Stories of an Old Boy

By: XPud
(© 2018 by the author)

The author retains all rights. No reproductions are allowed without the author's consent. Comments are appreciated at...

xpud@tickiestories.us

Chapter 12

Turns out I was exhausted; I don't remember a single dream. It felt like my head hit the pillow and then I woke up. I didn't feel that tired, but that's a growing boy for ya. Regardless, I wake up feeling refreshed and ready to wear myself out today.

I'm even up early enough to make myself some oatmeal (don't knock it until you've had my oatmeal, aright?), so I take advantage of it. The downstairs is quiet, since the sisters both have to leave a half-hour earlier to catch the bus for high school, Dad leaves WAY earlier for work, and Mom isn't up yet. Blah, blah, beauty rest. Anyway, in short, it's quite peaceful, and I only very slightly want to go back to bed, much less than usual.

I ride out to school in the cool morning dew, enjoying the almost-chill against my legs. It's cool enough to wear jeans, but I'm sure it'll be in the high 80's by midday, so shorts it is. Parking my bike in the allotted area, I head in and chill out in the nearly empty cafeteria until they open the hallways for class. As I'm sitting there, though, I notice a faint ripple in the curtains of the stage (the school is too cheap to have a separate auditorium, so the stage juts out from one of the walls of the cafeteria), and then another one, as if from an elbow or something. Unable to resist investigating, I look around to see if anybody is even monitoring; note to self--if I need to get in a fight with someone, do it at this time in the morning.

I sneak to the side of the stage and go in through the unlocked door. I mean, someone could just walk up on the stage and get back there anyway, so why lock it, right? So I carefully walk up the steps leading to the wings of the stage and creep around the corner, hiding in the black curtains of the wings. The stage is dark, so the only light coming in is from underneath the front curtain. Knowing my way around the theater like the back of my hand already, I sneak from curtain to curtain to get a better look.

Though I can't make out the details, I see two figures downstage left, tangled up in some way. I continue to work my way around the backstage area, getting to where I can finally hear one of them whisper, "Hurry up!"

The other one hisses, "Then go faster!"

Oh God. I recognize those voices, even through the whispers. How to go about doing this the best way...hm. I get to where I'm right inside the wings, only maybe 5 feet from them, without them noticing me, and I whisper very quietly, "Beto."

"What?" he asks.

I hear a sucking sound, like someone popping a lollipop out of their mouth, and Edgar whispering, "I didn't say anything." Then they both go stock-still and silent.

"Guys. You're being ridiculously obvious." I shake my head as they both gasp absurdly loudly. "Why the hell aren't you back here in the wings?"

"...Phillip?!" Edgar says hoarsely.

"Shhhh! Just get over here!" I motion furiously in the near-darkness for them to get out of the actual stage area and into the protection of the wings. They both get up and scamper over, Edgar much more gracefully than Beto, whose pants are around his ankles. "Welcome to backstage, where you're not the first people to mess around. You were hitting the stage curtain out there--anybody could've seen you.

"Oh shit," Edgar says, and I can just barely see the look of horror on his face.

"Dude, don't worry--nobody's out there. I mean, I was, but you know. So we got about...10 minutes or so before there are lots of people around, and 15 before the bell for class. So...mind if I join in?"

Edgar turns to Beto, and Beto to Edgar. Edgar says, "You sure they won't...?"

"I've messed around back here during lunch," I emphasize. "If you're quiet enough, you're fine. Now get back to what you were doing. Don't mind me." With that, Beto sits back against one of the backdrop props, it's hard to tell which, and Edgar lies down on his stomach and gets back to Beto's cock. I actually push Edgar onto his side so I can reach his junk and undo his pants quickly and quietly, fishing his semi-hard dick out so I can have my own fun. "Hey Edgar," I whisper. "Try doing to Beto what I do to you." This is going to be fun.

Though Edgar is nice and thick, I have a lot of practice in past lives on this kind of thing. I take the head and half the shaft into my mouth, slowly pulling back while rasping my tongue all along the bottom of his head. He moans around Beto's dick, who in about three seconds makes about the same sound. Apparently Edgar's a fast learner. I start up a nice rhythm of nodding my head down on it and picking it back up in a sort of circular motion. There's some additional soft moaning coming from Beto's crotch region, of course, but after about half a minute, I feel a tug at my pants (and no, it's not my already-hard dick; that's been straining for a while now). I quickly unbutton my pants one-handed and scoot myself over to give more access to who I guess is Beto (unless someone else sneaked in, which would be hot, but still). He unzips me and pulls the waistband of my underwear down, where my dick breathes a sigh of freedom shortly before being engulfed in Beto's warm, and surprisingly soft, grip. Beto starts moving his hand slowly up and down the shaft, using my precum (which has been dribbling for a while now in my pants) to stimulate the head, sending electric jolts up my spine with each stroke.

"Damn, Beto," I say, taking a quick break from Edgar's cock. "That's really fucking good."

"Thanks," he whispers. I take Edgar's head and swirl my tongue around it, which I then feel Beto doing to me about 3 seconds later, just with his thumb. Oh, man, this is amazing--I think we invented a new game: 'Cock Telephone.' I put my hand along the top of his dick to brace it while I lick the underside like I'm trying to pull the skin off with my tongue, spending extra time right at the underside of his head, from the skin at his pee-hole (which is dripping a stream of pre-cum) all the way down to his circumcision mark; Beto's fingers and firm grip get me in all the right places at all the right times. Eventually I decide that it's time to get serious and start really laying the pressure and speed in on it.

By my estimate, it's only maybe 2 minutes later before a chain of events happens. First, my jaw starts to get unbearably sore (all the reason to practice more, am I right?). Second, Edgar takes his mouth off of Beto's cock and starts to whimper rapidly as I feel his dick get even more erect, and he starts up with a flow of cum as I feel his dick throb against the roof of my mouth; the first shot nails me right in the uvula, and the rest ooze out onto the middle of my tongue. Third, this sets me off, and I grunt to let Beto know that I'm about to blow, though I don't take my mouth off of Edgar at all. My abs tense as my balls draw up, but suddenly Beto's hand is replaced by a warm mouth and hungry tongue. I yelp, but it is cut short by me pumping Beto's mouth full of cum. He actually gags when I start cumming, and ends up spitting some of it on the floor through his lips, though he keeps them mostly on my dick as he pulls back to allow more room for it. (I mean, it's not like it's a mouthful of cum so much as he was basically deep-throating me when I shot.) Finally, as Beto comes up for air from my load, he says quietly, "¡Vengo!" (which means literally, "I'm coming"), and judging from the stilted moaning and the jerking of his hand on my cock, it was a hell of an orgasm.

All three of us quietly pant, recovering from that crazy little 'love triangle,' and Edgar finally says, "What time is it?"

I try to fish my phone out of my pocket, but come up empty-handed. Dammit, that's annoying. "Dunno, but I think around ten minutes. You got time to get soft before we go."

Beto laughs and says, "You're fuckin' crazy, you know that, Phillip?"

"Me?!" I say with fake indignation. "Y'all are the ones up here kickin' the curtains. I just joined the fun. Anyway, here's what I suggest: Beto, you go out the left wing door--look for the emergency light. There's a window in the door; make sure nobody's like right there, and just slip out like you meant to be there. Edgar, you come with me. You were helping me find something for a project in Reading class if anyone asks. That way we can just walk to class. Good?"

Beto shakes his head and laughs. "Fuckin' crazy. You're a real trip. Oh, uh, we should clean up your cum, first. You gagged me. Also, I jacked off at the end, so I don't know where the cum is." He sounds rather embarrassed by the last part, though I find it hilarious.

I snort a quick laugh. "Well, I tried to warn you. Uh, hmm..." I think about it a sec, and remember that there are a couple of props in the wing I could use. I pull up my pants, tucking my almost-soft self back in, and navigate in the dim light over to a chest of props. I reach in, grabbing for something with cloth on it, but manage to at least find a feather duster. It'll do. I take it back over and, getting Edgar to hold up his phone as a flashlight, I use the feather duster to smear up any cum that it can, rubbing the rest of it around so it's not as obvious.

"Ew, what the hell, man!" Edgar says, trying his hardest not to laugh at me feather-dusting Beto's and my cum.

"Ever heard of 'Prop Improv'? Well, this is it." Having done enough of a job, I put the feather duster back and we enact Plan Scatter, which goes off without a hitch--at least on Edgar's and my part. We walk out of the door I entered in, where there are a few students walking by, none of which I know personally. They look at us funny, and I quickly say, "Dang, none of those are gonna work for the project. Maybe we can find something else later today."

"Yeah," Edgar says with an obviously overacted sigh. Eh, he tried.

We continue walking past, Edgar on high alert, almost looking like he has a gun pointed at his ass, I swear. We get to Reading class and he finally relaxes a bit after he gets to his desk, pulls out his journal, and starts answering the Warm-Up question. That kid is gonna have a heart-attack, I swear. I mean, I kinda can't blame him, after what he's been through. I hope he and Beto work out for each other. I also hope they keep their relationship as open as it is, at least for me. I could teach them so much.

