The Boy Avengers (4 page)

OPPORTUNITY KNOCKED SUDDENLY, UNEXPECTEDLY, and magnificently. Late one night, near eleven, I happened to glance out a window of my room (I was one of the few boys who lived alone) and saw Jeff Talbot walking oddly towards the building from the chapel, walking stiffly, not his usual graceful, easy carriage. Despite the darkness I could see in the muted moonlight the unnatural whiteness of his face, the catatonic stare of his eyes that saw nothing and everything. My heart pounded, not with concern for him, I am frank to admit, but with the recognition that the time had come at last.

I slipped downstairs and intercepted him at the door. I said nothing. I took him by the arm and led him to my room. At the touch of my hand he began to cry silently. Still I said nothing until we were within my room, the door closed and locked. It was against the rules to have a lock on one's door, but not a word was said when I had hired a locksmith to put a bolt on my door, nor did I bother giving explanations. Had I asked permission, it would necessarily have been refused. Did I mention that the school's small but magnificent Norman chapel had been given by my grandmother some years before, in memory of my grandfather? Obscure Cornhill had been her choice because the mother of the headmaster had been with her at Miss Porter's School, one of the few girls she had not disliked. So no mention was ever made of my lock, nor did anyone ask for a key.

Sit down, I told Jeff Talbot.

It hurts, he whispered.

Where?

What they did.

Show me.

It is a measure of the trust he'd already placed in me from our brief encounter, and of his recognition of his need for me that, without hesitation, but stiffly, he pulled off his trousers and lay face-down on my bed. Even by the light of only my reading lamp I could see that his anus was raw and bleeding.

Don't move, I told him. I got a washcloth, wet it in the basin my room possessedone of the few in that bleak, ascetic schooland with great tenderness and care applied it as a compress to His injured anus. I knew exactly what had been done to him, what human instruments had caused this damage. What surprised me, in my one-sided accumulation of sex information, was that such an act could cause injury. Though I did not, by choice, mingle freely with the other boys at Cornhill, still I heard frequent references to sodomy, always as a pleasure to the person inflicting it, but with never a mention that it could injure the other. I was aware boys from other schools called our school
Cornhole,
and by it meant to suggest the boys at Cornhill were unusually addicted to sodomy. So it was a shock to discover this seemingly playful exercise of superiority could injure.

This might seem naive on my part, but it stemmed from the nature of my experience and reading. I myself had been fucked many times by many persons, but never with the slightest discomfort, with only pleasure. As for all the reading I did in my grandfather's pornographic collection, I read only those books where sex was kind and beautiful. I found a single page of the Marquis de Sade sufficient to disenchant me on the uses of pain in sex. Most authors give themselves away in the first few pages, so I could quickly discard the ones I knew would displease me. So never, in the books I did read, was sodomy even a little unpleasant, let alone painful and damaging.

Who did it? I asked. I hoped he'd say Jack Foster", though I knew it couldn't have been.

He hesitated. They said if I told, I'd live to regret it.

You know you can tell me, don't you?

Yes. But still he hesitated. I waited. Jamie Crawford, he said. He was the leader. He seemed to expect some comment from me, but I remained silent. There were more, he went on. I waited. Tony Applegate. And Gordie Phillips. And Lloyd Waterman. But not Corkie Jennings.

They were all members of the soccer team, and top-formers. Did they know you were bleeding like this?

Yes. That's why Jennings wouldn't do it. But Jamie saidI think it was Jamieif I went to the infirmary, I'd live to regret it. They said it would be sore a couple of days, then I'd be begging them to do it to me again.

I dabbed carefully at his asshole. (Does so direct, so basic a term offend you? I know
anus
is correct, but it sounds prissy, and I am not a prissy person. Actually, asshole is used more pejoratively than otherwise, but unless I want to be meticulously accurate, if I want to refer
only
to the anus, or
only
to the rectum, I shall be free with
asshole
for either or both, referring to it as a sexual object, exactly as I shall feel free to use those common euphemisms for the penis and the scrotum/testicles, cock and balls. If you are offended on first reading, you will find you quickly become adjusted.)

The bleeding had, indeed, stopped, but there was an ugly bruise that disfigured the whole area. I knew it must be extremely sore. And for the first time in my life, an act of sodomy brought cold rage to me. Those evil five had betrayed the sweet passion, the perfect communication between two persons which sodomy can be, much as Judas is said to have perverted the kiss.

In a way, I raged for Jeff, but it was a cool, calculating rage. Something had to be done.

Why did they do it? Jeff asked, still innocent despite the ravishment.

What could I tell him? That his beauty, his aloofness was a taunt and a goad? That it too sharply brought home to others their commonness? They are sick, I said. This, as I hoped, seemed to comfort him. We can understand sickness where we cannot understand gratuitous cruelty.

Can I sleep with you tonight?

Oh God! I think you had better sleep in your own bed, I said, with an effort that dismayed me, enervated me.

I might get blood on your sheets, he said.

Would you like to be roommates?

For the first time he looked directly at me. You think I need to be protected?

I couldn't help admiring his astuteness at the same time that I wracked my intelligence for a good answer. I decided on the truth. I can teach you how to handle them. I can be your friend and teacher, but never your keeper.

And you want to?

Yes, I admitted.

Did you want to before?

I had not expected this. Yes, I admitted.

I'd like to room with you, but can you arrange it?

I can arrange anything.

In order to deal with our enemies, I had to know everything about them. Though it was some days before Jeff could speak freely and objectively of his experience, I shall insert here full descriptions of what happened, with perhaps a few educated guesses of my own which Jeff had not observed or was not certain about. Though it developed Jeff could remember everything that had happened, though the shock had not damaged his observation faculties, he had not yet developed, as I had, his powers of interpretation.

