(by Edward Zeusgany and Alex Anders, © copyright 1999, all rights reserved)

Chris Clain wasn’t happy at his Aunt Mildred’s house where he had come to live after his mother’s demise and a sojourn in New York. This motivated him to do better in high school than he otherwise would have done. The additional maturity, due to his being two years older than his classmates, also helped. They were unaware of this advantage because Chris looked younger than he was and he hid his greater worldliness for more reasons than one.

He desperately wanted to be admitted to some college. There, with student loans, he could prepare for the good life and get away from Aunt Milly and Worcester, in that order. His purgatory would last two years.

He hustled a little on the side, enough to provide himself with ample spending money for a high school kid. The men who hung around the one gay bar, Chris considered to be a particularly sullied lot. So he cruised the stores in the area and paid attention to who looked. Here and there he made a connection.

Near the end of his senior year, his Aunt became unusually excited because the Cardinal, Archbishop of New York was coming for a visit to the city accompanied by her own from Boston. It was while she was waving a newspaper in his face that Chris glimpsed the photograph of the two clerics surrounded by assistants and assorted dignitaries. He froze. The teenager felt the chill throughout his body, for there was the unmistakable profile of Mr. White.

Mistaking Chris’s reaction for interest, his aunt pressed him to accompany her the next day to witness the arrival of the august party. He quickly pleaded unit tests in two of his classes and thanked God once again that Mildred hadn’t wanted to pay the tuition for the Catholic high school. He’d leave for school early and get a friend to drive him home late in the afternoon.

That day, Chris, who didn’t trust coincidence in this situation, decided to move to Boston immediately after high school graduation. He had been admitted to U. Mass. Boston and was going to study business. There the young man would find himself a place to live and learn the ins and outs of that city before classes began in the fall.

*****

At the first Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender dance of the semester, Chris met Mike and within a few weeks they were boyfriend and boyfriend. Mike was a stocky, good looking, Irish kid with curly brown hair and a pleasant, undemanding personality. He knew how Chris made his money and it didn’t bother him.

The next year and half proceeded without incident. Everything was going along as Chris had planned when one of his customers told him that he had overheard someone at Napoleon’s asking a lot of questions. It seemed that the gentleman was looking for a person who fit Chris’s description. He didn’t have Chris’s name though, but a kid called JJ. He would be glad to recommend Chris, if he wished, and if he happened to see the fellow again.

In the middle of his forth semester, Chris withdrew from school and moved to Springfield. Fred, a former hometown acquaintance of his who was now living there thought he knew where Chris could find work. A few weeks later he got a job at a gay bar and began training to be a bartender. Fortune smiled for a change when the owner’s son opened a restaurant in Amherst. Taking a job as evening bartender allowed him to transfer to the main U. Mass campus and continue his studies.

Mike was able to come up most weekends. Chris had to spend some time with Fred, by way of thanks, but Fred paid. The only bad thing about it was Fred’s drinking. He had deteriorated to the point where he was inebriated most of the time. It was unpleasant, but Chris owed him consideration.

About a year later, Fred was beaten up. “The guy wanted your address,” he told Chris. “I was too drunk to think of it. I got clobbered because he thought I was holding out on him.”

If this was Mr. White’s doing, that meant that he had Chris’s whole background. Major changes were called for, alterations that included severing all previous ties. No one could know where he was going, not even Mike.

*****

Will Atkinson began from scratch, without a single contact in Key West. He tossed his backpack into the closet of a cheap room and got to work, saving money for the implementation of his business plan. It took eighteen months to prepare.

He located a quality apartment with a secluded entrance that would be suitable for operations. The room where Chris had been living was kept for his assistant and the telephone that clients would use to make appointments. Brian, a pleasant, though non ambitious, young man, had the place rent free and a small salary in exchange for responding to calls and messages and keeping the appointment book.

His other employees were found at the Miami bus station. In winter, both runaways and tourists headed for the warmth of the southern sun. There was competition for their services, but Will had a huge advantage. Still young and boyish himself, the kids felt comfortable with him. He could approach quickly and directly, discuss the newcomer’s options frankly, and make his offer.

Then, too, his business in Key West was on a very small scale compared with that carried on in the city. So Chris didn’t drain the available talent to the point where he seriously infringed on potentially dangerous rivals. Being mostly gay himself and a former working boy, he could spot the most likely candidates.

Often he would greet a boy as he came off the bus, pretending to be a friend or relative there to meet him. If the kid fell in with this scheme, it kept the hawks away and indicated a useful sharpness in the lad. Some youngsters would get laughing at this antic, making the ruse all the more convincing.

