OLD AGE
Chapter 1
Chet Latham awoke with a phantom toothache and miserable little tender spot on his gum that grated like chalk on a blackboard. He ran his tongue over it feeling a definite swelling.
"Jesus Christ, now what" he muttered as he threw back the covers. All he ever wanted from his last few years was a bit of comfort, not a continual reminder of a failing body. A heart attack, a minor stroke and two operations should be more than enough punishment for all his sins, he thought.
"Damn lying doctors!" He cursed as he stumbled toward the bathroom, they said the cancer was gone. So what the hell's this - chopped liver? In the mirror he tried looking at the offending spot only to find the trifocal on his one good eye wouldn't focus properly.
"Shit!" He yelped as he fit the upper plate and quickly spat it out again. With an aching jaw and a lump the size of a pea, wearing dentures was out of the question. Instead of going out for breakfast as he usually did, Chet rummaged the refrigerator, finally poaching a couple of eggs to feed a hunger he normally didn't feel until around noon. His usual breakfast routine consisted of a trip to the Roadside Cafe for coffee and toast with a little jelly on the side.
At 72, Chet looked forward to those meager breakfasts at the restaurant, usually, they were the highlight of his day. He and a few old acquaintances gathered around a table eager for their morning gabfest. True, most of the jabber was pure bullshit and many of the opinion's put forth were downright stupid, but being with people, even some who he considered idiots, was better than being alone.
Since Ivy died, there wasn't much emphasis to Chet's life, good or bad. He was surprised at what a hole in his life her passing had left, especially considering that for the last 20 years of their marriage they merely lived in the same house with Chet going his way and Ivy hers. While they did care for each other in some indefinable way, they had long ago stopped trying for any intimacy. Forty-five years wasted, Chet thought. In truth they had only stayed together for fear of ending up alone, and now here he was alone anyway. It didn't seem fair. Ivy was 10 years younger, he should have gone first. Maybe this was yet another punishment for marrying.
He remembered courted Ivy, hoping that marriage would somehow make him feel like a normal person, whatever that was, but all it had done was bring pain to them both. Of course, Ivy too chose to marry for selfish reasons, so maybe in the end they each got what they deserved. Strangely enough, in his own way, Chet really did care for Ivy and they did have some good years, especially when the kids were small, but if parenthood made him happy, the commitments of marriage to Ivy left him cold. It sometimes made him sad to think that he could never be lover Ivy wanted nor could she ever be the one he desired, and there were periods in his life when he would have given anything for it not to be like that. He tried, he struggled with it, but that deep burning attraction he yearned for never came about, not with Ivy anyway. Still, they made it through those years together - And what did we have to show for all the strain? A paid off house, some money in the bank and two kids who now couldn't wait for him to die so they could inherit the scant proceeds from two thoroughly wasted lives. It might have been different if Ivy had actually loved him, or if she had been even slightly adventurous, but that wasn't the case. To her love making was a one way street, touch me, she seemed to say, I'll lay here, you do what you will, but don't expect me to reciprocate. Their sex life quickly deteriorated and soon after that, everything else. Ivy got pregnant in their first weeks of marriage, otherwise Chet doubted it would have lasted a year. He stuck it out, he couldn't abandon his children no matter how unhappy he was, yet in the end they had abandoned him. Chet made up his mind to leave everything to charity. He hadn't heard from the boys since Ivy died, except the few times they needed money, so to hell with them.
Chet tried the upper plate again only to spit it out in disgust and reach for the phone. He had no intention of showing up in public without teeth, so despite the pain, he put them in once more and left the house, slamming the door behind him.
After two hours of waiting in excruciating pain, Dr. Burke finally x-rayed the area and a few minuets later said in a jovial voice,
"Well, I'll be damned! Hey, Chet, old man, you're cutting a tooth!"
"Horse shit! I've had dentures for almost twenty years. You're out of your mind. What's the matter, can't tell a tooth from a tumor?"
"Here, take a look," Burke said as he motioned Chet to the light box. "See that? a tooth and what's more, there seem to be tooth buds developing in all the sockets on this picture. Sorry to disappoint you Chet, but you're cutting teeth."
