the complexity of the ngor mandalas mirrors the complexity of vajrayana ritual. the combination of the intricate image and the equally involved literary texts associated with the mandala, as for all vajrayana ritual, means that the task facing the devotee would be overwhelming without the direct involvement of the guru as a guide through these layers of religious worship. —robert e. fisher : art of tibet .. .. to have—to do—a boy .. i’ve never been a boy before .. i don’t remember at what point in my life i moved over from being—myself—a boy, to being a man, a daddy. .. you are a boy and he is holding around you. his warm body is around you and then hard in you. he tells you something. you don’t understand. .. “wake up. wake up. chris.” i shake him. he half opens his eyes and looks at me. he’s grumpy. “what.” “roll over.” he does. the sheet is off his body. i can see his ass. i move across and push his legs apart and go between them. i’m doing it now. he grunts. letting it happen. that’s what boys do. i’ll give him something back. i’ll tell him. something i know. i hope he’s awake. .. i don’t understand. what he does. to me. .. the next morning i asked him if he remembered me waking him up. he said, “yes, . . . is there anything else you want to say to me?” maybe he’s being a smartass. well, he is but he isn’t. he’s allowed. some. we’re still in the early stages of this and there are rough places that need to be smoothed out. i think that—so far—his cockiness is a front. to cover. it’s part of his charm for me. he’s not trying to be charming, i know. it’s just the way he is. and the way he is is what i like. want. but whatever he’s doing, i can’t be the one playing a game. “yeah, there’s more,” i said. .. outside his kitchen, we planted a bunch of flowers. i fix breakfast. i like to do that. for him. i like to see him sitting there. .. outside my kitchen window, we planted flowers. i see them. on sundays, mornings. .. this is our life. these are the things we do. .. my name’s edward. .. when i first met chris i introduced myself as ‘edward’. he laughed. i asked him why he laughed. he said “i don’t know.” that was what made me decide to think about him some more. his laughter was a spontaneous reaction. and he knew right off—and was able to admit—that he didn’t know why he had done it. i found myself hoping that he might recognize the possibility. .. he said his name was ‘edward’. i thought that was stupid. nobody calls themself ‘edward’. i didn’t take him seriously. not at first. .. here we are. here we go. .. the first couple of weeks after i had moved in i was kind of making jokes about it all. not jokes really. but i would ask him what we were going to do and he would say “don’t ask” and i would say “why not” and he would say “you can question me about some things and you can’t about others” and i asked him “how am i supposed to know the difference” and he said “you’ll learn” and he was so serious about it that i knew something was up. i tried to pretend like i knew what i was doing but he wouldn’t let me. .. “am i a good little boy?” i’d ask. he would look at me and not say anything. what is he thinking. .. good little boy. bad little boy. maybe that’s how he thinks it’s supposed to be. it doesn’t have anything to do with being good or bad. anybody is good or bad sometimes. but whether he does something that would make me not want to have him around is another matter. that has nothing to do with being good or bad. .. “there is one rule,” i said. “what.” “you can’t have sex with anyone but me.” “yeah . . .” “if you do, it’s over.” “yes sir.” “that includes on-line too.” “i know.” “do you agree?” “yes sir.” “o.k. then.” i saw him having trouble getting something out. i waited. “what about jerking off?” “what about it.” “can i?” i had to put on my daddy face. “that’s going to change.” he hesitated, but asked. “how?” what was i going to tell him? that he was going to get so wrapped up in me that everything—even his masturbation—was going to be about me. or, if not about me, that i would be part of it. even when i wasn’t there. well, that’s exactly what i told him. i think he liked it when he heard that. .. the thing about boys is that they come in and maybe it has nothing to do with you. you’re just the daddy, a way. i wonder if they know that it’s all about them. i think they do, but they deny it. they think it’s about you. you’re supposed to be the one with the power. it’s funny how he lies to himself like that. .. take me. do whatever you want with me. i don’t know anything. .. after we met we had a few dates. i needed to see how his mind worked. and it was seduction too. i’m willing to admit that. neither of us actually said the words ‘daddy’ and ‘boy’. it was understood. but i thought it would be a good idea to let him know what i had in mind. we were at dinner. i dropped it in out of nowhere. “how much freedom do you want?” he did look a little startled. his eyes lowered and he toyed with his food. “what are you talking about?” don’t play naive. you know what i’m talking about. “if you were involved with somebody in some kind of special relationship, where they were mostly running things, do you think that it would bother you all that