My name is Robb Sperry. It probably should have been Robert, but my parents named me with the shorter version, most likely because my life itself was expected to be very short. Everyone calls me Robby. I was born in 1928, a time when treatment for my severe congenital heart condition was all but non-existent. I was watched carefully to be sure I wouldn't overdo, that I would never engage in any activity that would put a strain on my heart. I was an only child, due to my mom's fear she might give birth to another flawed baby. She didn't use that word, but that's what she meant.

I was carefully guarded, driven to school and picked up later by a hired driver. The doctors had forbidden me from participating in gym classes, although I was allowed to sit on the sidelines and watch. I felt so bad that I couldn't be out there with the other boys, running and shouting. In a way, I felt like a freak, only a shadow of what a boy should be. I looked at the muscles in their bodies, flexing and straining, and I was ashamed of my skinniness.

I don't think many of them understood why I was never active. One or two would be friendly to me and ask me to come to their house after school. One time, the driver took me to one of their houses before going home, but all I did was sit in their backyard, watching several of them play touch football. They hardly knew I was there.

We lived in a large two-story Colonial in what Mom referred to as the "better part of town." Dad was the president of a brokerage firm and rarely home.

In order to keep me from having to climb stairs, my bedroom was at the far side on the first floor in the rear, well away from the living area. I loved my room. It was my sanctum sanctorum—my own little world, where everything in my life was centered. My mother had put up wallpaper showing pirates and pirate ships. But by the time I was in ninth grade, it seemed a little childish, but it was familiar and it was okay.

When home from school, I spent most of my days and evenings there in my room. I did a lot of reading and had a large bookcase over my desk filled with my favorites by John Galsworthy, Rudyard Kipling, H. G. Wells, Joseph Conrad and so many others. I liked to paint landscapes with water colors, and I had a number of them up on my walls. In my art class, the teacher told me in her patronizing way that I was the best. But I didn't believe it.

Soon after the Second World War started, what I liked most was to make model airplanes. At the drug store, I bought many magazines in which there were pictures of fighters and bombers. Using those pictures as guides, I carved most of the pieces myself. After gluing them together, I painted them, including the correct insignia. I had them all strung up near the ceiling on a wire that stretched the full length of my room.

Like most boys my age, we were interested greatly in the war and read as much as we could about the various campaigns, even keeping maps with pins to track them. We also went to see all the war movies that came out of Hollywood, as well as the Pathe and Movietone newsreels. I felt such a great attraction and awe toward all those handsome, brave, and heroic men. I wrote a number of short stories about heroic men, especially those fighting in the war. They all came out of my own private fantasies, and I never showed them to anyone.

When I was about eleven or twelve, one of the boys I liked at school asked me if I would care to come to his house after school to look at some magazines. His name was Bobby. When I arrived, we went up to his room, which wasn't nearly as nice as mine. Both his parents were out and weren't expected home until dinner time.

The magazines turned out to be what he called "girly magazines." He kept them in a box in his closet. He showed me his favorite pictures of naked girls and then brought out some black and white enlarged photographs of men fucking girls. He said the janitor at school had given them to him, as well as to a couple of his friends. The janitor said they were from his private collection.

My eyes went to the men in the pictures. I couldn't believe what I was looking at. I had no idea there were any such photos anywhere.

"Do you want to jack off while we look at these?" Bobby said.

"I don't know what you mean," I said.

"You know. Stroke your dick until you cum."

"I never did that," I said. I had no idea what he was talking about.

"All the guys jack off," Bobby said. "Do you want to see how I do it?"

"Yeah."

Bobby pulled off his shoes and socks, as well as his pants. He lay there on his bed with his penis hard and standing straight up. He then started stroking it with his hand.

Bobby looked up at me. "You can get hard like this, can't you?"

"Yeah," I said. "But don't you have to be with . . . you know . . . with a woman?"

"No. Just watch."

As I watched him stroking, I could see clear liquid bubbling out of his penis. He stared at an open magazine lying next to him. His whole body became really stiff, and a look of concentration spread across his face. Then with a loud moan, his thick white sperm shot out. Stream after stream landing on his chest and neck. When it stopped, he lay there out of breath, as though he'd been running.

"You've got to learn to do this, buddy," he said. "Take down your pants and I'll teach you."

I was so excited watching Bobby stroke his penis and shoot his cum that I was hard as steel myself. When I stretched out, he took a tight grip of my hard penis and began stroking it.

