an hour,” you could easily have made an educational film about the emergence and effects of mass panic. Okay, I resisted every urge, mentally bent my elbows, then brought them into position and fought my way to the exit. On a similar occasion, I had simply tried to juggle a cup of coffee from the kiosk near the subway to the main exit out of curiosity. So it was really impressive. Without even taking a sip, the cup was completely empty at the end. But many a coat and many a trouser leg was stained with a few coffee stains. It wasn't really a shame about the coffee itself. The stuff they sell here as coffee is covered by the international agreement on chemical weapons anyway.
When I arrived at the station forecourt, I looked around, overwhelmed. Wow!!! A picture book pre-Christmas feeling, standing in the fresh snow in the middle of the Christmas market, completely at peace with myself and the whole world, was spreading inside me. The market was not exactly big, as it was only the smallest of the three in the city. But the newly renovated station building was really very attractively lit and decorated. At the other end of the station forecourt, the Christmas decorations of the pedestrian zone competed with the two huge Christmas trees, which formed the conclusion of this Christmas market. In the middle of the shopping area, you could see the huge Christmas pyramid with its integral mulled wine, mulled beer and bratwurst stand. In front of me, the market stalls displayed their wares, mostly delicious food. And so a wonderful mix of the smell of roasted almonds, mulled wine, mushrooms in garlic sauce, currywurst with chips, crêpes with maple syrup, mulled wine and spit roast with coleslaw wafted over to me. Did I actually already mention the smell of delicious mulled wine?
To make the whole thing look really kitschy and postcard-like, a beautiful white layer of fresh snow had fallen on everything. That was just too much for my hopelessly romantic heart. Suddenly, the blinking frequency of my eyelids increased abruptly.
“Hey Flip, what are you doing here?” it echoed. ”Hey, are you crying?”
Damn it! I thought. This was coming at just the right time. I'm a stupid crybaby, I can smash my thumb flat with a sledgehammer (unfortunately I've actually tried that involuntarily) and not a single tear comes, but if I'm really happy and content and can embrace the whole world, then I blubber like a girl. And then in front of witnesses too!
“No, I'm not crying, I must have got a load of that frozen powder snow in my eyes,” I tried to limit the damage to my image. In front of me was Thomas, a really nice colleague who had taken me under his wing since the first day at the new company. I quickly fumbled for my handkerchief and tried to wipe away the telltale traces of my crying fit under the pretext of blowing my nose.
“Well, that's good,” he replied. ”It's great to meet you here. Were you planning on hitting the slopes today? We could do something together.”
Oh my God! Anything but that!, I thought to myself. Not that I didn't like Thomas, on the contrary, as I said, he was really nice. About five years older than me, so in his early thirties. He was quite good-looking and was known in the company both as an extremely good designer and as quite a party animal. He was still single, but, and that was the problem, absolutely not gay.
Otherwise, I wouldn't have had a problem going out on the town with him. We had already done this a few times and it always ended for me very early in the morning with a good supply of aspirin and gallons of mineral water. So I had nothing against a spontaneous binge; I was always very open-minded when it came to that (after all, I'm in the fire department, although I'd like to stress that firefighters don't drink more than anyone else, but they don't drink less either!) But today was not a good day for me. I had promised Little Jan-Phillip that I would take a little more care of his needs from now on. And dragging Thomas to the bars on my mental list would have been absurd. Besides, I wanted to wait a little while before coming out at work, well at least for the next ten to twenty years at least. Well, Mr. Double Life sends his regards.
“Oh Thomas, I don't really know,” I finally replied. ‘I also have a few things to do and then maybe I'll hit the hay,’ I lied cheekily. I saw the disappointed look on my counterpart's face. ‘But it's not that late yet and I could do with a mulled wine or two,’ I tried to take the edge off.
Apparently successfully, because Thomas immediately said: “Great, but not here, let's go to the Finnish Christmas market and have a few Glögg.”
Okay, the idea of the Glögg was not bad in itself, because it was really tasty, but the idea of the Finnish Christmas market was.
“Actually not a bad idea. But have you thought about what will be going on there today? Man, a sardine has certainly three times more space in its can!“ I tried to be diplomatic.
“Well, since you brought it up, okay then, let's go here,” he agreed to my suggestion. “Let's go to the stand at the back, towards the passage, it has a quite acceptable drop.”
Well, whether you could call sugar-coated and heated red wine from a retort a drop, I wasn't so sure. But firstly, we were in a wine-growing disaster area here in the far north, secondly, the warm stuff tasted really delicious at this time of year, and thirdly, effect always comes before taste. (Okay, so I've just outed myself as a drunk and a cultural ignoramus).
So we headed towards the mulled wine stand. Once there, Thomas ordered two mulled wines with something to drink in them and so we took up the fight against the wonderfully clear winter cold. “Last Christmas” by Wham was blaring out of the stand's speakers the whole time (I hate that song!!) and at the same time reminded me of my resolutions for today. Okay, let's step up the pace, I had a slight guilty conscience, but I really didn't want to take Thomas on the prowl with me today. At the same time, I knew that I wouldn't be able to get rid of him that quickly. At least two or three rounds of mulled wine would stand in my way. I ordered the next round right away (this time secretly without a shot, though. Man, I can fight with nasty weapons!) and downed the mug I had started in one go.
“Come on, Thomas, hurry up, we're not here for fun!” I tried to encourage him to the next mug. He didn't need to be told twice and emptied the mulled wine mug he had started in one go.
“Well, then, happy holidays,“ he toasted me with the new cup. Somehow, Christmas always seemed to start for him as soon as he opened the first mulled wine stand.
“Well, then, happy holidays,” I toasted back. In no time at all, this round was also finished and Thomas had ordered again, this time with a shot for both of us, of course.
So, I had to make a break somehow. I looked over at the pedestrian zone. Oh, the Christmas pyramid, I thought, half of the company is always hanging around there on Fridays, I could definitely park Thomas there.
“Thomas, let's go over to the pyramid right away. I have to go into town in a bit anyway, and I fancy a mulled beer today.”
Not that I really liked the stuff, it was mixed with honey, sugar, cinnamon and lemon. Even though I was from northern Germany and knew nothing about wine, I knew a lot about beer. And anyone who fiddles with beer should be hung by the wings of his ostentatious Christmas pyramid, purely as a deterrent, of course. On the other hand, I really wanted to get out of there. So I went over and gulped down a glass of the stuff.
“Sure, we can do that,” Thomas replied. ”I'm getting a bit bored here anyway.”
No sooner said than done. We quickly downed our third mug of mulled wine and set off. Oh dear, just as I was about to set in motion, I realized that I hadn't eaten anything all day. Breakfast for me traditionally consisted of a cup of coffee and a yogurt, mainly due to lack of time. I skipped lunch today because I wanted to empty my desk before my vacation. It worked out pretty well. But now I should think about a basis as soon as possible. Well, first of all a tasty portion of mushrooms with garlic sauce (and a mint afterwards, I'm not a barbarian) and later on to “La Carrosse”, a men-only bar and restaurant. The “Carrosse” was, so to speak, point one on my list.
Okay, but now I have to drink some shitty mulled beer and park Thomas, I thought to myself. When I arrived at the Pyramide, I craned my neck to look for a few familiar faces. But unfortunately, I didn't see anyone. Damn, I thought, when you rely on people, you rely on people. I quickly ordered two mulled beers and kept looking. Being 1.90m tall, I had no problem overlooking the whole crowd. Unfortunately, again without success. The outdoor speakers blasted out, oh how varied, “Last Christmas” (grrrrr, I hate this song!! George Michael wasn't a bad singer, but this song has been heard everywhere at Christmas time for years. It's getting really annoying.) Well, let's just have another mulled beer, I thought desperately. At some point, all the people from the company will start dancing.
“Man, asshole, I've already said three times that I want a mulled beer and not some kind of fuck cocoa - Oh, just leave it and go fuck yourself!”
A boy's voice as pure as a bell, which didn't seem to fit at all with the torrent of abuse, came from the drinks counter behind me. Thomas also seemed to have noticed the little scolding urchin and turned towards the counter.
“Hey man, the usual problems again. Can I buy you a mulled beer? I'm just about to get one anyway,” he suddenly said to the boy, who was ranting like a raw sparrow. So they seemed to know each other.
“Dude, but the invitation is a good idea. I'll also buy a round of shots. But you have to get them,” it resounded brightly and clearly to me again.
Man, that's a nice little fruit, I thought to myself and, while still sucking on the last of this disgusting mulled beer, turned around casually.
Oh dear! Serious mistake!, I thought for a split second, then I miserably choked on the last bit of beer that had reached my larynx. I had to swallow and at the same time wanted to articulate a completely astonished “My God”, this daring multitasking attempt by a male larynx had the consequence that a small part of the mulled beer found its way into my windpipe, which in turn triggered a terrible urge to cough. But since I was still holding my glass to my mouth as if spellbound, more mulled beer found its way into the wrong throat and so the game seemed to repeat itself endlessly until I went towards my certain death by suffocation, red in the face and streaming with tears.
What had happened? When I turned around to look at the cheeky and scolding pipe sparrow, I was almost struck by lightning. The voice somehow made me suspect a small, pimply thirteen- or fourteen-year-old. But what I got to see was really the absolute hammer. In front of me stood a picture of a boy!
Black, medium-length, wispy hair, a healthy, slightly reddish complexion, especially around the cheekbones. A snub nose that was simply to die for. And eyes that were absolutely stunning. The color was such a sexy blend of steel blue and slightly light green. The facial expression was almost indescribable. Cheeky, mega-lovable and quite challenging seemed to describe it somewhat. The whole thing was enthroned on a tall astral body. Sporty and strong, but not a gram too much on the ribs. At least as far as one could tell under the warm clothes in which he had wrapped himself. In short, a work of art. This Adonis couldn't be real, it was probably painted. The painter must have set the age of this young god at sixteen or seventeen. The voice had deceived a little. Nevertheless, it was just perfect for this appearance.
It's really strange what a gay brain can still perceive when the rest of the body is in the process of losing its supply of vital oxygen forever. I'm sure that a heterosexual's brain would have triggered some kind of emergency program, with rasping and whimpering for help and such. Not mine, though. The only thing that seemed to have priority one status in my control center was the viewing and image processing of this revelation standing before me. Okay, if I were to stand before my maker, I would be able to describe exactly the cause of my sudden and unexpected death. But did I have to? After all, this apparition could only have been sent down to earth by him in person. What was standing in front of me, meanwhile looking at me with some amazement and amusement, could only be an angel. An angel just before Christmas, well that was really stylish.
Another coughing fit brought me to my knees. Suddenly the apparition in front of me had disappeared. At the same time, I somehow sensed a very pleasant presence behind me. A slight scent, beguiling and sweet like fresh marzipan, joined it. Marzipan, where the devil... was it available here on the stand?
Wham! A hand came down flat on my back. I had to cough again, but amazingly I got a little air again. But not only that. The hand remained on my back for only a brief moment. However, that was enough to send a jolt through my body.
Wham! A second time the hand rushed down. This time the hand lingered even a little longer. Incredible electric shocks flashed through me. Okay, I seemed to get air again now, the urge to cough also eased, so apparently I shouldn't suffocate miserably so close to Christmas, but be grilled with 100,000 volts.
The hand disappeared from my back, and with it this incredible feeling. It's a shame, I thought.
Then this angel came into my field of vision again. I sat up, through my watery eyes he appeared as if in a soft focus, just like in this David Hamilton, Tender Cousins or whatever this film of his is called.
This angel looked over to where I thought Thomas might be and pointed at me, laughing.
“Tell me, do you know this joker? Does he have bird flu or has he always been so weird? Man! If I hadn't just hit him on the back, he would have croaked. Would have been a shame, and so close to Christmas.”
“Thanks for your sympathy, you sweet little devil,” I thought to myself. But honestly, it seemed that his brutal first aid had brought me back to life.
“Don't worry about it, that's Jan-Phillip, a colleague of mine, and he's all right. He must have choked on the rest of his mulled beer.”
“Oh,“ trilled this sweet, pure glockenspiel back. ‘Well, no offense.’ And turning to me, ‘So you're Jan-Phillip, that's a pretty impractical name, do you mind if I call you Flip?”
How does he know my nickname, I wondered. ’I just think it's more practical.” I nodded in agreement.
“Oh, by the way, I'm Lucas, Lucas with a 'c'! And just Lucas, nothing else, no double name, no hyphen,” he grinned at me.
Lucas, just Lucas, I thought, is there a more beautiful name in the world than just Lucas? So my Christmas angel was simply called Lucas. Just like the apostle, because of whose 2000-year-old story all this hustle and bustle is held here every year. Just Lucas, no seriously, this boy is just so unbelievably cute!
I must have looked pretty stupid, and my stomach was also starting to rumble again. I felt queasy and my legs were wobbly like old rubber. I really needed to eat something. Or could there be something else? I certainly hoped that the other two would attribute my miserable appearance to my near-death choking.
