Mr. Thomas stepped forward to take Todd back to his room. Todd backed away and cried out, “Wait.”
Mr. Thomas didn’t stop, but moved more quickly toward Todd, not giving him any time to try to escape. Todd only was able to back away farther into the room. He was beseeching his father while doing so, all his emotions now bared.
“Father, you have to believe me! Please! But if you don’t, I have a way to prove what I’m saying. I can prove it to you if you let me. Please!”
At that point, Mr. Thomas had Todd backed into a couch, and he reached out and grabbed his arm. Todd collapsed onto the couch.
“Father!” he shouted. “Stop him. I’ll prove what I said, but you can’t let him take me. He’ll take me up to my room and rape me. Make him let me go!”
Mr. Thomas was dragging the terrified and crying Todd off the couch when Mr. Mortensen finally spoke. “Mr. Thomas, I want to hear what the boy has to say. Wait a moment, please.”
Mr. Thomas scowled but released Todd’s arm. He remained standing by the couch, moving aside just enough so Todd’s father could see his son.
“Father. Thank you.” Todd’s heart was racing, and he took a couple of deep breaths, trying to compose himself. He knew he only had moments before his father would lose patience with the entire scene. He wiped his tears away with the back of his hand, then looked at his father again.
When he felt able to speak, he said, “First, it’s important that you know this. Mr. Thomas has been interested in me sexually since he began working here. He’s been after me, continually leering at me, making sexual suggestions. He said you’d never believe me if I told you, so he could do anything he wanted. I couldn’t tell you before this unless I had some proof because I knew you’d simply react the way you actually did.”
He saw he had his father’s attention and raced on. “Tonight, I don’t know why, but tonight, I guess he couldn’t wait any longer. If you let him take me back to my room right now, he’ll rape me. Then he’ll explain it all away when I come to you again, probably hurt and bleeding. He’ll just say I did it to myself to prove my story. If he beats me, he’ll explain that the same way. Don’t let him take me with him. Please!”
Todd’s emotions were running wild. He knew on a visceral level that nothing he said would have any effect on his father’s cold heart, that only proof of Mr. Thomas’ behavior would have a chance of getting through to him. But even knowing that, he couldn’t help himself from trying. He so wanted his father to believe him, to show some concern for and trust in him, that he said, “Father, you must believe me. You have to.”
Todd could see uncertainty in his father’s eyes, and sensed Mr. Thomas was ready to reach down and grab him again.
“I don’t believe it,” Mr. Mortensen finally snorted. “It’s not logical; it’s just beyond reason. You’re making it all up.”
Mr. Thomas grasped the small boy’s arm at that point and started pulling him. Todd collapsed onto the floor. Mr. Thomas began dragging him. He was dragging Todd by one arm, and Todd reached his other hand to grab the man’s wrist to keep his dragged arm from being pulled from its socket. Mr. Thomas continued to drag him, and quickly the friction of the carpeting pulled the towel from Todd’s hips. Mr. Thomas continued to drag him.
“FATHER,” Todd screamed again, this time beseechingly, raw terror in his voice.
Mr. Thomas had dragged Todd halfway to the door, when Mr. Mortensen said, “Stop.”
Keeping his painful grip on Todd’s arm, Mr. Thomas stopped and looked at the older man.
“Let him go, Mr. Thomas.”
The look on the man’s face wasn’t pleasant. Very reluctantly, he released his hand, and the boy fell back onto the floor. He reached for his sore arm and gently held it, trying to sooth the pain.
Mr. Mortensen saw the expression on Mr. Thomas’ face, which almost immediately returned to his usual imperturbable look. Then he looked at his son, cowering and crying on the floor.
After taking a moment to consider, he took a step toward his son. “Todd,” he said, his voice less stern than usual, “I will consider this proof, if you really have it. Show it to me.”
Todd didn’t respond immediately. Instead, he tried to regain his composure. It took him some time, but eventually he was able to stop crying. He sat up, then stood, got the towel from where it lay and used it to wipe his face, his back turned to the two men. Before he faced his father, he wrapped it around himself again.
When he spoke, it was with a steadier voice than he’d thought he could manage. “I can prove everything I told you that happened tonight. Please come with me, sir.”
