The Box - 17. Chapter 17

October 18, 1943

2nd Lieutenant Steven Schluter, USA, reporting for duty here in my diary. I’m home on leave for just a couple of days, then I have to catch a train to New York where I’m shipping out. Looks like it’s Europe for me.

I didn’t bring this diary with me to OCS, what we call Officer Candidate School, and I’m kind of glad I didn’t. I feel like my whole body has been honed. It’s like they spent 17 weeks trying to get me in the best shape of my life while stuffing knowledge into my brain faster than I could absorb it. In the end, after we graduated, we were given a few days’ leave.

Most of the guys were going to New York to really hoof it up in the Big Apple, but I decided to come home instead. I really miss my family, and I didn’t make any friends, well, good enough friends to goof around with in New York. I guess I could have gone, and I would have had fun, but I ended up being more aloof at OCS. I don’t know why. I guess the whole thing was so much effort I felt like I had to put my head down and just work at it.

Only now that I’m home, it’s pretty strange. I understand where Aaron was coming from now. I came back a different person. I think I’m more mature, and I know I have more resolve than I did before. I’m just different, and that makes everyone around me different too. I feel like I’m on a mission, and everyone else is just living their lives. None of that mattered to my family. They just embraced me like always. That feels so good, to be here with them. I chose to come home, I chose them, and they know it. I showed them that I loved them. They’re really fantastic.

Billy and JP changed the most. They’ve graduated from being boys to being kids. They just seem so much more mature too. I guess I went away and they grew up. I guess I did too.

I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t hoping that Nathan would be home to fuck me. OK, that’s pretty crass. I feel much stronger about him than that. I’m just pissed off that he’s gone. Apparently over the summer he decided that he needed to go off and fight too, so he joined the navy. My Mom said he saved up his money and took the train to Cincinatti to join up so no one would stop him. He left me a really sweet letter, telling me the same stuff I already knew because I went through it with Aaron. He told me how he missed me, how life around Claremont was hell without me, and how he knew, he just knew, the time was right for him to go off and fight. I smiled when I read his letter, then went back through this diary and found the same words, almost verbatim, that I’d written.

I think if it weren’t for Nathan and Jim, I’d have lost it. I’d have felt just like he did. That made me wonder if he’d find someone new, like Aaron had. I was fatalistic about that now. Not a damn thing I could do about it anyway. I sure as fuck hadn’t found anyone. The guys at OCS were all really smart, or from really rich families. They all had this cocky attitude that was really a drag. The rich kids were all like Jim used to be, and because that brought back some nasty memories, it was easy for me to snap a cap with them. Instead, I avoided them, even though I probably could have fit in with them if I’d wanted to. The smart ones, they were cocky in a different way. They thought they knew fucking everything. It was funny to see the Drill Sergeant “explain” things to them. I just kept my head down and kept to myself, and that seemed to work like a charm.

Jim found out I was coming home so he came back home from college for the weekend. That was really swell of him. Now that we’re out of high school, the place to hang out is this bar called “Dino’s”. No one over 30 goes there, like it’s a rule or something. There were lots of dolls there, so Jim was in Seventh Heaven, but not too many guys. They’d all gone off to fight. The only guys who were there were the ones who couldn’t, and seeing me in my uniform just seemed to piss them off. They were nice to me anyway, but I could tell they resented me. It’s not my fucking fault they have bad eyes or flat feet, but they’re obviously not thinking about it that way.

Jim and I took a break and walked outside, just the two of us, and he opened up about that, about how he felt. “I feel like a coward for not going off to fight.”

“Like you have a choice anyway,” I’d said. He looked at me funny. “Grandfather wouldn’t let you go, no fucking way.”

“I’m in control of my own life,” he’d said, lying.

“Right,” I’d said sarcastically. He’d started to get really pissed then, so I tried to calm him down. “I have the same problem, only I’m not the heir to a Construction Company. I’m the expendable one.”

“You’re not expendable. You’re the best friend I ever had,” he’d told me. He’d actually made me tear up, the fucker.

“Thanks Jim. That’s the nicest thing anyone’s said to me.” I mean it was one of the nicest things, so let’s not split hairs. “Seriously, we all have our thing to do. Not everyone can go fight. If guys like you weren’t here, we wouldn’t have tanks or bullets. And besides, we’re going to save the really hard fighting until you get out of college and get into it.”

