Dogma and Prophecy

I should have known my parents didn’t want to keep me.

I mean, they told me I could come with them, they said it was my choice, but I could tell they wanted me to stay with Paul, didn’t want me. So I figured fuck ‘em, I can do without them, I can do without Paul if I have to, I’m old enough to take care of myself.

I didn’t say anything, just “yeah, OK” and then I went out and got some cock. Christmas was coming and I wanted a lot of cock up my ass for a present. A couple days hitching around base and checking out the heads and I felt way better. But I cancelled a sleepover with Jesse, told Paul I was going anyway and split for the weekend.

I had a blast too. I went to Kent’s and he had a friend George who had a boy too, a boy my age, and we did the whole weekend together, I got fucked by all three of them about a dozen times each. I snorted about a pound of coke, and went dancing all night Friday and Saturday.

I called Paul Sunday and told him I’d be home Monday or Tuesday. He started to give me his “what are you doing, are you being smart, where are you” shit but I just hung up.

Kent said I could go with George and his boy for a few days, and we took off and went to San Francisco, got loaded all the way up there in his car, and saw the sights. We stayed in a big suite at the Hyatt, the one with the big atrium in the middle. That was so bitchin’. George’s friends came over and I did about five guys, once I was doing four or all five at once. It was OK, some of them were hot. But I still prefer guys one at a time. It was good to get my holes all filled up though. They gave me a lot of money too. I like being a whore sometimes, and I’m good at it.

Well, another kid who was whoring once told me you should enjoy your work.

And I even got tied up once, but it didn’t scare me at all, not like with that asshole motherfucker Gary. If he was there I’d have killed him, no shit.

I’m not real sure what happened then, I was pretty fucked up, I think I fell someplace. My arm hurt like hell the next morning but George didn’t want to take me to the hospital, so we put it up in an Ace bandage and I iced it and partied some more for another day, but it kept hurting a lot. He gave me some ludes and Valium and some other shit and the pain went away; but it kept coming back so I just did some more shit when it did.

I tried driving George’s car but I almost hit a post and he made me get out. I gotta admit I was way too fucked up to drive.

After about four days we went back to L. A. again, I was kind of fucked up because I had to keep taking stuff and my arm was still swollen up pretty bad, and I didn’t feel too good. So I had them drop me off near my house, George bitched about having to go all that far out of his way.

I can’t remember what that boy’s name was, but he had a nice dick.

———————————

 

So I went home, I was pretty high, not really feeling anything. It was great. I got home and nobody was there so I crashed in Paul’s bed.

Then he got home or maybe mom did first, but I woke up and they were both there and they were talking to me but I really couldn’t make out what they were saying because I was still flying pretty good.

Again I was surprised at my capacity to feel pain. Perhaps I just gotten my hopes up so much with Paul being there and how positively Will had been responding.

They took one look at him in the Emergency Room and rushed him off to x-ray and then surgery. The doctors didn’t say much to me, they were talking in that round-about way they have, not wanting to tell you the bad news.

We realized from that how bad it was.

 

They took me to the hospital about my arm, it was fractured and I ended up with an infection and some internal bleeding, so they had to do surgery; screws and pins or something and fix a vein or something; but I don’t remember it, I just remember riding to the hospital.

When I came up after the surgery my arm hurt like a motherfucker, it was all in a cast with a big brace, and my head was pounding and Paul was there in a chair and whaddaya know, so was my old man. It was like three a.m. and Paul was asleep but the Colonel had a lot of practice standing watch, he was awake.

He just looked at me, like I don’t know, I don’t remember him looking that way before, then he saw I was awake, and he changed he got all stern and sergeant major on me again. But he didn’t yell, just asked me how I was. I asked him to get a nurse so I could get some shit for my pain, maybe Vicodan, which I think is what I got in San Francisco. They gave me a shot of morphine and valium or something and I started to go out again, but I was just kinda drifting, not yet all out of it. And then he did it again, the Colonel, he looked at me. Like he cared.

I woke up again and I still felt like a load of old crap and mom was there but Paul and the Colonel were gone. And I was confused because I was on a respirator. It didn’t make sense since I had a problem with my arm. I was kinda dizzy for some reason and it didn’t really make a lot of sense. I had a pretty bad fever and mom was looking really sad.