Todd walked from the room. His father and Mr. Thomas followed. As they walked, Mr. Mortensen asked, “If you had proof of all this, then why did you wait until now to say so? Why go through all these unnecessary dramatics?”
“Because, father, I had to wait for him to do something I could prove. I only got that proof tonight. I really, truly hoped you would believe me without it just because I’m your son.” Then, in a defeated tone, he added, “But I didn’t expect you to.”
Mr. Mortensen did not respond to that. The three entered the den. Mr. Mortensen, in a less dictatorial voice than usual, said to Todd, “All right, we’re here. Show me what this is all about, this proof.”
“All right, Father. You’ll have to call it up yourself. I’m not allowed on your computer and have never violated that rule, so don’t know how it’s set up. But I do know our computers are on a network. I know it’s set so everything I do on my computer is saved to a file on yours. You told me this so I’d know only to use the computer for schoolwork. Because you could see what I was doing, you allowed me to have the webcam in my room so I could work with Geoff. So, the proof of what happened tonight is saved on your computer, and you only have to open the right file to see it.”
His nerves in shreds, Todd paused, swallowed, then continued. “I knew it was only a matter of time until Mr. Thomas attacked me. I didn’t know what to do, because you wouldn’t believe that he was a threat. Then, I got an idea. What if I got you to allow me to have a camera on the computer? I needed it to help Geoff with his homework, so I had a good reason to have it. Having it saved me. I allowed me to show you what Mr. Thomas is really like.
“What he did tonight was all seen by the camera. He thought I was turning off my computer when I was getting ready for bed. Actually, I was turning it on from sleep mode, and turning the monitor off so he wouldn’t see what the camera was showing. But I knew it would be recorded on your machine. It’s there now, and you can see it.”
Mr. Mortensen took a quick glance at Mr. Thomas, then walked over to his computer. He switched it on, clicked on a file, and a video showing what had been recorded off the camera that day began playing. It began with a conversation between Todd and Geoff. Mr. Mortensen fast–forwarded through their study session, and then, suddenly, what had happened in Todd’s bedroom could be seen.
The study was quiet, the only sound coming from the computer. Everything both Mr. Thomas and Todd had said could be distinctly heard.
The scene played itself out, showing Todd running from the room, Mr. Thomas eventually getting up and slowly dressing, then leaving the room.
In the silence that followed, Todd said, “You can see he left the room without anything in his hand. He got that magazine he showed you from somewhere else, not my bedroom.”
The three people looked at each other. Mr. Thomas finally turned around to leave, and Mr. Mortensen stopped him. “You have five minutes to get out of here. Five minutes from now, if you’re still in the house, I’m calling the police.”
Mr. Thomas took a step toward the door, then stopped and turned back, facing Mr. Mortensen. “No you won’t. And I think instead of running off, I’ll stay here tonight. I’ll leave tomorrow, yes, but in no hurry. I’ll sleep here tonight, then pack tomorrow before leaving. That will give you some time to get to the bank. Because I want ten thousand dollars. In cash. You’ll give it to me, or this little episode will become common knowledge.” He stopped and laughed, and Todd backed a step further away from him. “You’ll do that or everything I’ve seen and heard here will become public. You have the computer file, but that will be no problem. You see, explaining my way out of things is something I’m very, very good at, something I’ve had a lot of practice with. Let’s see, how will I do it this time? Ah! I know. I’ll explain how I was set up.”
His voice changed from the insolent tone he’d been using to one of innocence. “You see, officer, his son has been trying to seduce me ever since I came here. He’s gay, you know. He is aggressively sexual, too. He isn’t able to control himself, though I don’t think he wants to. He did the same thing at his fancy boarding school, where he got kicked out because he seduced several boys and then forced himself on one of them against the boy’s will. You can get the name of the school from the boy’s father. You can check it out and find out what he did there. He came home in what should have been shame, booted out, but he wasn’t a bit remorseful. Instead, he immediately started in on me.
“He started out simply batting his eyes at me, then asking me leading, suggestive questions. Lately, it’s gotten much worse. Lately, he’s taken to undressing when I’m in his room, and even walking around in the nude in front of me, telling me he’s about to take a shower, but getting himself aroused so I can see it, then talking about what he’d like us to do together. He’s spent every moment we’ve been alone together trying to seduce me.”
