Maddog & The Pope (Learning to fly on Broken Wings) - 5. Chapter 5 Butterflies in Down Jackets and Snow Boots

Somehow Niki managed to live through Christmas. He spent most of it in bed, not wanting to get up. There was no reason to get up! So every now and then he rose and went to the kitchen to get himself a tea and a bite to eat. He took his laptop and gamed through the holidays with some excursions to check his channels on WhatsApp and Insta. Out of boredom he even checked Facebook, which was rather remarkable since he considered Facebook an ‘old folks medium’ for senile men and women who only used it to break the boring routine of the retirement home they were living in.

Visits to Romeo and GayRoyal didn’t bring any results, apart from old, fat men who wrote him they desperately wanted to fuck him. But there was that one very cute boy of eighteen in Berlin. Yeah well… Berlin, even with his racing monster it would take him four hours to get there so it wasn’t a real option. Although he had to admit he felt tempted to do it because it was an exceptionally gorgeous boy!

Each evening he made himself a dinner, more a pretense at a dinner and a far cry from what other people ate at Christmas. For him it was just another pizza in the oven and a yogurt.

The day after Christmas was a Tuesday meaning another working day. Funny enough he was happy he could go to work, the first time since he was in Merligborn he was pleased he could do so. No matter how boring his colleagues were, no matter how meaningless their conversations, at least he was able to get back among living people after two days of solitude. He almost even started to like the idea of seeing ‘Snake Eyes’, as he liked to call Herr Weber, strictly for himself, of course. The thought produced a grin on his face:

“Mind your way of thinking, young man… this is becoming almost mentally deranged!”

Once at work not only his colleagues were dull as he had expected (he would have been surprised if they had turned very interesting in the short period of two days), but work proved to be even more tedious than usual. It all came down to a few clients who wanted to change their gift cards into something tangible or people who were for some reason not satisfied and wanted to exchange their products. Niki did what he could to keep them all satisfied, but at the end of the day his job had mostly been ‘waiting for other customers.’

By then he was eagerly anticipating for closing time. He had this new idea in his mind for another mural and he wanted to start working on its design as soon as he had eaten. But just before this was about to happen, an unpleasant surprise awaited him.

“Young man, a word please!”

That dreadful, clipped, sharp voice that stubbornly refused to call him by his name as if it would be asking for a visit from the Devil. And always in this slightly disdainful way, it had to be ‘Snake Eyes’. Slowly he turned around, wondering what he might have done wrong now. It couldn’t be much since business had been extremely slow all day. He tried to keep his glance neutral while he waited for what was coming. He had to because he knew who was behind all this, who did this to him, even at long range. It was his goddamned own father, the man for whom he felt feelings that were no longer disgust only, but were rapidly developing into blazing hate. If it was only the repellent Herr Weber he had to deal with, the man now standing in front of him, he could have quit and walk out. But he was stuck, because it was his father behind everything, the person he most hated but whom he depended on as far as his livelihood was concerned. In a way he loathed this dependency; he started to hate himself for lacking the courage to break free from it.

“Young man, maybe it is an appropriate moment to remind you about our company policy. Our policy is not to satisfy the customers, but to make money by giving them the suggestion that we want to satisfy their needs.”

Carefully played neutrality disappeared from Niki’s eyes. Now there was only a genuine expression of stupefaction, punctuated by an uttered: “Huh?” which he let follow by a flabbergasted:

“I really don’t understand what you mean, Herr Weber.”

The man looked sharply at him, his eyes spitting venom. His thin index finger started stabbing at Niki’s chest, emphasizing every word he spat out:

“If your intelligence is anywhere near that of your father, then think it over, young man. I have no doubt you will see the light of what I mean. And now, good evening, young man!”

With that the man turned around and walked away adopting his usual haughty pace, not considering him worthy of another look.

Niki still didn’t get it. Questioningly he looked at a colleague who just stared back with rolling eyes that only seemed to express:

“You know how he is! Charles Dickens would have loved him!”

Once excused from work Niki grabbed his jacket and walked out. While walking home he considered his situation. He was indeed overthinking what Weber had meant, but no matter from what angle he looked at it, it absolutely eluded him. Finally, he wrote it off as one of ‘Snake Eye’s’ intimidating harassments aimed at spreading fear among his subordinates and meant to maintain his overbearing dominant position as the subsidiary manager by any means, allowed or not allowed.

Once he was home he threw a ready meal in the microwave. He ate it sitting at the table and with a happy smile he thought:

“Now let’s start with some real work!”

One way or another he was nervous. He felt he was going to try something that was at the limit of his technical and maybe even artistic capabilities. He knew that the error probability in the actual execution on a preferably virgin white wall was enormous. But he had this image in his head and he wanted to transform it, make it visible for anyone who wanted to see it. If he managed to get it done he would be where he wanted to be for the moment, one step up on the ladder of the big names in the scene. Maybe then they would even consider him ready for Art Academy.

He took a large sheet of paper, laid it on the table and closed his eyes, recalling the image he had had in his mind since this morning. Or was it last night he first imagined it? Had he dreamed it?

No matter. He started to make a rough division on the paper, to mark the planned composition. Again he closed his eyes, concentrating on the details. He took a 4H pencil and started sketching, beginning with the marked area in the middle and working from there to the sides. He had to pause a moment, to ask himself how “Death” was depicted in the Middle Ages. After studying some images on internet he had a pretty fair idea and continued sketching his interpretation of what he had just seen.

“This is going to be great! I feel it in my blood.” he mused with a beaming smile.

Far after midnight he stopped working, almost forgetting that tomorrow was another boring day with ‘Snake Eyes’ around him, scrutinizing him, spying for his next error, waiting for something to report to the man he hated. At that precise moment though, he couldn’t care less. He just fell asleep satisfied with his design so far.

 

New Year’s Day was already over, so a new year had dawned with all its chances and dangers. He couldn’t understand why but Inno only smelled the chances, ignoring the lurking dangers.

For some reason a burden had fallen off him that Christmas Eve. Christmas Eve or was it the next morning when he woke up? It seemed as if his refusal to go to Communion had changed something in him. He was freed from that expectation and felt no guilt. He didn’t know if he had made his peace with God, but it sure felt as if he had made peace with himself. And the feeling was great, definitely exhilarating, maybe even intoxicating! He hoped his present state of mind would continue forever, he even prayed for it.

With a few days of the Christmas holidays remaining, he went to visit the fitness studio he had selected. He was shown around without much enthusiasm by a young, very cute and very brawny trainer, whose facial expression made it pretty clear that he was thinking. The guy was wondering what this scrawny, little kid was looking for in his studio in the first place. He didn’t mind; he was determined so he signed a contract, initially for one year. Now he was on his way to the textile discounter to find some suitable clothing for fitness training.

He strolled along a street, enjoying the refreshing, crispy winter air and the few rays of sunshine. Looking around, he hoped he might see a cute young boy his own age and with a similar physique. His wishes were not fulfilled. There were old people walking by on the sidewalk and a man on a scooter, who was fat enough for his buttocks to bulge over both sides of the vehicle. He couldn’t help laughing at the sight, it was too hilarious but quickly looked away embarrassed to be laughing at the man’s size.

He turned a corner and was surprised to encounter a little uproar. It was not a complete riot, but only a small group of older folk gathered in a heated conversation about something they were looking at. Making angry gestures, they kept pointing at a wall.

Getting closer he heard a man say:

“It’s blasphemous to paint something like that. It profanes the whole of Christmas. Must be some fool who did it with the sole purpose of shocking us all!”

“Look at those damned colors.” a second man growled, his face contorted in an angry grimace. “It’s a rainbow. The guy who made this has to be a faggot. He should be thrown in jail. It is simply sacrilegious.”

“Since when is a rainbow gay?” the first man asked scornful.

The other shrugged, keeping his mouth shut, but a middle-aged woman exclaimed:

“Being… homosexual…,” almost spitting the last word out in disgust, “is sacrilegious enough by itself without painting a monstrosity like that!”

A fourth woman only held her head in her hands, continuously shaking it left and right in dismay and repeated the same mantra of disgust over and over:

“Oh my, oh my, how awful, how awful!”

Inno stopped and studied the subject of all this indignation. It was a large Christmas tree in rainbow colors, almost toppling over. It was beautifully painted with shadows under the branches clearly showing their multiple layers and with white patches representing snow, in all the correct places. Hanging from the branches were shiny silver erect phalluses and the whole was topped by a glittering silver star. It had something of good-natured mockery about it. Especially with the sunlight reflecting in the glitter powder covering the decorations. The jocular effect was only increased by the image of a young white kitten, almost in top of the tree, climbing playfully high to get near the star. This artist knew what he was doing. But the man was right: no straight guy would have painted something like this. The maker had to be gay, at least queer.

Without thinking he blurted out:

“It’s beautiful! I like it!”

Three people turned to look at him, the fourth was still shaking her head from left to right, repeating the same litany. There was utter surprise, maybe even shock, but it was replaced by anger very rapidly. One of the men said aggressively:

“Shut up, brat! You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Inno was an easy-going boy who never caused trouble, but the way it was said angered him. Not wanting to give an inch, he replied sharply:

“Hey, I’m a grown-up boy by now, so I know what I’m talking about. I happen to have a thing like that of my own, but mine is not silver!” he added with a sarcastic smile.

“Didn’t your parents raise you to be polite, cheeky brat?” the man cried out in rage, “Now move on!”

Inno shook his head. Then he answered:

“Yeah, my mum taught me to be polite. But she also taught me to stand my ground.”

Although surprised by his own audacity, he had no intention whatsoever to move on. He just stayed where he was and studied the tree and its decorations, searching for his cell phone from his jacket.

“I said: move on!” the man cried again.

“You can’t.” Inno said with icy calmness. “This is a public sidewalk and I can walk anywhere I want or stand anyplace I like. If you disagree, just call the cops.”

The quartet seemed to understand they couldn’t win, because they withdrew. Still muttering and grousing over the monstrous tree made by some unknown but no doubt, dirty fag painter. And about their newest source of irritation, a cheeky whipster who had just turned up out of nowhere and had defended exactly the thing which had caused their righteous anger. The youth of today! What had it come to?

