I don’t usually hang out at the library, but it’s raining. Since it’s fall, it’s a cold rain. So, the library is at least dry and warm and there may be something going on. I head for the reading room and find the place nearly deserted, except for the usual old folks and one young guy sitting near the windows in the back; and reading, it appears from where I am, The New York Times. I go and sit down at the table just opposite him. I wait a bit and then say, “May I have The Times, when you’re finished?”

“Sure,” he says, barely glancing at me. I wait, propping my elbows on the table and my chin in my hands.

“Is there anything interesting in it today?” I ask, half a minute later.

“Certainly,” he responds, trying to sound annoyed, but I can see that he is really amused by a kid like me pretending to be interested in The Times. I wait.

“I read The Times every morning,” I tell him, “the copy here at the library.”

“Are you in a hurry for it?” he asks, blandly.

“Oh no,” I reply, matching his tone. Leaning back in my chair and folding my arms, I wait. As I wait, I observe the fellow. He is average; average height, average weight, average looks. I like him right away. Don’t ask me why, because I don’t know.

I, on the other hand, am small for my age and appear considerably younger than I am. I am seventeen, almost, but only a little over five feet tall. I look about fourteen. I am told that, some years from now, this will be useful. Because, at thirty, I will be mistaken for twenty.

He notices that I am looking at him. “Here,” he says, a bit sharply, and hands me the paper. He gets up and looks over the selection of magazines. I read, but see that he selects Newsweek before returning to his seat across from me. I could tell, from a brief hesitation in movement, that he had considered sitting somewhere else. I read some more.

“Did you read the story about NASA.?” I inquire.

“Yes,” he replies.

“Interesting, isn’t it,” I assert.

“Not very,” he grumbles. I continue reading the paper.

A couple of minutes later, the young man gets up and leaves the building. So do I. He walks through town and I follow behind. Finally, he enters Ned’s Diner, a place where I sometimes work. I come in, too, and I find him sitting at the counter. I take the seat next to him.

“I eat here all the time,” I tell him. “It’s really good.”

“Uh huh,” he says.

Ned comes up. “What do you want Bobby?” he says to me.

“I’ll have the special,” I answer.

“OK,” Ned says, “… and you, sir?” he asks the guy. Ned makes the obvious mistake of thinking that he’s with me.

“What is the special?” he asks.

“American chop suey,” Ned answers.

“I’ll have that, too,” the young man says.

“Good choice,” I tell him. “What’s your name?”

“Alan,” he says.

“You must be new in town. I haven’t seen you around before.”

“I moved here last week.”

“What do you do for work?”

“I’m a student, a graduate student.”

“Where at?”

“Harvard. I’m working on my doctorate.”

“Wow!” I exclaim. “That must be hard.”

“Well, some,” Alan admits. I can see that he is pleased to have made an impression.

Our food comes and we eat, talking only a little. When he finishes, I ask, “Where are you going now?”

“Into Harvard. I have an afternoon class.”

“Can you give me a ride to K-mart?” I ask him.

“OK,” Alan agrees.

We go out. Alan’s car is parked by the library. It’s a black VW, not new either. Alan heads the car away from the old part of town, where the houses are crowded together on twisty, narrow streets near the little harbor. As we travel southwest we pass layers of suburban homes from the 20’s, the 30’s, then the 40’s. As we are going along, I ask him, “Where do you live?”

“Over on Elm Street. And you?”

“I live down by the harbor.”

“Your parents must be rich.”

“They have never told me so.”

He lets me off at the mall, which is down and across the street from the Tedesco Country Club. “Goodbye,” Alan says.

“See you around,” I shout, and wave.

He waves back and is gone.

*****

The next time that I see Alan, or at least, the next time I see Alan and can speak with him, it is winter. It is snowing. His old car is parked near the harbor and he is standing over its upraised hood. It is obvious that Alan is having some kind of trouble with his VW. It is late afternoon and already dark.

I approach. “Hi, Alan,” I say.