"Does that feel good?"

"Yeah," I said. The feeling that crept through my crotch was like nothing I'd ever felt.

Bobby let go. "Here. You take hold of it and do it."

I stroked it just as he had and, almost immediately, I felt the most wonderful sensation taking hold of my whole body. I felt my penis cramping, and watched as massive gobs of white sperm shot all over my arms, with some on the bed.

Bobby laughed. "Wasn't that great? It's called an orgasm. You'll learn pretty quick how to aim it so it'll just go onto your stomach."

I hadn't ever dreamed that anybody could ever experience a feeling like I had that afternoon. But I did feel my heart racing as I jacked off, and I worried a little about that. When I got in bed that night, I wanted to do it again. As I stroked, the images of those men in the photographs raced through my mind. I had a large handkerchief and shot my sperm into that. The next morning, I did it again. Every night from then on I jacked off. But instead of the men in those photographs, I fantasized about the handsome movie actors I saw in those war movies. I imagined them naked and fucking as the men in the photographs were doing. Alan Ladd, Clark Gable, Dan Daley, and all the others. They all played war heroes in the movies, and I pretended they were in my bed with me and jacking off with me.

During those war years, the streets in town were filled with soldiers and sailors in uniform. To me, they were all heroes, like those in the movies. They were all gods. Sometimes when I was downtown, I felt almost paralyzed with awe when I felt the slight rush of air as they passed close by me, or if my hand should brush against their uniforms. I reveled in their godliness. But they paid no attention to me. I was nothing. Thin and sick. I was just nothing to any of them.

At night, I lay there staring up at my airplanes, pretending to talk with the pilots of each, telling them that I loved them. And then I'd cry. How much I wanted to be loved by one of them. To be taken in his arms and told that he loved me.

During the War, my mom did her part by being a hostess at the USO Canteen in town. She even danced with some of the G.I.s, with my dad's permission, of course. One weekend in 1943, she met a young pilot, who trained at the local Army Air Field. He had no family nearby, and he seemed to be a bit lonely. She invited him to come out to the house that Sunday for dinner. I was so excited, but at the same time, I told my mom I would stay in my room. He wouldn't want to see someone like me. But she insisted I be there to greet him when he came in.

His name was Trace Manning. Captain Trace Manning, a pilot in the United States Army Air Corp. 'Trace,' I thought. 'How could there be a more perfect name for a heroic pilot.' I stood a bit behind my mom, feeling like . . . I don't know . . . a worm, maybe. She brought me out in front of her and introduced me.

Trace extended his hand. "It's nice to meet you, Robby. What grade are you in, son?"

It didn't sound like my own voice when I answered. I sounded stupid. "I'm in ninth grade."

My mom said, "He's going to be fifteen next month."

"Well, congratulations, young man."

Dad took Trace's arm and led him into the living room. My mother brought out a tray of drinks and canapés. I sat on a chair at the other side of the room while they talked for a long time about the war and when the invasion might happen. About Roosevelt, Eisenhower, and Churchill. I tried to listen, but my mind was whirling. He was a hero and he was sitting in our living room. He'd taken my hand and it felt so wonderful in his grasp. I couldn't take my eyes off him. Tall and slender. Wide shoulders and narrow hips. A handsome chiseled face. I could see his chest rising and falling as he talked and breathed.

My eyes fogged over as I fantasized having his strong arms around me. I opened my eyes wide suddenly wondering if he ever jacked off. I was sure he did. If all boys do it like Bobby said, then why would they stop when they were grown up. I stared hard and could see a slight roll of something showing through his left pant leg.

At dinner, talk continued about the war. Sometimes, he would look across the table directly into my eyes as he talked. I suddenly felt embarrassed. 'My God,' I thought, 'why would he want to talk to me? I'm nobody.'

When it was time for him to leave, he shook my hand and said he hoped to see me again.

That night, I didn't sleep at all. I'd always known that, in real life, no one would ever love me the way I am. But that night, I held against my face the hand that Captain Manning shook. Trace was in bed with me, lying next to me. He kissed me. And he told me he loved me. I was choking with tears pouring from my eyes and my nose was running into my mouth. "Oh, God," I whispered, "why do I have to be sick."

My fifteenth birthday finally arrived several weeks later. At breakfast, my mom leaned over and took my hand.

"Happy birthday, dear. I have a surprise for you. Captain Manning called and asked if he could come see you on your birthday. He has a gift for you. So I invited him to stay for dinner."

