Shelter from the Snow

I had been brave, testing myself, to have come back to Boston for my year's sabbatical from Yale University. In earlier days I had come here as a history instructor at Boston University, straight out of Dartmouth, and I'm afraid I sowed my oats a bit too openly and with male students at the university, which won me an inglorious retreat to the Midwest for more than a decade until memories cleared.

A young, vulnerable eighteen- or nineteen-year-old male student had become my fetish. I was barely twenty-four at the time myself, so the age difference wasn't as great as it would be now, coming back to Boston. But I can't say that I had ended my fetish or didn't feel it particularly tempting now that I was back here. A nineteen-year-old boy hit my sweet spot--a small boy of stature, preferably, who was perfectly formed, willowy, lithe, flexible, yielding, but who was sweet, only beginning to ponder his sexuality and preferences. It was a risk coming back to where I had started with this, but I was an American Revolutionary War scholar and historical fiction novelist. There was no better place to do that than here in Boston, at the Massachusetts Historical Society near the Back Bay on Boylston Street.

I thought I was up to the challenge to curb my desire for young men. But perhaps I came here because I wanted to fail.

My days were spent in one of the reading rooms at the society's building, where I had obtained privileges to peruse original sources for a novel I planned to title "Howe's Retreat," the next in a series of novels I was writing on the siege of Boston by the British in 1775. The series would conclude with the lifting of the siege when General Washington managed to bring in artillery under Henry Knox to take the high ground on Dorchester Heights, forcing a British retreat under British general Howe in 1775.

So, my days were being spent in the society's reading room and my evenings spun out at the apartment I'd rented across the Back Bay Fens park area in the Boylston Apartments close to Fenway Park. It was a lonely--but I told myself a satisfying--life. To get from one to the other, a distance of several blocks, I usually walked through the Boylston section of the park.

I told myself I walked through the park, it being the most direct route, but not the only one I could have taken, to take in the beauty of nature. But I suspect I really did it for the temptation. The park was used by homeless men, many of them young men. I was propositioned each time I walked through the park. I didn't succumb to the temptation, priding myself on my ability to resist, but I didn't stop putting myself in the position to be propositioned by young men, many of them eighteen or nineteen from the look of them. Somehow, they had perceived my sexual interests. I kept assessing them on how well they'd clean up, which, in itself, indicated my resolve wasn't all that solid.

I had reached my late thirties, but I hadn't let either my looks or my body go. I had always had sufficient attraction in those areas to easily hook up. Perhaps it was the flash in my eyes when they appeared before me and made their pitch.

Although there were a few homeless women in the park, they generally didn't approach me after my initial nonresponsiveness to them. Soon after I had established my twice-daily walk through the park pattern, the homeless women had stopped offering themselves to me for pay--but the men hadn't.

On the day in question, the week after Thanksgiving, the day my resolve dissolved, Boston was already deep in winter weather, although that season wouldn't officially arrived for another two weeks. It had started to snow in the morning, while I was walking to the historical society. The snowfall initially was light, but it promised to pick up later in the day. I was wondering whether I would be walking home or taking a taxi because of the snow when I walked through a group of young men on the pathway. As usual, some of them touched me on the sleeve and made suggestions to me, but, smiling, I passed through them, giving them a look of regretful demur. Perhaps my wistfulness at turning them down kept them hopeful and assuming that I did have some interest in man-on-man action. One young man, though, a beautiful blond youth, stood at the edge of the group, smiling at me, but not offering himself. Because he wasn't forward with me, he, of course, was the one I had in mind when I settled in my usual, out-of-the-way table in the research room of the library.

A stack of books and copies of documents were delivered to me, and I immersed myself in the sometimes bloody toing and froing of the American and British forces on the fringes of Boston in 1775. My novels were very masculine depictions of battle and living conditions at the time, emphasizing how raw life was for both sides. My latest novel had been on Henry Knox's effort to bring his artillery to the Dorchester Heights. The one I was researching would be on Howe's retreat to take up a longer siege of New York City. The novels had become quite popular, popular enough that I'd settled on that period for my writing career and had found a lucrative home at Yale University, where students flocked to my less-academic classes on the subject. Having a novel rather than a textbook as the key text for a class was a win-win situation for college students.