“Hello, Bobby,” he replies. I notice that he has remembered my name.

“Won’t your car start?”

“No,” he complains. Alan isn’t wearing gloves and isn’t dressed warmly enough. He looks like he’s freezing. I suppose he wasn’t planning on car trouble.

“What’s wrong with it?”

“I think the battery is dead.”

“Try it again,” I suggest. He gets in and turns the key. The motor does not turn over at all. It just makes a weak noise, “remp … remp … remp.”

I yell, “I think I know what the trouble is!”

“What?” he asks.

“It’s broken!” I reply.

Alan laughs. It is the first time that he is not trying to act like a really mature, big shot, Harvard graduate student.

“Give up. Come to my place and warm up. It’s near here.”

“Your parents wont mind?”

“They’re not there.”

“Well, OK,” he agrees.

“This way,” I tell him, indicating the direction by starting out. We walk along for a few minutes.

“I thought you said that it was near by,” Alan complains.

“It is,” I reassure him. “Just a little further.”

We come to the house I live in. “Come around back,” I tell him. Alan follows. We plow through the deepening snow to the back of the house. I open the bulkhead door. “Down here.”

“Do you always come home through the cellar door?” Alan asks me.

“This is where I live,” I explain and switch on an overhead light. “It’s clean, rugs on the floor and everything.” He can see that even the furnace and its pipes are clean, that there aren’t any cobwebs. I have a double bed in an alcove, an arm chair near it, one bedside table, one small bureau, a few candles about, matches close by, and light colored curtains on the small, high cellar windows. It is really quite homey.

Still, it is an unfinished basement. The cement floor is dark gray. The massive fieldstone foundation is rough looking. The rafters and floor boards, above, are a dark brown and there are pipes and electric wires running along and through them. The overhead lights are bare bulbs and even with all of them on, and in the day time, it does not seem very bright. Stored in various corners are the kinds of things you would expect to find in a cellar; some garden tools, a hose, outdoor furniture, a workbench, a mop, a broom, cardboard boxes with felt tip pen markings that spell out their contents.

“Your parents make you live in the basement?” Alan asks, incredulous.

“This isn’t my parents’ house. I rent this place. It’s very reasonable. Have a seat.”

Alan sits down in the one chair and I sit on the edge of the bed near him. “You’re too young to be living on your own,” Alan contends.

“I’m seventeen and I’m a ‘mancipated minor. My folks and I had to go to court and the judge agreed, so I am old enough to be living on my own,” I explain.

“How did all that happen?” he asks, sinking back into the arm chair. I can tell that he is really interested and is starting to feel a little more comfortable with me.

“My father’s company decided to reassign him to another office in Tucson. I didn’t want to go and I told my folks that I wouldn’t.”

Alan interrupts, “They wouldn’t just agree.”

“They didn’t. My mother threw a fit. She said I was blackmailing them into not moving and my father’s not taking the transfer, which would have meant a promotion, and I was ruining his career and all our lives. So, of course, I moved out right away.”

“They let you move out?”

“Not exactly. They both work, so I moved out during the day, and left a note. I told them that if they stayed in Marblehead that I wouldn’t live with them anyway, so they might as well go to Tucson.”

“They accepted that?” Alan asks in disbelief.

“Not right off. In a few days, I called my father at work, and told him that if he made me move with them, I would run away, so what would be the point. He said that he would talk to mother. Eventually she accepted the situation and I got ‘manicpated.”

“It’s, emancipated,” Alan corrects.

“I know,” I reply, grinning, because I got him to think that I didn’t know the right pronunciation. “They help me out from time to time. They don’t have to, and I don’t ask, but I don’t refuse the checks either.”

“That’s quite a story.”

“Yes,” I agree. There is a pause in the conversation.

“I don’t suppose that you have anything to drink?” he asks.

“I can get some. Wait right there.” I duck out. I climb the back steps fast and knock on Murray’s door. Christ, it’s cold. Murray is my landlord.

Murray lets me in. “I have a visitor and he wants a drink,” I announce.

