Finding Love - 1. Chapter 1 - My World Is Shattered and Recreated

I don’t know if I can adequately explain about how I went from being a happy child, with a very loving and attentive father, to living in an absolute hell on earth. I was only seven-years old when this downward spiral began, but it seemed as if from that point on very little ever went right for me. Let me attempt to explain what I went through before someone finally came to my rescue.

No one knows exactly what caused the accident that began my extended period of misery, because it could have been any number of possibilities. It might have been the result of a defective pressure valve or a damaged seal around one of the windows or the door. It could have also been the result of a defect in one of the windowpanes or in a seam that ran along the body of the craft, but whatever caused the accident, my father’s corporate jet depressurized quickly and killed everyone on board.

The investigators claimed the passengers and crew were most likely dead before the Learjet crashed into the ocean, but no one could be absolutely certain if that was the case. Even if they had been either dead or unconscious before it happened, I wasn’t as fortunate. The crash left me with severe emotional pain and the event completely shattered my world.

On that fateful Wednesday in May, I said goodbye to my father as he got ready to go away on a business trip, which he did quite often. He was scheduled to travel on the corporate jet to attend a negotiation session in Los Angeles, California, but before he left, he came to my room, kissed me on the forehead and bid me farewell.

“I’ll be back by the weekend, pal,” he explained. “You be good for your mother and I promise we’ll do something special when I return.”

I waved goodbye as he drove off, completely unaware this was going to be the last time I ever saw his face or heard his voice. He then made his way to the airport, where he met up with three of his business associates at the corporate terminal, before they boarded the private jet. There was only the four of them, along with the pilot and the co-pilot, as they set off for the west coast. Following takeoff, the jet rose higher and higher until it leveled off at 35,000 feet, and once it was at its cruising altitude the pilot engaged the autopilot. Beyond that, nothing more is known for certain about the ill-fated flight.

Hours later, after many failed attempts by ground personnel to make radio contact with the crew, the jet overshot its final destination. It then flew out over the ocean until it ran out of fuel and crashed into the blue waters of the Pacific Ocean. There were no survivors. My father was gone and my entire world had came crashing down along with the jet. My dad had been the center of my universe, the giver of life and love, but now he was gone. To put it mildly, I was completely devastated.

My father had been educated as a lawyer, but his job was to serve as president of the company founded by my great-great-grandfather. He was flying out from our home in Dallas, Texas to meet with the company officials from one of four smaller, yet similar, businesses that my father’s company was trying to acquire. I had heard other people mention that my dad was ruthless when it came to business and didn’t care whether he had to buy these other companies outright or merely drive them out of business, but he usually got what he wanted.

I don’t want you to think my father was some kind of an ogre though, because he was just a very persistent and determined businessman. He would negotiate with company officials first and attempt to buy the company he desired by offering them what he considered to be a fair price for the business. If they didn’t accept his terms, however, he then began to utilize other means to acquire it. At that point, he might attempt to negotiate deals with the other company’s suppliers and then freeze them out, so they could no longer acquire the materials needed to stay in business. At other times, he might even buyout their suppliers instead and then refuse to do business with them, but either way they’d finally come to terms.

If none of those options were available, he might try to purchase a similar company nearby or even open one of his own locations in the area and then get into a price war with the company he wanted to acquire. It didn’t matter to my dad if his business might have to temporarily take a loss, because he knew he’d eventually either drive the other company into bankruptcy or force them to close their doors permanently. One way or another, he would end up with what he wanted and his company would either purchase the other company or that company would cease to exist. On this particular occasion, however, the company he was to begin negotiations with received an unexpected reprieve, since my dad and his team never made it to the meeting.

I was always surprised when I overheard people talk about how vicious my father could be in his business dealings, because he was always so very gentle and loving at home. My dad was my whole world back then and my buffer against the harsh realities of life and the bitter truths it harbored. As far as I could tell, no one else loved me. Loved me? Hell, no one else even cared about me. My mother was always rather cold and aloof toward me, but after my father died, she became an alcoholic and was unable to stay away from the bottle long enough to give me any affection. I know I shouldn’t have taken this personally though, because I wasn’t convinced she ever loved my father either.

I’d always heard she’d only married my dad because of the prestige associated with the family name and the things the family fortune could buy her. After my father died, I felt her most desired purchase had become her precious booze, and since the family fortune was now all hers, she could have whatever she wanted. Even though I doubted she could pull herself out of the bottle long enough to manage the daily affairs of the business, let alone her own finances, she still had the final say.