After class, Edgar gives me a look, one that to my experienced eye was somewhere between 'Tell no one!' and 'When are we doing that again?' before we split paths and head to our next classes. I spend the next few classes literally thinking more about how to get back at Rod than whatever they're actually talking about. I admit that I rewind a few seconds here and there to catch up on things I miss, but I don't do anything obvious with it. So I'm sitting there in Theatre class--in the actual classroom, not on stage--working on some stupid worksheet about stage directions when I happen to glance through the window on the door and see Rod walk by. It's only a minute or two until the end of class, so it makes me wonder if he is skipping or just got let out early. Either way, I wait and, when the bell rings, I go and check; sure enough, I see Rod coming out of the bathroom. Excellent.

I rewind to about 2 minutes or so before Rod walks by the door, and immediately I raise my hand and start squirming in my seat. "Ms., can I go to the bathroom? Pleeeease?"

"Phillip, it's almost time to leave. Can it wait?"

"I've been trying to wait, but it's really bad, like, an emergency."

Mrs. Hatfield asks, "Why didn't you ask to go earlier, then?"

"I thought I could hold it!" I pinch my crotch for emphasis. A couple of other kids are snickering as they watch me. I really don't care--the shit that I've pulled has given me a reputation for being weird already, and this is just one more thing.

She sighs, rolls her eyes, and points to the door. I bolt for it, fling the door open, and dash down the hall, leaving my backpack behind. I get to the bathroom, catch my breath, and quickly hop up on a toilet to wait for Rod to show up. I mean, I kinda do have to pee a little, but not nearly how I made it look. Maybe I'll dribble a bit to make it look like I almost didn't make it. Eh, maybe next time.

I hear the door open and Rod sidles up to the urinal closest to the stall. Perfect. I happen to know from seeing him in his boxers in Gym class that he has a really stubby cock, probably in part because of his weight. I very carefully peer over the stall wall to see if I'm correct, and indeed, he barely needs to pull his pants down to just fire straight forward. Granted, it's kinda meaty, but I mean he's at least 14, maybe 15, so he's had time to thicken up, in his dick as well as his waist, apparently.

I rewind a bit again to just when he's about to start peeing, and I sneak like a ninja out of the stall and behind him. I wait until I can hear the stream really start nailing the back of the urinal, right when his pelvic floor muscles are the most relaxed, and I dart my hands out, grab his pants by both sides a little closer to the front, and yank them up, almost in a reverse wedgie, holding it there for two solid seconds. It has the intended effect: he loses his grip on his pants as I pull his boxers and pants right over his dick, leaving him sputtering as he spends the next few seconds pissing his pants, trying to figure out what is happening, trying to stop his flow, and trying to pull his pants back down. As soon as I let go, he turns around to see me dart out the door, and I look back just long enough to see a beautiful wet spot all around the front of his light khaki pants and a quarter of the way down both legs in a nice, symmetrical, dark, wet oval. He actually pees wildly on the floor of the restroom with his dick bouncing about as his face contorts into seething rage, seeing who just pranked him. I don't give him time to recover, though, before I dash out of the door and immediately into the girl's restroom. I slam the door closed quickly just as I hear the bell ring; I know there are about to be tons of people in the halls, but that's exactly where Rod will expect me.

I hear Rod yell, "YOU MOTHERFUCKER! I'LL KICK YOUR FUCKING ASS!" as his voice travels past the bathrooms and into the halls. Shortly after that, I hear a loud commotion of laughter and yelling--it sounds like Pissy-Pants Rod just got caught by a hall full of kids.

"Phillip?" says a surprised voice behind me.

I involuntarily jump and let out a short, startled yelp. I turn around to see Zacky's sister staring at me like I'm, well, a boy in the girls' restroom. "Suzie?!" I whisper fiercely.

She says, "What the hell are you doing--"

I cut her off with, "Oh thank God! Rod is gonna kill me. Go scout out, make sure he's not looking this way, so I can go hide from him. I just made him piss himself."

She shakes her head from the onslaught of information. "Wait, what--you what?"

"Go outside and see," I say with a completely evil grin. "The asshole deserves it. Anyway, cover for me!"

She takes another moment figuring everything out. "Rod? The douchebag? This I gotta see." She heads out of the restroom and peeks her head around the corner into the hallway, motioning behind her back to show that the coast is clear. I wish I could go admire my handiwork, but I'll just revel in the knowledge of what I've caused while I go hide back in the boys' restroom.

I take a quick peek before I close the door; I can see down the hall a little bit, where Rod is yelling, "Phillip fucking did this! He did this! I didn't piss myself!" to a crowd that has surrounded him in a small bubble of space. His voice is cracking at a higher and higher pitch--I think he's about to cry. I close the door and wait in the far stall for a while. I eventually hear the noise die down, so whatever the outcome was, Rod went somewhere else. All I care about is that a huge chunk of people just saw him in pissed pants. Heh...wanna call me a piss-lover like it's some sort of insult? Fine. You're right, Rod--I damn well love what just happened.

I'm intentionally late to Gym class, since I don't want to run into him just yet. I want him to soak in his embarrassment a while longer. Literally. When I finally do get to Gym, though, I walk straight up to Coach Rigby and say, "Coach, sorry I'm tardy. I think breakfast made me sick."

He directs the other students, who are already dressed out, to get in even groups at the various stations for a 'rotation day,' where we do a bunch of activities one after the other, and turns to me. "A tardy is a tardy, Phillip. You okay to participate, or you need to call home?"

"Nah, not throw-up sick, just, you know. Other side. I'm good now!" I smile disarmingly and say, "I'ma go dress out and be right there, Coach!"

You know, the funny thing is, when I act like an innocent, silly 12-year-old (well, almost 13, now--my birthday is in a few months), it doesn't feel like I'm 'acting' so much as just being a different version of me. Imagine a guy that works as a bouncer but goes home and plays dolls with his daughter. He's not 'acting' any more in the job than in play, as they are both authentically him. It's like that for me, but as the different 'Phillips' of different ages. Other than being entirely more knowledgeable now than I was, and a whole lot more reckless about sexual things, I'm still a 12-year-old inside and out. For the most part.

I slip out of my uniform, taking a moment while just in underwear to go take a piss--I kinda forgot to while I was hiding in the bathroom earlier, and it finally caught up to me. I drain myself at the urinal and put my dick away, intentionally not squeezing or shaking the last drops out, so that as I walk, I feel a tiny squirt of piss warm up the front of my groin. I figure, nobody's here to notice, and we're all boys here, anyway; that kind of thing happens, right? Well, so does the immediate boner it gives me, but that's not something I have time to deal with right now. I change into my gym shorts and shirt, doing my best to point myself in some other direction than straight forward, and head out to go do Gym class things.

I of course head to the station where Matty is, the Sit-Ups station. When I get there, nobody mentions my half-tent, though I catch one of the 6th graders staring at it for a lot longer than necessary. He's a cute kid, but I'll have mercy on him and not corrupt him. Yet.

Matty says, "Phillip! I thought you were absent."

"I was just late. I, uh, had some business to take care of."

"What do you mean, 'business'?" Matty asks as he lies down to start doing his sit-ups. "And can you be my workout partner?" he asks in his innocent, boyish, irresistible voice.

"I gotcha," I say, holding his feet down. "Make sure to cross your arms and hold your shoulders."

He glares at me. "I know how to do a sit-up."

"Just saying. Sorry. Oh yeah, so the 'business' was getting back at Rod. He may or may not have had an accident." Matty looks at me funny, and I add, "A very wet one."

"What?!" Matty grunts out, quickly doing his first sit-up and throwing his arms behind him to prop himself up. He leans in and says, "You made him wet himself?!"

I look around innocently. "I don't know what you're talking about." I scan the room and realize that he's not in class. Maybe he's at the nurse's office getting new clothes. Wouldn't that be hilarious? "He had called me a, quote, 'piss lover,' and I had to get back at him for it."

"What?! But how did you--?" Matty spies the coach approaching and quickly gets back to sit-ups.

The kid who was staring at my junk earlier, now holding the feet of his workout partner, says, "Dude, what did you do?!"

"Gave him a front wedgie from behind." I let go of Matty's feet to demonstrate what I mean, and Matty kinda folds up as his legs and his head almost meet each other. "Oops! Sorry, Matty!"

Matty sprawls out and takes a few breaths. "Ow--it's okay...I, ow, can't do any more. But, Phillip, Rod is gonna be so mad."

"That's what I want," I say, switching spots with Matty. "I want him to get so pissed, literally, that he does something extremely stupid and gets kicked out for it."

The other kid says, "You're insane, you know that?"

Grunting my way through a sit-up, I reply, "I know."

"But he could totally beat your ass!"

After another sit-up, I look at him with raised eyebrows. "You remember what happened the last time he tried that?" This kid was one of the ones Matty was playing 4-Square with that fateful day.

The kid shrugs and gets on the floor for his own sit-ups. "You're still insane," he says, laughing.

"Yup." I smile smugly.

The rest of Gym is boring, but during lunch time, I remember about my plans for this afternoon. "Hey Matty," I say.

"Thup?" he says around a mouthful of chips.

"So I, uh, may be able to get ungrounded. Dad and Mom say they'll think about it if I do a bunch of stuff for them."

"No way!" he says, spitting a potato chip piece on the table. "Yes!!"

I hold up a finger. "I said may be able to. They might say no. I hope not, but they might." I shrug. "Honestly I think they're just doing this to get child labor out of me." The twins giggle at the remark.