much.” he kept his eyes down. “it depends on the person, i guess.” i changed the subject. he stayed nervous the rest of the meal. .. a couple of nights after our first night together i brought it up again. i had already said a lot of stuff that i couldn’t go back on but i thought i should bring this up. to make a point. and to see what he said now that . . . things were different. “how much freedom do you want.” he stared at me from the bed. he said “what do you mean?” so maybe he had thought about it or maybe he hadn’t. it made me a little worried. but i couldn’t let him see that. “i mean i’m going to be in charge from now on. but i’m not going to run your whole life.” “no?” oh, lord, give me patience. “no,” i said. “it’s not like that. but i’m going to be telling you more things to do and i need to know how much freedom you’re going to have to have. i don’t want you to get all resentful if i tell you to do something and you take it the wrong way.” “i don’t know,” he said. what did i expect to hear. i should have remembered that i would have to lead him. for a while. “don’t make any mistake about it. i’m going to be in charge. but it isn’t going to work unless you make some choices for yourself. there’s going to have to be a space around you. you’re going to have to have some space to make choices in, and so i have to know how much you think you’re going to need.” “not much.” what am i supposed to make out of that. are you listening? do you even understand what i’m talking about? probably not. “i don’t know,” he said. so maybe he was a little confused. “chris.” “aren’t you supposed to do all that?” he asked. not the way i do it. i can’t. o.k. say something. he was still watching me. he lifted one hand from his stomach to his chest. with the other one he touched himself a little bit. i got stern. “are you playing with me?” “no.” i gave him that look. he changed it. “no sir.” i went out to the kitchen and got us some ice-water to drink. when i got back to the bedroom, he had pulled the sheet up over his waist. i pulled it back down. but that’s all i did. i was ready to drop it. let him think about it. again. .. “you know i’d do anything for you. right?” .. i don’t know if he believed me when i said that. ‘cause he doesn’t ask me to, he doesn’t ask me to do all that stuff that i know he could. i wish he would. i want him to tell me to do something i don’t want to do so i can prove to him that i would do it. for him. what it is doesn’t matter. he could tell me to . . . whatever. i want to be his boy. doing what he tells me to do to my body. i’d do it in front of him. him watching. watching me do to myself what he tells me to do. just tell me what to do. .. he has to want to do it. .. what is he thinking. .. what is he thinking about. .. the first time . . . .. the first time . . . you know my friends want to know what happened and i can’t tell them. i mean i know what happened. i could tell them. what we did, what he did to me. in bed. to my body. my tits. my balls. my cock. my ass. to my face. but i can’t tell them what he did to ME. i remember he kissed me. before we went there. to his room, to bed. it was the first thing he did, before the rest, before telling me to lie down, before tying me, before . . . we had done all that. he had taken me into his bedroom. he lit the two candles and he said “take your clothes off.” while i was undressing he said “take it all off.” and i had taken off my shoes and my jeans and my t-shirt and i thought “he’s going to think i’m not doing this right.” i was so scared my dick wasn’t even hard. and he said “lay down” and i laid down on the bed there and he said . . . no, he didn’t say anything then. he took off his clothes and i watched him come toward me. .. i know this. for me, a boy without tattoos is more valuable. because he’s blank. not because he’s someone i can write on but because it makes me believe that he hasn’t decided on anything for sure yet. he’s still searching. and it looks nicer too, i think. when we were in the bed that first time, i touched and kissed his body, exploring him. there was nothing there. no marks, i mean. but i could sense—in that—in him—those invisible signs in cock tits ass hair lips skin that said i’m here i’m here i’m here please see me i need someone to see me. .. edward did some things to me that no one had ever done to me. then he made me say things i didn’t know i would say. and he kissed me again. a lot. .. i have to go through with this now. i promised chris i would. .. some of the things he did to me that first time we haven’t done since then. i want to do them again. .. i did what i did. it was enough that first night to do some things . . . that were pretty heavy. but now i have to keep a closer watch on what i do. where do i stop. i could do even harder things to him. i know i could. i don’t. what would be the point. if i did this or that, and if i really scared him, if i damaged him in his mind, what am i going to do. how am i going to have to pay for it out of my own life. i know he was coming into this with a lot of expectations, what he thought it was supposed to be, what i was supposed to do to him. sexually. i don’t want him to get caught up in all that. none of that