Since she was only concerned with making sure she had what she wanted, she trusted in the honesty and ability of others to handle everything else, including the money and the business. These things were taken care of by one of the company’s senior vice presidents and her accountant. They were the ones who would oversee everything associated with the business and then move money into her accounts, so there would be enough for her to run the household.

Even though my mother and I had never been very close and mixed about as well as oil and water, at least I was never alone. She seldom went anywhere and we had a very large domestic staff to take care of both the house and our personal needs. The staff fixed the meals, washed and ironed our clothes and kept the house clean, so the place was always bustling with activity. No matter how many people were around, however, none of them ever seemed to take more than a passing interest in me or were concerned about my welfare. As long as I ate, slept, kept clean and made it to school, those aspects appeared to be all that mattered.

The staff had their own duties to perform and no time to be bothered by a young boy, even if he was the son of the master or mistress of the house. During those last few years before my father died, however, no one except my father ever did anything with me. I guess it probably also accounted for the reason why I was hardly able to contain myself until he got home from work each evening or why I was so impatient for him to have a day off from work. When he did, he would spend a great deal of his time with me and we would do many things together. He would take me places or we would play games together, but that wasn’t all. My dad also had a wonderful and extensive play area built for me in our backyard and that’s where we would spend hours of fun playing together. I was a very lucky kid.

We did many things together, but best of all and what I enjoyed the most were the times he would read all sorts of wonderful stories to me. They were filled with incredible adventures and took place in fantastic imaginary locations or far off and exotic lands around the world. When he died, it proved to be those same stories that kept me going and gave me the courage to survive. I remembered every detail from each book my father had ever read to me, so I retold the stories to myself, over and over again, until I was old enough to read them on my own. If it hadn’t been for those marvelous pieces of ‘kiddy lit,’ I would have remained a lost, lonely and forgotten child. If my father hadn’t given me that very special gift, I might have just shriveled up and died shortly after he did.

As soon as I’d worked past the initial stage of unbearable grief over his tragic death, I would go out to my little sanctuary in the backyard and play out various scenes from those tales I loved so much. My private play area and the surrounding land served as the setting for every memorable adventure I participated in from that day forward. Over time, my play area would become Never Land, Sherwood Forest, an uninhabited island or any other location from one of those marvelous stories.

One day it might be transformed into Treasure Island and then the following day into a small patch of ground on the planet Mars. My little tree house might serve as a pirate ship, a horse-drawn coach, a castle, the space shuttle or even Tarzan’s tree house. This haven from reality soon became the only bearable aspect of my life, because in my fantasy world I was someone who was important and loved. During those times, I was able to escape all of the pain and loneliness I felt during the rest of the day. Needless to say, I spent as much time there as I could possibly manage, so I’d be able to experience the immense joy I felt during my fantasy adventures.

Even school was a drag. First of all, I didn’t have any real friends and the teachers were only friendly enough to perform their duties. Sure, there were a few kids who spoke to me and even treated me somewhat nicely, but I think they only did it because of my last name and the prestige it evoked in the socially conscious community in which we resided. We lived on the Randall family estate, which had been built by my great-grandfather. This grand home was suppose to remain in the family forever and would be handed down to the firstborn of each succeeding generation of Randall heirs.

Our home, if you could call it that, sat on several acres of well-manicured lawns and impeccably sculpted shrubbery. Our simple little abode consisted of more than thirty rooms, spread out over three levels, and was one of the most impressive mini-castles around. That is what I suspected had gained me the modicum of respect I seemed to enjoy. Other than my family name and fortune, I didn’t have many other positive attributes.

Although many people told me I was cute, I was quite small for my age. I was also the odd boy who had no interest in the games and athletic activities that most boys my age reveled in. Instead, I was the proverbial bookworm with a vivid imagination. I had become an introvert and forced myself to be a loner, in order to keep from being emotionally scarred by everyone else. I was the square peg that didn’t fit into any of the round holes life offered me. I had a nineteenth-century romantic’s soul, but was forced to live in a twenty-first century reality. It appeared the cards had been stacked against me from the start and I’d have to find my own niche in life and attempt to survive this existence the best way I could.

It had now been three years since my father’s death and my life had continued on this downward spiral – that is until the day I met Tad. He just turned up in my classroom one morning, a few days after school started for the year, and instantly became a breath of fresh air that had been swept into my otherwise stagnant world. His family had just moved to the area and it was my good fortune that he’d been assigned to the same classroom as me.