Cutting those teeth was certainly no picnic. Many times over the following six months, Chet wanted them all out! His dentist flatly refused saying they were perfect and only a fool would trade good teeth for dentures, but Chet suspected that both the dentist and Dr. Burke wanted to see if he'd actually survive the experience. Either that or they both planned on publishing papers on their remarkable old guinea pig. Neither one could come up with a reasonable explanation as to why this should be happening to a man of his age and state of health. All previous case histories were confined to younger people, those without years of denture wear and even then, the teeth that developed were usually soft, discolored and needed extracting. His came in perfect and far better looking than the slightly crooked set of his youth. These new sparkling white teeth even made him feel younger. Everything tasted wonderful again. His energy increased remarkably and he began taking long walks, occasionally breaking into a jog from sheer exuberance. Despite Burke's repeated warnings, his heart seemed fine. He shoveled snow that winter without the slightest twinge of chest pain, although it did take a toll on some long unused muscles. Chet couldn't understand why growing new teeth would make him feel so good, in fact he now felt far better than he had in many years - except for one thing. His vision seemed to be in decline.
One morning, he even awoke to find himself in full arousal, something that hadn't happened since the experimental chemotherapy three years before. He took advantage of the event with full and appreciative gusto making the moments last as long as possible: It was almost like being sixty again, he marveled.
Even in his prime Chet never thought of himself as a handsome man. Now with age adding countless sagging wrinkles, his features actually bordered on the ugly. He often wished that as a young man he'd gone for plastic surgery, at least a nose job. His older brothers, now both dead, had sported the same roman snozz, only theirs had held more of a classic look while his was exaggerated and just plain gross. For all his teenage years he had hidden that honker behind books or by taking seats in restaurants that looked straight out on the crowd. Never once a profile for Chet; approach from the side and his hand automatically came up to shade his eyes (and hide his nose). He was in his twenty's before conquering that reaction. He did however have a nice smile, until dentures pulled the corners of his mouth into a dour looking frown. Now that frown was gone. It was the new teeth of course, but wasn't there something else? He searched his face in the mirror looking for minor changes. Didn't there seem to be fewer wrinkles and didn't his face and hair look fuller? It was hard to tell with his eyesight as bad as it was. Just wishful thinking he concluded. The only thing different was facial angles now changed by the new natural teeth. He smiled at himself. He wasn't all that ugly from the front, but why even think about that at this late date? He was almost seventy-three, his health was dodgy and his shiny new teeth didn't make him one day younger.
For month's Chet's glasses had caused him no end of aggravation as his vision faded. Now, fifteen minutes of reading brought on a miserable headache and streaming eyes as he struggled to find the correct distance to accommodate his eyesight. A doctor had warned him of this four years ago when a small stroke destroyed half the vision in his right eye, only he didn't want to believe it. Blindness to Chet was almost worse than death itself and one day in a fit of frustration he hurled his glasses against the wall shattering them in a million pieces.
"Stupid, stupid!" He railed at himself. Looking around for a spare pair, he realized the room itself seemed crisper without the glasses. He couldn't make out print, but distance and middle vision appeared clearer now then at any time since the stroke. Pawing through a drawer, Chet found glasses from two previous prescriptions and was shocked to find he hadn't been losing vision at all: He'd been gaining it! This was too much of a coincidence to simply brush off. In every way he was growing stronger. The last ultrasound showed carotid arteries with the same or possible less plaque than previous and nurse commented that the exercise was helping. Chet was due for his six months check up again and for the first time in years, he was actually looked forward to it.