Well, I had reckoned without my cheeky Christmas angel.
“Tell me Thomas, can it talk too, or can the model just gasp and choke? Besides, it's been staring at me all the time as if it wants to eat me. Hey, it's not dangerous, is it?” A broad grin flitted across his cheeky face.
“No, no Lucas, he's really quite sweet. And normally he can even talk non-stop, especially when he's had a drop too much.”
Oops, was I really such a chatterbox? Why hadn't Thomas said anything before? And above all, what had I told him when I'd had a drop too much???? Well, I really should take better care of myself!
“I think Flip is just a bit frazzled,” Thomas continued in his plea for my defense. ‘After all, you just saved him from certain suffocation. Let him come to first. I'll get us something to drink in the meantime.’ Said it and disappeared. Thanks a lot, Mr. Lawyer, I thought.
“Okay, that's fine, and please don't forget the shots, I think Flip could really use one!” my Christmas angel called after him. And then to me: ”Well, how are you, everything okay? If you want, we can sit down over there for a moment. On the bench at the back, I mean. Old people should take it easy a bit. Especially after such a scare.”
I couldn't believe that someone was able to grin even wider and nastier than I had already had the honor of seeing a few minutes ago. But my Christmas angel managed the increase effortlessly. Man, was that a fruit.
“Nah, it's all right,” I croaked, well, admittedly, I'd sounded better before. ”No, it's really all right, I just had a pretty bad hiccup. Sometimes I really am a real scatterbrain.”
Man, it couldn't get any more camp than that! Hey! Hello Flip, what's up with you? Can someone tie my tongue, lock my mouth and throw away the key?
“But first, my sincere thanks for your somewhat brutal but apparently effective help,” I quickly tried to cover up my verbal slip and held out my hand to him.
This time I had probably hit the bull's eye. He seemed a little embarrassed by my emphasis on 'brutal'. In any case, his cheeks turned slightly red. Man, how mega cute was that again? At the same time, he grasped my outstretched hand a little shyly.
Bang! There it was again. For a split second, a surge of several thousand volts ran through my body. My Christmas angel had quickly withdrawn his hand. Did he feel the same thing? Nonsense, Flip, you're crazy. You should finally eat something and drink a lot less. Then your sense of reality will return.
At that moment, Thomas came around the corner with a tray carrying three mulled beers (yuck) and three schnapps (yuck again).
“Well, then knock off the shit,” my Christmas angel piped up, grabbing one of the shot glasses and raising it in a toast. At the same time, he put a ten-euro bill on the tray with his free hand. ”By the way, thanks for fetching, you know I always have stress with those faggy bums at the bar.”
Well, this fruit has a choice of words and a typically stupid hetero. They are always gay or faggy. Menno, always these stupid prejudices. And then drinking schnapps. If I take a close look at him, he's only sixteen at most. I'm surprised that Thomas doesn't see a problem with that. Buying booze for kids. Thomas isn't usually so careless.
“Hey, how's Moni doing, by the way? Is she in town too?” I heard Thomas ask. Meanwhile, I downed the schnapps without any accidents. It wasn't bad at all; somehow it calmed my intestines a bit. I immediately felt a little freer and more carefree, but then I reached for one of the glasses of beer to hide the afterburn of the schnapps. Thomas hadn't said cheers yet, but sometimes you have to be able to dispense with etiquette.
“Oh, my mother decided today to buy the entire city empty. I was with her earlier buying pants. Well, that really did it for me. I'd rather walk around naked than do that to myself again.”
Nice thought, I thought, and caught myself not only wishing for this announcement, but also imagining it in multicolor and HD quality. Man, flip, calm down, she's just a kid!
“I then left and came here. Well, you know the rest. So, my mother wanted to come by here in half an hour. We wanted to go out for a fancy dinner. If you want, you can come too. Moni will be happy. And after that, we'll go our separate ways anyway. I still want to go on tour, after all, I've been single again for a month. A pretty untenable situation, I have to take care of it today. After all, I don't want to be alone at home for Christmas, all alone with Lucas. Moni told me that you might want to go away together over Christmas. “A pure, casual vacation with a good friend,” she said. Well, who believes it. In any case, I wish you lots of fun. You can start digging a little tonight. Don't look like that, I know you like her. Well, you have my blessing, after all, you should have a little fun in your old age, my old lady.”
He must have taken a course somewhere to learn how to grin cheekily like that. You can't do it on your own, I thought. And Oskar is cheeky to boot. Knowing Thomas, Moni can't be that old. He's not into Methuselahs. Well, I estimate Lucas to be around sixteen, so if she was already blessed with this lad quite early on, maybe at eighteen or twenty, then she is now approaching forty. Okay, so he's a Methuselah, but Thomas should know.
What was more important was what he had said again, oh yes, that he is single. For a whole month, after all. Well, that's scandalous and, given his looks, hard to understand. Well, then I wish us both good luck for this evening. So it's every man for himself, of course! (sigh)
But damn it, I just couldn't help myself. All the time I was looking at this boy as if spellbound, as he spoke to Thomas in his casual, teasing manner. Thomas seemed to be completely charmed by the lad. I had long since mentally disengaged myself from the actual conversation, but somehow it always came back to Thomas's advances towards Moni. At first I thought I was going crazy, as this brazen guy kept giving Thomas tips on how to get with his mother, while also making fun of the two of them a little.
And what did Thomas do? He listened raptly, occasionally fetching another round of mulled beer and schnapps, and gratefully taking on board all the tips.
Well, and what did I do? I stared at my Christmas angel the whole time. About fifteen minutes ago, I had noticed that he had long dark eyelashes, almost like a girl. Ten minutes ago, I had noticed that he had beautiful white teeth. To the left, just above the upper lip, there is an unbelievably cute little mole (eight minutes ago), and now I have been looking at his lips for about five minutes, moving in sync with a conversation that I haven't followed in a long time. When Thomas had briefly disappeared, these lips had been talking to me. I'll ask what I answered next time I get the chance.
“Hello Flip! Hey, hello Mr. Jan-Phillip, Thomas, what's his last name again? Oh, Böhm. So, let's try again. Hello Mr. Jan-Phillip Böhm, is anyone still at home? I just asked what the dear gentleman is still up to tonight. My mother will surely appear in a moment and then we want to get out of this freezing cold and find something to eat. Do you want to come with us?”
Had this sweet little Christmas angel just spoken to me again? What had he asked, what I was planning to do today? Oh yes, there were a few things I had planned, or rather, what I had planned to do with him. Would I feel like it today and still come? Well, that was pretty direct. Or no, I think he just said come along. It's a shame, but no, coming wasn't necessary. Just take me here and now, on the spot. Freezing cold? Well, I would make sure that we both got really warm. Gosh, what I just thought was so dirty that even in my mind a thick, black bar appeared. Nah, that was really not G-rated.
G-rated! It hit me like a bolt of lightning: Flip, what are you doing here, anyway? He's just a kid! You're standing here like some drooling old pervert, undressing this little innocent (well, we'll cross out “innocent” right now) with your eyes. Not to mention what you were just thinking about doing to him. You tremble just thinking about him, you get a smacked wrist just touching him briefly, and you have a feeling in your stomach that has nothing to do with the meager food intake today. Well, what was that feeling really? I knew, of course, but I didn't dare admit it to myself. Butterflies! Yes, those corny butterflies in my stomach had indeed nested there quite unpleasantly and were probably already bringing forward the New Year's Eve party, at least judging by the pogo they were doing in my guts. The only thing missing is for them to ignite the first firecrackers. I just can't believe it. You live like a monk for ten years, or at least as you imagine monks live. Then you can finally get started, and what do you do, you idiot, you fall for a child. Man, you really are sick!
There was no way around it, I thought, I just had to get out of here. Slowly a real panic crept up inside me.
“Hey Flip, do you think you'll be able to come up with any coherent sentences today? Cheer up, it worked before. Or can you only do one sentence a day?” Again, this devilish Christmas angel or this angelic Christmas devil grinned at me.
“Thomas... Lucas” - panic, naked panic! - ‘I'm terribly sorry, I forgot something important, really!’ - My hands were as clammy as a towel after a shower. - ”Well... I really have to go.” Cold sweat ran down my body from openings I didn't even know I had before. ”I wish you... er, what then... oh yes, a nice evening. Greetings to mother, unknown wise one, er... I mean your Moni, of course.” - Can't a big black hole open up here somewhere? - “So I'll be off then, ... wish you a happy Easter, ... just in case we don't see each other again, I mean Christmas, of course... and have a nice time, well, don't slip, ... well, you know...” – Man, get out of here! I turned around, bang, and ran right into a bar table. The momentum I generated instantly destroyed the already chronically unstable center of mass of this ever-popular party piece of furniture. Immediately, it embarked on a journey in an arcuate path to approach the asphalt that promised a new equilibrium. Two small miracles saved my life. Firstly, the table was completely free of glasses, bottles, ashtrays or other nasty legacies. And secondly, the heavy table top missed the toes of the bull of a man standing opposite me by only a few centimeters. He would have made mincemeat out of me.
“Sorry, I'm really sorry, I just have to go urgently... I really hope that nothing happened to you, ... yes, sorry again!!” I babbled, while the cop just looked at me, slightly irritated. However, his hands were clenched in his trouser pockets. I leaped over the wreckage of the table and made sure to get some distance. I called back to Lucas and Thomas: “Well, bye guys... I hope I see you.” Well, did I really hope that?
I turned around again. On the one hand to make sure that the brawny muscle monster wasn't following me, and on the other hand to catch a last glimpse of my Christmas angel, whom I would definitely never see again after this disaster. I was absolutely sure of that.
I was also sure that Thomas and especially my little Christmas angel would laugh their heads off at me.
But what did I see?
Well, first of all, Mister Brawnyandwaytooomuchmuscle was still unable to decide how he should react appropriately, and had therefore lapsed into a state of complete lethargy as a precaution.
And Thomas? I just heard him answer a question that had been asked shortly before: “No, Lucas. He's really not always like that. He's actually a very bright and clever guy. I don't know what's wrong with him either, he was still completely normal until we got here at the pyramid. Maybe he can't stand the glow beer? Who knows?”
Well, and what was the cause of my sudden emotional emergency area, no, he wasn't grinning anymore, but, and this really took me by surprise, he looked after me very thoughtfully and, at least it seemed that way to me, extremely sadly.
Get out of here, I just thought. That look was now really absolutely subject to a weapons license. If I didn't want anything to happen that we would all regret for the rest of our lives, I had to put as much distance between us as possible. Another city occurred to me, another country maybe, no, even better another continent. I ran, I ran like crazy, but where should I go now?
Apparently I was slowly coming to myself, because the neoclassical, Christmas-decorated building of the main train station suddenly reappeared in front of me. Still driven by panic, I dashed through the smallest of the Christmas markets set up in this city towards the entrance to the train station. The seductive scent of fried mushrooms caught my nose. Should I dare it, I thought, because my empty, butterfly-freed stomach suddenly spoke up vehemently. No, screamed my still panic-stricken brain, no way! The danger that Thomas or, even worse, Lucas could come after you is much too great!
So on, I thought, first through the train station towards Cinemaxx and the high-rise. Incidentally, in this city it was perfectly normal to spend half the evening walking through the train station, after all, most of the party locations were spread out around it. And unless you had planned the evening well in advance and with military precision, you were bound to pass through the transportation hub of the city with its countless stores and fast-food restaurants one or more times. A fact that led to some evenings being just as busy in and around the station as they were during the day at rush hours. Completely unfazed by this realization, however, I hurried through the station towards the rear exit, still running away from myself, as it were.
Once there, I was greeted by the lively hustle and bustle on the large, adjoining square, which was split into two levels. This square, with its lovely and filthy 1970s romanticism, urgently needed a new investor with fresh money and even fresher ideas. Unfortunately, the old investor, a professional insolvency administrator, who, after failed attempts at maximizing profits, now had to manage himself, was forced to stop halfway. So on the one hand you had a 21st-century multiplex cinema, trendy disco, fitness temple and hip bar, and on the other, a Bhagwan disco, art house cinemas, Italian and Mexican restaurants in shabby concrete buildings with a 1970s flair. A crowd of people, bustling between Christmas and weekend fun, were coming from the second largest Christmas market in the city and were now heading for the train station and then surely on to the old town. However, I had no eye for all this. Looking straight ahead towards Hochstrasse, which closed off the square at the opposite end, I had just made a decision. I now wanted to purposefully take up my actual goal for this evening and plunge into the gay scene of this city. I was sure that I would run very little risk of running into Thomas and, of course, Lucas here. At the same time, I hoped that after years of abstinence and hiding, I would succumb to such a sensory overload that my little Christmas angel would be thoroughly washed out of my currently still rather confused brain.

