Desire and Violence

by Paul Marek

Motto : Blackmail is a two-bladed sword. If handled, however, with decency and common sense, you can get out safe

1956

In the middle of the school year, a new student had entered one of the lower grades of our Gymnasium, a rather short gipsy-like boy with a lovely golden tan, glossy black curls, fun loving brown eyes and an infectious smile. With that, he had a broad Austrian accent, which had a very seducing effect in those years after the War, when the Operette, the Vienna musical dominated theaters and movie houses. The Austro-Hungarian way of talking was the language of Love; love like in a girl's album. The young lads learned the metaphoric expressions and the convened attitudes of heterosexual courting and love when they attended "The Gipsy Baron" or "The Country of Smile". The man was always the languishing troubadour, and the cruel Lady refused to open him "heaven's door"; this was a prudent metaphor as well when she sang about his "strong arm". The crude fact was never brought to daylight, but everybody felt at the right spot what that meant.

Andreas, alias Andy, was the only boy who came to school on a glittering red racer which fascinated me incredibly because my own bicycle and those of the comrades were black, classical style where you pedalled sitting upright like grandfather behind his office desk. I felt a deep attraction for him and used to stop him after classes for a little chat; as to him, he seemed to appreciate the attention of the best Latin scholar of the school since his fellow students did not consider him as a shining light. When I leaned on the curved handlebar of his racer, I did not get a boner properly speaking, but I had a warm feeling in the breast. It took me years to understand what had happened to me.

Andy did not stay for a long time among us. The sunburned little devil with the tight, short leather pants that showed so advantageously his little round buttocks, was positively not at his place in the Latin or Mathematics classes. I also heard that he was quite a horny little monkey.

The boy had given me his address, which was not far from my home, and I used to pay him informal visits, as neighbours and school friends use to do. Andy had lost his mother at a low age, and he was adopted by his sister who was fifteen years older than him. The brother-in-law, a railway technician, was constantly on mission in Yugoslavia, in fact I never met him and when he was mentioned, it was by a heavy silence. The young woman was the female replica of Andy: the same gipsy type, and the same seducing Austrian accent which I began to adopt got myself. In the course of the months, I became totally submitted to her. As Andy was now working in the local tractor factory as a welder's apprentice, we had enough time and tranquillity to do what big boys love so much to do and what ladies love so much to be done. We were, however, more than prudent and nobody ever knew about our naughty deeds.

Andy began to take me along every Saturday night to meet his clique at the White Ox. On Saturday evenings. the waitresses used to reserve us a big table, which they defended vigorously against other guests from 19 o'clock on. The "Stammtisch", the Reserved Table for a group of friends, often childhood buddies who meet on a determined evening of the week, is a standing institution in German-speaking countries.

The White Ox had been a traditional bourgeois inn, but it had slowly run into the hands of young people, workers, apprentices and seamstresses. American soldiers also used to fly in, followed as normal by the local Fräuleins. A jukebox, an authentic Wurlitzer loaded with American 45-t records, as well as shrill neon tubes on the façade, somehow contributed to the overall level of vulgarity. Our high school class once had intended to have an informal friendship drink there, and we had invited our young Latin tutor. The poor man made it three steps of the way in, and immediately took the three steps back. The evening ended decently in the Small Conference Room of a bourgeois hotel, the kind of place where you drink with the little finger lifted in the air. "For heaven's sake, how could you have even stumbled into such a place?" I lowered my head because the gathering at the White Ox had been my own brilliant idea.

The leader of our clique was Greasy Enny, a rough fellow with slick oily hair. In these years, burdock-root oil on Saturday evenings had the same place in the life of adolescents as styling gel today, and a comb had to stick out from every jeans rear pocket; that was supposed to be reminiscent of the films of James Dean, who left us so much too early.

Enny had rung one evening at the apartment of Erika, the hairdresser, and when she opened the door, there he stood, stark naked, and declaimed emphatically: "Oh Erika, are you not stirred by my juvenile body?" On Erika's hysterical screams, all other doors opened in the staircase, and Enny had to run downstairs head over heels, his shoes and clothes in his hands. Since that day, his fame was established, and the "juvenile body" became a never-ending source of mirth and laughter.

The hard core of the clique was six or eight birds of the same feather, apprentices in craft shops, stores or at the local tractor factory. I was the only high school student and had difficulties to enter the group because manual workers used to have complexes in front of the simplest and the most discreet intellectual, as they called them. Andy, however, succeeded in getting me into the gang when he declared that I was not a killjoy at all, and above all was his true friend, a codeword for the confidant of a lead wolf or a bully: in kids' detective movies, it would be the equivalent of the boy with the glasses. Indeed, I was so addicted at that time to beer, loud fun and gossip that I really did fit in with the factory boys. My poor parents suffered from my fatal tendency to stoop below my level.

