Craigslist 21
WARNING
This story details explicit gay sex between men, teens and boys. If you find this kind of thing distasteful, or if you are underage where ever you live, then stop reading this now, and delete this file. The story is completely fictional, the author does not condone or encourage any of the acts contained herein.
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Chapter 21
Six weeks after Ian's birthday, at around 4pm, Jason rushes into my office without knocking, which is surprising because Jason is usually fastidious about leaving me alone when I'm working. I look at him quizzically as he stands to the side of the desk.
"Tim, please come to the kitchen." I can tell he's censoring himself. There are many more words behind this request that he's chosen not to utter. I nod, get up, and he drags me to the kitchen more quickly than I'd ordinarily move. At the kitchen table sits Ian, his back to me as we enter, a long tear in his shirt, which I find curious. It isn't until we round the table, and I'm looking at him head-on, that I realize that that tear is the least of the damage. Ian is bloody. His nose is bruised and bleeding; his cheeks are black and blue; the front of his shirt appears to be shredded. And, he's crying, his arms wrapped around himself either as a defensive posture or because something is broken.
This is the kind of situation I'm good at. I don't panic. I walk to the phone and call our local doctor, a guy I've gone to for 25 years, who lives and works barely two minutes from us, and who (I swear to god this is true) actually makes house calls – for me. I don't know if he does this for everyone, but he does for me. Remarkably, he's in his office, and his receptionist puts me through. I explain the situation, and he agrees to come at once, and in five minutes, he's at the door. He follows Ian to his bedroom, and examines him thoroughly, and returns to the kitchen, telling us that his nose is intact, but that he thinks he has a broken rib – can I drive the two of them back to the office for an x-ray? We pile into the car, and I take them to the office where Ian is x-rayed to confirm the damage, and treated for the broken rib. "Don't lie on your left side," the doctor admonishes. "Let it heal. It'll probably take a couple of months at least."
We're silent as we drive back to the house. When we arrive, I ask Ian to take off his shirt, fetch my digital camera, and take probably two dozen pictures of his face and torso. Finally, I get Jason to get him a clean shirt, and he dresses, and sits at the kitchen table.
"What's this all about, Ian," I ask, gently.
He starts to cry again, recounting how he's been beaten by two senior boys, boys in his own history class, who apparently find him too...flamboyant. He's been out at school for years, but this is a new school, not the one he went to in San Mateo, and he's had several verbal altercations with these boys. After class, as he was heading to his next period, they cornered him and beat him up, in full view of several teachers who did nothing to stop the violence. A friend helped him to the nurse, who called the only phone number they had for him, which turned out to be Jason's cell phone. God knows how they got that number. Jason was at school, left in the middle of his German class, picked him up, and brought him home.
"Who are these boys," I ask him.
"Couple of guys from the football team. Real assholes."
"Names?"
He pauses. "Umm...Tim...I really don't want to pursue this. It'll just get me in more trouble."
My eyes narrow. "Don't fuck with me, Ian. We are NOT going to let this slide. If we put this in emotional terms, this will take a toll on you. You will not be the same boy tomorrow that you were yesterday, a boy we all loved. Put in economic terms, this will cost us money to get you fixed up. Put in social terms, this will probably not be the last attack these thugs perpetrate. I want names, and I want them now."
Ian has never seen me like this. Jason has, though, and knows to stay well back when I get this focused on anything. He's backed himself into a corner of the room. Ian is wide-eyed, and gives me the names of the boys. I immediately call the school, which is, of course, closed. But I get an answering machine. I leave a message that my son – yes, I have adopted him – has been attacked on school grounds, during school hours, in full view of several staff members, and I want a meeting with the principal tomorrow morning before I call the police. I figure that the threat of police will galvanize the administrator. I leave my phone number, and ask them to call me before 9am.
Returning to the kitchen, I hug Ian – carefully – and carry him to my bedroom where I take off his clothes and lay him on his back in the bed. Jason has followed, and crawls in beside him, hugging him. This boy has been gay-bashed, and I am more pissed than I've been in a long time. The fact that this happened on school grounds in full view of several teachers, one of them his own French teacher, pisses me off even more. After ten or so minutes, Ian falls asleep, and Jason extricates himself to go make us a late dinner, Kenny walking in at around 6pm to help. At about 8:30pm, on my way to the bathroom, I hear crying from the bedroom. Ian, apparently reliving the attack, is sobbing. I lie down next to him and hug him, and he flips over so we're face to face, hugging me tightly. "Shhhhhh... Let it go. You'll be okay. I'll see that you're okay. Shhhhh... I love you Ian. We'll fix this."