Thursday at 9 AM, Chet entered Burke's clinic for his physical, the first test being the ultrasound. At 11 AM, he was having it done over, since Burke refused to believe the first results which showed no stenosis whatsoever. From there, things degenerated rapidly. Chet's blood pressure was normal - For a man of twenty! His heart murmur had disappeared, and the results from every test were those of a younger person. Even a vigorous stress test hardly winded him. Since his last exam, Chet had gained twenty pounds, putting him back to the weight he that carried two decades before. Burke hadn't examined Chet for over a year except for x-raying the teeth. Blood tests and blood pressure monitoring was done by nursing staff, so Burke nearly went into shock when he walked in to see a man who's face said not seventy-three, but perhaps sixty. Not only that, but Chet's body looked even younger. Gone were the sagging muscles of chest, arms and buttocks, replaced by the firmer tones of a working man in his fifty's. Gone also were the scars left where the melanoma was removed from Chet's back, even the telltale radiation scars had vanished. That cancer had been a close one for Chet. Only the combination of radiation and newest advances in chemotherapy had saved his life. Now there stood before Burke a Chet who looked far healthier than the last time he saw him and years younger than his real age. Good Lord, Burke thought, he's not only regenerated teeth, but a new body as well!
And it seemed to be true. Every test showed him to be perfectly healthy with the constitution of a twenty-year-old. Chet even claimed his eyesight was improving. Also in evidence were a few black hairs at Chet's temples, where before there had been only white. Burke was well aware that Chet was one of those men who had gone gray at an early age. He had been Chet's physician for more than twenty years and couldn't recall a time when the man's hair wasn't completely white - everywhere. No longer. Abundant dark pubic hair was plainly visible against the thin gown that covered this strangely younger Chet. What was happening to Latham excited Burke. In all his twenty-five years in medicine he had never heard of such a thing. Chet was throwing off the effects of aging as though they didn't exist and Burke wanted to know why, or more precisely, he wanted to know how. It was the kind of discovery that would make Burke's name world-renowned.
Doctor Burke ordered every test he could think of in hopes of finding some abnormality, some indication of what was happening to Chet. The blood tests, the CAT scans and MRI uncovered nothing except for an extra little tangle of internal ducts that seemed to have no purpose. At first Burke thought he was on to something, only as it turned out, Chet's little anomaly was well documented in the annals of medicine, not common perhaps, but about as meaningful as a sixth toe or an extra nipple. Chet was absolutely healthy and Burke kicked himself for not ordering these tests when Chet first started cutting teeth. Maybe then some chemical or hormonal imbalance would have shown up. Now, Chet was simply a healthy man, too healthy even for his apparent age. Tests indicated increasing hormone levels and his blood chemistry was that of a healthy male in his prime. In the four months that followed, even Burke could see accelerated changes taking place. Chet was bulking up, yet slimming in the hips, his bones were becoming more flexible, even his sun damaged skin seemed to be renewing itself as age spots slowly faded. In desperation, Burke called his old alma mater to arrange for further testing. The University Hospital would have resources not available to Burke, but it meant losing his advantage. Now he could expect no more than a footnote mention in the discoveries that Chet would reveal.
Burke was wrong. Chet revealed no secrets at all, he simply grew younger while teams of specialist drew blood, took tissue samples and scanned his body in every conceivable way. Chet was subjected to all known tests as well as dozens more they thought up specifically for him and without enlightening the doctors one bit. They called in specialists and scientist from around the world and yet the answer remained the same. Chet was absolutely normal for his apparent age. After two years of testing it all proved fruitless. Chet carried no special gene, no special blood type, no special anything. Others, who had gone through the exact same series of cancer treatments as Chet, proved only that the treatment worked in 30 percent of the cases.
Chet finally refused any further testing until the doctors could come up with some new angle of attack. He was tired of being poked, prodded and stabbed by everyone who could lay their hands on a blood draw kit. He rightly assumed that by now there was enough blood and biopsy samples in storage to keep a thousand researchers busy for a hundred years. He had done his part for science, now he wanted to get on with life.
