by Edward Zeusgany and Alex Anders, © copyright 1998, all rights reserved)

I was a timed kid, small for my age. Even though my parents had delayed my start in public school by a year, I was still the smallest boy in my class and only two girls were shorter. Like most boys, I wished to be a fine baseball player. One of the essential ingredients for success is not to care about being hit by the ball. Unfortunately for me, I did care.

The Grimes boy, I didn’t know his first name, used to torment me. Only one year older, but two years ahead of me in school, he was a tall boy, sturdy but not heavy. Accompanied by one or two of his friends, he would confront me on my way to or from elementary school. Standing in my path, looking at me in an unfriendly manner and with penetrating eyes, he would make derogatory comments about my parents.

I would be shaking in my shoes, trying not to look at him and answering in mumbles. When he had tired of my fear, he would let me pass. In none of these encounters did he harm me, but I thought that he wanted to and would some day. But I was not bothered during junior high because he had already advanced to the high school.

One afternoon, early in the summer before I would begin the ninth grade, I left my house on Fuller Avenue and headed for a friend’s house a few streets away. He lived on a long street off Forest Avenue, that took several sudden turns. At one of these bends, I crossed to the left hand sidewalk that was cut into a bank held back by a five foot stone wall. It was made with big rounded rocks, the sort one might find on a beach. Ahead there were stone pillars, indicating the foot of a set of steps to a large house above. I could see it rising above the wall.

Just as I approached this opening in the wall, the Grimes boy stood up, right in front of me. I had no idea that he lived there. Startled, I stopped in my tracks. The Grimes boy moved quickly, so that I was between him and the wall. I backed against it and he placed his hands against the masonry on either side, pinning me in.

He asked me what I was doing in his neighborhood. My murmured reply seemed not to appease him. Was I going to do what I was told or did he have to make me, he inquired. I assented weakly and he steered me toward the steps, a hand on my shoulder.

At the top of the stairs there was a cement walkway through a well kept lawn. A broad, high porch on a stone foundation ran the width of the house. Wooden steps led up to its gray painted deck. We came to the large, green front door. He opened it and gave me a push between my shoulder blades.

Inside, to the left, there was a living room and to the right the dining area. I noticed that the furnishings were of a substantially better quality than what my folks had. Another shove propelled me toward a staircase that was directly in front. He kept his hand on my back as we ascended. Half way up there was a landing and the stairway doubled back toward the front of the house.

As we ascended this flight, he informed me that his parents were not at home and not expected until late. He nudged me down the left hallway and to the end where a door was open to a bedroom. A final push propelled me inside. He ordered me to sit on the bed.

Far too neat and far too clean, it did not seem like a boy’s bedroom to me. But there on a nice, large desk were school books and notebooks, Even they were in an orderly arrangement, not at all like mine, strewn here and there about my room.

He knelt at my feet, untying and removing my sneakers and taking off my socks. Then he sat on the bed beside me. His feet touched the floor while mine hung well clear, my head seemed to be only a little above his shoulder. Perhaps I was slouching, but I felt very small as he unbuttoned and removed my shirt.

He got up, lifted my legs onto the bed and lay me back against the pillow. I flinched when he unbuttoned my jeans. These he proceeded to push down my thighs. Then he took them by the cuffs and pulled them off. He stood looking at me for a few moments, while I lay motionless with fright.

Putting his hands on my waist, he shifted me over so that there was room for him to sit on the edge of the bed. He touched my hair and commented that it felt like silk. Mine was light brown, fine and straight. His was the color of wet straw, thick and unruly.

He fingered the elastic band of my briefs, asking me if it would be all right if he took them off. No, I squeaked, emphatically. He gave me an ironic smile, and questioned the logic of saying no when I knew that he was going to do it anyway. I started to cry.

At this, he raised me up and held me in his arms. He stroked my back and pointed out that he hadn’t hurt me and said that he wasn’t going to. He told me that he liked me. Then why was he so mean to me, I sobbed. He promised that he wouldn’t be mean to me any more, that from now on we would be friends, but that he was the boss and I was to do what I was told. In a sterner voice, he insisted that there was nothing to cry about and to stop. Oddly enough, this worked.

