Maddog & The Pope (Learning to fly on Broken Wings) - 3. Tribulations

The first weeks in Merligborn turned out to be pure horror for Niki. He struggled through his job every working day. Maybe the job in itself was not bad, but he had his father looking over his shoulder through the eyes of the branch manager, Herr Weber. He felt he was under constant scrutiny and surveillance, observed from a distance from the Hamburg headquarters, despite the three hundred kilometers between them. There were days he was so fed up with it, that he wanted to stick his middle finger up to Herr Weber, his father and the whole damned company. To walk out of it into his own life. But… where would that lead him? He knew he would have no money if he did. He would be totally on his own, without a place to live, on the street!

Yes, in his Hamburg days he had frequented the streets, but he didn’t have to live on them. Drifting around the streets was great fun… but living on them? Was that fun as well? He couldn’t imagine how that would be, but only the thought was enough to make him shudder. So, he did as Herr Weber told him, doing his best to be a good and obedient boy and trainee.

 

In the first fifteen minutes of his very first day in the store Herr Weber stared at him with his piercing eyes, which burned into Niki’s skull as if they wanted to X-ray his thoughts. Once the man seemed satisfied, he said with his high-pitched voice, in terse clipped sentences:

“Since the CEO seems to have a very special interest in you, I will do my utmost best to make something useful out of you, young man. I suggest you better watch your steps while being at work! Is that clear?”

Niki had only nodded in some non-committal way, observing the man opposite him. He didn’t like what he saw: Herr Weber was a diminutive, typical grey mousy narrow-minded man with a face as narrow as his mind, a face that might easily get on someone’s nerves. It was dominated by a hawk-like nose and cold, emotionless reptilian eyes, hidden behind thin-rimmed glasses, the kind of eyes that made Niki think of the killer eyes of a snake. His thin grey hair that was always combed back, he had bad teeth and ever-present bad breath.

In his first few days Niki noticed, his colleagues didn’t like or respect their direct boss. They feared him, going to great lengths to avoid humiliation and his acid, devastating remarks about their performance, no matter how hard they tried. Herr Weber was not the kind of manager who was respected, the sort of the manager who led by example or motivation. Herr Weber was a manager who led by the promulgation of fear, distrust, insecurity and terror!

Niki appeared to be an alternative way to establish his reputation with headquarters as a gifted manager, buying his ticket to a larger subsidiary as the next step in his career. For all these reasons Niki started to hate the man with all his heart.

Although he felt the shadow of his father continuously behind him, he managed to get into a routine in the first months. He did his work and tried to stay out of trouble during working hours. It was not made easy for him. His cell phone rang on a regular basis each Sunday afternoon. It was always his father and he criticized Niki for every error he had made during the last week. He admonished him for not trying hard enough and inquired about his activities after work in a very intrusive way. Every phone call ended with the same threat:

“You better be careful, boy! I’ve got my eyes on you!”

Initially Niki was surprised by the detailed information his father had about even the smallest mistake, things he himself had already forgotten. But gradually it dawned on him who the source of information was. It had to be Herr Weber, who reported to his older brother in Personnel Affairs at headquarters each Friday on everything. All his development or lack thereof might be discussed and evaluated between Dmitri and his father over the weekend, resulting in what Niki had started to call the “Sunday afternoon lecture.” His father’s eyes on him were in fact Herr Weber’s eyes. It disgusted him. Here he was, a long way from home, still finding himself in his father’s iron grip, making it hardly possible to find his own way in life.

Whilst his working days appeared to be hell, the time after work was even worse. He felt as if he had been exiled to a sleepy provincial city where time seemed to have stopped in the fifties. Nothing happened here!

To start with: during his first weeks he had explored the local street art scene, only to find that there was none. Oh yes, there were the ugly scribblings on some fences and walls, but real art? No, he hadn’t found one single bit of what actually came near to that, nothing that reached the Hamburg quality level, not even by a wide margin. He had started to do it himself, seeing it as some kind of development aid but gaining the status of local scene top dog in a matter of weeks it lost its challenge pretty soon.

As an alternative he started experimenting with his fancy camera, trying to find a way to combine photography with street art, thereby merging his two big passions together. In a way it worked but it was a tedious and frustrating process before he really made any progress.

It was not that he had stopped making street art, but with the real incentive gone, he saw it only as a means to keep current in techniques. A preparation for when he was finally able to break free, hopefully ending up in some effervescent city like Cologne or … maybe even Berlin!

 

Worse, much worse than the loathing he felt for his job, worse than the boredom of this job and the loss of challenges in his art, was the loneliness he started to feel. He had ended up in a city where he didn’t know a living soul, apart from his direct boss and his colleagues. And they were not exactly what he was looking for. He did go to another local gym to keep his body in shape, where he curiously observed cute boys and tried to make friends, but his frank and open big city attitude was not exactly accepted with approval by the local boys. Most of them shunned him, so most of the time he did his workouts without speaking to anyone, arriving alone and leaving alone.

He searched for those like-minded boys and men, the boys and men who loved other boys and men. Maybe he was not really looking for a relationship, but every now and then he needed a physical presence beside him in his bed. On Friday and Saturday evenings he wandered through the quiet downtown area, looking for some gay bar or club, but he found nothing. And when he entered the words “gay bar Merligborn” in the search screen of his laptop, even Google turned up blank!

“Damned,” he muttered in dismay, “there’s nothing here! It can’t be… but… it sure looks that way!”

Somehow the search results turned his thoughts somewhat paranoid, when he thought:

“Did he plan it that way? Did my old man sense something about my sex life? Did he know about Raimund?”

He knew that wasn’t possible. Raimund had been his best guarded secret while he was living in Hamburg and especially the erotic side of it had better stay that way, as far as Niki was concerned. So, he put the thought aside, concentrating on another sore spot that he had accidentally bumped into while thinking.

Raimund!

He missed the man a lot… although, to put it crudely but truthfully, he missed the feeling of that big dick. How Raimund maneuvered into all positions imaginable and some not, to give them both the satisfaction they were looking for.

He missed the photo shoots that were the prologue most of the time. He had been doing without Raimund for weeks now but he was starting to experience what the words “sexual frustration” really meant.

For evenings on end he relived all their sexual exploits, his fingers hovering over the preselect button under which Raimund’s telephone number was still hidden. But he never had the courage to push the button and get back in touch with his sorely missed lover.

 

Until that dreadful Saturday evening when he sat feeling terribly lonely in his horrible apartment, furnished with modern, cold Ikea-style furniture with impersonal chrome frames and blank wood. It was an evening when the ceiling seemed to come down on his head. Then he pushed the button.

It took some time before he heard Raimund’s familiar voice.

“Hi, honey,” he called out excited, “It’s me.”

“Who is me?” an indifferent reply came.

“Me… Niki…,” he added, somewhat confused and taken aback.

“Oh… you…” Raimund answered gruffly.

Someone was there with Raimund and giggled; it was the kind of giggle, that unmistakably belonged to a young boy.

“Well, kid,” Raimund continued his unfriendly answer, “I’ve got other things to do right now. Have a good life, and… euuuhh… don’t bother me again!”

“Wait, Raimund,”,Niki cried out in despair, “I can explain what…”

The click and the long buzz sound after it said it all, there was nothing to explain! Not any longer!

For a long time he stared at his cell phone in shock, hoping Raimund would call back and apologize. But nobody called. Tears filled his eyes.

Slowly he started to see the truth. Yes, he had loved Raimund, but now he knew it had always been a one-way street: it turned out he had only been his cute toy boy and when he was forcibly removed from Hamburg, he was simply replaced by another toy boy. Raimund had never loved him, but only abused him. No, Raimund didn’t rape him; such an allegation would be unfair! That he was abused was only to be expected, because he himself had given the man every opportunity. All this time he had gladly and willingly cooperated whilst being used in every thinkable and conceivable way.

“How could I have been so foolish?” he muttered.

 

It looked as if his father had succeeded: Niki felt himself reduced to just another silent and grey resident of a boring provincial town. The Hamburg chapter of his life was finally closed.

Raimund was gone, fooling around with another obviously young, cute and very playful kid, as playful as he had been at the age of fifteen or sixteen. His top-ranking position in the Hamburg street art scene had faded into oblivion and was a thing of the past. Those positions tended to have a very short lifespan once the artist was gone. There was not a single reason left to go back to Hamburg.

Anger and resistance boiled up in his mind. If he had to spend the rest of his life in this dull town he might as well hang himself. He realized he had to endure it for some time if he didn’t want to end up on the street, but in the end he would leave here, go to another city, somewhere vibrant and full of life: Cologne, Berlin, maybe Paris… who knew. Maybe even New York or San Francisco! Yes, these were dreams but his dreams were the only thing left to live through the grim reality. He would struggle through it all. He would achieve what he wanted. His father would find out that he had been right in one respect: Niki was stubborn!