With the resentful ‘critics’ gone Inno had a chance to study the mural intensely. He loved what he saw. He was no expert on art but he knew what he liked and what he didn’t. This was simply great! The painting was painted in such a way so as the shadow areas gave the tree depth. As if it was embossed on the wall. The decorations were designed with great care to give only the impression of a phallus without really being a true depiction. In fact, Inno saw it for what it was: it was a very good joke, but a joke in which someone had put a lot of effort to make it as splendid as it was.

He pulled out his cell phone and took a picture of the tree on the wall, wanting to save it for later memory. Only then he saw something peculiar.

It was some kind of small poster, haphazardly stuck on one of the lower branches of the tree. It showed the black head of a snarling dog and the words “Living in your Eyes.” Under it was something in small, colored letters. Inno had to go close to read it. It read:

“Maddog.”

“Funny,” he muttered, “Maddog? What or who is Maddog? And… it’s a six-letter word, each of them in another color of the rainbow.”

He couldn’t figure out if the poster was put there by someone who had done it just for fun. But why the colors of the rainbow in the last word? Was it a statement? It intrigued him. Was it stuck there by the artist and was he indeed gay? Or was he a she and was she lesbian? Or… bi, transgender, non-binary…? Oh man, there were so many variations, as he had found out. It almost started to dizzy him.

He stared at the poster as if he expected answers from the piece of paper. But he didn’t get any. He cast a last pensive glance at the tree and the poster, shrugged kind of frustrated by the lack of clarification and continued his way to the textile discounter. He still had unfinished business to take care of.

 

Monday afternoon was heading towards its end. Since it was still January, twilight fell gradually. In the dimming light the shoppers became dark silhouettes given life only as they passed the illuminated shop fronts and slipping into shadowy figures as they moved out of the light.

Niki wandered at leisure through the shopping district, glad that the irritating shoddy Christmas decorations had been removed. He was in no hurry. It was his day off, actually his second weekend day. He was on his way to the gym for one of his weekly workouts, his gym clothes packed in a small backpack, laconically slung over one shoulder.

Suddenly he was distracted by the outline of someone sitting on the ground in the corner of a dark porch. There was a tin can, a collecting box, in front of him. Niki took a closer look. It was a young boy, younger than himself. And the way the kid looked left no doubt he was one of the many young homeless beggars that were to be found everywhere in town. In the whole of Germany and probably all over the world.

When he lived in Hamburg and during his first months in Merligborn he would have ignored the kid without casting a further glance. But the encounter with Lukas had had a noticeable effect on him. He was no longer able to look the other way and pretend he hadn’t seen anyone. He stopped and searched in his coat pocket. Finding a five euro note, he dropped it in the tin can.

The kid looked at him with large, surprised and grateful eyes and exclaimed:

“Wow, that’s a lot of money, man. Thank you very much!”

“My pleasure, kiddo.” he replied with a smile. “Make good use of it. Don’t throw it away on dope. Find yourself something to eat.”

“You can bet on it I will!” the boy said with a beautiful smile.

While continuing his walk Niki thought:

“It is such a small trouble to help someone and feel good about it yourself.”

Yes, he felt good about it. It only cost him some small change and the kid’s smile made it all worthwhile. He pulled up the collar of his jacket and increased his pace. It was getting colder.

Another ten minutes of brisk walking and he reached the fitness studio. After changing he went to the workout spaces, filled his water bottle and took his training plan. He glanced over it to see how far he had come last time he was here.

“Not bad,” he muttered, “Forty-five kilos on the vertical pull.”

He remembered how, two weeks earlier, he had literally gritted his teeth to get it done. Niki smiled at the thought he had managed the prescribed thirty times. He started to laugh almost loud when he recalled that it was the last exercise that day. One pull-up more and his muscles might have snapped off.

He decided he should go easy after the two weeks pause and lower the weights somewhat to get back in the rhythm. Next week would be time enough to put some extra weights on.

He started the first exercise after selecting the desired weight. It was leg stretching. In a way he hated it. It felt as if it was overburdening his dorsal muscles, although the exercise was aimed at the legs. After doing it ten times twice he took the mandatory pause to let his muscles loosen up. He just sat there staring around somewhat mindless and dreamy.

Until he thought he was really dreaming! Some distance away he perceived a ginger-blond head of long, curly hair!

“Lukas?” he muttered.

He looked more closely but to his disappointment it wasn’t the one he was hoping for. It was a small, skinny boy, about five and a half feet tall. Niki really didn’t consider himself to be a body builder but this boy even outdid him as far as scragginess was concerned. There was not a single muscle that could be seen. The only thing which identified him more or less as male was the thin ginger-blond designer stubble on his cheeks and chin.

He just stood there, a towel in one hand and a water bottle in the other, looking completely forlorn and absolutely out of place in the company of muscle braggers. His eyes looked around in a way a disconsolate lost puppy does and his general facial expression radiated desperation. He really looked like someone who was at a loss as to what to do.

Niki continued with his last twenty stretches. At the same time he kept an eye on the boy, the reason why escaped him. The newcomer remained where he was, not moving an inch in any direction as if he was still figuring out where he had lost his way to end up in this strange place.

Niki rose from his leg stretching bench, shook his leg muscles loose and strolled towards the next exercise, the push up bars. Walking closely pass the boy in an effort to get a better look at his face. He saw one thing right away. The boy had the most beautiful grey eyes he had ever seen, full of expression, although at this moment his expression was pretty dejected.

He did his forty pushups, gradually feeling his arm muscles cramp slightly and burn. It was a good feeling after the weeks of inactivity. Finally, he was doing something physical again and he was not being bothered by constant thoughts. Once done, he dried the sweat from his face with his towel and walked back in the general direction from where he had come from, up to the next step in his training program.

To his surprise the boy had still not budged, like he was rooted to that one spot. He looked forlorn.

Niki started to feel really sorry for the boy and decided to give him a hand.

“Hi…,” he started, “can I help you? You’ve been standing there for a while now, looking as if you have no idea where to start. Didn’t one of the trainers show you the exercises and make a training plan for you?”

The boy looked at him, shaking his head but his eyes showed a glimmer of hope.

“That’s pretty dumb,” Niki muttered annoyed. “I mean, you’re paying customer so normally they should do that. Doesn’t matter, I’ll show you the exercises. Come on!”

He took the exercise he was planning on doing himself, sitting on the biceps trainer:

“I’ll show you how it’s done, so pay attention.”

He shifted the weights to thirty kilos. He knew he was showing off since he had just managed twenty-five kilos, but he didn’t know why he felt the need to brag. It didn’t matter, he just started on his first pull, repeating this ten times.

He barely succeeded in making the tenth movement, moaning from the pain in his arms. But he got it done, glad that the “ten” were over. His biceps started to protest violently against so much overtaxing. The exertion had been so hard he actually had to recover his breath for a few seconds.

He rose, shook his arms loose and with a painful smile he said:
“OK, now you do it!”

The boy sat down and listened to Niki’s instructions on where and how to place his arms and elbows. Then he started his first attempt to get the bar up, to no avail. The thing hardly moved a centimeter.

“I can’t!” the kid cried out in despair.

“Sorry!” Niki giggled. “My fault. I forgot to change the weights. I’ll switch it to ten. That OK with you?”

The boy nodded and Niki changed the weight adjustment.

“Try now!” he said.

The bar got higher than on the first attempt but not to the prescribed height to complete the exercise satisfactory. The boy shook his head, his eyes filled with frustration.

“I’ll change it to five kilos.” Niki said reassuringly.

“You must think I’m a sissy.” the boy said in a plaintive tone, “Just like the trainers thought.”

Niki shrugged, shook his head and replied:

“No, I’m not saying you’re a Nancy boy. But I hope you don’t mind when I say that you are going to need a lot of training.”

“Yeah, I know.” the boy answered with a deep sigh.

But he managed all three cycles of ten with five kilos, although even for that he had to clench his teeth and his face became more and more red from the effort.

“Great!” Niki cried out in encouragement at the end, “You did it.”

“Five kilos…” the boy muttered with a sad smile. “You do thirty.”

“I didn’t start with thirty, dude.” Niki countered. “It just takes time. By the way, what’s your name?”

“I’m Inno.” the kid answered.

Niki introduced himself and continued to guide him through the other exercises, carefully taking care that all of them started at the lowest possible weight of five kilos. Every kilo extra might only serve to discourage this Inno-kid, who looked down-beaten enough to let Niki forget about push up bars and self-lifting.

“And why does that bother me?” Niki thought, processing the question through his mind in a flash, coming to a conclusion, that surprised him:

“I can’t understand the why…but as a matter of fact it does!”

They walked back together to the changing room and

showers. Inno looked beat, the physical exercise had taken its toll. When they were at the showers, Niki stopped and asked him:

“Dude, you look wiped out. Why are you doing this to yourself?”

Inno looked at him with eyes that were much brighter, considering how exhausted he was:

“I’m not doing this for myself.”

“For who then?” Niki asked, feeling totally in the dark about the meaning of the answer.

“I do it for the Lord.” was the straightforward reply, followed by a very ashamed blushing of the boy’s cheeks.

Niki looked at him with large eyes of disbelief and was only able to utter:

“Huh?”

By now blushing to his crown Inno gave him a weak, shy smile and replied:

“Never mind. Forget I said that.”

Then the kid changed subjects pretty smart by saying:

“Can we see each other again here? You are a better trainer than the ones we pay.”

Niki shrugged. He had no intention of throwing away his own workouts to babysit a novice, but there was something that made him say:

“Let’s see how it works out. Maybe we will miss each other if we are here on different days or at different times.”

Inno just nodded, but his grey eyes sent a powerful message when he said:

“I’m off to the shower. See you around, Niki. At least, I hope so.”

Niki observed the kid as he took his stuff out of his locker and disappeared in the shower. In a way he was intrigued by this Inno. First of all because of that strange answer, or maybe first of all by his really magical, almost hypnotical grey eyes. Niki was also enchanted by the color of the boy’s ginger-blond hair.