At our second or third visit to the White Ox Inn, Andy began to rave about a friend of his, a big strong fellow who was supposed to join us; a kind of bully, the son of a big local businessman and in whose pockets money always sat loose. When we heard loud hallos, Kalley had arrived, a tall, sturdy fellow in a motorbiker's jacket. The boys surrounded him and shook his hands with enthusiasm. He took his place amongst us, and from then on he was a regular at our Saturday night get-togethers. He seemed, however, not to be interested in being the lead wolf, but content to be the permanent "Guest Star" as in American serials.

Not much later, our first contact produced a strong mutual aversion between Kalley and me, which became progressively unsupportable. I had made an ironical remark, the kind which simple minds invariably and fatally get wrong. Kalley's rough face, his hairy arms and his aggressivity repelled me: he reminded me for all the world of a snappish butcher's dog. As for Kalley, he did not, in kind, pardon my look as a well-behaved high school boy with spectacles and hair parted to the left, my (relative) weakness; and in particular he did not take too well to my sharp tongue, which pale stay-at-homes such as myself seemed to employ to compensate for their physical inferiority. In addition, it did not take long before my comrades realized that I almost never had any money in my pocket.

Anyhow, I managed to get along with Kalley by avoiding him altogether, because when I began to talk to him he tended to lift his fist even before he had understood the entire sentence. After some heavy quarrels, which Andy soothed over in extremis, he did not pay any attention to me anymore.

On a certain Saturday night, Kalley came in the company of his younger brother, Ralph, a quiet, blond fellow whom the fates placed beside me. We had a friendly talk the whole evening through, even if Kalley looked sometimes at us in anger, in particular at me. Ralph, however, never came again to our regular meetings: our company was certainly too loud, too vulgar for him, or Kalley had discouraged him. I was sorry; I would have loved to make further acquaintance. He had been very friendly, even if a little distant, but I had sensed again that alarming tickling in my thorax.

In the roaring chaos of the inn, where beer was flowing in streams, it was natural that we were perpetually heading for the toilet. Again I stood there and was relieving my bladder when the door squeaked and somebody stood next to me. We had an unwritten code of manners, and one rule was to stare straight ahead and never at the neighbour; when two friends continued a conversation begun in the guest room, they talked to the wall in front of them and never would look at the other's piss bowl: A matter of etiquette.

The somebody beside me was tall; I felt, I smelled Kalley, and from the corner of my eye I recognized him. He cleared his throat and pushed me with his shoulder. Against my will, my look fell down on his dick, which he held upwards in his hand. It was awfully ugly: dark, longer than mine, and the head was swollen and dark red.

"Well, little Paul, do you like what you see?"

I turned away to finish my business, but Kalley grabbed me by the shoulder.

"I have asked if you like my piece as I do, say?"

"I dunno. I've never seen something like that!"

"Thanks for the compliment. The girls who have seen that piece but once are quite crazy for it, and they probably talk about it to the other girls, because certain girls look at me strangely when I pass them, and yet they never have seen me, or to be precise, never have seen my tool."

"How good for you!" I had finished my business and was about to pack up my thing. At that very moment, I felt a large hand on my buttocks and Kalley pinched me. Oh no: I suspected something awful. "Wha... wha... what does that mean, a bad joke or what? It looks as if you tried to put the make on me."

"Do you let somebody mount you tonight, old lark?"

Gangs of rough young fellows often have their own jargon, silly jokes and code words. When we separated, we never said "Auf Wiedersehen, good night," but we called: "Get yourself mounted, old lark!" Nobody knew where this expression came from, perhaps from a joke collection from the Emperor's time, nor did we actually know what it meant; it was just one of those things that was the mark of our clique. But now, it was formulated differently, and instead of a meaningless joke it could be construed as a kind of indecent solicitation.

"Drop that fucking shit; I do not let anything on me!" I said with some measure of indignation.

"Don't mind, we are coming back on the topic."

"Fuck off, asshole! The guys will ask themselves what we are doing here in the shithouse this long." Under normal circumstances, I feared like hell Kalley's brutal reactions, his punches and sweatbox; but in the present situation I thought I could allow myself an impertinent remark.

"You are right, little Paul; but we'll talk again about that, old lark."

When I had returned to the guest room, my confusion soon disappeared. Greasy Enny was telling with a stifled voice how the "Gräfin" (the Countess) had squealed while he fucked her: the Countess was a mature lady, a portrait photographer who had a vivid interest in young boys. Her nickname among us came from a play on words in German: Photograph, Fotografin which is easily understood; and Graf, Gräfin, Count and Countess. Enny also told that the mothers in the neighborhood used to accompany their sons when they needed new photos for ID or a passport, without explaining this sudden motherly care. I knew, because Mama had asked me once to have my photos in the Centre of the City. "Why not at our neighbour's ?" "She is a bad woman, she smokes cigarettes and salivates on the butt." Aha! The clique hee-hawed with delight.