After a while he falls asleep, and so do I, not waking in the middle of the night, as I usually do, not waking until 8:45am the next morning to the sound of the telephone. Ian is gone. Jason, I later learn, has woken him and taken him to school.
Answering the phone, I find myself talking to the principal of Ian's high school. We agree to meet in two hours, at 10am, in his office. I get up and wander to the kitchen to get some breakfast, finding that Kenny has already boiled me five eggs, my breakfast of choice. Cholesterol is not a problem for me, but blood-pressure is. I keep myself on the lean side to control that, eating five egg-whites in the morning for breakfast, a total of 75 calories. I toss the yolks, which contain all the fat, and just eat the whites. Yummy.
After breakfast, I grab a shower, and work for about 45 minutes, printing out the pictures of Ian, bruised and battered, that I took last night. At a quarter to ten, I leave the house, heading to the school, and am there, in the waiting room, right on time. The principal, a Mr. Hubbard, is running about 15 minutes late, but eventually does come to fetch me from the waiting area and takes me back to his office. "So, Mr. Jensen, your message indicated that you had some concerns about an altercation that apparently happened yesterday afternoon." We begin to talk, and I lay out the pictures of Ian, describing the "altercation" as Ian described it to me, naming the two students involved, and the teachers that Ian said had watched the incident. The principal nods along the way, taking it all in. "I understand. Your son, Mr. Jensen, is rather..."
I start to shake my head, and he stops talking. "Is rather what, Mr. Hubbard?"
He pauses. "He doesn't act like the other boys."
I give him a long look. "I believe the word you were looking for was effeminate. That was the word, wasn't it, Mr. Hubbard?"
When I was in junior high and high school, my mother was my champion, because the things I liked to do – acting, singing, art – were not things boys did. If you did those things, you were considered a sissy. My mother was a lioness protecting her cub; she was a cast-iron bitch, and in the course of six years in secondary school, I watched her eviscerate more than her share of counselors and teachers who, she felt, were not paying her son (me) enough respect. I imagine she knew I was gay from an early age, but she didn't give a damn. She knew every one of my teachers by name, and if I came home distressed, she was quick to sort out the problem, and would be in somebody's face the next day. She had taught me well.
"Umm...yes, Mr. Jensen."
"And is the fact that you consider him effeminate sufficient reason for him to get beat up? Do you condone this, Mr. Hubbard?"
"We certainly don't condone this, Mr. Jensen, but his behavior is a provocation."
"Who is `we,' Mr. Jensen?"
"Umm...the school, the staff..."
"From my perspective, YOU are `the school, the staff,'. If my son is getting beaten up on your campus, that's your problem. YOURS. If I sense that you think his treatment is justified because he isn't a carbon copy of every other boy on campus, it will become the superintendent's problem. I don't personally give rat dick what you think of my son and his effeminacy, but if you don't protect him, I will ensure that you and..."
Abruptly, the principal's door is opened, and his secretary comes in, a worried look on her face. "Excuse me, Mr. Hubbard. We have an altercation that...umm...needs your attention." Hubbard excuses himself and moves out into the outer office. There is a lot of noise, and suddenly I hear Ian's voice, pleading. I sprint into the office, and there is Ian, bloody again, gripping his ribs. I give Hubbard a toxic look and carry Ian to the car. I drive him to the doctor's office where his wounds are treated. His chest is bruised, but nothing more is broken. He does have a new black eye, however, and tells me as we leave the doctor that it was the same two boys. I drop him at home, in Jason's care, and return to his school, but the principal has left. It's clear to me that he's not going to be any help anyway, so it really doesn't matter. It's time to deal with this in a more personal way.
Returning home, I find that Jason has put Ian to bed, lying with him until he falls asleep. Kenny is furious, pacing the living room. Him I put in charge of researching the boys who are bullying Ian, a task he clearly relishes. I want to know their histories, whether they've done this before, school records, law enforcement records, all kinds of stuff that he shouldn't be able to find out, but I'm guessing he will. Jason, I put in charge of comfort;: take care of Ian, keep him calm, keep him at home. Me, I'm going to work the system, work it nearly to death. I call Bob Titus, my lawyer, fill him in on what's going on and get a commitment for the next day.
At 9am the next morning, I phone the office of the superintendent of Ian's school district and make an appointment to meet with him. I have the pictures of Ian from the first assault, the names of the teachers that witnessed the assault and did nothing, the names of several witnesses to that assault, pictures of his new black eye, the names of witness to the second assault, and I have Bob. Should be interesting. At 1:30pm we're seated in the superintendent's office – Bob, Ian and I – and I lay out the issue. We talk for maybe 30 minutes, and I'm surprised at how forthcoming the superintendent is. He's angry at the way Ian has been treated, angry at the dismissive attitude of the principal, and he agrees to take action. Bob intervenes: "This boy must be allowed to be who he is. He has broken no laws. Indeed, his behavior in this has been exemplary. It's your job to protect him. If you can't or won't do that, then you need to find another job."