Mr. Thomas paused, and smiled unctuously, then reverted to the confident voice he’d been using before. “That will be what I’ll tell them first, to set the scene. Then I’ll tell them that tonight, what they see in the computer file was just playacting on my part. That Todd told me he wanted to try authoritarian sex, it excited him and he wanted to see what it felt like. That he wanted to pretend that I was going to rape him, to pretend to be scared, to pretend to be defenseless. He didn’t actually want to be raped, but did want all that led up to it. What was seen by that camera was all that happened, all that was going to happen on my part. I’d never have actually raped the boy. I never had any intention of doing so.”
Mr. Thomas stopped and smiled, his natural smile, and his eyes showed his real personality before his face and voice again changed. Innocence was something he’d given much practice. “Officer, I told him no, time and again, but he’s been after me for some time. Tonight, he told me unless I did it, he was going to make up some story about me trying to molest him and he’d tell Mr. Mortensen and get me fired, so finally, to protect my job and just to get him off my back, I agreed to do it. I followed all his instructions. I pretended to have control over him. He told me if I was convincing, if I really played the role, he would stop all he’d been doing. He wouldn’t keep trying to seduce me, and he wouldn’t lie to you about me.
“So that’s what I did. All you see on the computer is playacting, both of us playing the roles he wanted us to play. I didn’t know anything about the webcam being on when he did it. What he did say to me was, if I didn’t get into it all the way, if I wasn’t convincing, we’d have to practice it over and over again till I got it right, till he could feel the fear an actual victim would feel.
“So I made it look real, even making sure I had an erection.” He stopped and smiled, an ugly smile full of condescension, a smile with no trace of the servility he’d evinced to Mr. Mortensen in the past. “I’ll tell them that, and I’ll tell them that you knew about him. Certainly knew he was gay, even knew how aggressive he’d been in the past. You knew he was a predator. Maybe you encouraged him, so you could watch on your network hookup. Maybe you were watching us tonight!”
He paused to let Mr. Mortensen think about that, and then smiled his twisted smile, letting his true self be seen in all his glory for the first time. It was with a vicious glint in his eyes that he asked, “How would the people who run your company, your board of directors, feel about having a CEO who has a gay son? A gay son who was trying to seduce the cook? A CEO who was responsible for what happened in his home, under his own nose? This will be big enough that it’ll probably even get into the newspapers, and if doesn’t happen on its own, I’ll make sure they hear about it. It’s the juicy stuff that newspapers love to put on their front pages. Gay sex, kids, and company bigwigs. Oh yeah, it’ll get a big play, and you, well, you’ll get you fired.”
Todd watched his father, saw the recognition and then the indecision in his eyes. As he watched, he could see his father vacillating. When it appeared to him that his father was going to give in, he decided he had to speak.
“Father, I hope you’re not considering doing what he asks. If you do, you’ll be paying him money, lots of money, for the rest of your life. He’d have no reason not to keep asking for more money with the same threat, and it would be stronger because you hadn’t gone to the police in the first place, meaning you’d accepted his version of the story.
“And you do know it’s just a story, don’t you?”
Mr. Mortensen turned to Todd, and nodded. “Yes, I know he’s making it all up. He’s basically admitted it, but even if he hadn’t, his story doesn’t explain why you had any reason to hurt him like you did.”
”That’s right. But that isn’t even the most important reason you don’t have to deal with
him. You have a much better one, one that will keep him from going to the papers or telling the police or anyone
else, either. I’m 14. Whether I wanted to do stuff with him or not is immaterial. He’s guilty of having
sex with a minor, and you have him recorded doing it. You have a record of him using threats of force to make me do
what he wanted. He can say the threats were playacting, but the fact is, you have a video of us engaging in sex
play. And whatever excuse he comes up with, that’s still illegal. I’m underage. He committed a
felony.”
Mr. Mortensen, turned back to Mr. Thomas who was no longer smiling. “I’ll still give you five minutes. I want nothing more to do with you. You’re getting off easy. Get out.”
Mr. Thomas began moving toward the door, speaking back over his shoulder as he walked. “The papers will still find out. They’ll get to hear my side. I’ll disappear so the cops won’t find me, but I’ll tell people about Todd. Why he’s here. I’ll tell them the story I just told you, too. No one fucks with me. No one.”
