It all started in the spring of 90. At the time I was sharing a duplex with my sister, I lived upstairs, she and her family lived downstairs. Before we lived in the duplex my sister lived in a housing project in a rough part of town. During their stay there they become friends with a "chick" named Mindy. Mindy looked and acted like Madonna. At the time she had 3 kids from 3 different men and was pregnant with a 4th. Any trace of self respect she ever had was wiped away. Mindy was famous for dumping her kids off on anyone who would agree to watch them, then make herself scarce when it came time for them to go home. 

I had met Mindy one time but only knew her by name, thats it. Her oldest, Andy, was 7 at the time when I first moved upstairs from my sister. The first time I saw him I was coming downstairs to bother my sister for no apparent reason. It was a Saturday morning and I had no life other than work and weekends were often filled with hours of TV, video games visiting family members such as my mom or my sister and wishing I had something or someone special to pass the time with. 

Andy was sitting on the bottom of the stairs pouting because his mom was about to dump him off yet again for who knows how long. He had seen me a few times but never made any real contact. I sat down next to him and asked what was wrong. He told me that he wanted to play Ninetendo but everybody else was hogging up the game. I offered to let him come up and we could play my Ninentendo game and he wouldn't have to wait for anyone. 

We went upstairs and played on my game, we played Super Mario Brothers 1 and 2 and Teenaged Mutant Ninja Turtles. I sat on the couch directly in front of the TV and Andy was on the floor sitting on his feet. We didn't get to talk much other than an occasional "watch out!" or "get that one!!" while we played but during the short breaks between games Andy would share what he knew about the games, their characters and the hidden wonders of each of the specific games. 

At the time I also had a pet Boa Constrictor named Gizmo that I introduced to Andy. Right away he got a kick out of her. Gizmo was just a baby, about 2 feet long at the time. He liked picking her up and was fascinated by watching her move. We really had a lot of fun. By the time his mom came back he was asking if he could stay longer which was unusual for Andy. He went home with his mom, but I remember wishing that our time together didn't have to end there. 

That evening after Andy went home, as I was cleaning up the house from our afternoon of fun. I couldn't get Andy out of my mind. Looking back I know that I was falling in love but the idea of falling for a 7 year old boy never occurred to me. In fact the thought of romantic love with a 7 year old never even entered my mind. The word "boylover" wasn't even in my vocabulary at that time. I think I justified my feelings by telling myself that maybe I would just like to be a father, and that my day with Andy was the image of the ideal father-son day. There was another set of feelings that I could not justify. Although I tried to deny it, the fact is that I looked at Andy and was aroused, and that had nothing to do with being a father.  That day and those that followed were filled with images of Andy. His laugh, his smile and wishes that we would see other again very soon. 

Luckily for me, Mindy had no life except sitting around waiting for her welfare check and so she spent alot of her free time visiting my sister. Over a very short time I got to be friends with her, not that I liked her but I knew that the easiest way to spend time with Andy was to be friends with her. Once I got to know her I found out that she was a very troubled person. She often kept no food in the house because she was too busy going out to bars, buying drugs or spending money on other things for herself. She often didn't know how to deal with all her kids so she just yelled at them all the time. Needless to say; she had alot of problems. 

As it turned out Andy's father was in the Air Force. He was married and paid no child support for Andy. Mindy was still in love with him but hated him at the same time for running out on her. She would say hateful things about Andy's father but she still had 3 pictures of the 2 of them together and one of him holding Andy as a baby. The circumstances surrounding Andy's birth have always been a bit shady. Andy's parents were high school sweethearts. After graduation he wanted to go in the Air Force and she wanted to get married. She tried to encourage him into marriage by getting pregnant, when that happened, he took no responsibility for his son and broke off his relationship with Mindy. As far as I know, Andy has only seen his father about a dozen times in his life. The entire experience left Mindy very broken-harted, bitter and vulnerable to abuse by any man who claimed to care about her. 