is real. they were dreams—he had dreams—to fill up the places where something was missing. dreams aren’t about the future. they’re about who you already are. they’re about who you already are in the empty places of your life. but then i don’t think that what happens—here, now, everyday—is real either. it’s here, it’s real, but it isn’t. at least it doesn’t feel real to me. when it doesn’t last long enough for me to hold it. .. i know it’s not because he’s scared. i know, i KNOW, there’s a side to him that could do more to me. i know he’s done some extreme stuff in his life, even though we haven’t talked about it. .. it’s a little trick i’ve learned. “you know that night?” “what night?” “the first night you spent here.” “. . . yeah.” i mention something i had done to him then, and “we’re not going to do that again.” “oh.” he paused. “yes sir.” i kept watching him. come on. “can i ask you why not?” he asked. good boy. “yeah.” “why aren’t we going to do that again sir?” .. edward didn’t answer me. he put his hand over my mouth and held it there. and i knew when he took it off i wasn’t supposed to say anything. .. be quiet. it’s happening. .. he didn’t answer me but i kept thinking about it. why do i want him to do those certain things. why do i want him to do them to me. most of them would have been pretty rough. i thought about saying to him that i wanted it to be hard, that i wanted him to be hard on me. i thought it might stand for something that i said it out loud. that i asked for it. but he kept doing that weird thing. i would be getting ready to say something and he would put his hand over my mouth. after a while, i got it. .. so there came a point a little bit into this—after the early negotiations—after things had been settled more or less—when i realized i had made the right choice. that it was probably going to work. chris already had one part i require—one part of being the way i like a boy—down exactly right. whatever i told him to do—sexually—he did it. i never heard the word ‘no’ in that connection. at first that’s good. but i wanted more. complete acceptance. i’m not talking about obedience. i’m talking about acceptance. there’s a difference. usually in the beginning all they’re giving you is obedience. before you get their heart and mind all they’re doing is following the script. if they keep following the script you find out you’re stuck with someone who won’t make any of your effort worthwhile. they get bored if you can’t fuck them a new way every saturday night and they insult you and leave and go find someone else. until they probably get tired of them too and move on again. they’re not good boys. they’re pretending to be boys, for some reason that i’ve never understood. for some reason that i don’t want to understand. i’ve got caught in that situation more than i’d care to admit. i don’t think they realize how cold that is. how cold it makes everything. but chris wasn’t that way. yeah, of course, first he gave me his obedience. it was, i think, a part of him that had always been there, sleeping. it had never been called out. no one, no one person, had ever demanded it. that was what—probably the most—he wanted. to have somebody demand something of him. to say “this is what it takes. do it.” but i knew that—after he got that right—i’d have to take it away from him. and go on to the next thing. which was acceptance. not acceptance of me. acceptance of whatever happens. .. i take a lot of time on his hole. it does something for me. seeing him lying there, on his stomach, spreading his legs. the little fucker. tempting me. my mouth. tongue. fingers. cock. he knows what his ass is and so i should be happy that i can do anything i want with it. sometimes i don’t know who i am when i’m doing that. when his butt is up in the air and i’m slapping it or shoving something up his ass, harder and harder. bigger. sometimes i say “are you alright” and he says “yes sir” and i say “o.k., i’m going to keep going.” and i like that. doing him with my dick or putting some impossibly big cock into his hole. i wonder sometimes if he’s trying to wind me up. i know i’m trying to break him. you can call it a game or whatever. but it gives us something to focus on. and it feeds itself. me wondering why i think i have to keep him satisfied by keeping his ass fucked, him trying to show me that he’s capable of more more all the time more. .. it’s an arrangement. like marriage. .. i know the difference between doing and being done. when he’s fucking me i’m being done. but there was this thing that happened early on. he was on top of me, going at it. i couldn’t stop myself. i was so fucking turned on. “yeah, come on, fuck me,” i said. he broke rhythm for a moment and then started up again. “what are you doing,” he said. i felt his cock slowly sliding in and out of my ass. i must have done something wrong. talking. “i’m sorry sir.” he kept fucking me. “no, i’m asking you something. what are you doing.” what do you mean. what do you want me to say. “what are you doing,” he said. i don’t know. what am i supposed to say. “i’m getting fucked sir.” he was all the way in me, holding it in there. “what else.” what the fuck do you mean “what else”? what else is