“I’m completely in the dark as to the why…but yes…I hope so too!”

  

Niki strolled slowly back to his apartment, having lots to think about. He mulled over the strange chance encounter with the skinny boy. And about his mysterious luring grey eyes and ginger-blond hair.

He was also left thinking about that curious and mystifying remark about the Lord. Was the kid a devout Christian, one of those conservative Catholics?

Absorbed in his musings he went through the shopping district he had passed on the way to the gym, finding it a lot quieter than earlier in the day.

He saw the homeless street beggar boy was still in his corner, hunkering down to find some protection against the cold wind. Despite his troublesome situation the kid seemed to recognize him, sending him a flashing, heartwarming smile.

“Incredible, a shitty life like that and still this touching smile!” Niki thought amazed. He stopped and reached inside his coat pocket for a second time, finding a two-euro coin. He threw it into the small tin can and with a warm smile of his own he said:

“That’s for the dessert!”

The kid gave him a second smile that could blanch the sun:

“You’re a very kind guy, dude! Thank you again.”

Walking on, Niki found it hard to concentrate on his previous thoughts. Meeting the young down-and-out again brought back memories, leading to a fierce struggle in his mind for his undivided attention between the newly-found Inno and the lost Lukas.

In this slightly confused state of mind he arrived home. He hung his jacket on the coat rack, went into the living room and switched on the light. He sat down at the table and started working on the design of his new project. He was pretty satisfied with the progress. The main component of it was almost ready. There were just some small problems to be resolved with shadows in a certain part. If that was settled he could start with the parts around the center, having some pretty firm ideas for them in his imagination. Some dead trees with a number of vultures in them, a few skeletons and skulls in the foreground. But concentration was difficult. Time and again his thoughts wandered off to the curious scraggy kid in the gym. He tried to find an answer for why he found the kid sparked his interest, but he couldn’t.

After an hour of drawing, erasing and drawing again he felt hungry. He rose and walked to the kitchen, where he threw a pizza in the oven. At that moment, when he closed the oven door, he cried out:

“Goddamn, I forgot to ask him his phone number!”

The outcry was immediately followed by the thought:

“Why do I want to know that? He’s small, he’s skinny… but… his eyes… they mean something to me.”

He sighed, switched on the oven, shrugged somewhat dejectedly and muttered:

“Oh well, I’ll just have to wait until I see him another time at the gym! And keep my fingers crossed it happens soon.”

While he waited for the pizza, he let everything that had happened in the gym replay through his mind, until he noted something incongruous in his own behavior. He was the one who had stepped on the brake by evading, when he made that remark about “we might miss each other.” He could have asked for the phone number. Chances were big that the kid would have given it, at least, that is what Niki read in his eyes. But he hadn’t asked for it!

He became so absorbed in his thoughts, he forgot everything around him, until a practical matter of extreme urgency reminded him of something, when he noticed a burnt smell.

“Shit, my pizza!” he cried out, while he ran to the kitchen.

He tore the oven open. Whisps of smoke greeted him and the only thing he found was a perfectly circular blackened thing.

“Damn!” he exclaimed in frustration, “What an evening. First… what was actually first?”

He thought it over and came to an inescapable conclusion: he had been hit by Cupid’s arrows! But this time Cupid had been operating like a sniper operating at close range and he was disguised as a scrawny kid. His arrows were bolts of lightning that shot from the boy’s magical eyes. Even if Cupid had been nearsighted it wouldn’t have mattered, Niki took the full broadside anyway.

“Yeah,” he continued with a broad smile, “first there was love at first sight and now my dinner is ruined. Oh well, guess I have to call for a delivery.”

The spontaneous, frustrated exclamation gave him the answer he had been looking for: he had fallen in love. But the reason still eluded him. Did his emerging feelings for Inno only have a negative motive: because he had no one better to love? Or was it Inno’s eyes? The eyes of someone who knew what he wanted and gets it done with an incredible determination and willpower. A determination that he lacked, at least that is how he felt about it himself.

With a sigh he closed the oven again and took his cell phone to call for a pizza delivery. He hoped the delivery boy would be fast, because his stomach had really started to rumble now.

While waiting for the doorbell to ring he thought things over for yet another time:

“So, I’m in love! This time I mustn’t blow it. No, just don’t blow it!”

 

As slow as Niki had walked home after leaving the gym, as equally snail-like Inno biked to his mother’s apartment. But unlike Niki he wasn’t thinking, he was only dreaming! There was a recognizable feeling in his stomach of butterflies careening around in wild flights. It was a feeling he had almost forgotten and not felt since the day when he fell in love with Dieter, his demigod classmate. He grinned at the thought of the butterflies.

“Butterflies?” he said to himself. “In January?”

His next thought made him laugh out loud, looking like some idiot:

“They must be wearing down jackets and very teeny-weeny snow boots!”

He let himself sink again into his daydreaming conjuring up that absolutely gorgeous face, the shoulder-long intense deep-black hair, those sensual lips and the unforgettable, fascinating, dark-brown, warm, kind eyes. When his fantasizing turned to the body the face belonged to, he felt a certain reaction in his groin. Making it necessary to shift his weight on the bike’s saddle, before things became uncomfortable.

The most important feeling he had though, was of a sense of tenderness which the boy possessed and which he, himself, was searching for.

“How can such perfect beauty in body and soul be made and born?” he mused.

He was aware of the biology. He had these classes as well. But they did not explain the resulting beauty. He was a product of the same process but compared to Niki he was a poor quality output as far as beauty was concerned. It looked like some boys had it all and others had nothing. He considered himself to belong to the group that had ‘almost nothing.’

His reveries were abruptly disturbed by the honking of a car horn. He looked in the direction where it had come from and saw the vague contours of a person behind the wheel who was making angry gestures at him.

“Aiii,” he chuckled, “better pay more attention to the traffic around me.”

However, he had no illusions. To begin with, the main question was whether this boy had any gay inclinations. Although the number of trinkets and pretty-pretties around his wrists and neck seemed to indicate he might. And his whole appearance, no matter how much it gave the impression of being male, had a slight feminine touch.

Secondly: compared to such beauty he himself was a scarecrow. Well, he had always been a scarecrow, not at all in the same league or worthy to be anywhere near him. But his heart didn’t care about his self-image, it was truly and completely lost.

Despite the cold evening air, he was floating on Cloud Nine surrounded by warm feelings and continued his dreaming until he arrived home.

Once he had hung his coat on the clothes hook he entered the living room and kissed his mother, saying with a yawn:

“Oh mamma, I’m so very tired!”

“Then go to bed, bambino.” she replied with her usual sweet smile.

“I think I will.” he thought out loud. “Buona Notte, mamma.”

He went to his room, undressed to his underpants and laid down on his bed. He stared briefly at the ceiling, thinking:

“I guess I need it again. There’s no escape, my Lord.”

He felt no guilt, only a need, a desire. And as far as the priests and the Church were concerned he couldn’t care less. He felt the Highest Authority would understand and maybe even smile about it. Had Jesus, his son, never been an adolescent? Had he never struggled with these kinds of urges in his body? Maybe, Jesus had even grappled with these desires in relation to another boy. Yes, it was just a thought that came up in his head. The Gospels didn’t mention anything about it. But then, were the Gospels a falsification of facts, only molded into what the Church wanted them to contain? Were the Gospels fake news?

His hand slid beneath the elastic waistband of his underpants, searching for his dick. While doing so he overthought the question of what had happened to him. It was as if Christmas had become a feast of liberation for him. He didn’t break with God, he still believed in Him and respected and feared Him. But as for the Church and the priests?

Somehow his quiet and almost unnoticed revolt of not going to Communion during Midnight Mass had changed everything. It was his rupture with that institution, it was the signal, he was accepting himself for who he was. Not a sinner; only a homosexual!

He let his eyes fall shut imaging the fingers, stroking his shaft and its head, were Niki’s. In his mind Dieter was sent down to the nebulous realm of forgotten memories. His image replaced by Niki’s angelic face, compelling eyes and inviting lips. His fingers continued to play, exerting light pressure on the sensitive spot, it grew moist and slippery. Slowly he teased the tip, raising the tension to an almost unbearable level. So every now and again he licked his fingers, dreaming he tasted Niki.

This mental vision was enough to push up the pressure in his loins to a level he had never experienced before. The ejaculation was an explosion which released all his tension. A soft moan escaped his lips. He took a deep breath, enjoying the fierce aftershocks, his whole body trembling. Gradually he became aware of the aches in his muscles from the strenuous exercise earlier that evening. But it was worth the pain: he had met the one he wanted to meet! The one he had been searching for.

“Damn,” he muttered, “I’m in love. I’m really in love. I want to see him again and again. Please, Lord, you understand. Make it so I will see him again, I don’t care where and under what circumstances. Please, let me see him again and… OK, my Lord, I know: I’m over-asking now but… make it that he wants me as much as I want him!”

He took a cloth and cleaned himself. Then he switched off the bedside lamp and enjoyed the face, which was still lingering in his eyes. His lips made a kissing gesture as a good night to the desirable boy he had met in the gym that evening. Gently he slipped into a deep sleep. Guess what he was dreaming about?

 

For weeks on end Niki went to the gym in the hope of seeing Inno again. But no matter how hard he looked around while doing his exercises, he didn’t see the long, wild ginger-blond head of hair again.

In a way he still had difficulties in understanding what had happened to him. He was not arrogant, but he knew he was an attractive boy, for both girls and gay boys. But attraction had nothing to do with love. And he couldn’t figure out why he had fallen in love with a puny boy, who could hardly lift five kilos.

“It must be his eyes,” he reasoned. “No matter his body, his eyes were so magical! They radiated determination and willpower.”

When he was at home during these weeks he thought things over, especially this problem of “love.” Had he been in love with Raimund?

Now, after not having seen the man for about six months and knowing he was replaced by just another toy boy, he realized it had nothing to do with love. Yes, he had seen it that way when it was going on, but now he knew he had just been looking for sex, for the pure animal-like mating, in which he was always on the receiving end. Because he allowed himself to be on the receiving end. Raimund had given him what he needed, even overbidding his adolescent and quite insatiable needs. But love? No, it had nothing to do with that.

