Ruthless

Little Boy Lost

Chapters 3-5

Chapter Three

"How are you going to get there?" I interrogated.

"I can get there on his bus."

"They'll let you do that?"

"He says yes," Matthew said earnestly. "And he's going to show me what kind of attack you have to use on the boss that clones your characters. I just want to be there to see," he pleaded. "I can be back in time to do lots of studying."

I kind of figured he was studying some every day. He'd be on the loveseat with some books beside him if I came down in the evening and quite often in the afternoon as well. But I'd never put him on a studying schedule. I'd just been taking him to the tutor.

"You trying to earn that PS2?" I said.

He followed the way my mind jumped all wrong. "I don't have to go," he said quickly. "I'm sorry. I really have been keeping up with the books. But I understand."

"I didn't say you couldn't go," I said.

He looked bewildered.

"You wanna go to the kid's house you can go," I said. "I just need to know when to pick you up."

"I don't want to make you mad," he looked down. "I'm really trying with the studying. I know you don't believe it. I can't help it where I'm stupid, but things are going okay. I've caught up on a lot of assignments."

I spread my hands, looking down at his subdued head. "I said it was okay."

He looked up, worried. "Please don't get mad at me. You scare me to death when you get mad. I'm not trying to weasel out of doing the work. Really I'm not."

"Do you think you've done enough work?" I said. I was just bewildered by his alarm. I'd got him close to cringing with fear.

"I'll… I'll study some more," he said. "Yeah. I can look at my English book when I get up in the morning."

"I didn't ask that," I said.

"I'm not lying!" cried Matthew. He started to back away from me. I followed grabbing him.

I squeezed him up against my chest, rubbing my hands on his arms and his head. I held and patted his arms roughly, but not as roughly as would have been natural. I made it gentler. "Hey. You're not lying. You've been studying. I've seen it. I'm not mad. You're not pissing me off. You're going to see this kid."

He gave a muffled sound, almost into my shirt and turned his eyes up. He squeezed against me tightly. "You're really not mad? Really?"

I nodded and smiled, still hugging him. A weak smile answered me and grew stronger while I kept squeezing him.

"You just tell me if you need a lift, or if you can walk it, or if his parents are going to bring you home," I told him. "I gave you permission. Didn't you hear? I gave you permission."

"Don't get angry at me like you sometimes get," said Matthew. He hugged me back. "I get scared. How bad are you going to hurt me when you get angry at me like that?" he asked.

I rubbed his back while I held him and after when he was walking away from me running to get his book bag ready so he wouldn't be late, I shook my head.

Once I took him swimming in the evening, but mostly we swam on the weekend. And of course I picked up the sweats for him so he had the clothes to come with me into the gym. He stood by the machine I was on, getting ready to adjust the weights for me. He was perfectly content to do that, just stand in attendance with me. But I had him try out a few of the machines at the low settings.

"You don't try working for bulk," I told him. "Your skeleton's still too young. You'll damage it."

So he nodded and the working out he did was light stuff, about what I figured was right for a guy his age. He liked the aerobic exercise, running on the stair machine.

I looked at him and thought, well; it wasn't like having a kid of my own, because a kid of my own wouldn't be so anxious to please. And it wasn't much like having another guy in my life, not in the ordinary way of things, because if a guy were badly in love with me he might be that eager and watchful, trying to please me, but I didn't fool myself that Matthew was in love with me. He was in love with my house and the bellyfuls of food that I was feeding him. For him keeping me happy was a matter of survival. He knew he had no legal claim on me.

We did the Indian food again. "How do you do that, talk through your nose when you order?" he asked.

One evening he lay naked on top of me squirming, almost writhing to get more skin contact. His breath was warm on my chin and throat. He wriggled his belly. Our cocks were trapped between us pressed flat to our stomachs. "Some day," he said dreamily. "I wish I was gonna be as big as you."

"What are you gonna do when you're big as me?"

He looked startled. "Punch my step dad out."

He wasn't the only one startled. Up until that moment he'd never referred to the man as a step dad. He'd always called him a dad and admitted to being ashamed for what the man thought of him.

"He punched me out," said Matthew, still looking startled.

"Better keep growing then," I said lightly.

A little later he lay on his belly, legs wide while I lay on him, not all my weight, slowly thrusting, dick sliding against the cheeks of his ass. The ball head of it waggled above his crack as I slid up and down. His cheeks were still tight, not as tight. He was pressing his belly flat to my bed, scrubbing a bit up and down and side to side getting sensation for his cock.

I wanted more. I wanted him to want more. He rolled over, looking up at me. "Wanna kiss me?" I sank down again, only half on him now and kissed him. That was as much more as he wanted. I kissed him and jerked him. He arched up into my hand.

"Uh, yeah. Currier, hard like that!"

His cum spurted. The smell of it came to me, soapy, savoury, and bitter. Matthew lolled back with a sleepy smile.

"Off to your own bed now," I patted his ass and sent him on his way.

At night I sometimes roamed the house, not turning any lights on. If I had woken him at first, he slept through my wandering now. I felt better after stepping into my trousers, the key to my gun cabinet in my pocket. I should put it somewhere behind a padlock, I thought. Make it impossible to reach it without a couple more minutes' thought. I felt better when I could jingle the key in my fingers. I walked about, barefooted and bare-chested, watching the silent stillness of the frozen grass and ridges of ice outside of my house. If it weren't for Matthew being there, I would have kept the cabinet unlocked so that I could have had the reassurance of a hard smooth gun butt in my hand.

"Can I go to the bowling alley after school?"

"Sure," I said. "Who are you meeting?"

"Just some the guys are letting me tag along," he said.

"What time are you going to be done?"

"Six. They have to go home for supper."

"I'll pick you up in the parking lot at six?" I asked. Matthew smiled. I thrust a twenty-dollar bill into his pocket. That would cover his shoes and leave him enough over to pick up junk food and ruin his appetite.

Only it never did ruin his appetite. The kid could eat everything I gave him. He was indiscriminate. He liked it all, vegetables, liver, any kind of meat he just inhaled, any kind of fruit, if the food turned out badly cooked, there was still no complaint. If I took him out for Indian or Thai food, or if there was a Szechwan dish when I got Chinese. And it wasn't just that he was too cowed to complain. There was never any hesitation, or silent poking at the food.

"Do I give you enough spending money?" I asked.

"You give me tons of money," Matthew said, flabbergasted. "You wouldn't let me give it back when there's change. There's always change. You give me too much."

"So, save it up then," I said.

He mopped the floor in the kitchen and the bathroom and he left it too wet. In time it showed, a thin line of mildew in the cracks. I had him mop the floor with a bleach solution. My dishes were unbreakable. Sometimes they skidded. A plate spun out of the sink trailing a comet tail of soapsuds. "Ooops. Fuck!" said Matthew. He looked up quick to see if I'd be angry and used a dishtowel to dry the floor.

December was cold and dry. The snow had sunk into the earth, disappearing in the bleak afternoon sun. When the wind blew the grass was brittle and hissed. Puddles crunched outside.

"Do you need anything? School supplies? Your socks holding out?" I asked.

"Could I have a hat?"

"A hat?" I hadn't expected that.

"The really cool kids all wear hats," he said.

"They do?" I looked at him in disbelief. "I thought only weirdoes wore hats."

"No," he gestured at his head. "They wear, like, poncho hats, with ear flaps. Or the ones with the points, and tassels on the points. Cool hats."

I took him out to buy him a hat. They were absurdly cute; the kind of hats that I thought doting grandmothers would put on pre-school kids. Matthew chose a red and blue hat, round and close on top with earflaps, and with long tassels on the tie strings. He studied the mirror in the store anxiously. "That looks cool," he pronounced. I didn't tell him that he looked like he was about six-years-old in the hat. When I dropped him off in front of the school I looked around. I saw dozens of cute, doll like hats, almost as many on the boys as on the girls. Two girls came down the steps to meet Matthew and they had easy open smiles on their faces. They must have liked the hat too.

The house was quiet and still when Matthew wasn't there. But then it was quiet when he was there. I liked the stillness. I should get a boom box. I thought. Whatever they call them now. A kid his age probably wants the loud music all the time.

"Can you pick me up at the bowling alley again tomorrow?" He slid into the car outside of the school. He waited until I was out of sight of the building, on the highway before he dropped a quick kiss on my cheek.

It was dark by six the next evening. It was the third of December. There was bright neon showing a rack of pins above the alley. I didn't go inside. I idled the engine in the parking lot. I was going to ask. Did you hang out with Duncan? Was it a mixed crowd? Any girls? How many guys? It was six ten. Matthew didn't come out.

He's always on time. I thought. But there was a first time for everything and a fourteen-year-old kid who never dares to keep you waiting is a fourteen-year-old kid who is too cowed. I waited another five minutes and then turned the engine off and went in.

The alley boomed with the rolling balls. A middle aged bowling league in matched shirts was setting up. Two girls about Matthew's size sat in the snack bar. There were no other kids his age.

Did he get a lift with one of the guys? I thought. Did I get the wrong night? The wrong place to pick him up? That seemed more likely than that he would have taken off on me, and dared to miss his meeting. But I knew it was supposed to be a pick up at six p.m. at the bowling alley.

Matthew, where are you? I went out, got in the car and sat some more, thinking. He could be in the washroom inside. I hunted for more plausible suggestions. I felt my chest expand a sensation like wideness, a breath coming in that filled it with emptiness. Maybe he met his mother and she took him home! I breathed slowly. Maybe he remembered his street days and shoplifted a bag of chips from the snack bar and the cops have got him now. I sat in the car in the parking lot. Where do I go? How do I find out where Matthew is?

It was six thirty when I drove around the bowling alley. There was nothing out back, of course. A dark green dumpster and a narrow bit of paving meant for the bowling alley's employees to park their cars were fringed by frozen scrub, alders standing up on the lot behind. There was one light burning down on the empty tarmac.

I've got my cell phone with me. Matthew knows the number, in case the cops call, or give him a chance to call. In case he goes home. In front of the alley a raft of kids, maybe late high school, maybe first year university, were piling in, rushing through the lot. I heard them exclaiming even through the glass windows. I drove around the building again.

I saw a shape. Humped, like a big dog, like someone crawling under a rug, it lurched up then subsided. It was in the alders. It moved onto the pavement. It got up. By then I had turned the car towards it. I jumped out. Matthew couldn't stand. He was trying to get one knee under him, but falling. Red streaks of blood glistened in his bare hair. He was making an animal mewling sound, panting. My heart had exploded.

I didn't get him up on his feet. The way he was moving I knew he might have something broken. But I got my arms around him and my hands on him, and felt in all that slippery stinking wetness. I smelt puke. It smelt like puke but it looked like blood. It was on his head. His nose and face were smeared blood red. There was a breastplate of it down his chest. His fingers clawed, scrabbling trying to get beyond me, blind. He couldn't breath. A slimy string hung from his lower lip. The squeaky, breathless sound he made went on and on. It was the sound of hysteria, of panic. His eyes turned up not seeming to register me. He would have rolled on his side and crawled on his belly on the lot if I had let him.