there? i didn’t know what to say. i didn’t want to say the wrong thing so i didn’t say anything. he pulled out. laid on top of me. i almost started crying, but i didn’t. i didn’t want him to think i couldn’t do this right. .. you will get this. i will make you get this. .. you can’t trust a boy. and not always because he might be lying. sometimes he just doesn’t know. about this or about anything. but that’s always been the hardest part of doing this each time. i never really believe he’s telling me the truth. i always believe he’s telling me what he thinks i want to hear. when i have him, in the middle of the night, not when i’m fucking him, no, but when i have him, when i’m holding him, i try to get him to tell me the truth. about who he is. who he is really. sometimes if i kiss him enough or tell him enough sweet words he’ll say something that i believe. but i never ask him for the truth in the daylight or when i’m not touching him. i don’t know why i say that. i don’t really think any man is going to tell you the truth all the time. but i don’t think . . . no, i know chris doesn’t lie to me. i won’t think that. i won’t let it get hold of me. .. it’s not what i thought it would be. i mean, it is but it isn’t. the stuff we do in bed is pretty much what i expected. and i like it. but there’s all this other stuff i didn’t know would happen. .. i didn’t make the offer in the first place. i never do whenever i do this business. we had been dating a couple of times but we hadn’t had sex yet. which is not what i normally do with a man but with a potential boy it’s different. if we were really going to do this i had to establish my power right off. what did i do. i went all cold. that’s probably the best way to put it. i got him interested and then i shut down. i’ve found it’s a good way to scare them off. to find out if they’ve really got the nerve. and i had to do it. for my own protection. he called one evening but i was really short with him. “yeah. yeah. yeah.” it was meant to upset him. and yet in the end he scared me. for a moment, anyway. i think there was a week of that lack of conversation and i wouldn’t let him come over and then he disappeared for a couple of days and i thought ‘well, that’s that’. then he came by my place one evening. i opened the door and he was there. “can i come in?” “yeah.” he didn’t sit down. “i did it.” “what.” he glanced away from me. “i got it out of my system.” i thought i knew what he was talking about. but even if i didn’t want to know i had to ask. “what did you do?” he was nervous. maybe i was too. “i . . . i don’t want to tell you. but i got some stuff out of my system.” now i knew what he had done. and i was right, i didn’t want to know the details. who is this. who are you? he said, “i want to spend more time with you.” o.k., edward. now. here. make a decision. does it matter—to me—or doesn’t it? am i ready? is this what i want? really? i’m not going to do it without proof. i sat down on the couch. he waited. i had to protect myself. “i don’t want to be your lover.” i watched him take a deep breath. “o.k.” what am i doing. “is that alright with you.” “yes sir.” oh, right. come on in then. .. maybe you haven’t done this before. so when i tell you about it, you might have to relate to it in some pornographic or intellectual fashion. the way a boy can say “yes sir.” how it can drop down into your heart. stay there and make you feel that it’s alright and you believe them and you’ll know what to do. .. edward said “you’d better stay here tonight then.” and we did all that heavy stuff. it was like my initiation or something. i’m not sure if he was expecting me or not, but he was ready. and i must have done alright. i feel good about that. .. he still pays the rent on his apartment. but he lives here. i told him as long as he would have to be paying rent somewhere, here or there, he might as well leave most of his belongings there and bring over clothes and what he needed. i didn’t want him to know that i had to be sure he had somewhere to go. if he decided to back out. .. i like being around him. i like it when we’re going to the grocery story or doing errands. or when he’s there picking me up after work. he asks me “how’d your day go?” and i tell him. i don’t know if he’s really interested or not but he always has something to say and i like telling him about it. i like it when we’re getting ready to go to bed and i’m in the bathroom and he’s watching t.v. and he pulls the covers down when i come to bed. .. what do i like about him best. his body, that is. he’s younger than me, i like that. i like that dark hair that’s just around his nipples and his crotch and his ass. and the way he appears younger than he is. i have to remember that he is that—someone younger than me, someone who hasn’t fucked as much as me. who doesn’t know as much as me. that may not sound fair, but on the other hand i know he knows things. but he doesn’t know that he knows them. i like it that he’s smaller than me. a smaller body. i can overpower him in bed. i can push his arm down. i can hold him tightly and he can’t do anything about it. and my dick is bigger than his, so that’s something too. .. it’s not just sucking his cock, you know, it’s