The superintendent smiles. "I understand the gravity of this, Mr. Titus. No need to threaten. I take this very seriously. Please send Ian back to school tomorrow. I will, in the meantime, ensure that he's safe."
We all shake hands and leave the office. Outside, I thank Bob profusely, and Ian hugs him. We drive home, to find Jason in the kitchen slaving over the final preparations of all of Ian's favorite dishes. We have Caesar salad, lasagna, steamed broccoli with garlic, and bread pudding for dessert. Jason is so far out of his cooking comfort zone that I'm absolutely amazed. Kenny might do something like this, but not Jason, our Asian chef. I really wonder how much fish sauce is in the Lasagna, but I'm not going to ask him that. It'd just piss him off.
The meal is a triumph. Not exactly my cup of tea, nor Jason's, but Kenny loves it, and Ian is beside himself, raving about the Lasagna, very different from his Mom's, he says, but excellent in its own way. I wink at Jason, and he wrinkles his nose, but smiles. Jason hates cheese. It's just not part of an Asian diet, and, of course, Lasagna is mostly cheese. He's managed to choke some down, but certainly hasn't had seconds. Everyone loves the bread pudding, though – except me, because I hate cinnamon. But, Jason has thoughtfully brought me a yogurt for dessert, strawberry, my favorite.
After dinner, Jason and Ian go to the living room to watch TV, and Kenny follows me to my office. "What've you got," I ask?
"Plenty," he responds. Turns out Kenny is really good at social engineering. He's been calling around, pretending to be social workers, police officers, ministers, the gamut, and has collected a bunch of stuff on the thugs bullying Ian. They've been doing this for years, it turns out, and Kenny has talked to several of their victims and their families. One of the boys, Mike, has one conviction for assault, and the other has a pending indictment for rape – rape of another boy. They are clearly slime, justification for what I have planned. He leads me through the evidence he's collected, and we agree to a plan of action. I have little faith in the superintendent's promise of safety for Ian, and so am planning to send Jason along with Ian to school tomorrow. He looks young enough to be in high school, and can help protect Ian if he gets into trouble. Having agreed to our plan, we join Jason and Ian in the living room to watch "Ugly Betty." I've ever applied to piece of flesh.
The next morning, Ian and Jason head off to school, and Kenny and I head off to the address of the first of our bullies, Mike, to scope things out – get an idea of his schedule, where he lives, who with, what the neighborhood looks like, and so on. We've rented a car, and stolen a license plate to hang over the real plate. Disguise. We spend the day watching the house, see Mike leave for school, meet up with friends, reach school, and return, seven hours later. No one else has come out of the house, so we've no idea if he's living with parents or what.
Arriving at school, Ian is attacked almost immediately, but Jason is able to fend off the boys involved. He's short, but very strong, and has been involved in marshal arts for years as a form of exercise. I wouldn't like to find myself in a dark ally with him. He calls me to tell me about the attack, and I call the superintendent's office, reporting it. The superintendent is clearly very embarrassed, and very angry. As we hang up, he assures me that he'll deal with the problem. Yet again.
At 3pm, Kenny and I are still watching Mike's house when I get another call from Jason. There's been another attack which he's managed to fended off. I call the superintendent's office, yet again, and when I get him on the phone, my demeanor is not so cordial: "What the fuck are you doing about this situation? Ian has been attacked again. We have witnesses. How are you helping me?"
There's a long silence. "I'm sorry, Mr. Jensen. I apparently haven't done enough. I have, though, just fired the principal and a French teacher – well, redeployed them. We'll have a new principal on board tomorrow morning. He comes from Ravenswood. He's very experienced in these kinds of...situations. I've also personally expelled the two boys involved in your son's...abuse. That may have been why he was targeted again this afternoon. If at all possible, I'd like to suggest that your other...friend...accompany him to school again tomorrow, just to make sure these measures are enough to solve the problem, and..."
Just at that moment, I see Kenny sprint from the back of the car, jump on the back of a pedestrian, and clamp his hand over his mouth. Two seconds, and the pedestrian is down, and I'm driving over to Kenny who puts the inert body in the trunk.
"...fine, I'll try this for one more day. But I expect results, sir." I hang up. Thank god for Bluetooth.