But I felt enough then to know there were no obvious holes in him. Whatever had happened to him, it was unlikely he had been shot. I got him into the front seat of the car. I got in with him. His bare bloody knuckles were icy. He was in shock. Matthew scrabbled moaning, keening up and down. He was afraid. "Muh… muh…muh… blood!" His chest heaved, not catching the breath. "I… ah… I…" And then there were those squealing animal moans.

I took his head. "You are not seriously hurt," I told him voice taut. "You are going to be alright. Understand? You are not hurt. It's just blood."

My message got through. That was what he needed to hear. The whimpering moan died away. He panted. The breath caught. His eyes fixed on mine. He nodded. He tried to grip my arm and he couldn't. His hands were just paws. He stared at me. I broke the grip of his hand from my sleeve and got around to the driver's seat.

While I drove Matthew swayed, holding his head. There were more whimpers but the hysteria passed.

"What happened?" I said.

"Uh…. Uh…. My head. It's my head bleeding," Matthew groaned. "Ohhh."

"You fall? Or you were attacked?" I already knew he'd been attacked.

Another animal squeak came out. He was fighting them down. "S-s-sorry. Didn't, didn't know,' he stuttered. "Sorry. Don't be mad. Currier, please?"

"Was it your dad?" I asked, voice mild.

He turned his head sideways and stared at me amazed. Even with the ribbon of blood down the side of his face I could see the idea surprised him. It hadn't been his step dad. It was funny how finding him didn't tip me into the irrational violence. I asked him the questions calmly. Simple things like a guy crowding me in traffic pushed me into the homicidical rage. But when Matthew got attacked the anger was deep, throbbing and in control. Maybe that was because the parking lot didn't make me feel trapped or exposed. Maybe it was because there was no one in sight to attack. There was part of it having a casualty to attend to, work to focus on. I had to get him to the hospital instead of going back to my house for a gun. So I just drove and he stopped moaning although I went on hearing the pain in his breath.

When I got him to the hospital, of course they wouldn't let me in with him. First of all he didn't have an ID. But he gave his name; he was able to talk enough to give them that. He gave his address, the old address on Back Road in Norton, not mine. And I told them I was his temporary guardian, and that he lived with me, but that wasn't any kind of legal proof that I owned him. They took him away and left me sitting in the waiting room.

"What happens to him?" I said.

"You'll find out after his parents get here," said the woman in white at the counter. "They'll tell you what his condition is."

There was a TV in the waiting room of course, and I remember a lot of car ads, sleek shiny cars plunging along country roads. There was a fat woman with the sniffles, an old man with a grey exhausted face, a woman with a squinted up face and a tiny silent baby on her lap and about thirty other people. Sometimes I paced staying out of the way in the corridor.

After the first half hour the woman called me back to the counter and made me sign papers. They didn't know what kind of insurance the kid had, so they told me if I really wanted to, like I had already offered, I could sign that I'd pay for it. I waved plastic, they typed in numbers and she filled in a form for me to sign saying how high I'd go. "So you'll start treating him now?" I said.

Her voice was quiet and firm and practiced. She must have spoken to fury and fear and pleading a million times before. "Not until we get the consent signed by his parents."

I watched the door, waiting for his parents to get there: a couple, hurrying, startled by the sudden summons. Or maybe it would just be his mother who came. They'd go in behind the swinging doors to Matthew. I pictured the man having a sullen face, being a little older than me. And they'd be dressed a bit shabbily, cheaply, the way Matthew had been dressed, in the kind of clothes he wore.

What would I say to them? First, of course, don't punch the step dad out. That was based on practicality. If I hit him the police would be called and my involvement would be over, even if I just brought white round terror into his eyes, and made him fall off his feet, not injured enough to need medical treatment. I couldn't drive my fists into the man at all. No, I had to get his cooperation. He was like one of the dark-haired men with beards and bad teeth, slyly smiling telling us where the other men were, so that we could go and kill some long time rivals. I'd have to act supportive to gain the objective, to get the intelligence I needed.

An older couple came in. Almost too old? They went to the desk to the admissions clerk, and the woman sank into the chair crying. She hunched. The man held her arm to comfort her. She looked in pain. They took them into triage right away, looking at the woman carefully. No, that woman was the patient; it wasn't them.

The world requires a lot of waiting, so I waited. Soon not very many people were coming in. The crowd in the waiting room began to thin out much more slowly. The woman with the silent infant moved in somnambulistically holding the child up carefully but not steering well, walking towards the side of the door. An orderly turned her in the right direction. Now I had room to stretch my legs in front of me. I kept my eyes on the two doors; the door where Matthew's parents should come in and the door that was between the boy and me.

I sat in the waiting room until three a.m. By then there weren't so many people waiting, just me, two women who looked about dead with fatigue and a four year old with a puffy face. The woman who had replaced the woman in white came down and told me, "You can go in and talk to the doctor if you want to."

So I went in and talked to the doctor. He was a medical student really. "You want to see Matthew?" the doctor kid said. He reminded me of the corpsmen I had worked with, young serious, and already detached. "He's asking for you, so it's all right."

"Yeah," I said.

The guy was peering at me, asking a question. "We spoke to his parents over the phone, a couple of times. But they're just not involved. I understand he doesn't live with them anymore."

"That's right," I said. "Does this mean you haven't even treated him yet?"

"We didn't get a consent signed," he said.

"And I can't sign," I filled in. "I don't have a legal right."

"Well I understand you did sign," the doctor said. "There were papers where you consented to pay for treatment, and you signed those. We did treat him. Dr. Mills said, this isn't the same as a denial of consent. They didn't want to block his treatment. It was more they just couldn't get down to the hospital. Didn't want to, but it was the same he felt. The presumed consent. Because they weren't trying to block it, if you understand."

I wasn't interested in legalities. "So what kind of shape is he in?"

"He's got what we call a grade two concussion, and some minor scalp injuries – nothing we're worried about, although it needed stitching. And he's quite bruised, but there's no reason that shouldn't heal up fine after a week or two."

"What about internal injuries?"

The doctor shook his head. "His blood pressure's nice and stable. That means he's good. The only thing we need to watch is the concussion."

"Are you admitting him?"

"No." The doctor tilted his head to look at me. "I understand he's been living with you."

"That's right. I'm sort of a family friend."

The man just nodded. "He'll need to have the concussion watched but if you can do that, he can go home with you."

I had thought it had been over, that I was out of his life. "I have to wake him up every three hours – isn't that how it goes?" I said.

"Right. The other thing is, did you know he was assaulted?"

I squinted, not saying anything.

"He was beaten up," the doctor kid told me.

"I knew that. It looks to me like he had the shit kicked out of him. Did the guy do anything else?"

The doctor shook his head. "He was kicked – most of it was kicking. There wasn't even a weapon used we don't think. He has a lot of bruising on his behind. There may have been two guys. He didn't seem very sure of that. Once he was down he got kicked in the head and the belly and the behind. He's going to be really sore for quite a few days. Did you see anything or did he come to you already like that?"

"I found him like that," I said, "Crawling in the parking lot."

"Okay. If you'd seen anything you'd need to make a statement for the police. They'll probably still need to talk to Matthew but you won't need to talk to them at all," he said.

Then he let me in at last to see Matthew. The boy was white, red around the eyes, and puffy on one side of the mouth. His pallor was the only thing that looked serious. Otherwise he might just have been crying. He was on gurney, lolling back. He looked at me with set eyes.

"I suppose you feel like shit," I said.

He gave a nod.

"You want to come home with me?"

He gave another nod. I helped him up. He got a death grip on my arm and moved like he wasn't sure he could make it to his feet off the gurney. But once he was up and we started down the hall he was using his biting fingers to hang on, not to make me take his weight. He could have walked okay without holding anything. He breathed like it hurt.

It was just a few hours to daylight when I got him home. "My bed or the loveseat?" I said.

"Loveseat."

I put him on the loveseat, piled the blankets over him and then undressed him. "I have to wake you up every three hours," I told him. "Doctor's orders. When I come and disturb you, just talk to me. As soon as you do that you can go back to sleep."

"I don't mean to be a bother," said Matthew woodenly.

I lay down and I slept. I can usually grab some sleep, if only for a few minutes when I need it. But I was up at dawn when it was time to wake him. He was pretty deeply asleep and that was a good thing. It made him comfortable. I talked him awake. He opened his eyes and said clearly. "My name is Matthew Brown. I know where I am. I'm at your house and you're Currier Ellis."

So I said, "You can go back to sleep," and he closed his eyes again.

I had to wake him one more time, when it had been broad daylight for a while. But he was still ready to go straight back to sleep again, so I left him. I judged he'd be able to get to either the kitchen or the bathroom on his own if he needed to. I got back to the house around ten. I'd left him sleeping to run an errand. He could still sleep another half hour when I got back, but I must have woken him going into the kitchen. In another minute he appeared, hanging onto the kitchen doorframe. Now his head was lumpy, not round, the scalp swollen.

"I got to get to school!" he said.

"You're not going to school," I said. "You're on the sick list for at least the rest of this week."

He puckered, fear and fury all at once. "But I can't miss school! I've missed so much!!"

'Don't worry," I said. "You'll get help from Mrs. Beall. I called the school. Your teachers are going to accept late assignments."

And then he collapsed and went limp. I hung onto him or he would have dropped. He just leaned on me, huddled. He was man enough that he wasn't crying, but damaged enough that he let me take all his weight, and put his cheek against my shoulder. I ended up sitting at the kitchen table and him mostly on my lap clinging to me. He crooked his arm around my neck and hung on. I stroked him. I laid my hands on him very lightly. There wasn't any place on his body it was safe to touch. He had bruises every place.

Later I got food into him, and helped him into his gym sweats. He was so stiff that any kind of moving made him gasp with pain. He wanted help moving from room to room although he didn't say it. I guess I could have left him if I had to go to work, but I didn't, so I could give him my arm to move around.

"You told the doctor it was two guys?" I said. "Young guys?"

Matthew gave a nod.

"Did you think they were kids from Saint David's?"

"They weren't from Saint David's."

"How do you know?" I asked.

He said nothing.

"You said you didn't know who they were, right?"

He looked down. "I didn't know who one of them was." He looked up again, "The other guy… He says he'll come after me again."

Stillness, as strong as light, filled me. "You do have some idea who he was then?"

"He said he'll go after me again if I tell the police."

I nodded. "And you didn't tell the police."

"He hit me before! And nobody cared! He punched me in the face… and now he really, really hurt me. They still don't care. My Dad said I was just a fucking faggot if I didn't hit him back. I can't hit him back. He's too big. He kicked… He kept kicking me. Kicking me. I hurt. I can't face him again."

"I care," I said. "This time I care. I'll do something about it."

"But he'll go after me again if you press charges. Even if he has to pay a fine or something. He's not scared of the police. He's going to hurt me again."

"How do you know he's not scared of the police?"

"He told me."

"Who told you not to describe him?"

"He did."