“And fuck Raimund!” he muttered, with a wry smile. The smile got a little more cheerful when he thought:

“Not such a bad idea at all. I always wanted to do that!”

 

It took some time, but after a few months Niki more or less settled down in his dreary job with his snake-like boss and his boring life, if only for the reason there was nothing else he could do. But he remained hardheaded and he kept dreaming of better days in a much larger city, one that never sleeps. The only thing that really bugged him was the lack of sex. Which was nothing unusual: he was a healthy gay boy, about to turn nineteen. Boys that age tend to have this subject on their minds for most of their waking hours and even part of the time they are asleep.

 

On Saturday evening he had been searching the city again for a bar where he could at least find some like minded boys of his own age. Hoping that he would finally have his big crush. But the search was another fruitless one.

However, purely by accident, it gave him another possibility to ward off the boredom during his off-work hours.

Shortly after midnight he strolled back to his apartment, taking a street where he had never been before. About halfway along the street he discovered a long wall in front of some old building. The wall was completely blank, pristine, one might even call it virgin. There was not a spot of paint in whatever form on it and it attracted Niki like a magnet. He always had a soft spot for virgin walls, who were asking, almost begging him, to be used as a surface for artwork. By force of habit he started to estimate the wall’s dimensions and surveyed the possibilities.

“Yeah…that’s a great place!” he murmured.

The Sunday after he switched off his cell phone so as not to be disturbed by one of his father’s Sunday afternoon lectures and started working on a design. He had done it without thinking. When he had the design more or less ready by the evening, he smiled. It had been a great idea to switch off the phone. He seriously considered doing that more often, as a first step in finding his own independent place in life.

Exactly one week later, after a night of energetic painting, the wall was no longer virgin, but sported one of the most magnificent street art works in the city.

The next Sunday Niki sauntered through the street in front of the wall to observe the results by daylight. He was more than satisfied with it and snapped some pictures with his cell phone. Then his attention was drawn to the building behind the wall.

It was old, a derelict barracks building, a beautiful example of early nineteenth-century architecture. It had to be a leftover of the once glorious military history of the city. It looked as if it had been built in the days when Emperor Wilhelm still reigned over the German Empire. Now, after years of being unused and neglected, it was near collapse.

The building intrigued him. He tried to imagine how the inside of the building would look. What kind of pictures could he make there and how could he use the filtered light which fell through the windows full of dust? How might he reform lines and surfaces by using odd camera angles and how could he alienate these forms further by creative and careful post-processing?

A plan started to form in his head, a plan that made him an urbexer, an urban explorer, besides a trainee, an artist and a photographer. He didn’t consider it as a separate activity but more as an extension of his street art and photography. Something which gave opportunities for finding great surfaces and nice photographic perspectives.

He started to do some research at home. It didn’t take long before finding out that Merligborn had a fair number of these so-called “lost places.” Niki grinned at this discovery, thinking:

“Isn’t the whole of Merligborn one big lost place?”

Several of these buildings were old factories, some were barracks, like the one whose surrounding wall he had just painted. They all originated from the end of the nineteenth or beginning of the twentieth century and stood empty, without any function, their owners having gone bankrupt ages ago. Nobody was occupied with them or had any clear idea of what to do with them, mostly because of a lack of money. They were left abandoned until they collapsed. There was even a disused intact old hospital in town. It had been closed down and was standing there without any purpose or any project initiative for reuse.

Most peculiar for the area around Merligborn were the military installations which had once housed foreign troops until these were withdrawn after the re-unification of the two Germanies. The buildings had been simply abandoned and nobody bothered to care for them or to tear them down. The whole area proved to be a treasure trove of “lost places,” which promised lots of artistic fun as an added but welcome diversion from all the usual drabness and boredom.

There was one thing that bothered him in this new discovery:

“How do I get over these walls with my camera and all without being seen?”

It was not about climbing; he was used to that. But it was the camera, a delicate piece of equipment. He had to work on that to find a solution.

 

Two weeks after he had deflowered the wall he drove to the old barracks. He parked his car two streets away, walked the last part and clambered over the wall on a very early, dark and rainy November Sunday morning. He had planned it thoroughly and prepared accordingly. In the days before the excursion, he had scanned the wall for additional security measures, like steel pins, glass shreds or barbed wire, but with a satisfied smile he noticed that there wasn’t any of this. His camera was safely in his photo backpack that was strapped tightly to his body, protecting it snugly against shocks and the weather.

He wanted to make his intrusion in the very early morning and then stay in the building until daylight dawned, using the grey November morning light as an extra effect in the shots. The tricky part came after taking the photos, how to get over the wall again without being seen?

He was expecting it would be cold, so he dressed accordingly. He wore his thickly lined black winter trousers and his wind-resistant padded winter jacket, which was black as well.

Once he was over the wall with hardly any effort, he took his LED flashlight to get his bearings. In its light beam he spotted a large door off to the left. Slowly and carefully he started making his way towards it, paying attention where he put his feet, stepping between all the rubble on the ground. Once he reached the door he shone his flashlight over it and discovered it was locked with a large padlock on it.

“Shit, locked!” he muttered. “Just have to find another door, I guess.”

With great caution he shuffled along the wall, his hands keeping in touch with the rough stones while his eyes scanned the premises for danger. It took some time, but finally he came across another door. He stroked the surface which felt as if it was made of steel. Gently he pushed it and it opened, the hinges squealing so loudly, Niki was sure it could be heard all over Merligborn. He didn’t care, the only thing that mattered to him was, that he was in!

Once inside he let his eyes get used to the pitch dark surroundings. Vaguely he began to discern that he was in a kind of hall. On the right and left were passages, but he wasn’t interested in the ground floor. He wanted to go up to where he had seen the large windows, they would serve him just fine once light appeared in a few hours.

He switched on his flashlight and let the white beam shine around. There was a staircase, clearly made of steel.

“It’s going smooth. But take it easy!”

He was well aware that he would be in deep shit if he stumbled over something, fell off the stairs and broke something in this abandoned and forlorn building. Step by step he ascended, shining the beam in front of his feet before he put them down and with one hand brushing the next step to search for any obstacles in advance. They were the kind of stairs that would normally take him a minute to climb, but here he needed ten minutes before he finally made the upper floor, a wide grin on his face.

Completely at random he decided to go left, shining his flashlight along the walls and windows. He moved through a high ceilinged room in which his footsteps reverberated, echoing into the roof vaults.

Fascinated he looked around, getting careless while doing so. One of his feet got stuck, almost making him trip over. A piece of metal skittered across the floor and fell with an earsplitting noise, making him startle so much that his heart thumped.

Feeling his heart thumping was one thing, feeling it almost stop another. But that is what happened, when he heard an angry, young voice call out:

“Did you really have to do that, damned?”

For seconds on end he stood frozen, panting from excitement. Was it a guard or a caretaker? That would see him ending up in another police station for sure. Or was it a junkie? Not exactly what he was looking forward to in the middle of the night. The only reaction he could think of at that moment was a stammered:

“Sorry… I didn’t mean to startle you.”

Once Niki felt his heart beating again and had regulated his breathing to a normal pattern, he pointed the beam of his flashlight in the direction from where the voice had come. It landed directly on the face of a young boy about his own age, maybe somewhat younger. But that was hard to determine because in the sharp light Niki saw the boy’s face was smeared with spots of grime. And as far as the color of his hair was concerned Niki could only guess. It looked so full of dust and dirt it almost appeared to be grey.

“Can you get that light out of my eyes,” the boy growled irritated, “It hurts.”

Niki complied. He couldn’t help the feeling that he felt attracted to the boy. He approached him carefully and when he was close to him, he asked:

“What are you doing here?”

“What does it look like?” the boy gruntled with a contemptuous counterquestion.

“I don’t know,” Niki answered truthfully.

“How does sleeping grab you? That is, until you decided to wake me up with making so much noise it could have woken the dead. Then shining that thing in my eyes.”

“Here? In this mess?” Niki asked dumbfounded.

“Where else?” the boy said with a shrug. “If you know a better place then let me know.”

Completely astounded, Niki sat beside the boy, placing the flashlight in a way that its beam shone upward, vaguely illuminating both their faces. Although totally unexpected and nothing to do with the reason of his being in this building, the whole encounter had triggered his curiosity.

“Why do you sleep here?” he asked hesitantly and softly.

The boy looked at him with obvious surprise in his eyes and replied:

“Because I’ve got no better place to sleep.”

It was an answer Niki didn’t expect. He was himself banned from his own home by his father, but at least the man took care that he had a place to live. How could a boy of about his age have no other place to sleep? It was something he couldn’t comprehend.

“Why not?” he pressed on with the next question, determined to find out about it.