So I tried to talk but it didn’t come out you can’t with a respirator in your fuckin’ throat. So she came over and hugged me, and when I did try to talk again, like sign things, she just shushed me, and hugged me again and sang to me like when I was a little boy. She was crying, so I didn’t like it that much. I’m not a little kid anyway.

I sort of lost track of time for a while when I had the fever, I was kind of delirious sometimes, but Paul came and saw me then, and he didn’t get mad at me, I was going to tell him to fuck off if he did, who needs him?  But he was nice and he held me some too. When he thought I wasn’t too fucked up to listen he told me some shit.

He said if I didn’t want to come live with him I didn’t have to, that my parents wanted me to go with them, that I didn’t understand they were just trying to find the right thing for me. He said we could just take it slow again and do it all over if I wanted, figure out what I wanted to do, and they’d try to make it happen that way.

Sometimes when I was drifting off, I’d think about how the old man had been looking at me.

So it was like a week later before I got out of the hospital and you won’t believe how weak I was. I could hardly move I had to ride in a wheelchair just to the car, and the Colonel carried me into the car and later into my room and put me in bed. That was weird, I felt like I was eight again with him carrying me. I don’t like to say it, but that felt really good, he’s a lot stronger than I realized, he didn’t have any trouble carrying me. He smelled good too.

Then it turned out I was having trouble getting along without some pain killers, but Paul was a real shithead and kept them locked up in his room and would only give me one every once in a while. So I was hurting a lot of the time, but he said I needed to get used to using less, and then I did after a while, it didn’t matter so much.

So Christmas time I was in the cast and was still kind of weak, they were still giving me a lot of antibiotics and Paul told me, he got his real serious voice, and told me I had to listen with my adult brains. As if.

Then he said that I could of died from the infection, it got in my blood and I could of died from it, or from bleeding too.

I don’t know why he tells me stuff like that it just makes me feel bad and guilty. And I didn’t care anyway.

Christmas wasn’t so cool, but when I was a little stronger they all came in my room and asked me if they could talk about what I wanted to do. My dad said he’d retire if I wanted him to, we’d move to San Diego – they own a house there for when they retire – and take care of me.

But I didn’t want that, I didn’t care even if they really wanted me, I wanted to move out of home and live with Paul. Which is my way of showing you how stupid this all was, because I ended up telling them I wanted what they had planned in the first place.

Jesse came over to see me and I made everybody leave us alone. They told him what the adults had cooked up, basically that I fell somehow and was in the hospital, they left out all the other stuff, but I filled him in. They didn’t know I’d told him all about the other stuff, so I told him all about this too.

I won’t tell you the rest.

I was feeling way over my head a lot of the time, and finally got in touch with a psychologist through a mutual friend, someone who wouldn’t be shocked about men sleeping with boys and could give some good advice.

He had to consult some other colleagues, then got back to me and told me that if I was foolish enough to hang in with this kid I was asking for a wild ride. As if it hadn’t already been wild enough.

“Paul, I cannot give you a diagnosis without examining the boy and testing him. But I’ve dealt with and talked to specialists who work with troubled kids enough to be  able to give you a pretty good idea of what to expect.”

“From everything you’ve said, the boy is very damaged, and to be honest with you, his prospects are not all that good. His age is working against him now, he’s getting too established in his patterns of self destructive behavior. He’s been running away for five or six years now; drug abuse almost as long, sexual acting out even longer.”

“I expect you will see more episodes like this, he’ll disappear for long periods and may only return when he has no alternative, Paul. That’s if he survives. I think you can expect more suicidal gestures, too. He is at great risk for suicide.”

“Is it inevitable? All that?”

He took a while to reflect.

“No, of course not, there’s always the possibility of change, if he gets enough help and support, and finds reasons to change. But the chances are slim. He’s very lost. I doubt if anyone can live up to his needs and expectations; and each time he’s disappointed, his needs aren’t met, he’s getting a little worse, a little more hardened, a little more burned out.”

“Some people do recover, heal in a way, as they get older, but he’s more likely to just go on to damage himself in more serious ways.”

“What is the best case scenario?”