September –

Being 12 was hard. There were many reasons for that, but a lot of them fell into a single category, as Ben Hathaway saw it: change. Everything, big and small, seemed to be changing. And he didn’t like that one bit.

He was in a new school this year—a first-year, middle-school kid with mostly older kids inhabiting the sprawling building. As if that wasn’t bad enough, his parents had divorced two months previously, and he was now living with his mother in a new house. It was in a nicer part of town than where they’d been before, but still...

So, new school, new neighborhood that he still hadn’t learned his way around, no friends in the neighborhood or the school, and, maybe worst, a new place to live without his dad in the house.

Those were just some of the changes. Maybe even the less-important ones. He was changing as well. Not just the obvious ones he encountered when he was taking a shower or changing into his pajamas at night. He’d expected those changes, and they were happening, slowly, but right on schedule according to what he was learning in his Sex Ed classes. Still, it took some getting used to. However, he didn’t find those physical transformations as bothersome as what else seemed to be changing.

He’d been just like all his friends before all this development began. He’d liked the same things, the same games and activities and people and movies and jokes and such. They’d all been on the same page. Now, well, he thought he was changing in ways his old friends probably weren’t. Probably not in the ways the new friends he’d probably make at this new school were changing, either.

He got ready for bed, slipping off his clothes and dropping them wherever, while reaching for his pajamas. He hesitated before pulling them on. It was a warm night, and as he felt so often now when going to bed, there was an excitement coursing through him. He wondered what it would feel like to slide under his top sheet naked.

There, that kind of feeling—something else that had changed. Sex Ed hadn’t prepared him for the depth of the feelings he was having these days. Urges that had been whispers before were suddenly shouts, demanding his attention. Not just at night, either.

He dropped his pajamas, and feeling deliciously naughty, pulled back the bedspread and light blanket. He’d only need his thin sheet tonight. He slid into bed and slowly pulled the sheet over him, feeling it glide across his body.

All this was so new. What came next was also new and was the change he was most concerned about. He knew it was about to happen, and it did. As soon as he closed his eyes, his imagination took over. And where it went was where he knew it would go because it had been going there for the past two weeks, since his first day of the school year.

Crew Carson. That was the boy’s name. Ben had a crush on Crew Carson that was larger than anything he’d felt before. It was almost more than he could handle. It was overpowering, all-consuming, and unless he forced himself not to think of him, Crew was in Ben’s mind most of the day and at night when he was trying to sleep. And in the morning when he woke up. Crew Carson.

He’d had crushes before, of course, on both boys and girls. They usually lasted a week or even two, then gradually faded away when a new person caught his eye and imagination. But this crush on Crew wasn’t like that. It had hit him with the force of a cannonball and had never lost its impact.

School had started the last week in August. He had Crew in most of his classes. Whereas Ben was about the same size, give or take, as most of his peers, Crew was somewhat taller. Ben had almost white-blond hair, a pallid complexion with rosy cheeks that embarrassed him, and bright blue eyes; he thought himself terribly uninteresting-looking—rather like a piece of plain white bread. He wished he had the exotic looks of Crew, who was dark with bronzed olive skin, almost-black hair that in bright sunlight showed variable shades of deep-brown and almost-purple tints among its many shades of ebony. His eyes were dark, too, coordinated with his hair. Ben was disappointed he was so very blah, with his washed out features—even while his mother assured him he was cute, cute as a bug, she said—and he felt Crew was simply the most handsome boy he’d ever seen.

They had different personalities, too. Ben was reticent and happy to be in the shadows, unnoticed and uninvolved. Crew was effervescent and, due to his looks or charismatic personality or both, most often at the center of whatever was going on. Other kids were drawn to him. Ben didn’t mind how that worked because, while he stood in those shadows, he was free to watch Crew all day long with no one noticing. And, that was what he did.

From the first time Ben had seen Crew, Ben had been smitten. Ben had first laid his eyes on Crew on the first day of school when Crew had entered a classroom where Ben was already seated—in the back, where he always tried to sit. Ben had felt his stomach lurch and his eyes latch onto the boy. He’d had the same reaction ever after.