Kalley had bought cigarettes at the counter and pressed himself on his place in the round. For the rest of that Saturday night he had a rather disagreeable way of staring at me with a large grin, whereas previously his eyes had always glided over me. The night continued with yelled conversations, smoke and permanent rounds of beer with a background of roaring rock 'n roll: A wonderful night, as ever.

Some time later, Andy stood up and pushed the boys sitting beside him to let him out. "Servus, folks, I'm gonna split!" I got up, too, because we lived not far from each other and we always used to come and to leave together. Andy made a sign of decline. "Naw, tonight you're gonna return alone. I have to meet a chick and I don't need anybody to hold the candle!"

And the night continued, conversations about the things of life, kids' gossip, boasting allusions to vigorous sexual performances on womenfolk, and always the same old jokes nobody gets tired of. And always rounds of beer and smoke.

Every Saturday night meeting has a point where the conversations begin to slow down, the first one begins to yawn, and the waitresses begin to put the chairs on the tables. "Closing time, gentlemen; no, nothing more!"

Tonight, I had to walk alone. I had not gone far, when I heard heavy steps behind me and a growling voice called: "Hello-ho, why so fast?" That man Kalley again!

"Oh, you again. What do you want?"

"I simply want to walk some steps with you."

This bewildered me, because my destination was the East End of the town where you find in Europe the factories with their chimneys, the housing quarters of the working class and other people of modest condition. The Electric appliances and Television Centre of Kalley's father, however, was in the other direction, in the centre of the City near the River promenade. I felt somehow uneasy so close to Kalley because I knew his brutality and the sudden appearance of his fists. Surrounded by the clique I had felt safe; but now a harmless remark could cost me a good pounding. There is a simple fact: any boy who has had to wear glasses in the middle of his face from the age of fourteen has forgotten how to take a heavy blow and to return it by the double; the development of normal virility requires to answer a slap on the cheek with two on the nose. The only defence of the weaker one, of the "spectacled cobra", is to act like such a one, with sarcasm and swollen talk that convince Goliath of his primitiveness and his intellectual, that is, his social inferiority. As Stupid Goliath cannot but react according to his nature, there can glow deep hatred among adolescents, and continuous mobbing that often results in evil casualties. Uninstructed, or in particular half-instructed, persons are always dangerous, even if the "intellectual" who is the weaker part by definition, holds back or just keeps silent and smiling. I got this confirmed many years later inside the borders of the then German Democratic Republic, where the permanently silent, somehow condescending smile of the visitors from free Europe always provoked outbursts of powerless rage among the communist policemen and border guards. "Do you try to taunt me?" The answer, with a little girl's voice: "Yes." Children know how to drive a safely locked up watch-dog crazy.

Quarrels among physically equal opponents, however, end easily in reconciliation, in liberating laughter and in slaps on the shoulder.

So, I felt uneasy even if Kalley, in contradiction to his usual strong-arm stuff, was friendly tonight, almost normal, almost a buddy.

As we passed in front of "Rosi Bar" Kalley suddenly said, "I could use another last drink. Come on, I invite you for a whiskey!"

"A real whiskey?"

"Yes, they have genuine American bourbon here."

I knew that in such a club with a night license, a white grand piano, with lightly clad and heavily perfumed hostesses, one drink would cost more than the nine or ten bottles of beer I had engulfed tonight at the White Ox. I never would have dared to enter such a distinguished establishment.

On this evening, Rosi-Bar was not over-crowded, and I followed Kalley to a remote corner. A zealous maître d'hôtel served two whiskies on a silver plate and swallowed stoically Kalley's remark, "This is for you, Mister Penguin!" when he handed him a tip that was higher than the two drinks together. Positively, Kalley would never change.

Our conversation ran easily, even if our tongues were not as fluent as in the beginning of the night. Apparently, all of Kalley's usual brutality had vanished so that I was left with no reason to tease him.

"Now, old lark, how do you like all this here?"

"Oh yes, it's very nice here."

"Well, do you let somebody mount you now?"

"What does that suppose to mean? That's the farewell greeting of the clique, and it does in no case mean anything whatever."

"Oh no, it has a very precise meaning tonight: I - want - to mount - you! It did not work with Monika tonight, and now I am under an awful pressure. And I must get rid of that."

"But that's your problem, not mine."

"I want to fuck you, I must fuck you, right now, without fuss, just like between good friends. We are friends, aren't we?"

This was news to me. Kalley, dreadful Kalley offered me his friendship! Strictly considered, this would be a bargain, because the protection of such a bully would considerably raise my present status, the status of a puny bookworm. But at what a price!

