Denny, my young 21-year old neighbor, who still lived home with his widowed mother, was, I discovered, a hustler. I had enjoyed watching Denny during his growing-up years, watching him develop, his muscular lean body gleaming with perspiration when he would run around in cut-offs and nothing else -- even barefoot -- in his backyard.
As he matured, he sensed my interest in watching him -- admiring him -- and I have to admit he became a bit of a show off, flexing his muscles, taking provocative poses, enjoying watching my reactions to his teasing behavior. Like most young boys, he had the natural ability to sense how to pose and preen to best advantage to attract the attention of adults.
I read somewhere once that all men have this natural attraction to members of both sexes, but society forces us to suppress homoerotic tendencies and emphatically deny any interest in members of the same sex.
I read a lot about such things -- being a doctor and all. I really no longer legally had the title of doctor any more, having lost my license due to what happened when I was giving the son of a prominent citizen a physical, and I ....
But that incident was behind me. I had resisted all temptations posed by underage youths since.
But I kept up on my interest in male anatomy, perusing illustrations of the male in scientific tomes and also, I must admit, illustrations of the male in periodicals that showed the male nude in poses deliberately designed to be provocative for a homosexual audience -- but which served me well given my scientific interrest in the male form.
Instead of making a living as a doctor of medicine I had become a researcher and earned a modest living writing on the subject of male sexuality and marketing my writings to various periodicals which specialized in the subject.
It seemed to me a terrible shame that a doctor of medicine could not freely --legally -- conduct research into the sexual development of the male -- the young male in particular.
I read somewhere once that adults are naturally attracted by children and youth -- that is why they are so cute -- as in the animal world where puppies are cute -- kittens are cute -- even little wolves and tiger kittens are cute. It is sort of a natural survival tactic nature uses to protect little ones by making them attractive to potential predators and thus enhancing their chances of survival.
So, I will admit it, I was attracted to Denny while he was growing up. I was, in fact, extremely attracted. But I never did anything about it. He was a kid. He was not, as they say, "street legal." No matter how intense the teasing or how provocative his approaches, I resisted temptation.
Denny was glad to mow my lawn for me and do odd jobs I scraped up for the benefit of having him come over and hang around in often scanty attire. I paid him well for the work he performed, and would offer him a soft drink in the air-conditioned interior of my home when he was getting hot physically and I was getting hot watching him outside the window as he did various yard chores. He would drink his soft drink and I would sit across from him, sipping a beer, in awe, I admit, at the sight before me, and, obligingly, he would remove his shirt if he was even wearing one, and give me more to stare at.I always kept in mind that he was not of legal age and resisted all temptation.
When the work was finished, I would go down into the basement and relieve my tensions by perusing my collection of magazines illustrating the male form -- studying the images carefully and wishing it could only be possible for me to follow my interests by having real, living specimens. If only, for example, Denny was of legal age. And willing.
But Denny was all grown up now, a fine specimen of young manhood, and, to me, at least, every bit as tempting in his more adult state as he had been as a child.
That's when I spotted him down on Main Street. It was hot and humid and late evening and I needed more research material so I had driven downtown in my old car to "Peek 'n Meat" a bookstore that marketed periodicals to an adult market and where I went quite often to purchase periodicals for my study of male anatomy down in my basement. I had spent a wad of twenties for the purchase of this new research material and I was on my way back home with the magazines in their black plastic bag beside me on the front seat.
Like I say, that's when I spotted him down on Main Street, in his skin-tight thinly-worn Levi's with holes in all the right places, I couldn't believe my eyes. He was hanging around Main Street in front of the gay bar I had frequented often in my younger years. He was leaning up against a power pole, one leg drawn up behind him and planted on the pole, his package bulging provocatively, a tight T-shirt clinging to his beautiful body.
I slowed to a stop and stared. How I wanted that boy.
And Denny was legal now. Legally, I could have him without breaking the law. And he was so beautiful.
My problem now was that I had always resisted Denny through the years, maintaining a proper front, even though the boy would smilingly watch me as I practically drooled when he was present. I had maintained a respectable relationship with him in spite of goggling him whenever I got the chance -- even going so far as to openly admiring each piercing or tattoo he imposed on his handsome body and willingly showed me, and showed me often, especially when he would raise up his shirt and rub his belly around his navel where he had had a little circle of barbed wire tattoed around his navel.
