Ruthless

Little Boy Lost

Chapter One

Back in May that heater had been sitting against the wall in my breakfast room, with its cord neatly wrapped around it. It was a little heater and wasn't doing much to warm up the entire big old farmhouse. The house felt damn cold all right, especially after coming from Cuba. But I knew I had left that heater unplugged. I didn't make another sound. Someone had plugged that heater in, and that meant someone had broken into my house when I was away.

I closed the door before I came in. I didn't expect to catch anyone on the premises though. With five months to get in and get away again, what were the odds of the guys being upstairs rifling through my desk drawers at the instant I walked in the front door? And I didn't bother to dart upstairs and try to get into my gun cabinet. They would have had five months to batter the thing open. But I stepped over the mail, put my suitcases inside, sealed the door, and noiselessly went to check what kind of damage the burglars had done.

The kitchen was empty and the dining room was empty and nothing looked disturbed in either of them. There was no one visible on my stairs. I never went upstairs because when I walked into my breakfast room there was the kid, a boy maybe fifteen years old, asleep on the loveseat in my sunroom. The heater was purring at his feet, his head was propped up on the arm of the loveseat for a pillow and he had my coat from the coat cupboard thrown over him. I stood over him and glared.

The teenaged break-in artist was a cute kid. He had sleek brown hair, visibly dirty, a pale, acne-less complexion, a nose that was still more button than beak, and two incredibly filthy hands curled up at his throat. He was sleeping real deeply. The draughts I had made opening doors and moving around didn't wake him. Of course the house had some significant draughts now. Somewhere from the back of the house on the ground floor cold air was coming in. I was willing to bet either the door or one of the windows had been busted.

It had been a long time overseas, and I'd come home early for some R & R, they said, but I figured it was as much because I was in disgrace. I burned with bitterness about that. Summer in Afghanistan is a shitty place to be. So I wasn't exactly in a good mood at the world. I had enough anger built up in me to be glad to find someone to take it out on. I looked at the kid with something like satisfaction. His life could be turned into a living hell at the snap of my fingers, and he deserved it.

The kid was easy on the eyes. I felt myself smiling in a mean way as I sat down in the chair that faced the loveseat. The little heater droned softly and falling slush rattled against the glass. The skin on the kid's face was flawless. It would bruise easily. I considered if the kid had maybe come into my house to shoot up and was completely out of it, or if he had just taken shelter there over night. If he was drugged out he might not be easy to wake up, but then it wasn't quite eight in the morning. The punk could merely be sleeping in a trifle late. I had a feeling that this might not even be a one-time thing. I hadn't found anything trashed in the house yet, but something made me guess this wasn't the first time the little snot had been inside my home. It pleased me to sit and stare at him and give him a few more minutes before I brought the axe down.

He was so still I could barely see him breathe. I looked closely. There was brown dirt ingrained into his fingernails and knuckles. There was a blue shirt collar and cuffs sticking out from under one end of my coat, and down the other end a battered pair of once-white sneakers. I sat there, aware of the cold silence in the house, aware of the slush melting out of my own shoes, feeling the long stillness and letting the image of the kid rest on my eyes.

I don't know how long I would have sat there. I didn't wake him up. It was twenty minutes before the kid opened his eyes. Instantly his whole body jerked into wakefulness. He half sat up and went flat to the back of the loveseat. "Oh Man!!" he screamed. I was on my feet in the same instant, hands raised to grab him if he made a bolt for it. I stood over him and he just cringed back. His two hands came up, but not in attack, to ward me off. He was a hell of a lot smaller than I am.

"Oh Man, Oh no…!" the kid moaned. "Oh, no! Sir, I'm sorry! I'm really sorry." He scrambled back off the couch, going into the corner, behind the couch, against the curtain and the window. "Don't be mad. Look, I'm really, really sorry!"

I took him by the hair and by the wrist, clamping tight enough on both of them to cause him pain. I was grinning. I didn't slam his head against the window frame behind him. "You're fucked now, punk," I told him. "You're going to wish you had never been born."

"Ow! Oh, I'm sorry. Please, please don't be mad. I apologize," the kid whimpered. "I am really, really sorry." His eyes turned up at me, brown and round like black pool balls.

"You're going to be even sorrier." I told him. "What do you think you're doing in my house?"

"I was only getting warm. I'm sorry!" he said again. "I didn't rip anything off. Really I didn't. Don't – Ow! Don't hurt me!"

"How did you get in?" I demanded.

His voice went down soft, to nearly nothing. "I broke a window. I'm sorry."

I threw him back down on the loveseat. "As soon as I call the cops you are going to juvenile detention."

He gave a whimper. His hands were still up because he still thought I was going to hit him.

"Why did you break into my house? What do you mean, trying to get warm? Why didn't you just go home?" I demanded. But I already knew. The kid was a runaway. Not just a runaway, but an inexperienced one as well. A kid that had been on the street for a while would be tougher than this one. This one was just so terrified he looked like he was about to bawl.

"I c-c-c-couldn't," the kid stuttered. "I can't. Please, I am sorry. I really am. I tried not to hurt anything. All I did was come in here to get warm. I'm sorry I broke your window. I thought maybe the house was abandoned…"

"Abandoned!" I said. "With curtains in the windows? Either you're stupid or you're a liar."

He had collapsed quivering. He had his hands wrapped miserably around himself and was trying to bring his shoulders up above his ears.

"You stupid punk!" I said. "How old are you?"

"Fourteen," he said.

As soon as he had woken up I had decided he was younger than fifteen. I was even willing to bet he hadn't been fourteen long. My only question had been if he was under twelve or not. If he were under twelve there was no point calling the police. They couldn't charge him. But if he was fourteen they could lock him away in juvenile detention all right.

"What did you run away from home for?"

"My dad doesn't like me very much," he quavered: It was s stupid reason. Probably he was a mouthy, truculent kid and his father was fed up with bickering about him jigging school or taking the trash out.

"How long have you been on the run?"

"Since September," he said.

I raised my eyebrows. He certainly didn't have the bitter bravado you'd expect from a kid who'd been out on his own for two months. "Where have you been living, if you've been out on your own since September?"

"Mostly in your house," said the boy in a faint voice.

"What's your name?" I was glaring with slitted eyes. That made sense. The little punk had been coming into my house for weeks now, using it as a flophouse. It was no wonder I'd caught him on the premises.

"Matthew Brown," he said.

"And where do your parents live?"

"Pellville," he said. "Only it d-d-doesn't matter if you call them. My dad already said he won't have me back."

"Your dad's got good judgment," I said. "But I'm going to involve your parents either way. I'm calling the cops and the cops are going call them."

"Please don't call the police," he said. He grabbed his own head in both his hands and clutched it miserably. He hunched up under me.

I took him by the chin and lifted his face. "You can be sure I'm going to do whatever I can to make you miserable, Kid," I told him. "I'm calling the cops and pressing charges. I'm calling your parents and telling your dad what a fucking crook you've become. I can even beat you around some. The cops aren't going to care if I leave a few bruises on you, not after I caught you inside my own home. You are going to have the worst day of your life today."

He was pretty pale by now. His voice went down to semi audible. "…cops do to me?"

"You'll go into a juvenile facility if your parents won't have you back," I told him, "And you'll do maybe three months there with kids a fuck of a lot tougher than you are. The beating I'm going to give you is just the first one you're going to be catching pretty much every day. They'll rip you apart in jail, kid."

After that he was inaudible. He shivered like a rat as I took him by the wrist and walked him into my kitchen to look for the broken window. It was in the backdoor porch, a broken side window, and there was a flattened cardboard box crudely filling in the gap. It didn't fill the gap very well. Someone had picked all the glass out of the frame to make it easier to get in and out, and half of it was down on the outside porch floor, with shards of it inside in the carpet. I kept a good grip on his wrist while I looked this over. I didn't want my punk taking off on me.

"How long have you been living here, Kid?

"October," he mumbled.

Still hauling him around by the wrist I started walking through the house, checking for what he had looted. And he had looted. My dresser drawers, the gun cabinet, the linen cabinet, all that kind of stuff were untouched. But my can opener was out on the kitchen counter, there was a trash bag almost full and smelling moldy in the kitchen garbage can, and where I had left about fifty cans of food and a dozen packages of crackers and cereal in the cupboard there were only three cans of tuna fish left. The punk had been eating my food as well as sneaking in to sleep on my loveseat. He'd eaten up just about every scrap in the house.

I turned to glare at him again. His white face, terribly drawn looked back at me.

I took him into the breakfast room and threw him onto the loveseat again. "You've fucking been treating my house like a hotel!" I said.

"I didn't mean to make things bad," he said. "I didn't make a mess. I tried not to make a mess. I was so hungry and… I'm sorry. I only slept on your porch at first. It got so cold."

"Why the fuck didn't you just go home?"

"He won't have me," said Matthew

"Did you try?"

He looked up at me. "I called. But my Mom said don't come back. She gave me thirty bucks, back in September. She said my Dad'll kill me if I come back, I better not. My dad hates me. I didn't have anywhere to go. I didn't mean to wreck your house. I just wanted somewhere to sleep."

"Why doesn't your dad want you?" I asked.

"I'm bad," he said.

"What did you do that was so bad?"

He looked down. "I'm just so bad."

"You rip off at home?"

"No."

"You doing drugs?" I was all but sure he wasn't. If he were doing drugs he'd have done his level best to get into the gun cabinet so he'd have had something to sell.

"No," he said again.

"What did you do, Kid?"

"I'm stupid," he said to his knees. "And I come home late sometimes, and… I just do the wrong things."

"It's a stupid thing you did right now," I commented.

He looked up at me. "Please don't call the cops to come get me," he pleaded. "Please just let me go. I didn't mean to wreck your house. I'll do anything." He looked like he was about ten years old when he said that.

"What's your phone number, Kid?" I said.

He told me.

I got my cell phone, and sitting on the chair facing him, I dialed the number. It rang four rings until the sleepy voice of a woman answered.

"My names Currier Ellis," I said. "Am I speaking to Matthew Brown's mother?"

"Yes, I'm Matthew's mother." The woman's voice suddenly sounded acutely unhappy.

"Your son tells me that he's been a runaway from home since this September," I said. "Where is he supposed to be living?"

But she never answered me. A man took the phone away from me. "You calling about Matthew?"

"That's right, Sir. Is he your son?"

"He's not my son. He's my stepson," the man swore. "We don't know where the kid's been since September, and what's more we don't care. Eleven years I fed and clothed that little faggot. No more! His mother doesn't want anything to do with him and neither do I. What are you calling us for?"

"He broke into my house," I said.