After that, Matty gets super chatty and energetic, and I can't help but just watch and smile as he and Kasha get in this huge argument over which is the best shooter game and who could beat who. Vik looks over and catches me staring at Matty, but says nothing as our eyes meet; he just goes back to eating his sandwich. He's a perceptive one, I can tell: Kasha is the talkative one, sure, but that just means Vik spends more time gathering information than Kasha spends spewing it everywhere.

The rest of school is 'same old, same old,' and then I head home and prepare for my list of chores. First things first, I get all my clothes and make sure they're separated, lights from darks. I change into my spare pair of black basketball shorts that I normally use for gym clothes, a dark navy blue t-shirt, and a pair of close-toed sandals in case of rocks or whatever while I'm mowing.

Mom's home, of course, so when I come back downstairs dressed for work, I mention, "I'm gonna start on the lawn before it gets any hotter."

"All right, honey," she says with an obviously amused half-smile on her face. Yeah yeah, get your kicks in while you can, Mom. I mean, she does kinda deserve it after the hell I put her through.

I take a nice big chug of water to fuel up for the incoming sweat-fest. Then I get the old mower out, one of those Lawn-Boy push mowers with the crappy drive mechanism, nearly throwing my arm out trying to start the stupid thing. Dad won't get a new mower until this one dies its last death, and he's damn handy with fixing things, so he's probably going to Frankenstein this thing back alive time and time again. Finally the motor catches long enough to rev up, and I get started on the back yard. Back and forth, back and forth, around the gardens and trees. Other than the workout I get from wiggling the thing out of uneven spots and shoving it over the faster-growing grass spots, it's at least a good time to think about other things. Things like how much I already miss that cool front that came through earlier last week, and how much mid-September sucks here for weather. It's like Fall is too busy up north and can't bother to get down here until it's like a month late. Some guest you are, fall. I push the mower up and around the rocks lining our yard's two maple trees, making sure to make a nice figure-8 design in the grass so Dad doesn't get all pissy about it and make me redo it. My mind wanders to other things, especially Rod. I wonder how embarrassed he was, and how he thinks he's going to get even. I admit, I haven't had this much fun defending people in a very long time; normally, as I showed earlier, I was more of a prankster and played tricks on unsuspecting people for my kicks. Now, I do the same, but to deserving people, and that makes all the difference. Heh, just seeing the look on his face when he realized I made him piss all over himself was priceless.

Speaking of which, as I finish up the back yard, I realize that I definitely drank more water than I needed to; I'm sweating plenty of it out, but I didn't pee when I got home. Oh well. I hold it for a while, working up and down the left side of the front lawn, crossing the sidewalk to mow the curb grass, across the driveway to the other patch, then to the main yard. By the time I finish all that, not only am I pretty drenched from my neck down the front of my shirt, but my bladder is talking about the same volume as the mower--and that boy is loud. All I've got left is the edge-up and gardening, which will probably take a while, but I can at least get the edging done first.

I drag the mower back into the shed and get out the weed trimmer for detailing and edging (Dad has one of those fancy vertical-bladed edgers, but honestly, the lawn doesn't need it that much right now). I squirm a bit as I reach up to take the weed trimmer off the hook in the ceiling of the shed. Thankfully, this baby is a lot newer than the mower and takes a lot less time to start; unfortunately, that only works when it's fueled. I take a moment to go get the gas can and fuel the dang thing up, but when I squat down to steady myself so I can put the gas can nozzle in the little fuel spot, I feel a rush of urgency hit my bladder and I squirt a sizable half-second's worth of pee, which immediately warms up my briefs and drips out my basketball shorts onto the shed floor. Oops. I clench my muscles tight and squeeze my legs together as I finish the job. Stupid 12-year-old bladder muscles. I'm better than that. I stand back up and center myself, doing my best to calm my angry, quivering muscles for a moment before I go get started on detail work.

I walk carefully and slowly, determined to get this done before I go back inside. I can take a break before I go weed the gardens. I fight the urge to speed up, simply because I'd risk more squirting and do a bad job detailing, anyway. Thinking about it, and feeling the air cool off my wet crotch, gives me a 'semi' anyway, which makes it a little easier to avoid peeing. I clean up the grass around all the gardens and trees in the backyard and move to the front. Making sure to get the edges of the grass around the lawn, I get the driveway lines first, then the gardens, and then head to the curbs. By this time, the urge to pee is quickly making it clear that I am probably not going to make it if I keep going. My pee dance is getting intricate, and the boner I had earlier has been washed away in the constant threat of peeing myself. I press on, realizing that it's probably a dumb idea.

I get through the first curb and as I'm on my way to the second one, I feel the quivering of my pelvic floor muscles starting to give way, and a quick rush of piss escapes out my dick, re-warming the dampness of my briefs. In no time, I know another will escape, and with it, I'll probably lose it all. But hey--I already said I'd do laundry right after this, and there's nobody even outside right now, so I guess if I had to choose a time and place to piss myself in public, this would be the best I'm gonna get. Still, just out of principle and habit, I try to pinch myself shut, but realize that the weed trimmer is too heavy to hold with one hand and it's still on, so I'd ruin either the grass or my leg if I did that. Well, that's that, then. I try my best to concentrate on finishing the job as the dam bursts, soaking my underwear and raining down my legs in warm, wet bliss. It's hard to walk with the relief I feel, but I act like nothing's happening as I continue to wet myself. I'm walking on the edge of the lawn and the sidewalk, but the pee is running down both my legs, leaving splatters on the sidewalk and wetting both of my flip-flops. The warmth tickles my balls as it continues to blast into my briefs, making me sigh heavily.

"Are you peeing your pants?!" Some boy, probably like 6 or 7, is standing over his bike in the street, watching me do my job (and my business). He seems more confused than anything, but at least a little repulsed.

I look down and watch the flood pouring out of my shorts. "Yeah." I keep working my way around the curb, trimming off the overgrown grass.

"Eww! That's so gross!" the boy says, wrinkling his little button nose.

"I didn't want to stop working," I explain loudly over the weed trimmer. "Besides, now I feel a lot cooler." I shake one leg and then the other, enjoying the intense relief of having emptied my bladder, even finishing up as someone was watching me. The air whips through my legs, cooling them off along with my balls--that's the good part about basketball shorts.

He says, "Gross!" again, but I can see a look on his face, where something he's being presented with isn't fitting what he's been told; I can imagine him now, thinking, 'Wait, but you're supposed to be embarrassed about it, 'cuz peeing your pants is bad, right?' Interestingly, he takes a while to stare at me with that same look before he gets back on his bike pedals and rides off silently, looking back at me once with a more curious look than before. Maybe I'll check up on him in a few years and see if he ends up with a piss fetish. I wouldn't be mad about it.

Now, though, I'm hard, and that makes walking awkward for an entirely different reason than wet pants. Having finished trimming, I turn off the trimmer, adjust myself to be basically pointing up past my briefs (since that's at least more comfortable than downward), and squeeze the fabric between my legs, crudely wringing the piss out and down my legs into the grass. Shaking my legs dry once more, I squelch over in my damp flip-flops to put the trimmer up and grab the gardening tools.

I'm still out gardening by the time Dad gets home about twenty minutes later, but wearing black shorts, added with them drying halfway already in the early autumn heat, makes it almost impossible to tell that I peed myself. He waves at me and grins, saying, "Living up to your word. I like it. Looks good so far!"

I nod and smile, and finish up the job a few minutes later. It was a little under two hours, all told, but I finally go back inside after rinsing my flip-flops at the water hose and leaving them on the back porch to dry out. I tell Mom I'm going to start laundry soon and head upstairs to go change. I bump into Stephanie on my way up, though; I should really look where I'm leaping when I'm bounding up the stairs.

"Hey, watch it!" she says, and looks at me. "You're drenched!"

"I just worked outside for two hours," I say with a mischievous grin. "I'm sorry...gimme a hug, make it all better."

"Ugh, no. Move." She shoves me to the side and stomps downstairs as I giggle behind her. Little Brother Moment: achieved.

I strip my clothes off in the piles I left in my room and hop into the shower for a quick rinse. Of course, after all that, there's no way I'm not going to rub one out, so I lather myself up and go to town. I'm plenty excited just going back through the feeling of that amazing relief as I pissed myself, and the 'naughty' thrill of continuing to wet myself as I talked to that boy, and manage to bring myself to the brink in only maybe two minutes; the orgasm isn't the strongest ever, but a wave of pleasure still washes over me as two little spurts of cum barely jump out of my dick. It's satisfying enough for now--I've still got a job to do. I get out of the shower after cleaning up and throw on a basic white t-shirt / blue jeans combo. I'm a simple kid for fashion.

Laundry isn't all that exciting, to be honest--I put the darks in first so that the lovely smell of piss doesn't give away my transgressions, and then get Mom to check all the settings to make sure I'm doing it the way she wants.

I decide to sit and watch TV with Mom while waiting for the darks to finish their wash cycle. It's some sitcom in a hospital setting, like the ten others that beat the trope to death already.

"So how was school?" Mom asks during a commercial break.

"Oh, you know. Good."

She thinks a second. "What was the nicest thing you did today at school?"

Man, she never lets me off easy when she starts asking these questions. "I dunno. I helped a couple of friends out in the morning before school."

"How so?"

"I, uh, showed them around the Theatre stage and taught them some basics about stage etiquette." Like 'Don't kick the curtains when you're having sex,' and, 'Hide in the wings if you're gonna blow someone.'