“Because my old man kicked me out of the house. It is that simple!”

“Why did he do that?” Niki wanted to know, still not satisfied with the answers he had received.

“You’ve got a lot of questions, don’t you?” the boy said irritated and somewhat threatening, “So tell me, why should I answer them?”

“Maybe because I care,” Niki muttered, considering his own motives for asking a lot of questions. “Maybe because I’m worried about you. I mean, you sleep in this cold and damp ruin in November. You might get sick that way. But… to be honest… I’m not sure why I’m asking all these questions. And, you know, maybe your father kicked you out on an impulse and he is sorry now that he did that. He might be even looking for you.”

The boy broke into a hateful laughter and said sneeringly:

“Are you a standup comedian or something?”

Niki blushed: he had meant well but he felt almost punished for his good intentions. He stared ahead of him in the darkness. After a short while he sensed the boy was studying him intently.

“You know…” the boy said, “I really believe you that you mean well. And… honestly, when I see your face in this dim light, I think it would be really worthwhile to study it in broad daylight as well.”

Niki felt how the compliment made him blush again and he dropped his eyes for a few seconds. But the boy didn’t notice, he sighed and continued:

“And since I trust you, I will give you the answers. My only mistake was that I wasn’t thinking for maybe a minute and let it slip out of my mouth that I am gay and that I had a boyfriend. My old man gave me exactly thirty minutes to pack my stuff and then kicked me out.”

“He can’t do that!” Niki protested indignant.

“Couldn’t he?” he thought at the same time. “Look at yourself… You were kicked out as well, maybe in a more acceptable way, but nevertheless, you were kicked out as well!”

“You tell him that,” the boy said with a sad smile, “And I guess he would beat the shit out of you!”

“Where are you from?” Niki asked.

The boy mentioned some place Niki had never heard of before and he said so.

“It’s somewhere in Thuringia… Don’t bother about it you don’t know it, you didn’t miss a thing. It is the last town in Germany where the Middle Ages still prevail!”

“You’re wrong, buddy,” Niki thought with a mental wry smile, “It is also in full effect in this city!”

Only now Niki did notice the boy smelled, no… actually stank, as if he hadn’t had a shower or a bath in weeks, maybe even months.

There was still this one thing he didn’t understand, so Niki inquired:

“But, why does he hate gays so much, that he kicks his own son out?”

“Because my old man is extreme right wing,” the boy answered, “He is one of those people who still suffer from that hereditary defect in the right arm and hates everything that is different from what his one brain cell can understand. No, he won’t be sorry for kicking me out and he won’t be looking for me. The only thing he is sorry for is that there is no longer any Gestapo he can report me to for being a dirty fag, so they can take me in and send me to a concentration camp for extermination!”

Niki could only utter one abashed reaction:

“My God!”

But at the same time his mind went into overtime when he thought:

“My old man won’t assure my extermination, but face it, man: what would his reaction be if he knew I was gay? Yes, it would be somewhat better, but only by a very small margin!”

“So what’s your name?” he heard the boy ask.

“I’m Niki,”,he answered, “And you?”

“Lukas,” was the short reply.

“Where is your stuff?” Niki asked.

“Lost it, stolen I guess. I just got what I’m wearing.”

Niki found his emerging thought completely absurd and the resulting question weird, but he asked it nevertheless:

“What I am wondering about, Lukas… is, what’s it to live on the street?”

Niki considered that maybe it wasn’t that bad at all and it could be a way to grab his freedom, escape his father’s influence.

Lukas shrugged almost indifferently, looked thoughtful for a few seconds and replied:

“Well… if you like feeling hungry, cold, miserable and filthy all the time and you love sleeping in filthy shitholes like this, if you get a kick out of begging for some coins in a shopping mall getting shooed off by everyone like a mangy dog… I guess in that case it is not that bad. If you like three meals a day, a shower at least once a day, a nice, warm, clean bed in a cozy apartment and some respect from other people…”

Again, he stared briefly in front of him, only to add with a hopeless-sounding sigh:

“…then it is really the kind of life I can’t recommend to anyone!”

On the premise that other people’s problems most certainly weren’t theirs Niki’s parents had never been great on charity and had done nothing to teach him about sharing. His upbringing had conditioned him towards taking, not giving. Even so, deep in his heart he felt this boy was at the end of his rope and, although he didn’t have a clue why, he decided in a split second he wanted to help him.

“Come with me to my place!” he said.

“To do what?” Lukas asked suspicious.

“First to take a nice long, hot shower and while you do that, I’ll put your clothes in the washing machine and make some hot soup and get a baguette for you. Tomorrow we will see which clothes I don’t need any longer. It seems to me, you are about my size so they might fit you. And after that? I really don’t know! But I’ll be damned if I leave you here in this mess!”

The suspicion in Lukas’s voice was impossible to miss when he asked:

“Why would you do that? What’s in it for you?”

An idea what might be in it for him popped into Niki’s mind, unfortunately only after his common sense had moved from his brain to his dick which suddenly started to grow in his trousers. He discarded the idea. Maybe he felt sexually attracted to Lukas but most definitely not in the condition the boy was in right now. Maybe it was just caused by the degree of sexual frustration he was experiencing. Again, he had no notion… so he just shrugged and said:

“I don’t know and for the moment I don’t care. But like I said, I won’t leave you here in this dump!”

He rose, stuck out his hand and grabbed Lukas’s, pulling him up from the dirty floor.

“Come on, let’s go,” he exclaimed decidedly, “I can always do this little photo expedition at a later time.”

With that said they carefully descended the steel stairs, scurried as fast as possible over the barracks grounds and climbed out over the wall. Once safely on the ground Niki took Lukas’s hand and guided him through the dark and silent streets to his parked car.

 

Niki literally had to force himself to concentrate on putting Lukas’s incredibly dirty clothes in the washing machine. When doing so he wondered if one wash would do the trick or that it would need to be repeated. Several times he caught himself glancing towards the glass shower cabin, where the naked boy luxuriated in the first hot shower for what was probably for months.

While Lukas had undressed Niki looked on captivated. Despite the boy’s body being covered by layers of filth and grime, Niki’s imagination began to run wild. With more and more of these layers removed by the soap and hot water the naked body took on an air of beauty all of its own. Lukas was very slender, probably from a long period of malnutrition, but this had an appeal Niki couldn’t ignore. But he controlled himself, barely.

With the washing machine running he left the bathroom and sauntered to the small kitchen to make the promised soup and bread. He felt the inclination to stuff the boy with every scrap of food he could find in his fridge. But he had heard or read, that that was a very unwise thing to do. If a person has suffered from hunger, like Lukas probably did, it was very stupid to fill the stomach with all kinds of heavy food, no matter how well it was meant. The stomach was no longer used to huge amounts of food and it might cause severe complications. Niki followed his common sense and limited his gastronomic first aid to soup and bread.

He rummaged through the kitchen cabinets certain there had to be a tin of soup there, but it took a long time to find it. With a sigh of relief he examined the tin. Goulash soup, he hoped Lukas would like it because it was the only one he had.

While heating it up on the stove he stirred the soup absent-mindedly, thinking over why he had taken the boy with him in the first place. Was it really because he wanted to have sex with him? Or was more involved than only that? And if so… what could that be?

“Did I fall in love with him, because he is, what I’m not? A survivor and a fighter, one that has endured being alone on the streets for months on end? While I am a coward who is afraid to stand up against his father because he fears exactly that fate? For me it is a fate that would kill me in two weeks… if I lasted that long! Do I feel attracted because he has the courage that I lack? Or is it more basic… simply because I’m horny as hell at the moment? Because I’m only waiting for him to grab me and give me a good fuck?”

All these thoughts about love and sex made his mind stray from the question he wanted to answer. They brought him back to the years in Hamburg, the years with Raimund!

It was easy to cry out “Fuck you, Raimund” in anger and disappointment but it was much harder to persist in that attitude when the tears were burning behind his eyes. Despite knowing he had just been a plaything for the man.

A recurring bout of anger made him stir the soup with ever increasing speed, causing a miniature whirlpool in the pot. He saw it just in time, stopped his frantic movements and narrowly avoided the soup spilling over the rim. He shook his head to clear it and focused his thoughts back to the more urgent matter at hand: why did he take this boy home with him?

“Or is it revolt? Because in a way it feels I’m doing something my old man certainly wouldn’t? Giving instead of only taking! He wouldn’t even allow Lukas in, if I had taken him home with me. Oh… that reminds me! It’s Sunday”

He knew he could expect the “Sunday Afternoon Lecture” later that day. If there was one thing he could do without, it was this weekly bullshit. He took his cell phone out of his pocket and for the second time since he left Hamburg he switched it off. He had to find a more permanent solution for this weekly returning nuisance.

