The Year I Stopped Being Invisible - Prologue. Prologue

I guess that before I tell you about Taine Maxwell and the tragic freshman year at Polk High which ripped my heart to shreds, I should tell you something about myself. My name is Rick Spivey, and I just turned fifteen years old. Ever since I was five, I've always known that I was different from most guys. Sure, I had blushy, inchoate feelings for Daphne on the Scooby-Doo cartoon show like the rest of the boys my age, and I was always a fan of the Batman show as well. But not because of Batman himself, who was played by a guy who -- to me -- was more dumpy and silly than barrel-chested and stoic.

No, my attention was caught by the actor playing Batman's trusty ward and crime-fighting sidekick, Robin. During each of the many scenes in which Robin followed Batman up the side of a building on a rope (an effect clearly achieved by the cost-cutting method of turning the camera on its side), I felt the beginnings of some strange, indescribable feelings.

These feelings centered on the actor's long, bare legs, and the tight green hot-pants with their intriguing bulge. I didn't even connect what might be under those hot-pants with sexual feelings at the time, but I was definitely interested in finding out.

As I got older, I found myself looking at both girls and boys with equal curiosity and interest, but by the time I was about nine or ten, I figured out for myself that my egalitarian tastes were not shared by most boys my age. There was one, however, a slim, blonde-haired boy named Jay, with whom I used to play to get away from the grim atmosphere in my house.

My father had left us when I was three years old, and my mother had dropped out of college to marry him, leaving her with almost no marketable skills and a small child to raise...me. She was heartbroken, frustrated, miserable and desperate, taking a series of low-paying jobs to support us in threadbare fashion.

When I was seven, we moved from New York to South Carolina to live with her mother (my grandmother) and her mother's second husband, Rex, an irascible veteran of three wars whose own combat traumas and misery drove him to excessive drink and unpredictable anger. Rex didn't care for my mother and me invading his home, and profanely made his feelings known whenever he got drunk, which was fairly often. Once, we were even in fear for our lives when Rex fell drunkenly asleep after one of his tirades against us, cradling his shotgun as he snored away on the living-room carpet.

Eventually, Rex built us a small, one-bedroom house way in the back of his property, near the woods. My grandmother made it seem like a wonderfully altruistic gesture, but I knew it was just to get my mother and me out from under his roof. That was when my troubles really began.

The claustrophobia of the tiny house, my unwanted existence, Rex's anger, and my mother's own feelings of desperation, abandonment and rage focused themselves on me.

The fact that I clearly resembled my long-gone sperm donor led to tirades, beatings, and worse.

Yes, I was that "clumsy" kid who "fell down the stairs" a lot. I was also too smart for my own good, especially for elementary school in Bumfuck, SC, so I spent most of my youth bruised and bleeding, rail-thin from lack of proper nutrition, and outcast by my peers. I got no sympathy from most of them, as drunkenness and corporal punishment were pretty standard in that little hick town, and my refusal to put on a brave front or grow a thick skin made me seem like a wimp who couldn't "man up" and take my licks.

* * * * *

By the time fifth grade started, I was pretty much a basket case, and my emotional responses (and probably an undiagnosed concussion or two) led me to frequently zone out and lose large chunks of time, adrift in fantasy-land as I discovered that the best place to hide from my constant physical and emotional pain was between my own ears.

During one such zoning-out episode, I bumped into Jay in the school playground. I apologized profusely to the lithe, athletic blonde, hoping he wasn't going to kick my ass then and there, but he didn't seem to be angry at me.

In fact, he grinned and started asking me questions about myself. I told him where I lived and that my mom worked as a secretary at the local Air Force base. I dodged a lot of other questions, but admitted that I liked scary movies and that my favorite band was KISS, a quartet of face-painted glam-rockers who were all over the radio that year.

"That's great!" exclaimed Jay. "I love them! You should come over to my house sometime and listen to records with me."