"Oh, well that sounds nice! Good for you." She smiles a small, proud smile.

"Yeah. It was pretty cool."

She pauses her sitcom and gives me a considering look. "So there's one other thing I need you to do for me after laundry, if you want me to even consider ungrounding you."

"What would that thing be?" I ask carefully.

"I need you never to betray my trust like that again." She fixes me in place with her gaze in the way that only mothers and vampires can do. "You scared me more than half to death, Phillip. I understand that you went to save a friend, but what would have happened if you were in a wreck? At the very least, you'd earn us a ticket, and possibly go to Juvenile Detention. At the worst, you could have died, and then you wouldn't have saved anyone, least of all yourself. There's a difference between being a hero and being an idiot: the idiot is the one who wants to be a hero. The hero just does what needs to be done. You get my drift?"

I stay silent a moment, nodding pensively. "Mom, I--I'm incredibly sorry that I scared you so much, but--but I really couldn't think of any other way to save Matty, and even though we weren't boyfriends yet, I...I already was in love with him. If something bad happened to him and I could have saved him, I'd never be able to forgive myself."

Her stare of Serious Importance softens into a stare of empathy. "I understand. Just make sure you think about how your actions are going to affect other people, even if you think they're good."

Unbidden scenes pop into my mind in rapid succession: pranking Matty and taking advantage of him, leading him to get bullied for it; blackmailing Edgar--even more so, in a way that caused him to attempt suicide once before; stealing Mom's car, knowing that she'd be worried shitless; even moments from past lives where I either impulsively did something to the detriment of others, or simply thought I was doing something harmless and ended up screwing someone over. I squint my eyes shut against the rush of tears forming. When you've got a brain that is wired to hate itself at times, having a millennium of memories to give it ammunition is a really bad thing. I manage to choke out, "I'm sorry, Mom."

"Oh, honey..." she says, leaning forward to take my hands in hers. "This whole thing really is a lot to deal with, especially at your age. And I can't imagine what your visions may show you, and how that might affect you. Just promise me you'll think about me and your safety in the future. I love the heck out of you, and I'd really hate to see such a wonderful boy go to waste."

I nod, holding my breath to prevent myself from sobbing. I still think I did the right thing, but I really wish 'the right thing' could actually make everyone happy at least some of the time. Of course, even up to the last time I was 12 (admittedly a few hundred years ago; I spent a lot of recent time as an adult for some God-awful reason), I didn't give a shit about others, seeing as I could just rewind everything if it bothered me. My parents were a lot less proud of me that time around. This time, though, things just feel different. Maybe Matty has special powers of making monsters into humans again. He's done it at least once; I would know.

I calm myself down and wipe my eyes on my shirt. "I'm gonna go get the rest of the laundry started." I get up and take a few steps, stop, and say, "Oh. And I promise that I won't betray your trust again. But can you do me a favor?"

"Yes?"

"If I have a...vision, and I need to do something crazy, can you trust me? If I tell you about it, I mean."

She stares back at me for a long, tense moment. "I really don't know, Phillip."

I cast my eyes to the floor. "I get it." I trudge off to the laundry room, dreading the inevitable next time that I scare her to death.

Evening sets in, and after I'm completely done with laundry and all that, the parents call me back into the living room for a chat. The long story short of it is that I'm officially ungrounded from both the Internet and from going outside or to friends' houses, and that they are both proud of me for showing such initiative. Dad thankfully doesn't add any stipulations or anything to my freedom, and what's better, he tells me that it's time for me to get a new phone anyway, so he's going to consider getting me one as an early birthday gift. Finally! As you can imagine, the first thing I do is go upstairs, circumvent the parents' pathetic attempt at parental controls, and jack off furiously to some good, fresh porn. Yes, I've already gone at it twice today, but that doesn't stop 12-year-old horny-as-hell Phillip Bontemps; the best it does is make me take a few minutes longer. Granted, it is kinda sore by the time I bust another nut--which is a pathetic dribble, practically firing blanks at this point--but the tingle of hyperactive nerves all throughout my tortured dick is a completely acceptable problem to have. Maybe I'll only jack off once tomorrow. Maybe.

***

Each day closer to Matty's birthday goes agonizingly slower than the previous; it's only Thursday and I'm bouncing between falling asleep from boredom in class and finding something really stupid to do just to stay entertained. I could be one of those top students, the all-A's teachers' pets, but I don't have that whole 'desire to fit in' thing that most kids my age have, so that's a miserably boring concept to even consider. I mean, I do like doing nice things for people, but only if I'm not going to be bored in the process. And while technically it's not my teachers' fault I'm so bored in their classes, that doesn't alleviate the fact that I'm one step from tossing paper airplanes at the board. Hell, I'd jack off in class if it wasn't still a little angry at me for going at it so much yesterday evening. I essentially entertain myself by musing about all the stupid things I could do in class, but not actually going through with any of them. The only saving grace is that there's some sort of inaugural sports games going on today and tomorrow, so we're having a pep rally today to kick things off for the athletics teams. This means shorter classes, which means less boredom. Hallelujah.

Rod's back in Gym class today, but he doesn't say a single word to me, or really to anybody but his little butt-buddy Diego. He doesn't even look at Beto as far as I can tell. Maybe his spirit is finally broken. I doubt it, but a kid can dream, eh? So things go entirely boringly for that class, and lunch is somewhat better for being lunch, and finally the other stupid classes are stupid, with the exception of at least being there with Matty (even if he's on the opposite side of the room). I'm going to make sure he's not in remedial classes next year--I feel myself getting dumber at listening to the lessons, and worse, the other students.

Finally, last period passes by; I let Matty know that I wanna sit next to him in the pep rally, so we decide to meet up at the gym entrance. Everyone dashes to their homeroom classes to get their phones, while I wait glumly at the gym for them to show up. Matty arrives with the twins and Kyle, and we all head together to a spot near the middle of the bleachers, up against the side wall near the entrance, so that not only are we away from the center of everything, we can see everything without having to look back and forth.

Turns out we're celebrating the start of the season for boys' football and girls' volleyball, the latter of which plays today, with the former playing tomorrow, both home games. There's a bunch of silly stuff with cheerleading that goes on, and since our mascot is the Sidewinder snake, a kid in a snake suit--that's right, a suit without arms or legs--bounces around and makes a general fool of himself. Standard fare, really.

We're sitting 5 in a row, with Matty to my left, and Kasha, Vik, and Kyle to my right. Kasha leans over to me and whispers loudly, "Pass it on--Kyle says he found your ribs."

"...What?" I say, completely lost.

He jabs my side. "Right there! Pass it on!"

I jump, rubbing my side. "Ow! No thank you."

"What did Kasha say?" Matty asks, oblivious.

"Oh, he said Kyle found your ribs."

"What? Where?" You can guess what happens next. "Augh!" he yelps, jumping at my finger jabbing into his ribs. I didn't poke hard enough to hurt, but I know where his tickle spots are. Kasha watches and laughs.

The next game that I decide to play is "The Nervous Game," also known as "Gay Chicken." The concept is simple: you put your hand on someone's knee and ask if they're nervous yet. If they say no, you move farther and farther up their thigh until they either flinch or make you stop. Now, seeing as I've already basically had sex with the people around me, it's less about homophobia and more about getting caught. Regardless, it's still a fun way to pass the time. Just as I put my hand on Kasha's knee, though, Matty says, "I'll be right back. I need to pee."

I stop, concerned. "Did I do something wrong?" I ask instinctively.

"What? No no, I just need to pee." He pinches himself to illustrate.

"Oh, okay. Go go go!" I slide my hand up Kasha's thigh while I'm talking, which makes him flinch out of surprise. "Ah! You flinched!"

"No fair!" Kasha whines as Matty hops down the steps and around the corner to the locker rooms. Kasha puts his hand on my knee and stares down at the spectacle down on the gym floor. "Nervous yet?" he asks without looking.

"Nope."

He slides his hand closer. "Nervous yet?"

"Nnnnnnope." I smile smugly, staring in the same direction he is.

He hesitates, probably afraid to get caught with his hand between someone's legs. He looks around a little, and moves his hand closer. "Nervous yet?"

"Pff. Want me to unbutton for you?" I reach down to my pants as if to do so.

"No!" he says, jerking his hand away before realizing it was part of the plan. "Damn!"

I laugh, gloating over my victory. I smile for a moment and lean over to Kasha: "Pass it on, I found your glans."

"My what?"

"That," I say, poking him right between the legs. He yelps and lifts seriously half a foot off the bleacher. The other boys look over to see what the hell happened, and a very red-faced Kasha is losing the battle against cracking up laughing at himself. I'm hit with the giggles as well, and soon neither of us can breathe while the other two boys are completely lost. A couple of random students from around us look at us like we're weird and obnoxious, and they're not wrong.

After we calm down and a few more minutes pass, I realize that it's been longer than expected for Matty to come back. I excuse myself and go to the locker room, where I find Matty slumped down against a shower wall, wrists tied together with a shoelace that's been wrapped around the shower knob so that no amount of wiggling can get it off; in his mouth is one of his own socks, and he has clearly peed himself. He is sobbing with his eyes closed tightly.

"Matty!" I call out in surprise as I dash over in panic mode, immediately starting to work on untying him.