He’d smiled to thank me, then gave me a big hug. I really felt for the guy, but he belonged here. He was the best friend I had that I didn’t fuck.

I’d seen Barbie too, she’d been at Dino’s. She’d looked at me, kind of shocked at my transition from civilian to Army guy, and despite all the shit that had happened she was nice to me. I had the feeling that it wouldn’t have taken much effort to nail her, but I’d hurt her enough, and I really didn’t want to have to carry any more emotional guilt around.

It’s kind of funny how now that I’ve been away from Claremont, it seems like such a stupid place. Everyone is so divided, everyone is in their place. The working people, the poor people all live over in the East Side. The rich people live downtown. And the well-off, they live on the West Side. I’d talked to my Mom about that, and she’d seemed really frustrated by it.

“There are two things I want to achieve in my lifetime,” she said. “I want to see better schools for the coloreds, and I want to see them treated just like white people.”

“You think that will happen?” I’d asked. It was a good dream, but I didn’t see it happening.

“I can only hope, and do what I can to work toward it,” she’d said fatalistically.

“There were colored boys with us at OCS and it was fine,” I told her. In fact, they were the only guys I really got along well with.

“Maybe that’s the kind of thing that will start changing our world,” she’d said wistfully. “What about you? What do you want to achieve?”

That question had caught me off guard. “I don’t know. I guess I’m pretty focused on what’s next, so I’m not thinking about what’s beyond that.” I’d swallowed hard and done something I never thought I’d do. I confided my deepest thoughts and feelings to her. “Aaron wants us to move away after the war and go somewhere like New York.”

She’d eyed me carefully. “You mean as a couple?” Something about the way she asked me that told me it was OK. She wasn’t being judgmental, and she wasn’t going to snap out on me.

“Yeah. You don’t hate me for liking him that way?” I’d asked nervously.

“Steven, who you love makes no difference to me. I will love you no matter what. Nothing can change that. I’m so proud of you, of the man you’ve become. That’s why it terrifies me to think that you’re going off to war. Losing you would be unbearable.”

I’d hugged her tightly. “I love you too Mom. Well, if something does happen, come look for me in the Pacific. Aaron keeps talking about how swell all those islands are, and we may just run away to one of them.”

“If you vanish into oblivion, you have to at least tell me,” she made me promise.

“If I do, I’ll tell you,” I teased. I would too. I knew I could trust her.

1999

“Holy shit, do you think they did that, ran off to some tropical island?” Robbie asked.

“I don’t think so,” JP said. “At least I don’t think Steven did. Tonto was really torn up by his death. I think if he was still alive, she’d have acted differently.”

“But it is a possibility,” I observed, grabbing at the straw Robbie had held out there.

“It is, but we haven’t finished reading yet. There’s not enough information to draw any conclusions, much less a valid hypothesis,” JP said, sounding like the professor that he was. When he went into that mode, he was really freaked out.

“Well then, let us press on and see if we can discover some more evidence,” I said lightheartedly, even though my whole body was pulsing at the thought that my father might really be alive and living on some island in the Pacific.

October 19, 1943

Holy shit. I can’t believe what I did. I’m a fucking child molester. I’m so pissed off at myself I can hardly look in the mirror. And I’m so ashamed I can barely stand to write in this diary, but I have to. I have to get it out.

Last night I was laying in my bed with the lights out but the window open. That let in enough light to let me see once my eyes adjusted to the darkness, but didn’t give any light off. We did that, tried to stay blacked-out at night, as if a German or Jap bomber was going to make it to the US and pick Claremont to bomb. Anyway, I was horny, as usual, so I stripped down naked and I’d just started to jack off when I realized that I hadn’t put a shirt over the key hole like I usually do.

When I looked over at the hole, I saw a shape on the other side. It had to be someone peeping through the key hole, watching me. The light was on in the hallway, so whoever was looking, whenever they put their eye up to the hole, it blocked the light. I kept watching the hole. Someone would look, then back off, then look again. Who would want to watch me jack off? I kept a slow stroke up, just to tease whoever it was without getting myself too excited.

Maybe it was Jim? Maybe he’d come over to see me once more before he went back to school? I’d never really thought about messing around with Jim, but he was really handsome. Thinking that it might be him made my dick throb. I watched the key hole get dark and bided my time, waiting like a tiger to pounce. As soon the light re-appeared, I leaped out of bed and charged over to the door, and pulled it open.

