Crossroads: Tales from the Heartland - 8. Scott’s Day of Reckoning

I looked across the table at the young man sitting across from me and felt horrible. He looked to be about sixteen or seventeen, in which case he was legal but, nevertheless, I felt tremendous remorse for the way I’d used him. Not that I misled anyone. I was always very upfront about what it was I wanted. Some unscrupulous types would lure young boys into riding with them and do with them as they pleased. That was rape, pure and simple.

I didn’t do that. I might be a monster, but I was not a rapist… well, other than in the technical sense. Yes, having sex with someone under the age of consent, which was sixteen here in Indiana, amounted to statutory rape. Yes, my young companions were in a tough spot and may have felt compelled to put out or face starvation. Nevertheless, I never forced my young companions to do anything they didn’t want to. I let them know they could ride with me, no strings attached. However, if they wanted to spend the night with me in my bed, they could count on being well-fed and on having a ride to my next destination. Sometimes I'd even give them bus fare to help them find the new life they so desperately wanted.

“How’s breakfast?” I asked the boy who was my current charge. He truly was handsome, with his too-long, straw-blond hair and his vivid blue eyes. He had a small stud in his left ear but, other than that, was free of any piercings or tattoos and, believe me, I knew. Last night I’d had a chance to see all of him. His skin was flawless and he had obviously been well fed, probably up until a few days ago.

“Fine,” was all the boy said in typical teen fashion. I didn’t even remember what his name was… not that it mattered. They never gave me their real names anyway. I never asked many questions and I never probed. I didn’t want to know their stories - I’d heard too many tales of sorrow already. It was pretty easy to tell what had happened, anyway. This wasn’t a bad kid who got into trouble. This wasn’t a kid who got fed up with his strict parents and ran away. This wasn’t a kid who was into drugs… not yet, anyway. No, he was almost certainly a throwaway kid - a kid thrown out of the only home he’d ever known by parents who were supposed to love him unconditionally.

But here in the Midwest, so-called unconditional love had its limits. Love was unconditional so long as their kids lived up to their expectations - so long as they were straight. Here in the Bible Belt, gay kids were simply not allowed. The penalty for coming out was permanent exile - or worse. No one knew that better than I, for I had my own tale of sorrow to tell.

Looking back up at the kid, I noticed that he’d already cleaned his plate! I had barely started on my breakfast, and all I was having was a bagel and some coffee. The kid had ordered a full farmer’s breakfast, consisting of pancakes, eggs, bacon, sausage, hash browns, toast, orange juice and coffee. He’d practically inhaled it all.

“Would you like something else?” I asked him.

Although he answered, “No, that’s OK,” his eyes clearly gave him away.

“Tell you what,” I responded, “why don’t you order a double cheeseburger, a large order of fries and a slice of apple pie to go?” You can take it with you and eat it later, when you feel hungry, like in fifteen minutes.” The laugh he gave me was music to my ears.

After finishing my breakfast and settling the check, and with a more serious look on my face, I began with my usual parting speech. “Look kid, I know your plans probably didn’t include doing what we did last night. You’re a good-looking kid and could probably have your pick of girls… or boys.” The blush on his face pretty much confirmed he was gay.

“Life hasn’t exactly been kind to either of us,” I continued, “but you still have a future. Unlike me, someday you’ll find your Prince Charming and you will find acceptance. It may not seem like it now, but it will happen if you just hang in there. Just don’t let yourself be a victim…”

“But how will I survive if I don’t turn tricks?” he replied.

“There are people who can help…”

“People like you?” he asked. “What a fucking hypocrite! You’re a pervert who can’t get off unless you’re doin’ it with a kid who’s half your age…”

“Not quite!” I protested. I was only 26. At the most I was maybe ten years older. To him that might seem like a lifetime but, to me, it wasn’t that much.

Rolling his eyes, the boy continued, “So you justify it by tellin’ yourself you’re helping us out, givin’ us a ride and feedin’ us, and then you have the audacity to try to give me advice?

“Look, I’m not sayin’ I’m not grateful for the food and the lift, and I’m not even sayin’ I didn’t enjoy what we did last night. You’re pretty hot for an older guy,” he added as he blushed, “but I’d have never done it if it hadn’t been for my dad tellin’ his ‘faggot son’ to get the fuck out of his sight.

“What choices do I have? I have to eat and the only thing I have to offer is my body. I’d hoped to be a doctor some day. I was plannin’ to do my pre-med in Biology at IU, but now that ain’t gonna happen. So I have to turn tricks to survive, but that don’t mean I have to like it, and I sure as fuck don’t have to listen to your advice. Not to sound ungrateful, but fuck you.”

Whoa! What a mouth this one had, but he’d given me a lot to think about. Trouble was, I didn’t see any other way.

As the boy got up to leave, I said, “Wait!” and I pulled a card out of my wallet and a wad of cash, and handed it to him. “Reverend Slater runs a gay youth center in Indianapolis. He’ll never judge you and he won’t try to get you to go straight. He’ll give you a roof over your head and three squares a day, and he’ll help you to finish high school and get a job. He helped me more than you can know. Who knows, he may even help you get a scholarship so you can go to med school.

“Take the money and use it to buy a bus ticket to Indy, and then look him up…”

For a brief moment I saw a glimmer of hope flash across his face. Hope is a powerful thing, but it’s sometimes difficult to see it through the fog of hopelessness. The boy shook his head and left the card on the table before walking out of the diner. Damn! At least he took the money, though, but I suspected the last thing he intended to use it for was to get help.

Sighing, I took the card back off the table and pocketed it to use for the next kid who would listen. I could only imagine what this one had been through, and what he faced ahead. This was very likely his make-or-break time and I may very well have watched him break. I could only hope he would find his way to Reverend Slater or someone like him someday.

