Chapter One

On the Road to Damascus

I didn’t see much of the old man growing up and was looking everywhere for my dad.

In 1969 he was gone, he was in the Marines, a Lieutenant Colonel, and I think he was in Vietnam, but I was too young to be sure.

I was nine; it happened in the bathroom of the Fox theatre, in downtown. I was watching 2001: A Space Odyssey that my older brother had dragged me to. I liked the special effects but it was weird and scary, and sometimes kind of boring and I had to go to the bathroom but he wouldn’t go with me.

Which was OK, I sort of liked to go alone and look at guys.

So I went on my own and there was a man in there, he was nice looking as I recall, and right away I got very excited – when I saw how he looked at me. So I showed him my dick and he right away sucked it. And he had me suck him but he was pretty freaked out about getting caught, which I didn’t really understand then. So we didn’t get to the good part, but that was my first time.

I wanted to go home with him but he didn’t want me.

It was two more years before I did go home with someone, well, home for more than a few hours that is. I went with Gary and lived with him for six months, I met him in a park bathroom.

The two years between I was very busy, I’d learned to hang out in bathrooms and lots of men liked me! I learned how to suck cock and swallow, and I was still nine when I got fucked the first time; by a boy who was fifteen. He hurt a lot but he lived close by and we went to his house a bunch of times and he got to do it better and I really liked that, but he wasn’t old enough for me. Just for sex, that’s all, I didn’t want to live with some teenager. He didn’t like to kiss me either.

The best times were when we were on the base in North Carolina, because a lot of the guys I met were in uniform. I liked that. It was more risky and you had to find the right times to go and the right heads to check, but once I figured out a few places it was OK. I’d hitchhike sometimes but I was too young for people to pick me up much. When they did half of them wanted to take me home to my folks, and that sucked big time, but the other half, well, they were what I was looking for, they knew what to do when you pick up a ten year old boy.

Most of those guys were young Marines, I don’t think any of them had apartments or houses and no one would keep me.

So I kept looking and then we were in Southern California and I found Gary. He was 26, he had a beard and a cool car, a Camaro. That first time we had sex in the bathroom he asked me if I would stay at his place with him and that was just what I was waiting for!

He had been in the Navy and sometimes he’d wear his uniform to bed for me.

Now I hate him, but then I loved him.

I hate him because he treated me kind of bad, he used to yell at me a lot and he almost never told me he loved me. Maybe twice in that whole six months.

Once in a while if I pissed him off enough he’d hit me. He didn’t send me to school, which was not OK then, though later it was fine because I didn’t like other kids later. But when I was just 11 I did want to have friends and all I had was Gary and he didn’t really love me. He just liked to fuck me, which I liked too, of course. It was my favorite thing to do. He liked to tie me up which was fun except when he got his knife out and he never used it on me for real but it scared me so bad sometimes I’d almost pee myself.

I think he wanted to use it, when he got mad at me.

I also learned from him how to cook and clean house and shop. Well some of that I already knew, but he taught me more. He got a lot out of the deal, huh?  A cook, a cleaner, a housekeeping whore. All he had to do was love me, but he didn’t keep his end of the bargain.

I told my parents I had run away but I called them a bunch of times and I figured if they wanted me, if my dad wanted me, he’d come and find me. I did go home for a few visits, I made Gary drive me and drop me off a block from home then I’d call a few days later and meet him at the park where he picked me up.

My parents wanted to know what I was doing and where I was but I told them I’d met a friend and he was taking care of me and they didn’t really want to know any more. My mom would always hug me and look at me funny and then I’d feel like shit. But she didn’t come get me either so she deserved what she got.

I’m older now, I should be fair that I suppose my father probably didn’t know what to do, well, what can you do with an eleven-year-old son who is not just a raging homo but a catamite to boot?  I learned that word from Paul. Not in the Marine Corps Field Procedure manual, for sure. So he let that asshole keep me.