I could feel my heart racing. "He's coming for my birthday? Coming to see me?"

Mom smiled. "That's right. I saw him again last weekend at the Canteen and I told him about the collection of airplanes you had made, and he'd like to see them."

"Oh, Mom. They're not that good. He'll hate them."

"No he won't. They're beautiful, Robby. They look just like the pictures."

After breakfast, I ran to my room and threw myself on my bed. I couldn't believe it. He was coming to see me. I jumped up and went into the bathroom. I looked at myself in the mirror. My skin was so pale and sickly looking. Why would he want to come and see me? My arms were thin and weak. I couldn't keep my dark hair from falling down over my forehead. I knew I looked like a creep. 'And he'll hate my airplanes,' I thought. I was so excited, but at the same time I was so scared.

When Trace arrived that afternoon, he held a package wrapped in white tissue paper with a big blue bow on it.

"Here you are, Robby. I hope you like it. Happy birthday, young man."

I took it and just stared at it until he told me to go ahead and open it. I unwrapped it slowly and carefully because mom always told us to save the paper. It was a large volume titled, "The History of Air Warfare from World War I to the Present."

"I know what a lot of the planes look like," I said, "but I never knew anything about them. This is so great." I looked up into Trace's smiling eyes. "Thank you a whole lot, Captain Manning."

He put his hand on my shoulder. "Call me Trace, Robby."

"Okay . . . Trace," I said with a big smile.

With his hand still on my shoulder, he said, "Your mom tells me you have some great airplane models to show me."

"They're not very good," I blurted out. "They were just something I . . . ."

"Aw, come on, Robby. You lead the way."

When we entered my room, Trace said, "Wow, what a great room. I wish I'd had a room like this when I was a boy."

Trace stood at the doorway looking up at the airplane models. He spoke softly and slowly almost as though he was in a museum looking with awe at a great painting.

"These are wonderful. They're perfect. Don't tell me you made all these yourself."

"Yes. I carved out all the fuselages and the wings from basswood and balsa."

"It must have taken you forever to do that."

"I have plenty of time to myself," I said. I kept my eyes on him and must have looked like an idiot.

"And these landing gears and propellers and engine housings. Such intricate work. You're a master at it."

To be praised like that by this god standing in my bedroom was like a dream. Could it really be happening?

"Can you take any of the planes down so I can look at them closely?"

As he pointed to one, I took it off its hook and handed it to him. He turned and sat on the side of my bed.

"Come sit here next to me and I'll tell you all about this little Spitfire. I've flown this aircraft."

For the next hour—or maybe it was two hours—Trace told me everything he knew about each of the planes I had made. He stood up and simulated a dog fight between two planes, as he made them dive and bank. He even made sound effects of them firing at each other. I watched as his slender body twisted and turned as he did it.

There had never been a day in my life when I had experienced the thrill that I had that day. It was just he and I. Alone. Alone in my own bedroom. This handsome hero gave his full attention to me. No one had ever thought of doing that before. I dared to tell myself that I loved him more that I ever thought it possible to love and revere anyone.

When we had finished with the airplanes, he sat down again next to me on the bed and put his arm around my shoulders. I told myself over and over, 'Don't take your arm away.' Our thighs were pressed together. 'Oh, my God,' I thought, 'I can feel his thigh against mine.'

"You're a remarkable young man, Robby," he said. "There are few people as talented as you."

He looked up at the airplanes again. "And I feel honored to have met you."

It was too much. I could feel the tears coming, but I fought them back. "Trace," I said. "No. I'm nothing. I'm really nothing." I put my hands on my sunken cheeks. "I'm nothing, Trace."

Trace twisted around and took me fully into his arms. "Don't ever say that again," he whispered. "You're my friend. And I don't have friends who are nothing. You hear me, Robby? I feel privileged to know you. That's the truth, buddy. And when the war's over, we'll get together. And I'll teach you how to hunt quail and fish for the big ones down in the Gulf.

I couldn't hold back. As he held my head against his chest, my tears poured down my cheeks.

"It's okay, Robby. I understand. I really do."

I knew he understood how I felt. He understood why I thought of myself as a nobody. He knew what my life was like. Alone with no real friends. I just knew he understood, and I loved him so much.

Before Trace left, he informed us that he was being transferred to the Pacific with his whole squadron. When he knew his mailing address, he would send it to me. He made me promise to write him often and tell him about what I was doing and how school was going. And he would write when he could.