“You’ve told me about his child-like regressions, and I think as you thought, those are a good sign. Awfully tentative, but about the only good sign I see. If he does those things, he is reliving his youth in a more positive way, reconnecting with his self. And if he can do it, he can become a saner person, more integrated. He might use it as a way to gain some impulse control, which he needs very badly.”

“If you can stick it out with him, that’s his best chance. A stable adult that he can relate to in any fashion would be his best chance. If he started to form relationships that were positive – and I doubt he’ll look for age mates but that would be best – it would help a lot.”

“But even if you begin to succeed and he sees you as a parental figure – and I think he does, though he keeps getting parenting and love and sex all confused – then his age is going to work against him as I said. He’ll push you away as he reaches the point where he wants to be independent. It’s just not a good situation.”

“What would you do if he were your patient?”

“Well, I don’t usually handle this kind of thing, but from my discussions with colleagues, I’d try putting him in intensive residential treatment. But he’d be hard to place with the running away and sexual acting out you’ve described. Not many places would take him. And it’s not all that likely that it would work, just a safer environment and maybe a chance to get inside him.”

“The truth is, we don’t have a lot of ways to deal with a kid like this, Paul. I’m sorry, but it’s true.”

“What if he were your child? What would you do?”

He was silent, then just shrugged his shoulders and spread his hands.

—

 

Well, what can you do?  I asked myself over and over on the long drive back to the base.

I took Sunday off and went to church to see if God had any suggestions for me.

It took a little while, but I found I had no choice in the matter. He was mine, for better of worse. Once again, no explanation, I just knew it had to be.

He was recovering slowly, still very weak, it had been a close thing. He spent his days sleeping, eating, we got a physical therapist to come in and work with him for a few days and then he was well enough to go to the hospital clinic for therapy.

I told him I was going to have a serious conversation with him every day, and we were going to go over both the decision he’d made – to be sure it was what he wanted – and why he’d done such dangerous things when he ran away. And we did, covering the same ground many times, and not surprisingly he showed no insight, didn’t even recognize he was running away, just that he was bored and wanted to have some fun.

He got a smaller cast and as soon as he did he started to crawl into my bed again. He was too tired for trouble, though, and I decided to hold him as much as possible.

The holidays were past, he was getting stronger, and began doing schoolwork during his convalescence. He surprised me by attacking it with a vengeance, and despite years of school missed he was actually at sophomore level in most of his subjects. His mother and I took turns tutoring him.

He had changed though, he was a lot more silent. At first I took this as weakness, but as his strength grew he continued to be much less vocal, more pensive than I had seen him. I figure he was thinking, but didn’t know if it was going to do him any good.

Then one night he got in bed with me and woke me up, in the dark, spooned up behind me and whispered in my ear. I could smell alcohol, he was not drunk but definitely loose. I was going to say something but he said “Shh…just listen, Paul.”

“I don’t know why I fuck up all the time, I really don’t. I can’t stop it. And I need to have a man sometimes, Paul, I know it makes you mad, but I need to do it.”  He teared up, “I know I hurt everybody, even the old man. I’m just a shit. I’m not good for anything except giving head.”

“I love you, Paul. I know you don’t love me, but I love you. I’m sorry I hurt you, I promise I won’t run away again. If I ever do that again I’ll kill myself, because I can’t face you if I hurt you again.”

Then he pulled up against my back, pulling himself against me, his arms wrapping tightly around me so I could not move. And laid his head on my shoulder and sighed as if to sleep.

So I spoke back in a whisper to him, facing away from him as I had no choice.

“Will, I do love you, I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t. You must be good for something more than sex, because I never have sex with you and I’m still here, right?”  He didn’t reply.

“And I want you to promise me that you will not try to hurt yourself, ever. That’s the only thing you can do that would take you away from me, you know. Don’t be afraid of coming back to me, whatever you do, I’ll still love you.

“But if you kill yourself I’ll be left with nothing. Think about that, please. Because I’m here ‘till death do us part’ – not as your husband, but I’m here anyway.”

“And no parent wants to outlive their child, Will.”

Hot tears ran across my shoulders.

 

I didn’t ever thing of it this way before, but he finally explained why he didn’t have sex with me so I could understand it.