There, bending over just a little bit to peek through the hole, was JP. He looked up at me, terrified, and made to run away, but I grabbed him and pulled him into my room, shutting and locking the door behind me. This time I remembered to put a shirt on the handle. I turned to look at him and he was standing there, scared shitless. He’s a brave guy though, he didn’t flinch.

“What the fuck are you doing?” I’d asked him harshly. He didn’t say anything, but his eyes looked up and down my body and it suddenly dawned on me that I was standing in front of him stark naked, with my dick still a little hard. “Why were you peeking at me through the key hole?”

He said nothing, just stood there terrified, only a tear fell down his cheek. “Do you do that to Jim? Do you watch him too?” He just shook his head. “Why me?”

“I like you,” he said softly. That kind of mellowed me a little bit.

“What would your mom and dad say if they knew you were staring at other guys?” I’d demanded.

“Please don’t tell them,” he begged. Then I let my anger go. This kid was terrified, and there was no way I’d tell them no matter what.

“I’m not going to tell anyone. This stays between you and me,” I said severely.

“Thanks,” he’d mumbled, but then he’d given me his cute little grin, and that melted any residual irritation I might have had. I tried to put myself in his shoes. If I was seven and a half years old, and I’d had the chance to watch some guy jack off, I’d have taken it. Well, unless it was my father or someone like that. I walked over to my bed and laid down, pulling the blanket up to cover my dick. He followed me and sat at the edge of the bed. I had to grin at how he looked disappointed when I’d covered up.

“You were curious?” I asked him. He nodded. “In a few years, your body will start to change and you’ll be doing that too.”

“How will it change?” he asked. He was so inquisitive, it was really cute.

“First of all, your dick will start to get hard all the time. Probably a lot of the times it does, you won’t want it too. Then your voice will start to change, and it will get deeper,” I said. I’d forced my voice to crack when I said the word “change”, and then I’d done this imitation of a really deep voice after that. It made him giggle. “Unless you’re lucky, you’ll get pimples, like this one,” I said, pointing at a particularly nasty one I’d managed to get on my nose. He reached up and touched my pimple gently. He had such a soft, caring touch.

“Then you’ll start to grow hair. You’ll grow hair under your arms,” I said, lifting my arm up and showing him. I felt his fingers move through the hair in my pits and it was like a jolt of electricity. I should have stopped him then, but I didn’t. “You’ll also start to sweat there, and smell bad if you don’t take a shower every day and wear deodorant.”

“You’ll also get hair around your dick, and sometimes on your abdomen,” I said, pointing at my treasure trail. He ran his fingers gently up and down my treasure trail, and I felt my dick getting hard again.

“Can I see?” he asked.

“I’m not supposed to do that, show you,” I said reluctantly. “Men aren’t supposed to show boys their dicks.”

“I just want to know what it’s like,” he said. I had the feeling that I was being seduced. It worked.

I pulled the blanket down and exposed my hard dick. I felt his hand running through my pubic hair and I had to stifle a moan. “They’re really soft,” he said. “You have a lot of them.”

“Yeah, it takes a while for them to all grow out,” I said softly. “But you can’t touch me there.” I pulled his hand away and almost laughed at how disappointed he looked.

“What else changes?” he asked me.

“Well, your dick gets bigger, but I guess you figured that out,” I joked. He giggled. “Your balls get bigger too.” I lifted my balls up to show him.

“I want to watch you,” he said shyly.

“You want to watch me jack off?” I asked. Having him stare at my body was really turning me on. It would be OK if he didn’t touch me, right? If I was just doing this to show him what it was like, kind of like a documentary? An instructional movie? “All right, you can watch, but you can’t touch me, got it?”

He nodded, and I wrapped my hand around my cock and started stroking, slowly at first, letting him watch me enjoy the feel of the my hand. He was paying such close attention, as if he was trying to memorize everything. I picked up my pace, going faster like I did, until I felt that familiar feeling as I approached the point of no return. “I’m gonna cum,” I said through my gritted teeth.

“What’s that?” he asked.

“You’ll find out,” I said, and then I blew. My first shot blasted up and hit me in the face, while the rest ended up splattered all over my chest and abdomen. Now that I’d cum, now that I’d blown, I really felt like shit. I wanted to die. I grabbed a dirty sock and frantically started cleaning off the cum, then I laid back in bed and covered myself up. I felt like shit, like a total pervert. I felt a tear run out of my eye, and he saw it.