Getting up, I exited the diner and made my way to my Navigator, ready to begin another day. As a pharmaceutical representative, I covered a wide swath of territory that covered most of Indiana, northern Kentucky and western Ohio. I stopped at doctors’ offices throughout the region, offering a free lunch or an occasional dinner in return for a few minutes of the doctors' time. My employer tracked drug usage throughout the region, identifying doctors by their prescribing habits and targeting those they felt could be persuaded to use their products. Unfortunately, Eli Lilly was headquartered in Indianapolis and many of the local doctors favored their products. Still, we had some great alternatives that, in many cases, were more effective and cheaper. The more doctors I could convince to use our products, the larger my commissions.

One of the great things about my job was that my hours were entirely flexible. They could tell me whom to target and what products to push, and how many doctors’ offices I had to visit, but the specifics were entirely up to me. So if I happened to pass a cute boy along the road, I could easily stop and even detour a bit, enjoying his company and satisfying my needs in the process.

When I was in school at Butler and then IUPUI, I lived in Indy with my former foster dads, Tyler and Ricky, who owned a large house near Butler University. I tried dating other gay boys I met at school. We always had a good time, but when it came to my performance in the bedroom, I just couldn’t get it up. It wasn’t that I didn’t enjoy dating boys or that I didn’t find them attractive or sexually enticing. I just couldn’t enjoy sex with them. I had my fucking parents to thank for that!

When my parents discovered I was gay, they sent me away to one of those places that claim to make gay kids straight. There, I was tortured until I couldn’t enjoy sex with anyone, male or female. A lot of my fellow inmates, or patients as they were called, learned to fake a sexual reaction to women, earning themselves a ticket home and the support of their parents. That never happened with me. Because of my lack of improvement when it came to my interest in women, after a year of torture, I was deemed a treatment failure and unceremoniously released. The facility didn’t like to admit to its failures and so I was set out in the middle of nowhere with only the clothes on my back.

I tried going back home but my parents wouldn’t even let me stay the night, let alone try to patch things up. As far as they were concerned, I wasn’t their son anymore and so I managed to hitchhike to Indianapolis, where I lived on the streets for quite some time. Unable to get it up, I could hardly sell myself as a prostitute and I wasn’t about to sell drugs. I resorted to begging and, when absolutely necessary to survive, to stealing. It was because of my stealing that I was arrested, twice. The second time the judge hooked me up with Reverend Slater. It literally saved my life. It was Reverend Slater who hooked me up with my foster dads, got me caught up on my studies and helped me get my life back on track.

Unfortunately, getting my life back on track didn’t include my sexuality. Although I lived with a committed gay couple in a supportive environment, thanks to the personal hell I’d been through, I still got sick whenever I tried to have a normal sexual relationship. I tried dating in high school and college and I enjoyed being with guys my age, but I kept finding myself being attracted to young teens with smooth skin, peach fuzz on the upper lip and high-pitched voices that still cracked. I couldn’t help it. I ended up having a few liaisons with young teenage boys, even when I was in college, and I found that getting it up with them wasn’t a problem. I didn’t realize the implications until much later - that I was a pederast - a man who enjoyed sex with young teenage boys and only with young teenage boys. It was an attraction that would probably never change no matter how old I became.

The best I could figure, my sexual attractions were frozen in time at a point in my life before my parents discovered that I was gay. Young teenage boys triggered something inside of me - something from before the sexual reorientation program that had otherwise destroyed my sexual interest. How ironic it was that a program meant to make me straight had not only destroyed any possibility of having a normal sex life, but the only form of sexual interest that wasn’t affected was the one that was the least appropriate, or even legal.

When I finished my MBA, I interviewed for a position with a small maker of generic drugs known as Walden Pharmaceuticals. I guess not many business majors were willing to spend all their time on the road, covering such a large territory as the region I was expected to cover, and so I handily got the job. The pay was pretty good, too. Since most of my time would be spent in hotels and I really only needed an address where I could receive my snail mail, I rented a studio apartment in Cincinnati and spent my last penny sprucing up the luxury vehicle that was supplied to me on a company lease.

It was a nice vehicle to begin with - a Lincoln Navigator with full leather seats and leather trim; a vehicle designed to handle the Midwestern back roads I frequented and, by itself, was enough to impress. When I finished sprucing it up, however, whether consciously or not, it became a vehicle that could entice young boys into doing things they might have never considered doing before, and definitely not with an older guy. Although the original electronics were pretty good, as they had to be to support the built-in GPS navigation package, I replaced it with something more over the top - something only a teenager would appreciate.

In place of the stock Bose audio system, I went for a top-of-the-line Pioneer head unit with every audio and video option imaginable. Loaded with over a hundred gigabytes of music and movies, it fed into a 2000 watt Mirantz amp that powered three ginormous subwoofers and eighteen speakers throughout the cabin. Added to that was an X-Box One video game console, a 4G LTE mobile hot spot that fed into the latest Apple iPad and, my most recent addition, a small refrigerator, stocked with sodas and snacks. It was a teen boy’s paradise.

Besides my car, the one other thing I had going for me was my youthful looks. Although a liability in my job, my young appearance was a definite asset when it came to picking up boys. Many kids said I looked more like sixteen than twenty-six. Teenagers as young as thirteen or even twelve were attracted to me. For some reason they felt safe with me, and they were more willing to fool around with someone who looked like another kid than someone who looked my actual age. I couldn’t help but wonder how long my youthful appearance would last, though, and how in the world I’d find willing boys when I reached middle age.