I continued to see Andy, he was a great kid. I loved being with him. There was that sense of awe in things that can only be seen through the eyes of a boy. Andy was a very special kid. Many important people in his life made feeble attempts to show him love but only when it was a good time for them or when he was "good" for them. I was really surprised at how open to me he was dispite the fact that many adults in his life had been so mean to him.  His view of life combined with his imagination made spending time with him a delight. Andy was a playful boy without being nasty to others. He had an uncanny ability to relate to the feelings of others. 

Living upstairs from my sister did have its advantages. Whenever Mindy wanted to go somewhere she dropped the kids off with her and Andy knew to come right upstairs. That was the place where he was special. He was learning that within me was a special place just for him. He knew I loved him and he loved me too. I could see it in his eyes when we were together. When he was at home he was just another mouth to feed but with me he was my Andy. The first time he slept over with me was fun. He was dropped off with my sister but he had spent so much time with me that we just decided to let him sleep upstairs too. We stayed up way past his bed time playing Nintendo, eating pop-tarts and watching TV. I un-folded the bed from the couch and he slept in blue sweats and a white T-shirt. He looked so cute. I had a waterbed and he had never slept on one before so I let him sleep there and I slept on the couch bed. 

That first time he slept by himself in my bed and I fantasized about being in there with him. He was such a beautiful boy, everything I could ever dream of. He had the smoothest skin and the most natural smile. I remember thinking that I wish that I could express my feelings for him, show him how much I loved him, how much I loved our time together. Tell him how much I would love to make him feel the most intense pleasure in the world. But he was just a kid, and a boy. At the time I was not totally in tune with my attraction for young boys and I was also attracted to women. None of this seemed to make any sense, all I knew was that I wanted something I couldn't have; and I was frustrated. 

That first summer we mostly saw each other when he came to my sisters house with only a few exceptions. We did however go swimming a few times. He looked great in a pair of swimming trunks. So great that we started frequenting a public indoor pool when the seasons began to change. He also enjoyed cooking. I am a pretty fair cook myself so we would cook things. Although we promised each other we wouldn't tell a soul because someone might call us sissies for cooking so that was our secret. We invented a dish called pizza lasagna, which is really nothing more than all the ingredients of a pepperoni pizza (except the crust) put in layers in a pan with lasagna noodles and baked for an hour. It was so good I made it for some company I had a time or two. 

Another special similarity we shared was our birthdays were only 2 days apart, so I could never forget his birthday. Our birthdays fell in the first week of October. I remember wanting to get Andy the perfect present. I started looking way back in September. I knew what he liked but I didn't want to get the wrong thing and have to take it back. I thought about what I would have liked to do when I turned 8 and the only thing I could think of was to pick out my own present. 

I had made arrangements with Andy's mom to pick him up right after school. It wasn't to hard to convince her to let me have one of her kids, even on his birthday. Luckily his birthday fell on a Friday, payday. When I picked him up I asked him what he wanted to do first. One thing he was always bugging me to do was drive my car, so when I asked he said "I wanna drive". I figured, "... what the hell, it was his birthday" I drove out of the parking lot from his apartment complex to a quiet side street in an industrial park. Since his legs were to short to reach the pedals he had to sit on my lap and I worked the pedals. The street we were on had no traffic at the time, good thing though because he was going from one side of the road to the other when he first started. It took a minute or two to figure out that sudden moves are not a good idea. We drove up and down the streets in this industrial park for about 5 or 10 minutes. He was having the time of him life. 

Having him sit on my lap for that long was a very pleasant experience for me as well. As he was getting the hang of driving I kept my hands on the wheel. Once he got it I still had to keep my hands close to the wheel so I rested them right in his lap. Never before had my hands been so close to the part of him I secretly wanted very badly. The parts that if I had the chance I would have made feel so good and in turn, myself as well. It didn't take long for those thoughts to start making my jeans feel just a bit tighter that normal. Something was growing in there and I had to wiggle around and shift things a little to keep Andy from noticing a stiff prick poking him in his soft little butt. 