One day Gary found out I was going to the park during the day and doing guys there, and he got mad at me again and hit me and gave me a black eye.

It wasn’t that I was such a whore then, you know, I just wanted more love. Seemed I could never get to feel loved unless I had a cock in my mouth or my ass. And I never had any trouble finding a guy to love me, or at least fuck me. And I was bored, too, and there were so many guys who wanted to play with me.

Those men loved me more than Gary did near as I could see. Some of them gave me money but that wasn’t what I wanted. I took it though, but I never asked for it, not once.

He tied me up and fucked me at both ends for two whole days where he didn’t go to work, and I promised him I’d be a good boy. So he untied me. But I was afraid to stay and I left one day later when he was at work. I packed up my stuff and hitched home, got a blowjob on the way. Lots of men like eleven-year-old boys. You just gotta be sure the cops or some Good Samaritan don’t get you first.

When I got home, nobody asked any questions. Guess they figured I deserved it.

I suppose it sounds real bad and violent and scary but most of the time it was OK, lots of sex and sperm and his hairy chest and balls and Gary had a nice body.

I lived with one other guy then. I answered an ad in the L.A. FREE PRESS, well, I answered about twenty ads, and two guys called me and I had sex with them, but only one of them wanted to keep a kid.

He was the best, his name was Walter and he was like 50, so the sex wasn’t good at all, he was too pooped to pop most of the time, but he was nicest to me and was like a real dad most of the time. But then he got arrested and I got sent home and they wouldn’t let me see him or write to him. I think he died. He didn’t mind that I was having sex with other guys, he told me no one over 21 though and I kept that for five months while I lived with him. But I wanted men, not boys. I mean, boys can be fun and sexy, so I do them, but it’s not the same. Kids can’t make you feel safe, and they don’t know shit about love. Men loved me, not kids . . .

I just was good for Walter because he was so nice. I liked it when he did fuck me, but it was only a couple times a week. He bought me a dildo but it wasn’t the same. Walter loved to kiss me, though, and told me he loved me every day.

He had a little ranch near San Diego, and I was twelve, I used to get fucked by a Mexican kid who worked there, on the ranch, he was about eighteen or nineteen and had a nice dick, uncut, I’d only seen a few of those before. He didn’t speak English but I just went down to where he was working on the fence one day and pulled my pants down in the back and wiggled my ass at him, and he followed me up to the house. That usually worked with anyone.

Anyway after Walter got arrested I got sent home and had to go back to the park. The cops wanted to ask me questions about Walter but I wouldn’t talk, and then I told them lies, they knew it too but they couldn’t get me to tell them anything about Walter except he was always nice to me.

When I was thirteen, I got arrested because I tried to get an undercover cop to have sex with me in the restroom at the beach. That was when we lived in Oceanside and I got to the beach every day. I used to go in there, to change my clothes, about fifteen times a day, any time I saw a cute guy, I’d go in and change my clothes, and stand there naked for a while. It usually worked.

Well I had sucked first, so this guy was sucking me when the cop walked in, he was real foxy. The guy sucking me turned away real quick, and the cop was looking at me and I had my dick sticking out. I smiled at him and asked him if I could suck his cock. We both got arrested, and I did end up testifying against the guy who sucked me, so I could get out of trouble. I won’t do that again, though.

My dad was real disappointed with me.

It was a dusty drive, though the macadam of the highway was new, its darkness a relief in the desert glare; the fresh-painted yellow center line crisp against the new black surface. The road crossed the inland desert from the Marine Corps Base at Twentynine Palms to the Interstate near Palm Springs. On a day like this the dust blew into little whirlwinds, mini-tornadoes called dust devils.

I suppose if the traffic had been heavier, I’d never have met Will. He had walked over three miles with no one to pick him up. There isn’t much traffic on a hot summer day, mid-afternoon, mid-week. No, not much moving on a Tuesday in late May.