Over the next several months, I wrote Trace almost every day. I received only a few short letters from him, but I knew it wouldn't be possible for him to write often. I was determined to do what little I could for the war effort. I spent much of my free time, when I was feeling up to it, selling War Bonds door to door. I even worked part-time at the USO canteen selling soft drinks. Trace was never far from my mind.

Another month went by when I hadn't heard from him. I became despondent, thinking the worst. If Trace was killed, I would die. I was certain of that. He had become all I ever wanted to live for. His image was in front of me constantly.

Three months after he left for the Pacific, I had a serious heart episode that put me in the hospital. It had been two months since I'd received a letter. Day after day, week after week, I lay there in that hospital. I knew I was getting weaker every day. My mom sat by my bed day and night, practically always with tears in her eyes. She never let go of my hand. I knew what was happening. It would be over soon. I heard the doctors talking. They said I had a high fever and inflammation of both heart and lungs.

I'd written my last letter to Trace, sealed it, and put it into my mother's purse the week before. I told her if she ever saw or heard from him again, she should give it to him.

As I lay there, I prayed for the courage before I died to admit to myself that my life had been worth something, just as Trace had tried to assure me—just as that most heroic and beautiful man had tried to make me believe. But I felt weary of my continued existence. And being alone in death would be nothing new.

The nurse came in and then left with my mother. Suddenly, I felt spasms in my chest. A sharp pain like a heavy weight bearing down on it, and I could feel the breath leaving my lungs. I knew it was over. Everything went black.

I lay in a strange place. Trace was lying in front of me, smiling. I could see nothing around us but a sort of misty fog. We were both naked. He leaned forward and reached for my hand.

"I love you," he said. "Come lie by me "

I didn't walk, I didn't crawl. I just sort of drifted toward him. I felt no weight, no gravity. We lay stretched out with our naked bodies pressed together. I knew instinctively that he'd died, killed when his plane was shot down. We died together, as I had hoped. We lay there devouring and sensing each other's bodies with our fingers, our lips, our tongues. We'd become one. One soul for all eternity. We never ate, we never slept. There was no day, no night. No sound. We had no sense of time. A thickening green shroud of moistness engulfed us as though we were in a tropical swamp. Our skin was wet and had the fresh smell of grass after a heavy rain. We'd become one. We'd become one for all eternity.

The fog seemed to lift, and something started to appear before my eyes. I blinked several times. Everything was blurred. I was only drowsily aware. My body felt heavy. Slowly, the image of my mom took form. She stood over me with tears in her eyes. But she was smiling. Several people in white coats and beaming faces stood around my bed.

I felt a hand pressing on my cheek, and then someone's warm breath on my neck.

"Wake up little buddy. I'm here for you. I came as soon as I heard."

I knew his voice. It was Trace. My beautiful Trace. I threw my arms around his back and held him tight with as much strength as I could manage.

"I was just with you," I gasped. "We were just . . . I mean . . . we were . . . ."

"I know," he whispered. "I know."

Trace raised his head and looked down at me. I was shocked. His face. One side of it was horribly disfigured and scarred. I lay there with my mouth open. I couldn't speak.

He put his fingers on my lips. "Don't be frightened, Robby. It's me."

My mom took my hand in hers. "Robby, dear. Captain Manning called last week and I told him you were very sick, that you'd been in a coma for the past eight weeks, almost two months."

"A coma?" I suddenly felt nothing but confusion. I was sure I had died. Trace had died, too. He was with me.

"Yes. He said he'd fly here right away to see you. He's been sitting here with you for the past three days. Then early this morning we saw signs that you were regaining consciousness. Then when . . . when . . . ." She broke into tears again. "Then a few minutes ago when Captain Manning held his hand on your cheek, you opened your eyes. Oh, Captain Manning. How can we ever thank you?"

Trace stood up and turned to my mom. "Mrs. Sperry, I know this is a wonderful moment for you, but I would like just a few moments alone with Robby."

The people in the white coats hesitated, and one of the doctors spoke with firmness in his voice.

"Give us some time, Captain. We need to do some tests and check him over very carefully. Then I will allow you to visit with him, but only for a short while."

I watched as Trace and my mom stepped out. They stood in the doorway, and I could hear them speaking.

"Your son is a remarkable person, Mrs. Sperry."

"Yes," she said, looking back at me. "He has some wonderful hobbies."