After our driving experience we went up to the mall to play in the arcade for a while and I had to find a bathroom! Then from there we went to his favorite place to eat...Burger King. I offered to take him to Chuck-E-Cheezes or someplace fun like that but he picked someplace that I enjoyed too. He was such a sweet kid. 

Ever since the time I picked him up I could sense a nervous anticipation in him. He knew that there was a gift with his name on it somewhere but he couldn't seem to find it anywhere in my car. At one point while we were eating he broke down and finally asked if I got him anything. I gave him a mischievous smile and said "not exactly" but he would get a gift from me. As we left Burger king he asked where we were going. I could only tell him that it was a surprise. We drove to a strip mall that had a toys-R-us in it. We pulled into the parking lot and I told him that he was going to get the gift I always wanted as a kid...to be turned loose in the toy store to pick out what ever toy he wanted. "Really" he said as his face lit up. He knew exactly what he wanted, video games. He raced to the aisle with the Nintendo stuff and was consumed by all the choices. He decided that Ninja Turtles2 would be the game for him. He also picked out a Halloween talking gadget that we thought was cute as well and a can of silly string. 

As we were heading back he asked if we could go play with Gizmo before he had to go home. As usual I was thrilled to spend any amount of time with Andy so of course I said yes. As we got back to my place, my sister was a bit surprised to see that I had Andy. She knew that we had gotten to be good friends but this was the first time she had seen me go get him rather than him coming upstairs to see me when he and his mom came to visit or drop them off. Andy showed her the game he picked out and told her everything we had done. She thought the idea of going to toys-R-us and picking out his favorite thing was even better than just buying it myself. We went upstairs to play with Gizmo and try out his new video game for a while. 

Around 8:30 that night it was finally was time to go to drop him off. He did his usual stalling trying to avoid the inevitable but we finally got on our way. Heading back, Andy kept looking at the box that his new game was in. When we got back to his apartment complex he really did not seem like himself. We walked up the stairs on the path which led to his apartment but on the second step he stopped. He asked me if we could please go back to my house. I kind of knew why he didn't want to go home but like an idiot I asked him "why?" He told me that his mom hates him and he didn't want to be with her. I tried to tell him that she doesn’t hate him but he could tell I was lying. I knew the truth but how could I honor his request. How would it look for me to call his mom up and ask if Andy could sleep over, even though I would have loved nothing more than to take him home with for the whole weekend, or even forever. But in the back of my mind was the look my sister gave only a couple of hours earlier, that look of "what kind of 24 year old man hangs out with an 8 year old kid?" I gave him a hug and he hugged me back. Then he asked me if I would carry him up to his house. I said sure, if it would make him feel better. When we got to his door I put him down. We went in and I didn't know it but all hell was about to break loose. 

When we went through the door his mom was on the phone. I took one look at her and knew something was not right here. Mindy was a mess. Her hair was everywhere and she kept biting her lip and pulling at her nose. She was talking very loud into the phone and making less sense than she usually does. She was coked up. Something I had never seen her do in front of her kids before. 

Whoever she was talking to was far more important than acknowledging her child, on his birthday, for the first time that day. He tried showing her what he got at toys-R-us but she kept talking and trying to ignore him. When she finally did say something it was along the lines of, "can't you see that I'm on the phone...fuckin kids never leave me alone for a minute". Not long after that Andy's 2 year old brother got a hold of the silly string he got and Andy was quick to retrieve his belonging. This erupted in him screaming at his brother, his brother starting to cry, then his mom screaming at both of them. Andy ripped it out of his hand and stomped off to his room crying, "I hate you...I hate you!" Mindy, being the mature woman she was shouted back, "I hate you too you little piece of shit" This was too much for me. I tried to intervene by just trying to get everyone to stop. After Mindy calmed down a little I decided it was time for me to leave. I stepped through the mess which was unfortunately Andy's home to get to his room. He was lying in the top bunk with an angry look on his face but no tears. That seemed strange to me because just minutes earlier I could have sworn I saw him crying. I went up to him and started to say goodbye when he stopped me by saying, very matter-of-fact, "I told ya". 