something that happens when i’m sucking his cock. something happens when i’m sucking his cock that hasn’t happened to me before. it’s something that’s going on in my mind. because—i’m telling you—it’s not just about the sex. that’s another hard part. what people think about us. they never get it right. i know they don’t. they think it’s all fucked up. it isn’t. i get mad. i get frustrated that they don’t have a clue. i want to explain to them. to get them to see what it really is. i got all pissed off once and i told edward this. he said “why do you care what they think?” and “it’s not about them.” then he said that he doesn’t want them to understand. he doesn’t expect them to and he’d rather they didn’t. but i’d like my friends to understand. they think that i’m doing this ‘cause i want a ‘daddy’. that i’m doing this because of all that and that it’s all about the sex. they don’t know what it’s like from the inside. but he told me that they wouldn’t get it if they hadn’t done it themselves and now i know he’s right. .. i wonder if we would be together if we didn’t have this going on. i wonder sometimes if might be with someone who’ll never know. and if anything i do, anything i tell him, any way i fuck his ass, is going to matter. thinking that makes it different. from how i would treat somebody that i loved. i treat chris like meat a lot of the time. i think that’s the best. sometimes. i’m sure part of him wants that—to be an object. that’s one of the things i don’t—can’t—tell him. not yet, anyway. maybe i should. .. something’s happening to me and i’m not sure what it is. i’m not the same person i was before, but i don’t know what i’m changing into. it bothers me every now and then because i’m not who i used to be and i don’t know who i am. i’m kind of floating or something. i’m not even me. i don’t want to panic when i feel like i’m not here. .. sometimes i think i can only relate to him as a boy, because otherwise i don’t think i would care. he’s a nice enough guy, i guess, but i don’t think i would have him as a boyfriend necessarily. but as a boy he’s alright. .. what is he thinking about. .. when i say i like to take his body anytime . . . it took some getting over in my own mind to realize that i could unbutton him and do it. it always does. there’s a weird freedom in having someone around like that. and not always to do heavy things. we could be watching t.v. and i get the impulse and i take his shirt off and pull him up against me and unzip his pants and put my hand down in there and hold his cock. usually he gets hard because he’s at that age. but then all i want is to hold him and have his hard cock in my hand while we’re sitting there. to get him all excited. well, i get excited too. .. he tells me—sometimes—to make him come. just like that. we get into bed and it’s before we go to sleep and i might be lying there up against him and he goes “chris” and i say “what” and he says “make me come.” i blow him and jerk on him until he does. i like watching it—seeing him cum shoot—and knowing i did that. usually after i do that to him he leaves it there on his stomach or his leg. he pulls me over and kisses me and my hardon is pressing against his side. i rub it up against him a little bit. sometimes he lets me do that until i come all over his leg. but sometimes he puts his hand on my back and stops me. and i have to try to go to sleep and i can’t and i lie there wondering why he won’t let me come. he really knows how to turn me on. .. i like to make him jerk himself off while i watch him. there’s something about how he looks at me while he’s doing it that’s very sexy to me. he looks down at this cock while he’s pulling on it and then he looks up at me. i know he’s acting—for me—in a sense, yet he blows my mind with the expression on his face. it’s very clean. and simple. open. because even in his acting there is an innocence in his desire to please that touches me. what am i supposed to do. i want to keep that part of him, that sweet innocent part. i don’t have it in myself as much as i used to. when he’s around i have some things i don’t have in me anymore. but then he makes me remember other things and i don’t always want to do that. i don’t like thinking about the past or who i used to be all that much. but i know i should. if i’m going to help him, i’m going to have to remember how it was. how it felt when i was looking out at the world hoping and not looking in all the time like i do now because i don’t want to look out at the world anymore. .. blowing him is like the main sexual thing that’s my decision. what he does with my ass is all his choice, he decides. blowing him is my choice. i mean i always do it when he tells me to but i also do it whenever i want to. it’s kind of funny how it works out. if he wants to blow me, he does. we can be sitting on the couch or whatever and then all of a sudden he’s undressing me and he gets down in front of me and sucks me off. but then i can do the same thing to him and it’s different. we might be hanging out around the house and i feel like i want to suck his cock and i don’t actually have to ask his permission like i thought i would have to. all i have to do to let him know what i want