Now, a couple of weeks into the school term, Crew was in his thoughts almost constantly—and often painfully. At night, it was usually the same. Ben couldn’t get him out of his mind and just accepted the fact the boy would accompany him to the land of Nod, and so he allowed his mind to drift where it would—

Crew was on a raft with him, floating down a wide, slow-moving river with leafy forest on both sides, just the two of them. It was hot, and Crew convinced Ben that removing their clothing, allowing the breeze to kiss their skin, would make them feel much better. Ben had seen the wisdom in this and shucked his clothes, then turned and saw Crew equally naked. Crew became aroused looking at Ben, which caused the same reaction in Ben, and almost as if by magnetism the two boys began walking toward each other—

Or, they’d built a tree house, and Crew had been working on nailing down the floor while Ben was below, fastening the cut-up pieces of two by fours to the tree, which would act as steps up to the floor where Crew worked. When Ben had looked up, he realized he could see almost all the way into the shorts Crew was wearing. He could see no hint of underwear; Crew was going commando that day, and Ben couldn’t pull his eyes away. Eventually, Crew glanced down at him, and a slow smile spread across his face. Crew slowly moved his leg, opening the restricted view Ben had so he could see all of Crew’s—

Or, there was a school dance for the freshman class and everyone was there, even Con Gower, who had the reputation of being the class bully. They were all dressed up—the boys in sports jackets and ties, the girls in pretty dresses. Ben was on the sidelines, as usual, wondering why he had no desire to ask any of the girls to dance with him, knowing the person he wanted to dance with would be horrified if Ben approached him. Then, to his surprise, Crew materialized in front of him and said, “Could I have this dance. I can’t take my eyes off of you. You’re the most attractive person in the room! I want you in my arms.” Ben blushed and demurely accepted, but when they were dancing, and he’d been in Crew’s arms, he became too excited by the feel and smell of the boy and the inevitable happened. He tried to hide it, but moving closer to Crew would have meant he’d feel it. Then Con Gower of all people saw it and said, “Look everyone, the fag is hard,” and that’s when Crew slugged Con in the stomach, dropping the bully to his knees. When people turned to look, Crew stepped back in front of Ben to screen his predicament and said, “Con was talking about me,” and pointed to his own crotch where there was an obvious—

Or, the bombs were exploding in the distance, getting nearer. The class was all huddled out in the main corridor against the walls, away from the glass in the windows. “This is it,” Mrs. Handratty said. “I think the war’s finally found us. I pray you all survive.” Ben was scared to death hearing the planes, hearing the bombs, and then Crew was with him, sliding down to sit next to him on the floor, taking Ben in his arms. “If we’re going to die, we’re going to die together!” he said and leaned over and kissed Ben. When he did this, his hand slipped onto Ben’s lap, and even with all the other kids watching he could feel himself getting—

The bright sun coming through the windows woke him. Something felt different, and then he realized he was naked under the sheet. He’d done it! He’d slept without wearing his PJs! Then he saw them lying on the floor and had the terrible thought that if his mother came in to wake him, she’d see them, too.

He glanced at the clock and saw it was about the time she’d come in if he wasn’t already up. He jumped out of bed and was reaching down for his pajamas when he heard footsteps. Then the door opened, and he heard, “Oops! Sorry dear.”

“You’re supposed to knock!” Ben said, angrily. “Here, I just took off my jammies to get dressed and in you walk. At least I was turned around! You’ve got to knock and wait for me to say it’s OK!”

“All right. I said I was sorry. It’s not as if I don’t know what naked boys look like!”

“You don’t know what this naked boy looks like, at least from the front, and I plan on keeping it that way!”

“Well, he looks fine from the back,” she laughed, teasingly.

“Mom!” he shouted in exasperation.

She gently closed the door as she left, but he could hear her still chuckling.

So daydreaming about Crew, crushing on him really hard, was one of the changes Ben was experiencing, one of the most affecting and confusing. He was still trying to decide, however, whether it was one he did or didn’t like. He was still working on that.
October –

He’d thought his crush on Crew would be a transitory thing, like the others he’d had. It wasn’t, though. Its intensity had waned a bit, but his feelings were still strong. His crushes on both boys and girls were now a single crush on a single boy. The ones on girls simply were no longer happening. It was just boys. Well, that wasn’t true, either. It was one boy, and it was hotter than anything he’d ever felt. That was taking him some effort to get used to.

Ben remembered the assembly at school the first week of the school year. Everyone had been there and informed of the anti-bullying policy at the school, which was strict. No physical bullying and no verbal bullying. No social-media bullying, either. There’d been a lot of talk about religious and sexual orientation and racial differences, but what was emphasized was how the kids all had more in common with each other than things that separated them, and they all had the right to be comfortable in their own skins and their own school. There was talk about how, at their age, learning to accept the differences in people and finding the common ground was one of the most important things they’d be doing in their time at this school.

Ben had been surprised at what came next. The principal had called several kids up onto the stage to speak. One had been a girl who was wearing a head scarf. She was a Muslim. She answered some questions from both the principal and the audience. She seemed outgoing and not a bit shy about speaking to the large group of kids.

There was a black boy who did the same and also wasn’t intimidated by standing in front of the group. He was his class’s president and student-council rep. He was the editor of the school’s paper, and he said he was hoping to get into Harvard after high school.

And to Ben’s great surprise, there was a boy who told them he was gay. He stood up on the stage in front of everyone and said he was gay! Ben just stared at him, wondering how he had the courage to do that. The boy also said he was the first-string keeper on the school’s soccer team and that he was on the school’s debate team as well, so being gay was just one other thing in a long list of things describing him. Ben had seen him in the cafeteria and outside before and after school and knew from the large group of kids that were always around him that he was a popular kid.

As were the other two kids.

Ben was impressed with this school. There was an air of friendliness about it. Oh, there were some kids like Con Gower, but they were the exception, and they came in with a reputation from their elementary schools and so were closely watched.

School was school, except now all the students moved from classroom to classroom rather than staying in one place all day. Crew was in some of his classes, not in others. Ben found it much easier to concentrate on the lessons being taught when he didn’t have the distraction Crew caused. He still saw him in the cafeteria, however, and they had the same gym class, so he saw him there, too.

They had social studies together, and Mr. Turner assigned a project for the term. Ben was hoping he’d get paired with Crew for his, but he got a girl instead. He watched Crew and the boy he was working with, heads together, talking and planning and working, and he sighed. Why not him? Because, as much as his imagination at night took him places with Crew that were often clothing-optional, he realized that what he really wanted with Crew more than anything was to be able to spend time with him, talk to him, maybe play video games with him. Just hang out with him. Just get to know him. Just to be friends.

“What are you looking at?” Marti asked him. “You aren’t even listening to me!”

Ben blushed. “Sorry. I’ve got a saxophone lesson after school, and I haven’t been practicing, and I’m going to get reamed.”

Marti looked at him skeptically. “I’m in the band. I’ve never seen you in there.”

“Oh, I’m just beginning. Maybe next year I’ll be good enough.”

She stared at him a moment, seeing his blush, reading his body language. “What’s your teacher’s name?”

Just then Mr. Turner was wandering by, and overhearing her, asked, “Are you two working on the project? A working outline is due in two weeks. Some groups are ready to start writing already. You need to spend your time together productively.”

And so Ben never had to tell her the name of his nonexistent sax teacher.
November –

Gym class sucked. And was thrilling. But mostly it sucked. The thrilling part was showering. It meant he saw Crew in the almost-altogether. Not totally, because most of the boys were shy and kept their underwear on or changed into a bathing suit under a towel. Ben did that once he saw others doing it, and Crew did as well. But Ben did get to see Crew’s body—how his muscles moved when he walked; how he didn’t have any more hair in his pits than Ben did; how his ribs were barely visible yet there, showing he had a little meat on his bones—just not much; how flat his tummy was; how his arms were starting to show just a bit of definition. It was enough to fuel a whole new set of fantasies at night.

The other exciting part was seeing Crew doing all the stuff most of the other boys were doing and doing it better than they were. Crew was an athlete! A good one, too. No matter what the activity was—basketball, dodgeball, volleyball, rope climbing, soccer, calisthenics, touch football, whatever—Crew was a natural. He had the strength and grace and body control to look good doing them all, and Ben surreptitiously spent a lot of time watching him, marveling at him. So much time the coach would occasionally yell at him to get with it.

The sucking part was all the rest. The fact was, Ben was crap at team sports. No matter what it was, he didn’t seem to fit in. The other kids learned about this right away. He wasn’t the only kid who was uncoordinated and unmotivated, so he wasn’t always picked last, but was in the last four or five picked every time.

When he had to participate, he did so in a desultory sort of way. The coach noticed.

“Ben, stop and see me in my office when you’re dressed,” Coach Hubbard said one day when Ben walked out of the showers, his towel wrapped around his bathing-suit-covered loins. Ben dressed hurriedly and knocked on the open door to the coach’s office. He was sure he was going to get chewed out for his lack of enthusiasm.

“Come in. Close the door, please.” When a nervous Ben was seated in the chair the coach had pointed to, the coach smiled at him. “I’ve been watching you,” he said.

Ben gulped.

“No, nothing’s wrong. I just wanted to talk to you. I see you’re not very interested in the games we play here during gym class. That’s OK. Some boys are; some aren’t. I watch all the boys, and you’re not alone. But most boys are good at something, and you do have a talent. Do you know what I’m talking about?”

Ben’s heart was still beating fast from his nervousness, which made it hard for him to think. He wasn’t good at talking to adults. So, rather than try to figure this out, he merely said, “No.”

The coach laughed. “Why did I think that’s what you’d say? As I said, I’ve been watching you. You remind me of someone.” He paused for effect, then said, “Me. I was like you when I was just starting middle school. It’s a time in life where we start learning who we are. When we find what we’re good at and what we enjoy doing. Often those are the same thing. I know something you do well. I don’t know if you enjoy it. Your face rarely gives much away about how you’re feeling.”

Coach Hubbard stopped, and Ben squirmed in his chair, remaining silent. The coach nodded as if that’s what he had expected. “What you do well, better than most in this class, is running. Every time we do laps, I watch your form. You have natural talent for running. I’d like you to consider going out for our track team. Do you think you’d be interested in that?”