"They're more than hobbies, Mrs. Sperry," Trace said. "I would call them a manifestation of his sensitive and loving nature."

"Loving?"

I could tell my mother didn't know quite what he meant.

"Yes. I mean . . . yes. Loving."

When the doctors and nurses left, Trace came back and sat on the side of my bed. My mom waited in the visitors' lounge.

I looked into Trace's face. "You've been injured. You were fine when we . . . I mean . . . when we . . . ." It was all I could think to say.

"It was a few miles off the coast of Iwo Jima, Robby. I'd been having a good day. I took out three of those Jap fighters. But I wasn't quick enough to evade one I didn't see in time. He fired into my engine, and it exploded. I don't remember much of anything after that, but I was picked up by a small sub chaser that saw me go into the water. I was unconscious and they tell me I was in a coma for three or four weeks after that."

"A coma?" I said. "So was I." I reached up and touched the scars on his cheek.

"I know. It looks pretty bad, doesn't it. I've been undergoing skin grafts and reconstruction. At least, the other side looks like me."

I put my arms around him. I hated to have him see me cry, but I couldn't help it. Tears poured out of my eyes. I was so happy to see him, his scars didn't matter to me. I reached up again and put my hand on his face and, without my hardly knowing what I was doing, I ran it down over his neck and onto his chest through where his shirt was unbuttoned. I drew my hand back quickly.

"I'm sorry. I think I . . . I put my hand on you like that before. Do you remember? Oh no. I'm sorry."

"You did?" Trace's eyes opened wide and he looked very hard into mine. "I remember the same thing, Robby. It was like we were . . . I don't know . . . kind of like we didn't exist. But we did exist.. You and me." After a long moment, he said, "Was that something you remember?"

Trace stared hard at me with his lips moving, but saying nothing. It was as though he wanted to speak, but was afraid.

"When my plane was hit and burst into flames, I knew as I fell toward the water I was going to die. And when I found you, I knew you had died, too. I was happy to find you. But it was all a dream, and you were there."

"I know," I said. "I was there. We were lying together."

"I never knew until I regained consciousness that a man in a coma could dream. What did we have on, Robby? Do you remember?"

"We didn't have anything on."

Trace nodded. "We were both dead. And I remember we both . . . ."

Trace put his arms under me and slowly brought me into his arms again.

"I know," I said. "I remember, too." I was sure I could see traces of tears in the corners of his eyes.

Just then, a doctor and a nurse came in and asked Trace to leave because it was important that I get some rest. They said one doesn't recover from a coma very quickly.

Trace was with me for several hours every day after that. Over the next two weeks, I began to feel stronger and my weakness began to subside. Trace walked with me up and down the hall every afternoon, holding my arm. Also, the doctors started using some new medicine they were sure would help my heart immensely.

I had fallen completely in love with Trace and constantly relived my dream. But after that day when I'd regained consciousness, he never mentioned the dream we shared. When he left each evening, he'd pat my shoulder, but never hugged me. It was as though he was ashamed of having shared that intimate dream—the caressing and kissing we did when we thought we were dead.

One day I asked him if he had a girlfriend.

"Yes," he said quietly. "I did."

"You did?"

"Sure, I had a girlfriend. But I haven't seen her since before I shipped out to the Pacific."

"Is it because of your . . . injury?"

"No, nothing like that. I'm just not sure about her anymore, that's all." He threw his head back and smiled. "Things change, you know."

He seemed uncomfortable, and I didn't want to ask anymore about it.

Trace sat down in the chair next to my bed and gave me a big smile. "Remember when I told you we would go off somewhere together after I came back?"

I smiled back at him. "Yeah. You said you'd teach me how to shoot quail and do some fishing."

I have a friend who'll let me use his cabin down near Corpus Christi for a week. The doctors said you'll be ready to leave here next week. How about it? Would you like to go? I'm not due for more surgery until the beginning of next month. How about it?"

The day finally came for us to leave on our little vacation together. Trace drove up in a used 1938 Chevy he'd purchased for fifty dollars. He wore brown loafers, a t-shirt, and baggy tan gabardine pants with the cuffs turned up to show his white athletic socks. It was all the style for young men during the war years.

My mom brought out my suitcase and put it in the trunk. She put her arms around Trace.

"Now, take care," she said. "Don't let him climb any hills. He thinks he's beaten the world now, but he'll never be fully recovered. You know that, don't you Trace?"