"Then call the cops. The cops will catch him for you. I hope they put the faggot in jail until he's twenty. I don't know where he is, but he's got the brains not to come sniveling back home to me. If he does I'll turn him over to the police myself."

"Really?" I said amiably.

"That little…" The man bit off a swear word and took a deep breath. "I'm not responsible for that sneaky, slimy little thief any more. I wish I'd never laid eyes on him. I'm sorry. If I knew where he was I'd help you."

The woman behind the man was saying something, but the man kept on talking and I couldn't tell what she said. "He ran away the week school started," the man said. "And I swear if he hadn't I might have killed him. We haven't seen him since. We're not responsible for him any more. Sorry. I've got no control over what he's up to."

"What did he do to make you write him off like this?" I asked.

"Do?" said the man. "If ever a kid wasn't worth the effort, that's the one. Eleven years I tried to be a father to him. Bad enough that he's a sly, little sneaking, whining rat. The kid's a queer. Yeah, – No, don't tell me to shut up, Margie." He broke off briefly to speak behind himself. "The boy's the one went around telling people first. What he is doesn't reflect on us. What a perverted lifestyle to take up, and at his age! He's a homo – gay, whatever you want to call it, and a sneak thief and a housebreaker now."

"I see. So it's entirely up to the police then," I said. "I understand. Thank you." I rang off, looking down at the boy. He must have heard a little of what the man said, but his expression of hopelessness didn't change. I looked at him speculatively.

I saw him swallow. "Please, Sir," he said. "Don't call the police and have them put me in jail. I'll do anything you want."

"Really?" I said again. I stared down at the kid. "You're just fourteen? When was your birthday?"

"August," Matthew said faintly.

"And you'll do anything if I don't call the cops? What could you do for me?"

"I don't have any money so I couldn't pay you back right now." The kid talked real fast as well as real low. "But I'll do any work for you, if there's anything you want me to do. I'll do any kind of work; I don't care what it is. Or I'll pay you when I do have some money. I'm sorry I ate the food."

"What type of work were you thinking?" I asked.

"I'll come all winter and shovel your walk," he said.

I just looked at him. I didn't bother telling him I had a contractor do it and there was no way in hell I believed he'd come back to work off his debt once I let him go.

"Please," he said.

"You'll do anything?" I said.

"Yes, anything at all."

"You do know what anything at all implies?"

"Uh… Yeah," said Matthew. "But I do mean it. If there's really anything you want from me. Anything so you won't be mad."

"Your step dad said you were gay," I commented.

The dark eyes were shiny with fear. "I think I am. If you mean that's what you want – I'll suck your dick. Please!"

"You even know how to suck cock?" I asked.

He nodded hard.

"You done it before?"

"No, but I know how it's done. I can do it. Please don't hurt me and then still call the cops to come and get me."

"Yeah?" I said.

"Please, Sir," said the boy. "I just can't stand the idea of going to jail. I'll let you do whatever you want to me. I'll let you fuck me, or I'll suck you off. I really mean it. I don't care what you do, only please, please don't call the cops."

"You do any other break and enters? Are the cops looking for you?"

"No, I swear," he said.

I looked him up and down. "When did you last take a bath?" I asked.

"Uh… September," he said.

"You're filthy," I said. I was scowling. "When did you last eat?"

For several moments he didn't answer. "Yesterday… – I mean the day before yesterday."

"And what did you eat then?"

He ducked his head. "A can of your tuna; I'm sorry."

I stepped in and took him by the wrist again, hauling him onto his feet. Matthew stood quivering, forcing a smile onto his mouth. I thrust my hand into his clothes, into the pockets of his shirt and of his jeans. They were the big loose pants that guys wear nowadays so he could have had a lot of stuff in there. But what I found was a library card, eleven cents, a plastic pocket comb and a page torn out of the yellow pages for men's shelters out in Springfield, 120 miles [200 km] to the south. There was nothing of mine in his pockets.

I threw him back on the couch. "Alright," I told him. "I'll give you a chance. I won't call the cops on you – maybe. But you've got to do exactly what I want and do it good for me, or I'll go back to my original plan. You understand?" I held him by the chin again. I showed him my fist. "I've got hard hands here and I know how to hit you so it won't show much. You promised to punk for me, if I let you go. If that's what you really want, you got it. I'll bet your tiny ass is a virgin. Is it?"

"Yes," said Matthew.

"You know how big a guy's cock is?" I asked.

"I think so," he said.

"You know you'll bleed if I just put you belly over the couch and ram it in you, no lubricant?"

"Can you use some lubricant?" He was cringing, shoulders up by his ears again.

"Right," I said. "And that's for my comfort, not yours. You and I are going to take an itemization – You're coming to the hardware store with me, where I'm getting a pane of glass. We'll find out just how much you cost me. If there's anything else broken or damaged in the house you better tell me now."

"I used up the toilet paper in your bathroom downstairs," he said.

"How many rolls?" The absurdity of it was hitting me hard at that moment. Rolls of toilet paper! As if toilet paper mattered in the least. But it wasn't the paper; it was finding the kid in my own house acting like he owned the place.

"I think it's four," said Matthew.

"I'll add that to the bill for the groceries," I said.

I beckoned for him to get up. He stood up and at my gesture followed me out of the room. I might have just taken his wrist and yanked him along, but I was experimenting to see how much he'd obey me. He obeyed me like a lamb. "You'd better make it worth it to me, Kid," I said.

He followed me downstairs to the basement. He didn't look around. I bet he had been down there. That would have been where he found the box to block up the window. He stood there in his flappy sneakers and watched me start the furnace. The big metal box rumbled. I heard the vibrations go banging upstairs into the pipes. My basement is concrete. It smelt oily down there. The boy just stayed right where I could watch him, not moving away.

When I had the furnace going I turned the switch for the water heater. That was another thing I had turned off before I left. I hadn't wanted to use up fuel keeping a tank of water hot for six months. It would take an hour or two before it got the house at all warm and there was hot water in the pipes, but that was fine. I had a couple of hours.

I picked up a tape measure from my tool kit. Again the tools were untouched. He could have ripped them off and sold them but he hadn't. The boy stayed with me, just in front of me as I went back upstairs. In the kitchen I measured the broken window, scowling. It was an old wooden framed window, with a long rectangular pane. I wasn't even sure I was going to be able to replace the thing.

My coat was on the floor by the loveseat. I would have put it on to go out but when I picked it up there was an indefinable faint grubby smell of boy about it. I threw it at the kid. "Why didn't you sleep in one of the beds?"

"I didn't want to make any mess," he said.

"Why didn't you grab a blanket from the linen cupboard instead of going into the closet for my coat?"

"I… didn't go into the closet," Matthew said faintly. "It was on the banister, on the stairs. I found it there."

Leaving him carrying the coat I brought him outside. It was pretty close to freezing outside, not too bad really for November, if it wasn't for the thickly falling wet snow. It was translucent, slippery and mid-ankle deep. Everywhere you stepped it splashed. Matthew came out ahead of me looking back, carrying my coat as we spattered and slip-slid our way to my car. I had just the little light canvas windbreaker I'd found to stuff into my bag to get home from Cuba. All my deep winter clothes were packed in the luggage and most of the luggage wasn't at the airport yet. It would be a week before I had another coat home. So I just went out in the little canvas jacket. The cold wasn't going to kill me.

Matthew held the coat on his lap when I put him in the car and he looked at me while I drove. "You're old enough you'd keep a criminal record," I said. "That means you wouldn't be able to get a job when you were older. You knew that, right? That's why you don't want me calling the cops?"

He shook his head.

"God, you're green," I said. I shook my head too.

The hardware store opened at nine and it wasn't nine yet when we hit town. I could tell when I drove past the parking lot at the strip mall and there were only two cars out. So I kept driving, which was what I was going to do anyway. Matthew stayed at my shoulder as I took him into the next mall down and walked him into the restaurant there. I grinned at the sight of the waitress in her tight uniform dress with her dyed flat brown curls pressed closed to her head. It had been a long time since I had seen that. The women in Afghanistan wore burqua, and the women in Cuba wore combat fatigues.

The waitress led us down to a booth. All I said to Matthew Brown was, "You eat eggs?" The boy nodded. I looked up at the waitress. "Two big breakfast specials," I told her. Then I sat and stared at the boy while I waited for her to come back. He sat and stared at the Formica tabletop.

"You been out of school since September?"

"Yes, Sir."

"What school did you used to go to?"

"Norton. The middle school," he told me. "Until this year."

"What kind of grades you get?"

He snuck a look at me. "They were okay."

"Yeah? What was your best subject?"

"Math."

"What kind of final grade did you get last year?"

"I got an A."

"What'd you get in Science?" I pursued.

"I didn't do Science," he said.

"You remember any of your other grades?"

"I got a C in English," said Matthew.

"What makes you think you're gay?" I said. "Someone tell you, you were?"

He gave a wriggle and glued his eyes on the Formica table again. His reply was practically inaudible. "I think I must be. I don't like… My dad has magazines. I don't like his magazines."

"No?" I said. He didn't go on so I prompted him. "You mean porno, right? You don't like looking at his porno magazines?"

He shook his head no.

"Anything else?" I pressed.

"I like…" and then his voice did drop inaudible.

"You like guys," I said.

He nodded without looking up.

"What do you like about guys?" I said. "You mean you like hanging out with the guys, or you mean you get thinking about cocks and you want to suck one, maybe you even want to suck my prick?"

"I just… I like the idea, two guys… maybe close together. Skin… I wanted to see my friend take a shower. He… he took a shower and I wanted to watch." The confession came out in a faint mumble. There were bits of it missing when he couldn't articulate it loud enough to hear.

I gave a snort. "That makes you queer alright. And did your step dad catch you messing with another kid? Or writing rapturous passages in your diary? What? What makes him think you're queer?"

He looked down silent.

"This is not doing exactly what I want," I warned him. "Tell me."

"I told my friend," Matthew looked up, looking like he had taken a wound. His face reminded me of the face of a nineteen-year-old that had been gut shot in Afghanistan. I remembered the look, blank dying eyes looking up from the stretcher before we loaded him on evac, six hours later, tranked out on morphine. There was the same stricken pallor, the same paralysis.

"My friend wanted me sneaking the magazines out, my dad's Hustlers, and I told him I didn't like it, I didn't get nothing from them. I told him not to say to anyone, but I thought maybe I was gay, I could be gay 'cause I didn't like them. And then he went straight off and told his dad and everybody else. His dad came around laughing and told it to my dad. I got hit at school too and when I came home, I… It made my dad so mad he hit me some more. He said I deserved it, picking to be gay like that. It was what I'd get. And he was hitting me, almost every time he saw me. He said I was so filthy perverted he didn't want me in his house. But all I did was – it was the type of pictures I wanted to look at. I didn't lay a pass on any of the other guys, nothing." He broke off and suddenly hunched deeper in his shoulders.