He had no time to ponder over it, because he heard footsteps in the corridor. It had to mean that Lukas had finished his shower. Niki was curious how the boy might look when clean. But he was not prepared for what he saw. Lukas walked into the kitchen stark naked, apparently without any shame. He just smiled disarmingly and said:

“I couldn’t find anything to put on. Maybe you have something?”

Niki was unable to answer. His eyes were glued to the image of the naked boy in front of him, taking in every detail. One thing was obvious right away, Lukas was terrifyingly skinny, almost skeleton-like, showing clearly he had missed a considerable number of meals in the months of his rambling. But for the rest, being clean, he was in one word, gorgeous. His clear blue eyes glistened naughtily, his smile showed pearl white teeth and only now Niki could discern the color of his hair. It was a kind of ginger shade of blond. It hung somewhat slovenly over his eyebrows and almost in his eyes. For the second time that night Niki’s common sense started to move from his head to lower body regions. But first he had to give the boy the promised soup and bread. To break the instantaneous erotic spell he muttered:

“My bathrobe is on the inside of the bedroom door. You can take that.”

Lukas was back within a minute, more or less properly dressed. Although it didn’t make any difference to Niki. The idea that only the bathrobe’s texture was between his fingers and the naked skin of the boy almost made him mad. Despite all his excitement he managed to put a bowl of soup and a basket of bread on the table, where Lukas started to wolf it down. It was gone within minutes and without thinking the boy asked:

“You have some more?”

Immediately Lukas blushed with shame when he muttered:

“Sorry, that was not very polite!”

But the shameful look on his face immediately changed into a blissful smile when he sighed:

“But it tasted soooo good!”

“Yeah, I expected that,” Niki grinned. “So I threw the whole can in the pot. You want some more bread as well?”

“No,” Lukas shook his head. “That’ll do. But some more soup? Yeah, I would love that.”

Once the soup was finished they engaged in small talk. Lukas smiled and laughed and Niki saw something that appeared to be increasingly incongruous. How could a boy living on the street keep his teeth so impeccably white like he brushed them three times daily and visited the dentist almost monthly? It didn’t fit. He thought it over and then he just asked spontaneously:

“Lukas, how do you keep your teeth so white?”

Large blue eyes, full of astonishment, were the only answer, apart from an equally amazed:

“Huh?”

“Well,” Niki tried to explain, “Your teeth are so incredibly white you almost make me jealous. I don’t understand how you do that!”

“Maybe by brushing for example?” Lukas muttered, his eyes still filled with incomprehension.

Only now Niki understood how dumb he had phrased his question. He did a second more sensible attempt when he inquired:

“Yeah, sure! I got that. But what I mean is: how can you brush your teeth if you live on the street?”

“Ah, that’s what you want to know!” Lukas grinned, but then he got serious when he replied:

“When you land on the street you learn very fast. One of the first things I learned was that every railroad station and department store has public toilets as do most gas stations. There I could at least wash my face and hands and brush my teeth.”

“But where did you get the toothpaste?” Niki wanted to know.

With a mysterious smile on his face Lukas said:

“You have no idea how much toothpaste fits in a coat pocket!”

Niki understood the implication but said nothing. There was no need to because Lukas admitted:

“Yes, I stole it. You know, my mother raised me with the idea stealing was wrong. But if a person gets in such dire straits as I did, it could well be he simply has to if he wants to survive. I guess, it is the old saying ‘Necessity knows no law’. I’m not proud of it, I was always scared that someone would bust me.”

Niki nodded. He understood the words expressed, but he knew he would never understand the actual situation. For him everything had been available all the time, there was no need to steal anything. He had no idea why, but this confrontation with Lukas’s reality made him feel ashamed. He had the easy way, while a kid his age had to steal toothpaste and most probably other things as well.

The first morning light started to creep through the window. Niki felt tired and sleepy. He had been up extremely early for the photo expedition, but it had developed in a totally unexpected way, bringing emotional tension on top of physical exertion. And he knew for sure, Lukas had to be exhausted as well, so he suggested with a yawn:

“Let’s grab some sleep. Now, let me see, are you comfortable with sleeping on the couch?”

He preferred to ask something completely different but decided against it.

“Sure,” Lukas said cheerfully. “It’s a lot better than the dirty floor in a ruin, where you found me. So, no problem, I’ll sleep on the couch.”

“OK, let me get a pillow and some blankets,” Niki settled the matter.

Once he was back Lukas was on the couch before Niki could blink an eye and stuck his hand out towards Niki, saying with a shy smile:

“Do you mind if I give you a goodnight kiss?”

Niki shook his head frantically and bent over. The kiss was very, very chaste, just meant as a goodnight kiss. But Niki felt his heart thump.

“Goodnight… eeeuhh… well, good morning!” he smiled and left the living room, turning off the light.

His heart would have thumped even harder had he seen the loving glance in Lukas’s eyes as he stared after the departing silhouette. However, Niki’s assumption proved to be correct. Exhaustion overtook the homeless boy. He rolled into the blankets and put his head on the pillow, enjoying the feeling of the very first pillow under his head in months. He was sound asleep in seconds.

 

Going to bed in early morning meant getting out of bed late in the afternoon. With both of them somewhat lazy and listless, they frittered the Sunday away with gaming, chatting and drinking tea. But they had a good time, even that good Niki didn’t notice the dreary “Sunday Afternoon Lecture” didn’t take place, forgetting completely he had made that impossible himself by switching his cell phone off.

Monday was Niki’s day off. It was spent in shopping, buying stuff for Lukas with Niki’s father unknowingly picking up the tab over his company-registered credit card. It was a thought that amused him immensely but he kept it secret from his guest, who was astonished by Niki’s indifference about paying a Euro more or less. Niki loved the sensation of sharing his wealth. It was a totally new experience in his young life.

If Niki had been moving into a mild state of euphoria, then it was thoroughly ripped apart Tuesday morning. It was the first working day of the week and he left Lukas in the apartment. Niki entered the store at almost exactly the right second to avoid problems with Herr Weber only to find out immediately that some problem seemed to be already brewing.

The unpleasant store manager was waiting for him, his snake-like eyes staring and his sharp voice exclaiming, omitting the normal courtesy of a “good morning.”

“Young man, there is a phone call waiting for you in the office. I suggest that you will answer it right away.”

The word “suggest” was emphasized in a way that it was not meant to be understood as friendly advice but as a direct and inevitable order.

Walking into the office Niki took the receiver, still unaware who it might be making such an early call in the first minute of his working day. He didn’t have to wait long to discover who the caller was.

“Goddamned, what are you doing? Are you trying to hide from me? Who do you think you are?”

It was his father!

“Well, no …” he muttered browbeaten. “Why? Should I?”

“It certainly looks that way,” his father roared on. “It is the second Sunday I couldn’t reach you! What game are you playing, boy?”

“I guess I switched my phone off Saturday and forgot to switch it on again,” he lied, not very convincingly.

He knew he was lying through his teeth, but what else could he do? Tell the man it was a deliberate act of sabotaging the Sunday Afternoon Lecture? It didn’t seem like the most intelligent of moves to him. But… on the other hand!

“I’m sick and tired of it all!”

To his surprise he noticed that Herr Weber was in the office as well, carefully observing him while he was on the phone.

“What is this? Is he under orders to observe my reactions and then report them later? What kind of sick thing is this?”

He let his father yell down the phone and didn’t react at all, but his mind raced. In a way he felt a breaking point was approaching, so why not force it right away. He was surprised by his own audacity but suddenly he interrupted the flow of rage saying:

“Now, you hold it right there, dad. Maybe I’m allowed to say something as well.”

“Yes,” his father reacted curtly, “It is about time you started to explain yourself and your stubborn attitude!”

That was not what Niki had in mind. He didn’t think about that, but decided with his anger and frustration reaching boiling point, that this had to stop!

Carefully considering his words Niki started to speak with a cold precision:

“Since you have decided to treat me as a trainee in the company, in other words as an employee, I think I am entitled to the same rights other employees have. And since German law sees the time outside working hours as private time on which the employer can’t assert rights, it is only fair to see my weekends as my own time. Which means without any interruptions or having to justify myself for my behavior or achievements during working hours. I guess that is a clear position, isn’t it?”

“Don’t push it, man!” something in his mind warned him penetratingly.

Funny enough his father used the same words, when he reacted in a threatening growl:

“Don’t push it, boy. And mind your step! Tell me, you wayward, wise-ass brat, what do you want to do about it?”

“I don’t know,” Niki replied quietly, “But I’ll think of something!”

There was a click and a long buzz, ostensibly the end of this “Sunday-on-another-day Lecture.”

Niki felt the adrenalin leaving his body, not even aware it had been there in the first place. He imagined his whole body wet from cold perspiration and he took a deep breath of relief. In a way he worried about where this might lead but on the other hand it didn’t matter any longer. It was out in the open now. He had made his first step in resisting his father’s dominance and he felt good about it.