He sees me and starts making muffled screams, a wild look in his bleary eyes. I take the sock out of his mouth and he sobs, "Rod! Rod was--was in here with-with D-Diego! They took me, and-and-put my sock in my mouth, and then-then they laughed! They laughed while I p-peed, and..." Matty just starts bawling at this point.

I feel a very cold feeling start to burrow up from parts of me that haven't been seen this life. I untie the shoelace, letting Matty use his hands again, and say, "You're safe now. Did they hurt you?"

"They hurt my wrists when they-they tied me up, b-but...they j-just left me here." He regains a little composure with his freedom from bondage.

I take the shoelace and pocket it. I see that Matty's one shoe is still on his left foot, but his other is across the showers; it still has its laces, though, so this one must have been extra, which means this was most likely premeditated. I feel colder, more distant.

"Where did they go?" I ask quietly.

"They...they left and I think they went out-out of the gym." Matty looks at me, concern etching his features. "Phillip, please don't do anything crazy."

"Did they say anything?" I hear my voice as if someone else is speaking, someone without a shred of emotion.

Matty hesitates. "Rod said to tell you that...that you're next."

The cold leaves me. My emotions leave me. I hug Matty because I know that's what I would do normally, telling him, "You're fine now. You'll be fine." I get up, ignoring completely the fact that the front of my pant legs are damp with pee where I knelt.

"Phillip?" Matty says quietly. "What are you going to do? Please don't, you'll only make it worse!"

He follows me to the edge of the locker room, but I turn and say, "Don't leave here yet. I'm getting the twins to come be with you." I leave the locker room, but he doesn't follow. I go back up to the twins and say, loud enough for them to hear, "I'm going to find Rod and make him pay. Help Matty in the locker room."

They both stare blankly at me until I turn and start walking out of the gym. I've noticed that on pep rally days, they actually have fewer security guards for whatever reason; I suppose it's less money they have to spend, and maybe there haven't been any serious incidents that would call for it. Any other day, I'd be concerned about this; today, I'm only interested in two specific people.

I make my way out the door that leads to the baseball fields and stop to let my eyes adjust, searching around for signs of the two. It's a long shot, but if they're out here, they're mine.

As I'm scanning around, a very faint movement catches my eye from behind the dumpsters off a ways to the right: a small, thin cloud of smoke wafts away into the sky. Either the dumpsters are on fire, or someone's smoking. I walk slowly toward it, listening; I hear some mumbling and laughter. It's them.

I take a few steps toward it when I hear, "Phillip?!" from the back door. Kyle, the twins, and Matty are all standing there; I know that Matty walks home this way, so I'm sure he knew there would be no security.

I ignore his call and round the corner into the small area with the dumpsters. "RODRIGO," I call out. Not growling or yelling, just projecting, like when I'm on stage.

Rodrigo and Diego step out from behind the dumpster, cigarettes in their mouths. Rod takes his out and says, "You got my message!" As they step forward, I stare steadily at them. "Oh, look at Mr. Big Boy Phillip!" Rod taunts. "Gonna take us both on? Bring it on, faggot."

I hear Matty and the others coming up behind me, Matty yelling, "Phillip! PLEASE!"

I get within five feet of the two when Diego splits off to my left. My training from being in wars, from times I studied martial arts, and from times I lived fast and dangerous lives takes over, removing Phillip the 12-year-old and replacing it with Phillip the Machine. I beeline at Rod, who flicks his cigarette at me and prepares himself. Diego lunges in to try to grab me, but a surprise jab of my fingers just underneath his chin sends him crumpling to the ground; his windpipe will be fine, but he should be disabled long enough. The sight takes Rod off-guard, who then flies at me with a well-telegraphed punch, like usual--I'm sure it has worked for him before, but I don't need to rewind time to see it coming. I easily duck under it, thrusting a fist directly into his crotch with my smaller (but still sufficient) body weight behind it. As soon as he doubles over slightly from the impact, I shift on my left foot and brace with my left arm as I plunge my right foot into the back of his knee. He topples forward; I leap off the ground and onto his back, whipping my right arm around his neck like a python catching his prey. I grab the bicep of my other arm and hook my left hand around the back of his head, pulling my shoulders back and blocking both his carotid arteries in a rear naked choke hold. He struggles for only a few seconds before the complete lack of blood to his brain knocks him out.

In the span of maybe ten seconds, both the teenagers lie in miserable heaps: Diego is on his hands and knees, vomiting onto the concrete between the dumpsters, and the other is slowly dying in my grip. I realize that they have no chance, and I cannot bring myself to care. The only thing left right now is the eventual recovery of Diego, and the quick death of Rodrigo, and if Diego sticks around, he'll be quick to join.

I feel arms trying to pry my own off my target, and realize that both of the twins are trying desperately to pull me off of Rodrigo. The confusion of why they would be helping this shitbag is replaced by the sudden realization that I'm not actually supposed to kill this kid. With that realization comes the return of my emotions and common sense, and Phillip the 12-year-old returns to control once more. I quickly release my hold, knowing that it shouldn't have been long enough to cause any lasting damage, and I look to Diego. "Run. If I see you even talk to Rod again, I will find you when you least expect me."

He looks at me with completely horrified eyes, coughing and sputtering as he regains control of his laryngeal muscles. He strains just to cough out, "Okay," as he scrambles to his feet and dashes off like he was being chased by lions.

As for Rodrigo, I quickly take the shoelace I had in my pocket and tie his wrists together with it. I take off my own shirt and use it as a rope to tie his feet up as tightly as I can, and as I look at his feet, I realize that he used his own shoelace to tie Matty up. Diego must have held him in place long enough to let Rod unlace his own damn shoe. Turnabout is fair play, though; I yank off his other shoe, unlace it, and as he slowly begins stirring, I yank his legs backward, fastening his ankles and wrists in a makeshift hogtie, leaving the chubby sack of shit bent backwards on his side. As the finishing touch, I rip one of his socks off his foot and stuff it in his mouth.

The act of me jamming a sock in his mouth wakes him much more quickly, and he looks at me with complete bewilderment as he realizes he cannot move. He tries to say something, but the sock gag effectively muffles his speech. I kneel next to him and say, "What's that? I can't hear you." Kasha giggles, but I can easily tell it's a nervous laugh. I know I'm scaring the poor boys, but this fucker needs to be taught a lesson that will stick. Matty is behind me, staying silent. After Rod screams into the sock again, I say in a very calm, slow voice, "You can answer me with 'mm-hmm' for yes, and 'mm-mm' for no. Did you think you'd win this little war?" Rodrigo furrows his brow and stares wide-eyed, not prepared at all for the question and unsure how to answer. I lean in closer: "Did you think...that you were going to win...this little war with me?"

After another moment, he whimpers, "Mm-hmm."

"And did you win?"

He thrashes violently, trying to break free; I wait patiently for him to expend himself, at which point tears start to flush through his eyes as he shakes his head. "Mm-mm."

"Rodrigo. I have taken your friends from you. Beto never wanted to hurt people, and now Diego is afraid to. You have nobody left to help you hurt anyone. If you try to, you will only end up hurting yourself, because I will come after you. Do you understand me?"

He nods quickly, his eyes never leaving mine. "Mm-hmm!"

"You're alive because Matty told me to stop. You tried to ruin his life, many times, and he still wanted to protect you. That's how amazing of a person he is, and that's how pathetic you are. You are the worst type of person, don't you agree?"

He stays silent. I lean in closer. "You owe Matty your life. Here, where you hide and smoke, you know that no one's going to find you. I leave you with your life and your privacy. Have a good night--I'm sure someone will find you in the morning."

His eyelids shutter open and he begins to rapidly whimper through the sock at me, struggling furiously to escape his bonds. They're not the highest quality, but they're better than he is, to be certain. Tears stream down his face as I turn away from him and take a step toward the others.

Kyle and the twins are staring at me like I'm a demon from Hell, which I realize I may as well be. Matty gives me a desperate, tired look, and says quietly, "Phillip, please...I just want this to be over. Please let him go."

"It is over. He can't hurt you if he's tied up. Just like he did to you."

"Phillip." Matty stares at me, eyes glistening with tears of frustration.

I meet his gaze for long enough to be swayed; I look to the ground, take a deep breath, and say, "Okay. Rodrigo, Matty wants me to untie you. Is that what you want?"

A frantic series of whimpers come from Rodrigo. "Mm-hmm! MM-HMM!"

"Now, see, I think it's unfair that you made him pee himself, when you--oh." I stop as I turn around, realizing that Rodrigo already has, in fact, pissed himself in fear, leaving a dark stain across his right leg and a nice-sized puddle on the concrete. It looks like his cellphone is in the pocket he just drenched; better be one of the water-resistant models. "Never mind. Then promise me this: promise me that you will never say anything to us, do anything to us, or even think of doing anything to us, unless we ask specifically. Can you promise that?"

His face scrunches up as he begins to cry hopelessly. "Mm-hmmm-hmm-hmmm...."

"I'll take that as a yes. One more promise. Each week, I am going to ask you to do three good things for people, without them asking. It can be small, like holding the door and smiling. It could be getting something off a high shelf for a short kid. Whatever you do, I'll ask you about it on Friday, and you'll tell me the three things you did. Three good deeds a week. This is my final request. Will you do that?"

He narrows his eyes and stares at me a moment, like I just asked him to suck three dicks a week. Granted, that would be a good deed, but you know. He finally nods with a quiet, "Mm-hmm."