"It's not my fault I'm gay. I've tried not to be," he said.

I chuckled silently. "You should have kept your mouth shut instead of trusting your friend."

"I know," he said.

When the breakfast came the waitress put down a big plate of ham and eggs and fries and toast in front of each of us. The boy just looked at the food and at me. "Eat it," I ordered. He stared at me in disbelief before he picked up the fork. He just looked at me while he started to shovel the food up. He didn't say anything like thank you. But he ate the eggs and all pretty quick, not hesitating once I told him to. I was hungry enough, but Matthew had his plate gone before I had mine clear.

I fed the kid and then I took him to the hardware store with me. It took a long time there. They only had one guy who cut glass and they had to have him come down to do it for me. But as it turned out it wasn't so expensive and I got the pane. I'd been thinking I might have to buy an entire new window and I couldn't figure how I'd do that. A new vinyl window wouldn't come in the size to fit in the side of my back porch.

Matthew Brown just stood around passive. I kept an eye on him of course, thinking he'd start sidling off but he stood there watching me and watching the guy who was cutting the glass. Sometimes he reached up and scratched his hair on the side and it made me glare at him. If the kid had brought bugs into my house I'd beat him within an inch of his life.

Then I took him out again, this time to a grocery store. It was weird being back in the long bright aisles with shelves and shelves of gaudy cans, and all back in English again. I hadn't been in Guantanamo long enough to go into the PX or I suppose I could have already seen some of that. But all those lights were bright for me and made me squint. The canned music was loud. The boy shuffled after me while I filled a cart with stuff. He stayed at my heels while I took him back to the cash and went through the check out and paid for it.

The check out made me tense up. It was being trapped in a narrow aisle like that, no way to go ahead and no way to back up with carts in front and behind me. I made myself breathe low from the gut, and let my arms hang loose. Matthew saw the tension in me. He got smaller. He couldn't have known what it was. I felt my nostrils flaring while I looked at him sideways. I eyed the clerk. I could shove the kid into the cart, jump up on the conveyer belt, and plunge over it into the girl at the cash register. I'd lead with my head, right through her green and white stomach, head butt her out of the way staying down and then I'd be right down, behind the counter. I'd have that much cover, take me just five seconds. I wouldn't be trapped any more.

I smiled at the clerk when it was my turn and she could tell it wasn't a real smile but she probably couldn't tell how close to panic I was. She blinked and failed to smile. Her arm moved rhythmically running the groceries through. I paid her and grabbed Matthew by the collar and got the cart full of food out of there.

I hurt him again, grabbing him by the collar but he didn't squeak. He was going to say something. His mouth opened and his eyes were big looking at me but then he just closed his mouth again. The snow was falling in clumps. It landed on my head and eyebrows and shoulders wet and cold. I flung bags into the car. The boy moved as if to help then retreated, too scared to come that close to me.

It made me mad getting tense in the store so badly. I wasn't going to let myself fall into a habit like that. It was just a grocery store! I put it out of my head decisively, but the self-anger stayed. I looked at the boy and I smiled again, not a fake smile like I'd given the clerk, but another pleased smile. He was at my mercy. He was sitting up patiently docile in the front seat of my car staring ahead while I drove.

At the house I dumped the bags of groceries onto the rug just inside the front door. Matthew stood there again, uncertain, eyes darting to the groceries and to me, not sure if he should help, paralyzed. That made me smile again.

"Get your clothes off," I told the boy, "Every stitch."

He breathed in so hard it was almost a squeal. But the kid meant what he'd said and he didn't give me any argument. Standing there by the grocery bags, his sneakers on the slippery heap of mail he started tugging clothes off. I saw lean ribs like welts, bony mobile shoulders, a skinny stomach and then his basket and bare thin thighs. The cock and balls were like a tuft, pale pink almost the color of the rest of his skin, sticking out under the flatness of his belly, but with no hard on. He had only a wisp of pubic hair above it. He didn't even have so much pubic hair yet as to form the typical triangle. It was just a clump.

I scooped up the clothes and the sneakers as soon as they had all hit the floor. The sneakers flapped in my arm, the upper separating from the sole. Water dribbled down my arm. I carried the whole armload down to the mudroom and stuck them in the washing machine. The boy came down the hall after me. He was no less naked in my kitchen as he had been cowering by the front door. He was biting his lips and covering up his crotch. His face had gone pink but he still met my eyes.

Then I went back for the groceries and he almost got underfoot but dodged me. He stood useless while I ferried the groceries back and lined them up on the pantry shelf and in the empty refrigerator. I sat down at the kitchen table eying him and checked over the sales slips. The kid held his genitals like his hands were glued there. In a few moments I had a figure and looked up again.

"Kid, you owe me one-hundred and sixteen dollars and twelve cents," I told him.

Matthew didn't say a word.

"What are you going to do for me worth one-hundred and sixteen dollars?"

"How much does a blow job cost?" he asked softly.

"It depends where you get it. Out in Kunzaraih I could get one for less than fifty cents. Around here they start about fifteen bucks."

"Uh… I could blow you eight times?"

I had to grin. "You think I can get it up eight times running?"

He dropped his eyes ashamed. "I've never been fucked in the butt before. Does that cost anything more than sucking does?"

"A bit more," I said. "You mean you think you should get paid premium on account of being a virgin?"

I saw a tiny nod. I kept grinning.

I took him by the shoulder and steering him back to the hall and took him upstairs. We stood in the white tiled bathroom and I saw a repeat image of the bleak-faced kid in the mirror. "You stink," I told him bluntly. "I can tell you ran out of my toilet paper. Look at your neck." It was almost black with sweat and dirt. He looked down but of course he couldn't see it. When I started stripping myself his eyes started widening. They were glassy with panic.

The kid just reeked, but I didn't smell quite like a daisy myself, after the overnight flight. I took the kid by the shoulder again and stood him in the shower. I stepped into the shower beside him under the nozzle and turned it on.

The water came out white and cold, foaming a curtain down my shoulder and splashing on Matthew's chest. The pipes rattled and gave a groan. I saw the gooseflesh prickle up sharp in his grubby skin. The cold water made my chest tighten. I stood there letting it run over me, gelid, only a few degrees above freezing. I panted looking at the boy, enjoying the sight. He looked at my rising and falling chest. A shudder racked him. He stopped clasping his genitals and hugged his arms. For a whole minute the water ran cold. Then it ran tepid, then warm. I kept it running until it was hot, steaming, the boy started to pant from the humidity and when it was scorching hot, turning my skin dark pink I turned on the cold. I got it to a comfortable temperature and took the boy by the ears.

He looked up bug-eyed as I dragged him under the water. He was bony as hell. An elbow bumped my midriff although he wasn't resisting at all. When he saw me bringing the shampoo over he looked down quick and squinted his eyes tight. I lathered his hair up lavishly. I poured a translucent trickle into the dark brown. It was greasy, all right. I sudsed it up good and gouts of foam ran down his pale back. I worked it in; giving it three shampoos to make sure his hair was as clean as I could make it. And while I did it I picked through the roots of his hair looking for nits. I didn't find any.

After that I picked up the soap and started on the grime on his body. All that while he stood there and let me turn his head this way and that and scrub his scalp with my fingertips. His long legs and knees rubbed against mine and the smooth hairless skin was wet and warm. But when I started the using the bar of soap on the grime on his skin he didn't just stand passive. I put the soap down to rub the lather down his arm and he picked up the bar with his other hand. He rubbed it on my chest in the hair.

I let him do that, interested to see how cooperative he would get. He reached up to do my neck the way I'd done his and when I did his left arm, he started on my arms. He was keeping his mouth in a straight line and his eyes were moving around a whole lot more than they would have if he was calm, but now that I'd started touching him he was in control of the terror that had widened his eyes and threatened to flare up out of control. He was less afraid of getting fucked then of getting beaten, I guess.

He got real tense when I started to scrub his basket. I took the bar of soap and rubbed it over his dick, down behind his balls and then brought it around and did his crack. His soapy hands on my forearm went mechanical. A thin smile flared on his face, as much agonized as pleasure. I was careful rubbing his dick. I did it gently. It was just a little bit stiff when I rubbed it. His belly moved in and out and he sucked in a couple of breaths like he was ready to start squirming, maybe to do pelvic thrusts, maybe to wriggle away from me, I couldn't tell. He stood still for me though.

Then I bent over some and started to do his thighs just down above the knees, letting the soap water run. By then he'd had a lot of soapy water go over him so I didn't bother with getting the kid's feet. He was coming clean. And at that point he picked the soap bar again. With his back very straight and his eyes fixed straight ahead of him like he was on parade, he took my cock in his hand.

I'd had a hard on from the moment I'd got him stripped in the hall. I never caught him checking it out, but he must have seen it as soon as I dropped my pants. He took it firm in his fingers and rubbed soap over it, soap over and behind my balls and soap on my thighs. His fingers were small, like a woman's fingers. His nails were a ragged mess. I looked down and saw that. He didn't try pumping my cock. He did just what I'd done, cleaning it. And then like I had he brought the soap around to my ass.

I gave a rumble. It was half a chuckle, half a sound of pleasure. The kid soaped my crack and then he did my thighs. He went down on his knees, my cock swaying at his forehead so his eyes apparently trained on my balls from about three inches, and he soaped my legs from the calves up. I let him do it. I had stopped soaping him.

When it was done he looked up.

"I need more rinsing," I said.

He looked at my legs and pawed at the last bit of white foam that was still clinging in the hairs there. He looked up again. I didn't poke my cock in his mouth. He stood up. I took him by the shoulders and pulled him in. We were belly-to-belly, water streaming between us, slippery with wetness. Or rather his belly was against my crotch and my belly was against his ribs. I held him there, moving, feeling the naked slippery silk of his skin. I soaped his back and held him in. His hands linked loosely around my hips. I had him pulled in close and he didn't look up, so he was staring into my neck now.

When his back was soaped and rinsed I pushed him back.

"You think you're clean enough now?"

He gave a nod.

"Am I clean enough for you?"

"You weren't dirty…" Matthew said faintly.

"Compared to you I wasn't." I turned the water off. The hiss and echo died away. There was just a steady ticking drip. The air was warm and humid and it was so steamy that it felt warm in the bathroom, but only for a moment. The cold in the house was set in its bones. It would take several more hours before it got really warm. I stepped out of the shower and felt the short hairs rising and prickling on me from the cold. I saw them starting to prick up on the boy's young skin.