Although I had a harder time getting it up with older teens that were sixteen or seventeen, at least sex with them was legal, and so I made every effort to pick up older teens. Unfortunately, many sixteen-year-olds and most seventeen-year-olds looked more like adults than kids, and I found sex with them was impossible. Limiting myself to boys who at least claimed to be sixteen or seventeen, but looked young for their age was taking its toll on me. Most hitchhikers by far were boys in their mid to late teens and, hence, I had no trouble finding young riders, more than a few of whom were willing to spend a night with me in return for food, shelter and another ride

For better or for worse, it was not uncommon to see a younger teen attempting to hitchhike their way out of a bad situation at home and, of course, I never hesitated to give them a ride. Although I never asked anything of them in return, all too often my resolve was tested. I didn’t want to take advantage of kids in a bad situation but, when the opportunity arose, I was more than happy to extend an offer of a warm bed and a full stomach in return for a night in the sack with me. The temptation was just too great to do otherwise. Likewise, the temptation for them of free meals and shelter was too great to turn down as well. We both got what we wanted, but I always felt guilty afterwards.

It had been some four years since I joined Walden Pharma, and I’d long ago lost count of the number of boys who'd ridden shotgun with me, and with whom I’d shared my bed at night. I’d been with boys as young as twelve, but the vast majority were sixteen or older, or so they said, making what I did perfectly legal at least in my own mind. Down deep, I knew that perhaps more than half the boys I picked up were lying about their age, and a hell of a lot of them were probably only fifteen or fourteen, or even younger. Still, as long as I thought they were sixteen, I could go to bed with a clear conscience - or perhaps I was just fooling myself into thinking I did, as my therapist kept reminding me.

I’d been seeing a shrink for four years now. Reverend Slater's boyfriend, Keith, was the one who found her for me. She was affiliated with the University off Cincinnati and was nonjudgmental when it came to unconventional sexual relationships. Even so, she made it clear from the beginning that she had a legal obligation to turn me in if I ever admitted to seeking sexual relations with underage boys. Our sessions, therefore, always revolved around discussions of my past mistakes, and around hypothetical situations. I knew she had my best interests at heart but there was no way she could begin to comprehend what I’d been through and what I was still going through. There was no way she could understand the profound sense of shame and guilt I felt every time I took a boy to bed, nor the despair and depression that ruled my life. I had my needs and refraining from sex with boys just wasn’t an option, but how could I tell her that?

Then there was the constant Sword of Damocles that hung over me - the chance of being caught and going to jail. It was an oppressive presence in my life. Although the boys who shared my bed all had very good reasons to avoid any contact with the law themselves, there was the constant threat that one of them would turn me in. Reverend Slater and Keith had threatened to report me on more than one occasion. They knew I was in counseling and, as they put it, they didn’t want to discourage me from sending boys their way. Still, if an underage boy ever did admit to having had a sexual relationship with me, they would have had no choice. I knew it was only a matter of time, but I still felt powerless to change. When it did happen, my life would be over. Not only would I go to jail and be at the mercy of inmates who despised those they perceived to be pedophiles, but I would be on the National Sex Offender Registry for the rest of my pathetic life. Never again would I be able to get a decent job, or even find a place to live without people knowing about me. Truthfully, I probably wouldn’t even survive my time in prison, which actually might be for the best.

Sighing heavily as I drove my Navigator up US Highway 31, I did my best to lock all those thoughts safely away in my subconscious. Today would take me into Kokomo, Indiana, a small city of over fifty thousand, located about an hour north of Indy. Driving down the tree-lined streets of Kokomo, I came upon a group of shirtless boys playing basketball in a local park. There were about six or seven of the young teens, all lean and finely muscled with sweat glistening in the mid-summer sunlight. I loved traveling in the summer. There were always lots of shirtless boys about… lots of delicious eye candy! It was the perfect thing to take my mind off my troubles.

There were several offices to visit in Kokomo, as well as two small hospitals in town, Howard Regional on the south side, and Saint Joseph’s on the west side. I had arranged a schedule that would cover all of them in the least amount of time without compromising the opportunity to promote the superiority of our products. That was the name of the game - convincing doctors to use our products over someone else’s. When it came to the hospitals, it was particularly important to talk to physicians on the formulary committee. These were the guys who chose which drugs the hospital would stock and promote.

“Why choose our product over theirs?” I would begin. “Because our third generation cephalosporin provides better coverage of the gram negative anaerobes that have become so common in post-op infections… it covers pseudomonas… it covers klebsiella… it even covers ESBL… and it costs less than what you’re using now.” Of course I didn’t mention the relatively high incidence of resistant staph and strep that were emerging. They could discover that on their own if and when it became a problem.

My fourth stop of my first day in Kokomo was to a family practitioner’s office on the south side. I particularly enjoyed this stop because Dr. Johnson’s teenage son, Corry, was working in the office for the summer. Corry had just turned sixteen and he was simply gorgeous. I’d been salivating over him since the first time I met him, just over three years ago. How I would have loved to take him to bed with me, particularly now that he was of legal age, but Corry was strictly off-limits. He was, after all, the son of a client.

As I entered the waiting room, which, fortunately, wasn’t too busy, I noticed that Corry was working reception. His whole face seemed to light up as I approached but, then, that was probably just my imagination.

“Hey Mr. Fielding,” the boy greeted me with a huge grin on his face.

“Hey there, Corry,” I replied. “How’s the summer going for you?” I asked, to make pleasant conversation.

“It’s going good,” he replied. “Dad’s letting me do a lot here. He even showed me how to draw blood, and he’s let me do it a couple of times to willing ‘victims’ too! I’m learning a lot about being a doctor and about Medicine in general. It’s good experience for what I really want to do, which is to be a vet someday.”

“That sounds great, Cory,” I responded, although I was secretly glad I hadn’t been one of his ‘victims’. There was only so much I was willing to do in the interest of serving my clients and letting a sixteen-year-old draw blood from me was definitely not one of them!

