The Perfect Boy

Ben's Life Story

I held Ben's hand for no more than 10 seconds before I let go. I just wanted him to know that it was okay. He was hesitating to speak. I heard him murmuring to himself. His hand was clammy. He was certainly nervous.

"You remember that night when I came into your room crying?" I shook my head.

"When was it again?"

"The night when I peed in my shorts." He was red.

"O that. I remember," I replied. I chuckled in my heart. How could I forget. Ben had come again to my window after spending almost all day with me and being summoned by his father in the evening." By being summoned, I meant the tone of his father was that of a king calling his subject.

"I stayed with you, never telling you what happened. I even peed in my pants. You were so kind. You didn't ask. You just whispered sweet nothings in my ears until I fell asleep. Well the truth is two things happened that day. The first is I saw you showering in your bathroom that evening. I was so curious. We were entering that age of puberty. I was noticing something that I never noticed before. We had showered together many times before. I never thought anything of it. But interest in you and in the male body as whole was increasing.  and it had been bothering so much. That night the naughty part of me got the best of me. I peeked and I looked at you in the shower and I liked it. I felt so guilty. And I received a phone call from my dad telling me to go back home that moment. You know what happened? When I got there, I didn't even have a chance to breathe. He beat the hell out of me. But he was smart, he beat me on my torso, not hands and legs, so there would be no signs.  If I didn't pull up my shirt or take off my shorts, you wouldn't kniw that I had been clobbered."

I sat upright from previously leaning against the cherry tree.

"Well, my dad found my porn collection in my computer. He wanted to repair it because the previous night he asked me to send some of our photos in my hard drive to Gramma Annie, but I told him my computer broke down. He is a computer whiz as you know; he bypassed my password. That's when he found what I stored in there. A collection of porn – straight, gay and bi. He got so mad at me that I remained off the radar for one month. You trird callingnme, but I avooded you.  You cam by, but I stayed at my nana's.  Just so that I wouldn't have to face you.  I never told you this, I neber called you even dueinf that one month.  Well I jusr temember telling you that I was going away to see Nana Annie who was very ill. Well, I lied. I never lied . . . well at least to you, you know, I didn't. But I didn't know what to tell you if you came over to my house. So, I put myself under house arrest.  It was summer, so we didn't have school.  The day I came back was the day you told me of your emotions, of your being gay.  During that one month I was constantly abused by my father.  He spilled his anget of hacing a gay som on me for almost every day.  And even I was at nana's, he would come by and brought me to the basement to punish me. And you told me that you were gay.  I was so afraid.  I was so angry.  I was frustrated.  I was simply desparate to be not who I was.

I was so mad at what was happening. At myself; at you for telling me your feelings. I abandoned you that day, I abandoned myself that day. What remained in me was an angry boy; angry at what what happening to him. "

I gulped at his words. But he hadn't finished.