Mr. Mortensen’s voice, when he replied, was very cold. Soft and precise and cold as ice. It stopped Mr. Thomas in his tracks. “You’d better think long and hard before you do that. Because, if you tell anyone that fantastic story and I hear about it, I’ll hire someone I know and have you found. I have enough money and patience to do that. They’ll find you and they’ll bring you back here from wherever you’re hiding. With however much force it takes to do that. I promise you that. I’m letting you walk away. I’m doing that just to be finished with you and all this and not feel any repercussions from it. I’ve worked far too hard to get to where I am to let someone like you interfere with what I have achieved. If you make this problem come back, I’ll deal with it. I’ll have you found and prosecuted. Sex with a minor carries a heavy penalty, and I have recorded proof and Todd’s word. You’ll be in jail most of the rest of your life. With people who know what to do with child molesters.”
“I’ll also make up a story to contradict what you’ve said. No one will print your version without checking with me first; they’d be too afraid of libel charges if they didn’t. If anyone ever asks me about it, I’ll have a story worked out about a disgruntled employee I’d fired for gross indecency with a child. They’d believe it because I am who I am. And then, after that, I’d have you hunted down, hunted down with extreme prejudice, and you’ll suffer the consequences.”
Mr. Mortensen looked at Mr. Thomas, his expression now icy and baleful. Mr. Thomas, now looking shaken, turned and left the room without saying anything else.
Four minutes later, the sound of the back door closing was heard. Todd went to the front window and looked out. Mr. Thomas could be seen driving away.
Todd went back to his father’s den. His father was still standing where he’d been. He looked up when Todd entered.
Todd didn’t speak. He simply waited. When his father spoke, it was in his normal, dictatorial voice.
“This is all too much. I have a company to run. I tried my best with you, and it didn’t matter. Whether you somehow got him sexually excited and it came to this is of no interest to me. Whether you’re to blame or not makes no difference. Tomorrow, I’m making arrangements for the military school I spoke to you about when you came home. I don’t have time for you. It will be as we discussed when you first came home from Hilliard Academy. You’ll go to the place where they fix gay boys, make them straight, and then to the military school it’s associated with. You will no longer be an embarrassment to me.
“You had a chance to avoid this, I gave you that chance, but you failed. I’ll see if I can get you sent off to them immediately. The school may be in the middle of a semester, but they will probably prefer to start you with their other program first anyway, before they mix you in with the other boys. You don’t need to bother packing. They don’t allow you to have your own things there. Now go to your room.”
»»»» 0 ««««
Mr. McCluskey looked up from his desk when Todd walked into his office. He smiled at the boy and waved to a chair.
Todd sat down, and didn’t respond at all when Mr. McCluskey spoke to him. The man saw the boy was troubled and softened his tone.
“What’s wrong, Todd?”
Todd found he couldn’t talk, and cleared his throat. “I’m being sent away,” he said softly. “I just stopped in to tell you that I appreciate what you’ve done. I won’t be seeing you again, I’m sure. But…” Todd blinked back tears. His voice faltered as he became choked with emotions. He had to turn his head and wipe his eyes while he was fighting to regain his composure. When he could, he said, “I wanted to tell you, you’re the only adult that I’ve met that seemed to care about me as a person. My father doesn’t and I don’t really remember my mother at all. I don’t have any other relatives that I know about. None of my teachers have been more than simply pleasant and polite, and some haven’t managed even that. I was thinking about this all last night, and I realized that you’re the only really nice adult I’ve ever spent any time with.”
He stopped and looked down, and Mr. McCluskey could see tears beginning to reform at the corners of his eyes.
Mr. McCluskey got up from his desk, crouched down next to Todd, and pulled him into a hug. In seconds, Todd was sobbing on his shoulder.
The boy wept for what seemed an eternity to Mr. McCluskey. Soon after he’d put his arms around the boy, the boy had reciprocated, and then was grasping him fiercely. Todd didn’t relax his grip until he’d cried himself out.
“Todd,” Mr. McCluskey started, and then stopped when he heard what his voice sounded like. It was only then he realized he’d been crying, too. “I have to know what happened, and what’s going to happen. Please tell me. I can keep secrets, and I can be a good friend. Trust me, please? Tell me what’s going on.”