"Then he probably is afraid of the police."

"I don't care! I can't tell. He'll hurt me. He just starts hitting, punching and then kicking. He spits on me! He spit in my hair…" Matthew's voice had grown wobbly.

"How old is he?" I said.

"I don't know."

"Is he bigger than you?"

"Yes. I think he might be eighteen." The boy paused. "He used to be in my school. He's a prick. I don't know if he graduated now or not. But he's much bigger than me. And he's really tough. He's used to hitting. He went after me at Norton, when I was a Norton, my first week there. He told me he remembered me…"

"Did he hit you this bad the first time?"

"No."

"Did he rob you? Was that it? Was there a reason?"

"He knows," said Matthew faintly.

"Knows what?" I asked.

"He knows I'm a fag."

"You were fag bashed," I said.

"I can't fight him," Matthew said. "I can't. He had the other guy with him. And he just hits – you saw how bad he hit me. I tried to cover my face. All I could do was cover my face."

"Did they both hit you?"

"Only at first. Then the other guy stopped. He was telling him, he grabbed his arm, telling him not to kick me any more. But he didn't stop. I don't know who that guy was, but he told him to stop after I fell down."

"So one of them did most of the hurting."

Matthew nodded.

"Do you know the guy's name?"

"Are you going to tell the police?" he asked.

"No," I said.

"It's Jason Moody," said Matthew. "You promise you won't tell the police?"

"I promise," I said.

Chapter Four

"I looked in the mirror," he said.

I raised an eyebrow waiting for the conclusion.

"I look like hell," he said. "I look really ugly. I mean, I'm pretty ugly to begin with, but now I've got green bruises all down the side of my face. And that's only my face. My body looks like a piebald horse. Half of me is purple and the other half is turning yellow." He managed a smile. "I look kinda grotesque, especially where I'm not standing up straight too much at the moment. Quasimodo." He met my eyes.

"You'll heal up by New Year," I said.

"I wonder what they're going to say at school."

"That depends on what you tell them," I said.

"I already called Duncan," said Matthew. "I told him I'd got in a fight."

"What did he think of that?"

"I don't know what he thought. I told him I was alright but I was too banged up to go to school for a few days," Matthew told me. "I'm glad it wasn't him got attacked. I'm glad he was gone by the time Jason got there."

You must like Duncan, I thought.

"Currier," he said. "Why are you letting me live here with you? I'm so ugly I can't imagine why you do it."

"You don't look ugly," I said. "Not ordinarily."

"Yes, I do," he said contradicting me flatly in his disbelief. "I've got this really skinny neck, like a knitting needle. I look like a bobble doll. And I've got a goofy nose. My face is ugly, and my body is just puny. Don't you know how skinny my arms are? I almost look like a freak." His voice got rueful. "I suppose that's suitable. I am a freak."

"You don't look like a freak," I said. "Not before you got bashed and not now. You've got a cute nose. And what you're describing as skinny and puny looks smooth and supple and agile to me."

"Like a girl?" he said with a grimace

I shook my head. "You don't look like a girl, Matthew. You look good. You're a cute kid. You got a nice smile, reserved and friendly all at once. You've got a lean body, not a puny one. Yeah, your muscles are still small, but there's nothing girlish about them. And you've got a nice package of muscles there. You look pretty good normally."

He met me with his eyes. "But you don't fuck me."

I said nothing to that.

"You said you do boys. Isn't that right?" said Matthew. "So what's wrong with me that you're not putting it up my butt?"

"You don't want it up your butt," I told him. "I already told you. You're playing with me. You want to go so far… touch my cock maybe, get your own cock jerked, look at me, sometimes climb on top of me. But you don't want my cock in your mouth. You look at it, if I bring your head down your lips tighten up. We're going at your pace here and you're not ready to be fucked."

"I'm ready now," he tried to hold my eyes. "If I'm not too ugly now."

"No you're not," I said.

"Yes, I am."

"If you were ready now you'd have a hard on and be climbing all over me. Do you have a hard-on, Matthew?"

"No, but I can get one."

I shook my head. "Are you scared I'm going to kick you out now for some reason?"

"I do want to have sex with you," he said. "Only… how long do I got?"

"How long do you need?"

He didn't answer.

I got up and came to him. I beckoned him to rise and then I had to help him because he got up stiffly. "It's been taking so long for you to be ready," I said. "It's occurred to me that maybe you're never going to want to have sex with me, not ever. Maybe for you having me as a jerk off buddy is enough. Maybe for you, you've got to think about girls for a while more. You might have a bisexual half of you, or maybe you're pissed off at father figures inside and I'm enough a father figure there's a part of you full of anger, too angry to want to give me something valuable like your cherry." I had my arms around him loosely. "Well, that doesn't matter. I'm not saying you got the time – I have a life, a job that might fuck me over pretty soon. I could have to take off in a week or two. I'm not saying that this little refuge you've found is stable, or permanent. But I'm not kicking you out."

"I do like you, Currier." His voice was muffled. "I mean, I really like you. And I guess I know you've been giving me the time." He looked up. "I just want to know what's in it for you? Why would you want me here? I mean, I'm nothing but a little loser, too scared of cock, and I can't even defend myself, and I'm costing you money, I know I am! All those groceries you buy for me, and the check you give Mrs. Beall, and…"

I'd already told him he was cute. I'd told him several times. That wasn't enough for him, though I could say it again and again, that he was a good looking kid, and bright and hard working enough to make it worthwhile. But that wasn't good enough. His scalp was still lumpy and clumpy with the stitches or I would have rubbed his head as I held him. But the only part of his head that wasn't tender and lumpy from the kicking he'd taken was his forehead, so I rubbed that. He needed more reason.

"In Afghanistan," I said. "I, you know, we killed people. And they were our enemy and they would have killed us if they could, so there was nothing wrong with it. I killed some. I didn't kill so many, but you know, a couple of guys here and a couple of guys there. I put shots into cars and I put shots into houses, and onto hills where guys were shooting at us. That was okay." I paused.

"I kind of liked that part of the job. Because being shot at, that made me shit-scared, but being shot at when I had a gun in my hand too, that made me, real awake. Eager, you know what I mean? There's nothing like it, my lungs expanding, fuller, clearer than you could believe, like I could take a breath and go on inhaling forever. And if I was running, it was like I could run forever, fast! The energy! Like it was so free and alive, and mean and intent… There's nothing like going to try to kill someone when he's out to kill you. You ever win sports and feel proud of it? It's way more than that."

He was listening intently.

"And sometimes, it was fun I guess, but it was also a fucking waste. Like, you know, stopping cars at a check point, well they were civilian cars, but they were still people we needed to kill and they'd come driving up and boom, someone would put a burst into the car and it would go on flames and they'd be dead." I shrugged.

"It wasn't good when one of our own guys got hit. You know how eyes look when someone's dead? Kind of unhappy. Blank, like they've realised they're out of it and they don't know how. And it's pretty messy too. A lot messier than you look right now. You just don't look like nothing to me after what I've seen. Because I've stood there and gone, well, where's the rest of his fucking body? I see an arm… There's nothing here but fucking exploded plaster, I know where the wall went but where's his body? There's just an arm. It's so weird, the way people can be missing chunks out of them, the whole jaw gone, or a big black hole in the leg, four inches deep. Or…" I shook my head again.

"And it gets worse," I said. "Because once you start seeing so many dead people, once you get used to thinking I did that, I pulled the trigger, or I gave the order, I caused that, then you get curious, like how far can you go. It becomes nothing to put a gun against the back of a guy's head and inside, the only thing I'm wondering is will the top of his head come off all in one piece. I wonder what shape the top of his head is going to be?"

"That's one side of living, wasting people. And it gets real easy after awhile. Detached. I suppose it's not good that my heart won't slow down. That wide-awake feeling, it doesn't go away, only after awhile it's like caffeine. It's not that I'm staying on alert, it's that I can't sleep any more. I need something else. Something to take the wide awake feeling away." I touched his head.

"I need to stop thinking about killing people. I need to maybe – do quiet things, safe things. Ordinary things. That's where you come in. Like I can use you, to get back into being an ordinary person again. I can go back to being a guy that doesn't, you know, shoot everyone that moves."

"I'm useful?"

"In a way," I agreed. "There are times when I couldn't fucking cope with doing ordinary things, things like just driving down the freeway, if I didn't have you along."

He had a puckered puzzled look on his face. "I've never been useful before."

"I'm going to kiss you now," I said. I picked him up, off the ground so that his face was the same height of mine and I kissed him. He hung onto me. I carried him to the bed. He rolled onto his back and I climbed over him. He let me pull off his clothing, humping his thigh, running my lips down his throat and onto the young, tender skin. His face was mixed with fear and trust, moving to let me pull his shirt off, even leaning up to my body, but staring and his nostrils flared for fear of the pain if I went further than he was ready for.

I didn't cause him pain, or not more than I couldn't help getting his clothes off and touching some of the bruised places. I climbed over him and put both his hands on my cock and he jerked me, two handed, one going down to rub under my taut balls and then coming back to wrap around my prick again. And after a few moments I got down, lying along side him, knees up near his head and I took his young cock in my mouth.

He was hard. Touching him had done that. I sucked it, warm and thick and salt-tasting in my mouth. I fucked his curled hands and drank and bobbed on his cock. And I came pretty quickly, grunting and sucking hard as the spunk surged out of me, spattering onto his chest. He stayed hard in my mouth. He was rocking just a little bit. So I kept on sucking, sliding my lips and panting from the cumming. Matthew moaned. And there was nothing in my universe but that cock, slim and thick at once, rock solid and sensitive. I flickered my tongue on it, and swirled my tongue around it and just bobbed hard and tight. He came in my mouth pretty quickly with suction like that. I felt him grab my legs, clutching frantically. His breath caught and my gulp was all full of salt, rich nectar, pulsing.

I swallowed it. Afterwards he looked at me, worn out and I covered him because I knew he'd get cold.

"I think you must be the kindest, most gentle man that every lived," said Matthew.

"You really have no clue, Kid," I said. "Do you?" I shook my head and lay with him awhile, warm bodies together while he rested.

The day after Matthew had the shit kicked out of him I'd gone out and gotten him a cellular phone. I gave it to him to take with him, and ordered him to call me if he went anywhere at any time. "I'd rather you called me and told me you were going down the hall to the John, than you do something like step outside and don't tell me. You can't call me too much."

"You think Jason's going to come after me again?"

"Probably," I said. "You didn't rat on him, so he got away with it. And you had all the money I gave you in your pocket and you don't have it now, so probably he got that."

The kid's eyes grew wide and shiny. He said nothing at all going still. He couldn't move. I was serving our breakfast out at the table in the morning, on Monday before I was going to take him in to school. He just sat there, too afraid to move.

"Eat," I ordered. So he ate his bacon and eggs and cornflakes. He forgot to promise me he wouldn't lose the cell phone. He held it in his two hands looking at me, scared to go up to the school building when I let him off. He just stood looking back at the car.