“Anyway, Dad’s finishing up with his last patient before the lunch hour,” Corry continued. “The pizza you ordered was delivered fifteen minutes ago and, man, does it ever smell good. I’m starving!”

Just then, I heard a door open from inside, and then Dr. Johnson’s voice boomed out, “Now I want you to remember, Catherine. Strokes don’t just happen. A stroke is not like catching a cold or being struck by lightning. Strokes are caused by high blood pressure, pure and simple. If you keep skipping your blood pressure medicine, you’re almost certainly gonna have another stroke, and the next time you probably won’t be so lucky. The next time you could end up paralyzed for life.

“I’ll try, Dr. Johnson,” a nice, grandmotherly, African American woman said as she emerged into the waiting room. I couldn’t help but notice the pack of cigarettes in her purse as she pulled out her wallet to pay the bill. Obviously also noticing them, Corry shook his head, and Dr. Johnson said, “Catherine, you know what I said about quitting smoking.”

“I know, Dr. Johnson, but it’s hard,” she replied.

“We have a new product that can help your patients quit, Dr. Johnson,” I pointed out.

“And I prescribed it to her,” Dr. Johnson added, “but she never filled the prescription.”

“My insurance don’t cover it, and it cost too much,” the woman replied.

“Didn’t I give you a book of vouchers?” I asked the good doctor.

“You did,” he acknowledged, “but my patients have a way of losing them.”

“What you need to do then is to staple the voucher to the prescription,” I suggested, then turning to the patient I added, “I can give you a voucher that will cover whatever your insurance doesn’t pay, up to eighty dollars. That should cover most of the cost of the drug and, if it works, think of how much money you’ll save. One pill a day is a lot cheaper than a pack of cigarettes.”

The voucher program was designed to help make up for the higher cost of using our products instead of the lower cost, less effective alternatives pushed by most people’s insurance policies. The vouchers helped to even the playing field, making our drugs, which were often superior, more affordable. Of course we didn’t do this out of the kindness of our hearts. The vouchers could only be used the first time the prescription was filled and for one refill. We just wanted to give the patients the opportunity to try our product, free of insurance company bias.

“Let’s go eat!” Corry practically shouted after the patient had left the office.

“Fair enough,” Dr. Johnson agreed as he chuckled and ruffled his son’s hair, earning a cry of, “Daaaaad!” in the process.

Corry was right - the pizza was heavenly. I’d had it delivered from one of the best pizza parlors in town.

As Dr. Johnson, his partner, Dr. Hussein, their two nurses, one of whom was Dr. Johnson’s wife, and Corry ate, I discussed with them several drugs I thought would be of interest to them in their daily practice. Specifically, I had a couple of antibiotics, a new anti-inflammatory drug, a sleep aid and an antidepressant that I wanted them to try prescribing to their patients.

“Don’t SSRIs have a high incidence of sexual side effects?” Corry asked with a straight face, just after I’d finished talking about the antidepressant. I nearly choked on my saliva, hearing an overtly sexual question from such an extremely attractive teenage boy.

“Yes, all SSRIs can affect sexual function to some degree,” I admitted, “but ours is no worse than most and it has the fastest onset of depression relief of any product on the market today,” I stated proudly.

“But that doesn’t help much if they can’t have sex,” Corry pointed out.

“First of all,” I countered, “Depression itself greatly reduces libido so, from that standpoint, our product can actually improve your patients’ love lives. However, we do recognize that for some patients there is indeed a decrease in libido with the use of our product and, particularly with men, other sexual side effects can be troublesome.”

“What do you mean by ‘other sexual side effects’?” Corry asked.

“Well, there’s a small incidence of impotence,” I admitted, “and the possibility of ejaculatory dysfunction.”

“You mean they can’t cum?” Corry asked, causing his father to exclaim, “Corry! You’re not a doctor. If you insist on acting like a teenager, I’m going to have to treat you like one and ask you to leave the room.”

I noticed that Corry’s mom was giving him the evil eye too.

“Sorry, Dad,” Corry responded, “but don’t you think ejaculatory dysfunction is a pretty serious side effect? I mean, can you imagine how frustrating it would be to get it up and all, but not be able to cum?”

“Not that you would have a reason to know what that might be like at your young age,” Dr. Johnson replied, causing Corry to blush deeply. At his age, contrary to all the hype, it was much more likely that Corry’s only sexual explorations had been solitary rather than with a partner, and I was certain Dr. Johnson knew that. Embarrassing kids is what parents do, after all.

Corry pretty much remained silent throughout the rest of my presentation, as everyone polished off the pizza, leaving just a couple of slices for me to eat on my way out.

It was after everyone else had retreated to their own areas, and Corry had returned to the reception window, but before he opened the door to allow the afternoon patients to enter, that Corry approached me and very quietly said, “I have something very important I need to talk to you about. Could you maybe swing by at the end of the day?”

“What in the world would you ever want to talk to me about?” I asked. I couldn’t imagine for the life of me what a teenage boy could possibly have to discuss with a pharmaceutical representative. Not unless… no, that was impossible. I’d been very careful to keep my private life private and completely separate from my professional life. There was absolutely no way Corry could know anything about my interest in boys, although even the remotest possibility otherwise had me terrified.

Speaking even more quietly, Corry responded, “There’s a reason I asked those questions. You see… I know someone… a very good friend who had some trouble with depression a while back. His doctor put him on an SSRI and it really helped, but he couldn’t, you know…” Corry explained as he made the universal gesture for jacking off. Then realizing that he’d done so, he turned a brilliant scarlet red. “He’s a bit shy and said he couldn’t talk to his parents about it, so he talked to me. I told him he should talk to his doctor, but his doctor didn’t seem to think it was important. He says he’s gonna explode if he doesn’t cum soon. He tried to stop taking the medicine on his own, but his parents discovered it and now they make him take it in front of them.