is to get down on my knees and he takes his cock out and puts it in my mouth and i suck it until he gets off. but it’s all different. it’s kind of hard to explain. when he blows me, he doesn’t have to ask my permission and i’m not allowed to stop him. and he doesn’t and i don’t. but then when i blow him, i thought i’d have to ask first and he has the right to refuse me. but i don’t have to ask with words and he never refused me once i was in front of him. somehow, no matter how it happens, he has the power. but i like being on my knees in front of him. it feels right to be there. .. i don’t know why so much of it has to do with balling him. like when we got out of the shower the other day and i made him get down on the bathroom floor, leaning on the edge of the tub, while i took his ass. he was so clean and fresh and it was such a rush for me to slide up into him. and then to get dressed and know that he was still slick down there. my dick was a little greasy too but the thought of his butt, down there, taken by me. it’s one of those things i really like. it surprised me. i didn’t do it that much with my last lover. balling. but it’s what i do to chris. it’s probably the only passion i have. the rest is just work most of the time. .. there are some things that are more important here than what somebody else might call love. whether i love him or not is not the point. he’s my responsibility. i worry about what might have happened to him if he had gotten one of those daddies who don’t really know what they’re doing. i know i’m not a perfect dad all the time. but he’s not the perfect boy either. you end up with who you end up with, i guess. .. i don’t know what i feel about him. he can be sweet to me but then he’s kind of . . . not mean to me, that’s not what i want to say . . . but like he doesn’t care. sometimes when we’re not doing the daddy/boy thing, he’s a stranger to me. like when we’re out somewhere buying stuff or something and he says something and then i see him as someone just like me. he’s not older or smarter or anything right then. i don’t like that. i feel lost. but then sometimes when he’s daddy i want to tell him not to be so serious. he doesn’t seem happy. and i’m pretty sure it’s not about me. i think it’s probably something i can’t do anything about. but i worry about it. .. how did he end up coming to me? why me? .. and i get mad at him because he shuts up. he’ll get all quiet for a while and he just looks at me and i want him to tell me what he’s thinking but i can’t ask him and he says something but i don’t think it’s what he was really thinking. .. i guess i care about him. otherwise i wouldn’t be doing this, right? i can do something for him. even if i don’t always know what i’m doing. it happens. almost on its own. i see that he wants something. there’s an anticipation. he’s waiting for me to do something, yes, but he’s also just waiting. even if he doesn’t know it. he’s waiting for something that has nothing to do with me. i’m not sure how that makes me feel. .. but i need him to explain things to me. to tell me what i’m going to need to know. nobody else is going to. .. i don’t think about myself. what i want. i almost can’t if i try. i don’t know if i have an independent existence from chris anyway. not anymore. maybe i’m just confusing myself. i shouldn’t be thinking at all. i should keep it simple. i should think . . . it’s our own little world, what we have here. me. chris. these rooms. this bed. a garden outside the window. these are the basic facts. these are the things. nothing more. .. he doesn’t take me out to bars and places, to show me off. i thought that’s what daddies did. everyone once in a while we go out but not hardly like either of us used to and it’s all very casual, like we’re just two people who know each other. he’ll put his hand for a second on my neck or on my arm, touching me, but that’s it. he only really pays attention to me when we’re alone together. .. there’s part of him that wants to show off in public. i don’t want to do that anymore. .. i don’t really miss other guys and their dicks like i thought i would. i think about them, but it doesn’t get me all worked up like it used to when i was by myself. now it seems to me like i spent every weekend chasing dick. i can see, looking back, that it didn’t make me any happier. i wasn’t happy and i don’t know why i didn’t see it at the time. with edward, i’m happier. no, that’s not it. i am, but that’s not important anymore. it’s that . . . it’s the same, i’m doing the same things that i was doing before, sucking cock and getting fucked and all that, but now it feels like it all means something. i’m not explaining this very well, am i. .. it keeps coming back. when he’s not here, when he’s not in the house, it’s too quiet anymore. i don’t like that feeling. i don’t want to get attached. maybe i invest too much in him. there might be some part of me that still wants a boy, my boy, the perfect boy. even though i know such a thing doesn’t exist. but if i think of him that way—as ‘boy’—then i find i don’t have to think of chris at all. every now and then he does something and i find it happening again. my emotions. i have to keep reminding myself that i