"I'll take care of him like he's my own, Mrs. Sperry. And I want you to know I love him like he's my own. I know you might not understand something about Robby and me. But he and I have been through a lot together. We both made a visit to . . . well . . . I suppose you'd call it another world."

"Another world?"

"Yes. A place where most people go to stay, but usually don't return."

My mom clearly didn't understand and, while Trace got in the car, she stood there with a curious look on her face. Could she really know what I felt for Trace? Did she see him as a wonderful friend—someone who came out of the blue to rescue me? Or could she sense the depth of my yearning—my love for Trace?

We arrived at the cabin in the early evening. We'd stopped and bought some chicken wraps and tacos at a deli on the way. As we ate, we sat across the table from each other.

"This is a great cabin, Robby. I've been here several times before."

"With your girlfriend?" I wished I hadn't asked that.

"Yeah," he said. He nodded toward the window. "Hey look out there. You can get a good view of the Gulf. We'll be out there bright and early in the morning. My friend has all the fishing gear we'll need stashed away over in that closet. We'll have a great time. You'll love it. And then the next day, we'll drive over to a field I know of and I'll teach you how to hunt quail."

We finished our food and spent the rest of the evening talking about airplanes. I'd had a chance to read a good deal of the book he'd given me, and I enjoyed telling him a few facts about planes he didn't know.

Trace stood up finally and said, "It's getting late. I think we'd better get some sleep. Morning will be here in no time. I'm going ahead and take a shower. Then you can take yours."

I watched him stripping down to nothing before he disappeared in the bathroom. His beautiful strong body was just like I imagined it to be—just like it was in our dream. I looked around the room and realized there was only one bed. Chills went up my spine and I felt surges of adrenaline through my arms and legs and chest. This isn't a dream, I thought. This is real.

Trace finally emerged, still drying his back with a towel. "It's all yours, buddy."

I stripped down quickly, hoping he wouldn't get too much of a view of my scrawny body. When I returned to the room, Trace was just climbing into bed and pulling the sheet up over him. He was naked. I looked in my suitcase and noticed that my mom had packed my pajamas. I just left them there and climbed in on the other side of the bed under the sheet.

"Reach over and turn off the lamp, Robby. It's on your side."

I turned it off. But the lights along the road to the shore were bright enough to put a faint glow in our room.

I looked over at Trace. He had his arms folded under his head, and his eyes were open.

The room was quiet and cool—so unlike that moist and murky place where we had first caressed each other's bodies. The flowered curtains hung in motionless folds on each side of the window, and the lights outside shed an amber glow on Trace's skin. We lay there for a long time without speaking and without moving. Trace's eyes remained open, staring at the ceiling.

He finally took a deep breath and said, "You know, Robby, I thought about you a lot while I was gone. The love you put into those airplane models, your paintings. I saw a blazing sunset over the ocean once that looked exactly like one of your water colors. And I read the two stories you gave me. I wish I could have been the brave hero you wrote about."

"You are the hero I wrote about, Trace."

"No, I'm not. You wrote them before you ever met me."

"But the reason I love you . . . I mean, you know, you are just like that hero I wrote about."

I could have bitten my tongue for using the word love. I knew he'd turn away from me for saying that. I lay still, as though I was paralyzed.

Trace said nothing more for what seemed like an eternity. I tried to measure the extent of my own longing against what he might be feeling.

Then, very quietly, and without taking his eyes off the ceiling, he said, "I love you, too, Robby."

In a sort of shock, I turned and threw my arm over his chest, wanting to hug him. He still kept his gaze on the ceiling, but I felt his hand gently caressing my thin arm.

"When I came out of my coma," Trace said, "I thought about nothing else but the two of us together in that . . . other world."

"Me, too," I croaked stupidly.

"I actually prayed long and hard that we could go back there together."

Trace spoke as though something had just pierced his armor, and everything inside of him was freely flowing out of him into the open.

I moved my arm and hand down over his stomach and through his bush of pubic hair and along the inside of his thigh.

"We are back there, Trace," I whispered. "You and me. Remember? For all of eternity?"

"I remember. For all of eternity. I love you, Robby. God, how I love you."

I felt myself flushing and my heart pummeling in my chest. I felt Trace's penis hardening on my hand as I held his balls. To see Trace yielding to my yearning without my pleading made me understand how vulnerable he really was. A child-like vulnerability like my own. I bent over his head and kissed his cheeks, one with the healing scars of surgery, the other smooth with the paleness of pearl. Then through his shadowy lashes, he gazed up at me with a sweetness that brought me back to that other world where we had become one with each other.