And then two boys came down, one of them a tall one and the other one the pug nosed kid that I thought was probably Duncan and he wrenched himself around with an effort. I stayed looking at him go off with the two boys. They walked shoulder to shoulder with him, leaning in a bit. If they didn't turn on him I figured he'd be alright.

I had work to do now. I wasn't back on the job, but I had a pastime a lot more gripping than going to the pool and swimming laps in the fruitless effort of making myself tired. I was doing research. I made it low key, not actually asking anyone any questions. I probably could have found out what I wanted just making make two phone calls, one of them to the Norton High School. But then someone might have remembered I'd made the phone calls. First I went and laid hands on the High School Year Book from last year, and that gave me half of what I wanted. The other half was legwork, driving, and watching and sitting in the car and watching some more. This was a piece of research I didn't want anyone to know I was doing, not even Matthew, at first.

Matthew had enough on his plate already with his schoolwork still so far behind. He'd haul his school books out and look at them at the kitchen table in the morning while I was standing over the stove, when he still looked rocky enough that he could have done with spending an extra twenty minutes in bed. He was trying so hard to get to the same level with the other kids. "What's a gerund?" he moaned. "I can't remember what a gerund is!" He turned the pages of his English book frantically. And I couldn't tell him.

But I did say, "Next term if you're still here, you're going out for sports."

He looked up at me.

"You never did so much of that before, did you?"

"I couldn't get the transportation," he said.

I gave a nod. Shit-face, the stepfather, and that useless mother of his couldn't be bothered setting it up for him. "Well, I want you doing something competitive. I don't care what you take, as long as you're doing something that gets you running and moving. You need to learn to hit back."

"That's what Duncan says," said Matthew. "Could I take martial arts? Duncan takes martial arts."

Duncan again. I grinned. "What type of martial arts do you want?"

"I dunno," said Matthew with a shrug. "Whatever's cheapest. Or means the least driving around for you."

I left him at home alone in the evenings when I went out. I parked under the pine trees just up the road from the yellow trailer with the Moody mailbox out front. It was sixty yards up, and an unlit corner of a door-and-window-warehouse parking lot. It was far enough I had to use a pair of binoculars if anything moved there, and pretty boring. But I only spent two evenings out there and I got a little more information.

Then it was the weekend, so I didn't go intelligence gathering any more. I took Matthew out swimming and for a walk down one of the back roads, where the fields were frozen and our boots crunched in the new snow. His ears turned bright pink because he was bare-headed, and he smiled at me but he didn't want to walk far. I didn't think it was an excuse for being weak still. Stepping wide through the scrunching crusts of frozen snow, keeping up, he didn't show he was stiff or sore. "But it's exam week. I really want to get some studying in."

So I took him home and he spend most of the weekend with a glazed expression on his face, and his head propped on one hand staring at the books. Some of the time he spent doing equations and some of the time he spent on the phone in the hall, talking quietly to another kid. "Ancient Greeks against the Persians and then Alexander the Great?" He was one hell of a grind, that kid.

Exam week meant I had to drive him in to school for either the morning or the afternoon, but not always both, and then a couple of times he stayed so he could use the library at the school, as there were a couple of papers due. "I forgot to write down my bibliography! Oh God! Oh God! I'm gonna have to find all those books and write them down before I can hand it in…"

It also meant I had time to go out stalking and watching. But this time I didn't park down by the door-and-window-warehouse – or not for more than half an hour at a time, and this time I drove a different car.

I came home at ten one night and found Matthew newly showered, damp haired and squeaky clean, sitting up cross-legged on my bed. I flung myself down and he bent and kissed me. I pulled him close. He snuggled in. We lay like that, fully clothed. He fumbled into the fly of my pants. By the time he found my cock it was stiff. He jerked it smiling into my face. The lumps on his scalp had gone down but the hair was uneven, in one line where they had clipped it to put the stitches in. He had probably forgotten I could see that.

"You're a horny little devil tonight," I said lightly.

"Uh-huh," he agreed and then bit off a yawn. He looked surprised when I laughed. Horny he might have been but he was also sleepy. I got his pajamas open and he worked on my shirt.

"I like it when you suck me," he said shyly.

"I like it when I suck you too," I said. I jacked up on my elbow and squirmed down. He smiled. I lapped at his cock looking up to see the expression on his face.

"Uhhhhh," he sighed. "Uh, Currier! Oh God! How do you do that? Holy fuck, but that's… that's… Oh my God!"

It tasted good, and it was jutting up hard now, just the right shape. It fit my mouth exactly. So I worked away and it wasn't so long before I felt his hand at my crotch get clumsy. His pumping got mechanical because he was so distracted by the sensations from his own cock. I didn't bring him off into my mouth. I brought him off into my hand so I could catch it white and dripping in my fingers, a hand full of spunk glistening and smelling soapy.

He forgot my cock. He lolled back, a great wide smile on his face. Stretched out like that it pulled his naked stomach taut, and his boy-belly was so lean under his ribs he was like a piece of sculpture. I laid my hand on his stomach and felt the warmth, the living electric skin. It didn't disturb him. I lay like that not moving my hand just letting it rest motionless, feeling how alive he was. And his cock very slowly began to deflate so that it started pointing down. The tip was still very red from the engorgement and it gleamed with the last seepage of ejaculate.

After awhile he murmured, "Currier, what do you want for Christmas?"

"Peace in the Middle-East," I said flippantly.

"No, really," his voice woke up a little bit.

"I dunno, Kid," I said. "I got pretty much everything that I want."

"I don't have very much money," he said. "I could get you a watch or something."

"Don't spend your money on me," I said.

He rolled over a little bit so he could see me. "Anything I could get you," he said. "You could afford to get a better one for yourself."

"I'll like anything you give me," I said.

He eyed me. "Duncan gave me an idea. He told me something I should try."

Duncan again. I nodded. "Then try that. And I bet you he'll be right." I was lying on my side looking at him closely. He was relaxed and thoughtful, unselfconscious about his nudity. He'd quite forgotten that he hadn't made me cum. I didn't remind him.

"Matt," I said. "Tomorrow night I want you to do something for me."

His eyes widened a fraction.

"We're going to go out," I told him, "To a snack bar. It's on Highway Four. And there's a chance Jason's going to be there…"

"Jason!" he interrupted me.

"Yeah, Jason. The kid that beat you up a couple of times."

He was afraid. I could see it in him. His lips had gone into a flat little line. He didn't say another word.

"I'll be there with you," I said. "So nothing bad is going to happen. I'll tell you what to do."

"But he'll…" Matthew paused. "You want me to identify him, is that it?"

"No," I said. "I know what he looks like. I want you to lead him into the parking lot where I can get him."

For long seconds he said nothing. His hands had come up around his own shoulders so that he was loosely hugging himself. "You're out to get Jason," said Matthew. "You're not out to arrest him, right?"

"That's right," I said.

"Do you think you can take him on?"

"That's what I'm counting on," I said.

"Even if he has his friends with him?" Matthew's voice was uneven from fear.

"Then we'd just get in the car and go away if there's too many of them there for me to take him," I said.

Matthew swallowed. He smiled wanly.

"You'll do it?"

"Yes, Currier," he said. "I'd do anything for you."

Matthew was my weak point. It wasn't that I expected so much from him, but he was deathly afraid of the guy who had beat him up so bad. I couldn't be sure he'd have the guts to do what I said, for all he told me he'd do anything. I could have given him one of my guns. I was pretty sure that would give him all the courage he needed. If he were armed he'd figure he could waste Jason as soon as the bigger guy tried anything on him. I'd seen it with the American kids out in Afghanistan. They liked having a M15 to hold up against their body, security. But that wasn't the reason I was bringing Matthew to the snack bar. I didn't want him to waste Jason by shooting him down in the parking lot. Mess was something I meant to avoid. When I saw how still and dark-eyed he was I wasn't so sure that Matthew would even have the courage to get out of the car when I we got to Highway Four.

The first night wasn't bitter cold. It was a still night and there had been a snowfall earlier, just half an inch of it, soft and still in the parking lot. Matthew stared ahead of himself just blank. I parked the car not in front of the snack bar but in the parking lot of the property beside it. His eyes were fixed on the windshield, his neck straight. He didn't look at me.

"The reason I want you to do this," I said, "Is because you're afraid. You're too afraid to hit back, Matt. You need to learn how you can hit back."

He turned his head to look at me. "I know that," he said. "I can do it." His voice was just ghostly. We both got out of the car. I stood close to him, feeling the smooth material of his coat against mine. I pointed. "We wait here. And then when we see him, if we see him, you go there. He won't do anything – not more than a punch or so anyway, while you're up there on the porch ordering your fries. We want him to think he can rob you. Here's money." I passed Matthew a roll of bills. "I want you not to worry about losing the money. All it is, is bait. You can use it even, if you have to, throw it into the snow so he goes after it and you can make a break from him. But lead him back, right here behind the dumpsters. Lead him to me."

"Okay," said Matthew. We waited. We waited two hours that night, quiet, bored and still. And maybe ten people came to the snack bar in that time, seven or eight cars. But in the winter the snack bar didn't get too much trade, not like it would in the summer on a hot night. There were a lot of young men. I passed the binoculars to Matthew a couple of times. It was no go at all. None of them was Jason.

When we were in the car and driving home, Matthew got sleepy. "Why do you want to get Jason so bad?"

"Because he got you."

Nobody had ever cared about Matthew enough to help him defend himself. I should get the step-father next, I thought.

We went on with our ordinary lives of course while we waited for the night Jason would come to the snack bar. I was pretty sure he would come. He'd greeted people there. They knew him and I'd seen him there twice before. But I wasn't certain. After all it wasn't like he worked there. Still, I was pretty sure it was our best bet at the moment. It wasn't like we need to hurry about what we were doing.

Matthew didn't have to go to school during exam week. He studied at my kitchen table, watching noodles boiling in a pot. I still did most of the cooking but he had already started to pick up some skills. He did the dishes after each meal and then like as not would curl up on his loveseat with some more books, pages of his notes, notes he had photocopied from his classmates.

"Can I go over to Cullen's house to study?"

I got up, "You need a lift now?"

"Yup. Please."

Who was Cullen? I thought. Another friend. I hoped he'd make more friends than Duncan. That attachment was too strong. They might fall out and then he'd be hurt again.

It was Cullen's mother who brought Matthew home after the study session and he let himself in with his own key. I heard him at the door although I had headphones on. He came upstairs looking for me. It was his light tread on the stairs. "What you doing?" He looked at the cassette player I was tinkering with.

"Learning Farsi."

"What's Farsi?"

"It's the language they speak in Iraq," I said.

"Would you like me to vacuum downstairs?" he asked.

I glanced at my watch, "No, it's about time to go to the snack bar."

In the car the night outside was dark and windy and the houses glittered and twinkled red and blue and green and white, icicle lights and rearing reindeer, Mrs. Santa Claus, cut out of plywood, was a giant on one flood lit roof, trees in the front yards jeweled with lights, eaves flickering and twinkling with green and gold.