“I’m worried my friend’ll end up killing himself or something if he doesn’t get relief, you know? I was hoping you could either come up with a different medicine he could try, or maybe you could talk his doctor into taking my friend’s complaints seriously.”

“What if his doctor isn’t one of my regulars?” I asked.

“He is,” Corry answered. “His doctor’s my dad.”

“Oh,” was all I could say in response.

“Come by here around six,” Corry added. “Everyone else will have left by then and I’ll be getting patient charts ready for their next scheduled appointments. It’s part of my job. Dad lets me lock up, and then I usually walk home, but I’ll tell him I’m spending the night with Jay. Jay’s my b… I mean, he’s the friend I was telling you about.”

My eyes flew open wide as I realized what Corry had almost said. “Did you almost tell me that Jay’s your boyfriend?” I asked.

“Please, Mr. Fielding,” Corry responded with panic in his voice. “My parents don’t know and I’m not ready to tell them.”

Laughing, I replied, “It’s no wonder you’re so concerned about his ejaculatory dysfunction,” which caused Corry to color up again. “Seriously, my lips are sealed. I know just what you’re going through. We’re family, after all.” Corry seemed to visibly relax when he realized I was also gay. Corry was gay! Wow! I didn’t see that coming. I wondered if… NO, I mustn’t go there!

“I’ll return at six,” I promised Corry before leaving the office. I was going to have to rearrange my schedule for tonight, and stay a few extra hours in town to make up for it, but spending more time with Corry would be worth it. Corry was one of the best-looking teens I’d ever met. He had medium-length, strawberry-blond hair, green eyes, a smattering of freckles across the bridge of his nose and, I imagined, more on his shoulders, and a cute button nose that was adorable. He looked more like thirteen than sixteen, which only added to his sexual appeal in my book. If his boyfriend was even half as attractive, I would have a most enjoyable evening indeed. Not that anything sexual would happen, but just being around Corry’s beauty would be reward enough.

The day seemed to drag by as I waited for my rendezvous with Corry. I knew I wasn’t at my peak performance when it came to my meetings with physicians the rest of the day. My mind was elsewhere. Finally, it was time to return to Dr. Johnson’s office. It was time to meet with Corry.

When I returned, I found the door to the office was locked and so I rang the bell. I heard some shuffling inside, and then the door swung open to reveal Corry inside. Gone was the dress shirt and slacks. He was wearing sandals, shorts and a wife beater that was so tight that it left nothing to the imagination. Yup, there were freckles on his shoulders, just as I’d imagined there’d be. I couldn’t help but gawk at him.

Getting a grin on his face, Corry said, “Like what you see?”

I know I blushed as I realized I’d been less than circumspect in staring at him. Trying to save face, I replied, “I’ll admit it, Cory. You look totally hot, but I’m nearly old enough to be your father.”

“But you’re nothing like my father,” Corry responded, as he moved even closer to me, speaking softly. “I know Dad’s not that old but you look way younger… You were what… maybe ten when I was born? You look pretty hot yourself and, if I were a little bit older, I’d definitely go for you. Hell, I still might,” he added with a wink.

Whoa! Was Corry flirting with me? What the fuck? “But Corry, you already have a boyfriend,” I admonished him. The last thing I wanted to do was to come between Corry and his boyfriend and, besides which, Corry was the son of a client. I could never allow my private and professional lives to intersect. Never!

“Yeah, but we’re not exclusive,” Corry replied. Was he really just sixteen?

“Corry, your father is my client,” I tried to explain. “I can’t have sex with my client’s son.”

“Yeah, I know,” Corry said with a giggle as he stepped back. “I was just yanking your chain. It was a lot of fun to watch you squirm, though, and I really do think you’re hot for an older guy.

“We need to get going,” he added. “Jay’s waiting for us.”

“Nice wheels,” Corry commented when we reached my Navigator. He jumped in and rode shotgun as he directed me to his boyfriend’s house.

When we got there, Jay ran out and the two boys got in back, and shared a brief but intimate kiss before buckling themselves in. There was something about Jay that looked oddly familiar, and it was a bit unsettling at first but, then, I realized I was just being paranoid and I resolved to enjoy being in the company of two such beautiful boys.

Yes, Jay was beautiful in his own way, and every bit as handsome as Corry. Unlike Corry, Jay had dark brown, curly, shoulder-length hair that framed his narrow face perfectly. He had hazel eyes and incredibly long eyelashes that would have been the envy of any girl. Perhaps he’d just shaved and, if so, he’d been thorough, as there wasn’t even a hint of stubble on his face. Although Jay looked every bit of his sixteen years, he had an exotic, youthful appearance that I found very intriguing and insanely arousing - a rarity for a kid his age.

Like Corry, he wore a wife beater, but his was oversized, and so loose-fitting that at least one of his nipples was always exposed. His smooth chest and nipples were very alluring.

“Shall we stop by the drive-through at BK, and then head back to your hotel room?” Corry suggested.

“I don’t think that would be a good idea,” I replied, as I had visions of the two of them jumping my bones as soon as we were alone. Not that I thought they would but, after what Cory had said, I wasn’t so sure. Even worse still, I wasn’t sure I could resist putting the moves on them if we were alone. I was already hard and leaking heavily.

“Don’t worry, Mr. Fielding,” Corry replied as if reading my mind. “We’ll behave. The thing is, we really need privacy and we won’t have it in either of our homes. This isn’t exactly the sort of thing we can discuss in public, either. So that pretty much leaves your hotel room.”

Try as I might, I couldn’t refute their logic, even as the warning bells started to go off in my head. I was treading on treacherous ground and I knew it.