    "Told me what?", I asked. 

    "Told ya she hates me" 

I couldn't disagree with him anymore, I didn't have anything I could say to that. He asked me again if he could come back with me. I told him that I would go talk to his mom. I went back out to the living room where Mindy was and sat down. I mentioned that he was upset and asked her if she was feeling a little better. I told her that if she wanted I would take him home with me and we could call her in the morning. She started to go off again, "He does this shit all the time, he always wants to go somewhere else, if its not my moms or Lori's or over by a friends, and then all he does is cause trouble over there." I told her that he is no trouble and that maybe they both needed a little distance right now so they both could cool off. He was listening from around the corner to our discussion. He jumped out from around the corner and said to his mom, "pleeeeze mom, can I go and sleep over at T's house?" 

Without warning Mindy flew off the handle all over again. She started shouting at Andy in a tone that was only ment to hurt him. She called him every mean name in the book, and even made up a few new ones just for the occasion. Then she started in on me. She told me that if I wanted to, I could take him and all his shit too and that if he never came back that was OK with her. 

At that point I could tell that she was way beyond reason. I just grabbed Andy and told Mindy that we would call her first thing in the morning. We went back to my place but there was this kind of grim silence after the whole experience. On the ride back neither one of us spoke, I think neither one of us knew what to say, so we just said nothing. An awful end to what was suppose to be a great birthday. 

* * * * * * * * * * 

Fall turned into winter and winter into summer. Andy and I continued to see a lot of each other. By the following summer I had moved out of the duplex where I lived upstairs from my sister and was living in an apartment, with my brother about a mile from her. This new place was a bit smaller, in fact I didn't have the luxury of an extra bed so Andy had to sleep with me when he stayed over. He was quite comfortable with the arrangement too. I remember the first time we slept together. I put him in the bed and I was in a sleeping bag on the floor. By the time the sun came up the next day he had inched himself next to me on the floor and I woke up to the wonderful scent of a boy's hair right in my face and the feeling of his back against my chest, it was wonderful ! After that we just kind of snuggled together and fell asleep when we were tired. 

It was during this period of time I enjoyed our relationship the most. Andy was with me almost every weekend for at least some period of time. He called me on the phone all the time and asked me to come to his house for almost anything. I loved spending even the smallest amount of time with him so much that I would jump at the chance to be with him. Every once in a while he would surprise me by telling me that he loved me, in that sweet innocent style little boys are known for. 

Another thing I loved about this period was that everytime someone mistook us for being father and son Andy played along with it. I loved that too. We were as close as a man and a boy could be. We connected in every sense of the word. I thought of him always, at work, when I was out with friends, with family. I had finally found that someone special I could share everything with, who loved me just because I was me. I didn’t have loads of money or a fancy car or a big house in the right part of town. He loved me just for what I was. 

At the time I worked in a factory as a welder. I had a small picture of the two of us on my bench that I just loved to look at every day. I put it there after seeing the other guys put pictures of their kids by where they worked. Every once in a while someone I know would talk to me and ask me about it and to keep the conversation short I would just say he was my nephew and that we hang out sometimes. I always got the same response; "oh thats cool". 

At this job I had two friends, Dave and Marla, that were planing to get married. I had an invitation to the wedding, I bought them a gift and a card and was planning to go. The reception was being held on a Saturday night at a bowling alley not to far from where we worked. 

On the Friday night before the wedding Mindy called me up and asked if I would watch Andy while she went "shopping". When I asked her what time she would be back she didn't know, "but it may be late" she said. I told her to just send along a change of clothes and he could just stay over. By that time Andy was quite comfortable staying over with me and Mindy had gotten quite comfortable asking. That night she dropped him off and as usual didn't bother coming in to say hi. She had the other 3 kids in the car too and they were going by my sisters. 