I handed him a towel and took another. He watched me, now quite calm and almost curious as I rubbed myself over roughly. I scrubbed the water off myself and dropped the towel on the floor. Mimicking me he dropped his towel in the next instant.

When I opened the bathroom door it was like opening a refrigerator door and going inside. Matthew followed me naked down the hall. I took him into my bedroom. The bed was big and square and blank under the bedspread. I peeled the cover back, down to the sheets, looking back at the boy. His hair had a dark sheen now from the moisture still in it. He joined me on the bed, crawling on all fours. I slid under the covers. He slid in beside me.

The sheets were chill and felt ever so slightly damp. That was the cold of the house in them. Compared to the sheets the boy's elbow in my arm was warm. So was his shoulder, but his wet head was cold on my collarbones. I felt over him carefully, sliding my hands over his arms and back, pulling him up against my side. His eyes were fixed on my eyes, staring looking for a cue.

"You ever mess around with anyone, girl or guy, do any kind of messing around at all?"

"No, Sir," he said.

"You ever even French kiss?"

"No, Sir."

"You ever stick anything up your own butt?"

This time he shook his head. "No, Sir."

"Ever want to? Think about it?" I was going to ask him if he'd ever poked his finger into his asshole, experimented to see if he could get it inside, but the kid tilted his head back and he started answering me quiet, so I didn't ask.

"I've thought about… what it would be like to get a cock in there. I heard it could feel good," he said. "I heard it could hurt."

I just looked at him a few moments. "You even cum yet?" I asked.

He gave a nod.

"What do you think about when you jerk off?"

"I think about a guy like me," he said.

I didn't say anything. I just looked at him. He looked up at me waiting for a cue. I didn't give him one. So then he reached over and took my prick. It was still hard. He started rubbing it. I felt my eyes go half lidded, relaxing, watching the tilt of his hairless chin and his set serious mouth as he started pumping me. He knew how to do it. He gave it a steady rhythm. I felt my breaths coming deeper.

After about three minutes I muttered, "Don't."

"Don't what?" said Matthew.

"Don't keep jerking me. I'm going to cum. It'll get on the sheet." I was breathing very deeply. He stopped instantly. He stared at me.

I closed my eyes. I gave a sigh. I put my hand over my own prick. It felt good to be holding my own cock. It made some of the tension go out of the cords in my neck. I didn't masturbate. I held it and kept my eyes closed. The boy's head was damp against my shoulder and his knees and belly were warm against me. His shoulder was firm in my ribs, up under my armpit. It felt strange having so much skin-to-skin contact, because it had been so long. But it didn't feel bad. I brought my other arm up from under the covers although it was cool there out in the air and I laid my forearm over my eyes. I was asleep within the minute.

When I woke up it was about three in the afternoon. The boy, as I had expected, had wriggled out of the bed hours before. What I didn't expect was to see him, fully dressed in my bedroom doorway. He was holding the frame of the door and looking at me quizzically.

"What the fuck are you doing here?" I said.

"Uh… You said I owe you…" he trailed away into a mumble.

The only concern I'd had when I gone off to sleep was if the kid would swipe my wallet when he made his getaway. And given that the only things he'd touched in my house before were food and toilet paper I was pretty certain he wouldn't. I probably would have said the same thing to him but I wouldn't have been quite as surprised if I'd found him still in the bed beside me. He had seemed so cowed that I wouldn't have been surprised if he'd made no attempt at all to escape me. But he was dressed and that meant he had gone down stairs, got his clothes out of my washing machine, put them in my dryer and run it and even then when he had dry clothes to escape in, instead of fleeing, he'd stayed in my house.

I looked at the window to check the light. Yeah, about three o'clock. I sat up and rubbed my face and looked at the young man. His eyes were still steady on me. They'd been steady since around the time when I started soaping him up.

"You fell asleep," he said.

"My body still thinks it's in Afghanistan," I said. "So what are you doing here?"

"You said I owe you a blowjob," he said.

"Yeah, I did," I admitted. "I also said I was going to lay a beating on you, remember?"

He didn't say anything.

"Don't you think you're stupid not to take off, soon as you got your clothes?"

"I thought about it," said the boy. "But you could call the police. And they'd find me. I don't have anywhere to go. They'd see me wandering along the road. Or the librarian would call them because they get mad if they see me sleeping there. And if the police arrest me, well I guess it's warm in jail, but I hear that faggots get hurt real bad in jail too. And besides, there's what you said about having a criminal record. So if I ever want to have a job when I'm a man, I have to pay off my debt to you, don't I?"

I grinned wryly. "You want to blow me that much?"

"No-o," he said uncertainly. "I mean, I make you hard, don't I?"

"After five months without sex I'd have got a hard on, boy or girl. I didn't care what you were." I rubbed my head again.

"You don't do guys usually?" He drew away from the door and away from me.

"I do them sometimes," I felt a sudden sick tightness in my throat, a recent memory. I got out of bed to do something to counter the tightness. If I was moving I could keep my mind moving. I didn't want to think.

"If you really didn't want to take it out of me in blowjobs you would have just hit me around and called the cops, wouldn't you?" said Matthew.

"I might've done that." I glanced over at him and went to the dresser. "I came pretty close to punching you around and giving you a mouth-rape right there. Your offer was pretty timely."

"So you are gay," he said slowly, "I mean, not gay, just gay enough you'd be willing to use me. You're probably straight." His eyes flickered to my face. "Only you weren't disgusted, not completely."

I yanked some clothes out of the dresser. Like the bed there was an indefinable distant dampness in the fabric. Everything needed airing, or better yet baking in a few days high central heating. I stepped into a pair of shorts. "What do you want here, Kid? To give me a blow job?"

"If you want one," he said carefully. "You fell asleep. Why did you fall asleep?"

"Jet lag," I said. I looked at him. I'd slept from about ten to about three, five hours and my belly was telling me it was overdue for lunch.

"You don't want to blow me," I said. "You just want me to feed you some more. That's what. You don't have a place to go and you don't want to get out."

"I'll go to the library," he said.

I gave a snort. I stepped into a pair of sweatpants and hopped getting into a pair of socks. For a shirt all I could find was flimsy T's, almost transparent from wearing and washing. They had done fine in July when any shirt was too warm, but now they were way too insubstantial. I could feel the gooseflesh prickled again on the muscles of my arms. I pawed through the drawer. "The library," I repeated. "You just told me the librarians'll call the cops if they catch you sleeping there."

He didn't respond to my taunt. I found a sweater and pulled that on. He followed me downstairs to the kitchen. The kitchen was where the worst draft was coming in. I threw a twisted look in the direction of the broken window. Matthew circled watching me carefully as I went into the fridge. I looked at him. I started hauling food out. I threw him an apple.

He caught it instantly. He held it just for a second, checking that I had given it to him while I put a frying pan on the stove. Then he bit into it and I heard the crunch. He tucked into it the way he had tucked into the egg breakfast. Even if I hadn't seen his hollow ribs I'd have been able to tell the kid had been going short of food for a long time. I smiled again, twisted. I'd seen starving teenaged boys in Afghanistan. I'd even killed a few. I hadn't expected to see any of them back at home in New Hampshire.

He watched me frying steak. Two steaks. I threw frozen French fries in the oven. I looked at him while I cooked. "If I feed you," I said. "You'll end up owing me another blow job. Take you another day to work off the food I give you – and then I'll never get rid of you. I'll be earning blow jobs as fast as you work them off."

"I haven't even given you one yet," he said.

"So maybe I better stop extending you credit," I said.

"I can give you one as soon as you want." He had already almost finished the apple. He was gnawing the core, gone down to a part I'd have already tossed in the garbage.

"That's what you want? You want me to feed you, and take it out of you by fucking your tiny round ass?"

He just looked at me. His answer was yes. He stood looking at me, hope on his face. I'd figured he'd run like hell when I gave him the chance to sneak off on me, but the kid was thinking further than that. He was thinking of how cold it was outside, how empty his belly had been with nothing but my larder to fall back on. Christ, if I'd come back as scheduled maybe I would have found him in the house then, laid out on my loveseat, and too weak from hunger to move, if not dead of it. I shook my head to clear the thought. No American kid was that dumb, to lie there and die of hunger. He could shoplift or something. But I was right. The kid wanted to stay inside, in my house where it was warm, even with the price it was going to cost him.

I walked over to him and took him by the chin. "You know what that makes you, offering to suck my cock so that I feed you?"

"Uh… a prostitute?"

There was no beard under the skin, nothing but soft, satiny skin. I looked for the beard, feeling his chin and throat.

"You really want to be a ho, Matthew?" I said.

"You got a better option for me?" He said. He put some of that toughness into his voice. That's where it begins, that toughness.

I dropped his chin and I laughed. I laughed because it was the easiest thing to say. "Right, live in my house, suck my cock, fix me breakfast? What, want to be my gay slave houseboy?"

"Okay," said Matthew.

I went back to the stove and pulled steak out and put it on two plates. "You better enjoy this," I said. "You're going to earn it."

His mouth quivered as he took the seat but he spoke strongly. "I'm going to enjoy it," he said. And he did from all signs. The steak disappeared, the French fries disappeared and so did a sliced tomato and some frozen green peas I'd brought to a boil in the microwave. He ate as much as I did.

"I figure you already know the worst about me," said Matthew while we were eating facing each other across the table. "You know I'm gay. My Dad told you. And you know I'm a thief and you know I'd do anything for money. But I won't steal from you. I'm sorry I broke your window. And all you have to do is tell me what you like and I'll do it. I'll bet my mouth feels just like a girl's mouth. I know men like sex, easy accessible sex. You can get me to do anything you want."

"Aren't you afraid I'll get disgusted and crack you around for coming on to me?" I raised one eyebrow.

"No," he said. "You let me handle your dick."

I raised the other eyebrow to join the first. "What about housework?"

"I can do it," he said carefully. "I don't have a lot of practice, but housework is easy. So I'll learn it quick if there's anything I need to."

"Really?" I said. I leaned back in my chair. "You can start by cleaning the kitchen."

He stood up immediately and took my empty plate. He kept looking around at me while he started doing the dishes at the sink. I watched him still half smiling and shook my head. He did a thorough, sloppy job, lots of hot water, lots of soap and quite a bit of splashing. But when he was done the washing the dishes were lovingly polished and a bit uncertainly put away – He hadn't rifled my kitchen cabinets enough to know where everything went. And then the counters and tabletop were dried and shone with the dishtowel so the place looked fine. Finished, Matthew turned around and looked at me expectantly.

I had a tight mocking grin on. "You want to run my dryer?" I said.

"Your dryer?" he said, confused.