"You remember you said that you could get a blow job in Afghanistan for only fifty cents?" said Matthew.

"Yeah," I answered.

"Is that true, just fifty cents?"

"That's right. There were a few kids. They weren't very old. They were desperate enough to do that, because they needed the money for food. They were just so poor."

"You do that? You fucked with some Afghani kids?"

"No," I said glancing over at him. "I fucked a couple of men though."

"There were guys being hookers – adult guys?" He sounded surprised.

"They weren't hookers," I said.

"Gay guys. You fucked some gay guys while you were in Afghanistan."

"I don't think they were gay, Matt," I said.

"Then why did they let you fuck them?" he asked.

I said nothing for a while. Then I glanced at him again. "Why do you think?"

He stared at me wrinkling, confused. I pulled up in the empty, unlit lot that was beside the snack bar. It became too dark to see his features. He was puzzling over it. He didn't know.

We got out of the car and stood back, against the trees where we were invisible watching for cars to come into the snack bar lot. It was just seven o'clock. There was a lot of traffic.

"Tell me what you're going to do."

"When we see Jason I go up to the snack bar. I try to stay several steps from him and act like I don't know he's there. I order fries if I don't see him looking at me, but if I see him looking at me I order a chocolate bar. If he comes near me on the platform I stay in the light. I don't say anything to him. As soon as I have my fries or my chocolate bar I come here. I don't run unless he's really chasing me. I head right past the car and go into the trees. I probably won't see you." Matthew repeated his orders tonelessly.

"Very good," I said.

"And if he doesn't follow me we come back another night and do it again."

"Right."

"What if he just doesn't ever come here? We're wasting our time. It could be silly, wasting our time."

"Then we wasted our time." I said. "I'd rather wait here than attack him somewhere obvious. It's important that we don't get seen."

Jason didn't come that night.

"I've got English today," said Matthew to me glumly. I was driving him to school, late because the exam started at ten o'clock not at the hour when school usually did.

"You're not psyched?"

"I'm psyched," he said, "I just don't do English well. It's going to be essays. We read some text and then we write about it. I hate essay questions…"

"I hate 'em too," I agreed. "I have to do reports too. I have to write them for work. It's hard making sure I do a good job, do them complete when I hate doing it."

"Really?"

"Yeah. I do a good job on my reports all the same. You can hate something and do a good job on it."

He went into the school. I was driving back home with a pair of trucks coming up behind me when my cell phone buzzed. I picked it up instantly.

"Currier?" It was Cleggman.

"Yeah, Sir?"

"How are you enjoying your break?" He put on a hearty voice.

"It's going fine," I spoke tonelessly, switching lanes, easing behind a white slush spattered car into the slow lane. The truck was almost on my bumper, heavy, bearing down.

"You getting more relaxed, unwinding some?"

"Yes, Sir. I'm spending time with my godson."

"That's good," said Cleggman. "I called to wish you a Merry Christmas."

"Thank you," I said. The truck, big and brown rumbled past like a juggernaut. It was a container truck, unmarked. It swayed in the lane, the massive wall of its side shouldering near. "Merry Christmas to you too, Sir."

"Merry Christmas, Rob," he corrected.

"Merry Christmas, Rob," I said.

"Sounds like you're in traffic," said Cleggman. "I'll let you go. Bye." He disconnected. The second truck was close on the first, like a tandem. The car was full of the sound, eighteen wheels thundering, a flood of brown dirty snow churning up, a wall of slush pattering against my window, against the windshield, dark, shutting out the light. The truck felt so close that it was falling under a train. I heaved the cell phone away from myself across the car.

"Fuck you!!" I screamed. I put both hands on the wheel and the car weaved on the shoulder, tires slipping in all that snow, weaving, staggering like a drunk. The windshield wipers slapped against the snow; blobs of it cleared. For only fifteen seconds I was blind.

"Fuck you! Fuck you! Fuck you…!" I fought for my breath. "I should kill you!" My breathing sounded to me like sobs. "Merry fucking Christmas, you cocksucking Arab-loving son of a whore!"

Matthew, finished his exams was punch drunk. He giggled and spun around in the yard. "Oh God, question three's a write off…" he sighed. "I know I fucked it. I know." He gave a sigh and a grin all at once.

"Bad?" I asked.

"Victorian!" he said. He wrinkled his nose right up. "The guy that wrote the story was called Lawrence. Great Literature. I didn't know what was going on. This kid dies and there didn't seem to be no reason. It looked like it was the Uncle's fault because he got the kid into gambling but I think maybe it was supposed to be the parent's." He flung his hands loosely up in the air. "Anyway… the kid's dead, the exam's over and now I got to get my Christmas vacation." He grinned at me.

"Would you like to take a skiing trip?" I asked.

"Mmm…" he started thoughtfully and then nodded enthusiastically. "Mmm-Hmm!"

I was getting to read him pretty good. "No, you don't. Why not?" He never minded doing anything new. He was always willing to try anything I threw at him. "You don't want to go away for a trip… let me guess. You want to see your friends at Christmas."

"I'd like the trip. What ever you would like. What do you usually do at Christmas?"

"I usually work," I said. "When there're enough people out for Christmas the computers work faster."

"You don't want to ski…?"

"I asked you what you wanted. Do you want to stay in town near your friends over Christmas?"

He looked at me cautiously. "We could do either." He wouldn't tell me his preference.

"How about we take a day, maybe two skiing and spend the rest of the time here?"

He nodded, smiling, still nervous.

Chapter Five

Kneeling, he soaped my knees and then worked up my thighs. His slim hands went between my legs, under my balls, working lovingly. He used both hands on each thigh in turn, massaging the soap in. Then he slid his soapy hand into my crack. He ran his forefinger up and down, down to my balls, another squirt of soap and then lightly stroking and smoothing the soap in. My hard on was pointing for my chin, had started pointing for my chin back when we had thrown our clothes on the bathroom floor.

Now he was soaping my prick. He squeezed just under the head of my cock working the soap up and down. The water rinsed it away. His hand kept moving. He stood up. It was too hard to keep working from underneath. His bare belly bumped my hip. His own cock was sticking out like a splinter. He poked it up under my balls so that the sacs were rubbing on his tip. He squeezed my cock again. Then his hands went behind me and cupped my ass. He clutched it tightly.

I brought my hand down to my cock. Watching him I jerked. He wriggled his hips side to side, holding my ass, leaning back making his cock rub against me. I was pretty close to cumming already. I stroked fast. He wriggled harder, side to side, more eager. He started humping my leg, still leaning back so that I had the room to stroke. Water splashed from my shoulder onto his chest. The soap was gone, sluiced away. Matthew had his mouth open round, unaware it was open, drawing in the hot steaming air, breathing hard. His eyes were down, staring at my cock while he humped on me.

"Uh!" I grunted. It was happening. I felt my balls drawing up, felt the shock travel. Matthew moaned pushing his belly and chest inward. The white pulse of my cum jetted. It squirted on his chest, shining. Blobs trickled on his breastbone and ran down to his belly. He was leaning in for it, trying to get it to land on his body.

Matthew sighed, release like he was the one that had cum. I let my hand fall and he stopped pushing his body forward. The water's steady trickle made the cum fade, made it begin to slip down his body. It washed away and I took him, turned him and wrapped my arms around him. My cock was against his ass. I held his cock jerking him, holding him firmly against me. He didn't grind his ass into me though. He just leaned back against me while I thrummed on his cock. His head went back against my shoulder and his hand pawed lightly at my forearms, half in an embrace, urging me to keep stroking.

Then it was his turn. His young cum shot higher than mine had. It was a sudden spurt, fast and hard. His body quivered as he came. He stayed pressed back into me tightly, sagging against me now. I held him up with my arms.

"Man, I wish I had found you years ago," Matthew said dreamily.

"I'm kind of glad I found you too," I said.

He turned around. Water dribbled in a silver thread from his chin as the shower ran onto his cheek. He flinched at the water hitting his eyes and grinned at the same time. Then he brought his and linked them behind my neck. Deliberately he leaned up and put his lips against mine. I leaned down. We kissed. He clung to my neck, lips seeking against mine, his eyes sealed. He kissed me almost desperately.

I'm going to cut the description of Christmas short. Matthew was supposed to get his marks before the holiday but then St. David's computer broke down and they told us that none of the kids would get them until the holiday was over. So we held a quiet Christmas at home. I gave him mostly stuff he needed like spare shirts and sleep pants and his own wristwatch, and he gave me a wooden dresser top stand that he had made. It was one of those valet things that make it convenient for emptying out your pants pockets with hollows in the wood to dump your change into and a little stand to hold your wallet.

"I made it in tech," he said anxiously. "It's not very good, is it? I don't think I got the hollows lined up perfect. But I did try. I spent hours at sanding it."

I smiled at him.

He was still uncertain. "I did think it would be better than buying you something with your own money," he said.

"I like it," I said. I put it on my dresser and I used it every night.

Then we took our skiing trip, staying in the lodge for two nights. That was fun and luckily the wind wasn't too sharp the three days we were out on the slope. Matthew ended up rolling in the snow a lot. He was always having his skis go taking off ahead of him and sitting down with a bump. But we took it easy on the easy slopes until he got the hang of it. I didn't get any serious skiing done for sure. I just hung out with him and I have to say I laughed my ass off when he took off down one of those short beginner hills at top speed hollering "Banzaiiiii!"

But the holiday seemed short because I had other things in mind. I made it as good a holiday as I could and Matthew smiled wide, smile so wide it turned his young eyes into slits and he dug his head into my armpit and lay with my arms linked around him. "I love you, Currier," he said.

"I love you too," I said lightly. It was funny I never said it to him more. He probably needed to hear it. But Matthew still had that reserve in him, that shyness around me sometimes. And how could I blame him. He knew my bad temper. I thought that maybe he would have picked Christmas to give up his virginity to me, as a kind of a big symbolic Christmas gift, but I was glad I got the valet-thing instead. I still didn't want him turning ass up for me unless he really wanted it. I didn't want it as a gift. I wanted him so horny he was doing it for himself and not for me.

With the exams over, he got to take a break from his studying and he took his skis out in the front yard. Of course they were down hill skis and the yard was flat so it wasn't so good for cross country skiing but Matthew practiced with them so he got better at staying on his feet. I just smiled. He was a long way from decently steep hills yet. But give him time and four or five more ski trips.

It was seven o'clock at night. I jingled my keys while Matthew shrugged into his bulky winter jacket and checked his pockets for his mitts. He already had the cute hat with the ear flaps on. It was a good night for ear flaps. The mercury had gone down. Outside the sky was a hard glistening black, studded with stars. The trees were frozen fast, black lacework against the icy gleam of the night sky. Under our boots the snow crunched.

"Brrrr…" Matthew shivered as he got into the car. "Do you think he's dumb enough to come out on a cold night like this?'

"You never know," I said with a shrug. "You don't need to study tonight, so we might as well go and see."