“Thanks for letting me do that,” he said. “I was really curious, and no one tells me anything. There’s no one I can talk to, or ask about this stuff.” That kind of brought me back to earth. I remembered back to when I was his age. That would have been a huge deal to me, but not in a bad way. I mellowed again.

“It’s just that men can get in really bad trouble for doing stuff like that with boys,” I said.

“I won’t tell anyone. Ever. I promise,” he said. He held up his hand like he was taking an oath, and it was so cute I almost laughed at him. I’m glad I didn’t, it would have just offended him.

“I won’t either, and I know I can trust you,” I told him.

“How is a guy supposed to learn if no one shows him?” JP asked.

“You’re supposed to just figure it out on your own,” I told him. “That’s what I did.” He looked at me, puzzled. “One day you’ll be thinking about girls, or looking at pictures of them, and then your dick will get hard, and you’ll do what I just did.”

“I don’t like girls,” he said.

“You will, when you get older,” I told him.

“I like boys,” he said.

I looked at him really hard then, and felt bad because he was starting to panic. “JP, you’re still too young to know if you like boys instead of girls. But if you like boys, you can’t tell anyone.”

“Everyone will hate me,” he said sadly, and a tear fell down his cheek.

“A lot of people will, but not your family,” I told him.

“My mom and dad would,” he said. “They talk about people like that, about guys like that. They call them queers and they hate them.” I sighed. He was probably right.

“Look JP, I may not always be around to help you out. If you find out that you are, there’s one person you can talk to who will be OK with it.”

“Who?” he asked.

“Tonto,” I said, using his name for my mother.

“She wouldn’t hate me?” he asked.

“No,” I told him. “I promise. She won’t hate you. But you may not be queer. You’re young. You won’t know until your body changes.”

“I know. I already know,” he said, then started really crying. I pulled him into a hug and just rubbed his back until he fell asleep. I laid there with him for a while, feeling guilty for letting him watch me jack off, but feeling good that he trusted me enough to talk about this stuff. I finally woke him up and made him go to bed. All I can think about is how bad I fucked up.

October 21, 1943

I’m writing in this diary while the train is chugging toward New York. I left today, and spent the first couple of hours crying my eyes out in the bathroom. I think some of the people were pissed off at me for that, but fuck them. They didn’t have a family that loved them. Not like mine does. I could write about saying goodbye to them, but it hurts too much, and just makes me cry even more, so I’m not going too.

I sure as fuck don’t deserve them. I’m scum, worse than scum. I can’t believe I did that shit with JP. I can’t believe I did it again. Last night I was in bed and got really horny. I thought about it, about getting up and putting a shirt over my door, but I didn’t. I didn’t want to. I wanted him to watch me jack off. I started stroking myself, just like I always do, and I saw that same motion by the key hole. I motioned him in with my hand and he came scurrying in.

“I shouldn’t do this,” I told him. He sat down on the edge of the bed and stared at my dick, just like before.

“That looks like it feels good,” he said when I was done.

“It does,” I’d said, the guilt palpable in my voice.

“I think it’s really nice that you let me watch you, that you showed me this stuff,” he said. He said it confidently, to try to make me feel better, and that just made him seem even cuter. “Can I stay here with you for a while?”

I got up and put on a pair of boxers, then laid down and let him climb into bed with me. It was funny that Billy never really did that. He was very independent and driven. He wasn’t a thinker like JP. He climbed into bed with me and curled up with his head on my chest and I just held him like that, and we both fell asleep. He’s going to be such a cute guy when he gets older. If I make it through this war, and I get back to Claremont in one piece, I’m gonna fuck him when he’s 18. Maybe 17.

I’d pulled my Mom aside before I left to talk about him. “JP spent the night with me.”

“Really? Is he alright?” she asked, concerned.

“He’s fine. I think he just likes me,” I told her.

“Well, since whenever you walk into a room his eyes follow you the entire time, I’d say he does,” she said, laughing. “I think he’s got a crush on you.”

“You think he’s like that?” I asked, wanting to know how much she figured out.

“I don’t know Steven. He’s only a boy. Time will tell. I think right now, he just really likes and admires you. We’ll call it hero worship, and leave it at that,” she said. I nodded, but she caught my look. “Why? Do you think he is?”