And Lukas? Yes… that had been love, but he blew it. However, he had learned from the experience, he had shown his love in the wrong way, making it not a love with the heart but a love with the credit card. Now he knew love couldn’t be bought. But since he had tried that with Lukas it came to a rapid, sad end and the physical expression of it was limited to that one and only time, the night before Lukas left, when he was again on the receiving end of it all.

And now Inno. Was it love? Or was it electricity? Or was love emotional electricity? But it looked as if these questions didn’t matter: he hadn’t seen the kid at the gym for weeks now. Leaving the question of love open. If it had been love he’d blown it again! He fervently hoped Inno would grant him a second chance.

During these weeks his life returned to boredom. He went to work in the photo store, as disinterested in selling cameras as he had been on the very first day he started. But over time he had developed a way, which enabled him to anticipate a client’s wishes without much thought. This left him thinking about Inno, about love and about his next project at the same time, hardly hearing what the customer said. Despite the lack of attention, he still came up with the right advice. He almost started to think that higher authorities in the company considered his performance satisfactory, because he managed to stay out of the cross hairs of Herr Weber’s always observant cold eyes, which noted everything. And that resulted in a sharp drop in Sunday Afternoon Lectures. It looked as if his old man was unable to find anything to bitch about. For Niki his job was only a means to keep the cash flowing, to have his rent paid and provide for a health insurance. He didn’t like it. He still wanted to make his own life but how could he do that without a livelihood? He simply had to accept for the time being he needed to be a chameleon: grey during the day, wildly colored after working hours. His heart was where it had always been. It was in art and recently with the elusive Inno.

Art was his lifeline. Every evening after he got home, he felt his blood flowing again when he continued working on the design. He got a kick out of every new idea and had to restrain himself so as not to overload the final mural with too much detail, first out of purely artistic reasons, but also on practical grounds. He needed to paint it fast and in the middle of the night. The shorter the time to paint the wall, the better it was. Too many details would increase the required timespan, making it all a risky endeavor.

In the end the design was ready and he was content with it. “Jobless Reaper,” as he dubbed it, would adorn Merligborn’s cityscape. His personal and very cynical view on the endless discussions and politician’s humbug on the subject of climate change. Now it was time to make the necessary templates and to scout around for a suitable location. The last step would be to wait for more favorable weather conditions.

Having the design ready presented an unexpected problem for when he got home after work. He no longer had anything to do apart from cutting his molds and the twice-weekly gym visits. During which he stayed on the look-out for the all-telling ginger-blond hair.

Apart from these gym evenings he spent most of his time thinking. As might be expected it was Inno, who was foremost on his mind. But progressively another question invaded his reasoning. A subject he had never considered before but had always taken for granted: why was he always on the receiving end when it came to sex?

One thing was obvious to him: every morning, when he came out of the shower and looked in the mirror, it was a clear-cut case that he was a man. Maybe his most specific male feature was not the desired monstrous XXL example but it was as masculine as masculine could be, only in a more modest version. He knew he could use it, he could have multiple orgasms with it and he produced as much sperm as the XXL guys.

And he was happy as a man. He was content with his body the way it was. He really wasn’t likely to change, become transgender. There was something appealing about that but it was more a means to shock his father to the bone and had much less to do with how he felt himself to be. His body and the way he looked to the world would stay male.

What he couldn’t understand was, why all his virility disappeared from his body and his mind the minute he got into bed with a man? He showed no male behavior any longer, but rather became feminine. What did that say about him?

He suspected the answer lay in the very first time he slept with Raimund. He tried to recall the moment when the man deflowered him, even how he thought about that, how easily he had fallen into the submissive role. He had liked playing that part, he was good at it and it suited the circumstances. Raimund wanted it that way and he obliged.

He felt he was wanted, desired and taken seriously as a living human being, in his mind he could float away into outer space. Even toy boys were prized, they were important and desirable to their lovers who were filled with burning lust, no matter how expendable and exchangeable they turned out to be after the initial thrill had gone.

“What did I feel in my heart and when?” he muttered.

Thinking about this was an emotional strain, a trial to recall his feelings. Still, it was necessary for him because it might answer his question.

He recalled how that first time Raimund had flipped him over on his belly. It was quick and purposeful, although he wasn’t really aware of what was happening. Not until Raimund’s aroused hard dick pushed inside him. That hurt! He had gasped, but Raimund, if he noticed it in the first place, ignored it. Maybe he even liked it.

As Raimund fucked him, he became intoxicated. He felt like a girl must feel, his thinking clouded in a pink haze of eternal love for his conqueror.

“Well… eternal?” he grinned.

Even now, thinking about it, he blushed with shame and not least because he recalled a moment during one of their later romps which was very nearly embarrassing. When Raimund was pounding his ass, fucking him deeply, he had almost cried out:

“I want to have your baby!”

Even in his exalted state of mind he had realized it was a very foolish thing to say, looking at the biological impossibility of it. However, it was not about biology and physiology. It was a feeling that emerged from deep inside him and pressed to get out. He had hardly been able to stifle the outcry. How female could one turn?

But the shame didn’t stop his thinking. He sensed he was getting near some very important answer, that might explain a lot to him, as well as a lot about him.

“Could that be? Does something like that really exist? That I feel boy and girl, man and woman, varying with the circumstances?”

It rang a bell. He had heard about it. It must have been during his time in Hamburg when he was holding his predatory forays through the Hamburg queer scene, looking for cute boys in queer clubs and gay bars. It had something to do with kids who considered themselves neither boys nor girls, or, directly opposite to that, felt they were both at the same time. At that time Niki hadn’t paid any attention to it, thinking it was plain bullshit. For him it was simple: when you had a dick you were a boy and when you had a cunt you were a girl.

OK, a boy bottom was maybe something different, but he simply thought it was something special. In the gay scene he could be a girl if he wanted, but only there. Outside the scene he kept carefully quiet about it.

He remembered that it had some kind of name, but now he needed it he couldn’t recall it.

“Something with non-,“ he muttered pensively, “non-…. non-…. non-something.”

He rose, walked to his little desk and switched on his laptop. He tried “non-“ on google. That turned out not to be the smartest move: all kinds of “non-‘s“ turned up, millions of them. Just scrolling through them to look for some word he might recognize or not, would cost him half his life.

“What then?” he muttered.

Bright ideas seem to come when they aren’t expected. He remembered one of the gay sites where he had a profile had a list of genders with their explanations. He switched to the site, searched the list and started reading.

“Yes…,” he cried out rapturously. “That’s it, I recognize it! It’s non-binary.”

Then he started reading the definition:

“A person who doesn’t identify him/herself as neither entirely male or female. This is also an umbrella term for androgynous, genderqueer, gender fluid, a-gender and gender non-conforming.”

“Looks a lot like it!” he whispered, re-reading the text another time to make sure he got its meaning. “I’m not entirely male or entirely female, at least not in heart and soul. And that is what is important when defining yourself, not your body.”

Was he indeed non-binary? It sure looked that way. Thinking again about his first experience with Raimund, the assumption seemed correct. Had he been non-binary for the whole of his sexual life without knowing it? Could he do something with this newly acquired knowledge about himself? If he wanted to, he could confine expressing his female side to his sexual romps. He could also put a tiny emphasis on his femininity, for example by wearing an earring or with a very light accentuation of his eyes using a touch of eyeliner. The idea made him laugh. Not the thought in itself but the possible consequences, which he found very amusing, even somewhat provocative:

“If ‘Snake Eyes’ sees me walking in with eyeliner he might suffer a heart failure. Ain’t that a real nice way to get rid of him on a permanent basis?”

In a way his stubborn search for the recollections of his first experiences with Raimund caused a kind of chain reaction of upsurging memories. One was from a time in Hamburg when the Social Sciences teacher had told them about an old Chinese philosophy, not exactly the kind of subject which appeals to a sixteen years old kid, so at that time it had bored him to death. But now the memory bubbled up, as if part of him had picked it up, while his consciousness was making his hand doodle on a piece of paper.

It was about Yin and Yang, the theory of dualism, in which two opposites could result into something beautiful, if they united in the magical circle. It was about the summer, when the grains form seeds, that fall to the ground and the winter, when the grain dies, but where the winter’s snow provides cover and its rains nutritious water for the growing seeds, which will sprout from the ground the next summer, giving a rich and bountiful harvest.

It was about man and woman, Yin for femininity, Yang for masculinity. If the human race would be composed of only one of them it would be extinct in one generation. And if both opposites would remain separated in an absolute way then mankind was doomed as well. Only when they united in the magic circle, the cosmos of life, did they give rise to each other’s happiness, resulting in the gift of procreating something beautiful.

“Male, female…Yin, Yang…” he spoke in hushed tones. “It means something, but what? All very well, but it is scary as hell.” he muttered to himself.

Nobody would understand it. It was a clear-cut thing: you were male or female. You couldn’t be both of them. And it would make him a strange bird in the world. He didn’t understand it himself so how could he expect other people to understand it? Should he ignore or suppress it? No, the question was: could he ignore or suppress it?

He thought it over, his mind shifting to the highest gear:

“Man, this is heavy stuff! When I translate this to myself… I would assume that my body is the circle in which my male and female elements unite. They give rise to each other’s happiness. And then…? OK, so far, I could be content with being non-binary. But… the next step, procreating something beautiful? It won’t be a child.”

Unknowingly he stared at the design for “Jobless Reaper.” Suddenly the dime fell. Was that the reason he wanted to be an artist as long as he could remember? Although nobody in the family had been an artist before him. It was as if his desire had fallen out of the sky. But here was the answer, right in front of him. It was his own design! No matter how unwittingly his being non-binary might have been until this evening, it appeared as if it had guided him his whole life. It had led him to art! This was his way to give birth to something beautiful! That thought alone made it worthwhile!

“Talking about eye openers!” he cried out excitedly, “with or without eyeliner.”