Suddenly, I was seized by panic. The post-war society pursued, before 1969, sex between males with extreme severity. That would be the end: family, studies, professional career, nothing would remain if such a thing were to be disclosed; the clique, Andy's sister who was my fiancée - a disastrous outlook! It was obvious I could not rely on Kalley's silence.

"So you think you can fuck me? Don't you understand this is impossible? I am a guy and I don't have a pussy."

"You have one: a butt pussy."

"First," I said rather level-headedly, "I never have done such a disgusting obscenity. And then, a while ago I have seen that long stick you carry down there, and it could in no case enter into my hole. Myself, I would be unable to do it on you because I never could screw my dick into that hard-muscled boxer's ass of yours."

"It's is better that you don't even think of such a possibility or my fist would polish your nose."

"And then what? Go ahead and beat me up right here and now. This is not logical: you want to do me and you think I'll support that, but when I want to do the same thing to you, you threaten me. Is this what you call friendship?"

To be honest, I did not fear the fuck because the previous year I had been gratified with a vigorous experience in Paris when four North African workers had taken turns on my butt until dawn. In fact, I feared treason: today we use the word "outing," which has now entered the vocabulary - the shame, the police and the unavoidable prospect of suicide. That was reality, the social reality of that time. Nowadays, it is not rare to meet on the Internet 18-year-old boys searching for a hairy stud to buttfuck them, and in some cases they even send their photo or that of their exposed backside! I have seen this with my own eyes.

Kalley was undoubtedly a mean individual but not stupid, and he had more than one argument in his bag. "Come on, little Paul, you can do me such a friendship favour and help me to a good relief. You always think I am so much stronger than you. Let me tell you, if you removed your spectacles and were regular at the swimming hall, you would soon be a normal, well-built guy, a bad guy. Everybody likes strong, bad guys. And then, it would not hurt. What else must I say to convince you?"

"How do you know it does not hurt? Did you ever do that on a guy?"

"That's not your business. In fact, I never have done that; you are the first."

"Keep your feet on the ground: I would have been the first. But say, you can get all the girls you want: I thought they all know about your heavy equipment and that you are always horny and ready."

"Yes, you are right, but not tonight. The Monika girl has called off and it was already too late to find another pussy to replace her. I must get my rocks off within this hour or everything will explode. And to be honest, with a guy it is easier, faster, it does not stink so much and I am not obliged to play comedy with Lo-lo-love 'forever' and fuss like that."

"Okay. Now I have understood the complete situation. Well, I will not do it even if you stand on your head. And now I'm gonna leave!"

Kalley had a friendly smile: "Don't be concerned about the whiskey: I have invited you, and the drinks are paid for. Even in the future, I could help you sometimes. I use to snitch from time to time some appliances from my old man, and I peddle them somewhere. You are obliged to tutor class mates in Latin for one Mark an hour (that was 25 cents in those days) in order to keep up with us on Saturday night. Your cigarettes you bum from Andy's package; believe me I've observed you closely from the beginning. When I am sure I can trust a friend, I'm always ready to help him so that he should not be embarrassed in front of his buddies. Well then, what's on, can we go at last?"

"No, we can not. Thanks for the whiskey."

His smile now turned sweet like an angel's: "That's okay. I am already looking forward to next Saturday. We'll drink a lot of beer as usual, and when you go to the toilet as usual, I'll follow you and give you a punch on your nose, in all due friendship. You'll return to our table, the buddies will ask you why your nose is bleeding, and I'll yell that Darling Faggot had seized my cock in the john and implored me to buttfuck him right now in the backyard behind the kitchen. Now what do you say?"

"You are completely nuts: nobody will believe that nonsense!"

"You are absolutely right, nobody will believe that. But that Darling Faggot will remain attached to you like the smell on the shepherd's cloak. Nobody will dare from then on to stand near you at the piss gutter. Think of Andy, think of his big sister whom you have been screwing for a long time now. No, don't try to deny, everybody is in the know ! She has filed a demand for divorce from her husband who betrays and neglects her, and she babbles already about her wedding when you'll have finished your studies. Something more: Greasy Enny has asked me what we had discussed when we remained so long in the shithouse. You see? They pay attention to you. So, no riot, and be nice. It's not bad, it does not take long, and it does not leave traces behind. Let's go."

"Kalley, you filthy pig, this is blackmail!"

"You got me right, Paul, this is blackmail. It will be better for you if you make it easy for yourself and if you make it easy for me."

I swallowed heavily. Kalley waved the maître d'hôtel to bring another round of whiskey.

In despair, I tried to wriggle out of the dangerous situation. "I am unable to do a thing like that; I am not a homosexual." I was on the verge of tears.

"I know that. You are absolutely normal; stinking normal. Normal guys, too, jack off and fuck each other, but nobody ever knows about it. That's the reason why everybody says only homosexuals do it. So simple."