I stood up and showed him. I got a laundry basket full of clothes out of the dresser and threw them into the dryer. That would get the damp, musty feeling out of them quicker than waiting for the house to warm up and bake them. And then I brought out a pair of needle nosed pliers and a chisel and showed Matthew how to repair a pane of glass. He did the work while I stood over him and watched. He used the needle nosed pliers to get the little slivers of glass out and the chisel to dig out the old putty.

He did a clumsy job at it. By the time he had the pane in place and the new putty drying, there were greasy finger marks all around on the glass and on the window frame. And the putty wasn't exactly smooth. But he'd done the best he could and it wasn't such a bad job for a kid. He had a little hopeful smile on. "How's that? Does that help any?"

I gave him a nod. "Go wash your hands. You're leaving linseed oil on everything you touch."

Matthew watched his hands. And then afterwards somehow we ended up on my bed upstairs. His skin was warm and satiny as I ran my hands over him under his clothes. And his eyes were fixed on me curiously, not showing fear. He laid his own hand on the bulge in my sweatpants. He kneaded it through the fabric. I peeled his faded limp old shirt off over his head. That bare boy torso twisted in my sight, lean ribs and miniature six-pack. Then he took his baggy pants and lowered them, showing me his small hard-on and round young balls.

I was sitting on the bed. I pulled him in. He ended up laid over my knees, spanking position. But I didn't want to spank his little round ass. I wanted to finger it. I cupped my hands around his tight cheeks. I felt a quiver go through him. He was clenched up but his hard on was pronging me in the leg. I rubbed his ass for him while he lay there. He was afraid now even if he was aroused. The tension in his clenched up ass told me that. I stroked his butt and it didn't relax. He lifted his butt up to my hand, but didn't relent and spread his legs. Probably he didn't know that he was too tense to do it anyway but by force.

I just rubbed it. He was the one who turned around. He flipped over, reaching up, putting his arms around my neck. He brought his mouth to mine and I let him kiss me. He flicked his tongue cautiously between my lips. I didn't shut it out. He flicked again, parting his lips, sucking as he thrust his tongue out, trying to get my tongue to follow his back. He was sitting on my lap, clinging to my neck. Like that we were the same height. His tongue waggled, trying to tease me, learning. I kissed him back.

He was the one that broke the kiss too. He looked at me, "Uh, is it going to hurt?"

I looked at him losing my smile.

"When you fuck my butt," Matthew clarified.

"Probably," I admitted.

"Is it going to hurt a lot?" he said.

I looked at him some more. "Probably," I said again.

He drew his shoulders in. "Would you… try not to hurt me?"

I touched his head, taking the side of his face in my palm. "I think you should run like hell," I said. "You still can, you know. You've got a meal or two in your belly. Okay, you've lost your crash space. But there's still the library. And by now you're pretty safe. Because I don't think I'm calling the police."

Instead of moving away he put his arm up again, his hand on my shoulder. "I owe you a hundred and sixteen dollars," he said. "I've got to pay that."

"Welsh on your debt," I said.

"Am I… too ugly or something?" he said. "Because I know you've got this." He stroked the lump in my sweatpants again. "You want to get blown or something, right? But whenever I tell you go ahead you tell me to stop. You made me stop when I was jerking you. Is it because I'm a boy?"

I gave a nod.

"You only do girls?"

I shook my head.

"Am I too ugly? Too young for you?"

"You're fine," I told him.

"I'll do the best I can," he promised.

"I know you will," I said. "But you know what? You're not ready to be fucked. And I might not be the best person to fuck you. Because you're right. I'd end up hurting you."

I stood up then and dumped him. He stood up beside me naked. "Would you fuck me if I were older?" he said.

"I might," I cupped his ass. "Put your clothes back on."

He wriggled back into his clothes. He was young enough and turned on enough that he didn't lose his hard on even when I turned him down. He was going around stocking foot in the house and both his socks were out at the heel, so far out that his heels were bare. I went and got his sneakers. I found them on the floor beside the dryer, neatly lined up from when he had taken them out. But one of them was in two pieces, the sole come apart from the worn out upper, and the other one split along the toe at the sole from the instep on both sides. I looked in the inside of both shoes.

"So that's why you're still here," I remarked. "You're trapped, barefoot." I passed him the sneakers. "Can you read a size in that?"

He looked. They were just gray inside. "No," said Matthew.

"Do you remember what size they were?"

He thought and shook his head.

"I'll have to take you to the shoe store to buy you in new pair," I said. We both looked towards the window, to the white blobs of snow stuck to the screen beyond the glass, to the mushy white hill behind. "And I'll have to carry you to the car so we can do it."

"You can't carry me," he said. "I'm too heavy."

"You think?" I said. "You don't weigh more than a hundred and twenty pounds [55 kg]." I picked him up. Abruptly I flipped him, midair, from my arms to my back. I got a glimpse of a startled grin. I let him rest there a moment, and then flipped him around again, this time to under my arm so his head was sticking out in front of me. His dark hair flapped in the air and I saw his grin again. I had him slung under my arm like a package. He clung to my arm. He laughed.

It felt good. It felt so good – so ordinary, so normal that it hurt. It was like angina, a stab of agony when I teased the kid and wrestled with him. I put him down again and touched my chest. Touching, wrestling… I fought down a memory again. His smile had disappeared at the somber look on my face. He followed me out to the hall anxious now. This time when I picked him up I wasn't playing. I just hefted him, leaving his legs dangling, locked the front door behind me and carried him out to my car. I dumped him in the front seat.

"Did I do something?" he asked quietly. "Please tell me when I do something. I don't know why I make you mad. I can't stop doing it if you don't tell me."

"You didn't make me mad, Kid," I said.

He searched my face with my eyes. "Should I not laugh?"

"You can laugh any time something's funny," I said.

I drove. I took Matthew to the mall. Shopping day again. The floors were only damp at the entrance where people had stamped the snow off their boots so I put him down ten steps inside. He followed me stocking foot down to a sporting goods store. I took him in to look at a rack of sneakers.

"What's the right brand, Kid?" I asked.

He glanced at them, a cursory glance. "Uh… My parents usually shop at the Wal-Mart," he said. "I don't know what brand. I mean, these ones are too expensive. They're like, hundred and fifty dollar sneakers. You can get them for ten dollars at Wal-Mart."

"What brand do you need to wear to school?" I asked him.

He just looked at me.

I walked over to the salesclerk. "What brand are the kids all asking their parents to buy?" He looked at me too, and then walked over to gesture to a rack.

It turned out the kid was a size seven. He had decent sized feet. Most likely he'd be a decent size when he got through puberty. I bought him a pair of sneakers, a six-pack of socks, and a spray can of all weather sealant. We put socks and shoes on him before I took him out of the store.

"But I can't ever afford to pay you back for these sneakers," Matthew said.

"Isn't that the idea?" I said. "You're my gay slave houseboy, right? You've got to owe me more than you can repay if you're my kept boy."

Then I got him a change of clothes while we were there. That meant standing outside of a changing booth while a hard rap beat bumped out a song where some guy complained that he was going to jail because an older guy had led him into breaking the law, and inside the booth Matthew stood barelegged, trying on pants. I loitered until he admitted that some of the clothes fit him and then I put a couple of hoodies, and two more of those bulky pairs of pants on my plastic. All I had left to do was buy him a winter coat. None of the kids wore hats. Only the weirdoes wore hats. I got him a Columbia jacket and backpack.

"Why are you buying me this stuff?" said Matthew, as he trotted after me, out of the mall. "You don't seem to want me to put out for you, so how can I ever begin to pay you back?"

I just looked at him and smirked.

The traffic was lousy. It was rush hour and even in November there were some jerks out who didn't have snow tires on. One asshole was slip sliding side to side ahead of us, trying to keep in his lane but wobbling out of it. And there was another asshole on my tail. I felt my eyes grow narrow as I concentrated on driving.

I was almost out of the traffic and then some bitch cut me off. She stood on her accelerator doing a double lane change. Slush spattered up onto the windscreen and for a moment it was just gray. "Fucking cunt!" Rage made me change lanes. Teeth bared in a rictus, I spun the wheel to smash into her sideways. Matthew was on the passenger side. He screamed.

The woman too must have been looking to check that she was clear. She was a middle-aged blonde. Terror made her gape. She also swerved. The boy's howl filled the car. I spun the wheel back. We were coming to a corner and I crowded the turn.

"NO!" The boy yelled. At the last moment I eased sideways. The pale blue car beside me barely had room to stay on the road. Her wheel churned the shoulder in a great spray of brown slush. The boy was sobbing. I left the woman behind. My heart was pounding. I think the pale blue car came to a stop on the shoulder.

"You wearing your seatbelt?" I growled, voice getting back under control.

"You were going to… you were going to knock him off the road!"

"Fucking cunt cut me off!" I was thinking about vehicles exploding in red flame and seething black smoke, of men flung out, broken dolls in burnt uniforms. Cars spun in my memory, tearing, shredding as they spun. I heard gunfire in my head.

"You…" the boy sobbed.

"I didn't kill her," I said contemptuously. My heart kept pounding. I held the steering wheel evenly.

I'd been ramming with the passenger side, the side where the boy was. I might have killed the woman, but I also might have killed the boy. He puckered miserably and sat quiet. I wanted to swear. Shit. Shit. Asshole. I shaped my mouth and didn't swear. I don't fucking care if kill some shit-licking civilian, I thought. She can't get in my way. I'll kill her if she gets in my way, puts me off the road. I won't let her make me a stationary target.

The boy stopped trembling when we got to the house. I opened the doors for him looking down with hard angry eyes. He carried his bags clutched to his chest. Inside I cursed him. "Get this shit off the floor." I gestured at the mail. "And then start running the sheets through the dryer. I want that stuff bone dry before it's lights out."

"Please don't yell at me," Matthew said.

I raised my hand to hit him. He cringed waiting for it. Instead I laid my hand lightly on his hair, rubbed his head. I felt my nostrils flare. "I get mad easy," I said. "You see?"

"What did I do?"

"You didn't do nothing," I said. "I just do. I'm back from a war zone. Afghanistan. I get… I get to feeling exposed. I don't…" I was about to say I didn't want to die on account of some asshole drawing fire. But that wasn't right. The only fire I'd be under here was when I got taken on charge for the guys that died back in Kunzaraih.

Fuck, I thought. I managed a smile. "If I get pissed off like that, just hide. It's not anything you do. I got a short temper. That's all. I'll take a day or two to calm down. Maybe a couple of weeks even. I'm not mad at you."

"I can put your sheets in the dryer." Matthew nodded. He headed off, leaving the mail.