This second time that the word ‘eyeliner’ came to mind got him thinking about ‘Snake Eyes,’ but not exactly in the previous humorous way. When he looked at his watch it said 02.33.

“Oh shit,” he uttered, “I have to get out of bed by seven. Man, I hope I don’t sleep through the alarm.”

He rushed to put the lights out, went to his bedroom, undressed and went straight to bed. Despite the late hour and the expected problems if he was late for work the next morning he felt very satisfied. The only piece in the puzzle still missing was Inno. Because he still felt lonely, alone in his bed.

 

Next morning didn’t go as planned but it went exactly as was to be expected. Breathless Niki ran into the photo store more than an hour late, having slept completely through the alarm. It produced the anticipated result. He was berated by Herr Weber in terms leaving nothing to be desired as far as clarity was concerned. This time he took it in good grace, without any resentment. He deserved it. It was normal. Any employee who arrived more than an hour late could expect a chewing out.

He made a perfunctory apology with the expected promise that it wouldn’t happen again… at least he hoped so. No guarantees given of course. It appeared to be accepted because nothing came of it, not even a dressing down over the phone from Hamburg.

With January slowly turning into February life became monotonous again, returning to the dreary treadmill of mind-numbing working hours, twice-weekly gym visits and template cutting. And template cutting was not his favorite activity. He knew he had to do it if he wanted his design to end up on a wall somewhere. However, his kick lay in designing and the actual putting the paint on the wall. Template cutting was just boring, a necessary evil.

It bugged Niki that there was still no sign of Inno. The boy had all the characteristics of an apparition, only appearing once and then vanishing. It started to drive him mad. The boy couldn’t have vanished into thin air. He had to be somewhere!

He decided to go on the offensive. He planned on looking for the elusive kid who had stolen his heart. Before he started, he had his ear pierced and bought a small golden earring, some eyeliner and epilated his eyebrows. He also bought himself a velvet, black blouse with a low stand-up collar, a garment that was on the dividing line of being just masculine and marginally feminine. It worked perfect as an extra measure to make his actual gender a matter of guessing for anyone who casted only a superficial look at him.

To his way of thinking he might as well combine two things: finding Inno and experimenting with reinforcing his feminine side. It was something he carefully avoided during working hours, knowing it would bring him a lot of problems, from Herr Weber and the company’s higher echelons in Hamburg. But he was pretty certain there was no risk involved by being slightly feminine when roaming the bars and clubs in Merligborn where, he had heard, he might find like-minded boys. And since he intuitively thought of Inno as being like-minded, searching the bars seemed a good option for finding him.

Four weekend evenings in Merligborn’s nightlife, or what would pass for that, brought him to a conclusion and a discovery. The conclusion was far from positive: the scraggy Inno had to be a ghost. No matter which bar Niki looked around and even inquired, there was no trace or even vague clue of him which might lead to finding him. It made him sad, but stubborn as he was he didn’t give up, not yet.

The discovery was more on the upside: it turned out even Merligborn had a tiny gay scene. It was a far cry from what he was used to in Hamburg but he found two small bars in a back street downtown that were reasonably filled with young boys about his age and clearly of the same disposition. Some of them were even worthy further exploration in case he had to abandon his search for Inno. He had no intention to become a celibate monk.

With his new stunning look, his blouse, epilated eyebrows, flashy earring and the delicate touch of eyeliner around his intense brown eyes (it took him a lot of tries to do it the way he wanted, not overly flashy, but applied discreetly and barely discernable), all subtly camouflaging his actual gender, he had quite an impact when he entered those bars. It resulted in lots of drink offers and even some bed invitations. One boy whom Niki found very attractive made him struggle to stick to his original purpose for the evening. But he declined all offers and invitations politely and in a friendly way, but nevertheless very decisively, since none of his admirers had ginger-blond hair and compelling grey eyes. With a non-committal smile, he made a few mental notes, just in case Inno would prove to be lost forever.

In the end all search expeditions turned out to be a disillusion with Niki ending up in bed, as always, on his own. After he switched off the bedside lamp the blues hit him like a solid wall in the dark when he thought:

“Did I only see a mirage in the gym that evening? But mirages don’t speak… or do they?”

With a sigh he rolled on his side and tried to find some sleep.

 

The presumed ‘ghost’ lay on his own bed in his own room, trying to read a book. He tried hard to concentrate on it but his attention was regularly distracted by his thoughts. They revolved around two important issues: his upcoming end of term exams at the German High School and, of course, Niki!

Inno was no ghost. He was a boy of flesh and blood and since he had met the boy with the black hair and the brown eyes which gave the impression of deep lakes, his penis reminded him he was alive. The reason of his ‘disappearance’ was as simple as it was harsh. He had enough money to do a single training session per week, but due to his upcoming exams he chose a different evening each week from that first visit. Since constantly changing study demands had the highest priority now. And he certainly didn’t have the sheer limitless financial means Niki had to cruise the bars downtown each weekend. But it didn’t mean he had forgotten the boy and he longed to see him again. He ehe Heven prayed he would, unless he had been such a nuisance that first evening the kid had decided to go to another gym to avoid further encounters. If so, he had missed his chance.

He didn’t bother too much about his exams. He was pretty certain he would roll through them, probably with high grades as well. The real question was then what?

There had been the years he wanted to be a priest and his path was clearly defined: exams, then the seminary, finish his theology studies and be ordained. But that goal had become questionable. That wasn’t an honest way to put it, the goal was no longer there. It had evaporated. Too much had happened. First there was what happened in the sacristy that Sunday morning and then the refusal of absolution. It devastated his belief in the Church. He no longer thought the clergy propagated the words of Jesus. Besides, over the past weeks he had found out he didn’t have the mettle to become a priest. He was not pure enough for such a vocation. And a large part of his impurity could be found in exactly the person he longed to see, to love and feel close to! He longed for that boy emotionally and he craved for him physically. It was this last desire which disqualified him once and for all from the priesthood. Notwithstanding he had this unforgiven mortal sin on his conscience. Hardly something which made him suitable to don the Church’s black cassock.

Fruitlessly he tried to concentrate on the problem at hand, but the returning mental image of Niki made it hard to keep his line of thought. Even the terrible memory of his first real essential conflict with his mother was insufficient to keep the enticing eyes from his mind.

The quarrel, because that is what it became, started shortly after Christmas when he had told his mother he would no longer accompany her to church. She made no effort to hide her hurt. Especially her remark to him, that she considered it a complete failure of her part with his upbringing. That had hit him hard. Because it wasn’t true! It was only this one aspect where he wanted to follow his own reasoning. The rest of her upbringing had simply been splendid and most of all loving. After the fight, a few days of icy cease fire followed until she finally conceded she wouldn’t interfere with his point of view and decision.

Not going to church had one drawback. He missed the pomp and circumstance that he had loved from a very young age on. But previously it had meaning. Now, he no longer believed in the ritual’s message or the meaning behind it. What he saw was an empty shell, an illusionist’s stage show, aimed at providing false tranquility and peace of mind to the audience so they could cope with the rigors of their existence for another week.

There was another aspect to being a priest which had also attracted him. It was the idea of becoming the person who lived in servitude to his parish, who helped and supported those in need and those who were experiencing a tough time. That aspect still appealed to him, to help other people. Maybe he should concentrate on that when he finished his exams.

“Let me check out tomorrow what studies there are in that direction.” he thought. “Maybe nursing… or… maybe… I don’t know! I’ll just have to investigate.”

That morning he had been up early to deliver the papers, had worked hard on his school assignments during the day and finished by doing the household chores while his mother was at work. Now he just needed time to chill. Besides, the image of the ‘gym boy’ was no longer satisfied with being subservient in some second-rate position and intruded into his thoughts more and more in ever increasing obtrusive ways. His hand slid in his undies again, stroking his hardening phallus.

“Oh God…,” he muttered, “I would love to feel his lips around it.”

He jacked off slowly, enjoying the building pressure. He stopped, short of the climax and then started all again.

“Build up the pressure, boy.” he thought. “Imagine it is Niki doing it! Let him be cruel to you!”

It took more than twenty minutes before, finally, he was no longer able to hold back. He came with a loud sigh, the powerful pumping shots landing on his chest and chin. He took a towel to clean himself, switched off the bedside light and rolled on his side, pushing the pillow under his head.

“My God, I love him.” he murmured with eyes closed to keep a hold on Niki’s image. “You have no idea how much I love him!”

But the following thought made him incredibly sad:

“But will I ever see him again?”

 

The first tender whisps of spring were in the air. It didn’t mean the temperatures had increased in some dramatic way; to the contrary, it was still quite cold. The air had changed, as if there was an expectant hint of new life in it, a crisp and crystal-clear chime that pervaded everything and everyone.

With one exception: Niki was at his wits end as far as the untraceable Inno was concerned. After searching the gym during the week and the bars the weekends he began to consider giving up, since it seemed useless. Being stubborn was one thing, being foolish another.

Last weekend he met that extremely cute boy again, the one who had flirted with him some weeks before. It took all his strength to resist his advances the first time, but the boy’s second attempt was even more forceful and Niki had to really struggle to control his desires. That kid was, in one word, gorgeous: he had a slender, lightly muscled body and the face of an angel. Besides, the bulge in his tight white jeans made a strong promise something large and beautiful would be found there, once it was unpacked. But his hair was a golden blond, not ginger-blond, and his eyes were emerald green, not grey. Niki had only put on his most seductive, apologetic smile and slightly hoarsely had whispered in his ear:

“No, not now, cutie. I don’t feel like it tonight. Maybe some other time, OK?”

For good measure he had topped it off with a soft kiss on the boy’s cheek. In a way he felt guilty, he knew damned well he was just keeping the boy on tenterhooks, keeping his options open should he decide he would finally forget all about Inno. And this kid was a real favorite as far as he was concerned.

This Wednesday evening he was doing his workout in the gym again, looking around for the boy he had been searching for, for so long. It was another disappointing experience. While torturing his leg muscles trying to get up forty kilos he made up his mind, he would continue searching this week and take one last round through the bars next weekend. Six weeks of fruitless searching were enough as far as he was concerned. If nothing came of it, he simply had to forget about the phantasmal boy. He would instead muster all his talent of seduction to end up between the sheets with the incredibly cute boy he had met in that bar twice now.