can’t do that. i have to let all that go. i have to be empty. .. a lot of what he’s done to me is stuff i never thought about before. he’ll be really nice to me, touching me all over my body. stroking his fingers over me, being really sweet and gentle. it makes me lose my breath and shiver, the way he makes my skin tingle. he makes me very aware of myself when we’re in bed in the dark. i hear him breathing, over and around me and i feel his hand fall on me real easy like and his kisses follow it and he gets me so excited and it’s like he’s not really being sexy, you know, but like he’s being romantic. the boys my own age i had sex with never did that to me. it was always suck fuck and get off. now i see that it never really was about me. i was just there. even when i thought i had started it, when i thought it was me that was turning them on. all they wanted—all i had wanted too—was a dick. they hadn’t really wanted ME. .. i used to think—a long time ago—that discipline was something strict, almost cruel. making a boy do things that he wouldn’t want to do. but i got over that. i figured out that that was about me wanting to be cruel. wanting to hurt somebody because of my own problems. not about them. that was the old me. i learned my own discipline the hard way. not by what i was forced to do, but by the things i had to endure, which is different. and by the things i had to do without. the choices i had to make when nobody was there to help me. i’m not sure how he’s going to learn that from me. maybe he can’t. .. maybe i treat that thing like a hole. maybe that’s all it is, to me. .. do me again. i can’t tell you but i want your cock up my ass again. i want to be your boy taking it. no, i don’t want to tell you. i don’t HAVE to tell you. but please just keep doing it. i haven’t had enough yet. .. but then i had a moment when i saw that it was o.k. to do that. it made it something separate from both of us. something . . . that had more meaning and no meaning at the same time. .. what i do is tie him face down on the bed. a wrist or ankle at each corner. and fuck him. i try to find that place right inside his ass. or i put my fingers in there and work it. rubbing it until he makes noise. then i’ll pull away for a few minutes. “don’t say anything,” i tell him. i might massage his back or something like that or i might not. sometimes i don’t do anything at all for a few minutes. then i get inside him again until he makes a noise again. i keep doing this for an hour. then i untie him. we don’t talk about it, and that’s perfect. sometimes we don’t come either. that’s good too. .. a couple of times he would hurt me. not a whole lot. from holding me too tightly. or i would be tied up for a long time and my wrists and ankles would start to hurt or get a little numb. the ropes would feel too tight when he jerked me off or did something else to me. i didn’t say anything when that happened. i thought that was part of it, that we were doing something where pain was part of whatever he was doing to me. but then after a while i don’t think that he was doing it to me on purpose. it didn’t have anything to do with him or me or anything at all for that matter. he wasn’t doing it and it wasn’t happening to me. it was happening, alone, by itself. it didn’t mean anything. and then after a while i could feel it happening again and not care about it. it wasn’t pain, not even a little bit, anymore. it was a tightness around my wrists. it was a way i was held here, now. one night he laid me down and i stretched out and put myself at the corners like usual but he just looked at me and went ahead and did what he did, jerked me off, while i lay there, holding out my arms and legs without being tied. .. here. this is it. .. sometimes—every once in a while—we’re in the dark in the bed and he’ll say “what do you want to know.” he doesn’t do it all that often, but he does it every now and then and when he does it—says it in those words—i know i can ask him anything—one question— and he’ll tell me exactly what i ask him. and so i started thinking—when he wasn’t around—what i was going to ask him the next time. i thought of questions. like “how do you know when you’re really in love” and i ask him and he tells me. .. time slows down when he’s around. and when there’s silence—after we speak—it’s even slower. .. but still sometimes i ask him things and he answers me but it’s not like after he answers me that it’s over. i have a question and i have an answer but there’s still something missing. .. here. this is what i’m giving. this. .. listen .. to the emptiness becoming light .. substitute .. words with red yellow blue green orange black .. we went to the museum because he said it would be good for me. he says it’s important for me to do new things, things i haven’t done before. he likes the oriental floor a lot. they have all these buddhas and statues and stuff and it’s really quiet up there. he knows something about those religions and he tells me about who the gods are and the legends and all that. in one room they had this thing called a mandala that had been made by some monks. it’s this big circle with all these bright colors and symbols and patterns. and it was all made