I willed my heart to be slow, to be normal. I willed myself to have a level, calm voice. I went to make a phone call or two.

That night I made a bed up for him on the loveseat. He stood at my shoulder looking. I put sheets and comforters and a pillow down on the thing. The heater still hummed. "There. You should be more comfortable like this."

"You really don't want me in your bed," said Matthew.

"I didn't say that," I told him.

"Then why are you making a bed for me here?"

"Maybe you can come upstairs and let me fuck you and then come down here and sleep more comfortably," I said. "I'm a restless sleeper, awake half the night. I'd keep you up too."

"Alright," said Matthew. It was going for ten o'clock. He followed me upstairs.

I looked over my shoulder at him while I stripped. He watched me peel off my clothes. The dry sheets on the bed made it feel pretty good. I climbed onto the bed and he pulled his clothing off. Again I saw that cute cock, that skinny sexy rump. He climbed onto the bed beside me.

"Thank you for buying me those clothes," he said shyly.

"You're going to need them," I said.

He took my cock in his hand. My cock was standing up. I took his. It was stiff in my fingers. I worked it gently.

"Shall I suck?" he offered. His eyes were fixed on my dick, entranced. His hand slid smoothly up and down. He leaned nearer. He was holding his breath and paused, his lips half an inch from the tip of my cock.

"Work your own dick," I said at last

His eyes flickered up. He leaned back and took his own cock, two handed. I held mine, masturbating, watching the boy jerk his prick. "Yeah," I said.

He rubbed briskly. He opened his thighs up rubbing, and he cupped his balls. I worked mine harder. He had a beautiful body. His eyes were on mine obedient. He watched me jerking closely but he didn't touch me. He was a kid so he was ready to cum fast. But I was getting ready faster. I started to gust the air in and out deep and easy to the bottom of my lungs. The boy looked awed and fascinated. He pumped his prick hard, thrumming fast by now. It was going to be over quick for both of us. I heard him draw in a breath sharply when I came.

I grunted hard. The cum jetted up between my knuckles. I kept my eyes on his flashing knuckles as the spasm passed through me. Matthew moaned. He gave another moan, "You look so…" He didn't know how to say it. He wrung at his crotch, twisting. His spasm started.

The boy jism went way up. I smiled as it came down. He was aiming it for his leg so it wouldn't soil the covers. He moaned again. His head bent. He bowed over his cock, stroke slowing to nothing and the blobs spattering his thigh. The arch of his back and neck was unbelievably graceful.

Afterwards he sat on the very rim of the bed while I wiped his thighs clean. "Are you in the military?" he said.

"Sort of," I said. "I'm a consultant."

"What does that mean?"

I wiped the last glaze away. "What it amounts to is that I end up under military orders but I get paid a bit better."

He looked around the room, remembering the house. It's not huge, but it's not a trailer either. "I figured you had to be an officer if you were in the army."

"Right," I agreed.

He got up to go, naked, holding his clothing. "What was it like in Afghanistan?" He asked in the doorway.

"Exotic," I said carelessly. "Different languages, different food, huge mountains…"

"Cool," said Matthew and went downstairs to bed.

Chapter Two

"You're fourteen," I said. "And you need to get a high school diploma."

"But, I mean, I was going to Norton."

"So now you're going to Saint David's. It's probably a better school," I told him.

"But I can't go back." He looked down at the floor. "It's November. I missed two months. I'm way behind."

"The sooner you go back, the sooner you catch up."

"I don't understand," he said. "Why do I have to go to school?"

"You'll do the gay slave houseboy bit in the evening." I told him. "In the day time I'm going to work and you're going to school."

I took him in to the principal's office in the morning and signed some papers. "He's been out of school, due to the instability at home," I said, "But he's living with me for now." I signed the places where it said Parent or Guardian. The principal was completely uncurious about the instability at home that I spoke about. They made up a schedule for him and I left him looking back over his shoulder at me in alarm.

I wasn't glad to be back at work, to the whine of fax machines and the rattle of keyboards. Cleggman had me in his office by ten-thirty. At least he went right to the crux of things. He looked at me sideways, measuring. "There were a couple of deaths at the base, I hear."

"That's right," I met his eyes.

"How many were you personally responsible for?" he asked.

"Three," I said.

His expression didn't change. He nodded. "You've got a lot of material here, including the stuff we needed on Al Sadhir and the Pakistani supply route. That's great! But I could still use a page of separate documentation about the deaths. Can you file me a report for the beginning of next week? It doesn't have to be your own material and I don't want it elaborate."

"There were no autopsies," I said. "It'll be just my statement."

He paused, hearing the harshness in my tone. "I wouldn't worry about it," he told me. "People get killed in a war zone. It's natural."

I picked up Matthew at three forty-five. He still had some of the alarmed look he'd been wearing when I'd left him to find his classrooms. "How did it go?" I asked.

He gave me a quick look like he thought it was a trick question. "Uh… Good. Yeah, real good."

"You like it?" I probed.

"Sure," he said.

"What did you like about it?"

There was a long pause while he buckled his seatbelt carefully. "I'm ready to go now," he said.

"I've got worse news for you," I said.

"What's that?"

"You're going to have a tutor until you catch up," I told him.

Unexpectedly Matthew laughed.

"What's so funny?" I said. I was pulling into traffic away from the cars picking up all the teenaged kids.

"You could be like, I don't know. Telling me I have to turn tricks to get money for you or something. Or like, telling me I'm too much of a pain so you're kicking me out. A tutor's not so bad." He grew serious. "Isn't this costing you a lot of money?"

"A tutor is cheap if you get anything out of it," I said.

"I'm lost," he admitted.

"You got text books?"

"Yeah."

"Your teachers seem to be shits?"

"Most of them seem to be okay." He paused. "There's this one old woman, teaching me English. She's weird."

"Bad weird or interesting weird?"

He thought and a smile broke out slowly. "Interesting weird, I guess."

"What about the kids?"

"Half of them are Catholics!" he said.

"Something wrong with Catholics?" I asked.

"No," said Matthew. "But they're so different. I never went to school with Catholic kids before. And they all know each other. I'm like so out."

"You think you're going to make any friends?"

"No," he said. "It's too late in the year to make friends."

"Any kids you think you might like to make friends with?"

Instead of answering he looked at me. "Why are you asking me these questions?"

"I wanna know," I said. Matthew had his eyes fixed on me incredulously. "There some reason I shouldn't ask?"

"It's school," he said. "It's my life. Isn't it boring?"

"What, you find it too boring to tell me about it? I need to know," I told him. "Any problems come up, I'm going to interfere."

He puckered smiling. "For real? You want to hear?"

"Yeah, I need to hear," I said.

"There's this one boy, I wish I could meet him," said Matthew quietly. "He's in four of my classes. I haven't figured his name out yet. He's not one of the really cool kids, but I like the way he smiles. He's… you know, like he's relaxed. He doesn't care who he smiles at. He's comfortable. He seems like a nice guy."

A smile, that's not much. But it was giving Matthew something to aim for. I gave a nod. Probably the smile would disappear and the next day would be a worse one, but just for now it gave him hope.

He didn't think much of the tutoring session I set up for him. His tutor had better posture than my old drill Sergeant. She was a retired teacher with white hair and she gave him a couple of molasses cookies on his way out the door.

"Why algebra?" Matthew complained. "Math is the one thing I'm not completely confused about. I think I can sort out the math."

"You're making sure you can sort it," I said. "Start with one class that you got no worries about, and you go on from there, get a good grip on the other ones."

"Well, okay," he said. "But I never did do well in English."

That night Matthew came into my room at ten o'clock. He stood smiling faintly while I locked up some papers. I glanced over at him. "Should I get lost or offer to suck your prick?" he asked.

"You horny?" I asked.

His eyes flickered, dropping for a brief second in embarrassment. "Yeah. And I do want to thank you."

"Come here," I said. I undressed him. The hoodie came off to show me that smooth hairless chest. He leaned up trying to kiss me. I kissed him down for a moment. His breath was sweet. When I got the rest of his clothes off his cock was standing up, asking for me.

He took my hand and brought it down, placing it on his prick. I stroked it. His naked body was leaning against me, leaning into my arm. His eyes were half closed. "It… feels…really…cool," he breathed. A shudder of pleasure went through him. I felt my own hard on straining inside my pants. I dumped him onto the bed.

He made a sound while I undressed. "Man, you are so big and so muscled. You look like you could crush me."

"I won't though," I said.

He took my prick. He rubbed it with his hand. He was touching it, he'd taken it in his hand himself without any prompting from me, but still he was leaning a little bit away. He was still intimidated by it.

After another moment I brushed his hand away. He retreated, drawing his knees up, leaning back, more tension in his face. I was rearing over him and he thought I'd come down on him and that had him scared. After all this time he was still scared. I leaned down on him and kissed him.

When I broke the kiss and moved away to the other side of the bed he looked after me bewildered. I was still on the bed, our legs touching but he knew then that he wasn't going to get his ass fucked tonight.

"You ever fuck a guy my age before?" he asked.

"Yeah," I said.

"Then what's the matter with me?" Matthew said.

"I was your age when I fucked a guy your age," I told him.

"You don't like a kid my age then," he said. "I am too young for you."

I shook my head. "You're real cute," I said. I flicked my finger at his cock gesturing. "You're a man, and yet, same time you got this smooth kid sweetness about you. You're new. You're a virgin. You're innocent."

"I jerk off," he said. "That's not innocent."

"When I fuck your ass," I told him "You're not going to find it comfortable enough to enjoy it. And then you're going to know fucking as something that you do even when you don't like it, even when it disgusts you. And that'll be the end of your innocence."

"I don't care. I'm going to grow up some time anyway. I can pay you with my virginity," he said. "I don't care if it hurts. I owe you that much."

I took his wrist and placed his hand on his cock. "Jerk it," I said.

He spread his legs, showing me and jerked it. "I don't mind," he said. "You can hurt me as much as you want."

"Maybe I don't want to hurt you at all," I said. "Maybe I'd prefer to have a horny virgin coming on to me."

We masturbated, sitting on the bed facing each other. Our ankles touched, crossing and our hands drove up and down in the same tempo. I looked at his face and his cock, at the smoothness of his belly. His eyes got weird with pleasure, half focused. His knuckles flashed hard. This time he was the one to cum first, but my cum jetted out when I saw his squirting up, and the two streams of jism mingled.

When I picked him up after school on Friday I was burning in rage. I was glaring into space. The boy said not a word, threw one glance at me and his face went scared. He scooted into the front seat and buckled his seatbelt tightly. I drove tautly. Luckily the road was almost clear. I wasn't safe on the road that day. I looked at a trucker ahead of me and wondered how I could force him of the highway. I need a fucking gun, I thought. Put a bullet through the side window, turn it into a white star of glass, send the truck lurching straight on the bend, rumbling off the road. The trucker had done nothing to me. I felt the tightness of my lips as I drove.