Todd shuddered, then said, “I guess it doesn’t matter now, nothing matters any more. I’ve never said any of this out loud before.” He stopped and almost smiled. “You might want to sit back down. I think I’m going to tell you the long version. It feels like what’s inside of me wants to get out. Needs to, maybe.”
Mr. McCluskey squeezed the boy’s shoulder, then took the straight chair next to him rather than put the desk between them.
Todd glanced up into his eyes, seeking reassurance. He saw it, took a deep, shuddering breath, and then began.
“I’ve never told this to anyone. But I want to tell you. When I was eight, my father sent me to boarding school. Hilliard Academy. He said he had no time for me. He wanted to be head of his company and needed to work the hours necessary to get the job. He traveled, he entertained, he worked long hours, the whole bit. He had hired a nanny to raise me when I was younger, but she got sick. She couldn’t do it any more. So he fired her and sent me off to a boarding school.
“I was scared. I didn’t know anyone. I got there in the middle of the term, and everyone else knew each other. I was the new kid. I got picked on a lot, and the people who ran the school told me to stop being a baby, that if I stood up for myself, the bullying would stop.” Todd stopped to take a deep breath. Mr. McCluskey could see how emotional this was for Todd, and squeezed his knee, not wanting to interrupt but to give encouragement.
“I was teased a lot, but the counselor was pretty strict in the house where I stayed. I lived in a large dormitory with other boys my age at the school. The counselor didn’t let much physical stuff happen but couldn’t control the teasing. I hated it there, but that’s where I went to school till I was 13. I only came home for Christmas. That was it. Christmas.”
Mr. McCluskey could hear the sadness in Todd’s voice. But he could hear something else too. It wasn’t much, but there was some trace of steel in it too, as though the boy was reliving what he’d gone through and remembering that he had survived it.
“Two weeks a year, I came home. In the summers, the school had a camp, and I was enrolled in that. My father didn’t care about me at all, didn’t want me at home. It’s really hard, when you’re 8 and 9 and getting older every year, one year at a time, to know your father doesn’t want you around, doesn’t love you, but I learned to deal with it. I had no choice.
“I grew up in that school. It was a top academic school, and most of the kids there were smart. I fit in, that way. And I made some friends, eventually, mostly with other shy kids like me. Smaller kids, non–aggressive kids. We were all bullied a little, as much as the kids who liked to do that could get away with.
Todd paused for a moment. He pulled out his handkerchief, then turned away from Mr. McCluskey to briefly blow his nose.
“When we were 11, we moved out of the large open dormitory with everyone sleeping in one large room. We were all given more private rooms, ones set up with four boys in each. That was better, not all being in one big room, having a little more privacy. I don’t know if they planned it or it was just luck, but the four boys in my room were just like I was, small and timid. We all became friends. Two of us were super smart, and the other not super smart kid and I were still above average. None of us were very athletic. Our idea of a good afternoon together was to all lie on our beds and read whatever books we were into at the time. We all stuck together, and became really good friends.”
Todd stopped and looked up at Mr. McCluskey. “This next part is about sex. I shouldn’t talk about that, but I want to. It’s part of the story.”
Mr. McCluskey smiled, an empathetic smile. “Todd, I’ve been there and done that, just like you. You shouldn’t say anything about that to me, and I shouldn’t say this to you, either: I experimented with other boys, too, when I was your age. I think you need to get all this off your chest. So if you’ve got the nerve to tell me, I’ve got the nerve to listen. We just won’t tell anyone else, OK?”
Todd tried to smile back, but it wasn’t much of a smile. He was still deep in his memories, and the future looked even worse. “OK. Yes, I want to say this. I only have my own perspective on it. I don’t know whether it’s all normal, or screwed up. By telling someone I trust, maybe you can tell me. Anyway, I’m going to say this.”
He stopped, cleared his throat and then went on. “You can imagine what it means, four boys, together all the time, close friends, just beginning puberty. We all had questions, and we asked each other. It wasn’t embarrassing because we were all feeling the same things, and none of us knew much. We learned about what sex felt like with each other. So did all the other boys in the other rooms. In some of those rooms, there were weaker boys mixed with stronger boys, and some things happened that we heard about. We were lucky. None of us minded being together, and none of us had to do things we didn’t want to do. We didn’t do too much, we were only 11 and just learning, but it was fun and it was very exciting.”