I’m not one to pick up hitchhikers, though I do it now and then. But it was pushing 105, and there he was, a small backpack, no hat, cutoff Levi’s, a tank top. A tangle of sweaty black hair. Young.

I wasn’t all that old, just thirty, and yes his looks didn’t hurt his chances for a ride with me, but I have never been the sort for quickies and one-night stands. So if my motives had a sexual element to them, it was only to enjoy looking a little while helping him out with a ride.

But mostly it was just a hot day and a long way and little traffic, and I have a hard time leaving someone to the mercies of the desert, much less to the mercies of the more predatory among the human race. And he looked ripe for picking either way; he needed some protection.

Even so, when you stop, before you unlock the door and let him in, you need to take a good look and make a snap judgment. It takes twelve seconds from the time you pull over to when he reaches the door handle, that’s your decision window. You can’t be afraid to say no.

Very innocent face, not a worry in the world this one. If it hadn’t been for the long hair I’d have figured him for a Marine. Seeing his face, this one was younger than I had thought. He was about my height, 5-9, I figured eighteen or nineteen, a sturdy young man, maybe 155 pounds, some muscle in his arms. I wondered what he was doing here.

Not all that many civilians ride that road. I was working as a contractor’s representative on base, repairing communications systems and providing training and escalation support to the regular Marine staff. My work schedule was Friday through Tuesday most weeks, I had a room in Bachelor Officer’s Quarters I could use while on base, and I was on my way back to my real apartment that afternoon. I had taken the apartment only a few months before, after I was sure the Arab oil embargo of last year was well and truly gone. It had been quite a problem to have to drive that much during the week, but now I felt confident, and had owned a smaller car for several years anyway.

I flipped the lock up, he dropped his pack in the back seat, and we were on our way.

“Where you headed?”

“Oh, I thought I’d go to L. A., how far can I ride?”

“You’re in luck, I can drop you in town, I’m heading for North Hollywood.”

“Wow, great!”  There was something of a puppy dog demeanor to this one. “My name is Will.”

“Paul, Will, good to meet you.”

We had a few minutes of silence, and I flipped on the radio, but there isn’t much to hear besides Mexican radio stations in that area. They use a lot higher power to broadcast, the signal manages to get over the mountains into that valley. I was reaching for the dial to run it up and down and see if I could get anything else, when I noticed that he had spread his legs wide and was playing with himself.

Well I was not entirely surprised, I’d picked up hitchhikers before, and sex is often on their agenda; or they expect it to be on yours. But this was a little unusual, he wanted a long ride and usually guys who are just out looking for sex don’t have a destination. Guys who do want a long ride, if they start something it’s usually near the end of the ride; in case they get tossed out. Most will at least wait for a hint from the driver.

Not my thing. I’m a romantic, I want to know someone before I have sex. Nobody, no matter how cute, is likely to tempt me in the first ten minutes. This one was too young anyway. I ignored it.

As he played with himself we talked just a little bit, and he asked me what I did, why was I there, that kind of thing. And he hinted around to find out if I was gay, and considering what he was doing I was of no mind to tell him. I mean, it could have cost me my job – one of the reasons I didn’t actually say anything about my job. I just told him sometimes I had business on base.

Will, as it turns out, is not one to take no for answer; nor does he take to being ignored. After he saw that I wasn’t responding he escalated in a manner I found quite unique. He pulled his cutoffs down and started to masturbate. He was naked under the cutoffs.

“You know, some people might think that’s rude.”

“Aren’t you gay?”

“I don’t think I’d be discussing it with you if I was, but I’d think you’d be old enough to know better than to do what you’re doing. It’s dangerous for one thing. There are guys who’d beat the crap out of you for it.”

He looked at me with black eyes, not stopping his busy activity. “But you aren’t,” he declared flatly.

“No, but if you don’t stop I will have to ask you to get out of the car. You're way too old for this.”