Thus began a year-long friendship which started with us jamming wildly to KISS's Destroyer album on air-instruments in Jay's bedroom. Jay was always drummer Peter Criss, who was made up like a cat, and I favored bassist Gene Simmons, whose demonic makeup and long, pointy tongue earned him the nickname "The Bat-Lizard".

The relationship progressed during the summer, as we spent nearly every day together. We began talking about our unhappy home lives, smoking Jay's dad's cigarettes in the woods, and gawping at a copy of High Society, a porn magazine we found on one of our frequent hikes through the forest.

Neither of us had ever seen a woman naked before we found that magazine, and while Jay reacted with curiosity and enthusiasm, I stared at the spread beavers and slimy openings depicted on the periodical's glossy pages with something akin to horror. We sat cross-legged on the forest floor, and I decided that I wanted more information about my friend's reaction to what we were seeing.

"What would you do with something like that if you ever saw one," I asked Jay.

He grinned at me while his hand tugged at the crotch of his green swim trunks.

"You don't know what to do?" he asked.

His hand was pulling at his young root, and I could tell that it had grown hard beneath his trunks. I knew what a boner was, having experienced them myself for roughly three years at that point. I also had a general idea that boys' boners and girls' slimy parts were supposed to fit together, and that this activity had a name, which was "sex."

"I'd sex her!" I said proudly, although what I was thinking was that if a woman ever showed me one of those wet, hairy, horrible things, I would run as fast as my legs could carry me.

Jay, still tugging at his groin, grinned his superior grin, flashing the perfect white teeth which were a result of his father being the best (and only) dentist in town. His green eyes twinkled beneath his whitish, gossamer blonde hair.

"It's called fucking," he corrected me, jumping to his feet and tossing the magazine aside. "You'd fuck her is what you'd do. That's what I'd do. Let's go swimming!"

I smiled back without much enthusiasm and got to my feet, happy that we were done with High Society and its intimidating, troublesome photos for the time being. I began to walk back in the direction of Jay's house, where we could get our bikes and ride to the public swimming pool about a half-mile away. Jay grabbed my shoulder, bringing me to a halt. I turned around to be greeted by the same mischievous grin and twinkling eyes.

"No," he said. "I have a better idea. Follow me."

With that, he scampered off down the wooded path in the opposite direction, his flip-flops slapping time against his smooth heels. Confused, I took the only course of action which made sense to my addled, ten-year old mind.

I followed him.

* * * * *

Before too long, we found ourselves in a clearing, overlooking what appeared to be a large, deep pit made of smooth, natural clay. The clay pit was over forty feet across, and filled almost to the top with muddy water the color of milk chocolate, which I guessed was from the three days of rain we had endured the previous week.

Jay grinned at me, shucked his shirt, flip-flops and -- to my surprise -- his swim trunks, then sprinted to the edge of the clay pit and dove into the water. I was too stunned to react, although my eyes did notice his gleaming white butt, the tan lines perfectly clean, as he sailed into the natural pool. He surfaced a second later, hair plastered to his wet, smiling face, and spit out some water before waving for me to join him.

"Come on, Rick! It's warm!" Jay called.

I didn't know quite what to do. I had never been naked in front of anyone my age before, with the group showers of sixth grade P.E. still a few months away. I knew that I was skinnier than almost everyone in my grade, because my mom's meager salary rarely made room for anything other than oatmeal and beans.

I also knew from the magazine which we had just perused that my privates didn't look like I guessed they were supposed to. As opposed to the huge, hairy dicks in High Society, I had a small, hairless nub. I hadn't gotten a look at Jay's front when he dove in the water, but I was betting that he had something a lot bigger and hairier in there than I did. I shifted back and forth, indecisive about what to do next.

Jay swam back toward the side of the clay pit, his smooth white ass occasionally breaking the milky brown surface of the water. He surfaced and looked at me with annoyance, the white shark's tooth necklace and its thin silver chain standing out against his smooth, tanned chest.