"Great. I think we've made a lot of progress today. We'll practice with one good deed by, say, 3:00 tomorrow. You will find me at outside near the bike racks and tell me about one good thing you do tomorrow." I walk around to his backside and kneel down, prepared to untie him, but I add one more thing, much more quietly: "And if you don't come find me, I will find you. You don't want that." I undo the hogtie, causing him to flop and almost bang his head on the concrete. I loose his legs first, and then his wrists; he quickly takes his sock out of his mouth and stands up. He looks at me like he's going to spew a stream of the world's worst insults, but he sees the look of seriousness in my eyes and the challenge of my raised eyebrows, and thinks better of it, keeping his mouth shut behind a quivering bottom lip.

"We're going to go home, now. The pep rally should be over any minute now, so you may want to clean up and get out of here before anyone else sees you. Consider it my offer of peace to you: nobody but us will know what happened here." With that, I unroll my shirt and put it back on, heavily wrinkled but otherwise fine. "And do me a favor: don't pick on people for doing things you yourself do." I say, pointing to his pants. I walk past the other boys. "Let's go. Leave him alone for now."

The others follow wordlessly behind me until we get back to the back door. I open it for the others politely, smiling genuinely as I let them all through. Matty gives me a blank look, Kasha actually shies slightly away from me, Vik stares pointedly forward, and Kyle looks at me askance as he passes by. Sigh. I wonder how much friendship repair work I'm going to have to do, now. I really shouldn't let myself lose control like that; I could literally have killed him and have had to live with that memory for the rest of my undying life. I glance back to where we left him; there is no trace of either boy, save the splatter of vomit and a dark pee stain.

Matty says, "I can't go back inside like this," indicating his pants and hiding out of view of the door.

"Oh, crap, right." I check my own pants, which look more like I was kneeling in wet grass than in a pee puddle on a shower floor. "I'm sorry. Um, guys, I'm going to walk Matty home. Y'all gonna be okay?" Sometimes I catch myself being extra Southern, but I don't really mind much. Makes me a little more harmless-seeming. Kinda. Maybe not in this case.

"I, uh," Kasha pipes up, "I didn't even think you could get angry."

"I try not to," is all I say.

Kyle mentions, "You were scary, man. Like, that was like a scene from an action film or somethin'. Where'd you learn to fight like that?"

I sigh. "It's a long story." Those words couldn't be any more true. Matty gives me a knowing look, one with a pinch of concern and a dash of fear mixed in. I add, "Don't tell anyone what happened. I'll probably get kicked out of school and maybe go to jail if anyone finds out. As it is, if Rod tattles, I might be in deep shit."

Kasha puts his hands up. "Well, I don't want to make you mad."

"Then don't mess with me and the people I love."

Kasha's eyebrows shoot upward. "The people you love?"

Oops. Dammit. "Yeah, like all y'all. I love you guys like brothers." I could rewind, but why? Let him have this.

Kasha looks at me, his eyes screaming 'I know what you meant,' but says nothing. Vik points down the hall, where the students are flowing out of the gym in a torrent of hyperactivity. "Father will be waiting soon," he mentions, lightly elbowing Kasha. "Let's go."

They head off, and Kyle follows them out to go to his bus. Matty stares at me for a few seconds with his signature frustrated face, where he can't figure out how to process into words all the things he's thinking.

"You don't need to say anything," I assure him. "I'm sorry; I went too far. When I saw you in there, tied up like that, something snapped, and I kinda lost myself. I care too much about you to let that happen without payback."

"You could have just told security," he says, exasperated.

"Then he'd just get more mad and find other ways to mess with us. With you. I couldn't take that risk."

"Why didn't you rewind and catch him?" Matty asks with crossed arms.

"Same reason: if I prevented him, he'd just try again and again. Look, if you try to discipline a dog before it poops on the carpet, it will never learn why it's being hit. I needed him to realize that if he does anything, the consequences will be much worse for him."

Matty seems unconvinced, but doesn't offer any more counter-arguments. "I have to go," he says eventually, turning toward his path home.

I call after him, "Can I still walk you home? I'm still afraid either Diego or Rod are around." We both know they wouldn't try anything, but at least it was an attempt at an excuse.

He looks me up and down, sighs, and keeps walking. "Okay."

I know I can't win, and it's killing me inside. I want to argue with him, show him that I'm right, that I needed to do that--I need to justify myself, somehow, but I know that nothing is going to work right now. I also know how tumultuous a 12-year-old's emotions are (from present personal experience), and there's not much point in trying to win against those after something as stressful as what happened today. So we walk in silence, away from the milling crowd and across the quiet fields around the baseball diamond to his back fence.

I can't take the silence anymore, so I stop him before he walks through the fence. "Matty? Did I do something wrong?"

He looks at me for a solid moment. "No. I mean, not really. I just...I'm scared."

"Of me?" I ask, afraid that I went too far for the last time.

"No, not you." He looks down. "Of being with you. He said he did that to me to get back at you."

Another coldness envelops me entirely, though not a distant cold--the vulnerable, naked cold of suddenly realizing you're intrinsically bad, a liability. I say, in a voice far smaller than I'm used to hearing come from myself, "But...I made sure he'll never do it again."

"Phillip," Matty sighs, leaning against the fence. "What if it happens again? What if it's not him next time, but someone else? I'm scared that just being your friend is gonna get me hurt, sometimes. You piss a lot of people off." The language he uses makes it clear he's not messing around.

"You're not just a friend, though, Matty. You're my boyfriend." I say the last part as steadily as I can, though I can feel my lip quivering.

"I know, and that's..." Matty stops.

"Let me guess: that's even scarier, isn't it." There's no question in my voice. The strength drops out of my legs and I collapse into a cross-legged position on the grass. "I'm not helping you out. I'm ruining things for you."

"That's not what I was going to say," he insists, sitting down across from me with his back to the fence. "I was going to say, 'and that's what makes me...what reminds me that, you know. Reminds me why I don't need to be scared. I mean, I still am, but..." He stops and sighs heavily. "I can't figure out how to say it. I'm scared but I'm not. I know you're looking out for me, but then, then I think that maybe if I didn't know you, you wouldn't have to look out for me, but then I was already being picked on even before I met you, so...so I guess what I'm trying to say is that school really sucks, and I'm, I'm glad you're there. With me. Does that make sense? I'm just rambling now."

I smile without meaning to at Matty's attempt. I take a shuddering sigh, the precursor to a sob that never formed, and say, "Matty? So, we're boyfriends, right? I...can I tell you a secret?"

"Sure," he says, "what is it?"

I look around at the empty area, with the woods off to one side and fences all about, and say, "Um, maybe we could talk in your room. It's kinda nasty and humid out here, anyway."

Matty glances about and gets up. "Yeah, good point."

We find our way inside, and Matty calls out, "Mom! I'm home. Phillip's here." He actually continues straight into his room while his mother springs up from the couch and sweeps me up in a huge, unexpected hug.

"Phillip! It's good to see you. How have you been?" She is all smiles and love, all of a sudden.

"Um, pretty good, I guess. Got myself grounded, but I convinced them to unground me, so y'know. Good." I smile a friendly smile.

"Well, I'm glad they set you free," she says with a smile. "You know you're welcome over any time at all."

I smile, half from being taken so off-guard, and half from her infectious mood. "Thanks."

While she's talking to me, she looks over my shoulder down the hallway. "Is he...okay?" she asks, concern etched into her brow.

"Yeah. We had some problems with a couple of jerks, but it's all fixed now." Well, it will be after Matty changes, I suppose.

"Is he being bullied?" she asks, the wolverine coming out in her voice again.

"They tried. They won't try again. It's fine, I promise."

Her gaze shifts to me for an instant, and then lingers down the hallway a moment longer. "Okay, well, I won't hold you up any longer. Y'all go have fun." She goes to sit back in the living room.

As I enter Matty's room, he whirls around in surprise. He has already stripped off his pants and is still in his peed-in underwear, but when he realizes it's me, he continues undressing. He then puts on just a pair of shorts that he picks up from the floor, chucking his other garments in the hamper. "Just in case Mom walks in," he says without me asking. After an awkward silence, Matty prompts, "So...what were you gonna say?"

"Huh?" I ask.

"Your secret?"

"Oh! Right." I take a deep breath. "So. Bear with me here. I found out in my first life, only when I was like in my twenties, that my family has a history of depression, on my dad's side. Later on, as I lived parts of my life over and over, there were a lot of times that really bad things happened, and I...still remember them like they happened yesterday. The kinds of things that give a normal person PTSD." He gives me a funny look. "You know, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder? Like when people come back from wars?"

"I know what it is."

"Oh, okay. You just had this look. Anyway, back there, what he did to you made me snap, and it brought out a side of me that I'm...I'm really sorry you had to see. But...with my brain already prone to being depressed, I admit that it's really hard to deal with some things, y'know, rationally, and sometimes those old habits kinda, well, take over." I realize I'm picking at my thumbnail and force myself to stop before I start bleeding. "But usually after those kinda of things happen, it makes me feel really...broken."

"Broken?" Matty asks. "You're not broken. You're freaking magical!"