"Did I do it?" Matthew's voice was a whisper.

"No," I said.

"Why?" he said, in a voice that shook slightly.

"I have to take a month off," I said.

"Why do you have to do that?" asked Matthew.

"I have to take a fucking month off!" I screamed. "Off work! Fucking, fucking cocksucker! I'll kill that fucking cocksucker! Ram a grenade up his ass. I fucking don't deserve this! Shit! He told me today I couldn't come back for a month." Then I screamed like an animal. "God! I fucking do not deserve this!"

"You've been laid off?"

"Fuck!!" I took my hands off the steering wheel to hold them in the air. "I'm under disciplinary," I snarled again. "I'm going to be. Cocksucking Cleggman called it R and R. Get some fucking rest, he said. Ahhhh, Shit! I got to stay off work for a month!" I turned my head to look at the boy. Matthew was cringing.

"He said to go home," I snarled. "He said to stay out until Christmas, he'll call me, maybe the New Year! Reward! He called it a reward! I need to work! I want to work!"

"You need the money?" Matthew had a mouse of a voice.

"Money!" I screamed. "It's not money! I'm getting paid. I don't touch even my fucking vacation pool. I'm officially not even on leave. I just want to work! You understand that? The son-of-a-shit-licking cocksucker told me to go fuck myself. He told me to go home. Now I don't know if I'm going under disciplinary or not! Ah, Jesus! Jesus! Jesus! I'm going back there with a gun."

I took Matthew to the tutor's house and stayed outside it in the car while he was inside. He spent an hour and a half inside the miniature brick house while I sat in the car, shaking with rage and told myself to calm down. I eyed a couple of guys out walking a dog and wanted to get out of the car and kill their black Labrador. I wanted to throttle the guys. Fuck me. I wanted to kill. Kill some one. Kill Cleggman. Kill anyone. But I didn't want to kill Matthew. I didn't even think he could handle me in a state of rage. He was too scared. So I sat very still and cursed my heartbeat to make it slow down. Die. I told my heartbeat inside my chest. Die. Just fucking die and slow down.

Matthew came out, face trembling with terror. He had two molasses cookies in his mitten. Big, frightened eyes, he held one out, offering it to me. I took it.

We didn't say a word. I drove him home, being careful not to drive aggressively.

Fucked up. That was my job. I'd fucked up. So didn't I deserve disciplinary action? Of course I fucking deserved it. Fired. Charged. Put in fucking jail. I deserved it. In the morning I fed Matthew steak and eggs for breakfast. He loved steak and eggs. The kid loved everything I fed him.

"What do you usually do on Saturdays?" I asked.

He was still afraid. "Umm. I'll go out," he said quickly.

"Where do you usually go?"

"Just out."

"You need a lift. Where do you want to go?"

His shoulders twisted up awkwardly. "I don't know. Anywhere is fine. Drop me wherever you want."

"What you going to do?" I crossed my arms in front of my chest.

"Just hang out."

"You got friends?" I probed.

"No." He looked down. "I'll stay in some mall. It'll be warm."

"I'm not trying to get rid of you," I said. He looked up, surprised. "I'm trying to find a way for you to spend Saturday you'll enjoy. Where do you want to go? What do you want to do?"

"I don't care. I never did anything special on Saturdays."

"You want to catch a movie? Go bowling? Go for a drive? Get down to a video arcade?"

"What do you do on Saturdays?" he asked.

"Usually I go into the office," I said.

We looked at each other. We were starting from scratch, laboriously. I knew theoretically how to give a kid a good time, but I hadn't done it before. It worked. I took him out to Office Depot, and bought him a whack of school supplies. I eyed the computers there. He'd get better grades if he had a computer at home he could use but he wasn't going to borrow mine. Anyway, he wasn't going to be with me long enough to really need one. It was a week to Thanksgiving. Maybe his mother would get some backbone and put the step dad out and want him back with his family over the holidays. Or something. I had no idea how it was going to end and how long it was going to last, but it felt temporary. By New Year I'd be in a jail on charges of homicide and he'd be in a group home getting gang fucked.

So like I said, I bought him school supplies and took him down to get tickets to the football game on Sunday and then we went to the bowling alley and rented shoes. It wasn't so bad. It was a bit like going out gathering intelligence, going place to place, hanging out, watching. I took it the same way. I sent the first rack of pins crashing down Matthew said, "You do everything like an expert."

Don't hero worship me, Kid. I thought.

Anyway, I knocked down a lot of pins and he knocked down a lot of pins but we were so badly matched we couldn't play together. He'd only bowled two or three times before. But on the way out he raised his hand a threw a salute at a short pug faced kid who was just settling in with a bunch of other kids and the short kid flung him back a grin and matched the salute.

"Who was that?" I asked.

"Duncan," said Matthew with no inflection, "From school."

Then I bought my kid swimming trunks and then I took him swimming. He needed sweats too. I couldn't take him up in the gym part of the club without working out clothes, but that Saturday swimming was enough. The boy swam like a frog, all careless kicks and a lot of churning, but effective anyway. We swam in different parts of the pool. Our styles were so different. He watched me swim lengths, shook his head and dived under. He was a wallower. I joined him again as he sculled carelessly on his back.

"You bored?"

"Not yet." He turned in the water smiling happily. "But if you want to go, we can take off any time."

"I could stand to stay," I told him. "You let me know if you get bored."

I went back to doing lengths. I couldn't stop feeling angry but the lengths made me calmer. Stop being angry I ordered myself. Calm. You need to be calm to stay in control. Kill Cleggman. Kill him. Sending me on leave. Cocksucker. No, don't think that. Calmer. He was just following his orders. Fucking bastard. Calm. Calm down. Let it go. Length after length made my muscles feel good, took all the kinks out and got me breathing steady and deep and slow. If I looked over my shoulder I could see Matthew alone, wrestling with an inflatable raft, sliding off and going under it and knocking it up into the air as he jumped out of the water.

He shouldn't be alone. I thought. I swam over. By then my muscles were warm with fatigue. I'd had a good work out. "Hey, Matthew," I said. "You got any friends from your old school, you'd like to give them a call?"

The smile dropped away from his lips. He shook his head. "Everybody dumped me when they started saying I was gay. I only had two friends and one of them is the friend that told everybody and the other one said I wasn't worth shit." He turned and swam away from me. I knew he was hiding his face. I made sure not to catch up to him. I climbed out of the water after him.

"You hungry yet?"

That made him turn around. He nodded. I wanted to put my arm around his wet body and pull him up against myself, have his pointed chin in under my throat and his bare wet arms and legs tangling with mine, feel the warmth of his belly against me. But this was the pool, public and I couldn't do it.

"Burgers?" I suggested. "Or you want to try something really different?"

"What were you thinking?"

"Indian food."

"Indian food?" He was uncertain.

"Really, really weird," I told him. "Curry and vindaloo and chapattis and mangos."

"What's that?" he said.

"Weird food, from India," I explained. "Some of it's pretty spicy but then you eat the bread or some rice and that takes it off your tongue. Can you handle your chili hot?"

"Sure," he said.

"Let's go try curry," I said.

He followed me curious and willing.

Sunday was the same kind of day. I thought about getting myself a lawyer, seeing if I could dodge out of being held responsible for the guys I'd killed at Kunzaraih, and decided I was being paranoid. But we took in the football game. That was great but we damn near froze our asses off. The stadium was outside and the fog came out of Matthew's mouth like steam from a kettle when he got excited.

Our team won. As we clattered out of there in the hubbub of the crowd Matthew took my arm and leaned in close. "I'm willing to let you fuck my butt any time to thank you," he said. "Honest."

I just looked at him. I thought, thank me for what? But I knew what. He meant for taking him to the game. "Your dad take you to the football games?" I asked carelessly.

"No," said Matthew like it was a stupid question.

"Nothing like that?" I explored a bit more.

"That would have been his weekends," Matthew told me. "He needed his weekends off."

"Right," I agreed. I kept my arm around his shoulder but I didn't take him home and fuck him. It was all right to have my arm around him casual like that in the excited crowd. I was old enough to be his father, so it didn't make anyone look. By the stairs down we had broken apart. He was still happy. It made me grin to see him happy.

It was the next week – Tuesday that Matthew came to me in the evening with a problem. He always came in to me in the evening and we always jerked off together. That was all we did. Whenever I rubbed his butt his cheeks were clenched up and whenever he offered to suck my cock I could see him visibly screw up his courage before he asked. But he was at ease with the jerking off and it was the finest thing seeing the slim, burgeoning shape of him that was turning into muscle and manliness. In the week he'd been there he'd lost most of the gaunt look to his flanks and cheeks. It had only taken a few decent meals to replace the ones he'd missed. This time we jerked off and afterwards he lay with his head on my belly, both of us stretched out and our sticky cocks sagging.

Matthew looked at me sideways. I caught the seriousness on his face and waited for it.

"Duncan thinks I'm cool," he said.

Duncan again. That should have been a good thing, but not the way he said it. I waited.

"It's those clothes you bought me," Matthew said. "Duncan thinks I'm cool because I'm wearing the right things. I don't have my own clothes so he doesn't know. And he knows I'm living here on the Mollay Road with you. This is a good neighborhood, so he has the idea this is where I belong."

"What do you need to be cool then? A Game Boy and a skateboard?"

"I need to be someone other than me." His mouth was glum.

I couldn't fix it so I stroked his head. His hair was satin smooth and clean now. He showered every day. I had heard him just that morning in the shower bellowing exuberantly. Now he was still and quiet.

"What's Duncan going to do when he finds out you're not cool?" I asked.

"Tell everyone I'm a fag," he said.

"Maybe we could find a gay youth group for you," I said.

"Maybe we could get me some therapy and turn me straight." He hunched his shoulders.

I kept petting his head. He sat up suddenly, smiling. "Oh well. I gotta go to school to get a diploma, not to find some buds to hang out with." Still smiling he reached down and put his hand on my head. Copying my gesture he stroked. He leaned in for a kiss. He went belly down and French kissed me. His warm lips pulled at mine hungrily. Then he realized that he'd rubbed his belly with the sticky mess of cum on my comforter.