Ben was shocked. Good at running? Sure, he could run. All boys could. He’d never considered he was better than the others at it. He thought back and remembered the last time they’d run laps outside. It was a quarter-mile track, and they had to run around it twice. They’d all started in a pack together, which had bothered him. He didn’t like being in the middle of a bunch of boys, all swinging their arms and elbows and unconcerned about where they were swinging them. He jogged with the rest for only a short time before he saw an opening in front of him, an escape route. He put on some speed and ran through the pack to an open track. Then, to keep ahead of all the rest, he just continued to stay in front, running at whatever pace was required. It hadn’t been difficult. Was this what the coach had seen? He hadn’t been that fast, just faster than the rest, and only because he hated being in the middle.

The coach was looking at him. Waiting.

“Uh, I don’t know, Coach. I mean, I’ve never even thought about something like that. On a team? With all those other athletes? The good ones?” He immediately thought of the sort of boy who’d be on such a team, big guys, rough guys, muscled and older guys—ones who’d undoubtedly look down on a shrimp like him. Make belittling comments.

“Uh, well, thanks, Coach, but I don’t think so. Nice of you to ask, however.” He stood up, ready to leave. The coach motioned for him to sit down again.

“Ben,” he said, speaking a little softer, “remember when I said you remind me of me? Well, let me tell you a story. A true story. When I was in high school, I became friends with a boy in my class. He was really good at many things, most of the things I was very bad at. What he did best was to believe in himself. That was what I was worst at. The one thing I could do was running. My friend knew that, and he started pushing me. Not by forcing me to do anything; he was more subtle than that. He pushed me by complimenting me. Telling me how good I was. He was on the track team and very successful. He told me I could be, too, if I’d just try. I didn’t want to. The thought of it tied me in knots. Then he told me that the team’s best runner wasn’t going to be able to compete because his grades were bad, and they needed someone to take his place just so we had enough bodies on the team. He pleaded with me to join and told me he’d be sure I was accepted by everyone, that no one would expect me to be a star or anything like that.

“Well, it was hard for me, but I felt I was doing this for him, and he’d done a lot for me. So, I let him convince me to join the team. I only agreed because he wanted me there and was there himself. When I started training with the group, I learned something. They were all just kids like I was. The coaches didn’t yell at us and criticize us; they worked with us, supported us, taught us how to run better. I found out all my fears had been only that, fears, and I started enjoying being with the other kids.

“My friend pushed me and was there with me, and I found I liked working hard, and by the time we finished high school, I’d set a state record in the 880. You know how I was able to do that, besides the hard practice I put in?”

Ben shook his head.

“I could do it because I joined the track team. That was how.”

Ben looked at him, but he could see the coach was done. Ben stood up, turned to see if he’d be waved back down, and when he wasn’t, he opened the door. Then, just as he was leaving, he turned back to the coach and asked, “What about your friend? Do you still know him?”

He saw the coach hesitate for a moment, then looked him in the eye. “We’re still friends. We even went to the same college. Now, we share an apartment.”

During the next gym class, the coach sidled up to Ben when he was alone and asked, “Have you given the track team any more thought?”

As a matter of fact, Ben had. He’d never been told he was good at anything before, and certainly not at anything athletic. He thought about that a lot. He actually sort of wanted to do it. But even more, he sort of didn’t want to be involved in something like that. He was sure he’d be the worst on the team and would be scorned by the others. He couldn’t face that. But of course he couldn’t tell the coach that.

“I don’t think so, coach. I kinda want to, but, well, no.”

Coach Hubbard nodded. “Well, then, I want to tell you something. We have an outdoor track, as you know. We also have an indoor one, up above the swimming pool, circling around behind the bleachers up near the ceiling. I’m giving you permission to use either one any time you want. I think you should practice—every day if you can—and if I can’t get you to do it with a team and with our coaching, at least you should do it by yourself. So both tracks are available for you. It’s up to you whether you take advantage of them. I’m trying to help you like my friend helped me. This is the best I can do.”
December –

The snow came early, during the first week of December. It was still warm enough that the snow was damp, and so it was good for making snowmen, snow forts, and, of course, snowballs. It snowed heavily one Thursday night, and Ben woke to the news school had been cancelled.

His mother still made him get up. “You’re not lazing around like you do on the weekends. If you’ve got nothing to do, I’ll find something. But maybe you’d like to take your sled over to Boardman’s Hill. I saw a couple of neighborhood kids walking down our street dragging sleds behind them, and that’s probably where they were headed. Maybe you could even make a friend.” She paused a moment before sighing. “Like that’s going to happen.”

She said the last with mixed emotions, sarcasm dancing with regret, and patience trying to cut in. He smiled at her because he knew she deserved his smile. He wasn’t the easiest kid to put up with, and she did OK. She had to be mother and father to him now, and she tried. He hadn’t even talked on the phone with his dad since the divorce. The man had just disappeared.

Ben knew Boardman’s Hill. Their street ended in a cross street that ran parallel with the edge of a steep escarpment that ran down a couple of hundred feet to a river at the bottom. In many places, it was as steep as a cliff face, like at the end of Ben’s street where it was way too sheer even to try to climb down. However, a few blocks to the south, the decline was much gentler, and there was a narrow trail ending at the flat area near the river. Rather than lead straight down the side of the hill, the trail cut across the side of it to reduce the steepness of the drop. What made it so picturesque were the trees bordering each side of the path. Loner that he was, Ben had explored the neighborhood by now and once even walked all the way down to the river following the trail. The trek back up tired him out. It was a long way.

He’d heard that it was called Boardman’s Hill and that a lot of kids used it to get to the river and the flats surrounding it in the summer. Thinking what it must look like covered in snow, he wasn’t surprised that it would be a popular sledding spot.

After breakfast, his mother did the dishes and then looked at him. He knew she’d meant it about chores, so he quickly found his coat, boots and gloves, pulled them all on and said, “Be back by lunch.”

“Have fun,” she returned, watching him walk out the door.

He found his sled in the garage in a large box they hadn’t got around to emptying. Looking around, he saw several boxes like that and grinned, realizing what chore he’d avoided.

It was early enough in the day that there were only a few kids at the hill. They were scattered all over, some at the top ready to ride down, some on their sleds already partway down the hill, some trudging the long way back up and a few standing about halfway down where there was a broad flat area without any trees, a place to rest on the way back up or do whatever a kid wanted to do.

Ben pulled his hood up to keep his ears warm. To keep himself unrecognizable, too, but he did that by instinct rather than by conscious thought. Kids were lining up, taking turns, and he got behind the last kid, one he recognized from school. Timothy, he thought. Small, kind of wispy kid who was really quiet in school and often had a vague sort of look of incomprehension on his face. Well, Ben couldn’t hold that against him. He was that way, too. Except for the look, of course.

When it was his turn, with Timothy about half way down, Ben took a couple of running steps and launched himself head first, flat on his stomach on the sled. The path wasn’t too steep at the top but dropped faster partway down. The sled ride was long and thrilling, the best ride Ben had ever had. The trees on both sides of the path flew past, and as he came to the flatter area halfway down, he saw several kids there, and then, to his surprise, he saw Crew was one of them. He slid on, came to the steepest part of the trail and nearly flew. The path gradually flattened out as it neared the river, and the ride eventually came to an end.

He rolled off the sled, beaming. What a ride! Then, realizing another sled was coming, he got up, grabbed the rope attached to his sled, stepped to the side of the path and began the long hike up.

As he walked, watching Timothy a few yards in front of him, he realized he’d soon be passing by where Crew was. The thought excited him. Would he be brave enough to talk to Crew? Would Crew talk to him? He probably would; Crew was friendly with everyone. The only real question was, would Ben be so tongue-tied in Crew’s presence he’d act like a dork?

When he’d almost reached the midway plateau, he heard Crew’s voice. “Hey, Timmy! Come over here. This is neat!”

Timothy turned off the hill and moved out of sight. Ben kept walking and then came to the flat area where a few kids appeared to be busy doing something in the snow. He was going to stop and watch but saw Crew, and his heart began beating faster than it already was because of the climb. He had started up the hill again when he heard, “Hey, uh, you’re Ben, aren’t you? Ben, come help us.”

Crew was talking to him, but even better, Crew knew his name!

Ben turned and stepped away from the hill onto the flat area. There were five kids there. Crew came over to him. “We’re building two snow forts so we can have a snowball war. Come help us. With you, we have six guys, so can have even teams. Come on.”

Crew turned to go back to where the forts were being built. Three kids were carrying snow to where they were building a wall, patting the new snow into place. Another kid was working on another construction a short distance away from the first. Crew led Ben there. “This is Peter,” he said, introducing Ben to the other kid. “And Peter, this is Ben. That’s right, isn’t it?” he said, looking at Ben.

Ben finally had to speak. “Yes,” he said. “Ben Hathaway.”

Crew seemed to take it for granted that Ben knew who he was. “OK, we three will be against those three. Let’s get this fort built and then have ourselves a war!”

Ben started helping. Building a snow fort from dampish, heavy snow was pretty easy, and working together with Crew was much easier than talking to him. It all seemed so natural! In only a few minutes, they’d finished the building part and Crew had them begin making snowballs.

“Uh, I’m not real good at throwing,” Ben said to Crew, trying to pack snowballs and finding they kept falling apart.

Crew watched him, then said, “You’re not using enough snow and you’re squeezing and twisting at the same time. You’ve never done this before, have you?”

Ben dropped his eyes. He was a failure, and in front of Crew!