“I’m too old to jack off?”

“I don’t think you’re too old to jack off, I think you’re too old to think it’s right to just get in a complete stranger’s car and pull your pants down, though. How old are you, anyway?”

“Fifteen, how old did you think I was?”

I almost shit a brick.

“You’re fifteen?  Pull your pants up, boy or get out right here right now!”

He just sat there looking at me very puzzled, and then suddenly looked wounded, his mouth dropping in dismay, and reached down for his cutoffs, pulled them up and zipped them.

If I was straight he’d have expected it maybe, but he’d figured out from my stopping and my first looks at him that I was gay. A long time later I reflected on this and realized I was possibly the first man he’d ever propositioned who hadn’t accepted. At the least he didn’t get a lot of turn-downs. He was young and very cute. He had been just as puzzled by our encounter as I.

I pulled over to the side of the road, and he started to grab for his backpack, thinking I was dumping him off. I thought he was about to cry.

“You don’t have to get out.”

“Huh?”

“You don’t have to get out, but you do have to behave yourself. It’s not safe to leave you here, so you should not get out. And when we get to the Interstate, we’re going to stop and talk. When we do, I expect you to tell me the truth.”

I could see he just didn’t understand he sat there looking totally deflated, no pun intended.

“Do you understand what I said?  Are you going to behave yourself?”

He nodded, just speechless, and let the backpack go.

I was pretty scared to have this kid in the car, if he really was fifteen – and he didn’t look it, though you could see it if you were inclined to, he really did look eighteen – but if he was fifteen and given how he had behaved, I couldn’t see leaving him on the highway either.

He wasn’t all that hot looking, you know, not ugly or anything, just I’d seen lots of better looking guys, he was kinda average, really. But the way he treated me!  Just like he was my dad or something!

We stopped at a coffee shop and he started asking me questions. I felt like such a little boy. He wouldn’t let me tell him any shit either, he just looked at me, he had this look he would give me, like my third grade teacher Miss Dominguez, and I just couldn’t lie to him.

Was I gay?  Why wasn’t I in school? Did my folks know where I was? What was I going to L.A. for, and where and who was I going to be with? 

He didn’t like any of my answers.

I fell in love with Paul right away.

Will posed a serious quandary for me. For one thing, I didn’t want this underage cock-hound in my car, I had to worry about myself. But I was almost equally worried about him, he seemed to have no common sense, and no place he could go that was safe.

At this moment he was heading off to Los Angeles to stay with any one of several men he knew; just figured one of them would be home when he got there and would let him stay. After I talked with him I knew well enough what the fare would be for that ride, these were all men he’d shacked up with when he was twelve, thirteen, fourteen or more recently.

He wouldn’t consider going back home, said he’d go home in a week or two, but thought I was crazy to tell him he shouldn’t go to these men.

Well, I believe in helping people, you can see that from my decision to pick him up in the first place, but I also know people need to want to be helped. This kid was on the highway to hell and didn’t even want to pull in at the rest stop.

Though I shuddered to think about how well he might be acquainted with rest stops.

I told him he would have to find his own ride into L. A., that he should go home and stay there until he was older. I offered to drive him back to the base. I knew at this point that he’d not do that. I was leaving him at a major on ramp to an Interstate, he would have a ride in less than an hour, probably in less than ten minutes.

Life turns on the smallest things. It is moments where you have choices and your life turns on the choice. You don’t understand the significance most of the time, you don’t plan the action as if your whole future depended on it, you don’t see the ultimate consequences, you just make a choice.

I gave him my business card, which had my pager number on it and my work and home phone.

“If you won’t go home now have your parents call me when you finally do. And if you want to talk some time you can call me. But we are not going to have sex, understand?”

Many a time I regretted the impulse that had me hand him that card.