In the middle of the night I woke up with my arms around Paul still, he was sound asleep. It was very dark, but I could see my dad standing there, looking at me, not moving. I figured he’d be mad to see me in bed with Paul, but he was giving me that look again. He didn’t know I was awake. And I don’t think I was dreaming, I think he really did bend over me and kiss my forehead.

A long long time later on I learned that he’d been doing that for months, knew I slept with Paul, checked my bed every night, found me wherever I was and kissed me. I wouldn’t have believed it if he told me then, though.

 

My dad’s orders were for mid-February, so I helped to find our new apartment, in Twentynine Palms. It was a nice place, I had a room that was actually bigger than I’d had and Paul said I could have Jesse for a sleepover some time.

My parents left and I decided to say goodbye to them the right way and not make trouble for them. They didn’t deserve all the shit I gave them.

And Paul asked me if I would want to go to regular high school, since he was around full time in the area. I thought about it but I didn’t figure I’d fit in too good, I didn’t belong there. Continuation works OK for me.

But my parents had told him he could get me a car when I was ready, I had my license now, and I drove Paul in on school days, but he wouldn’t let me drive unless he was in the car. I snuck out once or twice and drove around the block when he was asleep, but I didn’t really care that much.

I didn’t have much to do during the days he worked. He did set me up with some stuff, I had a membership at a gym and he had me set up a workout schedule and I liked that a lot. I put on a lot of muscle.

There were a lot of guys at that gym, too. I got dicked a lot.

Paul knew. He asked me to tell him about each guy, what kind of person he was, why I was having sex with him, did I enjoy it really. That kind of took some of the fun out of it, and I got kind of more selective and didn’t do so many guys. My heart wasn’t in it so much, I guess. It was embarrassing because a lot of times I couldn’t answer a single question about some of those guys. I didn’t even know why I had sex with some of them.

Paul did some weird shit.

He asked me every single day if I was thinking about suicide, about hurting myself. He said he wanted the truth, so I told him, most days it was “yes.” 

If it was yes he’d ask me if I was planning to do it, and how, and when. At first that was just extremely weird, but after a while I got to like it, and he never got mad when I said “yes” to any of the questions. One day I was feeling really bad and thinking about it a lot and he just took the day off and sat with me.

Thing is, talking about it helped.

I decided after a while I was kind of bored and I started taking some classes in art at this little school. It wasn’t like a credit thing or anything, you paid like $15 and took a class for an hour or two each week; so I took a couple and was doing clay sculpture. And I also did my continuation work really well, Paul told me I was going to graduate if I didn’t watch out. Ha ha big joke.

When I could I slept over at Jesse’s and we did that a lot more than we did before, because now I was around all the time, and it gave Paul a break where he didn’t have to worry about me so much. Jesse’s dad was starting to ask some questions about me living with Paul but I blew it off and Jesse played dumb. I think Jesse is cooler than he used to be, he got good at keeping secrets. We were getting to be real good friends.

But I didn’t invite him to sleep over at our place because I thought his dad wouldn’t like it, or would ask too many questions and have to get answers.

Funny though, his dad seemed to like me.

So a couple months went by and then Paul went and talked to Jesse’s dad and took us for a camping trip.

My dad had a camper and he was thinking he’d sell it or store it but then he decided to let Paul use it, so it was pretty cool. Paul had his old boyfriend Dennis come out and we went to the Angel’s Crest and camped in the national park for about a week. It was cool. I was glad Dennis was there again, I felt sort of bad that I made them break up. I didn’t have any right to do that.

So I guess I want to tell about this one thing that happened on that trip, but it’s got to stay secret. Paul would be mad at me.

On the way there, Jesse and me rode up in the space above the truck cab, in the double bed there, looking up the highway ahead. And he let me pull his pants down and fuck him. I mean, he didn’t ask me to do it or anything, and I didn’t ask him, I just started and he let it happen. That’s the first time he ever got fucked, it was really tight. I used Cornhusker’s Lotion for lube, Gary showed me that. Better than anything. After, he said it was fair considering how many times I’d sucked him and sat on his cock.

I think he liked it. He’d been calling me Homo Will so I started calling him Homo Reuven.

He laughed at that, he said “I’m not a homo like you, but you can do that again sometime.”