Archive-name: First/bend02.txt Archive-author: R. Palme Archive-title: Bend in the Road, A - 2 ... a story of a young boy's coming of age... Introduction Revisited My name is Kyle Spencer and I am a twenty-year-old freshman at university. I am studying language arts and my life long dream is to be a writer. A teacher in my private prepatory school once told me that the world's greatest writers draw best from their own experiences. So, in this first effort, I am sharing with you a truthful and open account of my memories of a very different coming of age. You might find it strange, familiar or maybe even bizzare in parts, but it is a true and lengthy account. "Truth is stranger than fiction." Now please enjoy ... A Bend in the Road, Part 2 Chapter Four: A Boy's Life Life at the school was not really as bad as I had imagined it would be. I was only ten, probably the shortest kid there. A star pupil prematurely accelerated into a world of eleven year olds. Having always been self- motivated and resourceful, I knew how to loosely adhere to "rules and regulations" without being a "teacher's pet," so I got along ok. The food was mostly tolerable and the teachers mostly stupid or blind and not too heavy on discipline. There was a "rich" mix of rich boys from different countries all over the world at our school. In my class I counted three Japanese, two East Indian, six from Europe and one black from Ghiana, Timothy Mbutu, who later became my friend. The rest from U.S. and Canada. They were sons of diplomats, bank presidents, doctors, lawyers . . . and one local barber's son in the Sixth Grade who was teased endlessly; we called him "Lotto Boy" because his father had won the lottery and he really wasn't one of us. Each morning before showers we had to stand in our underwear, in front of our rooms during inspection. In our uniforms, we all looked united, members of a group. In our underwear we were reduced to our individual selves, naked, shivering and masked only by the minimal cloth we chose to sleep in. "Pyjamas were for babies," we had all decided the first friday night at a dorm get-together. It was the suggestion of an older floor monitor, who I now suspect had wanted more of an eyeful during the morning inspections. It was funny to see the regional difference in choice of undergarment. Timothy wore the thickest, cleanest white cotton underwear I have ever seen. They stood out smartly against his little dark-black body and I wondered if his parents had thought he was being shipped to Alaska to go to school. The french boys, Pierre and Robert wore these loose cotton undies with a wide panel in front and no fly. Gunter from Germany wore nylon bikinis in all different colours that looked almost like bathing suits. Stripes seemed his favourite and one pair that had holes worn on the sides that let you see a bit more smooth pink flesh. Christopher stood out because he was much taller than the rest of us and the off-white pouch of his Jockey's was a little bit fuller, showing early signs of puberty. This was actually Christopher's second year at Shawnigan, he was twelve and still in the Fifth Grade. The only reason he was still at Shawnigan at all was because of his mother, a fashion model. Where most of the kids' parents had either money or influence, she must have had a bit of both. I shared a room with James, a fat kid who was fanatic about collecting hockey cards. The wall on his side of the room was plastered with sets of the Vancouver Canucks, colourful because of their ever-changing uniforms. His family lived in the New Hampshire and put him in Shawnigan "until he learns to behave like a gentleman," which is probably still a long time coming. Most of the kids were jealous of my home life, though they shouldn't really have been, except for the beach, of course. This was because I went home on the bus and then a plane from the city of Victoria one weekend of every month. After the first four months at Shawnigan, I settled in pretty much and would ask to stay there with my friends some of those weekends. Anything to stay away from Samuel. By the start the new year, I was only going home on obligatory holidays and school breaks. Chapter Five: Chris & Me Some days, I would look at him from my desk by the windows, not really contemplating the work, just admiring the way Christopher teased the girls and gave smart answers to the math teacher and sparkled his eyes. It never really occured to me that it might be considered so inappropriate to adore another boy so much. Christopher was a mischeivous tough boy, often forgiven because he was very beautiful really. He made us all call him "Chris," because "Christopher" was what his mother and the teachers called him. His light brown hair was always tussled and long. He had fair skin but was nicely tanned from the previous summer. He seemed to like the sun, removing his shirt whenever he could. I wondered whether he too was originally from California, or whether he just liked to show off his body. He was slim and muscular for an almost- twelve year old, not too skinny and a fast runner. Whereas most of us just giggled a lot when someone said "bum" or "fart" or "pee," Chris swore using adult words and taught the rest of us to say "fuck" and "cunt" and "frig" under our breaths. He didn't really fit in with the old-world money crowd. One time I came up behind him in art class, to look at his drawings. While I stood over his desk, I sneaked a close look at his neck, exposed above a cotton school shirt. His skin seemed so smooth and soft, covered very lightly by a boy's velvety fine hairs. I started to put my hand on his shoulder but got scared and drew it away. The assignment had been to draw a vase of flowers. His drawing was of a Harley-Davidson motorcycle with flowers coming our of the handles. He drew it perfectly from memory. Chris was a true rebel and I admired that too. I didn't think about my own appearance much in those days, but I guess I was a normal cute nine-and-a-half-year old with dark brown hair parted at the side and dark brown eyes, and ears that stuck out too far from my head. My skin was smooth, with a few freckles, and I had the faintest hint of hair growth on my arms. Of course I had already begun to learn about sex and growing up through reading books. I even went so far as to inspect my hairless groin daily for the first sign of puberty. I was NOT looking forward to it. I had a large "attitude", being rather smart for my age, and was a bit of a loner. The other kids sometimes picked on me, calling me "perfessor" or "teacher's pet." Some teachers did take a special interest in me, as I would work quietly and usually finish first. This left me lots of time for thinking, scheming and dreaming. It also left me enough time to get up to other bits of boyhood mischief. That first fall, dreams of Chris as my "special friend" filled my head constantly and it got so bad that I had filled the pages of my personal scrap book with drawings of him and me; as best friends, walking together, building a tree fort, wrestling together on the grass . . . sitting on a stone fence by the pond fishing. Those eyes of his. Chapter Six: First Awakenings As I said, I knew a little bit about sex, but I hadn't really done much of anything serious. I had just played innocent games like most children who are curious about sex. There was a time when I was eight. A little girl from a nearby beach house, Susie, let me see her underwear while we played "house" on an old mattress stored in her parents' garage. She lifted her pretty dress over her head coyly. I still remember the soft cotton-flannel material, double-thick at the crotch, with pink roses in a pattern and a discreet lace-like elastic around the each leg and the waist. I was allowed to get on my knees and inspect closer, but had to keep my hands behind my back. The cloth covering her young pud was smooth and thick, steeped in a damp body warmness that helped carry her "sweet pea" aroma. She wouldn't let me touch it. I was only allowed to look and she giggled loudly when I tried to smell. We didn't do it very long for fear that her mom might be lurking nearby. For some reason, the details of this experience made quite an impression on me. Afterwards Susie made me give her my favourite horse figure in payment. I enjoyed the thrill of doing something illicit, sneaky, and erotic. We both knew our parents wouldn't approve. But it was nothing serious, really, just child's play. At age eight-and-a-half I had a friend Terry, same age, who would stay at our house afterschool until his mother, my mother's best friend, came by on her way home from work. We were left quite alone to do what we pleased since both my parents also worked. I was an only child and our housekeeper, Erma, was usually too intent on soap operas and afternoon game shows. From 3:30pm to 5:00pm, when my father returned home, we pretty much had the run of the house. Terry was quite curious about sex and nakedness and such. He kept wanting to play hide and seek where the object of the person who was "it" was to pull down the pants of the other. He was most often "it" and I got "de- pantsed" regularily. Amongst our many other nasty games and rituals, the most exciting was "Doctor". The patient would be slowly stripped to his underwear and examined closely, one layer at a time. Once, while playing Doctor, we found a box of my mother's sanitary napkins. Terry convinced me that they were to absorb a girl's pee, and that they were like a more grown-up sort of diaper. He wanted to test this theory out, so we discretely took two and wore them in our underpants for the afternoon. We excitedly drank quantities of cold juice trying to reach the point where we could no longer hold our bladders. The dry pad felt good as it rubbed against my little dick, but I felt oddly peculiar about what we were doing to my mother's private things. There we were, both standing in the bathroom with our pants around our ankles, holding up our shirts and big bulges of padding in the front of our briefs. It was difficult to try peeing with my penis standing up out of excitement. We tried to relax a bit and concentrate on "letting go" but before either of us could really pee more than a dribble, I heard my father pulling up in the driveway. We quickly flushed the evidence down