Todd stopped for a minute, and Mr. McCluskey could see he was remembering. When Todd spoke again, there was a wistful note in his voice. “I think the fact I basically was there in that school for five years with only other boys may have influenced me. But I went through puberty like that, only seeing, only thinking about other boys, only having them for company. Two of the boys in my room that first year we were all together were gay. They knew it. They told the rest of us. We didn’t mind. We didn’t tease them about it. They even fooled around together a little bit while our other roommate and I watched, and we both got turned on watching them. Maybe any kid that age would, I don’t know.
“Then the next year, when I was 12, I had different roommates. Every year there, they changed roommates. Maybe they didn’t want boys getting too attached to any one boy, I don’t know. They never did explain why they did that, they just did. At 12, it was a little different. I got to know those boys, too, but it was different. We all talked about girls now. There wasn’t any fooling around with the rest of us watching. No one in the room said they were gay.
“I was the smartest kid in the room this time. I was the smallest, too. But no one picked on me. We still all were together a lot, and protected each other. That was sort of the way it usually worked.
“Last year, when I was 13, it changed again. They put the 13–year–olds into rooms with only one roommate. My roommate was a normal sized kid for his age, while I was small. He also was very athletic. He had muscles, he was really outgoing, and he was one of the most attractive kids in the school.
“I was really shy around him. Well, you know me like I am now, and I was the same then. I was always shy around everyone that I didn’t know real well. But he was sort of like one of the most popular kids at that school. I think, at first, the fact I was so shy made this kid, whose name was Adam, a little provoked. He was used to being everyone’s friend, and I was so shy I just didn’t act like a best buddy with him, and he couldn’t understand that. No one had ever not responded to him before. He tried to be friendly, but I just wouldn’t warm up to him the way he wanted.
“The fact was, I didn’t know how to act around him. The reason for that was, I’d developed a crush on him, my first crush ever, and it simply overwhelmed me. I started getting aroused around him, and couldn’t let him see, and it’s difficult in a small room, just the two of you together. He’d come in, strip off his shirt, and maybe his pants too, and start talking, I’d have to look at him, and I’d start blushing and get, well, you know. And so I’d look away, and pretend to be studying, and he wanted my attention, and I was afraid to give it to him. So he started to get pissed at me. He thought I hated him.
“We went along like that, past Christmas, into the spring term. We still spoke, but there was some chill between us. We were hardly even friends. Just roommates. One of whom liked the other in the wrong way. We spoke, I helped him with assignments he had problems with, we got undressed and dressed in front of each other, I had to listen to him at night when he, uh, sorry. But I had to listen. And little by little, my crush on him had gotten bigger, more intense, and then eventually I began to realize I’d fallen in love with him. It was awful.”
Todd stopped. He’d never told anyone this, and it was startling to him he was able to tell it to Mr. McCluskey. But the man wasn’t the least bit judgmental, and didn’t seem a bit surprised by anything he was hearing. Todd felt like he was unburdening himself, finally able to tell someone what he’d been through. Todd continued. “I didn’t fall in love with him because of how he looked. I’d gotten to know him, I’d seen how he acted. He was a really nice kid, not like so many jocks, so many really popular kids. He didn’t care about being popular. He was friendly and kind and talked about things that showed he was sensitive and thought about other kids. He was only upset with me because I never returned his easygoing friendship. And that was my fault. I just couldn’t let him know how I felt, and it would have been obvious if I’d been friendly with him. It would have been impossible to hide my feelings from him.
“But, see, he talked about girls with his friends. I didn’t think he was like me. I couldn’t let him know how I felt.
“I’d figured out by then that I was gay. Well, to tell the truth, I didn’t know, because I’d never even talked to a girl my age. Not once. But I thought about boys, I thought about Adam, and they were what excited me. And Adam wasn’t gay, I was sure of that. He never talked about boys in that way, and the year before, when the four of us roommates were together, we all talked about the other boys, about who was attractive, who was hot, who we liked and didn’t. Adam talked about girls.
“So I couldn’t let him know. If I had, he probably wouldn’t have done anything. I didn’t think so, at least. He probably wouldn’t even have asked for another roommate. But I was shy, I was embarrassed, and I just couldn’t.”