"And who, for instance, does a thing like that?"

"Kill me! Those who are in the know, they never talk."

The whiskey began to cloud my brains: even before the first one I had had my usual ten bottles of beer at the White Ox. It was, however, clear to my mind what could happen: If Kalley disclosed me as a homosexual, the tube of barbiturates would be the only issue; on the other hand, I would get some pocket money, which could always come in handy. Indeed, Kalley sometimes paid for Andy but I never had thought about that. An awful idea rose in my mind: if Andy, the horny little lady-killer… this was, however, not the moment to think about such an eventuality.

Another advantage would be a bad ruffian's protection. And finally, I was horny now and ready for anything. I had to support the risk: in case of danger I would certainly find means and ways for my defence. I finished my drink; we left Rosi-Bar and headed for the centre of the city.

On the way, Kalley was unusually friendly - at least for him - and quiet, almost indifferent: the cat was now in the sack. In my head however, the ideas raced around. And over and over the same question: how had that Kalley got the idea to proposition me? I never wag my hips; I do not wave my hands in the air like doves; I speak a very common urban dialect with youth slang and not the high pinched drawl of Berlin's drag queens, which we were quite skilled to imitate. And how come they knew what I was doing in secret with the queen of my heart? Or had he just beaten on the bush, taken a wild guess? Undoubtedly, he had a concrete reason to know that any boy can be laid. Any, absolutely any. I never have known what really was on.

Suddenly, I felt terribly horny, even if Kalley was not seductive at all, even rather repulsive. He was a real adult man, built like a footballer or a building worker, hairy, unshaved. My dreams went rather on finely shaped boys of my age - Oscar Wilde would have said lovely lads or a similar expression for Socrates' epheboi, the adolescent athletes who were his friends. I was raving of boys with a smooth, pale member, giving kisses and tender embraces. Another source of delight were the soft, inviting curves of women where naughty loverboy would plunge in with headless lust.

The blackmail, the forthcoming rape that was about to be inflicted on me, however, gave me a very strong kick which I tried to hide from my tormentor. OK then: go your way, do what you must, but hurry please!

The big Appliances and Television Store of Kalley's father where he worked as an apprentice was on ground level and opened directly onto the street. The parents lived on the first floor. The boys, Kalley and Ralph, had a room each on the third or fourth floor, under the roof.

Kalley unlocked very slowly the glass door of the entry in the small side street. Inside, in the staircase, he shoved me downstairs. The basement was completed like a lodgement, and we groped our way through a heavy fire door into a dark, warmed up room. When Kalley had found the switch, the dim light showed that kind of house bar, which entrepreneurs, lawyers and other well-provided people love to install in order to receive their business friends in an intimate, family-like atmosphere. The furniture was in Gothic oak, a bar counter, a shelf with lots of various bottles; even the bar stools were in Gothic style. On the other side, there stood a large sofa. I had the impression that the owner was not so into mundane things, because there stood other furniture, a laundry chest and a sewing machine.

Kalley shoved me on the sofa and sat down close to me. "I would love to put on a Mantovani record, but that risks to be heard in the house." An embarrassed silence followed. Was it now my turn? Indeed, Kalley undid his belt, lifted his butt and dragged the trousers with the slip down to the ground. Oh dear, this was not a lovely sight. A dense hairy bush extended between the sturdy thighs, a small line went upwards near the navel. In the middle there stood an awfully ugly thing: a fat, veined penis, a true plebeian cock. Kalley jerked slowly, and the swollen, dark red head, which I already had seen, made its appearance.

Kalley had a large grin: "Come on, let's make short work of it, let's fuck. Down your pants!" He knocked me over, opened my pants and dragged them down over my feet; then he arranged me on my stomach and spread my legs. "Go on, shove the two cushions under your stomach!" and with my elevated butt I was lying ready for slaughter. I understood there was no prelude to expect from that ruffian, no love and, in particular, no friendship, so I had to resign myself to my fate. On the other side he should in no condition realise that I shivered from impatience and horniness.

"Oh goddam, no! I have forgotten something: I have to get it upstairs in my quarters; otherwise it will not work. You do not make a move, you hear me? I'll be back at once."

He put his trousers on, failed to find his way through the sleeves of his shirt and ran away, in his socks.

I obeyed for a moment, but then my curiosity got the better of me. I had a thorough look through the room, but the drawers of the bar and the other cases contained absolutely nothing of interest. In the laundry chest I found only ironed and starched pillow and bed covers, and in the lower drawer, a collection of white socks with the embroidered emblems of some sports clubs. At the moment I was holding a pair of socks in my hand, I suddenly heard the slight noise at the outer door of the basement. I just had the time to push the drawer back and to throw myself onto the cushions, with my obedient butt in the air. I had still the two socks in my hand and stuffed them under my trousers lying on the floor in reach of my left hand.