I knew he was struggling not to give into his unexplained love for me. But he soon turned and took my body in his arms and ran his hands over it like I remembered him doing in the dream.

There was not an inch on each other's body we didn't crave. The smell of Trace's skin and the taste of it on my tongue and lips was intoxicating. I felt like a drinker limping about drunkenly in my own beautiful world. But my senses weren't dulled and I wanted more. I wanted it to be endless through eternity as it had been when we were together in that strange place.

My senses were filled with the heady aura of his body, we soon lay quietly in each other's arms.

As I kissed his lips, his cheeks, his eyes, I felt our hard penises pressing and throbbing against each other. The muscle at the base of my penis was beginning to cramp. I suddenly had a powerful longing to go beyond just kissing and caressing. I had an overwhelming desire to consummate it all with sex.

I whispered into his ear as I kissed it. "Trace, have you ever jacked off?"

Trace smiled at my question. "Of course. Doesn't everyone?"

"I don't mean when you were a kid. Do you still jack off now that you're grown up?"

"Sure I do. All guys jack off, even when they're grown up."

"I didn't know," I said. "A kid in school showed me how to do it, and I thought it was just something kids did in secret."

Trace rolled over on his back and took hold of his hard cock. "Would you like to do it, Robby? We can jack off together."

I could tell Trace was eager to do it, too, and I was glad. The very thought of seeing this beautiful man who I loved so much shoot sperm out of this penis excited me all over again.

We lay next to each other with our legs entwined. We stroked faster and faster, then Trace stopped. He ran his hand over my thigh and then over my balls. He pulled my hand away and took hold of my penis with his own hand. An intense look of longing came over his face as he stroked it.

With little warning, I felt my orgasm building. "I'm going to cum, Trace."

"Go ahead," he said as he stroked faster and faster.

After shooting several long ropes of sperm into my stomach, the remainder dribbled down over his hand. Trace looked at it for a moment and then brought his hand to his mouth.

"I've tasted my own," he said, "but I've wanted to taste yours."

Without asking, I grabbed hold of Trace's hard rod and stroked it as he had done mine. I felt it expand and harden in my hand. I watched his body stiffen with every sinew in his legs and arms and chest stretching and straining.

He bucked his hips upward with each volley of sperm. It all shot directly up and fell back onto my hand and wrist. His orgasm was accompanied by a prolonged and painful sounding squeal—a sound that hardly matched his heroic bearing.

Without releasing his penis, I lowered my head onto my hand, smearing his cum over my lips and cheeks. My tongue touched his penis head, sending me into a sort of frenzy. He bucked his hips once more, sending his hard penis deep into my mouth. I reveled in the taste of his cum and the feel on my tongue on the hard veins that encircled his stiff rod. I held it there in my mouth until I felt is wilting a bit and then pulled off. He took hold of my shoulders and pulled my face to his, where he slowly cleaned it with his own tongue.

I knew then we'd passed a major hurdle in our love for each other. We stayed in each other's arms for a long time, saying nothing. Still clasped together, we went to sleep—at least I did. I awoke some time later when I felt my own penis again being licked and fondled by Trace's tongue. It quickly got hard, and I felt the full length of it being pulled into his mouth. He seemed to suck on it tentatively at first, but soon became almost ravenous as he plunged my hard cock deep into his throat. As he sucked, he ran his hands over my thin legs. I felt my cock throbbing against his tongue as it spewed my cum into him. The idea that I was shooting it into this beautiful heroic man, who I revered and adored, overwhelmed me

When it was over, I took his own blazing cock fully into my mouth and drank his cum without wasting a drop.

Once again, we fell asleep. When I awoke, I looked at my watch. Four-thirty. Through the window, a faint glow from the east filled our room. I raised myself on one elbow and looked down at Trace, this sleeping god. As I cast my eyes over his magnificent body, I shook my head. I was still not convinced how a beautiful man like that could ever want me, or could ever want to touch my skinny, pale body.

I was prepared to have Trace wake up and want to take me quail hunting or fishing. But, God, I didn't want to do that. All I wanted was to be pressed against Trace's skin and held tightly in his arms. I wanted to remember the taste of his cum and the feel of his hard penis in my mouth. And I wanted it again and again and again.