"And you're the one that stopped Rod from dying. I might not have even stopped myself. Sure, I could rewind time after I killed him and prevent myself, but that's just one more memory of killing people that I'd keep remembering again and again. Just because it 'never really happened' doesn't mean it didn't happen for me." I pause, gauging his reaction; it doesn't seem to sink in, so I continue, "Imagine if you could, I dunno, stab someone, or shoot them, and they'd just wake up the next day like it never happened: no memory, no scar, nothing. Would you do it?"

"I..." Matty thinks about it. "No. I mean, would it hurt them?"

"A ton. Like getting stabbed or shot. Like they were dying--except that the next day, they wouldn't remember it at all."

"Oh God, no, why would...!" He seems genuinely horrified by the concept, and then it all falls into place. "So, you, you remember every bad thing you've done to someone, even if they've never, if it never really happened to them, like, in this, uh, this reality. Timeline. Whatever."

I nod. "They're all just as real to me as this moment is. I've done a lot of bad things, just being stupid, and earlier on, there were times when I got very, very depressed about who I am, what I'd done, and it doesn't matter that nobody knew, or that I hadn't killed so-and-so yet this time around...I still remembered doing it, and it killed me inside. I even tried to kill myself to get away from it, but I..." I realize I've gone a lot farther with this confession than I intended to, and now I'm probably going to scare him away, but I guess I have to finish the sentence. Sighing, I let the rest rush out of me. "I can't even die. It's a long story, hard to explain, but time just stops for me when I die, and all I get to do is rewind and try again. I remember the feeling of dying, and I know that's what people feel when I kill them. I've felt it. It's..."

The look in his eyes is a big jumble of looks, hard to decipher even with my experience, but I think that's because he himself isn't sure what he's feeling. Surprisingly, though, he leans forward and puts his hand on mine very softly. "I'm sorry," he says quietly. "I don't know what else to say."

I smile at him through misty eyes. "You don't need to. It's a burden I carry, and have for a long time, but even though I may never get used to it, there's always reasons I can forget about it for a while. You're one of those reasons. A lot of them, really." I put my other hand over his and squeeze. "Can I ask you a big favor?"

"What?"

I smile again, but the tears in my eyes betray the major emotion I feel welling up. "Can you hold me for a little bit?"

"Yeah! Yeah, sure." He puts his arms out, but I instead curl up and lie down with my back toward him, tucking my hands up to my chest and pulling in to a half-fetal position. He immediately figures out what I'm looking for and spoons me, tucking an arm under my neck and wrapping the other one over my other side underneath my arm. Feeling the comfort and safety of his arms (even though he is smaller and younger than me, a pair of hugging arms is a powerful thing), the faucets turn on and I sniffle and sob voicelessly to get it all out. After a minute or so, he asks, "Are you going to be okay?"

"Yeah," I whisper. "I'll be f-fine in a few. Thanks." He responds by hugging tighter, which essentially helps squeeze the tears out of me. We lay on the bed together for a little while, him holding me, me holding his hands tight to my chest, until we both calm down after all the shit that happened today. At one point his mom opens the door and looks in to see us cuddled together (and Matty shirtless, now with shorts on), and I know she can see the tears on my face and the wet spot on the blanket; surprisingly, though, she just wordlessly exits the room. Any other parent would break it up, citing 'personal space' and 'too young for that blah blah,' or even try to get all up in our business. She is surprisingly reasonable, all things considered.

"Phillip?" Matty asks into my neck.

"Yeah?"

"If you're depressed, why don't you ask for help?"

"Like therapy?" I ask.

"Yeah, or something like that."

I twist myself gently out of his grip so I can face him. Our foreheads touch and I look somewhat into his eyes, and the rest of the time forward at his mouth. "Well," I say slowly, "I tried therapy once. I made the mistake of admitting my power to the therapist. No matter how much I could prove it, he still committed me to a mental hospital for having 'delusions.' I never made the mistake again. I did try therapy again, though, but without ever mentioning that. It was useless; the therapist knew I wasn't opening up enough, and I knew the things that were bothering me were things I couldn't talk about. It was basically a waste of both our time, even considering how much time I have."

Matty giggles. "Sorry, that's not funny."

"Eh, it is, just 'funny sad,' not 'funny silly.' You're still allowed to laugh at it. It's better than being mad and sad all the time. It's why I make as many jokes as I do."

"Well, I just want you to be happy," Matty softly pleads. "I don't want you to have to protect me, or fight people, or be sad, or any of that. I just want you to, you know, live like other people and be happy. If that's what you want, anyway."

"I didn't think that's what I wanted until you convinced me that it's an okay way to do things," I admit. "I've lived a long time, and people like you are rare. You can't blame me for wanting to steal you when you're not even a teenager yet, right?"

He gives me a wry look. "Technically, you're not, either."

"All the better to steal you. I didn't want to wait." I caress his face and move my fingers through his soft hair, resting my hand behind his head. "You're too good to pass up."

"Nobody else ever wanted to date me before," Matty says plainly.

"Nobody else is smart, then," I retort. He giggles, melting my heart as always. "I mean, did you really want to date anyone? I remember that, during my first life, I didn't really want to date until I was like maybe 15. I was too scared of rejection."

He shrugs. "Maybe. I dunno. I thought kissing and all that was gross until maybe like last year."

"So you don't think kissing is gross?"

"I don't know. It seems kinda nice. When it's not your grandma getting all like big slobbery kisses on your face."

I make a *snerk* sound through my nose, containing a laugh. "Those are The Worst Kisses Ever," making special emphasis as if it were the title of a trophy. "I hate that, too. So, have you ever kissed anyone? Other than family. Like, romantic kissing."

He stays silent a moment, though he blushes a little bit. "Well, I mean, he's still family, but I kissed James once, when we were hanging out. He just wanted to show me what it's like."

"Was it like a French kiss, or just lips?"

"It was a French kiss, with his tongue and stuff. I dunno, it was kinda weird."

"Well, it was probably weird because he's your cousin and you didn't love him like that. But I kinda don't like crazy tongue kisses, anyway. Maybe just a tiny bit."

He looks meaningfully into my eyes, at my lips, and back to my eyes. I slide my arm out from underneath me and put my hand under his face, angling it up a bit to where we are looking eye-to-eye. I close my eyes and lean in slowly, placing my lips on his. He instinctively places his hand on my cheek and I relish in the moment with the soft warmth of his hand and lips suffusing me with contentment. We kiss for only a few seconds, just lips gently exploring each other, and when I pull away, he exhales through his nose a little heavily, quickly glancing downward to his legs. The stirring in my own underwear lets me know exactly what that glance means, if I couldn't tell already. I caress his delicate cheek again, and we stare at each other in silence for a good moment before we hear, "Matty?" from down the hallway.

He gives me this '...really?' sort of stare, and raises his head to call out, "Yeah, Mom?"

"I need to run a few errands. You need anything?"

"No, Mom."

"Okay. I'll be back in a little while." We hear the jingle of keys, the opening of the front door, and the silence after it shuts. Not only is she reasonable, she has damn good timing. If I didn't know any better, I'd say she was in on this whole thing.

I slide my hand along his bare chest as he stares deep into my eyes. The smell of dried pee wafts up between us, kicking my hormones into high gear; I push him over, onto his back, and straddle him with a sly smile. He lets his arms spread out to the sides and above him like he's surrendering, and he just gives me this look, like 'Okay, do what you want.' So I do: I plant another kiss on his lips, using just enough tongue to lick them gently, and I start moving kisses down his neck, his chest, his abs, his navel, finally making my way to his waist. I hop off the bed for better access, unbutton his shorts, pull them down just enough, and kiss the head of his dick. He arches his back a little and inhales sharply as I do it, which I take advantage of by slipping his shorts down over those delicious hindquarters for better access, taking the opportunity to savor the smell of boy pee--regardless of the reason it's there, it's intoxicating. I quickly unbutton and slip off my own pants and briefs, for simple comfort as much as preparation.

We're both already rock-hard and pointing, his perfect round sack tight against his groin. I climb back up and over him, staring in his beautiful eyes, losing myself in the desire burning in them. "I take it you like kissing."

"It was really hot, yeah," he says with a bashful smile.

I take my hand and wrap it around his dick to where I'm just barely touching it, moving up and down gently. He is visibly agitated at the almost-hand-job and flexes his dick at me a few times, giggling with an evil smile on his face. I warn, "If you keep that up, I'm gonna make sure it doesn't escape." As expected, he flexes it a few more times at me, so I pop the whole thing in my mouth. He gasps in surprise at the sudden tongue all over his 3-inch stiffy. I work it up and down slowly, tonguing it like I'm trying to scrub it clean. With my nose up against his hairless crotch, the smell of pee is joined by the aroma of aroused boy; I could just bury my face here and be happy. Granted, that's basically what I'm doing right now, so there's that. I go at it for another minute or so, but stop quickly and sit on his legs, just to where my forward-mounted cannon and his dick are laying one atop the other. I have maybe a little under an inch more than he does, so I guess maybe my earlier estimate should be more like 3 and a quarter inches or so, but mine is definitely a little thicker. That's not to say that his is a twig, though--he's definitely got a bit more girth on it than a prepubescent kid would; I can only imagine that, now that he's been off the chemo for a long time, his growth will most likely kick back into gear soon. Judging from the looks of it, though, I don't think he's ever going to be that long or anything, probably a bit under average. I look forward to finding out. For now, though, I grind my dick into his, letting the extra skin on mine act almost like foreskin for him, rubbing back and forth over the exposed side of his dick. He watches me quietly, but each time I do it, I see his eyelids flutter a tiny bit--he doesn't need to moan or squirm for me to see that he's enjoying it.