“What kind of drink?” Murray inquires.

“Some booze, I think.”

“Of course, what kind?”

“I don’t know. Anything.”

“Not anything,” Murray insists, “You must learn to do these things right, Bobby.”

“OK, what then?”

“Well, what sort of person is he?”

“Young,” I reply, “maybe twenty-five.”

“What does he do for a living?” Murray asks.

“He doesn’t work. He’s a graduate student.”

“Where?”

“Harvard, he said.”

“In that case, a good bourbon should be acceptable on a cold, snowy night. A Harvard man, huh?” Murray took out a bottle and poured most of it into a decanter.

“Leave some!,” I exclaim.

“Bobby, I’m doing you a favor. I’ve left enough for two good drinks. If he wants more, you’d be better off letting him go out for it. Now, I’ll put some ice in a plastic bag and here is a glass and I’ll put in a can of beer for you.

“Thanks, Murray,”

“Glad to help out in a good cause. Have a nice evening.”

I return and show Alan what I have. “My landlord lent me this, is it OK?”

“Sure. Fine,” Alan replies.

I give him the glass, the ice and the bottle. “You could have beer, if you prefer.”

“No thanks, the Old Granddad is fine, just the thing for a winter night.”

“That’s good. I only drink beer or, sometimes, wine.” I pop the can and take a swig.

We talk some more. I lie down on the bed on my stomach, facing Alan, my chin in my hands. I swing my feet up bending my legs at the knees. I keep moving about, putting on a show and watching Alan. After a while, I see that he is getting an erection.

“Do you have a bathroom?” Alan asks.

“Sure, come with me.” I get up and head around the furnace. “Give me your hand, it’s dark.” I lead him through to the back part of the cellar, to the bathroom door. I open it and put on the light revealing a clean, but small, modern bathroom; no tub, but a nice stall shower and the other usual equipment.

Alan goes in. I close the door and say, “I’ll wait right here.” It’s easy to get back because you’re going into the light. But I want to hurry him up so he doesn’t decide to jerk off and spoil everything.

When we return, Alan says, “I’d better use your phone to call a service station for help with my car.”

“I don’t have a phone.”

“Can we use your landlord’s?”

“Murray went out,” I reply. “Look, stay here tonight, and I’ll help you with your car in the morning. A friend of mine is a mechanic at one of the garages.”

“I don’t know,” he says.

I pull back the covers on the bed. “See, the sheets are clean.”

Alan laughs.

I plead with him. “Besides, you have another drink to finish.”

“OK,” Alan relents. “Why not.” And he pours out the rest of the whisky.

“Let’s play cards,” I suggest. I reach up to the window sill and produce a deck. “Come up here.” I make room on the bed, so I am at the foot and he will be at the head. I deal out a hand.

Alan takes his position and asks, “What are we playing?”

“Poker, three card draw. It’s the only card game I know,” I answer. “Except for Old Maid, of course. How many cards do you want?”

He says, “Two,” and discards. I give him his two cards.

I look at my own hand; two kings, a ten, an eight, and a three. “I’ll take two,” I announce and I throw away the two kings. “What have you got?”

Alan shows me two sevens. “You win,” I capitulate. “I have nothing, queen high. Well, I have to take off my sneaker.” I push it off with one foot.

“You didn’t say it would be strip poker,” Alan says.

“I can’t afford to play for money, and we have to get undressed for bed anyway.”

“It’s hard to resist your logic,” he admits.

“True,” I proudly assert. “Your deal.”

Somehow, I continue to lose; my other sneaker and both socks. Alan has lost one shoe. Alan deals and I lose my shirt. Now I play to win for a while and Alan looses his other shoe and his socks. But then I lose my undershirt. I pull it off with a flourish. Alan loses his shirt.

I deal and lose. I take off my pants. Now Alan can see that I have a hard on, too. I’m not big, but adequate for my size.

Alan loses his undershirt. There is only a little dark brown hair on his chest.

I deal, Alan loses his pants.