I had started the car inside the house but the windows still frosted from our heat as we got in. Matthew scraped at the window with his mitts. I saw his smooth face reflected where he had polished the ice off the glass. The car was sluggish, coughing softly reluctant to turn over. The roads were deserted.

There was something sad about the Christmas lights, white and blue and green, forgotten after the holiday, burning un-noticed in the darkness. As always when we did this evening forays Matthew was quiet. I drove to the snack bar and parked in the lot behind. I sat looking and killed the engine. After I had taken in the deserted parking lot, the lit up price lists for burgers and shakes, the entombed trashcans and the white banks of snow I looked at Matthew. He looked glum and with the sad face and the silly hat on, he looked younger than he was.

"Can we run the engine to keep warm?"

"We don't want him to know someone drove you here. We want him to think you're alone," I said.

"Okay," said Matthew. I saw his lips move, and read the silent words. But he's not coming, Matthew mouthed.

That made me grin. Matthew was starting to get lippy. That was a good sign. He wasn't the docile, cowering kid he used to be. He might not be verbalizing it openly yet, but he was thinking it loud enough that I could see it.

We settled down. He shifted his boots sometimes. I handed him gel hand-warmers, cracking them for him before he slipped them into his mitts. I slipped another pair of the hand-warmers into my pockets. A car came, with two teenaged girls who stood shuddering with the cold as they waited for their order. Steam rose around them from their breaths. They had short jackets and you could see their asses were freezing in the tight jeans they wore. Matthew stared at them and I wondered if he had a bisexual half that was appreciating the curves on the shivering girls.

They went. The next car was a fat man who got a big order. Then nothing. The girl manning the snack bar must have been bored. Matthew sat scrunched low in his seat, eyes on the ordering window.

I looked at my watch. It was after nine thirty. I was also bored.

Around ten after ten a lone male came walking down the road. I stiffened. The guy had his hood up. We couldn't see his features at all. Matthew shot me a look.

"I think that's him," I said. "He came from Jason's street." Matthew's eyes got bigger.

We both scrambled out of the car. I handed him the wad of bills.

"Do what we rehearsed. Exactly what we rehearsed," I said.

He stood frozen. Steam made plumes around both our faces. His eyes moved. Then I saw him swallow but he couldn't get any words out. Matthew turned around and trudged slowly towards the snack bar platform.

I watched him go. There was always a chance Moody would jump on him right there, at one look at him. If that were so I would come running up five steps after Matthew. Only I was willing to bet that wasn't what the teenager would do. He'd never roughed Matthew up in front of other people before. He wouldn't want the girl from the snack bar as witness.

I unlocked the trunk of the car and got down, crouched. Down below the side of the car like that I was out of the wind but I felt the bitter cold of the hard frozen ground. The wind blew a spume of snow, a fine plume of snow dust as it hissed along the ploughed lot. The drifts made wave shapes. I could see nothing but the glow. I listened hard.

Time it right, I thought to myself. Matthew, don't blow it. Don't look around for me and show him that I'm here. It was a long wait. Matthew must have ordered the fries. I felt the cold going through me and shivered, racked by it. My hands were loose, ready and open in my pockets. I had them bare. I couldn't afford to be encumbered at all. Slowly I started to freeze. The skin on my face grew numb. My ears prickled with the cold and felt like they were burning; frostbite. When the wind blew harder the plume of snow blew onto me and I heard the trees behind me creak.

Crunch, crunch, scrunch… crunch… fast foot steps, footsteps so hurried they were nearly running. Of course nobody stood around or ambled in weather like this. Matthew running wouldn't mean that he was being chased. It wouldn't make Moody think he knew he was being chased. If only he chased the boy.

Then when I saw the slip-sliding jerky way that Matthew moved I knew that Moody was after him. He did good. He was clutching the bag of French fries in both hands so tight that he was almost crushing it in half. He never looked at the car but blindly strode past me, chin up. I breathed shallowly, almost holding my breath. Don't let Moody see the fog of my breath! Then I heard the older boy's voice.

"Hey, Faggot!" I heard his footsteps pattering on the crisp snow. He was breaking into a run, straight towards me.

One two three four five… Matthew had just made it into the trees when Moody started to run past the bumper of the car. He didn't get far. I stood and got one arm around his throat behind. The other arm I grabbed his wrist. I expected him to be strong and he was strong. He made a sudden gulp, a strangled noise. Then I had his wrist twisted up, locked in a plastic handcuff. I clipped them together, let go of his throat long enough to flip the trunk lid up, kicked his feet out behind him and tipped him in.

Moody fell into the trunk on his face, beginning to jackknife but strangled and without the leverage. It took about four and a half seconds. I slammed the lid and looked about.

There was no one in sight, only the deserted empty lot. Matthew was gone in the trees.

"Hey! Okay, come back!"

In the trunk something muffled thumped. I heard a rattle. I left him and went after Matthew. He met me at the edge of the trees. He was white, breathing hard, melted snow and fog making his lips and nose sparkle. The French fries looked wrung out. "Currier!? He…" Matthew grinned, confused and then stopped. "You didn't get him?'

"I got him," I said.

"You got him? What did you do to him?" He looked at the parking lot at the ground near the bumper of the car. He was still grinning. Perhaps he thought I'd leave Moody battered, beaten into a collapse the way he had left Matthew.

"Don't worry." I steered Matthew back towards the car. "He's in the trunk."

Matthew laughed. "Fucking tard! You'll show him seriously now, right?" He looked around at me and at the cold still night uncertainly as he scrambled into the front seat of the car. "What are you going to do? We got him in the trunk. You going to beat him up?"

"That's about the size of it," I agreed.

"So, what you going to do? Where are you going to take him? Not home?" Matthew shuddered with excitement and with the cold as I started the car engine again.

"I've got a place where I'm taking him," I said to Matthew. "The thing is, I don't want to fuck this up. Get the wrong guy? No. So I'm going to take him out of the trunk in this garage I know about, and you're going to have to take a good look at him. Okay? A positive ident. That's vital, because there is no way we are doing this to the wrong guy. I got to know he's the right guy for sure before I lay another finger on him."

"Right," said Matthew.

Matthew stopped shivering while I drove. There were a few thumps and then he giggled. His eyes flashed and he looked at me mean with mischief. "I hope you make him cry. Think you can make him cry, Currier?"

"I might," I said.

The garage wasn't far away. It was about two miles [3 km], far enough that it could have meant a problem if Moody was smart enough to disconnect my rear brake lights or something. But I knew he wasn't getting out of the trunk. I'd made sure of that when I picked the car I'd borrowed for this game. The garage was an industrial garage. It was the kind you could get a full sized eighteen wheeler into, parking maybe three of them in a row beside the landing bay. The ceiling above was huge and vaulted and dark. There were only a couple of lights, yellow gleaming down on the side of the loading dock so you could see if the truck headlights got switched off. But it was bitter tomb cold in there. All it was, was out of the snow and the wind and out of sight. It was still as cold as a grave.

I checked the brake lights. They were fine.

"Go down over there," I ordered Matthew. "He's got handcuffs on but he might have a knife and he might want to fight. I don't want him even seeing you until I get you to come back."

"Okay," Shivering, Matthew went down to the end of the garage in the dark.

Angry gleaming eyes and a sneering mouth met me when I opened the lid of the trunk. The kid was tall, nearly as tall as me and certainly a head and a half taller than Matthew. He wasn't fighting though. I dragged him out of the trunk. He kicked, a few reflex kicks, not effectual. This I could do and I could do easily. He was no problem at all to me.

"Fuck… fuck you, what you… What you fucking do, Man?" Moody muttered. He tried to twist out of my grip so I let him twist in the direction I wanted him. He tried to elbow me backwards when I undid the handcuff so I was able to drag his hand up behind him. He turned and he was backwards to the dock. In another few seconds I had him handcuffed standing, facing the concrete, his arms stretched in front of him to the edge of the metal ramp.

"Who the fuck… who the fucking shit are you, Man? You got to tell me. That's the law… Fuck!" The older boy vibrated. He didn't give me any trouble when I put my hands in his pockets. He glared at me. I found his money, keys… I wanted a wallet. It was in his inside jacket not his pants pocket. I carried it over to the light and flipped it open.

Jason Moody, said the ID, birth date, April 11th, 1983.

"Matthew," I called. "Come over here now."

The boy came back. His giggles were gone. His eyes were large and an uncertain smile fluttered around on his face.

"I want you to look at this man really closely and tell me if there is any possibility that he wasn't the guy who beat you up."

Matthew came around and peered at Moody. The older boy glared. "I'm killing you, Man," Jason hissed.

"No, I'm killing you," I said. "You want to hit him," I offered Matthew. "Kick him or punch him?"

"Yeah!" Matthew moved up. "You're a fucking coward, Moody. I'm half your size. What kind of a hero you think you are, coming after me. Robbing me. You're a thief," he spat.

Moody stared back sullenly.

"Why did you attack me? Why? Why?" Matthew demanded.

Moody said nothing. He twisted a little and looked back at me, just a quick look, measuring where he was.

"Cause you got told I was gay, right? I'm gay; you got a right to beat me?" Matthew's voice went up. "You're a fucking asshole, Moody!!" He swung a cocked fist. He hit Moody in the kidney.

But the teenager didn't convulse. He hadn't been hit so hard. Matthew was a novice at punching. It must have hurt but no more than that.

"Leave me fucking alone!" Moody said.

Matthew held his fist up in Moody's face. I watched not intervening. "You are going to get hurt this time! Not me! You're going to get the beating. So how you like that?"

I listened to a few minutes of this. But after that one punch in the kidneys it was all talk. And now Moody was shifty eyed, looking away from Matthew and then bringing his eyes back.

After awhile Matthew fell silent. He looked at Moody and turned around and looked at me. "You all done?" I said lightly.

"Yeah," said Matthew.

"Okay, off we go," I said.

"Off we go?" He sounded startled.

"I'm going to be beating him up in a few minutes," I said. "And that's breaking the law. I don't want you to see it, Matthew."

"Why not?"

"Because then you won't be able to say you saw me do it. Evidence," I said. "I'm thinking of you giving evidence against me in a court of law. Besides, beating up a guy, the way I'm going to beat him up gets messy. You don't need to see it."

Matthew's young brow wrinkled.

"Come on, youngster," I said. "Back to the car."

"No, wait," said Matthew. He shot a look at Moody again. The man was craning his neck over his shoulder to look back at us but Matthew didn't glare at him. He looked at Moody and then at me and then at Moody again.

"So what are you going to do?" he said.

I shook my head.

"You can tell me," he insisted. "You think I would ever, ever give evidence against you for doing this?"

I smiled slightly. "Not voluntarily."

"So what are you going to do?"

"First I'm going to punish him for fag bashing you," I said. "Then I'm going to hurt him so bad that he's afraid of me enough that he leaves town."

Matthew stayed staring at me. A little bit of fog came from his mouth in the cold tomb of the garage.

"Really?" he said. "Why can't I watch?"

"You'll be sick," I said.

Matthew was wide eyed, tension bringing his brows down over the staring brown eyes. "You said I have to toughen up."