I was so embedded in my fantasies of the British retreat and in imagining plots, characters, and plot twists that I didn't realize for some time that I wasn't alone at the table. I had picked such a remote spot in the room that was sectioned off by bookshelves so that I usually would have the table to myself. But not today. I was surprised when I looked up to see a young man--the blond I had passed and briefly had eye contact with in the Back Bay Fen park that morning--sitting across and down the table from me. He had his nose in a book. I couldn't resist speaking to him and not because of his looks, age, or that I'd seen him with the soliciting homeless in the park that morning.

"Do you really find that book interesting?" I asked. I could clearly see the title, Henry's Guns.

"I have just now picked it up for the first time," the young man answered. He gave me a nice smile, so I hadn't disturbed him by asking. There was no one else around close enough to be disturbed either as long as we spoke in low voices.

"What made you pick that book to read?"

"I was looking down the shelves and it caught my eye," he said. "My name is Hank, which is short for Henry, so I was drawn to this book. I've heard of Henry Knox. Colonial times, I think."

"Did you come in the library to read a book--that book--or to get warm?" I asked. I really wanted to ask if he'd come in to follow me. If so, he was more persistent and clever than his homeless friends in the park were. And I found him intriguing as well as arousing.

The young man shrugged. "I don't know whether I'll like the book. I just picked it up. But I don't mind reading while I'm getting warm."

"It's rather a coincidence, you know," I said.

"How so?" he asked.

"As it happens, I wrote that book."

"I know," he said, flashing me a winning smile. "Your photo is on the jacket. I read that far while I was standing at the shelf. I took the book from the shelf because of the title, but I kept it for reading because of your photo on the jacket, Mr. Berkley. Or is that your real name? Not a pen name?"

"Yes, that's my name." So, now he knew my name. He'd gotten that off the book too. Somehow that brought him closer to me.

"You came in because of the snow?" I asked. "Is it snowing harder out there?"

"Yes, the snow has picked up," Hank said. But he didn't press me further. "Please. Don't let me stop you from your studies. I can move to another table, if you wish."

"No, please. Don't move because of me. I'm flattered you're reading my book. Please. Stay and continue reading." I dove back into my studies, and the young man didn't leave; he obviously was engrossed in reading my book--or was pretending to--which provided a whole new sensation for me, not unpleasant in the least; and I was only able to give half attention to my own studies for the next hour and a half.

It was nearly noon when I gave up. "It's lunchtime, and I'm hungry," I said. "I usually eat at Bebop, which is an Irish restaurant across Boylston Street, a block beyond the Berklee College of Music."

"I know where the college of music is," he said. "I've seen the restaurant before too."

"Would you like to go there with me? I'd enjoy the company, and I'd like to know what you think of that book so far. It will, of course, be my treat."

Somewhat to my surprise--but not really; I realized even then that he was on the make, which both flattered and aroused me--Hank agreed. The snow was still coming down and accumulating when we went to lunch. We spent a pleasant hour over lunch while Hank at least pretended that Henry's Guns was the most engrossing book he'd read in some time. I wondered how much reading a nineteen-year-old homeless boy--yes, I had managed to glean his age from him, although he would tell me no more about his circumstances--did, living rough in the park.

The snow was beginning to pile up as we walked back to the library and settled back into our reading. A little after 4:00 p.m., I stretched and said, "The snow must be quite deep out there now." I hadn't really managed any research at all. My afternoon had been taken up in fantasizing possibilities with the young man.

"I'm sure it is," Hank said, looking up from his book.

"I see you're not wearing boots."

"No, I'm not."

"It must be tough being in the park at night when it snows like this."

"Yes, I'm sure it is," he repeated.

What I got from that was that he hadn't been living in the park long. He probably wasn't aware yet how rough the life could be in the park at night in the winter. He was a lovely youth. It bothered me greatly that he'd be out there in the cold when I'd be just a few blocks away, warm in my quite large apartment. I not only had two bedrooms and a nice, cozy study, but there was a servant's room off the kitchen, with a full bath, that I wasn't using.