“I think that won’t be too much of a problem.” he thought with an inner smile.

He finished his exercises, rose and wiped the sweat from his chest with his towel, growling softly:

“Man, I’m dying here!”

Dying or not, he loved the exercises. He started to shake his legs to loosen up the cramped muscles and walked towards his next exercise, but stopped in his tracks when he sensed someone staring at him. Could it be…? No, it can’t be!

Somewhat irritated he looked around, his eyes searching the room. He simply didn’t like being stared at, it made him nervous.

When he locked onto the staring eyes it didn’t exactly diminish his vexation. They belonged to an elderly man in his late fifties, early sixties. He was large, not tall or muscular, but overweight, with a belly that flopped out over his gym trousers. The sight filled Niki with disgust when he noted the man licking his lips while staring at him. Despite Niki’s scowl the man kept his tiny pig-like eyes riveted on him. Niki felt as if his unwanted admirer was stripping off his tank top, shorts and underpants, raping him with his eyes. It infuriated him, but there was nothing he could do about it, apart from ignoring it and continuing with his next exercise.

With a muttered “Fuck you, geezer!” he walked away, without even taking the trouble to cast another glance at the man. If the guy liked to undress him with his eyes, so be it. He was here for other things, among them avoiding the terrible fate of becoming that nauseatingly fat at an older age.

He did the rest of his exercises, took a shower and dressed. Then he took his jacket out of the locker and walked to the exit.

Once outside, he heard a conspiratorial voice call:

“Hey kid, come over here!”

Niki looked in the direction from where the voice had come, only to recognize the same fat old man who had been staring at him, but who looked even bigger in a thick winter coat.

“The bastard must have been waiting for me.” he thought.

He felt how his anger re-emerged, but he was also curious about what the man might have to say. Curiosity won, so he approached the hulking figure and in an unfriendly tone he asked:

“What is it, man?”

The man bent his large head towards him and lowered his voice even further when he said:

“I’ll make you a proposition. If you do with me what you did for that guy in the video I’ll pay you a hundred euros.”

Niki looked at the man in horror, feeling thoroughly confused:

“What guy? What video?”

“Don’t play dumb, kid.” the man growled threateningly, “You know damned well what video I mean. The one on the internet!”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Niki exclaimed bewildered. “I don’t know about any videos on internet!”

“Then just take a look, kid.” the man grinned meanly. “Just look at Twink Paradise. Maybe you’ll recognize someone you know!”

“Just leave me alone and piss off!” Niki cried out befuddled and angry.

“Forget the hundred euros, kid,” the man snarled clearly disappointed, “and fuck you!”

“You can dream for the rest of your life about that, gramps.” Niki sneered with contempt and seething rage.

He turned his back on the man and walked away wishing he had never seen the oldie and wanting to get as far away from him as was possible.

While he walked home, he wasn’t overly concerned with what the oldtimer had said. To him it was just another ruse to get him in bed and since he was not into old men he saw no reason to give it any more thought. But gradually he started to worry:

“What if he is right? What kind of videos of me are on the internet? But I can’t remember any videos being made. They must be fake!”

By the time he walked into his apartment his worries were so strong he threw his jacket over a chair and switched on his laptop.

“What was this site called? Something with Twink…? What the hell is a twink in the first place?”

It took him some time before he remembered the site’s name, but once he recollected it, he entered it to Google. It showed up as the very first hit.

He opened it and saw what a twink was. They were all beautiful, cute young boys, who were showing off everything they had (including the parts that were normally hidden under clothes). and more than that, some of them showed all they could do with it! But there was nothing that alarmed him. None of those kids looked like him. The oldtimer had tried some dumb trick on him. He scrolled on, enjoying the pics of all these very cute boys, until…

His eyes opened wide in horror. There it was! At the bottom of the second page, in full color, fully naked and exposed, in flagrante delicto. His picture!

In desperation he clicked the pic only to find whole series of them and a video. All porn, as pornographic as it gets!

“Where did they come from?” he whispered breathless.

In utter confusion he tried to dig in his memory to find a clue, at the same time scrolling through the other pics. It was him sucking an anonymous dick and him with some guy’s cock buried deep in his ass.

It would have been one thing, if his clearly visible face expressed shock, fear, some resistance or protest, but it didn’t. It looked like he was thoroughly enjoying every minute.

Vaguely he recalled something. On one of the last pictures, he recognized something which confirmed his growing fears. Two hands were gripping his ass cheeks while a guy fucked him. Visible on one of the arms was a small tattoo which he had seen hundreds of times! It was Raimund’s arm!

“Goddamn bastard!” he yelled furiously. “He sold them all to a porn site!”

And he was certain he hadn’t spent the money on charity. He knew it was no use to scream. Raimund wouldn’t hear it and wouldn’t even care. Niki had to find a way to get even with him. But what could he do?

He could sue him, take him to court but chances were nil that Raimund still lived at the same address or had the same phone number. A phone number Niki had already deleted from his cell phone and forgotten months ago. He could contact the site to ask them to delete the pics but he knew they wouldn’t, not unless forced to do so by court order. And to get a court order he had to go to court with a lawyer. It would cost lots of money and might alert his father about his credit card expenditure. This thought sent shivers down his spine and despondently he muttered:

“Oh God, no! If dad even accidentally sees this, he’ll skin me alive for it!”

And even if the site did delete them, it didn’t matter. The pictures were already downloaded, copied and distributed over large numbers of untraceable channels between private users, ending up in Australia, Canada, South America, who knew where? On itself the internet was OK but it had one big disadvantage. You could get everything on to it, but you could never get it off again!

Niki realized now, three years later, he had made a huge mistake. He had trusted someone who couldn’t be trusted. He had loved someone who wasn’t eligible to even hear the word “Love”, not to mention be loved. He had been betrayed in the most grotesque way thinkable, first he’d been used as a toy boy and second sold as a porn model, without even knowing about it, let alone agreeing. But he knew there was nothing he could do about it. The mistake was made and there was no use crying over spilled milk. He could only try to contain the damage as much as was humanly possible and hope for the best.

In a way it seemed his banishment to Merligborn was a blessing in disguise. Had he stayed in Hamburg with its large gay scene the consequences might have been far more damaging. Especially since his liaison with Raimund left him not unknown in the scene. But now everybody in Hamburg had forgotten about him so very few people would recognize him from these pictures. And the old fool in the gym? Probably it had been a pure coincidence, the only one who was able to remember a kid he had seen on a twink site!

Nevertheless, he had an uneasy night with the images disturbing his sleep regularly. And in a way he started to wonder if his reasoning about the consequences wasn’t taking it too lightly.

“Oh well,” he muttered at five in the morning while he stared at the ceiling. “There’s really nothing I can do about it, apart from waiting for what happens next.”

The impact of the pictures’ discovery lingered on in the following days. When he walked to work or back home he walked huddled, ashamed and afraid, thinking every man who was passing him was staring at him. He was even afraid to show his face when helping a client in the store, fearing he might be recognized. He knew this line of thinking was pure bullshit but he couldn’t suppress it. After a few days he started to notice, that nobody cast any ‘funny' or horny glances at him and the after effects gradually disappeared.

Relaxing and with weather improving he started to concentrate on other things. It was about time to paint and unveil the “Jobless Reaper.”

 

He had found a perfect surface for it a few days earlier. It was a small public toilet building at the edge of a large parking lot along the city’s inner ringroad. As virgin as a twelve year old girl or boy. It was pristine, not one graffiti or poster on it. And it was the ideal location with thousands of people passing by every day, providing terrific exposure.

With a grin he thought:

“It might even inspire those, who have to take a leak.”

Shortly before the upcoming weekend he decided to make a delicate change to his appearances again. Like Maddog, his artistic alter ego, wanted to confuse people by making things different. He had discovered the urge to confuse people as to his identity and who he himself was. Although he didn’t have much of a beard growth, mostly limited to some downy black fluff, he succeeded in growing something looking like a designer stubble. It gave a light somewhat darker gloss over his olive skin. He combined that with his eyeliner, making a perfect mix to create wonderment: “What is this? A boy? A girl? Is he gay… or straight?”

He spent Saturday evening making a last search for Inno, ending in the same bar as a couple of earlier weekend evenings. The same beautiful blond boy was there again and was not put off by his thin wannabe beard. Niki had to ward off another of his advances, but he stood his ground, sticking to his original plan to spend this weekend in a last attempt to find Inno. After that the angel in front of him was free game for him. As far as he was concerned, he would be on offer as a willing prey.

For another time he put on his cutest smile when he said:

“You know, I really think you are very cute, but tonight I just want to chill.”

“And tomorrow?” the boy asked.

“I have to work tomorrow.”

“Work? On Sunday? What do you do then?”

“Eeeuuh…,” Niki unmistakably faltered, “Eeeuhh… I’m a nurse in the hospital.”

“You haven’t been doing that job for very long then.” the boy said with a suspicious smile.

“Why not?” Niki asked in mock surprise, knowing that his answer had been anything but convincing.

“It took you a long time to remember it.” the boy grinned.

“Because it isn’t true,” Niki confessed with a look in his eyes as if he was feeling guilty about it, “actually, I’m painting tomorrow.”

“Painting? On Sunday night?” the kid asked in disbelief.

Niki just nodded, but since he wanted to keep in touch with this beauty he added:

“You come near the inner city ringroad often?”

“Yeah, I come there every day when I go to university.”

“OK,” Niki said as cool as he could. “Then check out that little toilet building in the second parking lot. Take a look and see if something has changed since yesterday. But, sweetie, that is all I’m saying!”

Actually, he thought he had said too much already, severely endangering his own security. If the kid chatted too much the cops would be waiting for him.

“But love has a price.” he grinned hardly noticeably.

 

Late Sunday evening, shortly before midnight, he walked along the Inner Ringroad towards his chosen spot. He kept close to the trees that lined the road and carefully avoided the illumination of the street lighting. He slid like a black phantom from one shadow to another.