I had a bad time in L.A. that week. I stayed with Kent, he’s a movie producer, and he’s OK, he usually takes me some nice places for dinner and we do some good drugs now and then. Once in a while he has another boy around, though I’m always the youngest, so we do three ways, which can be hot, but really not so much fun because I don’t like to share.

But Kent was busy and we didn’t do so much stuff and he isn’t the kind of guy I like all that much. He’s old enough but he acts like a rich spoiled kid.

Plus I couldn’t forget Paul.

So I went home and started trying to figure out how to get Paul.

His card had his number on it, and I figured I could just call him, but the way he was to me I didn’t know if I could get him to meet me. So I thought about it and I walked out the main gate to the highway in the afternoons for several days in a row about the same time, 3 p.m., to see if he would be driving by. One Tuesday I saw him again but I wasn’t ready and didn’t get to where he could see me.

Finally it happened by chance. I was at the Navy Exchange one day and saw him going into the little restaurant across the way at lunch time, so I went in and looked for him, he was sitting alone at a little table to the side of the room, reading a book and eating a burger.

I am a big reader, I am never without a book and lunch times were a chance for me to retreat into myself, be alone a bit. I’m a loner. More than most people, though few realize it, because I’m very outgoing in my work life. But when that’s done I need to retreat and I do.

So I was absorbed and just starting to relax at lunch that day, when I heard him.

“Hi.”

Oh boy, this could be trouble. But as long as he was behaving appropriately I didn’t have the heart to brush him off. Truth is, I was scared of this kid and felt sorry for him at the same time. I’m a sucker for a sad story. And while I was really disgusted at the way life had used him, he was still not hard, not bitter, at least not yet. He was actually pretty vulnerable.

“Well, hello, Will.”

“You having lunch?”

“What do you think?”  I kept my tone light; the sarcasm wasn’t intended to wound, yet it did.

“I’m sorry, I um,” he fumbled then recovered, “can I sit with you?”

I really had wanted my alone time, and half of me was screaming “Say NO! he’s nothing but trouble!” but the other half was “don’t hurt him, he’s being reasonable.”  So I sighed and said, “suit yourself, are you hungry.”

He wasn’t. On the other hand, what fifteen-year-old boy isn’t hungry?  I was just worried about what he was hungry for. I bought him lunch anyway

He sat and stared at me and then started to talk, at first he was just babbling about the food, the base, then switched gears and he started to talk about some sexual escapade. I think he thought it would turn me on. This kid just didn’t know how to relate to anyone without using sex, and I sure didn’t want to sit in that public place and have someone overhear that conversation.

“Will. That is not an appropriate topic of conversation for the lunch table. And it’s not an appropriate conversation between a teenager and an adult. If you insist on talking to me in that way I’ll have to leave.”

He stopped abruptly, wounded.

“I – I – I’m sorry! Don’t go!”

Shit.

After that day he began to haunt my lunches. I took to asking a coworker to have lunch with me, a departure from past habits, so that he could not have lunch with me every day; still, we ate together at least once a week.

One day he followed me somehow, and learned about my room in the BOQ. When he told me that, I told him he was never to visit me there.

That didn’t stop him from calling.

It was so hard to be good for him.

Everything I did he thought was bad.

It made me feel like such crap, but there was also something about it I liked. I think it was like, he was so strong. I didn’t actually meet any men who didn’t want me, but he didn’t and I wanted him so much.

The only good thing was he didn’t make me go away that day. And when he wasn’t having lunch with somebody else, he let me sit with him, but when I tried to hold his hand under the table he set down the law again, I wasn’t allowed to touch him. But he didn’t send me away, not like that first time at the coffee shop.

I started calling him up sometimes, I figured he wouldn’t hang up on me as long as I was nice. Some nights I would sneak out and go to the BOQ and sit outside in the bushes and watch his room.

Then I found out that he was only on base for work and lived in North Hollywood, and so one week I showed up at his apartment there.