out of sand. the sign with it said that, usually, after the monks had spent weeks creating it, it was destroyed and the sand returned to the river. this one had been preserved. edward started going off on how they shouldn’t have done that. “it’s a sacrilege,” he said. i didn’t know why he cared. “but it’s beautiful,” i said. he shook his head. “it doesn’t matter. it would be beautiful even if it were gone.” i really don’t understand him sometimes. .. i have these dreams. i’ve had them for a while, but—since chris came around—they’ve changed. i guess you could call them apocalyptic. in one of them i’m downtown and there’s an alien invasion going on. right out of some old science fiction movie. these stingray-shaped spacecraft are flying between the buildings, destroying them. electrical bolts, laser beams split like lightning and shine in the air. or i’m at the beach. it’s usually atlantic city because that’s where i grew up. i’m wading in the shallow water, trying to find shells because i don’t know how to swim, and i look up and there’s a wave two-hundred, three-hundred feet tall and it’s coming and everything is going to be swept away. or i’m somewhere anywhere. there are dark clouds and the sunlight comes down through them in hard glowing bars and i know this is it, this is the end of all things. when i was living alone these dreams didn’t used to bother me. somehow i knew what they were, and that—later—i would wake up to my life. now when i have them i look around in the dream and think ‘where’s chris?’ i used to almost enjoy them because i knew they weren’t real. now i can’t. now i run—through the falling buildings, away from the overhanging tide, below the threatening sun—and search for him, to make sure he’s safe. i see him standing somewhere waiting for me to find him. when i get to him i hold his hand and we watch the ruin. we don’t have to go away. .. you are a boy and you wake up and he is holding himself above you. his warm body is over you. and he says “are you alright?” and you don’t know what’s going on, but you say “yes.” he slides down beside you again and wraps his arms around you. and you don’t know what’s going on, but you know there is the two of you and he is going to protect you. .. what do i like about edward. he’s seen me. i didn’t know how, but he has. or else he’s pretended real good. but that means something too. that he’s tried. he’s taken me seriously. no one else has. he wraps his arms around me at night. i’ve never felt that safe anywhere else. with anybody else. he works so hard to fuck me, to get me off. i know we’re supposed to pretend that it’s something else. but i know it’s all about me. i see my friends sometimes, but not as much as i used to. they want to go out to a movie or have me meet them at the bar but i like staying home with edward more. besides. they ask all kinds of stupid questions about things i don’t want to talk about. they’ve started to resent it but i think that makes them look bad, not me. they act like my life is their concern and it isn’t. it’s mine. and edward is mine. so i don’t see them as much as i used to. staying home with him is more interesting. i never know what’s going to happen. whether nothing or something. it’s like having a lover, edward and me. i mean, is this what it’s like to have a lover? .. what can i tell him. what have i got to say that he wouldn’t find out on his own. how to tell the truth in the world from the bullshit that gets handed down to you. how to keep on even when you don’t know how to. how to hold on. what to hold on for. how to give up. that’s probably the hardest one. you have to be able to let anything happen to you and not care. i had to learn that. it’s something i’m glad i learned. before this, my last relationship before this one, wasn’t a daddy/boy scene. we were lovers. it didn’t work out. for a reason. this time i wanted something where i knew where i was all the time. where the rules were defined and everybody knew what they were supposed to be doing. this is pretty much it. what i’ve got with chris. mostly. i know there’s a catch. when he gets to be a man, he’s going to go. i know that. i won’t have to do anything. i won’t have to end it myself. he will. a boy grows up. he decides to live another life. a life without you. he leaves. i know this. it’ll happen some day. some night. and then that’s when i’ll know . . . whatever i was supposed to learn from all this. .. i don’t know whether something was wrong with me before or what. you see not all of my friends have lovers or boyfriends now but most of them have had someone before. i never had anything last more than a month or so. i’m twenty-seven now and i want to have something. that’s why i’m with edward. i have to start somewhere. i have to. .. here is the center, the whiteness of the bed. edward is sitting crosslegged below chris. chris faces him and his legs are wrapped around edward’s body. chris’s ass holds edward’s hard cock. they don’t move. edward talks softly and chris listens. their arms surround each other. they breathe, slowly, here, unmoving and unmoving. this week they are with each other. breathing, one, life. .. comments on this or my other stories to maxsprouse@earthlink.net