Todd stopped again, and Mr. McCluskey didn’t push him. They sat silently, comfortably, until Todd started again. “It was the spring term when I was 13 that things changed. Spring was soccer and baseball. Adam played both. And because he always played hard, it wasn’t surprising that he got hurt. He pulled a muscle in the back of his leg. I found out when a couple of other boys brought him into the room, almost carrying him, and laid him on the bed. A pulled hamstring. That’s what he called it.
“It was painful, and he said he had to rub some heat ointment into it every couple of hours. It helped if it was massaged, too. He tried to do both, and I watched, pretending not to. It got to be too much. He wouldn’t ask for my help, but he needed it. So, I volunteered.
“He only had his underwear on. Boxers. Most of the boys wore boxers. He was rubbing his leg, but he had to be on his back with his knee raised to get to it, and that meant the muscle was being stretched, not loose like it was supposed to be. I finally stood up.
“‘Look,’ I said, ‘that’s not going to work. Let me do it.’ He looked surprised, then pleased. ‘Would you? Thanks, Todd.’ The look he gave me melted me. I went over to his bed and told him to lie on his stomach. He rolled over, and I stuck my fingers in the jar of goop he had and took a gob of the stuff and smeared it on his leg about half way between his knee and the bottom edge of his boxers and began rubbing it in. I had to lean over him to get some leverage, and he was lying there under me. I could smell him. He hadn’t showered after the game because of his leg, so the smell of his sweat was strong. It almost intoxicated me.
“He moaned, and I stopped rubbing, realizing I hadn’t been paying much attention to what I’d been doing. ‘Am I pushing too hard?’ I asked. ‘No,’ he said, ‘it feels good.’
“I started working my way up, and asked him where it hurt, how high I should go. He turned then, turned his head, and looked at me, and blushed. First time I’d ever seen him do that. But he blushed, and turned away again and then said, ‘I pulled the muscle all the way up into my crotch. I can feel it all the way up there. But you don’t have to rub me up there.’ And he laughed. God, he had a wonderful laugh. Both innocent and sexy at the same time. He laughed, then said, ‘I wouldn’t ask that. You’re being awfully nice to do this, even when I know you don’t like me much.’ The way he said that, it about broke my heart. Because he said it as though it really hurt him.
“I stopped rubbing him then. I stopped and moved so I was sitting on the side of the bed. He turned his head again to look at me. ‘What?’ he asked.
“I felt about two inches high, and that, coupled with how shy I was anyway, made it hard to talk. I reached over and started rubbing again, having to climb back up on the bed and straddle his legs to do so. I worked my way up to his boxers, and without meeting his eyes, I said, so softly I wasn’t even sure he’d hear me, ‘I don’t dislike you. I like you fine.’ He was still turned and looking at me, I could feel it.
“I think he could see something in my face, too, even with me not looking at him, because he said, ‘Todd?’ and it almost sounded like he was worried about something. Worried about me.
“I stopped rubbing again. I just was kneeling on the bed where I’d had to be to massage him. He rolled over, and winced, which made me feel even worse. But he rolled over, and sat up next to me. I was on my knees. I got up then, stood up, and he grabbed my arm and pulled me down, so I was sitting next to him. I couldn’t look at him.
“He said my name again, and I had to meet his eyes. ‘I don’t get it,’ he said. I can remember his exact words. I can remember the whole thing. It’s like it’s etched in my mind. He said, ‘I don’t get it. You like me just fine, but you don’t speak to me unless I speak first? You don’t look at me most of the times I speak to you. But you like me just fine?’
“It was funny. He was calling me out, yet his voice was questioning me in a really defensive way, like if anything was wrong, it was his fault, not mine. Like he’d done something wrong. Just hearing him talk like that, hearing the hurt in his voice, just about ruined me. I loved him, I’d loved him for months now, and I’d been hurting him all that time.
“I started crying. I didn’t know what else to do, my emotions were so high, sitting next to him, having been rubbing his leg, smelling his aroma, and then his tone of voice, it was all too much for me to contain. I didn’t know how to handle myself with other kids anyway. I just couldn’t help it; I began to cry. You know me, Mr. McCluskey. Crying is something I’m pretty good at, something I can’t control at all. You’re not supposed to cry at my age, but I still do. I just do. And I did then, too, and felt really foolish. But that’s what I was, a fool, and I knew it.