Mrs. Collins had been looking forward to this. She’d been promoted to the high school English department, and this was her first day. As she’d come up from the middle school along with the freshmen, she knew many of the students, having taught them in ninth grade last year. Of course, this meant they knew her, too, and weren’t quite as intimidated as they’d have been with what they considered a “real” high school teacher.
Finally, she got the class quiet enough to begin speaking. “Shush now! I know you’re happy to see each other again after your summer vacations, and you have a lot to tell each other, but we have to get going here. We need to start now. John, get in your chair! Quiet, all of you. All right, and if—” She was interrupted once again, this time by Lucy whispering to Morgan. Ben was turned around talking to Andy, too, and paying no attention at all to what she was saying.
Frustration was setting in. “Stop! All of you. Do I have to remind you this is high school?”
Even her tone of voice and obvious irritation didn’t entirely settle the students. Exasperated, she said, “OK, if that’s how it’s going to be, we’ll do it this way. Each of you take out a sheet of paper. And a pencil. Right now!” She clapped her hands, then waited impatiently, tapping her foot, while the kids noisily found sheets of paper in their brand new notebooks and sharp, never-used-before pencils.
“I was going to have fun today. Each of you was going to come up front and talk about your summer, but obviously that isn’t going to work. So, instead, each of you are to write for the rest of the period. No talking! Write what you did this summer. I want good grammar, proper spelling, interesting and illuminating writing. You’re all in tenth grade now, so you all know, or at least all have been taught, how to write an essay. I taught a lot of you how myself, so follow that style. You have the rest of the class to write as much as you can. Fill up your paper, and as many more sheets as you need. No talking. Title your work, What I Did On My Summer Vacation. All right, get started.”
Simon looked at the blank paper, then up at Mrs. Collins, who seemed to be looking back at him frequently as her eyes moved around the classroom. He sighed and picked up his pencil. He could do with more sleep, he knew that for sure.
||+++||+++||
It had been two months and two weeks since Simon had walked home from his last class ever in middle school. He was experiencing a mixture of sadness and glee. He’d really liked the three years he’d spent in Harry S. Truman Middle School. He’d made a lot of friends, grown from a little boy into a young teenager, and become much more self-assured in the process. Now, middle school was finished. He was leaving that behind him, closing that door. It was exciting to think about high school next year, but even at 14, he was feeling nostalgic about leaving behind what had been so much a part of him.
Simon had a different perspective on many things from his friends and classmates. School and friends made up the majority of their lives. Simon enjoyed those things too, but they were secondary to the time he spent with his father. His father was gone a lot. His responsibilities forced their separations, and Simon regretted the times his father was away while thoroughly understanding the need for them. He was terribly proud of his father. If he had to sacrifice time with him for the job that was getting done, that was simply part of the equation.
There were compensations, however. When his father was home, he and Simon spent almost all their time together. His father talked about his job, and even better, worked with Simon, training and coaching him. He’d begun this when Simon was just twelve, and it had been ongoing ever since, making the two of them much closer than the ordinary father and son. In the process, Simon had become more observant of the world and more mature than most boys his age.
Simon was just leaving the school grounds when he saw a younger boy he recognized but didn’t know come running toward him, a look of panic on his face. Then, behind the boy, he saw two other boys, both considerably older than the first one, running as well, apparently chasing the first. Instinctively, Simon reached out and corralled the younger boy.
“Hey,” he said softly, trying to quell the boy’s fear. “What’s going on?”
The boy didn’t have time to answer before the two older boys arrived. They were both larger than Simon. They stopped, then one stepped forward. He spoke to Simon.
“Let him go and get out of here. This doesn’t concern you. Beat it!” He reached out to take the younger boy’s arm.
Simon moved slightly, just enough so he was between the boy who was reaching out and the boy he’d stopped. He looked hard into the larger boy’s eyes, then said, his voice even and unwavering, “You sure you want to do this? I’d advise you and your friend here to move along. You’re both too old to be playing with this guy.”
The older boy was looking down on Simon as he was several inches taller. A small smile formed on his lips. “You’re sort of cocky for a little kid, aren’t you? You’re just as easy as this kid is going to be. Last warning. Get out of here. Just go and you won’t get hurt. This isn’t any business of yours.”
“I’m not going to get hurt regardless.” Simon didn’t move at all. This time there had been a slight but noticeable edge to his voice.
“Have it your way then,” said the speaker, and stepped forward, reaching out to grab Simon’s shoulder.
The smaller boy watched what happened next in disbelief. The large boy reached for Simon, Simon seemed to move his arms and legs and body very quickly, then the large boy was suddenly on his back on the sidewalk, his wind knocked out of him from the hard fall, and Simon was looking down at him. Then Simon looked at the fallen boy’s friend.
That boy must have seen something in Simon’s eyes, because he started taking backward steps, then turned and ran.
Simon put his arm around the smaller boy. “Come on, I’ll walk you home, and you can tell me why these guys were bugging you. Maybe we can figure something out to do about it so it doesn’t happen any more.”
The smaller boy looked up at Simon, something very much like awe in his expression, then started walking towards home with a bounce in his step. Simon walked with him, and soon both were giggling at some joke that had been told. Seemingly in little more than the blink of an eye, Simon had reverted back to the young, happy teen he was.
Simon went all the way to the boy’s house with him, chatting and laughing while they walked, enjoying the fact he’d made a new friend, then headed for his own. As he turned into his street and looked ahead to his own house, thinking that he was walking home for the last time as a middle-schooler, he came to a sudden halt. Up the street in his driveway was a silver Jaguar, low and sleek, and looking as always as if it were ready to run. Simon was at once excited and cautious. His father never came home during the day. Never. Often, he didn’t come home for a week or more at a time. For him to be home in the middle of the day was strikingly odd, and that made Simon uneasy, especially as he thought his father was in Bolivia till next week. So Simon stopped. He looked around him. Nothing on the street was suspicious or unusual. He resumed walking home, and then the excitement of seeing his dad again was too much, and he started running, his loaded backpack containing all the stuff he had to bring home from his locker on this last day of school slapping him on the back with each step.
He ran up to the front door, then stopped abruptly and didn’t enter. Instead, he dropped his backpack there, then looked in one of the small windows that were beside the door. He could see only the empty hallway and staircase inside. Still, he didn’t enter, but instead moved around to the back of the house. He stayed close to the sides while doing so and dropped below window level as he came to each one so as to make himself invisible to anyone looking out from inside.
He looked in the rear window and saw his mother standing at the kitchen sink, washing the first peaches of the year. He could faintly hear the stereo playing. It sounded like Schumann’s Rhenish Symphony to him, but he then thought it might be the Spring instead. He always got the two confused. In either case, it was OK. Anytime his father was home, if whatever was playing on the stereo was written by a composer whose surname began with an S, it meant everything was fine inside.
Simon himself preferred Shostakovich to Schumann, but he always had been a bit precocious.
Knowing that caution wasn’t needed, he opened the back door and went in. He greeted his mother with a hi, she smiled her usual rather nervous and preoccupied smile at him and told him his father was home, was down in the den, and wanted to talk to him. She dropped her eyes after saying that, looking back down at her peaches. Simon, his heart speeding up, opened the door to the basement and descended.
Simon’s father, Brigadier General Amos Bellow, was at his desk in his den. The den was a windowless walled room, the walls made of cinder blocks, which took up most of the basement. It was large, brightly lighted, and soundproof. The heavy oak door, the room’s only entrance, swung open when Simon turned the knob. It had spring-assisted hinges; it was impossible to tell there was a heavy titanium-steel plate inside, making it bulletproof and impregnable except for an extremely high explosive device.
Simon knew his father was aware of who had entered the den without even having to raise his eyes. There was a bank of TV monitors in front of the desk, and his progress down the stairs had been clearly shown.
“Hi, Dad.” And then Simon was jumping into his lap, hugging him.
General Bellow hugged his son fiercely, then kissed the top of his strawberry blond head. “How was your last day of school, kiddo?”
“We just got our report cards, cleaned out our lockers and left. Easy day.”
“Can I see your grades?”
Simon reached into the back pocket of his jeans and pulled out the manila card. He glanced at it, then handed it to his father. General Bellow looked it over thoroughly, then harrumphed.
“What is this?” he asked gruffly.
Simon looked at where his father was pointing, then laughed. “What’s wrong with that?” he asked disingenuously.
“You got a B, in gym? What’s going on here? I like those A’s in everything else, but a B? And in gym?”
Simon’s eyes sparkled as he answered. “Sir, yes sir! That’s camouflage, sir! Misdirection. Confusion. You always said, keep the enemy off-balance, only let them know what’s in your best interests for them to know, keep everything that’s important hidden. Maintain the element of surprise in case you even need it. That’s what I was doing there. Practicing. No need for Coach Taggart to know more than he needs to know. Sir!”
By the time he was finished with his army style speech, that of a lower ranking officer reporting to a higher ranking one, the General was laughing, and as Simon was still in his lap, tickling was very easily accomplished. Simon shrieked and wriggled out of his lap.
The general looked at his son adoringly, but as always, the pressing need for work cut short the playtime between father and son.
Simon saw his father’s eyes change, the fun leaving them, his usual seriousness returning, and the excitement he’d felt when coming down to the den returned. He moved back and sat in one of the comfortable chairs in front of the desk, then waited to see what his father had to say. He was sure he’d know why his father was home in the middle of the day, why he wasn’t in Bolivia, very shortly.
The general was the top man in a super-secret government agency. Officially it was named the Interagency Clandestine Antiterrorist Networking section of the Armed Forces Intelligence Group under the direction of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, working out of the Department of Defense. ICAN/AFIG was its official acronym, but those who spoke of it, those very few who even knew of its existence, shortened that verbally to I-Can, which over time had become the motto of the group.
Simon had known what his father’s job was for only a little over two years. He actually knew more of what his father did than his mother knew. The bond and closeness between father and son was unique. When Simon was twelve, his father had taken him to his den and they’d talked for hours. After that, Simon had begun training, physically and mentally, and now, at fourteen and having just finished the ninth grade, he was strong of body and keen of mind, with quick reflexes and reactions and an even quicker insight and awareness of all that was around him.
Simon was tall for his age, and his thinness masked his wiry strength. He kept his hair shorter than the style that was popular with his peers. He was outgoing, good looking and had a quick wit, all of which made him well liked at school. The girls had been showing more and more interest in him lately, which he found bothersome. He had no time for girls.
Now, he was watching his father collect his thoughts. He could tell as he watched that his father was troubled.
The general got up from the swivel chair behind his desk and came out in front and sank down into a chair next to Simon. His words, when he spoke, were grave, and shocked Simon.
“I-CAN has been penetrated. I realized it when our last mission failed. Our agent in the field was killed. And there was no way that could have happened unless the enemy had prior warning of what was going down. Problem is, we’ve got an extremely delicate situation facing us right now, and I don’t have the confidence in our people I need to have. This is something that would be disastrous if we failed.”
The general turned to look at the bank of TV monitors, though it was just to give him time to gather his thoughts. Any movement on any of the monitors was accompanied by a beep to alert the viewer. He then turned back and looked Simon right in the eye. “Son,” he said, “this can’t leave this room. Top, top secret. What’s happened is, Fayed bin Hammad has been kidnapped, and his father has received demands that he cannot accede to. He’s turned to us. We have to rescue his son. If Fayed is killed, we’ll have failed one of our strongest allies in the middle-East. Additionally, it will make Hammad look weak, that he was unable to protect his own family. There will be rumblings by his opposition that if he can’t do that, how can he protect their country? We can’t allow this to blow up into a shitstorm. We have to rescue Fayed, but the people holding him know that killing him is almost as good as holding him to make his father do what they demand, so any rescue has to be covert.”
Simon had felt his heart jerk when his father had mentioned Fayed bin Hammad. Simon knew who Fayed was. He was the son of the ruling emir in one of the mid-eastern emirates, and was being groomed to ascend to that position himself in the future. Simon knew who he was because the two boys, the same age, had actually met about a year ago. Simon was blond and fair, Fayed was dark haired and swarthy, but both were precocious, both had sparkling eyes and quick enthusiasms, and they’d become good friends in the short week they’d been together while Simon’s father was discussing security issues with Hammad’s second in command.
“Is Fayed all right?” Simon asked, more worried about the boy he liked and had bonded with than the international implications of the problem.
“He was as of this morning. His father is getting daily proof-of-life communiqués from the terrorists, but they’re becoming more and more threatening. As of this morning, a deadline has been given. The demand is that Hammad must resign all authority in just a little over two months from now, handing over his reign to his third cousin, a minor emir who is well known to our intelligence networks. He is certainly the one who orchestrated the kidnapping. He is a very dangerous man, cunning and unscrupulous with a great thirst for power and an unending hatred for our country.
“But that two-month window that was given was only because it will take time to arrange such a shifting of power. The announcement that Hammad is relinquishing his position is to be done almost immediately. Hammad has to announce he’ll be turning over the government to his cousin, and he has to do that by tomorrow, or the kidnappers say they’ll begin sending him parts of Fayed every day till he does make that statement to the world. They’ve said the first part they’ll send is one of his eyes.”
Simon gulped, then sat up straighter. “What can I do to help?” he asked. He knew his father wouldn’t be briefing him on this ultra sensitive information unless there was a reason to do so. He wondered if that reason was that he knew Fayed. Whatever it was, he was eager to help rescue him. For most any other 14-year-old boy, such a thought would have been ridiculous whimsy. Simon wasn’t any other 14-year-old boy, and both he and his father were aware of that.
The general looked at him without speaking for several seconds, and Simon could almost see his mind working, weighing options, weighing the fact that Simon was his son, and whether he had the courage to send him into harm’s way. He’d never done so in the past, but he had been preparing for that day. He’d expected it would be years away. But events had changed that timetable.
Simon saw his father’s eyes clear, and determination set into his face.
“Simon, as I said, I-Can has been compromised. If we’re to save Fayed, it has to be done without our usual people being involved. We are trying to discover who the traitor among us is, but we don’t have much time. Whoever it is, he’s probably being paid a lot of money by Hammad’s cousin for his treachery. But the fact they’ve penetrated I-CAN means our response options have been severely hamstrung. I’m afraid that if we mount any sort of mission, Fayed’s kidnappers will know almost immediately and they’ll simply kill Fayed, then use his body politically to destroy Hammad.
“Hammad has agreed to make the announcement he’s handing over the government to his cousin tonight, and I’ve spoken to him privately, saying we’re mounting an operation to rescue his son. We have about two and a half months to find where Fayed is being held, then plan and execute his rescue. Once that has been accomplished, Hammad can seize his cousin and rescind the announcement. I’ve given him my word that the rescue will be done secretly with as little risk to Fayed as possible. That means I have to have a field agent who is entirely trustworthy, and because of our internal leak, this agent must be able to work alone in enemy territory.
“There’s no one I can trust absolutely except one person. You. But Simon, I don’t know if I have the guts to ask you to do this. It’ll be horribly dangerous, and I’ll be asking you to do things that most adults shy away from doing. You’d have to kill people.”
Simon had already figured that out. The thought was unnerving, but he had to balance it against the fate of the boy he knew and cared about. He only paused for a moment before saying, “I’m ready to start whatever specific training I’ll need right now. It sounds like we should move immediately. Who knows what Fayed is suffering as we sit and talk about it.”
The general didn’t say anything for a moment. Then he wiped the corner of his eye, and stood up. He leaned forward and grabbed his son, wordlessly embracing him, feeling a mixture of pride and fear.
Neither of them even spoke of Simon’s mother. Need-to-know excluded her from involvement.
For the next two months, Simon was at a camp in South Carolina, getting physical and weapons training that was much more intensive than what he’d already undergone. That was during the day. At night, tactics and strategies were reviewed. Specific plans could not be made because Fayed’s whereabouts were still a mystery. This meant planning had to be for all terrains, all situations, with an emphasis on thinking clearly under pressure and using what was available wherever he was to complete his mission. Versatility, creativity and spontaneous response were emphasized over and over.
While Simon was working harder than he’d ever worked before, the general himself was working twenty-hour days trying to locate where the boy was being held.
The father and son met every evening for dinner. Simon could see the stress in his father’s face, growing worse daily as the days passed. The general was having no success in locating Fayed. If the place where Fayed was sequestered wasn’t discovered, and discovered quickly, there was no hope of rescuing him, and his father would have the choice of turning over his country into the hands of a totalitarian madman with a known hatred of the United States, or having his son sent to him one piece at a time.
With only days remaining before Hammad would have to cede power or lose his son, with the hand-over process of his government already well under way, the general sat down to dinner with Simon. It was another in seemingly endless string of hot nights. They were still at the hidden training camp. The general took a quick glance at his son as they were being seated. Simon had always been thin. Now, he wasn’t quite so slender. He’d added some weight, the change being added muscle. His face was leaner and harder, with no traces of baby fat present. There was a glint in his eye that made him look older than his fourteen years. His walk was confident, his carriage erect.
Simon looked briefly at his father, as well. He was expecting to see the same discouraged slump of his father’s tired shoulders as they sat down at the table. Instead, his father looked more relaxed.
“Simon, I’m pretty sure we’ve found him,” he said with no preamble.
“Really? That’s great! Where is he?”
“Bulgaria. In the Rila Mountains.”
“How did you find him?”
“I was a little lucky and a little good. I’ve had a computer team intercepting phone messages and listening for certain words, like ‘boy’ and ‘hostage’ and ‘Fayed’ and ‘Hammad’ and several others. I didn’t tell them why I was looking, and as they run intercepts all the time with strange combinations of words, I thought it was safe to do this. Only the operators themselves know what I’m doing.
“I know there has been communication going on between the kidnappers and Hammad because of the proof-of-life communiqués. I’ve been trying to backtrack those and tie them into the key word intercepts, but gotten nowhere. Until today.
“Today, one of my operators, a really smart kid who’s been working for us for a little over a year now, heard someone on a secure phone to Hammad’s cousin talking about ‘the source.’ Thinking that might be a code word, he backtracked that call, and immediately became suspicious because he couldn’t get a location on it. Someone was intentionally blocking it, which didn’t make sense if they were talking about anything unimportant. So he got NSA involved in tracking it, and they found where it was coming from, which was an office in the emirate’s embassy in Teheran. He found who had that office, told me, and I assigned an Israeli agent to follow that man when he left work.
“He was followed to a pay phone several blocks from the embassy. It was easy to use a sound wave intensifier and recorder from that point to listen in on both ends of the conversation, then match that up with computer copies of all phone conversations coming out of Tehran. And when we did that, it pinpointed a location in Bulgaria.
“So I reprogrammed a satellite to concentrate on that spot. We now have pictures of where the phone calls came from. It’s a mountain clearing and there’s a shack there. Nothing else around for miles. There are, from what we’ve seen, three guards there patrolling the area around the shack. We don’t know how many guards might be inside.”
Simon was listening intently. Now, he asked the obvious question. “OK, you’ve found a shack that’s apparently being guarded, and had a phone call to it about a ‘source.’ That’s pretty thin evidence that Fayed is there.”
The general smiled. “The source talk was from Tehran to the emirate. The talk from Tehran to Bulgaria mentioned the word ‘boy’ three times, and Hammad’s cousin once. And then, at three in the afternoon today, a guard we hadn’t seen before came out of the shack, holding the arm of a smaller person. That person was dressed in white robes rather than trousers and shirts like the guards. Fayed was wearing his ceremonial dress when he was grabbed; that costume was a long embroidered white robe. Also, by comparing the shadows that could be seen by the satellite’s camera, we know how tall this person is. He’s one inch shorter than you are. And I seem to remember you telling me that he was just shorter than you were when you two were together a year ago.
“The guards appeared to be letting the boy move around a bit. He was able to walk around the clearing for about ten minutes, and then the guards took him back inside. He was moving a bit unsteadily when they first brought him outside, suggesting he may have been chained or shackled for some time.”