the toilet and tried very hard not to look guilty the rest of that afternoon. When his mother came, Terry raced out to the car. I supposed he was very anxious to get home because he had not yet gone to the bathroom. For days I was scared my mother would discover the absence of two pads. Either she didn't notice or thought the housekeeper took them. The exhilaration and danger of discovery plus the sharing of such intimate secret activities made Terry and I good friends. In the hopes of pursuing our favourite activities, we decided to form the Fun Club. Chapter Seven: The Fun Club The activities of the Fun Club were fairly innocent and limited to showing each other our underwear and collecting pictures of girl's and women's lingerie from the Sears catalogue, sharing stories, and the very occasional flash of our privates. On one hot August night Terry, my girl cousin Joline and another young friend Frank Stiller, were staying overnight. We all got to talking dirty and Terry let slip about the club. Of course Joline and Frank wanted to join the Fun Club too. My parents went out for dinner that night, leaving us alone with Erma. All through our dinner, hamburgers and fries, we just giggled excitedly and bugged each other nervously. Erma must have thought we were crazy. Afterwards she went to her room and concentrated on an episode of 60 Minutes. We locked ourselves in the rec room, the basement of the beach house, and turned the tv set up to mask our true intentions. Terry wanted to come up with an appropriate initiation feat for everyone to do. Fascinated by girls, he kept suggesting we play "post office" or "spin the bottle" with Joline. She protested that it wasn't fair since she was the only girl. Surprisingly, her suggestion for a game was, "Why don't we play strip poker." Supposedly her older brother and some of his friends had talked her into playing once. Being a girl, Joline was like an unknown animal to me. I was curious but she could be dangerous. So I hesitated, not sure if we should go through with it or not. Frank and Terry pleaded with me to play, but we didn't have any cards in the basement. Frank was nosing around in a closet when he pulled out the game Twister. He started spreading out that plastic cloth with the coloured circles on it and suggested that we invent a variation of the poker game. By this point my heart was racing and I was thoroughly caught up in the anticipation of actually getting to see a live naked girl. I had already begun sneaking looks at my father's Playboys, hidden in the back of his underwear drawer, so I had a good idea what it was all about, but I really wanted to compare with a girl around my age. We sat down together in a circle on top of the plastic cloth, much like we were having a picnic in the middle of the room. Each of us selected our own personal colour; Red, Blue, Green, and Yellow. With an initial spin of the Twister dial, the person whose colour came up had to take off one piece of their clothing. We then proceeded like stip poker. Terry was the first to lose his shoe. Joline lost both her shoes and a sock. I lost a shoe. It went like this until Frank was the first to have to pull off his pants. Joline giggled incessantly and we thought we'd get caught. Once Joline was down to her underwear we started kidding around and going in slow motion. Joline was a bit mad, saying "Go, go, go!" Terry was the first to have to undress completely. He had lost three rounds in a row. He stood up in his Superman UnderRoos and slowly inched them down, revealing himself directly to Joline. She scowled and giggled. Beingthe loser we told him to run naked around the basement so we could all get a good look. His little hairless pee-pee swung to and fro. It was cold in the basement. His little wrinkled balls were tight against his smooth boy's body. Terry declared that it was unfair that he was exposed first and didn't get to look at everyone else, so we decided to keep playing until the last person was completely undressed. The next to lose was Joline, then Frank and then myself until we were all naked in the circle. Mostly we gawked at Joline and she took her time sizing each of us up (or down) too. She was ten, the oldest. But unlike the women in my father's dirty magazines, Joline had no hair above her "quim" (that was the word we sometimes used). She was ten years old. I wasn't sure I liked older girls' hairy pussies, since they seemed dirty or something. There was something about Joline that was clean and fresh. I think she boasted that her breasts were beginning to grow but they didn't show that much. Terry and I caught each other staring at Frank who was uncircumsized. His parents were vegetarians and they probably thought it was more natural or something. Anyways, it looked cool, but different from our own. As we sat there looking, we all grew warm and uncomfortable, with Joline giggling again. We weren't sure what to do next. Someone suggested that we actually play the game of Twister in the nude. Before we could make a move, however, Erma was banging on the basement door saying, "What you chill'uns up to, anyways?" ...continued in Part Three: BEND03.ZIP