We drive back to the house, and Kenny drags Mike out of the trunk and down to the basement, stripping him, and strapping him to the punishment table. I call Jason and tell him to take Ian out to eat. California Pizza Kitchen at Valley Fair. Then go to a movie. I tell him to tell Ian that Kenny and I have gone to a lecture on fractals. He agrees. They won't be home before 11pm.
We wait 45 minutes before the chloroform wears off and Mike begins to wake up. Another 15 minutes, and he is lucid and struggling, but blind because I've taped his eyes shut with duct tape. And he is angry, swearing a blue-streak. Rather than trying to shout over him, I grab the razor strop, and give him three of the hardest strokes I've ever applied to a piece of flesh. The first stops his endless talk, and the next two elicit screams. In the pause after the third stroke I shout at him: "Shut the fuck up."
He is silent, barely breathing, and his ass is already crimson.
"You are a piece of shit, Mikey, a bully that has preyed on several of our sons. You're about to pay for that. I expect the back of you to be bloody by the time you leave here, and you can just be grateful that you're still alive. Each of us will have the wherewithal to do as we please with you for up to 15 minutes. There are five of us, so you should expect an hour and a quarter of the most intense pain you've ever felt, just a taste of the torment you've put our children through. And, if we ever hear that you've bullied another child, this will seem like a walk in the park."
Of course, there aren't five of us here. There are only Kenny and me, but it's important to preserve our anonymity if we can; so we're going to use different voices. Kenny is under the table with a suction nipple attached to a milking machine which he slides onto this guy's dick, hanging through the hole in the middle of the table. It's amazing how painful these things are. First, they're made for cows' udders, not for men's dicks, so they stroke in entirely the wrong way. Second, they're relentless. They stroke forever, until you turn them off. And third, if they do get you off, and they often do, they just keep going, stroking your over-sensitive glans to the next orgasm, and the next, and the next. Mike, I see, is going to be a live one, because the milking machine gets him off almost instantly, in under a minute.
I begin to wail on him, and he begins to scream after maybe seven strokes. He bruises quickly, and is black and blue after fifteen. I've been screaming at him all this time, complaining about the damage he's done to my son, and he is sobbing. Kenny and I exchange places at fifteen, and Kenny begins to move down the legs, flogging his thighs, his calves, and even his feet, berating him for what he's done to his son – imaginary as he may be. Mike is hoarse at thirty, and has no voice left at forty, when I take over again. As I flog his upper back all he can do is sob. No sound comes out of his mouth. At sixty, I stop, returning the razor strop to the wall. He is bleeding a little, but not profusely, but he is absolutely purple.
"What have you learned here today, Mikey?"
No response. I grab the strop again and give him ten more to the upper back, drawing blood. "WHAT HAVE YOU FUCKING LEARNED," I shout?
"Not to be a bully. To leave other people alone. Please...Please... don't hurt me anymore!"
"Why not, Mikey? Haven't you hurt a lot of other people? Why shouldn't we hurt you?"
"I won't. I won't...do it...again. Please..."
"If we ever hear that you've bullied another child, we will triple this, and you will have no skin left on you. I swear it. Are we clear?"
No answer. Five more to his already bruised and bleeding ass. "ARE WE CLEAR?"
"Yes...yes...please..."
"I WILL FUCKING SKIN YOU ALIVE THE NEXT TIME. ARE WE CLEAR?"
"YES," he screams.
Kenny removes the milking apparatus from Mike's dick, which is swollen and purple, chafed, nearly bleeding, and releases his wrists, tying his hands behind his back. We release the rest of the straps, tie his ankles together, and carry him to the trunk of the car. It's 10:20pm. We drive him around and around in circles for maybe fifteen minutes, and finally leave him on a bench in front of the Rose Garden, ¼ mile from our house, naked, but tied loosely enough that it won't take him long to free himself if he works at it. We get home about fifteen minutes before Jason and Ian, who have seen "Religulous," Bill Mahers new film. Kenny and I are sitting in the living room, watching "Torchwood," and greet the boys as they come in, smiling smugly at each other. They sit down on the couch, Ian snuggling in to me, and we continue to watch TV for another 30 minutes before we head off to bed.
"So, what'd you guys do tonight," Ian asks.
"Nothing very interesting," Kenny replies.
"Fractals," I scream. Kenny laughs.
"Yeah, fractals," he giggles. "Fucking fractals." We both smile as we pile into bed.
This is the last of Ian's beatings. I'm sure the superintendent thinks he's solved this problem, and maybe he has – in part. Mike is gone, and so is the other boy, no longer members of the student body at Lincoln High. Somehow, though, I suspect Kenny and I had more to do with the cessation of violence than the superintendent, and I also suspect that Ian will be the last boy that Mike abuses. Fear of god, and all that.
Published first at: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Nemo-stories/