Tad was completely unlike anyone I had ever met before and even his appearance was different, because he had red hair, which was actually more orange in tint, green eyes and a milky-white complexion. To put it mildly, he stood out quite noticeably from the others that attended my school. I was slightly different, since I had extremely light blond hair to go along with my blue eyes, but even though my hair was lighter than most of the other blondes, I still didn’t stand out as much as Tad did. Besides the varying shades of blond hair among our classmates, there were a lot of brunettes and children with jet-black hair, which seemed to be the norm around here, but Tad was the only redhead I could ever remember seeing. I guess I must have been staring at him on the playground at lunchtime, because he walked over and introduced himself.

“Hi, my name is Tad,” he said, while flashing me a huge and very friendly smile.

I didn’t answer right away, mainly because I was too busy still staring at him, but then I realized how rude I was being.

“Oh, yeah I’m sorry about spacing out there,” I replied. “I’m Win. Well actually my name is Winthrop Aaron Randall IV, but I prefer to be called Win.”

“Yeah, I know what you mean,” he concurred. “My full name is Thaddeus Albert Driscoll, but when I got old enough to decide what I wanted to be called, my mom said I could go by either Thad or Tad, so I chose Tad. I think it might be a nickname for Thaddeus, but it’s also my initials.”

“Hey, that’s pretty neat!” I exclaimed. “My initials are WAR, but that’s because I have a family name. My father was Winthrop Aaron Randall III and my grandfather was Winthrop Aaron Randall II, but I’m not sure if it was my great-grandfather or great-great-grandfather who was the first Winthrop Aaron Randall, but whoever it was, we all got our names from him.”

“I was named after my mother’s grandfather, Thaddeus, and her father, Albert,” Tad explained. “Thaddeus became my first name because my great-grandfather had most of the money and my parents were hoping to get on his good side by naming me after him. It must have worked, because he left them a whole bunch of money when he died.”

Tad stood silent and looked at me thoughtfully for a few seconds, before he spoke again.

“What did you mean when you said that your father WAS named Winthrop Aaron Randall III?” he wondered, since he didn’t fully comprehend the implication of my statement.

“I said it that way because my father is dead,” I answered. “He died in a plane crash three years ago.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know,” he apologized, with a look somewhere between horror and regret for having brought it up.

“That’s ok. It took me a while get over it,” I responded, “but I’ve finally accepted the fact that he’s gone. It doesn’t really bother me as much as it used to.”

“That’s good… that it doesn’t bother you as much any more,” Tad clarified.

“Thanks,” I replied, totally impressed by the fact that he appeared to be truly sincere. “Why aren’t you playing with the other boys?”

“I’m not into sports or those types of games,” he offered. “I’m not very good at those sorts of things, so they don’t really interest me.”

“Me either,” I concurred. “What do you like to do for fun then?”

“Oh, I like to mess around on my computer, play video games, swim and I read a lot,” he confessed.

“Really? I like to read too,” I replied, very excited. “What types of things do you like to read the most?”

“Almost anything, but I like adventure stories the best,” he offered. “I like to think I’m part of the story, because doing that makes it seem real and more interesting. Do you like adventure stories too?”

“Uh huh. They’re the best,” I agreed. “Have you ever played any games like that?”

“Like what?” he countered, not quite understanding what I meant by my question.

“Adventure games where you act out one of the stories that you’ve read,” I answered. “You know, you play one of the characters from that story and pretend the rest of the characters are all there too.”

“Unt uh,” he said, giving me a negative response. “I just think about being part of what’s going on while I’m reading the story, but I’ve never done anything more than that.”

“Well, maybe you could come over to my house sometime and I could show you how I play out some of those stories,” I offered. “We could do it together, if you would like to give it a try?”

“Yeah, it sounds like it might be cool,” he agreed.

We told each other where we lived and then I explained to Tad how to get to my house from his, since he was new to the area and didn’t know his way around yet. He didn’t live in one of the big fancy mansions, like the ones that lined the street where I lived, but from what he told me though, he still lived in a very nice house. He informed me it had about twelve rooms, a fairly large lawn and they bought it after his father was transferred here with Lockheed Martin. In fact, they had only moved into the house this past weekend.

Tad wasn’t exactly sure what his father did, but he knew his dad had a very important job and made lots of money. He also told me he was an only child, like me, so we had a great deal in common. I had a feeling Tad and I were going to become very good friends, so I didn’t waste any time before trying to get to know him better. I invited him over to my house to play an adventure game this weekend and told him he could come over on Saturday. I even suggested that if he wanted to, he could stay over with me on Saturday night and he said he’d like that, but he’d have to check with his parents first and then let me know if they would give him permission. I was already beginning to feel better than I had since before my dad died.