Andy and I snuggled that night and fell asleep in front of the TV, as usual. The next day I couldn't get ahold of Mindy until after 11:30, "I remember thinking, it must have been a long night of shopping!" I told her that I had a wedding to go to and that I would have to drop Andy off around 3:00. She agreed to be home at that time so Andy and I proceeded to goof off by going down to the park to look for frogs. I kept an eye on the time because I wanted to be sure not to be late. Mindy was flighty enough so I wanted to be there exactly when I said I would. 

We got back to his house about ten to 3 and to our surprise, Mindy wasn't home. We sat down and waited thinking she may have just stepped out, after all, we were early. We waited and by the time it got to be 3:45 we both figured out that she wasn't coming home any time soon. I didn't want to be another person who frantically chased to find someplace to dump him so I could go out. I looked at him, and he read my mind by saying, "I could always go with you to the wedding". I looked at my watch and decided that if he were to come with me we would have to move fast, Andy was a grubby little boy who needed to be transformed into a charming young man. We got back into the car and went straight to the strip mall that had, other than the toys-R-us, also had a Supercuts. We got Andy's hair washed and cut so it looked adorable. Then not far away was a department store that was still open for another hour. Andy picked out some clothes that looked very good on him, good enough to take to a wedding. He had very good taste in cloths for an 8 year old. He picked out Black Bugle Boy cotton pants that just made my mouth water when he turned around and a red shirt with a collar that showed off his bran-new spike haircut to everyone.  Put that together with his black hightops and he was set. He really looked sharp, even with the shoes. We raced back to my house, I was really running late. It was past 5:00 and dinner started at six. I threw him in the shower to rinse off the layer of grub and hair follicles left over from his hair cut. He got himself ready as I got cleaned up and dressed. We threw a thick layer of mousse in that precious head of hair of his and stood every hair straight up in perfect shape and by 5:30 we were out the door. 

When we got there I saw my friends from work and they recognized Andy from the picture on my table. They were very nice to him and treated him like "one of the boys". He sat at the bar with us and drank kiddy cocktails and mountain dew while we all drank beer. We ate supper and hung around with my friends from work. I gave him tons of quarters for the arcade games. He danced the dollar dance with the bride and we finally left about 10:30. I didn't even think to call Mindy, I just took him home with me. 

* * * * * * * * * * 

The summer before Andy turned 10 was when we decided to go camping. Andy had never gone camping before. I hadn’t been camping in years myself and thought a few days of living like animals, smelling like campfire smoke, chasing raccoons out of our living space and peeing on trees sound like fun. My dad had this old canvas tent that I only remember using once and we fished it out of his basement. It needed a little work but it was useable. 

This summer was different. Andy and I were as close as ever but we were about to go through some changes. Andy was no longer living with his mom. She was too busy living life in the fast lane to be concerned with one of her kids. He was staying with my sister who just happened to have him the night Mindy got arrested. My sister tried her best but it just wasn't in the cards to add another child to her table. I tried to help by buying him cloths and food every once in a while but Andy was a growing boy who ate everything that wasn't tied down. There was talk of having him go live with an aunt way down on the south side of town when school started. For now though it was cool because I didn't have to see Mindy anymore just to see Andy. 

The other change that was about to take place was that I was about to go back to school. I was not leaving town, but I was starting college, as well as holding down a 40 hour a week job to pay the bills. Andy and I knew that our time together was about to be limited but we did all we could to enjoy the carefree days that we did have left. 

We decided to go camping in a state part that was about an hour north of town. It had everything, a lake with a beach and piers to fish off of, good sized sites, trails and swamps, the whole nine yards. Andy had become friends with my little brother, from my dad's second marriage, he was a year older than Andy and we decided Eric would be a great addition to our trip. The best time to go was August, I had two weeks off and we could go during the week when it was less crowded. 

The day our trip was to begin I had some appointments to keep in the morning but when I was finished I called Andy up and told him I'm on my way, be ready to go when I get there. I picked him up, I picked Eric up, and we were on our way. I remember that both wanted to sit in front so to settle things, they both did, but Andy sat next to me. 