Alan deals, I lose. I pull off my underpants and drop them on the rug with the rest of my clothes. “Now the game is over,” Alan says, “I win.”

“Oh no it isn’t,” I reply.

“Well, you have nothing else to lose.”

I tell him, “If you win again, you win my body.” His eyes widen a bit. I deal the cards.

I lose. “That has to be the end,” he says.

“No. If you win again, you can have me twice.”

Alan laughs. “You’re an imp.”

“True. Deal.”

He loses his shorts. He has a nice, average cock. He wins my body a second time. I win his.

“Finally,” I sigh. I put the cards on the little table by the bed and move up close to Alan. “I want what I won,” I tell him and I put my hand on his arm and stroke it. Alan puts his hands on me and feels me here and there. He starts to play with my penis, to masturbate me. I cuddle up close and whisper into his ear, “I want you to screw me.”

Alan says, “I’ve never done that, I don’t know how. I had a friend, years ago; we did this together, but never anything else.”

“It’s easy, I’ll show you.” I assure him. “Wait right there.” I make my way to the bathroom and return with a tube of KY, a condom and a towel. Alan is lying on his back.

“Perfect,” I comment. “Stay like that.” I put the condom on him, then some lubricant on him and on my butt. On my knees, I straddle his thighs, facing his feet. Then I lift up his cock and position it, just touching my anus. Gradually, I lower myself against him, feeling the pressure in my bottom. I feel the head of his dick begin to stretch my opening and then I start to slide onto him. Slowly, his cock moves into me, until I am sitting on his hips.

“Put your hands on my back to hold me up,” I instruct. “Now spread your legs a little.” He does. “A little more,” I tell him. Then I move one of my legs out and around and put it straight out between his legs. I repeat this with the other leg. “Now, slowly, let me lie back against you, so I’m lying on top of you.”

I reach down with my hands and hold onto his hips. “Put your hands on my shoulders and hold me tight. Good, now we are going to roll together to your right side. “Ready? Now.” We turn onto our sides. “OK, now we are going to roll over again so that you are on top of me. Ready? Now.”

“There, now you can do it. Start off slow and easy.” I feel his cock pull out a little and then push back in, once again, and twice again. He pulls out further and slides back very slow, then a little more quickly. He picks up a rhythm. Alan pulls almost all the way out and pushes in all the way. I feel his dick sliding back and forth in my rectum, it’s wonderful.”

At first, it feels like a big turd, specially on the way out. On the way in, the feeling is different, but interesting. As my body relaxes, the feeling becomes less intense; but more constant as the pace quickens. I feel his body bouncing against me. When he makes grunting sounds, I know he is coming. I tighten by behind and work it up and down to squeeze the cum out of him. He gasps before coming to rest on top of me.

I like this part, right after, so quiet and relaxing. At these moments, I feel very close to the person who has fucked me. My body has a warm glow. After a minute or so, he kisses my cheek. That was good,” he says.

“Now roll us over to the left so that we are on our sides,” I tell him. “Good. Reach over and give me a hand job.” I feel his erection softening inside me. Then it begins to slide out. I don’t want it to and try not to push, but my body doesn’t listen. It flops out and I come. We lie there together for a while, his hand motionless, but still holding on to me.

We use the towel to clean ourselves. Then we take a shower together. I wash his dick. He washes my butt. We kiss and hug and feel each other’s slippery, soapy bodies. We give each other shampoos. When we dry off, we do each other’s backs. We hug and kiss some more. I rest my cheek on his chest, he plays with my balls. Finally, we go back to bed. Kissing once more, we lie on our backs holding hands. I fall asleep.

*****

In the middle of the night, I hear Alan get up and go to the bathroom. I had left the light on and the door ajar, so that he could find it. When he returns, he pulls the covers to the foot of the bed. The next thing I feel is his fingers putting some KY on my rear. He opens my legs and positions himself over me. He enters and fucks me. “I had to have you again,” he says. “Anyway, I won your body twice at cards, if you remember.”