"What are you waiting for, slow-poke?" he yelled. "I thought you wanted to go swimming!"

"I...I did," I stammered. "But aren't there moccasins in there?"

I thought it was a clever excuse. We were always warned not to go swimming in any of the various swamps and swimming-holes near our small South Carolina town because of water moccasins, the black, venomous aquatic snakes also known as "cottonmouths" due to their pinkish-white maws which housed deadly fangs. We were told that if they bit you, you became paralyzed from their potent venom and would drown, unable to move enough to stay afloat.

"No, dummy," said Jay derisively. "There's nothing for them to eat in here. Just clay and water. Come on!"

Well, there went that excuse.

With my cheeks burning red in embarrassment, I shucked my shirt, revealing my thin, hairless chest. At least I had a suntan from going to the public pool a lot, which minimized what I viewed as way too many visible ribs. Then, steeling myself for mockery, I kicked off my flip-flops and got into the water, still wearing my trunks. As Jay said, the water was warm and inviting.

It was also surprisingly deep.

Before I knew it, I was totally submerged in muddy darkness. Fighting a slight panic, I tried to surface, only to find my progress impeded by thin, sinewy arms wrapping around my waist.

Now I was really panicked, having not had time to gulp in a breath before sinking!

I kicked and struggled my way free, feeling hands pulling at my swim trunks. I wanted to fight them off, but the need for oxygen overwhelmed my modesty, and I launched myself to air, leaving my trunks behind. I gulped and sputtered as I broke the surface, then turned angrily to face Jay, who came up a couple of feet behind me.

There was that winning grin again, as he twirled my wet trunks on one upraised finger, his eyes impish and sparkling.

"No trunks," he giggled. "That's the house rules!"

Suddenly, I felt extremely exposed, and -- once I'd found my footing on the slimy clay bottom -- my hands went to my groin to cover my tiny tadger.

Jay laughed, chucking my trunks to shore, then dove down, his shiny white butt once again breaking the surface of the water.

I felt his strong grip on my wrists, pulling my hands away from my junk, and then one of his hands cupped my smooth boy parts, causing me to jump.

Jay surfaced again, laughing, then wrapped his arms around me and dunked me underwater. My eyes were open, but I couldn't see anything in the muddy murkiness of the clay pit. I did, however, feel Jay's sleek, slippery legs wrap around my waist and pull me down in a wrestling move I guessed he had learned from watching Wahoo McDaniel on TV. Was it my imagination, or did I feel a slick, warm hardness against my side as he did so?

As his legs released me, allowing me to come up for air, I casually brushed the side of my arm between his legs, feeling his young hardness graze my hairless flesh. Startled again, my smooth feet slipped on the clay, and I began to tumble back into the depths, but I felt strong arms encircle my waist and pull me to the surface. I shook my hair out of my eyes, blinking rapidly to clear the stinging, silty water, and found myself looking directly at the grinning Jay. His arms held me close to his slippery body, our slim, flat bellies touching, as he regarded me with serious eyes.

Before I could react, he leaned in and kissed me, his wet, soft lips brushing mine and lingering briefly, then pulling back. I gazed at him with wide, shocked eyes, and then he leaned in and did it again! This time it lasted longer, his small, pink tongue flicking between my slightly-open lips. He pulled me closer, and I could feel his tumescent dick pressing against mine. I dimly registered that it wasn't any bigger than my own, and didn't feel any of the pubes which would mark him as my superior. He kissed me more deeply and ground his organ against mine, which was starting to respond in kind.

That's when panic really set in! I pushed Jay roughly away from me, blindly splashing my way to the side of the clay pit, struggling to the grassy land beyond. I somehow managed to ford the slippery slope, ran directly to my swim trunks and pulled them on, shaking in shame, arousal and fear.