When he arrived at the little building he looked around for signs of danger, but there weren’t any. Every now and then a car passed, but he felt secure with the cover of the trees.

He was really pleased with this spot. It lay along one of the busiest roads in the city on one side and the railroad on the other, giving full vista on the art work. Being on a parking lot in downtown guaranteed lots of people would walk past it on their way to the shopping district or back to their cars.

Rapidly he started working, putting the templates on the wall and spraying the paint. He had kept the design as simple as possible: only black and white, apart from the lettering that was in color. The black and white graphics were appropriate, heightening the macabre meaning of the image.

Things went smoothly, even that smooth that he started humming a tune that came in his head. Although the application of the lettering proved the most challenging part of the job it took him only a little under an hour before the whole painting was ready. Apart from one tiny detail of course: he grabbed in his inner coat pocket and took his trademark poster out, the one with the snarling dog head and the multi-colored name “Maddog.” Haphazardly he pushed it on a still wet part. It would stick once the paint dried.

Satisfied he stood back and looked at his latest product:

“I’ll take some pictures tomorrow when it’s light.”

With a shock he saw a light popped up out of nowhere in the middle of the darkness. The headlights of a car shone from behind him, illuminating his freshly made piece of art. What followed was an unpleasant voice that called out:

“Hey, you there. Stay where you are! Police!”

“Fuck, they nailed me! But… not yet!” he thought, getting his fear under control right away. He had been here before!

Impulsively he ducked into the shadows and started running through the thickets bordering the parking lot, ignoring the scratches he got on his hands. He ran for the city ringroad and reached it. With a quick glance he saw a car approaching from the right.

“I can just make it.” he muttered and ran across the road. He barely avoided the car, its driver stomped on his brake in an emergency stop, bringing his vehicle to a shrieking halt. Without looking back he ran on towards a dark alley across the road. The car bought him time, when the cops milled around it in some confusion to get past. Maybe it was just a second, maybe two, but it was enough! Running like a gazelle he reached the backstreet and faded away from their sight into the dark shadows of the buildings on its sides.

He knew he could run hard. He could succeed in outrunning them. He was young, fast and in good condition. Two middle aged police officers wouldn’t pose much of a challenge to shake off. But he certainly hoped that he wouldn’t come up against another police dog:

“Don’t do that to me. Once was enough!”

Because he knew from past experience coming across one of these beasts, the game would be over and he would end up yet again in another police station. This time with no one to bail him out.

He knew he had to keep running. Even if the uniformed duo behind him gave up the chase, they could summon other patrols who would be on the lookout for him. It meant he had to disappear from the streets very, very fast and there was only one way of doing that, he had to reach home. So, he kept running as if the whole Merligborner police force was after him, not exactly paying much attention to what happened around him.

He didn’t notice that one biker, when he ran out of the alley’s dark shadows and dashed across another street. In his rush he only heard him when someone called out loud:

“Look out!”

It was too late. Something impacted his side with great force, making him fall on the ground. He didn’t injure himself although it hurt a little. He made a perfect roll, avoiding serious damage. What scared him was that he heard someone fall, hitting the pavement with a loud thud and crying out in pain.

Filled with anxiety he picked himself up. Now he started to panic, he had to avoid the police, but more importantly someone was lying in front of him on the pavement moaning.

“Are you all right?” Niki asked agitated, realizing it must be the most stupid question one can ask under the circumstances. People who moaned while lying on the street were per definition not all right!

“No, fuck… it hurts!” a boy’s voice replied.

Niki’s initial reaction was surprise. Something in him told him he had heard that voice before. Hurriedly he took his LED flashlight out of his pocket to have more light. When he shone over the body on the ground, the first thing he saw was… ginger-blond curly, long hair. He felt his heart almost stop!

“Inno!” he shouted out in surprise.

The person looked at him with a smile filled with pain and replied softly:

“Niki? Goddamn, are you always in such a hurry that you don’t look where you’re going?”

“I’m sorry.” Niki replied, feeling relieved and exasperated at the same time. He wouldn’t have cared if he had run into any other one, but did it have to be Inno? This was too much for him. Even if he saw the positive side of it. The kid was no ghost, he was lying in front of him in flesh and blood.

“I’m really sorry,” he continued, “but the cops are after me.”

Inno looked at him with frightened eyes, asking:

“Cops? What are you? Some petty criminal?”

Niki shook his head, stammering something like:

“No. I… was just… painting.”

Despite his pain, Inno seemed to be nonplussed by the answer. There was a silence for a few seconds, only then he queried, barely hiding the disbelief in his voice:

“Painting? At this time of the night?”

Niki shrugged somewhat sadly and changed subject, saying:

“I’ll explain it another time, not now. Most important thing at this moment is: where does it hurt?”

“My knee…” Inno groaned, his face contorted in pain, “It hurts like hell!”

“Can you bend it?” Niki wanted to know.

Inno managed to, but with a lot of effort and pain.

“Then it isn’t broken.” Niki uttered with a sigh of relief, “Can you walk?”

Inno shrugged. Niki lifted him off the ground and supported him when Inno tried to make a few steps.

“Oh man… this hurts!”

Niki decided walking was out of the question and quickly considered his options. Without further thinking he hoisted the boy over his shoulders in a fireman lift and started to walk. He was surprised by the weight he was carrying… the kid was really feather light!

“Where are we going?” Inno cried out.

“To my place,” Niki answered, “it’s nearby and I can have a good look at your knee.”

“And my bike?” the boy over his shoulders asked angrily.

“I’ll check on it tomorrow. Your knee is more important now.” Niki replied quietly.

“But what if someone steals it?” came the next objection.

“Then I’ll buy you a new one. I’m the one who caused this accident, so all damage is on my account.” was the indifferent reply.

Niki walked on, Inno slung over his shoulders. Maybe it was a good thing he couldn’t see Inno’s face. He might think the boy was only feigning the pain in his knee, because over his face was a beaming smile. Not because of the accident, not because of his bike, but because he had found his ‘gym boy’ again. Maybe the circumstances could have been somewhat more romantic, but who cares? The result is what matters.

  

Once at home Niki put his first traffic accident casualty, the result of his own carelessness, on the small couch and went to the bathroom to get the First Aid-kit. When he re-entered the living room he saw Inno staring at his knee with crestfallen eyes.

“What is it?” he asked.

“My jeans are torn on the knee that hurts. They’re only a few months old.” Inno replied close to tears.

“I’ll get you a new pair.” Niki told him, somewhat irritated, “You know what I said: I caused the accident so I’m liable for the damage.”

Yes, it annoyed him. Why so much fuss over a pair of jeans, something he considered as just another garment, that could be bought, thrown away and replaced any time he liked? The knee under the jeans, that was what mattered.

Inno seemed to sense his annoyance. With a soft voice and an ashamed look in his eyes he said:

“I could have guessed you wouldn’t understand why I’m bothered about my jeans. But while you were fetching the bandage kit I looked around your living room and… well, I only see wealth.”

“I never said I wasn’t well off,” Niki countered, to his amazement trying to defend himself for something he couldn’t have changed, even if he had tried to, “actually, we never discussed that.”

Inno shook his head, feeling the implicit rebuke and explained:

“I’m not blaming you for it. I just concluded it from what I saw. But for me, for us, a new pair of jeans is an investment that takes a long time to save for. We are not rich, not to say: either that we are poor.”

“Who is we?” Niki wanted to know.

“My mamma and me.” came the straightforward reply. “But you know, being rich doesn’t mean you’re happy. We have a little money, but I’m happy. Because I happen to have the sweetest mamma in the world.”

There was more than a bit of jealousy in Niki’s eyes when he blurted out:

“Shall we swop?”

Inno said nothing but his eyes and flabbergasted expression were enough and gave him his answer.

“Never mind!” Niki said ashamed, “Let’s change the subject, your knee?”

Niki felt really embarrassed about his spontaneous emotional outburst, but he hoped Inno would forget all about it. Since he didn’t know Inno at all, he had made a major miscalculation. Because Inno was not only very smart, but also very sensitive, and he sensed that there was a huge problem. He needed to find out what it was if he wanted to get to know the gorgeous boy in front of him. But now was wrong time, he simply said:

“Yeah, let’s take a look at that damned knee.”

Inno might be a skinny kid, but that didn’t help in rolling his jeans up. No matter what they tried, it was impossible to get the trouser leg over the swollen knee. As a last resort Niki suggested:

“We’ll just have to pull your jeans off. Otherwise, we can’t look at the knee.”

Inno looked at him with fear in his eyes, stammering incoherently.

“Ah, come on, Inno,” Niki said re-assuring. “it’s been a long time since I learned what boys look like.”

“Does that mean what I think it means?” Inno wondered with a glitter in his eyes.

He gave in, seeing the reasonableness of the suggestion. Since Niki tried to do it very carefully to avoid further pain it took some time to get the jeans off but finally the garment was on the floor and Inno sat on the couch in a shiny yellow skimpy underpants, his head red with embarrassment.

Niki concentrated on the wounded knee. The skin was grazed and blood clotted on it. Carefully he cleaned it and sprayed disinfectant on the abrasions to forestall any infection or inflammation. While doing so, Inno winced.

“Does it hurt?” Niki asked.

“It burns.” Inno replied, sucking the air in through his teeth.

“It’s supposed to.” Niki grinned.

Once the skin was clean, he didn’t like the way the knee looked. It was swollen and slowly turning blue.

“I think it is bruised.” he said, “This is what I’ll do. I’ll put ice on it to reduce the swelling. If it doesn’t get better by tomorrow evening, you’ll have to see a doctor. Oki?”

“Oki,” Inno answered calmly.

