Diary of an Innocent

by Tony Duvert

  I figure that, as a kid, his friends would climb on top of him (they probably chose him because of some weakness, a pleasure he’d given or looked for, and the story spread). Starting then, he told convenient lies, acted like he was being forced; if not he’d have been nothing more than a homo, rubbish at the curb. Every day it had to be against his will when a few little suspicious horndogs came to check that he’d put up a fight while they whittled away at his cherry.

  A boy becomes the groups faggot because he looked, wanted, sought before another decided to. They don’t see desire (they’re learning how to expel it), they catch sight of a hole and make use of it. An obedient child closes up his anus; the one who keeps his open becomes the whore of the other boys and in that way helps them save their own hole. Its like an educational game: together you squeeze your ass closed, and the first to let go is a faggot. The heterosexual order that condemns him and behind which the little horndogs take refuge is constructed on his yawning ass.

  Andrès claims that a foreigner raped him at twelve, in a hotel room, after having gotten him drunk. It’s impossible. Kids are totally repulsed by alcohol; of those who sampled it at my place, only one managed to swallow a mouthful of whiskey, heavily cut and sweetened with Coca-Cola; the others spit out all of it, whether it was liquor, beer or wine, and went to wash out their mouth vigorously, like they would have if it had been sperm. Moreover, pedophiles don’t rape, especially at a hotel.

  Andrès, like a lot of guilt-ridden homosexuals I’ve met in France, used a few remnants of his past to invent an event that pushed the responsibility for what he was onto someone else. The process is barely conscious, and it gives expression to something real. Andrès wanted boys, in a way that was neither innocent nor guilty, nor thought out, nor provocative; it was something he wanted to experience and preserve, because it suited him. So the laws of the group transformed him into a “faggot” because they were fabricated from heterosexuality—a system of values based on the exclusion of almost all pleasure connected to loving, and on the establishment of inequalities, falsifications and the physical and mental mutilation of men, women and children. It makes sense that the story of rape invented by Andrès would expel this “homosexuality” outward, where it came from. In reality, he was subjected to the violence of a normalizing group, not a pervert, it came not from a man but from a word. In both cases, it certainly was against his will that he “became queer.”

  Even today when he gets screwed, he plays at being hesitant, winces, squeezes shut, lets out sighs of distress, exasperation, pain; but a minute after, you can pound him like a lumberjack, he lounges on the pillow like a small well-fed child. Accordingly, he begins by showing that he doesn’t like it; then he enjoys it discreetly; and when it’s finished, if he meets any accusations, he holds up the proofs of displeasure he exhibited. With people he doesn’t know, it’s enough; but others aren’t duped for very long. Teenagers blab more than gossips, they make you keep their secret and then don’t respect it themselves, they know everything about everybody else and think that no one knows anything about them. They pool their information and rapidly unmask a boy like Andrès, that weird straight boy who so willingly accepts what hurts him and looks so often for what he loathes. He’s not even clever enough to give it up to the rich and get paid each time; he deprives himself of his last alibi. He steers his way between the risk-taking imposed by his desire and his fear of the group, he makes blunder after blunder and ends up naked as a jaybird, ready to be squashed. The others grow stronger by stomping on him, and none of those like him (because several have the same life, but live it better) help him to his feet; that would be admitting that they’re like him, which is too dangerous.

  I’d only known Francesco for a week when he brought over Andrès. The pretty boy wasn’t too experienced yet. They had dinner at my place. Andrès was sweet, attentive, cheerful, very childish, proud of his spelling and the sleights of hand he knew. It became clear that he was staying over. Not in the little bed out front, but in the big one, with us. While we were getting undressed, he snuck a look at us and said distractedly, as if he were speaking to his feet, “Mine’s little.”