Laying me back down, he pushed my briefs down to my ankles and left them there. I wished that he had taken them off altogether. As it was they acted like a restraint. If I wanted to jump up and run, I would first have to get my feet loose, and by that time my captor would be able to stop me. Then I considered that there was no where for me to go. No one else was present in the house and I could hardly escape to the outside in the nude. Strangely, the scrap of cloth about my ankles made me feel more naked than being completely bare, that and the fact that the Grimes boy was fully dressed.

While I was thinking all that, he was touching me here and there as though conducting the scientific examination of a specimen. He seemed to be particularly curious about my foreskin. He used his fingers to push it down part way and watched as it moved back by itself. I was a bit tight there. This was repeated several times, before he tried using a little force to push it further. Still it returned to its original position, very slowly at first, and then all at once..

Then I remembered that that was how I had discovered masturbation. I had done the same thing several times, the sensation had felt interesting so I had done it some more. I vaguely thought that maybe I shouldn’t be touching my self so much, but I continued regardless. When I experienced the spasms of orgasm, they frightened me. I thought that I might have hurt myself. I didn’t touch myself again for a couple of weeks. When there seemed to be nothing really wrong with me, I returned to that activity with increasing frequency, only to become scared again when I had my first emission.

I was afraid that the Grimes boy would make me come. The very thought brought me closer to what I dreaded. Trying to tighten up only delayed the inevitable and I made a puddle on my abdomen. At this he got up and undressed himself. The Grimes boy was circumcised.

He got onto the bed, lay himself on top of me and rubbed his own penis through the semen on my body. He continued sliding and bumping against me for quite a while. Then I felt a much larger pool of warm wetness, and he stopped.

After a short wait, he sat again on the edge of the bed and inspected the results. Putting his hand in it, he rubbed the goo over my stomach and chest and down my thighs until it had all been spread and dried. Then he told me that it was nearly four thirty and that I had better get dressed and go home.

*****

When I got back to my house, it was an effort to appear normal. I’m sure that I didn’t manage it, but my mother must have assumed that my distraction was not particularly unusual for a fourteen year old. At supper, I had to be asked things twice. What world was I in, my father wanted to know. For a while I did a little better at being in the present. After desert, I was able to loose myself in TV, or seem to at least.

As I was getting ready for bed, I noticed that my skin was peeling. That didn’t make sense to me, I didn’t have a sunburn. Finally I realized that it wasn’t skin, it was the mixed, dried semen of two boys that was now cracking and coming off . I took a shower and got rid of it. Later, in bed, when I did It again, as I did nearly every night, at the very end, thoughts of the Grimes boy snuck unbidden into my mind.

The following day, whenever I had thoughts of what had happened, I pushed them away. The next day, I caught myself thinking of taking the same route to my friend’s house . Maybe the Grimes boy wouldn’t be there on Friday. But I didn’t go. By the weekend, I wanted to go by his house and half hoped that he would be there. I figured that his parents would probably be at home on the weekend, so I didn’t. On Monday, I thought that maybe Wednesday was the only day when he was home alone in the afternoon. I reasoned that it would be best to go on Wednesday afternoon, on the same day of the week and at the same time as before. If nothing happened, then that was what was meant to be, I decided.

*****

As soon as I rounded the turn in the road, the Grimes boy stood up at the foot of the stone steps leading to his house. I went directly to him. Placing his hand on the back of my neck he led me inside. I was expecting everything to be the same and it was at first. He took me upstairs and undressed me completely, but then he took me by the wrist and brought me back downstairs.

Once in the living room, he took a seat in an upholstered arm chair and sat me on his lap. While he resumed the study of my body, he began to give me my instructions. I was to come to his house every day at 10 o’clock. I was to do whatever he told me without question. I wasn’t to give my opinion or make suggestions unless he asked for them. When he asked if I understood, I nodded and kept silent. This seemed to please him.

On Saturday, I would meet his parents. Things would be different. Probably we would go out and spend time with his friends. If I was in doubt about how to act, I should do nothing, he would find a way to give me direction. Most of all, I should be cheerful and confident. He had me practice this for a while and we both got laughing. Then we got serious again.