“I don’t know either Mom, but if he is, try to help him out, OK?” I needed her to do this for me without asking a lot of questions. I got lucky.

“I will always be there for him, and for you, and for Billy, and for Jim,” she said. “But if JP is that way, I’ll make sure he’s OK.”

Thinking about my Mom and how she handled that, and knowing how she will do what she says, just makes me miss her that much more. I feel bad about all the shit I gave her. She’s an amazing, redoubtable woman. I don’t think there’s anything she can’t handle.

1999

I stopped reading after that and just closed the diary. There was a lot to digest in this. First of all, it was really strange that my partner had actually messed around with my father 56 years ago. We looked alike. How did that influence the way he thought about me? Was he attracted to me originally because I looked like my Dad? I was about to go off on a pity-party and let this really take a hold on me, when I looked up and caught the look in his eye. This was what he was worried about. This was what caused his anxiety. He was worried that my father had written about this, what he would say, and what the rest of us would think. None of us said anything at first, we just sat there thinking.

I smiled at him to let him know that it was alright, and the look I got in return was priceless. I’m so glad I did not go off on some stupid rant. I would have done the same thing, given the opportunity, and so would any of the guys here. The only one who really had to answer for his actions was my father, and sadly, he was beyond our grasp. I looked at the assembled men here, and tried to gauge how they would react. Whose reaction would be the most meaningful, and whose reaction would be less important?

“This is what has been bothering you?” Brad asked. Of course he would be the first to say something. JP just nodded.

“You’re lucky it wasn’t me JP,” Matt said with his engaging smile. “You’re cute now, but you were probably adorable then. I’d have been tempted to fuck you.” JP blushed and we tried to chuckle, but couldn’t quite do it. I was kind of worried about Robbie, that he’d say something stupid, but he kept quiet. That was appropriate, because of the men in this room, probably even including me, the two that would most concern him would be Brad and Wade. Brad, because he tended to go for the moral high ground, and his negative judgment would be devastating. Wade because he represented JP’s background, who he was, where he had come from. Damnation from Wade would be like damnation by all of his ancestors.

Brad had the ability to really help him out, if he wanted to, if he wanted to talk about Josh. I looked at him and he met my eyes, reading my mind, and nodded briefly. “I had something like that happen to me when I was a kid too.”

“You did?” Robbie asked, surprised.

“What happened?” JP demanded. I couldn’t tell if he was mad that something had happened to Brad, or relieved that he wasn’t the only one.

“It was when I went to LA with Stefan, when I was a little kid. Probably about the same age you were. That was when Josh was living with Peter. I walked in on him when he was jacking off, and he let me touch him.” Brad paused for a minute. “Only Josh wasn’t like Steve. Steve at least had some limits. Josh touched me back, even blew me, and let me blow him.”

“That must have been pretty traumatic,” Robbie said sympathetically.

“Are you kidding? That was how I first learned how my body would work. I mean, I don’t think it’s the right thing to do, and I sure as fuck wouldn’t want my sons doing that, but thinking back, it doesn’t bother me at all,” Brad said. “I would have done it again, but Stefan set me straight.”

“Straight? Stefan?” Robbie joked. I gave him a fake evil look, but I appreciated the levity.

“You knew?” JP asked me angrily.

“I did,” I said, unwilling to put up with any of his moralizing. I’d just given him a free pass for perving on my father.

“I’ll never forget what you told me,” Brad said. “You told me that it was dangerous because when men get really excited, they might get carried away, and put their dick in my butt.”

“You told him that?” Robbie asked, then started laughing. All of us joined him, all of us except JP.

“I’m sorry my father molested you,” I told him sympathetically.

“That’s not molestation, at least not as far as I’m concerned,” Wade said. That shut us all up. He’d had to deal with being raped by his father. This must seem ridiculous to him. “You were just curious, and he liked you.” And with that, Wade and Brad had both given JP absolution, yet one more skeleton he could bury. Yet he didn’t seem satisfied. There was something else.

“I don’t regret that for a minute, not one minute,” JP said forcefully. “He was the first man I fell in love with. When he didn’t make it back, I learned about pain, real pain.” He was defiant and defensive, when he had no reason to be. That told me how much he had been hurt. Then he mellowed and looked at me. “It’s kind of ironic that the last man I’ll fall in love with looks remarkably like him.” This was weird, very strange, and there were many relationships that would not survive this kind of revelation. Our eyes met, and I knew ours was not one of them.