I was feeling really bad then, because he wanted to send me away, then he decided to let me in and I couldn’t believe it but he called my parents!  Nobody who was gay had ever done that before and he put me in his car and drove me all the way home, back to the base and met my mom. The Colonel wasn’t around.

They sat in the kitchen and had coffee and talked for hours, at first I was there but then he sent me out and told me that adults were talking and I needed to do something else. I hate when he treats me like a kid.

Funny thing is, my mom really liked him. I didn’t think she’d have liked Walter, or Gary, or Kent, or any of the men I met, not that she ever met them except I think she saw Walter when he got arrested, and she was at the trial for that guy from the beach. Man that was embarrassing, I had to tell all about sucking his cock with my parents right there.

Paul was different; she knew it, too. Actually, I think there was something about Paul that was a lot like mom, but I couldn’t say what it was.

Then he wouldn’t even let me have lunch with him.

I started to cry a lot. I hitched around the base and got to blow some Marines, got fucked a few times here and there but nothing seemed to help much. He didn’t really care about me, but he kept making me think he did.

I wanted him so much.

I knew this was not going to have a happy ending. The boy tugged at my heartstrings, and I’m sure he knew it, but he was such trouble.

It overstates the case, but his mother basically offered him to me. Not that I wanted him.

She said they hadn’t a clue how to deal with him, they had just thrown their hands up, would I, could I, please try to protect him somehow?  She figured I was going to fuck him too, I’m sure.

I was a little surprised, she had no illusions about his sex life. It disgusted his father, terrified her, but she didn’t think for a minute she could change it. She had me pegged as another of his men, but I set her to rights on that one. Didn’t change her mind about things, just asked me – begged me in fact – to take him, to do for him what she could not.

She didn’t care if I fucked him silly. Anything, as long he was safe. No, she didn’t say that, but this woman had as I said no illusions about her boy by this time.

It took quite a bit to get the message across to her.

“Look, he’s a nice looking boy, but he’s a boy and he needs a dad, not a lover. And I’m not about to take him to my bed. I have too much to lose in life, and I’m not interested.”

Remember, I had a defense job and even admitting I was gay jeopardized it.

“Please, Paul, he seems taken with you, just do what you can to take care of him?  It’s all I ask, just do what you can.”

“I’m sorry, I feel very sad for your situation, and if there is a way I can help, I will. I just can’t see what I could do for him.”

She wouldn’t take no, she just ended it with “Whatever you can do. Anything.”

I knew I should just cut him off completely, and for a while I pretty much did, I was polite and very proper and quite cold. Lunches stopped, phone calls became perfunctory.

Then late one night all hell broke loose.

———

I was home in L. A. and my boyfriend and I had just gotten home from a movie. We had been seeing each other for about two years, though we didn’t live together, and the relationship was a decent one as things went. We took good care of each other, respected each other’s limits, enjoyed being together and being apart. The sex was OK, the spiritual match was not bad, we had come to a good understanding of each other, and though I didn’t think Dennis was my life match, he’d do nicely until he came along.

We had a night to sleep together, my schedule made a lot of time together quite difficult as he worked a traditional week, we never had a night when he didn’t have to work the next day.

It was Wednesday night, just about eleven and we had just poured a little wine and were having a late night snack on the couch, talking about the movie. One nice thing about where I lived was you got to see great movies in big theaters before the rest of the country, but I don’t remember what movie it was. The phone rang.

“Hello?” I wondered who would be calling this late, fearful it might be a work emergency which would mean driving in to the base, several hours drive and an all-nighter that would make me sleep in the BOQ on my day off.

“Paul.”  His voice was low, urgent, slurred. My heart sank, I did not want to hear from him now.

“Will, it’s late, and I’m with someone, tell you what, can you see me for lunch Friday?”  I wanted to set a boundary that he was not to call me at home. A little carrot and stick.