Did I mention how much I wanted this lad?
It just couldn't be true that he was here on Main Street in front of a gay bar on a hot, muggy night -- hustling -- proposing the prostitution of his fine young body. Could it? I knew he didn't have a job and was still living at home with his mother -- yet, now that I thought about it, with his mother's meager-paying job as a part-time maid for an employment service, it seemed logical that there had to be some sort of additional money coming into the household to allow for the survival of his mother and Denny himself. Was Denny bringing in money to help out his mother by selling his youthful -- but now legal -- body on the streets?
I couldn't help it. I actually licked my lips as I paused there in the car, staring at the boy, and then my car stalled. In almost the same instant the driver in the car behind me began honking his horn to make me move forward.
The honking of the horn drew Denny's attention directly toward me. Red-faced, I watched the boy approach, a knowing smile curling up the edges of his lips.
"Having trouble, Doc?" he asked, leaning in toward me at the open window on the passenger side of the car. The smell of him wafted in tantalizingly.
I loved it when Denny called me Doc. And he knew I loved it.
"The c-car stalled," I stuttered, my blush growing an even deeper red.
"A ride home, Doc?" Denny asked.
Denny opened the car door on the passenger side and scooted inside onto the front seat at my side and I managed to get the car started just as the driver behind me honked his horn a third time -- this time loud and threatening.
The car jolted forward, almost stalling again, but the engine held, and I moved on forward, signalling for a right turn at the traffic light on the corner and turning North toward home.
"Hi, Denny," I managed, my blush ebbing a little perhaps by now. I could actually "feel" the presence of this youth in the car beside me. "I saw you...and...."
"Yeah, I was hoping someone would come along and pick me up," Denny said, neither admitting or denying any reason I might have been considering for his provacative presence in front of a gay bar. "I'm glad it was you, Doc," he added, and I could sense he was looking at me and smiling. And I knew he meant it. He really was glad it was me who had come along. "I was in the bar but things are pretty slow tonight."
"You were in the b-bar?"
"Yeah," Denny said, his voice low and full of as much meaning as one could squeeze into a single word. It was almost a whispered "yeah". "What about you, Doc? What are you up to tonight?"
And then he spotted my black plastic sack containing the magazines full of pictures of the male body that I used in my research. The black plastic bag was a dead giveaway as to where its contents had been purchases.
"Peek 'n Meat, huh?" Denny said. "What'd ya get, Doc?"
He was opening the sack before I could say anything, and he saw the magazines all containing images of the male body.
There was a long, awkward moment ... and then Denny said softly, "Coo--ool, Doc." He thumbed through one of the magazines as I continued driving up the street, then he slid the magazines back into the black plastic bag.
"Man, it sure is hot," he said, and he pulled his T-shirt up exposing his belly and ran his index finger around the barbed-wire circle tattoed around his navel.
"I'm glad you came along to give me a lift home," Denny said.
I slowed and then turned down the side street toward our homes.
"It is just so hot," Denny said. "Ya got any beer, Doc?"
"Y-yes," I stammered.
"I am so thirsty."
"W-would you like to come in for a beer?" I asked him. "I mean...."
"Yeah, Doc. I'm legal now, Doc."
I managed a side glance and saw he was staring right at me.
"Ya know what I mean, Doc?"
I slowed again and pulled into my driveway -- on the left side was his house and his driveway. I opened the car garage with my remote garage-door opener and eased the car inside to a stop, then hit the remote again and the door slid down shut behind us.
He had often been in the garage before, tinkering around with the odd jobs I gave him, getting the lawn mower out, and so forth.
"I've been over here so many times before that this almost seems like home, too," Denny said. He grabbed the black plastic bag of magazines to carry it for me.
We both got out of the car and moved through the side door two where once set of stairs led down to the basement, and another short set of stair led up to the kitchen. We climbed up into the kitchen and I retrieved a full six pack of beer from the refrigerator, and Denny beamed me a smile and nodded his approval.
And then, with me carrying the six pack of beer and with 21-year-old Denny following me with the black plastic bag, I led him down to my laboratory in the basement.
The End