I had so much and Hank had so little. I was really, of course, falling into old habits. What I wanted was Hank.

"If you want to keep reading that book, I, of course, have a copy in my apartment," I said. "The library won't let you take that copy out and you can't stay here in the night. My place is over toward Fenway Park, just a few blocks beyond the park from here. It's cold and snowing. I have plenty of room. You could stay in my apartment tonight. You could continue reading the book and telling me what you think about it. That would be very helpful to me. You could--"

"Yes, fine, I accept," Hank said, flashing me a winning smile.

I could hardly believe it had been that easy--if, of course, I wasn't misreading him.

* * * *

I didn't fuck him as soon as the taxi had taken us back to my apartment. I had told myself I didn't intend on fucking him at all, and I managed to hold out all evening and past the time I settled him in the servant's room and went to the master bedroom myself, to sleep all alone in my king-sized bed.

It wasn't easy, though. As soon as we entered the apartment, with him contemplating how nice and nicely furnished the place was--neither of which was something I'd chosen; the university had set it all up--I approached the delicate matter of what I perceived as his homelessness--and how I wanted to relate to him under the circumstances.

"Perhaps you'd like to take a shower. I could find a robe for you and put your clothes in the washer if you like." I'd shown him where he had a room and bath he could use across the apartment from where I'd be sleeping.

He gave me a rather funny look, but said that would be fine with him. I left the room and waited for him to go into the bath, finding a robe of mine that had always been a bit too small for me and some briefs for him to wear while his clothes were being washed. When he came out of his room while I was in the kitchen alcove off the living and dining area, he was just in the robe. I didn't realize that until after dinner when we'd both settled in the study, him to read my copy of Henry's Guns and me to try to pretend that I was composing on the computer, that he wasn't wearing the briefs I had provided. As he sat in a wing chair, facing me at the desk, he let the robe brush open. He was naked under the robe. His nineteen-year-old body was beautiful. His waist and hips were narrow, his cock and balls perfectly proportioned to his Adonis-like body.

He wasn't being very subtle. He knew I wanted to fuck him. Just as I wanted to do to the other young homeless men in the park I couldn't stay away from, he was offering his nubile, small, perfect body to me. He wanted me to fuck him--at least he wanted to compensate me for bringing him in from the cold and feeding him.

I resisted--all evening--managing to make it to bedtime and to guide him to the servant's bedroom and then to go to my own bedroom. There was, certainly, a lock on my bedroom door, and as he was a complete stranger to me, there was every reason for me to use it. But of course I didn't.

He came to me in the dark of the night, as if anything that happened in the dark could be denied as ever having happened. I woke to the covers being pulled off my body and a naked Hank lying between my legs, holding my hips between his hands, and sucking my cock. I immediately was lost to him, taking his blond curls in my hands and helping to guide his head as it bobbed on my groin, moaning for him, "Yes, yes, yes. Just like that," setting my hips into a rocking motion, fucking up into his throat.

When Hank realized I was awake--and not doing anything to stop him--he turned, stretching full length over me, hovering above me on his knees and elbows, and offering his tail to me. I took his cock in my mouth and we sixty-nined until we both were hard as rocks. I grasped his hips and repositioned and raised my face to bury itself between his buttocks cheeks, and I prepared him for penetration. I rolled him over onto his back and repositioned myself on top of him.

He cried out, "Yes, yes, fuck me! Put it in me! Be good to me! Fuck me hard." I knew he was as much in the throes of passion as I was, as he was fairly growling and writhing under me. And I did what he said he wanted. I grasped his legs under his knees and hooked them onto my hips as I slid my knees under his buttocks, raising his hole to a convenient angle. My bulb lodged at his hole. I then grasped his wrists and pulled his arms over his head, hovering over his small body, and coming in for a kiss on the lips.