“Paul.”  His voice was choked and my antenna went up. This wasn’t his usual conversational tone. Was he drunk?  In trouble? I shifted gears, at least until I knew what was happening.

“Will, where are you?  What’s going on?” I was clear and patient.

“Help me. Please.”  Something was wrong with his voice.

“Tell me where you are, what’s happened.”

“I…I’m…I don’t know where I am. It’s in L.A. someplace. I…” he sobbed. “Please can you come get me. I’m afraid.”

We each act according to our own natures, and thus make our own lives. It was another of those moments you just make a choice. Your life turns on that moment, that choice. I’m never sure whether I believe in Karma as fate, though I do believe in “as you sow, so shall you reap; what goes around comes around; you get back what you give.” 

Tonight I would make such a decision, and that decision was rooted in who I was.

“Try to tell me where you are.”

I was in pretty bad shape that night.

I’d hitched into town, but couldn’t find any of my usual guys, no worry. I just went to this club, Outer Limits, they let me in with a fake ID that I was eighteen. They didn’t serve alcohol, and so it was a hang out for a lot of young guys, lots of them weren’t really eighteen. Mostly really nelly young boys, the disco queens, they liked to dance there. But always older guys looking for some chicken, so I figured I’d either meet one of the men I knew or I’d meet a new one and have a place to sleep for the night.

This guy did pick me up, his name was Greg and he was pretty big. I thought I’d like him but he took me out into his van and raped me.

I’m not saying I didn’t want him to fuck me, you know, I did, but he was really mean and rough and he didn’t use lube, not even spit, and I started to hurt and bleed and told him stop but he wouldn’t and then he started hitting me and calling me names. I think he choked me. After a while I blacked out.

When I woke up I was in some place I didn’t recognize it was industrial like, and I was pretty hurt. It was very dark, and smelled bad. There were a few sparse streetlights, a lot of dark buildings, trashy streets with dumpsters and chain link fences and parking lots all along them. No people or cars at all.

When I tried to walk my ass and my face and my side all hurt too much, and I was naked, too, but my clothes were in a heap next to me. I guess I was lucky he let me have them back, and I had some money, my wallet, but it was really bad, I was really in trouble and I didn’t know what to do. Then I had the runs and nothing to clean up with, just did it by the road, and I’m pretty sure there was blood.

I limped a couple of blocks and saw a café, it was closed, but there was a phone booth beside it and I knew his number by heart. It took almost an hour for him to find me.

But I knew he’d come.

I took him to an emergency room, fished out his fake ID and let the docs have at him. They didn’t ask many questions. I had not had time to call her yet, but relied on his mother’s “do what you can.” I let him pose as eighteen because I knew if they knew his real age the cops would be there in minutes, and this way I didn’t have to sign anything. I did end up paying the bill, almost $300 for x-rays, painkillers, antibiotics, and treatment. A week’s pay and then some.

Not that I thought the cops should not be involved, but it was L.A. and those cops are not known for their friendly attitude towards the gay community, including gay victims. I sure didn’t need to have my name in a police report. God knows what they’d have made of the relationship between us. I might have ended up in jail.

The damage wasn’t as bad as it looked, but it was bad enough. Two cracked ribs, a lot of facial bruising, a swollen jaw, marks on his neck; he’d not be sucking cocks for a week or two. No one was saying much about the torn anus. It didn’t need stitches. The doctors were not friendly. I guessed they thought this was my doing; the kid wasn’t telling them anything.

I put him to bed in my spare room, and Dennis, who had been patient through the whole thing, went on home, it was nearly four a.m.

I should not have been surprised to wake up at ten and find him in my bed next to me; but I was. Oh well, at least he was too banged up to make advances, he was just sleeping. Naked.

He looked much younger this morning, even with the bruises, or maybe because of them.

I got up and went back to bed in the spare room. But life had changed. I couldn’t sleep.

Maybe I didn’t want him, but he was mine.

It was my karma.