I shrugged. "It'll be sick Matthew. He hurt you because of your sexuality. I'm going to hurt his. I'm not going to let him walk out of here even able to conceive of hurting you again."

"What?"

I shook my head.

"You are going to kick him in the nuts…? No, I know you're going to kick him in the nuts. What…?"

"Look," I said. "I really don't want you knowing more about this than you have to. I can do it neatly, do it safely, do it in a way that doesn't come back to haunt us. But you don't have to watch. It would be far, far better if you trust me, forget the details and just trust me to have looked after our little friend in a way that puts him out of the game forever. When I'm done he won't be coming back to look for you ever again. I've done this before. I've done worse that this before. In fact, this is the kind of job that I'm good at. That's all you need to know."

"But… what if he talks?"

"Trust me," I said.

"I do trust you," he said. "I just want to watch."

"Matthew? He's going to do some screaming and whining before I'm through. You don't want to watch that."

"Then I'll go behind the car and not look." Matthew had his lips pulled in tight anxiously. "I need to know." I could tell Matthew was afraid. He was much more afraid than anything else at this point. Whatever anger he had worked up before was gone and in its place was something close to dread.

"Somehow I don't think you're enough of a sadist," I said.

"Hurt him," said Matthew and he swallowed. "Let me see what you do."

I walked back over to Moody. The man's eyes were on me now, big with terror. I used my foot to kick him in the kidneys. His body slammed into the dock in front of him and he gave a great grunt of pain. He finished by breathing in pain, half way to moans, "Ahhh…ahhh…ahhh…"

"It'll just be like that," I said but even when I said it I saw by the white's of Matthew's eyes that he didn't believe me. The boy stood staring with his arms limp by his sides. "That's not more than he did to me," said Matthew and he swallowed. "I'm not made sick by seeing that."

"I'm going to rape him, Matthew," I said.

"You…" he hesitated. "That's what you were trying to tell me. Those guys in Afghanistan."

I nodded. "They were prisoners being questioned," I said. "Al Qaeda. It gave me a way of getting my rocks off and it made them miserable enough that they broke. I made them ashamed."

"That's going to be his punishment for fag bashing me?"

"That's right."

He sealed his eyes up squinting. "Do it!"

I shook my head, not in denial but because I thought Matthew was wrong. I didn't want him to see. I'd corrupted the kid way too much already.

He stood there with his legs braced and his shoulders up almost as if it were him facing the ordeal. But he didn't say anything more. He just stared hard at me and at Moody.

I turned back to the young man. "Your bad luck you came of age," I said. "If you were a boy still, I'd probably rape you, but I wouldn't be hurting you as bad as this."

"Fucking leave me alone!" cried Moody desperately. "Leave me alone!"

"Shut up or I'll gag you," I said. I put my body up against his so that I could feel the softness of his ass and he could feel my prick getting hard. I unfastened his pants from the front and tugged them down.

"Leave me alone!" Moody shrieked again and then when I belted him in the kidneys again he broke off into a bark. He didn't scream when I got his ass bare, his pants down around his shins, when I stepped on them to pull them off altogether. I took him by the balls from behind and squeezed until he gurgled.

"You hurt my godson," I said.

Then I took my own pants down and caught hold of my prick. I wasn't fully hard yet. Arguing with Matthew had done that. I knew the boy's eyes were on my naked butt. "You're a cowardly little cunt," I said. "Fag bashing grade nine kids." I had condoms in my pocket. I rolled one down but I didn't lube up the rubber with my spit. I caught Moody by the thighs. I had to lift them some and drag them back. He whimpered. Then I rammed it up into him dry.

I don't know why he didn't curse or shriek while I fucked him. Most guys don't. I think it's a courage or an endurance thing. Anyway, Moody didn't make very much noise. I must have hurt the hell out of him. I saw a little bit of blood on the condom as my latex covered prick sawed in and out. I was breathing hard through my nose. The fog swirled in front of me. My ass was out in the cold feeling it but most of all I felt that tightness that was half pain, the nineteen-year-old's ass clamping down on my prick. I made myself not think about Matthew behind me. I fucked Moody until the heat in my testicles tightened up. I felt it pulse inside him and grinned into his throat.

When I let Moody put his feet down on the ground again, and I turned around I had to look at Matthew. He was still standing there with his chin bravely raised. "You showed him," said Matthew in an uneven voice.

I nodded. I peeled the condom off and tucked it away into plastic right away. I got my own pants up and fastened. Moody was breathing hard listing over sideways like he was feeling weak but I'd had a good enough look at the complexion of his cheek and neck while I fucked him that I knew he wasn't close to a faint.

"That's his punishment for fag bashing you," I said. "For the next part I need to be alone. You can't stay and watch this Matthew. This is bad enough for you to have seen already."

"I have to go?"

"I don't give you too many orders, Matthew, but this is one," I said firmly. "Let's go."

Matthew turned white. I saw the blood drain from his face. "Currier?" he croaked.

I tightened my lips. He knew what I was going to do; not how not the specifics but he knew that I was going to kill Moody. It was just a faint little shake of the head. Eyes stuck on me, Matthew gave this tiny negating shake of his head.

I put my hand on his shoulder. "Let's go." I got him to walk two paces towards the car and suddenly he spun out from under my hand.

"Currier, no! You can't kill him!" Matthew babbled. "You mustn't kill him. He's not worth shit. He's not worth you doing this to him. Please Currier, no! You can't kill him."

I got my arm around Matthew again, stopping him. "Pretend you don't think that, Matthew," I said grimly. "I'm not letting him get away with what he did to you." Behind me I heard Moody groaning out loud. "You know he deserves what I do to him."

"You'll get caught!" Matthew was almost weeping. "Please, please, you'll get caught. Currier, I'd do anything so you don't get in trouble. I'd even forgive that piece of shit. But please, please don't kill him. You'll get caught."

"It's too late now," I said. "He knows who we are."

"You'll get caught! Please, couldn't we just beat him up so he's messed up the way I was or something like that? They'll find his body and know it was you! There isn't a way you can do it so they won't know."

"I'm going to drown him, Matthew," I said. "And not beat him up at all. You see those barrels over there? That one is full of water from Chancey Lake. I'm going to make sure he has the same water in his lungs as they find in the river. They won't know he was murdered. They won't find him until spring. There's just going to be the one bruise on his back."

"I don't care!" Matthew screamed. "I don't care. Just don't kill him. I couldn't survive if you went to prison. I can't. I need you. You mustn't go to prison for me."

I stood still. I wanted… I didn't know what I wanted. Matthew had backed away from me in horror or maybe I would have gone to him and put my arms around him. I didn't say anything. The boy stood before me with heaving breaths. Behind me I could hear Moody was crying, sobbing baritone breaths. I just stood and looked at Matthew.

"What's one more?" I said sadly.

He knew I meant the guys from Kunzaraih.

"But…" He looked so sad. "But you aren't really going to wind up in jail for killing them. Not really?"

I shook my head. "I don't think I am," I said. "I ought to, but I won't. You see I got away with murder that time because the CO approved. They're hushing it up; they buried the bodies without autopsies. I can get away with this murder too."

He shook his head.

"It's a pretty fool proof plan," I said. "Nobody knows he's the one who fag bashed you, so nobody is going to connect us to him – and besides, our little friend here has a pretty bad reputation as it is. There's a dozen other people are going to be more than glad when they hear that he's drowned. So even if they did think it was a suspicious death there won't be any way to tell. I'm going to put him into the ice, one of the ice fishing holes where there is a current. I know I won't be seen. I've been out there four times and there was never anyone out there at night."

He wasn't convinced. He stood pale cheeked and solemn.

"It'll be weeks before he gets found, Matthew," I said. "I wouldn't have let you get mixed up in this in any way if there was any risk to you."

"I'm not afraid for me, I'm afraid for you, Currier," he said in a voice that wobbled. "Please don't murder Jason. However bad a shit he is, it's not the right thing for you to do."

"He hurt you," my voice got hard.

"He won't hurt me again," said Matthew. "Will you, Jason?"

"No… No, I won't ever," said the teenager from behind me, through his tears. I looked back. He was shaking his head not looking at us.

"He's sorry. You showed him now when you raped him. You see, he's scared."

I looked again at the nineteen-year-old. "I want to kill him," I said.

"Please," said Matthew.

"Matthew, bach," I said. "I'd do anything for you. But… he's got to die now. He knows who you are and can tell we were the ones who did this to him."

"Please," said Moody with a great liquid sniff. "Please. I won't tell anyone about this. I promise."

Matthew came up to me and took me by both hands. "You're the bravest man, I know Currier. You're the only good man I know. Please promise me you won't do it."

"This increases my chances of going to jail," I said.

A couple of minutes later I untied Moody. He didn't give me any kind of difficulty. In fact he bawled, wiping his runny nose on the back of his hand and hurriedly hauled his pants up. He ran away from the big blue plastic barrels and ran closer to me. He got down in a huddle crouching, shaking his head and crying. Matthew stood over him grimly, quite unafraid now.

"You'd better both get into the car," I said. Moody got into the back and Matthew got into the front.

"He won't tell anyone what we did because he won't want anyone to know that you fucked him, right Jason?" said Matthew.

Moody, sobbing nodded his head.

The streets were empty and cold, the dry pavement salt stained. Ice gleamed black on either side of the car. I took Moody back to the snack bar. He raised his head to look at Matthew. "Th-thanks, Man," said Moody to Matthew. "Th-thanks. I won't forget this."

I went around and opened the door. The teenager gave me one last hunted look and sidled out with hunched shoulders, a terrified smile on his face. "I-I just want to say I'm really sorry. Don't come after m-me again. I won't go near him."

I didn't say anything. I got back into the car with Matthew. It seemed to me that very likely Moody wouldn't say anything. He seemed both cowed and pathetically grateful. Even if he did say anything it would be his bruises against Matthew's, our word against his. So perhaps it would be alright.

Matthew sat with a straight back looking out into the dark cold night as I drove us home. "You know, I'm really tired," he remarked.

"You should be," I said.

He turned his smile on me, luminous in the dark. "I knew you were a good man. Thanks, Currier."

I'd just raped a man and come yea close to murdering him and I'd got Matthew into it as an accessory. And he said I was a good man.

I drove home silently.

It was two days after that that Matthew's marks were posted on line. I logged into the school website and used the password that they had sent home with him. Of course we could have waited until they mailed him the information, but he didn't want to wait. He was jittery with worry.

"I won't have done too badly," he said. "I know I passed. The science mark, that could be a bad one. I really think… It's not going to be a good pass. Maybe in the seventies." He sneaked a look at me to see if I was angry. I just nodded tolerantly.

I punched the web page up.

He had an A in Math and in Tech, a C in science and a B in everything else. His first response was to give me a look to make sure I wasn't mad. Old insecurities take a long while to overcome. Then he wandered around amazed by his English mark. He hadn't just made a bare pass. "I got a fucking B!" he said. "She actually gave me a fucking B!"