For awhile he worried that the younging process would reduce him to a zygote, but it stopped at about the apparent age of twenty-five. Chet thought it was actually younger than that, perhaps about nineteen or twenty, since that was the age he'd stopped growing up and began growing older, but he did appear to be close to twenty-five. The reversal couldn't erase all signs of age. If you looked carefully you could see a lifetime of living in his eyes, the same eyes that now saw the world with perfect clarity. He was now close to seventy-five, looked twenty-five and had two sons in their forty's, both of whom came rushing back to accept large sums of money to be part of the testing program. His sons, however were not happy about their father's sudden change, in fact they maintained a chilly formality throughout their stay in Ann Arbor and when Chet began looking younger then they did, they stopped speaking to him all together. Life is the pits, Chet thought. He once had a good relationship with his sons, right up until the moment Ivy dropped her bomb about Jim Locke. She swore she never intended to cause this rift and he was sure that was the case, only Ivy should have kept her mouth shut. He certainly never brought up her peccadilloes in front the boys. How did they get to be so narrow minded - so God damned bigoted, he wondered. Chet remembered the drugs, the B & E's that John and Thad had done as kids, all the messes he'd gotten them out of . . . None of that counted evidently, not after they found religion, or whatever they called it. For years it had been like this. They showed up their mother's funeral service, leaving directly afterwards without saying a word to him. The only time he heard from them was when they needed money. Ivy left them a small trust fund to be administrated by Chet. It was her hope that it might get them talking to their father again, only it just made things worse. They resented him holding sway over what they considered to be their due, so the exchanges were always terse and to the point. He knew no more about his son's lives now than they had once known about his.
Too bad that couldn't be said for the rest of the world, he thought.
Images of Chet now graced every magazine, newspaper and tabloid in the country. The ongoing story of his growing younger crowded out even sex scandals. Photographers hounded him, reporters clamored for his time, TV cameras recorded every pronouncement about his case, while the tabloids printed wild, unsubstantiated stories. At first he refused to talk to the media, which only made them more intrusive. Finally he hired a lawyer, who in turn found an agent to handle the mess and at their advice Chet began doing talk shows and interviews. He stiffly answered the same dumb questions dozens of times before loosening up in front of the camera, but when that finally happened, he suddenly became the darling of the media. He was a good looking young fellow with the tart tongue of an old codger who had seen it all and the stories he told of friends, relatives and life in general came across as hilariously funny. People found him fascinating, especially since at each appearance he looked younger than at the last one. Offers came flooding in. Chet turned down nearly all endorsement deals while chuckling over the many marriage proposals. The former he incorporated as jokes in his TV appearances, especially the truly stupid ones like endorsements for cigarettes and headache remedies. The proposals, he responded to with warm personal notes of 'thank you for the thought', on which he placed the return address of his agent. People couldn't seem get enough of Chet, reporters covered his daily routine, the food he ate, even the car he drove, everything about him was suddenly important to grinding mill of Chet mania.
Fame also brought a modicum of wealth and part of that was the car he drove. He received it as payment for one of the few endorsements he did make. His old friend and breakfast buddy, Matt Emmons owned an auto dealership in Greenville and being friends, Chet had succumbed to the offer. He was expecting something modest, similar to the cars he had bought from Matt in the past, however when it was delivered, it turned out to be a flame red Buick overloaded with options, including a ridiculous looking fake trunk mounted spare and 50 pounds of after market chrome strips. Chet was sure Matt was trying to get a rise out of him. It was just the kind of trick he'd pull, but Chet accepted the Buick anyway, assuring Matt that it was exactly the car he had always wanted. Two can play that game, he thought. A week later, the Buick sported gobs more of the ugliest add on chrome he could find until it looked for all the world like a pimpmobile. During interviews, Chet never failed to extol the virtues of Matt's dealership, saying that Matt and his employees had that certain 'Je ne sais quoi' that could turn any car into a "classic".
Otherwise, he lived modestly in Ann Arbor, an efficiency apartment suited him just fine. All other income he invested as carefully as always, knowing full well the fleetingness of unearned fame.