When Trace finally opened his eyes, he looked at me and smiled. His eyes were a little puffy like a little boy's after a nap. He reached over and ran his hand over my thin arm and up over my chest.

"Would it be all right with you," he said, "if we didn't go out and do any fishing today? I just want to stay here with you."

I felt the adrenaline surging through my body. "Yes. I don't really want to do any fishing."

I fell back on the bed and pressed my body against his. At that moment, I wanted little else but the feel of his skin on mine.

We stayed in bed together for the rest of the day. We didn't shower or eat that day. Our bodies reeked of the erotic smell of sex and cum.

Over the next five days, we masturbated and sucked each other's cocks. We even experimented with fucking and tongue fucking each other. To have his beautiful cock inside of me like that was even better than having it in my mouth. And to have mine inside of him was equally as wonderful.

On our last night together in the cabin, I prayed that time would stop and that morning would never come.

We lay exhausted after taking each other's cum into our stomachs. I felt sad that we would be leaving.

"To know you and have you with me has been the most wonderful gift I have ever had," I said. "It's been hard for me to understand how someone like you, a god in my eyes, a war hero, could ever want to love me. There was a time I could never dream of sharing the sunlit world of a man like you. I've always been nothing."

I wanted to know the nature of his love for me. "How can you look at me, Trace. I mean, how can you see my physical impoverishment and love anything about me?

Trace ran his fingers over my puny chest and stomach. "It's the beauty of what's inside of you—your soul—that first drew me to you, that awakened my love for you."

"You saw beauty inside of me—my soul?" I'd never thought much about there being such a thing as a soul.

"This may surprise you, but it was on that day when you took me to your room that I first felt a love for you. I envied you, Robb, and still do."

"But you're a heroic fighter pilot. How could you possibly envy me?"

"Fighter pilot. God, that's just a job. I envied you for all your creative talents. Everything you've done. Your paintings, your heroic stories, those beautiful airplanes. All born out of the depths of your soul. You say you're nothing. Next to you, I'm the one who's nothing, Robby."

"You love me for those things that I do?"

"What more is there in loving someone other than who he is inside? Your beauty is inside of you, and that's what I love and respect and . . . envy."

"Look at me, Trace. I'm nothing. I'm ugly, skinny and pale and weak.

"No you're not. What you are inside makes you beautiful outside. Do you hear me, Robby? I'll say it again. What you are inside makes you beautiful on the outside. Please believe that. You are everything I would have liked to be."

Trace went on, spilling out his feelings. It became clear to me that he, in fact, felt profoundly inadequate in the bits of human endeavor that mattered to him—the skills that are born out of the love and beauty of a man's soul. Flying an airplane, to him, was a learned skill—not a measure of his sensitivity to the world around him.

My mom had once proclaimed—at a moment when my dad appeared particularly self-absorbed—that every man is his own hero. But Trace was not his own hero. Identifying himself with heroism was the farthest thing from his mind.

In contrast, I had spent my life suffering from my inadequacy in making my life heroic and meaningful, and becoming admired for my heroism. We loved each other for being what we perceived each other to be, although not how we perceived ourselves.

I had spent my life envying everyone else around me. And then I learned the one man who I envied and loved the most . . . envied me. It made no difference to him that I had a weak, underdeveloped body, that I couldn't do the things that other boys could do.

As Trace spoke, I looked into his handsome face. My eyes took in the terrible scars. I had kissed those scars many times. They didn't repulse me. I never pulled back. They were part of him, and I loved them because they were part of him—part of the heroic God I loved so much. But like his love for me, it was his unique soul. It was who he was that I loved more than anything. The magnificent debauchery we'd engaged in throughout that week was only the physical manifestation of that deeper love we had for each other.

EPILOGUE

When the war was over, Trace left the Army Air Corps. Although we were ten years apart in age, we eventually went into business together when I finished college. My mom fully accepted the love Trace and I shared, content in the knowledge that I was no longer headed for a life of loneliness. My dad, though, was too busy to notice.

We opened a small book store. Trace ran the business side of it, and I the public relations end of it. We soon parlayed that business into a small publishing firm. I'm still scrawny and thin, although not as weak as I was and, in spite of his scars he remains as handsome and physically fit as the day I met him. He is now sixty-two, and I'm coming up to my fifty-second year. He is still my war hero pilot, and he tells me I'm still his inspiration. I think if we had never touched each other physically, our love would have remained the same. Isn't that true with any two men who truly love each other for who they are?