*****

I showed my last report card to the Grimes boy, as commanded, and he was not satisfied with my grades. He decided that we would tell everyone that he was going tutor me, which had the advantage of being the truth. This justified my spending ever more time at his house, including evenings. Now that I was starting ninth grade, I had to do really well if I was going on to college, I explained to my parents. They were confused but pleased with my sudden interest in school work.

That summer we began with spelling. Mine was atrocious. Otherwise, I had mostly B’s with an A in history and a C in Latin. I did not like memorization. The Grimes boy pointed out that when I read I needed to really look at the words, at which letters were in them. Because I read easily and quickly, I hadn’t noticed the details that were necessary to spelling.

So he had me read for spelling and then made up tests from what I had read. I was drilled over and over. By the beginning of the next school year, I could spell magnificently and most other words.

*****

The things he could think of to do with me. I often wondered if he received suggestions from an experienced confidante for ever more advanced and intricate performance. Each day was a surprise. There was something immensely satisfying about the fact that the Grimes boy couldn’t get enough of me, physically or mentally.

In private, he would question me about what I thought of all sorts of things that came up in the news: politics, philosophy, science, religion. Facts were raised that tested my opinions. Rather than telling me his own thoughts on these matters, he relentlessly probed my mind.

When we were with his friends I would often hear my thoughts restated and improved. The real me was to be seen but not heard, everybody’s errand boy. But he insisted that I be asked politely, thanked and treated with respect; which he did himself. Alone, asking was unnecessary, but there was never any disrespect.

*****

In the fall, we met after school and walked to his house together. The Grimes boy had counseled me on my selection of electives. Now he proceeded to monitor my progress closely. He, in turn, was regularly coached by his parents, who were both college graduates, unlike mine. So he knew a great deal about how to study.

He could have spent his spare time in athletics, he had the ability. But he had a plan or perhaps an outline that was not fully developed at this time. In any case, he was determined that I would do very well in my studies, as well as being completely available to him in every way he wanted.

*****

After graduating from high school, while I still had two years to go, he went to Boston University, so that he could live at home. He also took a reduced load. It was only on Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons that I was not able to be with him.

Two years later we both went to Princeton, his father’s alma mater. I had received a scholarship and the Grimes boy’s parents made up the difference. He had convinced them to help with his project, me. Somehow he arranged that we could be roommates even though he had been admitted as a Sophomore.

We were both Pre-Med majors. Because of his two years at BU, he had finished some second year courses permitting him to continue with a lighter than usual load for several more semesters. Meanwhile I took an extra course each semester and went to summer school. We graduated the same year and went on to medical school together in Baltimore.

Then there was residency, different hospitals, but both in Chicago. Specialty training followed before we opened a joint practice in Ear, Eyes, Nose and Throat on the North Shore. I was the more inspired physician, so I took more patients and the difficult cases. The Grimes boy, I always thought of him that way, was the better business man and dealt with all of those matters. Our effectiveness resulted in more and more referrals.

*****

One day the Grimes boy complained of an acid stomach. This became chronic and the tablets and liquids stopped helping much. Test were performed. It was cancer of the duodenum, advanced.

He stopped seeing patients and began teaching me the business side of medicine. I received his instructions for independent living, not that I needed them. To the extent that I had seemed dependent, it was only for his sake.

One day, a canister of carbon monoxide was delivered along with our regular order of supplies. The following Monday he presented me and two of our friends with tickets to the symphony for that Friday. I needed a night out, he said.

Joe and Mark arrived to pick me up. As soon as we were around the block, I told them that I wasn’t up to it and had them pull over. They wanted to take me back to the house, but I said that I preferred to walk for a while, alone.

Twenty minutes later, I entered our bedroom. The Grimes boy was lying on the bed with a mask over his face. I checked his pulse and his eyes, he was dead. I turned off the gas and removed the mask. Then I lay down beside him, took his hand in mine, and closed my eyes for a few minutes. Finally, I hefted the can of carbon monoxide. There was plenty left.

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