When we got to our camp site we set up everything. Eric had gotten a small one man tent for a birthday present and wanted to try it out. We set up the big tent and Eric set up his little one. We laid out the sleeping bags, unloaded the cooler and dragged water up because there was not a faucet on our site. That first afternoon we went swimming, ate hot dogs for supper, went fishing as evening started to fall and when it got dark we made a campfire and roasted marshmallows. The three of us sat up late that night, I didn't have a watch but it must have been at least midnight when we decided to turn in. 

Eric slept in his little tent and Andy and I were all alone in the big tent. One thing that I forgot about when camping is to put the food away securely, don't leave anything lying around. Well it didn't take long before the raccoons noticed that we had settled down for the night when they came calling. The rustled around on the picnic table and in the things just outside the tent. Having never been camping before Andy didn't know what the noise was and it scared him. I was just starting to dose off when I heard him crying ever so quietly. I moved my sleeping bag closer to his and whispered to him, "whats wrong?" He told me that the noises scared him. I assured him that what he was hearing was only raccoons. I went outside and chased them away and picked things up a little, but it didn't help. When I got back into the tent Andy told me that he wanted to sleep with me because he was still scared. I wasn't going to argue with him. We snuggled in close to each other. He but his back to my chest and we laid like spoons. He held my hand to his chest really tight. I could tell that the noises scared him because his heart was pounding a mile a minute. 

As we laid there he was still frightened at the prospects of even bigger animals coming around. To calm him I started making silly sounds to shoo the raccoons away. After a few times doing that we started saying "shoo coons" in silly voices. He started laughing but he still wanted me to hold him because he still held my hand and arm as tight as ever. After he had settled down and was convinced the raccoons outside were not going to burst in and hurt him he started to get drowsy, and fell asleep rather fast. I, unfortunately could not do the same. Andy was so close to me right now. My hand still clutched to his chest. I only had one thing on my mind, and that one thing had nothing to do with sleep. My boylover hormones were flowing fast. I wanted Andy so bad at that point. I put my hand on his waist and being asleep he did not even flinch. I remember back when he sat on my lap and drove that his cute little butt was so soft and I wondered if it still was. I ran my hand over the length of his precious little body from his armpit to his knee. It was exactly as I remembered it to be. Andy was the most beautiful boy I had ever known. 

"This is wrong", I thought to myself, I can't do this, I love him, I wouldn't do anything to ever hurt him. All that raced through my mind was that people who had sex with kids hurt them and I did not want to hurt him. He was asleep, so peaceful, so content yet so desirable and alluring. He had no idea how much I wanted him and how much I wanted to make him feel good. 

"But what would happen the next day?" I thought. I would have to look at him. Would he be mad if I did anything more? I couldn't live with him hating me. Would he like it? Would he tell someone? What would I do if he did? All these questions raced through my mind. If I did, what would it be like? It could only be good because love is good. If that is so, why does everybody say its so bad? If we did, would he like it too? Would that make me gay? (I hoped I wasn't) Would it make him gay? 

I couldn't take this any more. I slipped my hand out from under him and got out of my sleeping bag. I got up and unzipped the flap to the tent. He flinched and I thought he may have heard me do that. I don't think he was really awake but I told him that I had to go to the bathroom. I didn't hear a sound after that so I stepped out of the tent. I walked for about a minute to a secluded spot about 100 yards away from our tent and made all my fantasies with Andy come true; if only for a second, in my mind's eye. The entire thing took about 30 seconds. 

* * * * * * * * * * 

Andy did go live with his aunt on the south side a few weeks later and she didn't think that a relationship with me was the best thing for him. Its not that she thought I was bad for him but she believed that I would only get in the way of her trying to develop a relationship with him, on top of that she lived quite a distance away. She tried real hard and 3 years later after Andy got into trouble at school and was brought home by the police for shoplifting she sent him back to be with his mother. He was 14. Under the supervision of the local neighborhood gang members Andy developed into a full-fledged thug complete with no education, no goals, a criminal record and his own probation officer. I still see Andy every so often but each time, seeing him decompose from this wonderful, caring bright-eyed little boy into this shell of a human being that his environment has left behind still breaks my heart.

JP