The new Chet was different from the old in many ways. At fifty he had wished he had taken better care of himself when he was younger and now that his younger days were back and he did exactly that. No smoking this time, he hadn't smoked in ten years anyway and didn't miss it. Instead, workouts became his vice. Two hour a day found him sweating in a gym as he toughened his body on the weight machines. An hour of running each evening brought on an endorphin high more satisfying than any cigarette. He had plans for the future that didn't include staying a celebrity forever. In fact, in his mind he could already visualize the end of it. When that time came, Chet would fade from the scene, acquire a new face and finally live free of the past. His sons would never miss him, nor would Chet miss being known as the famous Rejuvenating Man. As much as he wanted to leave it all behind, he couldn't at the moment. Too much notoriety, too many camera toting tabloid 'journalist' floating around. No, it would have to wait. Hell, he'd already waited forty-five years and was well prepared to wait another year or two if need be. He had it all figured out. University doctors were at this moment preparing to announce to the world that there was nothing more they could learn from Chet, genetically or otherwise. What had happened to him was an untraceable, intractably fluke of nature that left no hint of how to reproduce the effects. With that news, Chet felt sure he would soon be relegated to the back pages and finally out of the papers altogether. In preparing for this eventuality, Chet overlooked the obvious: Some people do not accept the solemn pronouncements of science. . .
Chapter 2
At the same time as Chet was going through his strange metamorphosis, Ivan Decoviak found himself going through a change at least as unnatural. Ivan, a mild, quiet art teacher with the Alberta school system, had just came from his mother's funeral when he was set upon by three young hoodlums who intended to rob him and at the same time degrade him in the manner of the movie, "Deliverance". They had talked about for days. Ivan was a faggot, at least they thought so. He wasn't married, had just turned thirty and everything about the man pointed to it. He was a faggot, a pussy wuss and the perfect target. Decoviak would probably be too scared to call the cops, but to be on the safe side they decided to wear ski masks since he might remember them from school the year before.
Ivan's normal parking spot was on a side street, not far from his apartment. It was there that they grabbed him, dragging into a vacant lot between 2 boarded up houses. He struggled, but it was useless. All three were larger and stronger than he. They riffled his pockets and than began their campaign of fear. With his back against a fence, a man holding each arm, Ivan was helpless. The leader lay a knife to Ivan's throat,
"Faggot, cocksucking queer, I'll bet you'll just love gettin' your lips on mans tool, wouldn't ya?" He jeered as he unzipped his pants. "Ain't gonna though, I got something else in mind. Turn him around, Boys!"
Panic took hold of Ivan. Without thinking, he raised a leg and kicked, driving the knife wielder back, and with a sudden fury, swung the two that held his arms. Their heads came together with a resounding 'thunk'. Ivan dropping the unconscious pair and with lightning speed, grabbed the startled knife wielder, forcing him to his knees.
"So, you like these kind of games, huh?" Stripped off the hood, he looked at the assailant, "Bobby isn't it, Bobby Jepson?"
The young man writhed in Ivan's iron grip. Ivan had never been a strong man, and yet unexplainable, with just one hand he controlled this young, husky individual and suddenly he knew that he could crush the bones of this man's shoulder with the mere twitch of his fingers. That knowledge so unnerving him that he nearly let go, but not quite. These three needed a lesson and as a teacher, Ivan was bound to give it. He collected his wallet and keys, then stripped the would-be attacker by simply ripped the clothes from his body. His strength seemed limitless - he just yanked at the clothing and they parted from Jepson's body. Slapping the other two awake, he did the same and then pitched the bundle of rags over a tall fence into the next yard. The three men stood shivering in the weeds, trying to cover themselves with their hands. He looked at the leader, the one that wielded the knife and somehow he KNEW what Jepson had intended. It was like he saw a picture of himself being robbed, beaten and raped.
Ivan was furious,
"You three punks should be in jail. My God, have you nothing better to do with your time?"
The trio quaked, tears lay just below the surface. Ivan realized that these young toughs weren't really all that tough, but the thought he caught from Jepson's mind disgusted him,
"You nasty little bastards. If you want to play those kind of games, practice on yourselves!"
And they obeyed him, simply at his word, with no threat and with no further intimidation. Shocked, Ivan watched for a moment as they went through the motions: Three naked teenagers trying to sexually assault each other.