He unthinkingly bit me on the lower lip at the moment of penetration and arched his back and his head, looking wildly at the ceiling and groaning as I pushed inside him, stretching him. He writhed under me, held in thrall by my hands and more powerful body, as I relentlessly buried myself in his channel and he fought to adjust to me. I pressed my lips into his throat as I forced him to take me. Then, just as I felt he was adjusting to me, I began to plow him--to fuck him in long strokes--as, with a long sigh, he collapsed under me, opening fully to my possession of his body, settled down, and rocked his body against mine, rowing with the fuck.

Later in the night, encountering no resistance from the young man at all, I turned him onto his belly, ran an arm under his waist to pull him up to his hands and knees, mounted him high, and fucked him hard in a doggie position.

The first time was fraught with "should this stop, not carry to the end" nervous tension. The second time it was open and freely enjoyed.

* * * *

In the morning, when I came out of the bedroom hallway, I found that he'd made coffee. He was standing, the robe I'd given him the previous day hanging, open, on his small, naked body and leaning into the frame of the living room window overlooking the narrow green space between the apartment complex and the road. He was looking beyond that, over to the park on the other side of the street, the park where I'd first seen him. He was drinking from a mug and, taking it from his lips, gave me a smile. There were to be no recriminations, which was only right. He'd come to my bed in the night. He could have remained across the apartment in the room behind the kitchen.

On my way into the room, I stopped in the laundry room, so I came into the living room with an apologetic look on my face and his damp clothes in my hand.

"Sorry, I didn't put the clothes in the dryer last evening. They're still damp. I'll put them in there now. It will be a while longer, I'm afraid, before you can wear them."

"There's coffee made," he said. "I found the eggs and the bread too, but I didn't know when you'd be getting up. It's still snowing outside, but not too hard."

"It will probably be too deep to want to walk in without boots, though," I said. We both knew he hadn't been wearing boots the previous day.

"Yes, I suppose boots are needed," he answered.

I took him back in the bedroom and fucked him again. He didn't resist. In fact, the second time that morning he put me on my back and he rode my cock in a cowboy. We fucked for a half hour every three or four hours for the entire day and through the night, filling in the time between with breakfast, him reading and me computing, lunch, him reading and me computing, dinner, and a movie on the TV, during which I fucked him on the sofa facing the console. He indicated the need and want for it even more often than I did.

He slept on my bed with me that night, although there wasn't that much sleep happening. I hadn't had to convince Hank to engage in any of the couplings. He fell right in with them all. He wanted it. He was much younger and more resilient than I was. He wore me out. But he was just too delicious. I couldn't help myself. I just kept getting hard at the thought of covering him and at the sight of his beautiful small body, and I kept hardening and needing to get off. I hadn't had sex since I'd arrived in Boston on my sabbatical nearly a month earlier. Everything I wanted from him, he readily gave me.

* * * *

Again, Hank was at the window, leaning into the frame, his too-large robe--no, my robe--open and hanging on his lovely body, and holding a mug of coffee when I came out of the bedroom hallway the next morning. I was carrying his clothes, dry and folded. They'd been left in the dryer all of the previous day and night. Hank hadn't needed clothes.

I was in a robe too--and naked underneath. My pecker was pretty worn out, though. I don't know if I could have gotten it up if I had too. I didn't have to this morning.

"I made scrambled eggs, but I didn't cook all of the egg batter I'd made," he said. He smiled again. Once again nothing had happened the previous day that he was going to criticize me for. No "You are an animal," even though I think I reverted to one in one or more fuck. But he'd been wildly enthusiastic too.

"Thanks," I said, pouring a mug of coffee and leaning up against the kitchen island. I didn't want to go close to him. I didn't want to have the urge to get it up and not be able to because I'd overused it. "Your clothes are here on the chair. All dry."

We both looked at his folded clothes as if they were what was going to decide for him whether he would put them on and leave. Being ready to wear, though, seemed to be the decision point. They hadn't really been dirty in the first place now that I thought about that. I wondered why they hadn't been, if he was homeless. That was my first thought that perhaps he wasn't.

"It's stopped snowing and the roads and sidewalks are clear," he said.

"Maybe the park walks haven't been cleared and wherever you guys pitch your tents there or whatever are still snow covered." I said it halfheartedly. I didn't want him to leave and yet I did. I was confused, and, primarily, I was exhausted and my cock was limp and sore.