We went out that afternoon. I bought him the PS2 I had promised because, after some sudden last minute deliberation over maybe getting a game cube, he decided the PS2 was what he wanted more than anything else in the world. We set it up together on the TV. I had also got him one game to go with it, but I was mean. I got him one of the cheap ones out of the bargain bin. I figured he might want to use the promise of a memory card and more games as incentive for his next semester.

He was much too cool to compare marks with any of the other kids. I heard him later talking to Cullen or to Duncan on the phone. "Yeah… no, I'm getting a PS2 'cause I graded. It's like, a late Christmas present. I really want to borrow some games from you. Yeah. No, I'll be grateful for life…"

After a couple of minutes he turned around and spoke to me, holding his hand over the phone so the boy on the other end couldn't hear my reply. "Hey, could Duncan come over here? He wants to see my new PS2."

"Sure," I said.

But that evening wouldn't work, so the boys set it up for after school on Tuesday when Matthew didn't have to go to the tutor.

It was Monday when he was back at school that Cleggman called me. "Currier?"

"Yes, Rob?"

"I just wanted to say – look, I know you've maybe been sweating a bit over what happened back in Afghanistan. But I told you trust me, right? Well, it's all clear. Anything that might be sensitive has been shredded. Right. It's done with you. You don't ever have to worry about that again."

"Thank you," I said.

"No way we wouldn't take care of our own guys. Especially one of our guys like you. You got us some real good intelligence, names we needed, everything. So while I don't need to send you back, I'm hoping you'll stay on the list for me. Things seem to be hotting up in Iraq. I'll be able to give you a pick of jobs there if we go in. You think you'd be interested in a field position with more management responsibilities?"

He couldn't be definite about the new assignment yet. But it was definitely going to be a raise and more responsibility. I just nodded and agreed at the right pauses. It all depended on if there would be a war with Iraq or not. Right then I was thinking it looked probable. And of course it was the kind of work I could do, the kind of work I was good at. But hopefully this time there would be less torture involved. I didn't say that. I made contented and pleased noises for him.

It was good news for me but not unexpected. Only there was Matthew to tell as well. After all, since I'd told him I might be going to jail, it would be good to tell him that I would not.

He came into my room in the evening. He seemed a little taller than the first time he had stood in my doorway but there wasn't anymore width to his shoulders or any new down beginning on his upper lip. He was still very young.

"Come in for a good night kiss?" I asked.

"And a stroke," he said.

One my bed he wriggled out of his sleep pants. His young cock stuck out half way. I took my own shorts off altogether. The furnace was thumping downstairs and the house was creaking. There was cold in the corners. We lay side by side under the covers.

Slowly he stroked his own cock while looking at me. Slowly I stroked my own while looking at him. I didn't offer to suck him again tonight and he didn't offer it to me. He just gazed at me with thoughtful brown eyes.

He was a very beautiful boy. I moved in a little way. He was happy to kiss me, tongue moving softly teasing in my mouth. We kissed and stroked. This time he was faster than me. He seemed to have put the rape of Jason Moody completely out of his mind but I had that and a few other things on my mind to slow me down. Or it might have been age. Either way, he came first and gasped and sighed, chest expanding, mouth opened in a great O and then sank back relaxing completely.

His eyes were half lidded as he watched me finish myself off. I beat hard, savagely almost. Sex is a strange and terrible thing sometimes. I wanted it to hurt somehow, so I jerked myself with an intensity that was cruel. And when I had squeezed tightly enough and battered away at myself hard enough I came, cum shooting in one long slow stream, the shots blending into each other as the jism spattered down onto my belly and chest.

"I'm not going to jail, Matthew," I said.

"What… the Afghan guys?"

"Right. They shredded any paper evidence."

"So everything is okay." He paused. "Why did they do that?"

"Shred the evidence? Oh, it's not just to protect me. There's a lot of evidence they had to shred there. I just killed three guys. I didn't shock 'em with car batteries first."

"They did that?"

"They did lots worse than that," I said.

"Wouldn't they… I mean, these guys were Al Qaeda, right? Wouldn't they say it was okay what you did finding out about terrorists?"

I nodded. "That's why they'll cover it up. They're going to cover it all up. You know? It's not what just what I did. It's what a lot of guys did. It's the usual stuff that happens in a war."

"Yeah, but they were soldiers right? And terrorists?"

"I don't know about that," I said. "In fact I'm damn sure most of them were just guys that went around toting AK-47's everywhere. But everyone in that country did that. They were so busy fighting each other they almost had no time or energy for fighting us. Only we ended up with a lot of prisoners. That was my job too, sorting prisoners and finding out who to ask questions. It took all summer to sort them out, find out which ones had a connection to Al Qaeda and which ones were Taliban and which ones were just the private militia belonging to a warlord who didn't have anything to do with either of them. You couldn't trust the interpreters to tell the truth. And then… well, we had just too many prisoners. So they've got to cover it up now."

"What do you mean?"

"Do you really want to know?"

He nodded.

"We put the prisoners in container trucks," I said. "Not me, I don't mean I did, but the CO ordered it. American soldiers did it. A thousand guys. Maybe. Wedged into four sealed container trucks. That's how we got rid of them."

He was frowning. He just didn't understand.

"It was August," I said. "Hot in those trucks, real hot, like plus one-hundred degrees [38°C]. I remember the guys were crying out and yelling even before the trucks started rolling, they couldn't breathe. I was out there saying it too. They can't breathe, come on. I was pretending it was just a way of transporting the guys somewhere else. How are we going to get those men some ventilation, I said."

"A couple of the soldiers walked along firing into the trucks. Air holes. You heard the screams and then there was blood…" I shook my head. "I knew. I was just pretending I didn't know what. They took the trucks into the desert, a long drive. Just a few hours. And when they opened the trucks up… They'd all died of the heat. That's how we got rid of them. We had the Afghanis bury them all in a mass grave in a place called Kunduz. So you see the officers there, and the CO, everybody, they're responsible for killing a few hundred extraneous prisoners. They can't let what I did come out or what they did might come out. They got to cover everything up."

Matthew blinked. He stared at me for some long moments and then he crept in close into my arms. I held him tightly, my face in his soft dark hair.

Duncan was the pug faced kid, as it turned out. He was waiting with Matthew when I picked him up after school Tuesday. He wasn't what I'd call handsome like Matthew but he was cute in an Irish kind of a way that probably wouldn't age well. He also didn't say a word. That was a teenaged kid for you. He just scooted into the back seat and Matthew scooted into the back seat with him instead of coming into the front. They traded silent punches with each other, eyes locked.

I took them home and let them kick their sneakers across the hall and settle back. They landed side by side, wrists touching, on the loveseat. I was making pizza in the kitchen for the boys, the ubiquitous teenaged fill-them-up food. They were in the breakfast room connecting controllers and now their voices were going up to nearly shouting.

"No way!"

"Yes way! I'm going to own you! I'm going to own your ass!"

I leaned in the door, "Language, boys."

"What's wrong with him using words like that?" asked Matthew. He was curious not truculent. "You use them."

"Context." I said. "You don't use them at school in front of your teachers. You don't use them when you're visiting him and his parents are around. And he doesn't use them around me. At least, not at top volume."

"You sure he's not a tight ass?" Duncan whispered when I had stepped back into the kitchen. At least he thought he was whispering. I grinned.

"Nah," said Matthew. "Currier is cool. He's like the coolest guy you can think of. He is seriously good to me."

Hero-worship again. I shook my head and started slicing pepperoni.

They were hard at the game when the pizza came out, and Matthew was getting smoked. That was only natural since it was Duncan's game they were playing and Duncan had hours of practice as an advantage on Matthew. But Matthew was playing with a kind of grim joy, slamming his character through some kind of an assault course. The hot pizza broke it up. I left them to demolish the thing and went upstairs.

The kids didn't need me hovering. I got out the Farsi CD's and put my headphones on.

It was maybe half and hour after that, with me softly repeating sentences, trying to relax my tongue into grace in a language that sounded to me both nasal and fluid at once when I heard a creak on the stairs. One of the boys was coming up. Since there was nothing much upstairs except my study and my room I figured it was Matthew on his way up to talk to me. I waited for him to come into the door.

There was another sound, a creak in the hall but he didn't come in. What was that all about? I didn't stop repeating sounds from the tape but now I was listening hard. Matthew was lingering in the hall as if he didn't know how to come in and ask me a question. Odd, I thought. Because I didn't figure Matthew would be scared to ask me anything. But why else would he be sneaking up the stairs so softly and lingering outside of my room? All I knew was that he was standing just outside my door listening and not making a sound at all.

I turned the CD off but didn't take the headphones off. I kept repeating sentences while I listened. Unless I was mistaken, Matthew had tiptoed up the stairs to spy on me. It could be Duncan of course but I was pretty sure it wasn't the both of them.

After another half minute I heard Matthew tiptoe away. He took the stairs not with his usual heedless clatter but just as quiet as before.

A kid being sneaky usually means a kid up to mischief. I gave it another few minutes before I pushed the headphones off and stood up. And then I followed him down the stairs just as quietly. I've had a bit more practice being covert than Matthew has, and besides I've observed which of the stairs it is that creak. I didn't figure I'd catch the boys at anything serious though. Sneaking brown sugar from the bag in the kitchen? No, he'd be eating it openly right out of the bag with a spoon, and stammer an apology when I pointed out I wouldn't want to use any more of that sugar after his dirty spit had been in it. I had enough faith in Matthew's intelligence that I didn't figure they'd be sneaking cigarettes in the house.

I didn't get much further than the foot of the stairs. The two boys were in the breakfast room and I saw them there. They were on the loveseat, locked. Duncan was on his back and Matthew was on the top and they were doing sixty-nine. Just for a moment I froze, seeing Matthew's dark head bobbing. Duncan gave a gasp. "It tickles!" he hissed in that whisper that wasn't quite quiet enough to go unheard.

I stepped back again. Well. All these weeks and weeks and Matthew was too scared and squeamish to suck my cock and now he was going at Duncan like he figured the boy had nectar in his balls. Yes, well again. But I knew what the difference was. I didn't have to confront Matthew for him to tell me. The difference was that he was in love with Duncan. You could see it. Everything he did around the other boy his eyes were on the kid hopeful. Yes, Matthew loved me too, in his own way, but he was a kid and it was a kid his own age that he had gone for.

I took the stairs quietly up again. I sat for awhile in the half light of the setting sun in my room. I wasn't unhappy or hurt although I felt strange inside. Duncan. Yeah. Damn, but I hoped he was a good kid. He seemed to be. I'd break his balls if he broke Matthew's heart, I thought fiercely. Not that you can do much really when there's a kid in love and going through his first heartbreak. Maybe it wouldn't come to that, maybe not for a few months. In the meantime…

Well, I'd introduced Matthew to sex, so it would be hypocritical to come down disapproving wouldn't it? But it occurred to me I had better give him a lecture all about safe sex and a whole raft of other things that he needed to learn. I was smiling wryly to myself. New dimensions. Being a kid's godfather meant learning a lot for me too.

The End