It was then that Ivan realized that his new found strength was more than physical. It emanated from the mind. Was he really stronger, or was it just his anger that caused the sudden surge of power? He picked up a brick, trying to recover the feeling of strength he had while manhandling the punk. He squeezed the brick, all it did was hurt his hand, yet when he let go, the brick disintegrated into powder the moment it hit the ground. The brick powder left him even more stunned. He started back to his car when he remembered the punks. They were still doing as he commanded, still going through the motions as though mesmerized - no passion, no expressions on their faces. He left them there involved in their coldly unemotional couplings while he went to make an anonymous call to the police.
In the days that followed that triggering incident, Ivan tried all sorts of experiments. His landlady's dog, an annoying little yapper, suddenly went mute when he saw Ivan. The dog stood there as though in a trance and never issued a peep as Ivan mounted the stairs to his tiny apartment, and each time afterward when Ivan approached, the dog went into the same stupor. Mrs. Ketchum lost track of Ivan's comings and goings. Her little tattletale failed his job completely.
That he had control over both thought and to a certain extent, physical matter, Ivan went about to prove conclusively - and it frightened him. At 40, his Uncle Boris had a similar "gift" thrust upon him. Overnight, his previously tone deaf uncle, a statistician for the Province, became a musical genius. Within 2 years he became a concert pianist as well as the composer of a great number of modern works. Boris took Canada by storm and then the rest of the world - and 3 years after that he was dead of a brain tumor. Cancer ran in Ivan's family - all types, his father died of liver cancer, a second uncle of Hodgkin's. Was Ivan's gift just another manifestation of the old family plague?
The gift also frightened Ivan by the pure ease with which he could control people's minds - make them see and hear what he wanted them to. He realized he could rob banks or jewelry stores and no one would even notice him. It truly scared Ivan. Must absolute power corrupt absolutely? Could he live with this 'gift' for however long he had and remain a decent human being? He had to try - all he could do was try . . .
When cutbacks came to the school district, Ivan knew he could have kept his job with a mere thought in that direction, but instead, he made sure Jules Ashram stayed employed. Jules had 4 children and needed three more years to lock in tenure. If anyone had questioned why at that point in time, the school board offered a 3-year contract to Jules, no one could have given a rational answer, but there it was in black and white and quite unbreakable in it's wording.
Ivan moved on to Vancouver, then to the US and the state of Washington. He didn't even bother to update his license plate, which had expired. When stopped, he simply looked at the officer and the whole thing was forgotten while Ivan riffled through the man's mind as thoroughly as the young hoods had gone through his pockets. On occasion, Ivan was quite startled by what he found, sometimes delighted, sometimes disgusted and as he got better at it, he could hold an ordinary conversation with a person who never knew that his deepest secrets and desires were being read or that his eyes saw one thing while his mind told him another.
Ivan had taken full advantage of his powers only twice. Once with a handsome Canadian Mountie, Steven, and once with a Washington police officer, Bart. Both men carried the same secret as Ivan.
The boys were right of course, Ivan was gay, but so repressed he seldom acted on his desires. Now that he could do anything he wished, but still acted cautiously. The Mountie's mind told him all he had to do was touch the man, reach out and stroke his manhood, which he did, and they ended up far from the highway on a blanket in the woods for a couple of hours of soul satisfying sex. No mechanical motions this time, this was the real thing, not love of course, but wonderful, uninhibited sex - and both parties enjoying every moment of it.
With Ivan's ability, it was simple to provide Steven with precisely the things he relished most and to enhance that to an almost unbearable intensity. In return the emotions fed back to Ivan building his climaxes to peak he had never known before. Almost dazed by the encounter, Ivan still had presence of mind enough to provided the Mountie with an alibi for those missing hours. With a single thought he draining the police car battery, fusing the plates in the process, and then drove his new friend back to the highway and to the nearest phone, some ten miles away. If Ivan had been selfish, he could have said a word and Steven would have accompanied to the ends of the earth. He thought about it. Steven was handsome, sweet tempered and wonderful in every way, but he was also married and had a son he loved with all his heart. As his last act, Ivan removed the memory of their encounter in the woods, and in it's place left an impression of a long walk to the highway and flagging down a passing motorist for a ride to the phone booth, and yet when Steven shook Ivan's hand goodbye, he clasped it within both of his and looked deeply into Ivan's eyes,
"Thank you." He said with such warmth and feeling that Ivan was never sure if he had completely erased that memory or not.