Kalley came through the door, breathless, with a large blue bath towel and a white object in his hand, like a tube or a plastic bottle.

He undressed again and lay down on my back: hell he was heavy. "Well, and now we'll have a nice good time together!" He fumbled with something behind me and then I felt a kind of glittery oil on my ass, which penetrated so deep into my crack that my anus opened and almost my bladder, too. It was a feeling like in an impatient, moist pussy, except the fact that this time, I was myself the pussy.

A big finger pushed some oil into my hole, and to my surprise not brutally, but cautiously, patiently. Then I felt the head of the ugly cock there, and slowly he penetrated me. He did however not resist for long and began to sodomize me unremittingly with deep thrusts up to the backstop of his pubes. He was heavily stoned, just as me, and it seemed never to end. I was disgusted by his rough paws, his pungent man sweat, his beer-loaded breath, his cheeks that scratched my neck and most of all by his hard-fucking ram. I should have whimpered with pain, but actually, it did not hurt at all. The repulsion excited me to a point that I finally ejaculated into the cushion. At almost the same moment, Kalley began to breathe like a draught-ox and to ram me as if demented. With a sigh, he collapsed on my back and suffocated me.

I panted for breath. At last, he rose halfway, cleaned himself with the bath towel and wiped thoroughly my entire backside and the crack.

I giggled: "Kalley, you are a real pig: you know perfectly well how to buttfuck a guy!" Kalley, behind me, swallowed suddenly and jumped up and fell back at once. I looked behind me. Kalley sat there, petrified. Under the half open door, there stood Ralph.

Ralph in pyjamas, barefoot, silent, smiling.

Kalley wrapped the towel around his waist and lunged at his brother; he dragged him inside and locked the door behind him. "You rotten pervert! What are you doing here?"

"I was still reading in my bed when I heard the door from the staircase and then the door of your room. Some seconds later, I heard the two doors again, but not your steps. So you did not wear your shoes. I was surprised and got up. Standing on top of the staircase, I saw you running downstairs and entering the basement. The door here was half-open and I have seen what you have done with Paul, to be precise, to Paul. That's all."

"You've seen nothing, shithead: We were just kidding and mimicking some wrestling training."

"Come on, shut up. I have seen your hairy ass wide open and your balls danced up and down. You have fucked little Paul, and in your mean way. That's all."

Kalley was about to explode with fury, but Ralph cut his word with an ice-cold smile. "Hold your filthy mouth, great brother. We cannot fight; we are too close one to the other. So I'll forget the whole scene, and you'll forget the whole scene. It's not the first time that I had to see you wading knee-deep in dirt."

"And you always joined me, don't forget. Anyhow, you are right: we cannot bash in our heads. But now, I am completely done. Throw that little Paul out of the door or do with him whatever you want." Kalley was now fully dressed and disappeared without a noise. Ralph locked the heavy door behind him and sat down on the sofa. In the meantime, I had dressed myself and sat there, embarrassed and ashamed to a point I cannot possibly describe.

Ralph was the same as ever: quiet, smiling. "You know, Karl-Heinz is extremely difficult to live with and very often a mean fellow, but he is not bad at all. As for you, don't be scared: I have seen such a thing for the first time. But when Kalley did it with a girl down here, he happened to leave the room and to give me my own chance. And I did it, too, with the girl. We have the same situation now: he has gone, not because he is stoned but because he would not like to see what's going to happen."

Oh hell; something began to dawn on me. In that distressing and dangerous situation, the two brothers had talked above my head and perhaps they were accomplices. In any case, they managed to live together and were in league with each other, even in the present case.

"Well, Paul, do you want me to see you out? Or may I offer you a small pick-me-up before?"

This was the very moment where I should have said: "Yes, let me split as fast as possible. And forget all that." But I remained sitting; my respiration was going too heavy for a decision to be made. Ralph filled two glasses behind the counter and sat down near me. He smiled at me. "Paul..."

"Yes, Ralph ? Do you want to say something?"

"Well, that's somehow difficult. Actually, it is now excluded that we fool each other and we are not in a position to make long introductory speeches. I have seen what you have done and I have seen that you have taken part in the action. I have seen how Karl-Heinz has done it with you. And if I am sitting now close to you," his hand glided over my thigh, "you can imagine that I wished to do it, too, and that I am ready. Would you understand such a thing?"

A hot wave overflowed me, because when I had seen Ralph that one time and spent an agreeable evening alone with him in the crowd to talk, I had already the same sensation. I would have wished so badly to cover him with kisses and to roll with him on a bed. He had not come back, however, to the White Ox, and boys of my age had excited me more than once, not to mention Andy who was my permanent, inaccessible flame.

"You know, Paul, I have seen you only once but I have liked you from the very first moment."