The next day, Tad asked me if I would come home with him that afternoon, so he could introduce me to his mom. He explained that she wanted to meet me first, but he felt once she knew more about me then she would be willing to bring him over on Saturday and maybe even let him stay overnight. I agreed, so that afternoon I went to his house and I was introduced to his mother. She asked a lot questions about my family and myself, but I only told her the good things about us, although I did tell her about how my father had died. After we finished doing that, she drove me home to make sure she knew exactly where I lived and how to get there. I think she was very impressed when she saw the house, because the following day Tad told me that not only would he be able to come over on Saturday, but he could also stay overnight. This was going to be great.

This was the first thing that had excited me in a very long time and now it was all I could think about, because I was looking forward to spending Saturday with Tad. From that moment on, it seemed as though Saturday might never happen, but finally it arrived and so did Tad. When the doorbell rang, I raced down the stairway from my bedroom and got to the door just as the butler opened it. Tad’s mother was with him and I invited them inside. I told them my mother was out, although I didn’t tell them this meant she was passed out drunk in her room, but there was plenty of staff to watch over us.

I then asked if they would care for a drink or something to eat, but they declined, so I gave them a quick tour of our little shack instead. I conveniently bypassed the master suite, by telling them I wasn’t allowed to go in there without my mother, and when we got to my bedroom, I had Tad leave his overnight bag there. His mother’s eyes nearly popped out of their sockets when she saw my room, since it was probably larger than her master bedroom, although she had been extremely impressed by everything she had observed. Once the tour was over, she excused herself and returned home, so I dragged Tad out to the backyard to show him my little play area and teach him how to play one of my fantasy adventures.

He was impressed with my little sanctuary and told me he thought it was even much nicer than the playground at school or the one in the park. Of course I agreed, because my father had this one specially designed just for me. Starting on the left side, there was a huge spiral slide that rose about 16 feet [5 m] above the ground, but you had to climb up to the upper perch first, if you wanted to use it. The upper perch rose about 20 feet [6.5 m] from the ground to the top of its roof and looked sort of like a medieval spire. The perch had a ladder leading up to it from the ground and a ramp that led to a lower perch that was located next to it.

The lower perch was almost identical to the upper perch, except it only rose up about 16 feet [5 m] from the ground to its roof. Other than going back to the upper perch, there were only two other ways to get off the lower perch and they led to the tree house. The first was by using the monkey bars and grabbing ahold of the rungs with your hands, as you swung from one rung to the next in order to make your way across. If you didn’t want to do that, you could walk across a rope bridge, which was about 10 feet [3 m] above the sand pit below it. The rope bridge moved with each step you took as you crossed it and swayed from side to side.

No matter which of those ways you used, each led to the lower level of my bi-level tree house. Actually, there was no tree at all and my father had a huge telephone pole buried in the ground and then constructed two circular floors attached to it. The bottom floor had a wall that ran completely around it, but was only waist high. The upper floor was completely enclosed had and a slanted roof covering the entire area. In order to get up to the upper level, you had to climb a rope ladder that was attached to a hole in the upper floor. My dad thought this would be more fun for me to use, rather than a stairway, but it also took up much less space.

On the right side of the lower level of the tree house there was a rainbow bridge that led over to the porch of the playhouse. The rainbow bridge was just a wooden bridge that arched slightly skyward and often served as the drawbridge to my imaginary castle. The playhouse had two doors leading into it, with one in front and the other across from the rainbow bridge, and they both opened into a 12’ x 12’ room [3.5 m by 3.5 m] with an 8 to 12 feet [2.5 to 4 m] high slanted ceiling. There was also at least one window on each wall and this usually served as the Great Hall of my castle in all of my fantasy adventures that had a medieval setting.

Now that Tad had seen the entire layout of my own personal fantasyland, I asked him what type of adventure he wanted to take part in and he suggested a pirate adventure to begin with. I quickly agreed with his idea and explained how the playground would fit that scenario. The upper perch was now the taller mast with the crow’s nest, the lower perch was the other mast, the lower level of the tree house was the forward deck of the ship and the playhouse was the captain’s cabin. Being a good host, I let Tad be the captain, while I served as his first mate.

Over the course of the day, we made several raids on other ships and plundered a bunch of small towns and villages along the coast, but we also took part in a big naval battle with Queen Elizabeth the First’s navy, the one that defeated the powerful Spanish Armada. In the end, we defeated Sir Francis Drake in a huge sea battle and then left to rest up on a small tropical island, which in our case was the sand pit below the rope bridge. We pretended there were lots of hula girls and other natives who didn’t wear very much clothing, so we decided to live like the natives. To do this, we stripped down to our tight, white briefs that now served as our loincloths.