With Bart Ludlow, it was a completely different encounter. Bart was 42 and still as repressed as Ivan had ever been. Like all people who feel a calling for police work, Bart had a slight power complex that he handled better than most by relegating it strictly to his fantasies. He might dream of wielding power, of having someone do his every biding, but would never act upon that impulse. He was a lonely man. His wife had left him, but outside of the embarrassment of loosing her to a fellow officer, he really didn't miss her that much. He especially didn't miss the constant quarrels that seemed to be their only way of communicating. His loneliness like his repression had followed him from boyhood to manhood, into marriage and out of it and he had lived with both for so long they were no longer recognizable as such. It was simply an empty feeling that never went away When his ex left, she took all the cash and left him with a mortgaged house that had never seen children, or for that matter, had never seen any real passion. It was just a house, an investment, a place to hang his hat, and nothing more.
All and all, Bart was a good officer, he didn't abuse his power and after ten years on the force he had still not taken on the attitude of so many younger officers. 'Them against us' did not fit his understanding of the job, instead he developed a minor Messiah complex where he was always helpful to motorists and if a ticket must be issued, it was done with the utmost benevolence.
When Ivan passed Bart's parked patrol car, he took an instant reading of the man and an instant liking for him as well. He could see himself in Bart. At least the Ivan that he had been until a few months ago. The loneliness, the fear of acting out his hidden desires was the same. And then Ivan saw something else. He saw the future, a future that held no Bart. Bart would be dead within two years, Ivan knew that as well as he knew his own name, yet he had no idea how this knowledge came to him. It just Was, the same as his power over peoples thoughts. He decided then and there that for awhile at least, Bart would have all his fantasies come true. It bothered Ivan not a bit that Bart's fantasies were on the weird side, he saw beneath them, he saw the man Bart would become once he looked at his fantasies for what they really were: Simply the reflections of confined and hampered soul.
Ivan made sure Bart followed, a little nudge was all it took. He pulled off the main highway to a secondary road and up under a stand of trees. It was dusk the sky still showing light, but fading fast. Bart pulled in behind, got out and came up to the car as Ivan rolled down the window,
"You know, your plate has expired." He said, shinning his flashlight in Ivan's face.
"Yeah, I know, I'm moving and I thought I'd wait until I resettled to renew it."
"Moving to the States?" Bart asked.
"I might, I haven't decided yet." Ivan replied as he again read Bart's deepest fantasies, then turned them on for Bart, bringing them rushing to the surface. With the onset of those hidden thoughts bursting in his mind, Bart stood tongue tied as he stared at the good-looking young man in the car. The hair on his arms tingled, he felt light headed. Blood rushing to his groin. He was mortified and couldn't believe what was happening to him. This was no jerk off fantasy! This was real. What was wrong to him? He tried to suppress the sudden raging emotions, clamping down on them with every bit of self-control he possessed, yet his entire being screamed, 'Pull this man from the car and force him to his knees.'
Ivan unlatched the door. Stepping out, he went to the heavy breathing Bart, unzipped his fly and dropping to his knees all in one motion. Bart nearly lost it then. "Oh God" he cried as Ivan started to do things Bart had only dreamed about. It was exactly like his fantasy, the one he jacked off to so many times, but never dared try for: The lone motorist forced to do anything Bart wanted, to be his sex slave to answer his every whim. He threw his head back in ecstasy. Roughly grasped Ivan's hair, he plunged deeply, pumping himself toward climax and with a great hoarse shout he emptied himself into the compliant stranger. His knees shook and he felt weak. Ivan rose and moved Bart to where he could lean back against the car, then he began unbuttoning the uniform shirt. He unbuckled the belt and slid Bart's pant's and shorts down below his knees.