Curiously, Jeff's rapefor that is exactly what it washe owed directly to blind, misplaced religiosity. His parents had died even younger than mine (I do not regard this as a significant coincidence); he was raised by an aunt who for lack of imagination and intelligence had surrendered herself totally to religion. She had answered every problem he brought to her with an admonition to pray, with the assurance that
God
had all the answers. By the time he was ten, he had concluded that if
God
had all the answers, he was certainly keeping them to himself. But still, attending church had become habit; without thinking the matter through he found it easier to continue with his churchgoing than to find something to replace it during those times he felt troubled.

In his loneliness and unhappiness at Cornhill, Jeff had gotten into the habit of slipping into our chapel for a half hour before going to bednot to pray, for he had long since given that up, but rather to compose himself for the night. Actually, I believe it would take a strong-minded, nearly blind person to pray soulfully in that chapel, for even more than the gaudy High Gothic chapel at St. George's School in Portsmouth, Rhode Island, it dazzled the eye with the zigzag polychromy of its massive Norman pillars and the vaulting, outdid its rival especially in the immense anachronistic crystal chandeliers that dangled like glittering swords of Damocles over the ebony pews. These were kept lighted twenty-four hours a day. The architect personally selected by my grandmother considered the Cornhill chapel his masterpiece. I suspect it was the only time he had ever had a free hand. I can only guess at my grandmother's motivation in giving this chapel as a memorial to my flawed grandfather. My guess is she imagined it a place where adolescent boys would be safe from pederasts like my grandfather. It must have been a shock to her when the architect, who gained a Don Juan reputation through marriage to three outstandingly beautiful women, killed himself after his arrest on a charge of sodomy with his twelve-year-old nephew.

I wonder if in their twisted thinking Jamie Crawford and his fellow soccer players considered Jeff's nightly prayers a chastisement to them? I had known nothing about it until he told me. Whatever their reasoning, they had observed, and on this night had resolved, without knowing they were doing it, to make the chapel at last a true memorial to my grandfather.

No, that is unfair. I am certain my grandfather never persuaded a boy against his will.

They did not wait for him to come out. They went in to get him, to fuck him in the magnificence and comfort. He knew as soon as they confronted him that they meant him harm. Be a good boy, said Jamie, and you won't get hurt.

What do you want? Jeff asked, as puzzled as he was alarmed.

We're going to fuck you, said Corkie Jennings who, in the end, was the only one that didn't.

I'm not a girl, said Jeff in his innocence. This seemed to cause a good laugh. I suspect this unknowing reminder that they intended to commit an unnatural act was a further goad, if there had been previous wavering.

You've got an asshole, haven't you? asked Gordie.

And a mouth, added Tony Applegate.

None of that! Jamie said sharply. I find this inhibition interesting. One might think that since they intended using him against his will, it hardly mattered how far they went. But apparently, at least Jamie considered him a social peer. One did not hesitate to fuck one's younger social peers. But cocksucking was outside the pale, was an outrageous homosexual act.

Why me?

You're long overdue, Lloyd said. You should have been fucked two forms ago, but you weren't even here. It's a custom.

Did it happen to
you?
Jeff asked. Their dead silence was answer enough, but Jamie felt the need to justify himself further.

Only the pretty ones. The others looked relieved he'd gotten them so neatly off the hook. I don't doubt that at least some of them had been fucked in their earlier years at the school, but they did not consider it something to brag about.

So why, exactly, did they feel the urgent need to fuck him? Because he was different, I believe. Because he showed no inclination to conform to their customs. And there was an element of naked lust. This was the only response they knew how to make to his remarkable beauty without feeling uneasy.

They say a person can't be raped who truly doesn't want to be raped. Have you had your arm bent cruelly behind your back by someone far stronger than you? Imagine there are five accosters. I know Jeff struggled, I know he struggled hard, because his arm was acutely sore even after his asshole no longer pained him.

He did not cry out. He is not that kind. Nor am I.

He was swiftly, cruelly overpowered. His pants were ripped down and off. He was bent over a pew, one brute holding his arms, another holding his legs down and apart.

They were no novices. They had brought a jar of vaseline. Corkie made it his business to apply the vaseline, sticking a finger sharply in Jeff's asshole in the process. He cried out, Lloyd slapped a hand over his mouth. It's all right, Jamie said. No one could hear, anyhow. This was true.

Christ, he's got a tight asshole, Corkie said.

Lucky I've got a hard cock, Jamie said. He had pulled off pants and shorts, had his cock out. It was indeed hard and looked enormous to the frightened Jeff though, as it turned out, there were two with bigger cocks.

I'll grease it for you, Corkie said.

I'll grease it for myself, Jamie said. Another interesting inhibition, I think.

You might think at this point there would have been comments about Jeff's being a virgin asshole, but I would guess virgin assholes were no novelty to many of this group. It is my educated guess that with a younger boy the asshole tends to be more flexible, for I have never heard of an asshole being as ruptured as Jeff's. But also I had never heard of a younger boy being forced to yield unwillingly to so many at once. Furthermore, the younger boys have been brainwashed into considering it an honor, so that when the time comes, they are more honored than frightened. In fact, I heard of one boy, a particularly unappetizing lad, who was so crushed no one would fuck him that he had a nervous breakdown and left the school.

I tell this to help explain why Jamie Crawford, whose father was one of the nation's leading Anglican bishops, did not hesitate as he stood with hard and well-greased cock in hand at the sight of the tight, virgin asshole, the same Jamie Crawford who the previous May had won the Cornhill Christian Youth of the Year award established by our headmaster's larcenous mother some years before.