"It was the same with me, and I have wished so badly that we could make love to each other on a bed like this here. Believe me, I cannot stand Kalley, but he forced me to do his will."

"That's so like him. But don't fear him: I am sure if you had strictly, absolutely refused, nothing would have happened. As for me, I hold him in the palm of my hand. But now, what are we two lovely ones going to do?"

I was unable to utter a word and plunged my eyes into his. We kissed; I stroked his body and sneaked my hand into his pyjamas. I brought his member out, a lovely smooth and ivory member. The face of the blond beauty was illuminated from inside, and slowly we sank down on the sofa, without stopping to kiss and to fondle. Slowly, as in a dream, I shoved my left leg under his waist and laid the other one over his body. He found for himself the lust I presented to him; we were lying face to face and continued to kiss. Even when his orgasm overwhelmed him, he smiled like an angel, with open eyes.

This was not fuck and buggery; it was similar to tender sex between a loving boy and a loving girl. Nevertheless, I was aware that he liked me, but that he was unable to feel love for me. You cannot have everything in life. But little is also much, and sentimentally exciting, conflict-less sex with a friendly buddy is happiness enough. I was not so pure that I did not think of other varieties of pleasure I could practice with him on our next meeting.

Slowly our embrace loosened; slowly I released my own lust while his left stroked lazily my hair and my shoulder. We got dressed and he brought me to the house door. When I was in the street, he whispered, "See you soon!"

My drunkenness had vanished but I was not yet capable to enter my home, as usual by the window of my room. I sat down on a bench of the Municipal Park and let pass in my head the happenings of that evening; the rough buttfuck with Kalley and the tender embrace with Ralph. I felt good, and if I had not forgotten how dangerous Kalley could be, I cared less nervously: Let him come. And always that smile of the calm blond boy.

The following Saturday, Kalley did not show up at our regular meeting, and I was somehow disappointed. But two weeks later, he was there again. Rarely a boy (or a girl, for that matter) feels such a nervous tension when he waits for the first word, the first glance, or simply the attitude of the man who has seduced and deflowered him the night before. This very moment decides sometimes the course of the rest of his life: if the fuck remains a good souvenir; or else turns into a destructive nightmare, a lifelong trauma. Laws protecting minors are objectively indispensable for this reason alone. The moral responsibility of the fucker is particularly engaged when his prey was a hetero who had been trapped for the first time into such a venture. He must be helped to find his way out, to come to terms with the situation.

Kalley greeted me quite normally, and I did so, too. I sighed deeply with relief. In the course of the evening, he always cast open glances at me, and he kept eye contact with me when he spoke about things of general interest. At a late hour however, he suddenly said across the table, with a dulcet voice: "Hello, naughty little semen robber..."

Like all the boys of our age we were mostly rough to each other, but after all that had happened with Kalley, that was a different thing, something dangerous, something deadly. In any case the expression, pronounced with the accent of Berlin, was so grotesque, so unrealistic, that those who heard it did not pay any attention to it; just another silly joke among those we babbled all night long. But then, without warning, the pig raised again its ugly head from the mud when Kalley whispered across the table in my direction: "Now, Darling Faggot, how about it tonight?"

Nobody else realised what had happened because Greasy Enny was talking again, as usual with a stifled voice about a merry party with the "Artist", a mature lady playing with the City Symphonic orchestra. She loved to pay cherry liquor to the teenagers, in particular to her "tiger baby", Blondie Heiner with the snub nose and the freckles all over. One night when everybody was in mood for fun, a small gang took a taxi to the end stop of Bus Line 17, they swayed across the railway dam down to the Danube channel. The lady screamed with delight when the four naughty boys took vigorous turns on her from front and from behind. But when they finally were all exhausted, the lady had to push heartbreaking whimpers because Enny had hidden her robe and her underwear under a stone at the canal bank. "Folks, a picture for the gods, the fat pink pig imploring us for pity. And you stupid ass you had pity and fished her dress from behind the tree, " he bellowed towards Andy who sat there with an expressionless face. The clique exploded again in a roaring laughter that covered anything else.

I tried to keep my head cool, but I could not escape Kalley's grin. After a while, I stood up and left to go outside in the street, in order to take some fresh air and to think again about how I intended to act. When I returned, I bent over Kalley and whispered in his ear, "There is a girl outside who wants to talk to you, but she refuses to enter. I think it's Monika." A few instants later, Kalley came back from outside and growled: "There is no Monika."

"Oh yes, she is, she waits at the newsstand. I'm gonna bring you there."

Behind the newsstand, he became very angry: "Goddam, what is going on?"

"Dear Kalley, there is no Monika indeed. I want to talk to you."

"Great: Darling Faggot wants to talk to me!"

"Excellent, now you have pronounced exactly the word I wanted to hear. And now, have a look."