"I...I gotta go!" I managed. Pulling on my shirt, I risked one look back at Jay, who stood in the water confused and concerned with a furrowed brow.

He didn't say a word, just looked at me with those sad, serious green eyes.

Then I bolted for home, barefoot, running as fast as I could through the woods as the branches pulled and tore at my shirt. I jumped on my bike when I reached Jay's house, then pedaled to my little den of horrors like demons were chasing me.

* * * * *

The real demons were waiting for my arrival, and I was beaten pretty soundly for having torn my shirt and losing my flip-flops.

I didn't see Jay again after that day. Not because I didn't want to, or because of any overwhelming guilt or shame. In fact, that was pretty much gone by the time I pulled my bruised body into bed that night and cried myself to sleep. When I awoke in the morning, Little Ricky was awake before I was, and although the previous day's encounter had terrified me, I just knew that I would have to repeat that situation with renewed confidence and curiosity.

But it was not to be.

As I ate my usual breakfast of tepid oatmeal, trying to be quiet so as not to anger my mother again, I was informed that we were moving to Texas. I nodded sadly, as my mother told me that she was going to change our last names to Sanchez in order to get a job in what she presumed was a city -- San Antonio -- which favored Mexicans over whites for employment.

That was not to be either.

There followed some rather unpleasant, poverty-stricken and miserable years in two different San Antonio middle schools. The highlights of these years were primarily a few daily minutes of shower-time in P.E. and my increasing awareness that other boys' bodies held some wonderful treasures, which I was quite shy and frightened of attempting to explore, as much as I yearned for their touch.

I had two close friends, and although we would often jerk our hairless dicks together at one of their apartments while their mothers -- both divorced and working cruddy jobs like my own -- were away, it never progressed beyond being in the same room. I was frustrated and nervous during these sessions, stealing furtive glances at their smooth young bodies while I pretended to be thinking of girls, as they surely were, but enjoyed the moments nonetheless.

This too did pass, because in May of my eighth grade year, my mother announced that she was joining the Army. Not only was I again being uprooted from my few friends, but I was to go live with her mother and Rex, who had followed us down to San Antonio a year after we moved, and currently owned a house in a much nicer, more upscale area of town. And they were going to adopt me, which meant that my name would change again!

I was emotionally wrecked. Things had begun to progress for me in eighth grade. I was no longer bullied, I had made some friends, and -- because I had grown to stand half a foot taller than my mother -- the beatings had stopped. Not that she treated me much better emotionally, but I think she may have been afraid to take out her frustrations through physical violence when I began to tower over her.

Now, I'd have to start all over, and it was going to be in the home of a scary drunken man who didn't like me at all, and a fancy-pants rich high school, with its towering jocks and nasty prom queens all-too ready to shred the freshman hick with three-year old high-water pants and holes in his shoes. For the third time in my life, I would have to give up the few friends that I'd made and move to a new and frightening place.

We left our apartment to stay at a motel for the four days before my mother would leave for boot camp, and we threw away all of our furniture and most of my few games and books. There was a torrential rain that week, which flooded our old apartment complex, and I vividly remember helping my mother float my nightstand toward the dumpster through waist-deep, muddy water.

Unlike the far-away clay pit, this water was filthy and dirty, with Styrofoam cups, tin cans and various assorted trash I didn't even want to imagine bobbing along its oily surface. Also, there was no Jay, and my heart missed him, my Texas friends, my New York friends, and everything else as I gritted my teeth, wiped my tear-streaked face, and helped my mother throw my life away.

The last thing she said to me, as she kissed my forehead in my new parents' home as she left for boot camp at 4 a.m. on a rainy morning, was...

"You ruined my life."

I cried, feeling guilt for any harm I may have caused my mother. I cried even though she had beaten me, terrified me, starved me and cursed me. I cried because she was the only parent I had ever known, and I cried because I had ruined her life, even as she had erased mine.

And then she was gone.