With a defiant glance he stared into Herr Weber’s snake eyes with a cold and disdainful expression as he passed the manager, thinking:

“Just report all you have to report, creep!”

Then he went into the store and started work.

But not for long, within ten minutes he heard Herr Weber call out again:

“Young man, there’s another phone call for you in the office!”

“Am I some kind of call center?” he thought irritated. But he went to the office and took the phone another time, ready for what he expected to be the second round of recently opened hostilities. But the person on the other side was not the one he had anticipated:

“Niki, Dmitri here… My God, little bro… what have you done? He’s seething with anger. It took me some very smooth talking to avoid him kicking you out of the company and out of the family. Jesus, bro… slow down! Be reasonable!”

“To achieve what, Dima?” Niki asked somewhat cynically.

“I don’t know,” his brother answered, “because I don’t understand what you are trying to achieve. But the way you are behaving now is a recipe for disaster. Have you considered the consequences if he kicks you out? You’re out of home, out of money, out of job… out of everything! Please be careful, little bro!”

“Why are you doing this?” Niki asked amazed.

“Doing what?” was the reaction.

“Talking to me this way.” Niki explained. “You never did that before, you know.”

There was a short silence, followed by a long sigh. Then Dmitri said:

“Since you are completely unobservant, this might come as a surprise to you, but I care for you, little bro!”

“Now that’s the first time in my eighteen years,” Niki thought with a wry smile, but he kept silent. He sensed that caution was the keyword now.

“So, bro…” Dmitri continued, “please be careful and don’t overdo it. I guess he’ll get used to being unable to call you on Sundays to lecture you, so it’ll settle down. But don’t do any other stupid things. You might end up on the wrong side!”

“Yeah, like you! Being a slave of our father,” was the next sarcastic thought, never spoken out loud. But there was one question nagging him:

“Dima, why did you suggest he send me to this godforsaken town in the first place?”

The answer came surprisingly fast.

“Like I said, little bro… because I care for you! I wanted to get you out of the house to avoid any incidents between the two of you.”

“What incidents?” Niki asked.

“I’ll explain it to you another time,” Dima said, “I’m short on time now. But, little bro… I did it for your sake so you can develop your own life. Although I freely admit I have no idea how you see that life of your own! It completely eludes me!”

“Yeah, well, Dima… leave that to me, will you?” he said softly.

“Will you please slow down and be careful, for your own sake?” Dmitri asked with concern in his voice.

Niki thought it over in a flash. He could have rejected it out of hand, but he understood the results such a course would bring, results that appeared fearful.

“I’ll consider it!” he replied somewhat cowardly.

But what else could he do? He had taken the first step in fighting himself free not fifteen minutes before and he was content with that. It was no use to do it all in one morning. He took a swig of bitterness, but felt he was not able yet to take the whole cup of poison. It would cause him insurmountable problems to cope with, problems he couldn’t even envisage. But Dima’s bleak picture of being out of money, out of a home and out of a job would surely be catastrophic. He ought to know: he had the living proof of where it could lead right with him at home at the moment. So, in a way he gave in somewhat with a non-committal concession of “considering it”. He knew, he was only buying time!

“That’s all I can expect, I guess,” Dmitri said tired, “Speak to you soon, little bro.”

A click signaled the end of the call.

“Oh shit… where do I go from here?” was the only thing Niki could think, still holding the receiver in his hand, “In a way I’m losing it with things going the way they are going now!”

For a second time he passed Herr Weber, but his eyes were by far less defiant than the first time.

 

There was no denying it. Over the days and nights of Lukas being a guest in Niki’s apartment the undercurrent of tensions from an erotic attraction between the two boys grew, but both boys kept a grip on themselves.

Niki slept in his own bed, while Lukas seemed perfectly happy with the couch. It was “A lot better than the dirty floor of a shitty ruin.” He got up every morning with a beaming smile on his face. Both had their own reasons for keeping things under control.

Niki considered it as taking advantage of Lukas’s desolate situation, being aware that he only wanted sex desperately and no love was involved. If there was something like a blossoming love he was hardly aware of it. He saw it as a one-off encounter, one or two nights, but that was it.

Lukas was simply afraid sex would overtax the generosity of his host, which put him back on the street pretty fast again. The result was an awkward status quo between the two of them. Talking, laughing and having a good time with each other. Warm, loving glances and every now and then a hand on the other’s hand, mostly on the initiative of Lukas. Nothing more, despite the increasingly languorous atmosphere between them with the physical attraction growing gradually, yet inevitably.

 

Things came to a peak exactly one week after Niki found Lukas, that was on the next Saturday evening, but even this escalation had its own clever way of being masterfully cloaked.

Niki noticed Lukas was very silent that evening, an absent look about him, as if he was brooding over some problem. Initially he tried to ignore it. He felt he had no right to probe the boy’s thoughts but it started to worry him more and more so pretty late that evening he broached the subject:

“What is bothering you, Lukas?”

Lukas looked up as if he had been caught red handed, but said nothing.

“Sorry,” Niki said softly, “I don’t want to intrude into your personal affairs, but you have been so silent tonight, it worries me.”

Lukas looked at him with a sad smile and answered:

“I was thinking about Peter.”

“Who is Peter?” Niki quizzed, not knowing who or what was involved.

“He is my boyfriend… my lover… who I left about three months ago, walking away like a thief. Or maybe more accurately, like a ghost, shrouded by the night and vanishing into the mist.”

“But…” Niki said thoughtfully, “you miss him?”

Lukas nodded without saying a word.

“Can’t you get in touch with him?” Niki asked.

“Don’t know how,” was the reply, given in an even sadder tone, “I’ve got no cell phone.”

Niki could solve that very easily and made his line of thought very clear by asking:

“You’ve got his number?”

Lukas looked up with a twinkle of confusion in his eyes but nodded again.

Niki pushed his cell phone over the table, saying:

“Take mine and call him. Since I don’t want to intrude on what the two of you have to discuss, I’ll be in the kitchen, making us a bite to eat. See you later, buddy.”

He rose and went to the kitchen, keeping his fingers crossed that Lukas’s phone call with this Peter would have more positive results than his own call with Raimund. But in a way he couldn’t understand he also felt disappointed as if his own hopes were being blown out of the window. Funny thing was he didn’t have a clue what these hopes actually were.

While cutting cheese and salami into small squares Niki couldn’t avoid overhearing the phone call in the living room. But he couldn’t understand a word of it. Lukas talked in some kind of unintelligible dialect that went far beyond Niki’s comprehension.

After a long time, with Niki still waiting in the kitchen, the phone call ended.

Lukas walked into the kitchen and with a “thanks” he laid the cell phone on the counter, not saying another word. But his face said it all, maybe the call didn’t go quite like Niki’s call but the result had to have been just as negative. Niki felt the urge to comfort the boy, to give him a hug, but instead he said softly:

“I’m so sorry!”

Lukas just shrugged and they both walked back to the living room in silence. They made an attempt at conversation, but lapsed into silence until Lukas surprised Niki by saying:

“He wants me back.”

“Then why don’t you,” Niki inquired, “go back?”

“That’s not so easy. It took me three months to get here. So, I assume it’ll take me three months to get back. The thing is, he made it clear he doesn’t want to wait three months.”

Niki shrugged, not seeing the problem in the first place, and said:

“There are trains, you know!”

Lukas emitted a dejected chuckle, objecting:

“I’ve got no money to take the train.”

“Let me worry about that, OK?” Niki said spontaneously.

Lukas shook his head frantically and took what seemed to be his final stand on the topic of the call, when he said:

“No! First of all you’ve done enough for me. But secondly and more important, I’m not sure if I want to go back. I can’t see myself living the rest of my life in that town, or even living with Peter. I feel no need to defend and justify myself. I mean, I didn’t do anything wrong, I was the one who was kicked out. I’m not sure how, but in these rambling months I’ve changed since I left there. I guess, that by now I have other goals in life than I originally had.”

“Did you tell him that?” Niki asked.

“Yeah, I did.” Lukas replied matter-of-factly. “And I told him that the chances of me coming back were as good as nil.”

“How did he take it?” Niki continued his questioning. In a way he felt he had no right to ask. But he felt an urgent need to show he cared.

,Lukas shrugged and thought over his reply but after a while he said with a long sigh:

“Let us say… that he took it with reluctant acceptance.”

“Tell me, what are your new goals in life?” Niki asked curious.

Lukas grinned shyly and hesitantly, prompting Niki to exclaim:

“It can’t be that bad. Come on, tell me! You got me burning with curiosity.”