Niki went to the kitchen and came back with two washcloths full of ice blocks and a towel. First, he bandaged the knee, then he put the washcloths on it, fixing them with the towel. But then Niki’s concentration faltered and his eyes roamed to Inno’s tiny undies. What he saw pleased him enormously. Barely concealed by the thin material was the outline of an aroused penis. The yellow cotton was made slightly darker with a small spot of dampness caused by an obviously growing excitement. Feeling his own cock starting to behave badly he couldn’t resist the temptation to touch and gently stroke the wet spot with his fingertips. Inno didn’t object or protest, he simply allowed it! Niki withdrew his hand, sniffed at his fingertips and licked the miniscule amount of moisture, all the time staring into Inno’s compelling grey eyes. He had never seen a color of grey that flickered, that seemed alive with… with what? Desire? Love? For the moment it didn’t really matter. Niki would settle for desire if that was the case.

He took a deep breath, collected his courage and whispered:

“It looks like... we’re two of a kind.”

Inno bowed his head, giggled somewhat and stared at the outline of his own dick in his undies. Timidly he replied in a soft voice:

“Yeah… it sure looks that way!”

There was silence, both boys trying to get their wits together and both wondering what next step they could take. It was Niki, who broke the charged atmosphere by asking falteringly a single diffident question:

“May… may I kiss you?”

Inno didn’t answer, at least not in spoken words. His eyes answered for him, they screamed “Yes!!”

Niki bent his head forward and his lips touched Inno’s. The boy recoiled as if stung by a hornet, but funny enough the expression in his eyes didn’t change.

“Afraid?” Niki asked barely audibly.

Inno shook his head, took a deep breath and answered equally softly:

“No. Just… not used to it. I’ve never been kissed by a boy… or a girl… anyway, doesn’t matter. I’ve never been kissed by anyone”.

“You liked it?” Niki pressed gently. “You want to get used to it?”

Inno nodded eagerly, inclining his head forward in the direction of Niki’s lips. Another kiss followed, this time without any scared reaction and lasting for seconds on end.

During their third kiss Niki took it a little further. He opened his mouth slightly and let the tip of his tongue slide over Inno’s lips. For a few seconds he noticed some resistance with Inno’s lips refusing to part but then the boy’s mouth opened with an ecstatic moan, giving him an unobstructed way to the kid’s tongue. Niki’s heart thumped. He knew enough. Inno had given him green light!

Prolonging Inno’s first ever tongue kiss for what seemed to be an eternity Niki’s hand slid over the boy’s narrow chest and down to his abdomen, ending up on the yellow undies. His fingertips followed the contours of the boy’s dick, extracting further rapturous sounds.

What he felt, made him feel insecure. How could such a scraggy boy have such an enormous toy? Compared to that his own was a midget. But it was what the contours in the undies told him. And why should these contours lie?

His fingertips gave expression to his curiosity, sliding beneath the waistband of Inno’s undies. Immediately he felt a huge, slippery head, covered in precum. He began to stroke it tenderly. Inno was not slow in reacting, he pushed his pelvis firmly against Niki’s fingers, asking wordlessly for more.

Niki managed to tear his lips from Inno’s and stared into the grey eyes that had taken on a dreamy, intense-wanting expression. Encouraged by this glance he licked his lips while he considered how he would ask what he wanted to ask, only to blurt out more or less spontaneously:

“May I kiss that as well?”

The boy proved to be not much of a talker. Again, he just nodded, but his eyes reflected an even higher degree of ardor. Niki began removing the tiny underpants, closing his eyes while doing so. By now he was really afraid he might find something very much larger than what he himself could muster. Only his ears picked up Inno’s reactions, a soft moaning of pleasure. It really didn’t matter whether he kept his eyes closed or not, it wouldn’t shrink Inno’s dick and his own wouldn’t grow an inch longer from it. Now or some time later he had to face the music. He opened his eyes again, surprised by what he saw, despite his expectations.

“My God… it’s huge!” he uttered breathless.

Inno lowered his eyes in shame. With red blushes on his cheeks he giggled embarrassed:

“I guess it is the only thing about me that isn’t scrawny.”

“You’re right. Compared to that mine is just a dwarf.”

“Show it to me.” Inno said with a seductive smile.

Although he was no newbie it was Niki’s face that turned red now.

“Are you sure?” he asked.

“Come on… don’t be a prick!” Inno encouraged him laughing.

Niki knew there was no longer any way out. He pulled off his jeans and his undies. Even though his phallus was fully aroused it was no match for what Inno sported.

“I… I… warned you.” Niki stammered really embarrassed.

“So it’s smaller! But I fell in love with the whole boy, not only with his dick.” Inno said lightheartedly, “I think it is absolutely cute! I like to kiss it as well.”

“Me first…,” Niki reacted with a humorous growl.

He leant forward and his lips pressed a tender soft wet kiss on the enormous tip, soliciting another lustful groan from Inno’s lips. He let his tongue glide over the head, tasting precum oozing from the tip. He was unable to restrain himself. He took the whole head in his mouth and started to suck it.

Unexpectedly it turned into a full-scale mouth fuck when Inno started to push his hips up rhythmically. It was obvious it was his first time: in the beginning his movements were clumsy and awkward but they were with a vigor that surprised Niki. He was really no newcomer to oral sex, but this enormous dick gave him plenty of problems to cope with, especially because it filled up his whole mouth. When Inno’s tip accidentally slid in his larynx, unintentionally going into deep throating, the very experienced Niki started to retch violently and saw little red stars in front of his eyes because of the lack of oxygen. But Inno, by now moving smoothly in his throat, didn’t let up, continuing his first experience of mutual pleasure to the very end, finally unleashing his spurts of hot sperm, with a loud roar, down Niki’s pharynx.

Both collapsed, fully expended. Inno had to catch his breath from the exertion, Niki had to do the same to recover from the lack of oxygen. Once able to speak Niki muttered:

“Man, you’re a natural talent! Nobody ever did that to me before!”

Inno reacted with a giggle, retreating behind his shield of shy uncertainty.

Niki kissed him on the chest and Inno raised his eyes so suddenly they were staring at each other. There was a silent pause in which Niki struggled with his thoughts. Of course, he could simply grab what he wanted, but on the other hand he wanted to take the as yet inexperienced Inno into account as well.

It was Inno who solved the problem for him. A mischievous grin broke over his face as he reached out to gently take hold of Niki’s still hard penis. A sigh escaped Niki’s lips when Inno’s hand tentatively wrapped around his shaft and slid the sheaf down exposing the wet head. He moved a finger over the tip and touched the sensitive spot underneath. Niki closed his eyes, leaning back, his cock jerking it’s appreciation. Inno needed no more encouragement, even inexperienced, he knew what to do. He slid his fist up and down the hard shaft, watching Niki’s body react to the attention. He brought his fingers over the leaking bulbous head and lubricated Niki’s cock, increasing the speed of his pumping. He was mesmerized watching how Niki responded and he noted how his muscles contracted, his head went back and he gasped as he shot a trail of milky white juice through Inno’s fist and onto his dick and over his belly. A second jet followed the first and Inno’s hand was covered in the sticky white elixir. Niki was breathing fast and deep, he opened his eyes which gleamed with pleasure and looked at Inno. The boy cheekily brought his hand to his mouth and tasted Niki’s essence in delight. As he watched, Niki’s cock jerked, ejecting the final last drops which ran down his now spent tool.

Niki’s eyes looked at the mess he had created and focused on the now shrunken cock of the other boy which still looked big.

“This must really hurt when it is inside me.” he mused without really having the intention to say something like that, “But I would love to feel it!”

Inno looked at him, a smile on his face that was beyond imagination, and said softly:

“Now, wait a second my sweet Adonis. This was really the very first time I had sex with a boy…. no, actually with doesn’t matter who. So, let’s take it easy, let’s do it step by step. Because, like Bowie already said: I’m an absolute beginner.”

Niki saw the sound reasoning behind this. There was no use rushing things, frightening the boy with something he wasn’t ready to do yet. With understanding eyes he nodded in approval.

Inno pressed another sweet kiss on Niki’s lips and said:

“I’m very willing to learn everything I can learn, but only under your tutelage. And while doing so I will love you as no one has done before!”

“His words are so true!” Niki thought deeply touched by their sincerity, being unable to find a suitable answer, apart from another kiss on Inno’s cheek.

Automatically Inno looked at his watch, remarking with a sigh:

“Shit, I have to go to school tomorrow!”

Niki grabbed his undies and jeans from the floor and started to pull them on again, saying:

“Then we better dress up, so I can take you home.”

“Bring me home?” Inno asked with worried face, “Why do you want to do that?”

“First: I have no idea where your bike is. And second: I guess there won’t be that much biking with that knee of yours.”

“I hoped I could stay here with you.” Inno said, clearly disappointed.

“But what about your mum?” Niki countered. “She will be worried sick if you don’t come home.”

“No, she won’t.” Inno replied with a teasing smile.

Niki looked at him, completely at a loss as to what to think about that reply:

“First you tell me you have the sweetest mum in the world and now you tell me she doesn’t give a damn whether you come home or not?”

“I didn’t say that,” Inno smiled, but he also defended himself, “I only said, she wouldn’t worry, because she can’t. She’s visiting her brother in Munich and is only due back tomorrow afternoon.”

“Oh! In that case…,” Niki muttered with relief. “Hey, you’re more than welcome. But I only have a double bed.”

Inno shrugged indifferently.

“And I have the habit of sleeping naked.” Niki continued.

“Do you really want me here tonight?” Inno asked a bit irritated.

“Why do you ask?” Niki cried out in shock.

“Because, honey, you keep trying to find arguments to discourage me from staying here with you.” was the almost casual reply.

A beaming smile followed when Inno continued with:

“I can’t imagine something more beautiful than being in bed with you and admiring your gorgeous naked body. Will that do?”

Niki nodded, feeling a bit ashamed for having given the wrong impression and concluded the matter with:

“Then we better get going. I assume we have to get out of bed early tomorrow.”

“At least I do,” Inno said with rolling eyes.

It didn’t take ten minutes before they lay in bed together. They kissed and cuddled a little until Inno said:

“This is our first night together. I hope that thousands of them will follow.”

They kissed goodnight for another time, snuggled up against each other and with their legs and arms entwined they fell asleep. The last conscious experience being how they enjoyed each other’s body warmth and their sweet, thrilling body scents.