After a while, Tad decided he had to pee, but he didn’t want to get dressed again just to use a toilet in the house, so I took him over to the small grove of trees in the corner of the lot, where he could relieve himself. That area was only a few feet from our pretend ship and served as Sherwood Forest during my Robin Hood adventures. As long as we were there, I decided I might as well go too, but I was surprised when Tad pulled his underpants completely down first, before he began to pee against the bark of a tree. I merely lowered the front of my briefs and placed the elastic band under my balls as I urinated, but I watched Tad the entire time.

“Tad, why does your weenie look so funny?” I asked, since his penis appeared different from mine.

He looked over at my penis next, before he answered.

“It doesn’t look funny, it’s just that I wasn’t circumcised like you were,” he announced, as if it were an everyday occurrence.

“What do you mean?” I followed. “I don’t understand.”

Tad finished peeing first and then waddled over so he could stand beside me, with his underpants still around his ankles.

“My dad explained to me that boys are all born with this piece of skin over their penis, but some parents have the skin cut off after their sons are born,” he informed me. “Your parents must have chosen to do that with you, but my parents wanted me to remain natural. It was because my great-grandfather didn’t believe in circumcision, that’s what they call it when they cut the skin off, and since they were trying to impress him, it wasn’t done to me. It’s really the same and I’ll prove it to you.”

After saying this, he took his hand and pulled the extra piece of skin back, until the pink head of his penis popped out.

“See. Now my penis looks the same as yours,” he noted. “Most of my friends where I used to live were cut like you, because I saw them when we went skinny-dipping in the old pond behind one of my friend’s house.”

Damn. I was totally amazed, because I’d never seen anything like this before and couldn’t get the image of the transformation out of my mind. For that reason, I just stood there and stared at Tad’s penis.

“Do you want to try it?” Tad eventually offered, when he saw how fascinated I appeared with his small piece of flesh.

“Try what?” I responded naively.

“You can pull the skin back and forth if you want,” he clarified, as he thrust his hips out in my direction.

“You mean… touch your weenie?” I asked, totally shocked.

“Uh huh. I don’t mind,” he confirmed. “You can slide the skin back and forth if you want, so you can see what it’s like. Do you want to try it for yourself?”

“Sure, if you don’t mind,” I quickly agreed.

“No, I don’t, so go ahead,” he offered again, while once more thrusting his hips in my direction.

I tentatively reached my hands out to grab the piece of meat that dangled between his legs, and as my left hand grabbed it around the base, my right hand began to slide his foreskin back and forth over his shiny glans. I was totally fascinated as the head popped in and out, but I think Tad enjoyed it too, because his little penis got hard and pointed straight out toward me.

“Wow, that’s neat!” I exclaimed. “It’s really fun to do that too, so thanks, Tad. You can touch mine now, if you want.”

All I heard was a faint response of “uh huh” and Tad’s hand reached out and his fingers started to rub over and around my exposed glans. It didn’t take long before my little penis became very stiff too, just like Tad’s had done.

“Man, that feels really good,” I told him. “You can touch my weenie whenever you want, because it makes me feel all tingly inside.”

“And you can touch mine whenever you want too,” he agreed. “It felt really cool when you touched me like that, so I want you to do it some more.”

Since the area we were in could possibly be seen from the house, we decided to move further into the wooded area first, before we continued to stroke each other’s immature penises. Nothing more happened as a result of what we were doing, other than a few very pleasurable sensations, but Tad and I now had this unique bond from this special type of contact. It was something neither of us had ever enjoyed before, but it was one small pleasure we knew we would want to repeat again and again.

Tad and I had just spent a marvelous day together, but it was now getting late, so we went up to my bedroom to get ready to sleep. We both took a shower first, but we did it separately, because it never occurred to either one of us that this was something else we might do together. What we did do together was spend the rest of the night without any clothes on at all. I didn’t have to worry about anyone coming into my bedroom unexpectedly, since my mother never came to see me and the help had been instructed to knock first. Then, they were to wait for me to answer the door or tell them to enter before they came inside, so I knew we were safe from being discovered.

Once we got under the covers of my queen-size bed, we moved really close to each other. Although we didn’t know for certain exactly what we were doing, we kept rubbing each other’s penis, because it felt so good. We continued this until we started to get a little sore from the stimulation and then we finally drifted off to sleep. To say the least, I think we both slept extremely well that evening.