That summer I was often in my bedroom with Trent. We were both just 14, and we were best friends. In the summer, best friends can spend a lot of time together. Spending time outside was what we usually did, but when it got too hot, we’d decide to go in. Two 14-year-old boys, sweaty from the heat, alone together in a bedroom. And it was totally innocent. Damn!
I greatly regretted the innocence. I liked Trent. I liked him way too much. He was that cute: clear skin, slight ski-jump nose, bright, deep blue eyes, light brown hair which covered his head like a medieval helmet after a haircut, then grew long enough that it hung long over his forehead and into his eyes. I so wanted to brush it aside. Just reach out and gently move it to the side. Lovingly slide it away while staring into those blue lagoons of eyes.
Couldn’t. Trent was straight as an arrow, and modest and uptight about any and everything. I couldn’t even talk to him about that pervasive subject of boys our age: jerking off. He’d blush and get quiet, and if I persisted, he’d leave.
He was my size, slender and fit. I wasn’t the only one who thought he was cute. It was apparent the girls at school felt the same, as I saw them looking in his direction a lot. Pissed me off is what it did. Pissed me off even more when I saw him looking back.
I wasn’t modest like him, or straight as an arrow, either, for that matter. I liked looking at the other kids, too, but mostly at the other boys. Man, some of them really turned my crank. But none did more than Trent.
We weren’t in school now. It was summer, mid-summer, and hot as a blast furnace outside. I took my shirt off much of the time when I was outside. Trent never did that. I asked him why not, and he’d do that blushing thing of his that made me feel like ants were crawling over my male parts, but he’d hem and haw and not say anything. Wouldn’t even talk about not wearing a shirt. Jeez! Drove me mad. Why couldn’t he talk about his feelings?
I’d tried once to find out what girl he liked. “Sarah likes you; did you know that?” I’d asked. I didn’t know what Sarah felt, actually. I did know she’d thrown a glance at him now and then, but so did most of the girls. I wasn’t going for truth and honesty here; I was going for how he felt about the nuisance gender.
How did he respond? He said, “Not as much as Madison likes you! You should ask her out.”
So much for finding out if he liked girls. He was good at changing the subject when it became uncomfortable, and any mention of his private or romantic emotions certainly qualified as a discomfort inducer. But he had to have the same feelings I was having. We were at that age, awash in hormones we’d never had before. I just wished I could talk to him about what I was feeling, what he had to be feeling.
Some of the boys at school talked about little else. I’d hear them in the john, in the locker room, even in the cafeteria when it was just boys at the table. Talking about jerking off. Lots of that. One boy talked incessantly about checking out the girl who lived next door who didn’t close her curtains all the way at night. He said he didn’t, either.
Some of them even talked about actually getting it on with a girl. No one talked about getting it on with another boy. But yeah, we were all randy as stallions at stud, and most of us weren’t too shy to talk about it. We liked to talk about it. Relieved the pressure a little. Confirmed we were normal. Everyone felt the same urges now, and everyone talked about them—except those few of us who didn’t, like Trent. Well, I didn’t join in that much, either, but that was because I didn’t share the common interest in girls, and of course couldn’t let on about my interest, which was different.
I wanted to tell Trent I liked him. Liked him like that. Wanted to do things with him. I’d never kissed anyone, and I didn’t want my first kiss to be with a girl. That’d be icky. I wanted that first kiss to be with a boy, and not just any boy. And I didn’t want just a kiss, either. I wanted to touch Trent, rub my hands up and down his body, make his squirm and pant, and I wanted him to do that with me, too. What I wanted more than anything was for him to like me as I liked him. I daydreamed about being naked with him, both of us stripping down slowly, watching him blush, watching his eyes as they filled with desire.
But I couldn’t even start to talk to him about anything like that. Torture, that’s what it was. And it was even worse now that it was summer and we were together all the time. Watching him. Wanting more than that. Not able to do anything about it.
No, it’s misleading to say there was total innocence in my room when I was with him there. He was innocent. I was a mass of wanting. And none of that wanting was innocent. Not innocent at all.
“It’s too hot outside,” he said when we’d just come in.
“Hot in here, too,” I said, and then, cleverly I thought, I added, “I don’t need this,” and shrugged out of my shirt and was then only wearing my shorts and shoes and socks. I thought, well, why not, and took them off, too. The shoes and socks, not the shorts. I wanted to. Heaven knows, I wanted to. But he’d have blushed and gone home. I could get away with half-naked. Not with naked. Not with Trent.
Trent looked at me. At my bare chest, then my eyes. I don’t know what my eyes were showing him, but it was something because his blush came, and he remembered he was supposed to be home by then, and he left.
Damn! But kinda funny, too, how my less-than-subtle actions affected him, if I wanted to look at it that way, and maybe it was to be expected, because it actually wasn’t all that hot in my room.
O
There had to be a way. Trent had to be feeling at least some of what I was feeling. Maybe he didn’t have the same feelings for me that I did for him, but he must have had those feelings. Sexual feelings. Even if he liked girls, I’d have loved to talk to him about being 14 and sex. Talking about this stuff would have taken some of the pressure off. I needed to talk about what I was feeling, and talking to my best friend was who I wanted to talk with.
I’d known Trent since second grade. I think I’d been in love with him since third. Mom thought of him as her second son because he was at our house so often. Our house was nicer than his. I liked his parents a lot. They were great, but they didn’t have as much money as we did. Our house was nicer, and while Trent never said anything about it, I think it embarrassed him that he lived in an older, lesser house. It was just outside town with outbuildings and a chicken coop jammed together in a weed-covered backyard, nothing like the spacious backyards in town.
His dad wasn’t a farmer, but they lived in an old farmhouse. He was an independent painter, competing with several companies in town for work, and work was spotty. Trent’s mom was a secretary in town and made some money but not a lot, not really enough. They were doing okay, keeping up with their bills, but cutting corners, not putting much in the bank, and the house they were renting was about all they could afford.
How did I know all this? Trent wasn’t embarrassed about them. He loved them and was proud of them. He felt comfortable sharing their financial woes with me. It had occurred to me that perhaps Trent wanted an outlet for his concerns about money and how it felt living with the limitations he had to bear just as I wanted an outlet for sharing my thoughts about sex.
In any case, Trent preferred coming to my house, and so that’s what we did.
The next time we were in my room together, I kept my clothes on. I didn’t want him scurrying off again. Life was better when we were together. The heat reluctantly softened a few degrees about dinnertime. Trent ate dinner with us occasionally, more in the summer than during school terms, and he did that day. We didn’t talk about what had happened the day I’d undressed a bit and he’d looked into my eyes, so I didn’t get to see him blush. But I kept my clothes on and he didn’t run off again, either.
O
The heat wave continued and in fact intensified. Trent and I spent more time in my room than outside. We had air conditioning, and it was running almost constantly.
Trent didn’t come over the next day. I phoned him, asking where he was. Trent didn’t have a cellphone, one of the few kids at school who didn’t. They did have a landline, though.
“Where are you?” I asked.
“Too hot to ride my bike over there. Besides, have you looked outside?”
I was on my cellphone, so stepped over to my window and looked out. “Yeah. Looks hot and sunny 