Rather that getting something to take back from Burger King, we opted to go a little bit higher up the food chain and stopped at the local Cracker Barrel for takeout. Personally I preferred the burgers at Sonic, but the local franchise went out of business some years ago, and Steak and Shake, which had the best burgers by far, had yet to make it to Kokomo. With our food in hand, we headed back to my suite at the Hampton Inn.

No sooner had the door closed behind us than the two boys toed off their sandals and plopped themselves down on the sofa, propping their feet up on the coffee table in typical teen boy fashion. Trying to get a bit more comfortable myself, I removed my tie and toed off my shoes, but left my shirt, dress slacks and socks on, taking the recliner adjacent to them, after setting out the food in front of us.

As we ate, Cory kept leaning back and putting his hands behind his head, showing off his armpits and the faint, blond wisps of hair that grew there, and pulling his shirt even tighter against his muscular chest. Nothing turned me on like sparse armpit hair, except perhaps the sight of Cory’s erect nipples, clearly visible through his tight shirt. The pose was sexy as hell and it sent my hormones into overdrive. Did he have any idea what he was doing to me? How could he not, with the way I was practically gawking at him?

Jay was equally alluring as he sat, hunched forward while eating, giving me a clear view down the front of his shirt at his smooth chest, his well-developed pecs and his dark, erect nipples. I sat forward too, but for an entirely different reason. I needed to hide my throbbing erection! I hoped and prayed my leaking pre-cum wouldn’t soak through.

I asked the boys how they met. The alarm bells in my head grew dramatically louder when Jay mentioned that he ran away from home when he was twelve, trying to escape an uncle who’d been sodomizing him since he was seven. As much as my heart went out to him, he was looking more and more familiar by the minute, although I still couldn’t place him and decided that, once again, my imagination was just running wild with me.

To make a long story short, as he put it, Child Protective Services found a foster home for him right here in Kokomo and he ended up going to the same middle school as Corry. It was pretty much love at first sight and they’d been a couple for three years now, although they were most definitely not out. This was the Bible Belt, after all.

After we finished eating, it was Corry that suggested we get down to talking about Jay’s problem.

“Hearing my story, you can imagine why I’m depressed,” Jay began, “but the drug Cor’s dad has me on is killing me. Look,” he said as he suddenly dropped his shorts and his boxers in one smooth move and toed them off, leaving him in only the loose-fitting wife beater, which he then pulled over his head. “I really have to concentrate to get hard.”

Jay then started slowly stroking himself but, to my observation, he had absolutely no difficulty getting hard… nor did I! What the fuck was this boy doing?

“On the other hand, I don’t have that problem at all,” Corry added as he suddenly dropped his shorts and boxers too. I’m sure I must have been slack-jawed and Corry laughed when he noticed me staring. By now I was beginning to suspect that something was up but what could a couple of teenage boys want with me? Were they deliberately trying to seduce me? Were they after my drug samples or something?

“The real problem, however,” Jay went on, “Is that I can’t cum. Well, not easily anyway.”

As if to try to prove his point, Jay started masturbating in earnest, pumping himself for all he was worth. I was on the verge of losing all control if I hadn’t already.

I was just about to put a stop to it when Cory interrupted, saying, “Here, let me,” as he lifted his own shirt over his head, then pushed Jay’s hand aside and went down on him. It was like a scene from a porno flick as Corry demonstrated expertise I’d not seen in a sixteen-year-old before. Jay, for his part, was moaning so loudly, I didn’t see how the occupants of the neighboring rooms could have not heard.

Before long, Jay arched his back, dropped his head back and let out a primal scream, leaving no doubt as to what was happening. Once they settled down, Jay said, “I came! I can’t believe I came!” Next, Corry covered Jay’s mouth with his own and they shared a passionate kiss.

After they came up for air, Jay turned to me and said, “It must be you, Mr. Fielding. Having you here must have done the trick.” Before I could stop him, Jay was on top of me, kissing me passionately as he thrust his tongue, still coated with his own spunk by way of Corry’s mouth, into my own mouth.

My reaction was predictable. I had an incredibly sexy, naked sixteen-year-old boy hugging me, kissing me and, well, humping me. His sweet cum was in my mouth and his once-again raging boner was rubbing against my own. Within seconds my back arched, my toes curled and I experienced the most intense orgasm of my life. By the time I came down from my high, a large wet spot was already forming in the front of my dress slacks.

I felt mortified but Jay seemed more amused than anything. With a laugh, he said, “We’d better get you out of these,” as he tugged at my slacks.

Before I could object - not that I was in any shape to do so - Corry had undone my belt and slid my dress slacks down and off my legs. Next came my boxers and, without any explanation as to why, my dress shirt followed. I was now completely naked in front of two very sexy sixteen-year-old boys who were wearing nothing more than their smiles.

“I’ll clean you up,” Corry volunteered as he lowered his face to my groin. I was powerless to stop the two teens as they manipulated me in every way imaginable. It was a three-way free-for-all as we pretty much did everything I’d ever dreamed of, and many things I’d never even conceived of before. I almost cried knowing I’d never be able to experience sex like this again.

I awoke the next morning with a start. At first I was disoriented and didn’t know where I was, but the familiar sights of a typical Hampton Inn suite soon came into focus, reminding me that I was on one of my many road trips. However, then I realized that I wasn’t alone. Had I picked up another boy by the side of the road? Taking a boy to bed with me was certainly nothing new, but I couldn’t remember it this time.

Then I felt someone snuggling up with me from behind me and I realized I was in bed with two teenage boys. What the fuck?

Suddenly, it all came rushing back to me, along with an overwhelming sense of shame. I was in bed with Corry and Jay. I sat bolt upright in bed when I realized I’d overslept and that I’d likely missed my first few appointments.

“What is it, Scott?” Corry asked. Yeah, I’d finally gotten them to stop calling me Mr. Fielding.

“We overslept,” I answered, “and I already missed my first appointment. And you should be at work!” I added in a near panic.