“In a way I like it on the road,” Lukas made a serious attempt to explain himself, “No, not the circumstances I was in, but the traveling, the freedom. I don’t want to go back to some suffocating town in Thuringia. There they will give me the cold shoulder just because I’m gay. I have to find a way to make a living while traveling around. So… I’m thinking of joining a circus. I would love to become a circus clown. It would give me a chance to make people forget about their problems for a while and make them laugh without inhibition or shame.”

“Where did you get that idea?” Niki asked in utter surprise, liking it at once.

Lukas smiled somewhat ashamed, clearly considering if he would answer. It looked as if he had decided to do so because he said:

“I was more or less the town clown back home. I always made people laugh. By doing something funny or saying something hilarious just because I felt like it. And I was pretty bad at gymnastics at school. I didn’t want to be seen as clumsy and become the laughingstock because I was so gawky. I solved it by exaggerating my inability into something funny, having the whole class laugh at the joke, not at the clumsy mistake. In that way I found out I had a talent to make people laugh. Besides…,”

Lukas chuckled, his eyes glittering with pleasure when he added in a splendid example of self-mockery:

“The job fits the color of my hair!”

It sounded so sweet, it sounded so beautiful, it sounded so romantic. It said all there was to say about the boy that he found in that derelict building. But it made Niki unequivocally clear that all his dreams for a future with this boy were lost. No matter how vague his dreams might have been at this stage. Maybe it was exactly this vagueness that saved him from a broken heart. Instead, he just accepted it with a mental shoulder shrug.

“You know…,” Lukas suddenly said, “An hour ago I said I missed him. And then I cut all ties with him. Not exactly logical, is it? Not to mention it’s actually pretty weird!”

“I think these things are never logical,” Niki said.

He knew what he was talking about. His being illogical was in a different field. He resisted his father and wanted to break away from him but at the same time he felt a huge reluctance to take on the consequences of doing so. It was also illogical, it was equally weird.

Niki was no longer able to ignore the growing desire to feel the boy who sat on the opposite side of the table so demurely. He wanted to run his hands over his skin and more, he wanted to feel him inside. With a second mental shrug, aimed at deceiving himself, he accepted the chances of that had been reduced to zero after what had been said.

Maybe he could just join Lukas in some circus? That would certainly solve the problems he had with his father and they could stay together! He thought it over briefly but decided that the idea was a bit difficult to imagine it working.

There it was again: resistance against his father, reluctance to accept the inevitable results.

Nevertheless, to avoid any short term problems he took his cell phone and switched it off again, to evade another “Sunday Afternoon Lecture.”

To hide his disappointment and because he felt he was on the verge of making a mistake, Niki shut up about the phone call and steered the conversation to less sensitive topics. It caused a twinkle of understanding in Lukas’s eyes, but he complied without any protest. After drinking a few beers Niki was feeling tired, he stretched, yawned, and decided even if it was in very early Sunday morning to get some sleep:

“Man, I’m sleepy. I’m off to bed. Sleep well,…buddy.”

He nearly made the mistake of saying “sweetheart,” but fortunately, the oyster crept back into his shell at the very last moment.

 

Niki was sound asleep, as always nude. He couldn’t stand clothing on his body when he was sleeping. It was too hot and too restricting. It hindered him in every movement he made. At the age of thirteen he had simply decided that sleeping naked would suit him just fine. He needed freedom of movement when he was in bed.

Somewhere during the night (he had no idea at all what time it was) he sensed movement in his bed and he was very certain it wasn’t him making it. It felt as if someone was crawling under the blankets beside him. His common sense was not exactly working at full capacity at that moment, but told him it had to be Lukas. There was nobody else in the apartment. He thought about it only briefly, deciding he felt just fine with the idea of having this uninvited bed partner.

His subconsciousness warned him the body next to him was naked as well. He felt the warmth and softness of the person’s skin directly touching his own, not to mention that one hard and protruding body part pressed against his bottom. And then the ultimate warning came: soft lips touched the nape of his neck tenderly.

Still sleep-charged he chose the way of least resistance, pretending to be asleep. But he hadn’t reckoned with that one tiny unconscious reaction: involuntarily he let out a soft moaning of pleasure. Actually more the sound of a purring tomcat. No matter what sound he had produced, he was fully awake now!

“I got scared you would never come!” he whispered.

“You could have invited me,” Lukas replied with a hot chuckle.

“I guess I’m too shy to do that,” he replied.

“No need to be shy,” Lukas said softly, “A boy like you can have hordes of boyfriends.”

“I know,” Niki said, “but when the real Mr. Right comes along I always turn shy.”

Soft lips moved along the side of his neck until they reached his ear. This in itself already thrilling sensation was followed by an even more intense one: the tickling of a tongue tip and then the soft and gentle nibbling of teeth on his earlobe. It sent shivers of joy over his spine. He had been waiting for it such an unbearably long time… he wanted it… he needed it!

The shivers were no longer confined to his spine, but his whole body started to tremble with pure desire when he felt how Lukas’s index finger delicately traced a line between his buttocks.

“Oh… yes… please!” he groaned softly, actually so quietly he had his doubts if Lukas could hear it in the first place. It seemed he did because he complied, promptly pushing his finger between the soft tissue of the cheeks, carefully searching for the ultimate prize. The moment he hit it Niki was unable to stifle a cry of desperate wanting.

Lukas made it clear he understood the feeling of urgency his lover for tonight radiated and threw all delicacy and tenderness overboard. His lips no longer stroked Niki’s neck but sucked in the skin while his teeth softly bit like a predator. Niki didn’t mind, he was used to it. Raimund had also been very direct in making his point and actually, Raimund had his “point” inside pretty fast. He never minced words when he did it.

It was no longer tender and sweet, but wild and ferociously passionate! All inhibitions seemed to vanish when Lukas maneuvered around the other boy moving towards what both had been craving for, getting quite vigorous in the way he did it.

He shifted his weight, pushing Niki over on his belly and mounted him fully. Then he gave the wildfire inside him free reign and thrusted intensely, moving his hips with a rapid, increasing momentum.

Lukas was panting and moaning, Niki cooing and yelling for more. It didn’t even take three minutes before Lukas cried out:

“I’m cumming… I’m cumming!”

“Yes…,” Niki screamed, fully out of control by now, “Do it! Give it to me!”

And he got it… he cried out reaching the edge, as Lukas exploded inside him. He shot his own warm, white lava with a force that repeated one, two aftershocks. It felt so wonderful after all these months without, like liberation from chastity or a rupture away from involuntary celibacy!

Lukas collapsed on top of Niki, still panting and trying to catch his breath. Once he managed to assemble enough air to speak, he uttered:

“My God, how I needed this!”

“You can’t even dream up how desperately I was dying for it.” Niki whispered with a satisfied sigh.

Niki loved the feeling of the warm skin on his. He wanted it to last forever! Half-conscious he said softly, at the same time carefully and halting:

“Lukas… take me in your arms and let us pretend we are lovers!”

Lukas did as asked. He embraced the boy under him with the tenderness returning in every kiss he gave. Niki responded equally lovingly, only thinking:

“How much pretending do I need? I don’t want to pretend! I simply love him!”

Maintaining their intimate embrace, they slumbered away in the universe of dreams.

 

Maybe it had been nothing more than a moment of weakness, a short lapse of forgetfulness about his obligations as a clergyman. Or maybe it was just an explosion of lust, which did not lead to any further consideration of his action.

Whether or not it was planned or simply a conjunction of circumstance, it mattered very little. On that Sunday morning after Mass, the priest had masturbated the beautiful, young and innocent acolyte. With that act, he had plunged the boy into an ordeal of self-doubt and terrible guilt.

However, there was something Inno missed completely in his examination of events. Had he been reading the newspapers or listening to the radio news he might have heard about it. But since there was no money for a newspaper and the radio was limited to pop music, he couldn’t have picked up the idea, that he was one of many boys who suffered the same fate at the same hands. It was the hands of “those of the parish,” originally gay slang in French and Italian for a homosexual. Nowadays it was the self-chosen code name in the inner circles of the Catholic Church for priests, bishops and cardinals, who demonize homosexuality most vehemently with their mouths but practice it themselves in most enthusiastic and indulging ways with their genitals (and of course, for a considerable part of it with the very same mouths).

Unfortunately, Inno unknowingly took the hard path, not being aware of other stories in the news. Since he had undeniably liked being touched and masturbated, a bizarre twist of the mind made him do his utmost best to find a way in which he was the culprit and not the priest:

“I must have seduced him, no matter if I was unaware of doing it. Priests don’t do things like that all by themselves. It must have been my unspoken invitation to him.”

If that was the case, Inno thought he had to be an extremely unlikely candidate to become a servant of the Lord, which was his intention. Having the ability to lead a priest into temptation branded him more as an envoy of the Satan.

The problem of this one sin was that it got only got more complicated by the day, simply because it resulted in a series of other sins.