"Oh shit! You're going to kill me." He sprang off and tugged at the comforter. I rolled aside so he could get it. "Smeared it!" He blew out in exasperation. "I'll get you a clean one." He took off with it lumped up under his arm, his naked ass unselfconsciously visible as he headed for the stairs and the washing machine below. He wasn't exactly good at household chores, but he took his responsibilities seriously. I never told him to do the clean up. If he saw something he did it. When I was cooking he would watch me carefully waiting until he could spring up and grab the dishes and take them to the sink. He might even have smeared my quilt so that he could demonstrate what a good houseboy he was; only it wasn't just a show he was putting on. He really was trying to earn his keep.

I had no one I could ask what a teenager needs to be cool, and Matthew himself was sure it was personality. So I didn't know what I could buy him and it was probably true that consumer goods weren't always enough.

"If you pass all your courses at the Christmas exams," I said. "I'll get you a PS2 or a Game Boy. Which ever you want."

He looked at me as if I was crazy. "I'm going to pass them all."

"How does Mrs. Beall think you're doing?"

"She's trying to help me get my marks up, not pass," he said.

Of course it was a dangerous promise. Suppose he was gone by Christmas? Suppose he'd been reported a runaway and the cops tracked him down? I had no right to have him there. It was legally abduction. It was vicious making a promise like that, that might become impossible to keep.

"What do you do when I'm at school?" he said.

"Swim."

"All day?"

"No, not all day," I said. "I swim five miles [8 km]. That makes me feel less angry. You know how sometimes I've flipped out over little things? Well if I swim hard, then I'm in better control of my temper. I don't have such a hair trigger."

He looked at me, head turned at an angle. "You ever hit someone? You know punch them out?"

I gave a nod. "How many times do you think?" I asked.

"Maybe a couple of times," he said.

"Kid, I've killed people," I said. "That's why it's important for me to keep my temper. I won't just rant and yell if I lose it. I might kill someone."

"You ever kill someone here, in the States?" he asked. His voice had gone very soft.

"No. Not yet. And hopefully never."

"In the war?"

"Uh-huh," I said. "I murdered three men in September. Right now I'm on leave until they decide what to do about that."

His eyes went huge. "You didn't!"

"Yes I did."

"Why?? Were they American soldiers??"

"No. They were Saudis," I said. My voice didn't go up.

"They were terrorists?" he said.

"I think so," I said.

"Then it wasn't murder!" he said. "It was war, wasn't it?"

I just shrugged. He looked at me for a long while. Then he said, "Do you feel bad about it?"

"I don't feel anything except angry," I said.

Friday morning was the last day of school before Thanksgiving break. I had it set up so Matthew wasn't going to get much of a break. He was going to be sitting down with Mrs. Beall every day but Friday that week, working on catching up. Otherwise there would have been two of us roaming around the house with nothing to do. Also, he may have said that he was going to pass all of his courses but I was far from certain yet. He'd gone from admitting to being totally lost to being sure he wouldn't flunk anything in just one single week. I wanted to get some reports from his teachers before I'd believe it.

Friday morning Matthew looked at me nervously. "Ummm… Could I, I mean, could you pick me up somewhere else after school, later?" He was scared to ask.

"Where do you want me to pick me up?" I looked at him wondering why he was scared.

"At a guy's house," he said.

"What's the address? What time to you want?" I gave a shrug.

"I don't know the address yet," he said, talking quickly. "But I could maybe call you after I get there? Would that be all right? Four-thirty? Do you mind?"

"I don't mind," I said. Matthew lit up like I'd bought him a big expensive gift. I just looked at him. It made him happy if I let him make plans. I suppose he figured that he wasn't going to be allowed to have a life, being a slave houseboy, like that. But why would I care, picking him up an hour later, somewhere else?

When he called me it was ten after four. He gave me the address, not too far from my house, but up on Heron Ridge where the new houses had been built to get the view of the reservoir. His voice on the phone was alive and electric as if he had been laughing recently. "Alright," I said. "You want me coming up to get you now, or you want to stay a little later, maybe until five?"

"Ooh, yeah!" Matthew's voice left the mouthpiece abruptly. "Duncan, can I stay a bit more? Is it alright if he comes at five?"

I heard another voice, cheerful and young, but not the words.

"He says that's great," Matthew reported, excited. "Hey thanks, Currier! Thanks! You are the coolest guy!"

I disconnected and stared at the cell phone in my hand. He thought I was cool for letting him hang out with a school friend for half an hour. What kind of a leash did he think I was keeping him on?

It was inconvenient picking him up after five. I was taking him down to the grocery store afterwards to get the fixings for Thanksgiving. And by the time we got there the stores were a madhouse. It was solidly jammed with women and shopping carts. I looked in at it like it was a tactical exercise. How to get in without getting trapped? Wire carts clashed and small kids in the booster seats clawed the shelves to grab cereal. I steered and Matthew darted about grabbing the groceries. He flung soup cans, spaghetti sauce and noodles into the cart when I pointed at the shelves.

"Eggs," I ordered and he grabbed a box, probably breaking at least a couple when he dropped it onto the soup.

I steered us in near a crowded refrigerated bin, "A medium sized turkey," I ordered. Matthew went squirming in boldly between women loading their carts. He came back with what looked like it had probably been the smallest bird in the bin.

I pointed him back: "Take it back and get one twice that size." He dodged back carrying the cold carcass shoulder-high like it was a football. He came back grinning with a much bigger bird.

When I had him throw – and he really did throw – a pumpkin into the cart, Matthew asked. "Don't we get pumpkin pie?"

"We're making it," I told him.

"Cereal," I ordered in the next aisle.

"What type??"

"What ever you want."

He grabbed three boxes, looking at me for permission. There was Captain Crunch, Froot Loops and Cocoa Pops. I looked at his choices in consternation. He was still kid enough to think the best cereal was candy. He looked down too, beginning to be aware. "I'm going to be sick!" he announced happily.

He grabbed four bags of bread off the shelf at my instructions. "Why so much bread?"

"We need it for stuffing."

"Woo!" Matthew cheered. He was practically leaping. His eyes flashed brilliantly. His face was alive in the roar of white noise and ticking registers and bawling kids.

"Okay." I steered the cart sideways so that he got the handle and then steered him to join the line. I peeled bills out of my wallet and passed them to him.

"You trust me with money?" he was surprised.

"Sure," I said. I started to get back. It was the tight check out aisles. They say avoid your trigger points. That was a trigger point for me, but he didn't care if the narrow lanes boxed him in. "I'm getting the car. You take care of paying for it and I'll meet you."

"Okay, but I'm going to sneak some gum into the order!" he threatened weakly.

I just laughed.

Sitting in the car, with half light and a hard freeze in the parking lot, mobs of people thronging the electric doors I wondered what I would do if I was sitting there for an hour, for two hours, if Matthew never came trotting through the doors to find me. What would I do if he took the bills I'd handed him, abandoned the groceries and made off to try living on his own again?

I'd wish I'd given him a bigger handful of bills, I thought.

He came out and we took the groceries home.

In my kitchen, Saturday, making pastry and cooking cut up blocks of pumpkin Matthew said to me. "I think you can do every thing. You're a hard ass soldier, you swim, you talk Urdu and Arabic, you bowl, you drive like James Bond, you own this big house, you take in unwanted kids and you can cook. Every thing you do you do really well. And you seem to be able to do every thing."

"Cooking is a basic life skill," I said.

"My dad can't cook," he said.

I thought about that one. "Do you miss your dad?" I asked.

"I really wish he was missing me," said Matthew.

That's another thing I do better than his step dad, I thought. If you were gone I'd miss you.

I got a couple of calls on Saturday, friends who just found out I'd gotten back in town asking me if I wanted to have Thanksgiving dinner with them. I hadn't gotten in touch with anyone. Part of it was I didn't feel so close to them and part of it not having a good explanation for the kid I had living at my house. But now I had to admit it, so I told them a lie.

"My godson is staying with me," I said. "His parents are going through a rough patch. – Frankly I hope they make up their minds to divorce. Anyway, he's here with me indefinitely and we'll be spending Thanksgiving together."

Of course, they didn't know I had a godson, but they didn't know that I didn't either. The lie worked. The relationship was just close enough and just obscure enough that they were surprised, maybe even a little flabbergasted but they didn't doubt it.

"If anyone asks," I told Matthew. "I'm a friend of your family's and your godfather."

"Right."

"You don't want to tell anyone you're having a gay relationship with me. They'd make you move out."

"I know that," he said. He blushed. "But I already told one guy you were my uncle. I hope that won't foul things up."

"Just don't repeat it and he'll probably forget," I said. "We'll stick to the godfather lie."

"Are you going to make me an offer I can't refuse?" He gave a wicked grin. 'I gotta whack some guy for my Padrone?"

"Remember – Omerta," I teased back. "You tell no one about our family business." I paused. "I didn't know you were into the mob. I was going to watch the game tomorrow. You want to take a run out to Blockbuster and see if we can pick up some mafia movie and watch that too?"

Thanksgiving was good. Matthew ate enough turkey to make anyone sick, and then brought a plate full of the cold meat to munch on while we watched the game. We stretched out, opposite sides of the couch and watched the worst play I could remember in my lifetime. Matthew kept smacking his forehead. "He ran right over the ball! He ran right over it!" We ended up laughing. And if I might have got tense and pissed off to see my team losing the Super Bowl 28 to 2, all I had to do was look over at Matthew going bug eyed with a dropped jaw. "These guys are supposed to be professionals?!"

Later, when Sonny Corleone got gunned down, Matthew moved wincing into my armpit. He stayed there snuggled, tilting his head towards my chest, his leg on top of mine. We shared the turkey. The house creaked with the frost, and the room was dark except the flickering TV. It was eleven o'clock before the movie ended.

"I am so happy," said Matthew. "It has been over two weeks since anything bad has happened. I keep expecting an explosion, boom! Everything is going to blow up in my face, but nothing bad has happened at all." Then he turned his face around and kissed me in the armpit, which was a ridiculous place to kiss me. So I kissed his face and he pulled my neck down.

"Can I sleep in your bed, with you tonight?" he asked, "Even if I am too much of a twink to fuck?"

"Alright," I said. So we lay out in the bed, side by side, elbows and knees touching in the darkness and we each jerked ourselves, feeling the other guy's rhythm. I heard him breathing as he slept. It didn't disturb my sleeping at all. A couple of times I got out of bed and sat on the edge of it in the dark. That was when I heard the memories of bombs going off, of bits of concrete slowly pattering down in the broken houses, of men breathing in bad pain. But I also heard the kid breathing there, relaxed and comfortable. And so instead of groping empty handed, wishing I could close my palms around a gun, feeling my palms sweat for the feel of a gun, I crawled back into the bed again beside him. I'd lie and listen to him breath and smell the boy smell, his spunk and his clean skin and then I went back to sleep again, at least for a while.

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