“Relax, Scott,” Corry replied. “It’s Wednesday and my dad doesn’t have office hours today. I don’t have to be there until later this afternoon.”

“Nor do I,” Jay chimed in.

“But won’t your dad wonder where you are?” I asked.

“He thinks I’m on a sleep-over with Jay, and Jay’s foster parents think he’s on a sleep-over with me.”

“How convenient,” I replied sarcastically.

“You worry too much,” Jay responded.

“And you can always reschedule your appointments,” Corry added.

“If I do that often enough, I’ll be fired,” I pointed out.

“Then you can spend even more time with us,” Jay replied.

“Now wait a minute,” I responded in alarm. “What happened last night was a lot of fun… a hell of a lot of fun… but it was a one-time thing. We can never do it again. Seriously, I could lose my job if anyone found out I had sex with a client’s son.”

“Which is why no one can find out,” Corry replied.

Then getting up in my face, his naked body resting on top of mine, he kissed me and added, “Look Scott, we know all about your activities with boys.” After another kiss, he continued, “We aren’t your first, but we intend to be your last. Sooner or later you would have been caught and you would have gone to jail for a very long time, and prolly wound up on the National Registry for the rest of your life.

“This way, you’ll have guaranteed sex at least for the next couple of years, until we get to be too old for you.” He kissed me a third time and then concluded, “It’s not just about you, Scott… Jay and I will get to enjoy our ultimate fantasy… three-way sex with an amazingly sexy, older guy.”

My mind was having a hard time wrapping itself around what Corry was saying as the alarm bells were once again going full blast. Still, all I could muster was, “Huh?” and then added, “You think I’m sexy?”

“Incredibly sexy,” Corry said in a breathy teenage voice, his mouth no more than an inch from my own.

“Look Scott,” Jay began as he pressed himself against my side and started stroking my chest. “We know all about what you do with boys. I’ll admit that I’m kinda disappointed that you don’t remember me from four years ago but, back then, I was only twelve and I wore my hair real short. Still, we spent two wonderful days together.

“I had just run away from my folks in Fort Wayne and you offered me a lift to Toledo and then Cincinnati. The one condition was that I sleep with you… you said I didn’t have to, but there was only one bed in the hotel room. Man, that was scary, but the alternative was even scarier. My uncle had been porking me since I was seven and when I told my parents about it, they claimed I was lying and that I must be a fag to even suggest such a thing. They were gonna make me live with my uncle, so I had to run away. I had no choice.

“So there you were, offering me a ticket out of there if I let you pork me too, so I figured, what harm was one more time for a chance at freedom? Only you were nothing like my uncle. You were kind and gentle, and you didn’t even try to pork me. You went down on me and you didn’t even make me go down on you, but I did. I wanted to. That’s when I realized I really was gay, although it took me nearly another year to fully come to terms with it.”

Tears poured out of my eyes as the memories flooded back to me. Jay had been one of my first and I’d seriously considered adopting him, had it only been possible. However, more than likely, had I tried, I would have almost certainly been discovered and I’d have gone to jail.

“Don’t get me wrong, Scott,” Jay continued. “You’re still a sicko pervert, but you have a kind heart in your own perverted way. Yes, you used me and discarded me when you were done. Yes, I was underage at the time. No twelve-year-old boy should be put in the position of having to do the stuff we did, just to survive.

“You made up for all of that, however, by hooking me up with Reverend Slater. Reverend Slater was my savior. He got me in touch with CPS and helped set me up with foster parents who care about me, who understand me and don’t care that I’m gay.”

Although I still couldn’t quite process all he’d said, I replied, “Your foster parents know you’re gay?”

“They’ve known from the very beginning,” Jay confirmed, “and they're fine with it. I keep telling Corry his parents will be fine with it too, but he’s a bit scared to tell them. With some of the stories you read on the Internet and with what happened to me, I can certainly understand why. The one thing I don’t think either set of parents are ready for, is the idea of their sons being involved in a three-way with an older man, so that is something we’ll have to keep quiet.”

“That is something that will never happen again,” I reiterated.

“Oh come off it, Scott,” Corry replied as he gave my balls a good healthy squeeze. “I know you helped Jay a lot, but most people won’t see it that way. I suspect that most of your sexual partners over the years wouldn’t see it that way at all and it’s only a matter of time before someone turns you in. Hell, Jay could turn you in, but he wouldn’t do that. You’re a good man, but you’re a sexual predator. You take advantage of boys when they’re most vulnerable. No matter how you look at it, you get sexual pleasure by exploiting kids and it’s only after you’re done with them that you try to make up for it.”

Corry had put it perfectly. I’d had these very thoughts many times and heard them echoed by my therapist, but always managed to suppress them in the end. Suppressing them did not make them go away, because Corry spoke the truth. My sexual gratification was dependent on exploiting children. I was a fucking monster and, as that started to sink in once again, the despair came to the surface and I started to cry.

“Shh, it’s OK, Scott,” Corry went on as he stroked my hair and nuzzled his face against mine, his still-smooth skin against my stubble, planting a soft kiss on the corner of my mouth. “Jay and I have a way out for you. You see, we’re perverts, too. We like to have sex with other guys. We were both forced when we were young and now it’s the only way we can enjoy sex together. We tried it with other kids our age and it helps, but nothing turns us on more than doing it with someone a little older. We need an older man as part of our relationship if we’re ever gonna survive as a couple. We need you, Scott, as an equal partner in our love, and we do mean love.”

“I visited Corry’s dad as a patient once when you stopped by,” Jay took over. “You didn’t recognize me, but I sure recognized you. You looked exactly the same as you did four years ago. It brought back a flood of memories, most of them good ones. You really did save me, Scott. Your motives were selfish, but I wouldn’t be here without you, and I kinda love you. No… I do love you and always have. It’s not puppy love. It’s not misplaced hero worship or any other bullshit like that. I’m just one fucked-up teen in love with another fucked-up teen, and we both are in love with a totally fucked-up man.”