*****

All sorts of gay tourists spend time in Key West in the winter. Most pair up with each other for free, but boy lovers also like a break from northern cold. Carl had never paid for sex, nor had he ever really looked for a boy. Every once in a while one came into his life, usually for all too brief a time. And once he loved a youngster, he never stopped loving him even when the affair was over and years had passed.

That was why, when Carl saw Chris about to cross the street in front of him, he called out his name without thinking. The young man looked and gave him a frown as though he had been mistaken. But Carl had no doubt whatsoever that this youth was the boy he had known so well some years ago. Aside from being a little taller and a little older, he looked the same.

The young man was not alone. He was accompanied by a younger copy of himself. Except that Chris was not yet old enough to have a son that age, the boy could have been his. Resolving this in his mind, combined with the reaction of his former friend, threw Carl sufficiently off balance that he remained stationary as the pair crossed the busy street. He did not follow.

*****

Will Atkinson’s “model and escort” service grew slowly by word of mouth. Well, he couldn’t make use of print advertising. It was through bartenders and other employees of the gay tourist industry that he disseminated information. They were generously tipped for their knowledge and Will threw a party for them every once in a while.

The boy, who was most in demand, was so like Will when he was that age that he had been tempted to name the lad Oliver. Deciding that would be bad luck, the youngster was called Ricky instead. There were usually three other youngsters available.

Because Will looked after the boys well, the turnover in the first two years had been low. Only eight teenagers in all had been in his employ during this time. Ricky was beginning his second year.

*****

Many young gay men work in area motels as chamber maids. It was one of these who found the body and called the manager. He took a look and called for the rescue squad, although he didn’t have the faintest doubt that the boy was dead. Meanwhile, the young man, wild eyed, told the other employees what he had seen.

It was after twelve when the police were through with him and the manager allowed him to take the rest of the day off, since he wouldn’t be of any use anyway. Badly wanting a drink, he proceeded to his favorite bar. He was supposed to keep the details to himself, but he couldn’t help himself. The kid had been naked, gagged, bound and mutilated, lying on the overly long, built in desk/bureau/counter under a blood spattered mirror.

Will heard the news before it was reported on television. Since Ricky hadn’t come back the night before, he knew who the victim was and who had probably done it. The emergency plan was put into action at once.

He called Brian and told him that the police were on to them, to take the records and get out of town. To the boys, Will told the same story as he hurried them into packing essentials and loaded them into the car. On the way to Miami, he gave them the choice of staying there or continuing on to the west coast with him.

The newest youngster was the only one to elect the longer trip. This pleased Will since Phillip Allan, who he had named Peter because of a particular talent, was his favorite. Thirteen, cute as a button, funny and affectionate, the brown haired, mop head was a good companion.

Thinking that it would be in the news, Will opted to tell the teenager what had happened to Ricky, leaving out the gore. When he did, the kid cried. Later Peter said, “Maybe in California we should be in a different kind of work. Couldn’t we just get regular jobs?”

The youngster looked so earnest and so sad that Will said, “We’ll see.”

Thus encouraged, Peter reached over and kneaded Will’s crotch. Once he felt the appropriate result he scrunched up onto the seat, leaned left and snuck his head under the steering wheel. Whereupon, the boy opened Will’s fly, retrieved his instrument of choice and began to play.

Will moved the sun shade to the left blocking part of the view of any passing trucker. Then he rested his arm on the edge of the door covering the bottom part of the window. After taking one brief glance at the bobbing head in his lap, he put as much concentration as he could manage into keeping the car in its lane.

*****

In a major city, if one has the cash, it is possible to purchase new identification. Afterward, the Phillips brothers settled in a small community in Utah. Alan started a successful specialty food store. He sold it at a good profit and moved to Los Angeles after his younger brother finished high school and went on to film school in the east.

There they eventually entered into the business of producing and distributing pornographic movies. All of the actors had documents that proved that they were at least eighteen, however youthful they might appear. Some, of course, were obviously over that age.

The brothers were backed financially by an investor, who Peter had encountered during his last year of college. Alan didn’t meet his benefactor until the gentleman came west to see the operation for himself. Peter observed the color drain from his brother’s face when he entered the studio office and confronted their visitor.

“It wasn’t me,” the man said to Alan, as though continuing a conversation that had been interrupted some time previously. “I had nothing to do with it.”

Alan had frozen in place. “Nothing to do with what?” Peter asked himself.

“I know I go too far at times, but nothing like that.”

“How …,” Alan began.

“It’s true enough that I’ve been keeping track of you,” the man interjected. “But I wasn’t even in the country when it happened.”

Alan did not continue.

“I guess I still care,” the aging fellow said, making a gesture of resignation.

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