"Hey," he says, putting his hand on my head. "Lemme do you."

"Oh, okay!" That was pretty forward of him. Maybe I'm corrupting him nicely after all. I take off my shirt and get on my hands and knees, asking, "Which way, doggy like this, or cowgirl like with you on your back, or...?"

"No, I mean like, suck your dick."

Oh. Duh. "Right, right," I say, and lean back to give him access. He pops the top in his mouth and slowly moves his lips over it, with nothing else touching it yet. At least he's avoiding teeth, so that's good. He goes down a little farther, finally positioning his tongue so that when he moves his head, the tongue rubs against my dick. It actually does feel pretty damn good, especially for his first time. He goes down too far, though, and gags a couple of times on it. "Whoa there," I warn, "it's okay if you can't fit the whole thing in your mouth. Don't force it."

"Oh, okay," he says, holding my dick and looking at it like it's a final exam and he's determined to pass it.

"Here, let me show you something real quick." I roll over and put just the first inch of his penis in my mouth, running my tongue over the frenulum and all of the super-sensitive nerves up near the top portion of the dick. After he's done rolling his eyes in the back of his head, I remark, "All I did was maybe the top third of it. That's the part that feels the best, anyway. It's okay if you can't deep-throat it."

"All right, let me try." We get back in position, and he slides his mouth down just the first part of my dick, resting his tongue on all the good spots. I very gently move myself back and forth to show him how much movement is really necessary; he catches on quickly, and the feeling is amazing. He may just be a natural at this kind of thing.

He goes at it for a bit more, until he sits up and rubs his jaw. "Ow."

I smile. "It's not easy at first, but we can both practice on each other, right?" I bite my lip, really craving a certain special something, but hesitant to ask for it. "Hey, uh, wanna try something new?"

"Like what?"

"I was wondering if you could actually do me. Like, real sex."

"Like me...putting it in your butt?" He doesn't seem confused as much as just making sure that's what I mean.

"Yeah."

"Okay." Well, that was easier than I expected. "But I'm not all that long, so is that..."

"Oh pff," I say dismissively. "Look." I throw my legs in the air and put my pucker out to the world. "You don't need to be long--don't believe the things you hear. Hold on a sec," I say as I wet a finger and start lubing up my hole with it. He watches with rapt attention as I finger myself, a tiny drop of precum oozing down his penis slowly with each heartbeat. I get his pillow and shove it underneath me, lining myself up with his dick. Finally, I motion him over; he walks over on his knees, and I take his dick and point it straight at my hole, using my other hand to help position his hips and guide him. He grabs my hips and pushes slowly forward, letting me guide his dick in. There is some resistance at first--it's been a while--but his little spear slides straight in once the head makes it.

"How is it?" I ask.

"Good. It's so warm." Leaning over me slightly, he pushes deep against me and pulls out a little bit, starting up a slow and steady motion. "It's really good," he adds. I angle myself down a tiny bit more, so that when he pushes inward, he perfectly nails my prostate, shooting stars through my vision and spasms through my cock. I grunt when he hits it, causing him to stop after two thrusts. "Are you okay?" he asks with a great deal of concern.

"I feel amazing," I moan. "You're hitting my prostate. Keep going." He hesitates for a moment but eventually obliges, setting his rhythm back up and sending me into ecstasy.

I don't know who said small dicks aren't satisfying, because he's lighting my entire hole up with pleasure and still hitting my prostate, making my dick drool precum like never before. I start smearing it around and using it to jack myself off in rhythm with Matty's movements. We lock into an almost trance-like back and forth motion, staring into each other's eyes as we go at it.

We go for maybe a minute or two before Matty breaks the rhythm, breathing, "I'm gonna sperm soon."

"Shoot inside me."

"But I thought that was unsafe..."

"We're boyfriends now, I know you don't have anything, and if something bad happens, I can rewind, anyway." That would rank high on the list of 'Devious Ways to Use My Power,' but it's still a thing.

He responds by starting up his rhythmic thrusting again, watching me jack off and speeding up steadily. I do the same, so intensely turned on that my brain is on fire, until Matty's face starts to scrunch up as he stops, buried to the hilt in me. He stares straight through me as I feel his dick throbbing in the throes of orgasm in my hole, depositing whatever he's capable of making so far. After maybe three pulses, he exhales and smiles dreamily. "Wow. That was really good." He leans further over me, putting his shoulders into the backs of my knees and his arms on the bed, breathing heavily as I continue to feel his dick twitch a few more times.

As usual, this is enough to send me flying over the edge of ecstasy, and I pound furiously for only a second or two longer before my abs lock in place and the orgasm contractions hit me like a truck. With my ass on the pillow, my dick is pointing more toward me, which makes the first glob of semen fly straight over my head; the next one nails me in the lips, with the next two hitting my collarbone and then just my navel. In all my life, I'm always a crazy shooter and quite the cum producer, and even at almost 13 years old I can outperform a lot of people. More importantly, though: "Holy shit, that was good."

Matty, dick still in me, says, "I could feel you squeezing my dick over and over when you spermed." As he finishes that statement, he hoists himself back up and drops backwards onto his legs, pulling out with a slapping sound as his still-hard dick hits his abs.

I laugh, not expecting that statement. "Yeah, when people cum, it makes all those muscles go crazy."

Matty giggles. "That was really good, Phillip. Thanks."

"Thanks?" I say incredulously. "Thanks? I should be thanking you. That was freaking awesome!"

"Really?" Matty says, a mix of surprise and curiosity in his voice.

"Yeah. You saw me with Corey. I really like being fucked." Matty withdraws, his eyes betraying a high amount of mental processing. I interrupt his train of thought, saying, "Hey. Um, I know that you've had it done to you, but that's totally the wrong way and it hurts. That was rape. Don't...don't think about it as the same thing--it's not. When someone does it right, like you just did, it is one of the best feelings ever."

"Well, it did feel really good. For me, I mean."

"I'm glad," I say with a loving smile. Changing the subject quickly, I ask, "So, uh, how have things been going with the uh, other stuff? I know your doc said you don't have to drink as much."

"Yeah, actually, it's good. I've been wearing diapers to bed, still, but I've been waking up dry. Like, I don't think I've wet the bed--I mean the diaper--at all this week."

"Right, right. Nice!" I nod approvingly.

Matty shrugs. "I mean, there was still the thing today, but I kinda could feel it maybe a bit earlier? Like it wasn't an immediate emergency, but I still couldn't hold it all that well when it got to that point, when, y'know." He purses his lips slightly.

"Yeah." After an awkward pause, I say, "Well, I'm super happy for you. I'm very glad to hear that it's getting better."

"Are you really?" he asks with a raised eyebrow and a knowing smile. "I thought you were into that kind of thing."

"I'm not into seeing my boyfriend upset or embarrassed," I retort, placing my hand on his outstretched leg.

A smile blossoms on his face. "Well, thanks." He looks down at our naked bodies and back toward the door. "I dunno when she'll be back, but we should get clothes back on."

"Well, you should probably take a shower since you, y'know, peed yourself earlier."

"Yeah," he says ruefully, sliding off the bed. "I'll be back in a sec."

I'm hit with a sudden urge to tell him I love him, but then I also absolutely hate when people overdo that shit with me. So instead I say, "I'll be here," as I watch his gorgeous little boy butt on the way out the door.

So by the time he's out of the shower, his mom is already back from shopping, and I let Matty know that I need to go back to the school to get my bike and head home for dinner; I don't feel like pissing the parents off after less than a single day of freedom. Besides, quite frankly, today's been busy enough, and my mind is still catching up on processing everything; just experiencing a thousand-plus years of things doesn't make a 12-year-old mass of gray matter any better at its job, after all. Apparently my ability doesn't make my brain any sharper than it would be otherwise.

"So you're going to be at my birthday party, right?" he asks as I get ready to leave.

"Yeah! Definitely. I'm stoked for it."

"Yeah, so, um..." He hesitates. "I was thinking maybe we could do something else other than a movie?"

I know why he's anxious. "Matty, it'll be fine. You could totally just wear a diaper if you wanted to, and then you don't have to worry or miss the movie. Heck, I might borrow one for that very reason."

"Wh--you would--but why?!" The very notion seems to have broken his brain.

"What? Every time I get up to go to the bathroom during a movie, I miss the most important part. I wouldn't ever be able to convince my parents to buy me diapers just for movies, though, and they'd think I was a weirdo, but--"

Matty interrupts, "Phillip. I know you're just trying to make me feel better. You don't need to do that."

I look innocently at a nearby wall. "I wasn't. I'm actually being serious." Looking him straight in the eye, I continue, "But if it would make you feel better, I'd totally wear a diaper and straight-up explain why to the other guys. You know I'm good for it."

Matty just shakes his head and laughs through his nose. "You really are crazy, you know that?"

"Nuttier than squirrel turds."

"And gross."

"I'm not going to respond to that one." Instead, I just smile stupidly.

Matty smacks me on the arm lightly. "You need to get going," he says glumly. "I don't want you to get grounded again."

"Me neither," I shrug, headed to the door, and back to the phoneless vacuum that is my life at home. Ah, well, only one more day before Saturday, and then a weekend that should make up for the last one, hopefully.

To be continued...