“Ditto for me, Scott,” Corry added as he gave me a full-mouth, passionate kiss. “So how about it?” Corry asked. “Jay and I would get to fulfill our sexual fantasies and we could stop looking for partners outside the relationship. You’d get a regular set of hot teen bods to screw whenever you like. You could stop looking over your shoulder all the time. At least for the next couple of years, until you get tired of us, life would be good, and we could see what happens after that.”

“Oh, we would like it if you could score us some drugs once in a while,” Jay added with a serious look on his face.

“Are you fucking crazy?” I practically shouted. “They track narcotics samples from drug reps like a hawk. I’d go to jail for sure, and for a lot longer than I would for molesting minors, no less.”

Laughing hysterically, Jay replied, “Gotcha!” Then the two of them started tickling me mercilessly. They finally stopped when I told them I was gonna pee the bed if they didn’t.

“Actually, I think I’d like that,” came Corry’s shocking reply, followed by Jay’s, “Me too.”

“While the two of you might like to try water sports…”

“We’ve tried it and it’s kinda fun every now and then,” Scott interjected, destroying just about any remaining pretense I had of their innocence.

“It’s never really interested me, however,” I countered, “and I’m pretty certain the hotel wouldn’t be appreciative of the result.”

“Spoilsport,” Corry replied with his adorable giggle, and then added, “but maybe we can talk you into it once the three of us get a place together,” before he dove under the covers. I ended up rescheduling all of my appointments for the rest of the day and the three of us made intense, passionate love until Corry had to go in to help his dad with paperwork. It may have been sick. It may have been morally irresponsible, but it was right for us.

I ended up falling for Corry and Jay. I fell hard. Sex with them was nothing like what I experienced in my one-night encounters with other boys and, although it might not have been legal in most places, it was legal here. For the first time in my adult life, I slept with a clear conscience, knowing that Corry and Jay needed me as much as I needed them. None of us was taking advantage of anyone but, more than anything, our relationship was based on love.

In any case, I started making a lot more stops in Kokomo than I ever did before, and eventually moved my apartment there. Our sales skyrocketed, beating out all our competitors combined. The funny thing was that, with increased sales in Kokomo, sales increased throughout the region and I ended up being one of the company’s top salesmen.

Perhaps it was because I was no longer relying on picking up stray youth along the way, yet I was getting more quality sex than ever. Perhaps it was because I was head over heels in love with Corry and Jay. Most people couldn’t conceive of romantic love with a teenager, much less two. Given my fucked-up youth and the way my parents had tried to make me straight, I couldn’t have hoped for a happier outcome.

I didn’t stop picking up the boys I saw trying to hitch their way out of their misery, however. No, I picked them up and gave them rides and food with no strings attached, and I did everything I could to see to it that all of them wound up in Reverend Slater’s care. Since I was no longer engaging in sex with them - not even when they were the ones trying to initiate it - the vast majority of them took my advice. In my small way, I was doing my part to help the gay youth of Kentucky, Indiana and Ohio.

The really amazing thing is that Cory, Jay and I stayed together, even after they turned eighteen. Yes, they were more men than boys, but I still found sex with them as much a mind-blowing experience as it had ever been. I was hopelessly in love with them and they with me. Love made the difference and I felt I no longer had the specter of the failed conversion therapy, hanging over my head.

At that point, and with some trepidation, we decided to come out as a threesome to both sets of parents. Think it's stressful coming out as gay or coming out as a gay couple? Try coming out as a threesome - a threesome with a ten-year age difference. It turned out the parents already had suspected there was something going on and were surprisingly accepting, particularly when their sons explained that I was the glue in the relationship - that I provided them something they couldn't find as a couple - yet I was an equal partner in the love the three of us shared. Indeed, Corry finally came clean with his parents about the way his babysitter had forced him into a sexual relationship when he was eleven. At long last the air was finally clear.

When both Corry and Jay ended up matriculating at Purdue University, I bought an apartment for the three of us in West Lafayette and we stayed together through the four years of their undergraduate education and four years of veterinary school. I was thrilled when they both got into vet school at Purdue, one of the toughest programs in the nation. Getting in was even harder than getting into medical school, and they did it together.

When they finished their training, I quit my job as a pharmaceutical rep and we all moved into a big old Victorian house in downtown Kokomo. We renovated the first floor and turned it into a veterinary clinic. I worked as their receptionist and kept the books. It was funny, but they were now as old as I was when we first got together, and I was in my mid-thirties. We were still going strong.

I had a lot of regrets about my past and, as much as I liked to think I’d done my best to help all the kids I picked up over those early years, I knew that there were a lot that I’d harmed more than I’d helped. I’d liked to rationalize that I’d done more for them than almost anyone else who might have stopped would have, but that wasn’t really true either. The truth was that I’d added one more insult on top of a series of insults they’d had to face. Some had undoubtedly been helped in the end and I thanked God that Jay had come back into my life as a result, but some probably ended up dead, perhaps at their own hands. That was a thought that would haunt me for the rest of my days.

In the meantime we set up a foundation to help fund halfway houses for gay teens throughout the region. Would that be enough to make up for those I’d harmed during my time of youthful indiscretion? Many times I thought of turning myself in for my past activities, but that would have only served to hurt the two young men who meant the world to me. Not only that, but the statute of limitations for my crimes had expired a long time ago, when my victims came of age.

The guilt would always be there, but that guilt was fueling my desire to set things right and to genuinely help as many kids as I could. The funny thing was that I started out thinking I was saving the kids I abused but, in the end, it was one of my former victims that saved me.