His first orgasm, brought about by the priest, acquainted him with that awesome feeling of pleasure and it made him addicted to it. He discovered it for what it was, at least for him: it was the only pleasant feeling he could control himself without any outside influences and offered him the much needed relief from all the hormones screaming through the body of every boy his age.

It became a daily occurrence. He would lie naked on his bed in the evening, close his eyes and began to touch himself. He played with his balls, stroked his fingers between his legs and then up to and along his rapidly growing cock. Then he let them slide up to the main center of the coming eruption tantalizingly slowly, massaging the tip gently with two fingertips, the image of his classmate Dieter in his mind.

Oh yes, Dieter… On one hand he was his main bully, the one who invented the cursed nickname “Pope,” but at the same time the boy remained at the top of his list of desires and it took him little effort to forgive his idol for all his wrongdoings.

Imagining Dieter would make love to him he thoroughly enjoyed the feeling, the rising urge and pressure, postponing the moment of relief until it almost hurt him. Then he let it come, shot after shot landing on his belly, on his chest and sometimes on his chin and face.

But while the aftershocks of the orgasm ebbed away the terrible recoil came: he had sinned again! Because DIY, better known as masturbation, was a sin in the Catechism. Another sin on top of this enormous sin of seducing the priest and all those daily sins since then. He had to be doomed to hell and damnation for sure. Even though he really needed the feeling of pleasure, he developed an aversion against himself. Initially, he thought it would do to exercise continence, but after feeling really satisfied and proud of having managed that for two full evenings it just resulted in four wanks in one night, draining him completely of sperm, making it inevitable to resort to a dry orgasm the fourth time.

He knew he should confess, but although it was the only way to get rid of his ‘criminal record’ with the Lord, he lacked the courage to do so. He had to be beyond remission and chances were huge the priest, to whom he confessed, would be so abhorred that he would throw him out of the church. He did the only thing he could do, he prayed to the Lord for forgiveness and he did so for hours at a time, until morning light pierced through the curtains.

This weird approach caused him practical problems. His school results dropped from the sheer lack of sleep and concentration, often dozing off during classes. Teachers noticed it, asked him questions about it and he answered them with plain lies! It was impossible to tell them the truth. Nor did he talk to his mother about it. That was something unthinkable. He had already let God down, he couldn’t do the same to his mamma. It would surely break her heart. Then all was lost! Then it was no use to keep on living!

In daily life he became testy from lack of sleep and depressed from all the thoughts and problems that swirled through his mind. However, as an extra burden another problem emerged. In a way he started to feel it was no use to keep on praying. It was simply unconvincing. He prayed for forgiveness for a sin he committed another time the following evening, not only once, but continuously. Maybe he could fool his teachers with lies and vague answers, but he was certain he couldn’t fool God. God was omniscient! He had to find another way to show Him his repentance was genuine and he was only the victim of a terrifying sinful addiction of which he was unable to cure himself. Maybe this line of thinking was finely tuned with his guilt, but the execution of it proved to be a great question mark!

It didn’t discourage him. Lacking his own computer he spent hours behind one of the computers in the city library, carefully choosing the one that didn’t allow anyone to peek at what he was looking for. There, tucked away in the corner, he googled and googled until his eyes saw nothing but blue-colored entries on the screen, feeling increasingly hopeless. Only after weeks they started to gleam: it looked like he had found what he was searching for!

He grabbed a notebook from his school bag… not a digital one but an old-fashioned paper one… and started to jot down notes on what he read. His thoughts went into a higher gear on how to shape his atonement. Part of his brain was preoccupied with what he had to do, what he needed and where to find it. He found out soon enough what was needed, the question of outlets was somewhat more complicated but answered pretty fast. The problem was the places where he could purchase the necessary items appalled him:

“Should I really go there?” he muttered under his breath.

But he knew he had to, at least if he wanted to implement his plan. It had to be the kind of action, that required a deep breath, eyes closed and brains shut off and then simply do it without looking back!

The thought of having to go into one of these places was so repulsive to him he tried to find ways to cancel the whole plan. But after a few days it became clear he was only postponing the inevitable. Stubbornly he kept praying knowing very well this was no longer sufficient to appease the Almighty. The moment had arrived where this way of repentance had to be replaced by sterner measures, most urgently. He had to swallow his aversion.

The day after he sprinted on his bike from school to the only shop of this kind he could find in Merligborn. Funny enough he passed it as if it hadn’t been there. He parked his bike some distance away and walked back with trembling knees and a nervous feeling in his belly. When he reached the entrance he looked around with skittish glances, making sure not a living soul would see him enter the store. Especially not one of his schoolmates or anybody else who knew him. With a sigh of relief he saw no one appeared to take notice of him and with another sigh of tensed anticipation he entered the store.

Not even in his wildest dreams or in his most sinful imaginings would he come up with the idea, that he would have seen himself entering a store like this. But that is exactly what he did. He didn’t breeze in full of confidence, he tried to slip in as secretively and as inconspicuously as possible. This was the first time in his life he had set foot in a sex shop.

He was amazed the store was so large, but he didn’t have time to dwell on that, because a young woman behind the counter looked at him with a mix of curiosity and suspicion in her eyes, calling out to him:

“Hey, boy… come over here!”

He obeyed. There wasn’t much else he could do. Once he stood in front of the counter she asked in a sharp tone:

“Are you eighteen, boy?”

“Yes, miss,” he answered politely, “I’m in my last year of high school, preparing to go to…”

He almost made a grave mistake by saying ‘seminary,’ but corrected himself rapidly with:

“To go to university.”

“And can you prove that?” the lady continued her skeptical interrogation.

He had no idea how, but she solved that problem by saying:

“Do you have a passport?”

“My God, she wants my passport! Then she knows it all, my name and everything,” he thought panicking.

She seemed to read his thoughts because with a sarcastic smile she sneered:

“I’m not interested in your name, boy, only in your date of birth. So, either you show me or you can leave again by the same way you came in!”

He had no choice: he had to give her his passport. After she glanced at it, she seemed to be satisfied, because she gave it back with a:

“Take a look around, boy. If you need help, just let me know!”

He walked between the many shelves with things on them whose purpose eluded him. And he was amazed by the variety of underwear in very seductive styles, purposefully designed to show a whole lot of man or woman. While he stared at the many sex toys he noticed the head of an elderly man sticking over the shelf. The man smiled at him and licked clearly over his lips. He nodded towards a door that was adorned with a shield, saying “Eros Cinema-Entrance.”

“I’ll pay your entrance.” the man said conspiratorially.

Inno blushed, lowering his eyes in shame and rapidly turning his head to look the other way. Only after a full minute did he dare to look over the shelf, noticing to his solace that the man had gone.

“I must find what I’m looking for and get the hell out of here!”

Unfortunately, the layout of the huge store didn’t facilitate things. But, finally, at one of the very last shelves, tucked away in an extreme corner hidden from the entrance, he found what he was looking for. In so many variations of size, material and versions it took him considerable time to make his choice. It was mostly governed by his financial limitations, he knew he had only forty euros to spend. After long deliberations he settled for an item that cost almost thirty euros, giving him some leeway in getting tea at school until the next payday from his paper round.

He went back to the counter, paid and stuffed the item into his school bag, thinking about a suitable spot where he could hide it in his room. The last thing he wanted was his mother to find it. Now that would cause very curious, even inquisitive questions.

But once home he managed to find a very secure spot for his ‘top secret’ thing and he decided to start his new punishment that very same evening.

 

While he unpacked his new secret weapon, which would solve the problem of his Fall and would protect him from eternal damnation, he felt tense, tenser than ever before in his life. Studying the item intently he wondered how it would feel when he used it. Would it really hurt, at least hurt enough to convince God that his repentance was genuine? He knew he could only hope and he did not expect any answers from Heaven. He felt that God and he were no longer on speaking terms.

He undressed until he stood naked in his room, still in doubt if he would have the courage to start what had to be done. In his state of mind it had become a necessity to receive absolution for all his wrongdoings.

“But, I could also confess, could I?” he muttered, hovering in two minds in an ultimate effort to avoid the expected pain, whilst stroking the black leather tails.

“No. I can’t! No priest will believe me. And he will find my sins too grave to give absolution. This is strictly between God and me… without any intermediary!”

He raised the whip and slashed the leather strands over his shoulder and across his back. He clenched his teeth to suppress an outcry of pain: it hurt like hell! He raised his arm for the second time and started praying for forgiveness.

The second blow hurt even more, as did the third and the fourth. Inno was captured by another old Italian trait, the Medieval habit of the flagellanti, those who mortified their flesh by flogging themselves publicly as repentance for their sinful existence. A little later they actually started flogging themselves to pay for the sins of the whole of humanity. They grew into large groups who traveled from town to town where they flogged themselves incessantly while reciting psalms and praying. Their actions supposed to counter the plague of the Black Death which God had sent as a punishment for the terrible sins the human species had committed. This strange habit remained in use into the present day in the more extremist catholic circles. Rumors say Pope John Paul II regularly flogged himself in penance for his own and the world’s sins.