'What are you doing?" Bart asked weakly. Ivan lay he head against Bart's heaving chest and held him tightly,
"Anything you want" He replied as he started to kiss and suckle Bart's nipples. He worked downward stopping to lave the bellybutton dimple, the downward still to take each manly egg in his mouth and rinse it clear of cooling sweat. He reached into Bart's mind, speeding up the process he was attempting and once more Bart's large cock began to swell. He played with it a moment until he saw a bead form, then again touched Bart's mind, this time loosening all inhibitions, letting Bart live out his fantasy.
"Suck my balls!" Bart commanded harshly and it was done. "Harder" he ordered and it was done to perfection, almost but not quite to the point of pain. Without orders, Ivan began massaging Bart's thighs letting his hands slide around to feel a firm ass as he lay his face in Bart pubic hair and began kissing the base of that very hard member.
"Suck my cock, all of it, take it down your throat." Bart demanded and Ivan with great difficulty took it all. Again Bart roughly grasped Ivan hair and began to pump, driving his cock deeper and harder into an unprotesting mouth.
"I'm coming." Bart moaned, "I'm coming, take it all, every last bit." And his release was as powerful for him as the first time. Ivan made sure of that. Sex is mostly in the mind and Ivan now had full control of Bart's libido.
Ivan kissed his way upward to put his face against Bart's heaving chest, his arms around the man.
"Do you know where I could stay for a few days? I'd like to see you again." Ivan said, knowing exactly the right thing to say.
"My house, I live alone." Bart gasped, somehow his arms were now around the young man squeezing him possessively.
Bart called in sick. He took the young Canadian home to his empty house, Ivan's car went into the garage out of sight, the cruiser he parked in the drive, and once inside the house, Bart played out his every fantasy. Bart's merest wish was fulfilled, he only had to think of it and it was being performed with more intensity than Bart had ever experienced in his entire life. He lie naked on his bed while Ivan went about bringing on total sexual saturation - that point where you only want to sleep. He achieved that, then curled up in Bart's arms for the sleep he too needed. Sweet dreams he laid upon Bart and perhaps a little more, for in the morning, Bart had his nose buried in Ivan's hair as he breathed in the scent of the young man, the sweet stranger who had opened the doorways of his mind. It seemed so Right, lying here beside this young Canadian, so perfectly correct. He thought of all the years he'd been afraid of this and nearly laughed.
'Why, I don't even know who he is' He thought and the name Ivan Decoviak popped into his mind. 'How do I know that?' he wondered, then that troubling thought went away never to return.
In two days, Bart's fantasy changed to include doing to Ivan was Ivan was doing for him. He still loved it when Ivan kissed his way down to his hard cock, played with it awhile and then took it in his mouth and he still loved to grasp Ivan's hair and pump himself to climax in that warm, tender place. He could hardly get enough of that, but he now wanted Ivan to return the favor and the first time that Ivan came in his mouth, Bart came as well. The taste, the feeling was so overwhelming that had there been a dozen men in the room, he would have done the same for all of them. After all his years in denial, Bart was now insatiable. Luckily, Ivan could use those emotions himself to keep up with a man who now acted like a boy half his age.
They never dressed for four days, just wandered naked through the house, eating when they felt like it, showering, having sex when the urge struck. Bart would lie with his head in Ivan's naked lap while they talked,then he might suddenly turn over to take Ivan in his mouth. They kissed, they held hands, they had sex until they wore themselves sore and at last Ivan started slowly turning down the heat, lowering Bart's libido a notch at a time until he could think of things other than sex and touching.
As Bart emerges from the haze of sex it was firmly etched in his soul that he loved Ivan. With all his heart he loved this young man and he didn't care who knew it. He would have shouted it from the rooftops had not Ivan set a block to that. This love was not of Ivan's doing, no thought of that ever crossed his mind. It came strictly from Bart being released from his years of loneliness, yet there it was, and as Ivan learned, love is a two way street, especially when one feels every emotion of another.
Without really understanding how it happened and with no control over it at all, Ivan found himself trapped. All that he intended to do was relieve Bart's loneliness - give him a little joy, open his mind to a world of possibilities . . . Instead, he found himself hopelessly in love with a dying man and completely helpless to do anything about either condition.