I laugh. “I liked it,” I reassure him. He masturbates me again, and we go back to sleep until morning.

*****

I wake up. The snow storm is over and the sun is out. My basement apartment is lit as brightly as it ever is, and that isn’t much. I hear Murray’s toilet flush. The water swishes through the pipes on it’s way to the sea. I wake up Alan.

“Alan, a friend of mine works at the garage next to Ned’s Diner. He can fix your car while we have breakfast.”

“Alright,” he agrees. I can see that Alan is willing to trust my judgment. I like that, it makes me feel good.

“You can use the bathroom first,” I suggest. “There’s a razor and shaving cream in the cabinet.” Alan heads for the john. When he gets back, I am all dressed. I use the bathroom and then we leave.

It was a big storm. We wade through a foot of snow in the backyard on our way to the recently plowed road. We start walking to Ned’s. “How do you get along?” Alan asks me.

“One foot in front of the other and watch out for icy patches,” I reply.

“No. I mean, how do you earn enough for rent and food?”

“I know.”

“You don’t have a kitchen, so you can’t cook in,” he observes.

“I work at Ned’s enough hours to earn my meals there and make some spending money. As for rent, I do odd jobs for Murray, like shoveling snow. I’ll have to do that this afternoon. And I have other places where I can get all the part time work I want. I like to have a lot of time free, though.”

“I guess I don’t need to worry about you,” Alan concedes.

“Hell, no. I get along just fine. But thanks for caring. How about you? Are you eating properly?”

Alan laughs. “You sound like my mother.”

“That was the idea,” I tell him. “Really, what’s it like being a graduate student?”

While we walk, Alan tells me a lot of stuff about his class. I am surprised to find out that he teaches it. He is called a teaching assistant, but he has responsibility for a class. He is also writing a dissertation, whatever that means. He tells me lots more and I pretend to listen carefully. Luckily, the trip to Ned’s isn’t very long.

I lead Alan to the garage and spot my friend, Demitri, in the car bay, staring at the underside of a Pontiac station wagon. “Hi, Demitri,” I call out. “My friend here needs some help with his car. It won’t start.”

“Sure, Bobby. Where’s the car?”

“It’s in that little lot near the sail loft. Alan thinks the battery’s dead.”

“OK, we’ll go down in the truck and see if we can jump it.”

When we get there, we find Alan’s car covered in snow and buried in a bank thrown up by the plow that cleared the parking lot, except for the VW. Alan and I brush off some of the snow while Demitri gets a chain on it. Then he hauls it out and tows it back to the garage. We leave the car with Demitri and go for breakfast.

While we are eating, I say to Alan, “You can visit me again sometime, if you want to.”

“I’d like that,” he tells me, “but how would I reach you, since you don’t have a phone?”

“Just come to my door, and if its unlocked, come in. Or you could look for me here. We might run into each other, someplace. I’m sure we will, it’s a small town.

“That’s really inconvenient. You ought to have a phone, in case of an emergency, anyway.”

“I can’t afford a phone, but I have a friend who works for the phone company. Maybe he could put an extension on to Murray’s line, if Murray doesn’t mind.”

“It would be a lot better if I could call you. Then we could arrange to see each other. I’ll give you my number so you can call me.”

Alan writes his phone number on a napkin and gives it to me. Then he says that he has to go to Cambridge. “Do you need a lift someplace?” he offers.

“No. I’m going to work here for a while, washing dishes.”

“OK, I’ll see you later, then,” he says on his way out.

“’Bye,” I reply.

I spend the rest of the morning working at Ned’s. Beside doing dishes, I refill the sugar bowls, salt and pepper shakers, mop the floor and lots of other things. Ned never says a word about Alan. He never mentions any of my friends or asks any questions about them. I figure that he likes me, but doesn’t approve of my activities. If he asked me about it, he would have to confront his Catholic beliefs. As long as he can pretend that he doesn’t know, everything is all right.

I make myself a sandwich to go, and leave before the noon business begins.