I got a sock out of my trouser pocket, a single white sport sock with the well-known pictogram of a local tennis club.

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"You have forgotten that you promised me your friendship and that you would not talk about what happened. And now, you are about to get me down with dirty hints in front of our buddies. Anyhow. Tell me please: will Mr. Anders be in the store on Monday afternoon? I'll just enter, put the sock on the counter and ask Mr. Anders to give me the corresponding sock from the second drawer of the laundry chest in his home bar. Would that be enough?"

I have not said a word on what we did down there and never will, but he'll find his own conclusions."

Kalley snatched the sock from my hand and ran away. I called after him: "Kalley, dear friend, do you know what else I have snitched in your basement?"

He stopped, thunderstruck, and came slowly back to me. It was the first time that I saw him with stooped shoulders.

"This is mean blackmail!"

With my friendliest voice, over the pounding of my heart, I said, "You are right indeed, dear Kalley, this is mean blackmail. You have blackmailed me in order to abuse with me, and now I blackmail you. You see, I come from a simple workman's family, and I have nothing to lose but my life. You are going to take it now. You however, according to Andy, you are an apprentice in your father's company and you are supposed to inherit one day the store, and that's not all of your possessions. I have enquired a bit..."

We sat down on the bench at the bus stop. I distinctly heard Kalley's panting respiration. Mr. Anders, his father, is or was an old Nazi pig and as such, emotionless and brutal. His only smile was for his clients. The apple had not fallen far from the tree, as the saying goes. He finally hissed, hatefully: "What do you want from me? Do you want money? How much do you want?"

"Kalley, you are not only a pig, you are a stupid pig. What do you think I am? There is one thing I must have, I must, I must: You told me you are my friend, and that you will not talk. That's all I want, nothing more, nothing less, nothing else."

It took quite a time before Kalley had turned it all over in his mind. "Well... that will be ok. I promise on the head of our mother. From now on I will respect you without restriction. But give me please the other stuff you have snitched from our basement."

Again my sweetest smile: "But Kalley, my beloved friend, that is my guarantee, my life insurance. You can have the sock here and I keep the other things. I won't do you any evil, and you won't do me any evil. And now, let's go back inside."

When the comrades asked what we had done all that while, Kalley answered: "I had an argument with a girl outside. Paul has settled the problem. Paul is a fine fellow, you hear me?" That was another code word, a kind of plebeian knighting.

And things remained like that. There was no other butt party with Kalley. Some months later, he was enlisted in the federal army. I succeeded in contacting Ralph and we had several nice meetings in the basement bar. On this occasion, I made him benefit from some lascivious variations out of my repertoire, and Ralph participated willingly, always tenderly and yet distant, with a sort of friendly detachment.

For love with a girl we had the behaviour pattern of the Vienna musical where the male never does too much, speaking of flowers, compliments, raving declarations. A sentimental or sexual relation with a boy however had to be improvised, invented, thought through in all details.

I was determined to keep Ralph, and so I avoided hooking him, to wrest love oaths from him or to force any the like on him. We just enjoyed having satisfying buddy sex without singing duets, without sentimental fuss. So it remained an agreeable, undramatic relationship, and when its time had come, it ended as it had begun, in friendly indifference.

Many, many years later I had to handle a business affair in that good old hometown on the River. After the signature of the contract, I had a walk in the centre of the city. I passed in front of a big Television and Media Store and entered. I headed for a counter where a heavy-built man with a red face was standing, apparently the owner. "What can I do for you, Sir?" he asked in a friendly, calm tone.

"I want to bring you back this here," and I laid a sock on the counter. A white sock with the emblem of some sports club.

The man stared at me as if I were a ghost; he struggled for memories and for words. Finally, he gasped: "No, that's not possible, that's not possible! Is that you, Paul? We've not seen each other in all this time! In that time, we had a very dangerous cause together, and I think we have behaved as decent people should, both of us, and we have resolved the problem as decent people. I admit that I have learned quite a lot from that case. The military service, too, has been good for me. Four years ago, I took over the store; my father lives on pension now in the Canary Islands. I have a good wife and children. You, Paul, you are probably the only one who would fully understand what I am going to say: today, everybody finds me likable; everybody loves me. Ah yes, Enny is a Master-Sergeant with the paratroopers, and Ralph has been appointed District judge in the North; he too has a baby girl and a boy."

The man spoke calmly, as if at peace with himself.

"The single sock here, the lost twin, will join his twin brother; I have got it with the entire household and I never had the heart to throw it away. Now everything is at last in order. Well, Paul, I have a feeling we will never meet again, but let me say that everything has been good since we were together. Everything I say, and I know you understand what I am speaking of..." The square-built man twinkled with a roguish grin.

All's well that ends well. Sometimes it takes twenty years.

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