Inno raised his arm for the fifth blow, hesitating whether he would deliver it. The skin of his back felt really sore.

“Will God settle for five lashes this first time? I will expand the number later, I promise. But it hurts so much, my Lord. Will you settle for five?”

It didn’t matter what God thought… he decided for himself that for this very first time five lashes would do. He let the whip come down again, feeling this final cut more than the previous four. The excruciating pain made him feel dizzy, tears welled up in his eyes, his upper teeth bit down on his lower lip until blood came out, but he kept on praying. Once the fifth lash had been delivered he let himself fall on the bed. Sweat streamed over his skin and his back burnt like hell as if a large fire was charring every bit of skin. Suddenly he felt totally powerless, losing all control over his muscles. The whip fell out of his hand and landed on the floor.

“Oh God… this hurts!” he moaned.

It was harsh and brutal but he felt a strange kind of pride. He had done it. He had conquered the initial fear and had endured the pain, all to the Glory of God and in an earnest petition for His mercy.

He tried to lie down on his back, but was unable to do so, the pain was too great. He turned over on his belly. Feeling miserable and exhausted he only wanted to sleep. But before dozing off he grinned at the thought that the whole flogging had at least one initial positive result: he felt no inclination to masturbate if he was even able to get it up.

 

Next morning’s shower was anything but a pleasure, the hot water on his still painful back felt as if it had been boiled. He added cold water, but that wasn’t greeted with enthusiasm by the rest of his body. He got out of the shower, dried himself, but forgot to take a look at his back.

Inno continued the floggings each evening, not going over five lashes. Unconsciously he ignored what he was doing to his back and he never bothered to look at it in the morning. Until that one morning.

He stood with his back towards the mirror and coincidentally looked around to search for something. His eyes fell on the mirror and his back. The sight was enough to almost make him retch. His whole back, from his shoulders to his bottom, was covered in red scars, some of them with crusts of gore on them. The worst part of it was he saw it on the day he had two hours of sports in the afternoon!

One thing was absolutely certain, he couldn’t go to the sports class. When he changed clothes in the dressing room the whole class would see it. It would cause laughter from his classmates and questioningly raised eyebrows from the sports teacher, that was for sure! And he was well aware, the teacher would report it to the school counselor, as he was obliged to do. That left him exactly one remaining escape option. He had to skip the sport classes until his back healed and afterwards he had to plan his floggings in a way that they left no marks before the next sports class. He was quite content with this ingenious and elegant solution.

He followed his plan and skipped sports class. He hid in the bicycle shed and in the bushes around school, carefully making sure he stayed out of sight of anyone who might ask penetrating questions as to why he wasn’t in class. Once sports class was over he went back inside and mixed with the rest of his class, sauntering to the history class for the next two hours. There was one thing which didn’t go according to plan. One of the first people he saw in the corridor was the sports teacher. And worse, despite trying to duck away out of sight, the man saw him!

“Inno, I didn’t see you in the gym,” the man started. “Why is that?”

“I eeeuuhhh… I had a backache, sir,” Inno replied in a hardly convincing way, “I guess I hurt some muscle while…”

“Shit, while what? Not while flogging! But what then?”

“While what, Inno?” the man insisted.

“While jogging, sir,” he tried, “I thought it was a good idea to give it some rest”.

“Yeah, sure,” the teacher said, his face showing incredulity. “Next time you come and see me before class. Got that, Inno?”

“Yes, sir,” Inno muttered meekly.

The man simply walked away, leaving Inno thinking it had all been a storm in a tea cup and it would have no further consequences.

He was wrong. Exactly one day later he was told to report to the school counselor. With a heavy heart he knocked at the door and after hearing a “Come in” he lingered, until he heard a second, more impatient “Come in!”

Reluctantly Inno entered the small office and by way of greeting he asked:

“You… you wanted to see me, sir?”

“Hello Inno…,” the young counselor, a man somewhere in his late twenties or early thirties, said kindly, “Yes, that’s right. Sit down please.”

Seeing no alternative other than to comply, Inno sat down, his nerves on edge. In a way he sensed problems were brewing really big time! It had to be, it was too coincidental that he had to report one day after skipping sports.

“Why do you want to talk to me, sir?” Inno asked cautiously.

The counselor’s face took on a serious, almost sad expression when he said:

“I’ll lay my cards on the table right away, Inno. We are worried about you. Your study results have crashed in the last few months and now you are also skipping classes. That is a kind of disturbing development for a good student like you. It leads us to think something is worrying you.”

“Oh no, sir,” Inno objected. “Everything is just fine!”

“Really?” the man persisted, “I see that slightly differently. Besides, I hope you are aware you are here on a grant. Which means we have to report your results to the board of the foundation, who gave you the grant. If they are unhappy with these results, they might kick you out, even ask to repay the what has already been spent. Of course I’m talking about in the worst case.”

“My God,” Inno panicked, “I can never pay that from my newspaper rounds!”

“Besides,” the counselor continued, “if they withdraw the grant, we can’t keep you here. Now… that would be a shame, so shortly before your exams, don’t you think?”

“What is happening to me?” Inno’s mind screamed.

“On the other hand,” the counselor added in a re-assuring tone, “the board is also reasonable and can understand problems can hinder a student’s development. We can tell them there are problems without saying what. They will accept that and continue the grant, so that we can solve what is bothering you and you can do your exams. But… you will have to tell me what is bothering you. Do you understand?”

Inno understood perfectly well. He might be confused, but he was certainly not a fool. But what could he tell the man? That he was in love with Dieter? That he was a fag? That he loved the way the priest had wanked him to orgasm and ever since he did it to himself almost every evening to enjoy the feeling? That he wanted to be a priest, but he had turned out to be a grave sinner by doing that? That he tried to atone for his sins by flogging himself, because praying was insufficient? And he had skipped sports to hide the scars on his back? And what if they discovered the scars and he didn’t answer? Maybe they would think his mother did that to him! No… impossible, not his mamma, the sweetest woman on earth. He had to keep her out of this, no matter the price!

But… what if the foundation withdrew his grant and he had to leave school? His mother would be notified by the school. And she would demand an explanation from him, how things had come so far that he had been kicked out. And what would he tell her? Because, basically there would be the same questions, demanding the same answers, answers he couldn’t give!

And what about his dream? If he was kicked out of school and didn’t graduate, he couldn’t start his study at the seminary, so there would be no priesthood for him. That is if he left the question of his moral suitability to become a priest out of his considerations. After all the sins he had already committed. He would disappoint his mamma, first because he would never be ordained a priest and secondly, because nothing would be left that protected him any longer from his wrong love for boys! It was an unbearable thought for him.

“Inno,” he heard the man ask softly, “will you tell me what is going on?”

Maybe he was willing to say, to share it with somebody, so he didn’t have to carry the burden all alone. But, HE SIMPLY COULDN’T! It was too intimate… and it was too bizarre to talk about!

Tears welled up in his eyes. He felt his whole life was crumbling. He was stuck! He knew it. There were three options and all of them would end in disaster. So, in reality there were no options.

“Inno,” the counselor pressed the matter gently, “do you understand you are endangering your grant? Of course, if you tell me about your problem, we can convince the board that it’ll be worked out and apply for a longer period, which they will agree to. They are very nice people, who understand that a boy your age can have problems. But you will have to start talking about it, son.”

“Yeah, you told me so three minutes ago!” Inno thought irritated. He knew the irritation towards the counselor was totally unjustified. The man was only trying to help him, although it eluded him how. He saw no way out, simply putting on a brave face wouldn’t be accepted, keeping silent wouldn’t be accepted. And when he started talking, the things he said would most certainly not be accepted! What could he do? He was completely trapped without any way out! He was the proverbial rabbit in the snare.

“Inno, tell me… what is troubling you?” he heard the soft voice again.

He lost control completely. His breathing became faster by the second, blind panic raged through his body and tears were streaming over his cheeks.

“I don’t know!” he cried out in total desperation.

The sudden outburst startled the seasoned counselor, but at the same time he knew the boy in front of him had a huge problem on his mind.

Although he couldn’t understand why, Inno saw a number of black blots in front of his eyes, they increased until he was hardly able to discern anything in the room. His body came to the rescue to save him from his impossible situation. Rapidly moving into a state of hyperventilation, the oxygen rushing to his brain made him faint. He fell from his chair like a stone and lay motionless on the floor.

“My God!” the counselor exclaimed in horror, his face ashen white. He grabbed the phone and dialed the janitor’s desk, screaming:

“Karsten here. Call an ambulance! And send the school nurse to my office!”