“He let me cry, didn’t say anything, but he did what you did, he put his hand on my shoulder, and just kept it there.
“I stopped, after a while. I always stop. You can only cry so much. When I stopped, and sniffed, like I do, he asked me. He said, ‘Why are you crying?’ and asked like he really wanted to know, that he didn’t want me to be hurting like I must have been to be crying.
“I’d like to say it all just spilled out of me, how I felt about him, but that would have taken courage. I don’t have courage. I never have had courage. So I just told him I didn’t know why. I thought he’d accept that. He didn’t. He said, ‘OK, let’s forget about the crying, then, and tell me about the liking me just fine. Really? You do? Because I like you too, and it hurts when you don’t act like you like me. So, if you like me just fine, why do you act like you don’t?’
“He could have said that all snotty, but he didn’t. He said it like he was confused. Like he wanted an answer.
“I thought up some lies, but I couldn’t bring myself to say them. I couldn’t lie to him right then. I couldn’t do that to him, and I couldn’t do it to me, either. What I did was, I sort of caved in. At least, what I said was the beginning of the cave in, the first tremor of it. I said, ‘I had to act that way. I had to.’ And then I stopped. I was proud I hadn’t lied. And terrified, because I was sure he wouldn’t let it drop at that point.
“He didn’t. ‘Why?’ That’s all he said, and it was all it took. I caved the rest of the way. It wasn’t courage. I still wasn’t brave. I was just tired. Tired from how emotional this all was, but also of all the deceit, of hiding from him for so long. I wanted to get it over with. I never once thought there might be a good outcome to it. I was sure the ending would be bad, but I was tired. And he was sitting next to me, with a hand on my shoulder, and I wasn’t able to think straight.
“‘Because if I acted any other way, you’d have known how I felt, and I couldn’t let that happen. I couldn’t let you know.’
“He didn’t say anything then, for maybe half a minute, which is a long time. He just sat, his hand still on my shoulder, and when he finally spoke, it was so soft it was almost a whisper, but I could hear it just fine. Perfectly. ‘How do you feel?’ is what he asked, what I’d known he had to ask.
“I had another opportunity to reveal all, and I again was true to myself. I chickened out. But, I didn’t lie. I simply said, ‘I can’t tell you.’ And the funny thing was, he didn’t insist. He didn’t ask anything else. He was silent again. I think he figured it out, but I only thought of that later. What he did then was to squeeze my shoulder. And then he looked at me hard. I don’t have a clue as to how I knew he did that because I was looking down, but I could actually feel the intensity of his gaze, so much so I had to look up at him. He was looking at me hard, but he wasn’t frowning. He was looking at me the way I saw you looking at me earlier. With compassion.
“As soon as I met his eyes, his look changed. He grinned, defusing the moment, wiping away the compassionate look and replacing it with a soft smile. ‘Hey, this isn’t helping my leg at all. Let’s get back to work.’ And he rolled back onto his stomach. He folded his hands above him on his pillow and laid his head on them, turned to the side. I could still see the smile on his lips, in profile.
“I got back on my knees between his spread legs, a little shaky, not sure entirely what had just happened, and why there weren’t more ramifications, why he hadn’t pressed the point. I did figure that out later. I realized after thinking about it that he’d just done one of the kindest things that anyone had ever done for me: he hadn’t made me say anything else. He hadn’t embarrassed me the way he so easily could have.
“I grabbed another gob of ointment and began working my way up his leg again. When I reached the bottom of his shorts, I stopped. He raised his head and looked at me, and had the cutest, most devilish look in his eyes, part challenge, part laughter. ‘Chicken?’ he said, and then he laughed out loud, and the challenge was there, audible in the laugh.
“The mood had changed, he had changed it, right then and there. All of a sudden, the frostiness of the past few months was gone and it seemed it had never been. I not only still loved him, I now felt comfortable with him for the first time. I didn’t do much joking and teasing with other boys. I just didn’t know how. I envied the ones who did. Now, I felt this rush, and I answered back, frightened and ecstatic at the same time.
“‘Who’s the chicken?’ I replied, and reached up under his shorts.”