I couldn’t do that from my room, so I told him to hold on and went downstairs and outside. It was hotter than yesterday, and the air was oddly still. I looked upward and to the west and saw some ominous black clouds. They were a long way away, though, and didn’t seem to be moving.
“You’re not afraid of a few dark clouds, are you?” I asked, snickering.
“Not as much as the heatstroke I’d have riding over there.”
“You‘re a pussy,” I said. “Tell you what. I’ll ride over to your house.”
Boys my age can be brats. Goes with the territory. I said that to be conniving. I figured he really didn’t like me seeing how he lived, and that my threat of going there would get him off his butt and over to my house.
It didn’t work.
“Hope you don’t die on the way over. Too hot for me to go out and drag your sweaty corpse in out of the sun. I’ll let the crows have their way with you. Free meat.”
“See you in few,” I said, ignored his crack and disconnected.
He was right; it was darn hot! I had a better bike than he did; mine was a 21-speed lightweight one; his was a rusty, no-gears, fat-tired Schwinn. It was an easier ride for me than for him, yet I was still only at the halfway mark when I felt the effects of that sun. Wow, that sucker was like a weight on the back of my neck. I also noticed that the day was rapidly becoming less bright than it had been. I was riding eastward and so wasn’t sure why this was because the sky was still high and sunny in front of me. I saw a patch of shade just ahead and stopped when I reached it. I kept thinking about Trent’s heatstroke comment. While resting, I looked at the sky behind me and saw why the day had been darkening; the black clouds were no longer in the far distance. They were almost above me.
Yet the air hadn’t cooled at all. It might even have been hotter.
I heard a rumbling then and saw the black clouds were directly overhead.
I still had several minutes to go and shoved off the curb I had my foot on. I took off, riding harder now, trying to ignore the heat, thinking unpleasant thoughts about thunderstorms and lightning. When I felt the first drops of rain, they surprised me. They weren’t a bit cold. They were warm, almost like a warm shower.
I was drenched by the time I got to Trent’s. I rode up his dirt driveway. It was packed so hard from cars running over it that even with the hard rain it hadn’t gotten muddy. I rode past the house to the back. There, I was afforded a sight I wouldn’t have thought I’d see in a thousand years.
Trent was sitting in the rain, coming heavier now, on top of a table. He was naked except for some old gray briefs.
I stopped and stared, and my thoughts, the thoughts that seemed with me 24/7, sexual longings, lustful wishes, hit me like a ton of bricks. Almost naked. Water running off his beautiful skin. Probably slippery skin.
“No air conditioning,” Trent said when he saw me, and he grinned.
I didn’t say anything back. I just stared for too long, then said, “That looks good to me; I’m way too hot,” and I dropped the bike and began to undress. He watched as things came off. He didn’t blush this time and didn’t scurry off.
I was down to my boxers and he was still there, still watching, the warm rain beating down on him, running off him. I’d never seen anything so beautiful. My boxers were covering my excitement, the only thing covering my excitement, yet the rain had soaked them and they weren’t hanging loosely as usual. They were wet and had formed themselves around the evidence of my feelings so that it was obvious what seeing Trent, sitting mostly naked in the rain, was doing to me.
The hell with it, I thought, it’s now or never, and I shucked off my boxers. I stood still, letting him look; letting him know.
He let me know, too. He smiled.
THE END