  And he hid it with his hand as he got into bed. Francesco and he weren’t as much of a team as I’d been hoping. They were a little distrustful of each other. They kissed, hugged, but prudishly. They didn’t touch each others pricks and didn’t do any fucking. They felt each other up while they were lying down, and when they were standing they fought. Even with the lights off I can’t fuck Francesco, who’s hiding from Andrès the fact that he enjoys the passive role and plays it superiorly. Besides, it’s the pretty boy’s cute behind that turns me on. He’s on his side, with me lying along his back; I try—no reaction; I go back in—no reaction; I get off without his even having taken a breath. He wanted to be fucked and didn’t have the patience to wait for us to see each other alone. But he’ll be able to use his way of silently making no big deal out of it to counter any mockery that could come from Francesco tomorrow by saying that I’d only stuck it between his thighs, something that’s fairly innocent, at least for them. Francesco touches me, pounds me with his big prick and senses that it’s getting to me, but he doesn’t try to probe the meaning of it too deeply.

  That’s how it went every night that the three of us spent together. I didn’t know such precautions, hypocrisies were necessary, and they exasperated me. Later, I found out that the lewdest young boys I could meet become a senseless lump the moment one of their peers is there to watch, even if he’s as queer as they are and waiting in the next room. A sense of propriety isn’t the issue, they barely have any and have no problem watching each other fucking a boy or a girl—that’s a masculine thing to do and nothing to worry about. But anything else is dangerous to their image. So they’ll do with me what they’d never do together—except maybe when they’re grown up and certain kinds of conformism mean less.

  Nevertheless, Franceso and Andrès gradually started to have a good time, to warm up. It was fun watching them fool around. It started with a ruckus, some joking around, they tickled and provoked each other, if one of them went to take a dump, the other snuck up to surprise him, they competed with each other in tests of strength, using the furniture, the doors, me. To show off their abdominals, they lay flat on their backs at the edge of the bed and you were supposed to fall, fists forward, with all your weight on their stomach. They held up very well, but it didn’t go on for long.

  After this foolishness and the lights were turned off, with me in the middle, they shared me. I felt as if I were putting up two schoolboys who were pretending not to like men and then were snickering with excitement under the sheets as they lost their innocence to one and hid it from each other.

  Officially, I’m for Francesco, so Andrès fakes disinterest when he comes from time to time to see if I’m alone and he can sleep over. Otherwise he comes with Francesco. But I prefer him and don’t pay any attention to Andrès. In bed he’s resigned to it, takes me by the arm and says, in his deep, amorous voice, a little breathlessly, as if he’d been slapped, “Yes … yes … stay with Francesco … Only, this is for me.”

  What he does with my arm is startling. He puts it around his neck, folds my forearm against his chest and begins to make love to it. He murmurs to my forearm that it’s beautiful, that it’s good; he sighs, rubs himself, trembles, writhes, gives it every possible compliment, as if I weren’t attached to it. My forearm has a normal amount of hair; he adores it (and all the hairs on a man), kisses it again and again, grazes it with closed lips, caresses it smoothly, delicately, quickly with his hand and whispers how much it turns him on. At the same time, he jerks off, without trying to come. I can feel some perplexing shivers in the nape of my neck, the hollows of my shoulders, my loins. It’s more intensely gratifying then my run-of-the-mill games with Francesco. Such over-the-top enthusiasm, that puny fondling, those little monologues and such obstinate passion get to me. As for the shivers, I quickly realize what they are; n
ot that I’ve ever had them during sex, but they’re very familiar. The ones I had when I was child were often like that. For example, when you’ve accomplished something good and the adults compliment you cannily, pressing just the right buttons; it’s when you’re all alone and think of it, anticipate it, remember it. In other words, shivers of flattered pride. Vanity, maybe. Their physical appeal is in the innocent sensual delight they provide; and how strange they feel at being the intense physical effect of a contractual, abstract gratification.

  The fact that Andrès can express his affection on a part of me to which I accord no attention, that he himself is a boy who doesn’t interest me much, adds to the peculiarity of my pleasure, to its animal transparency. As a matter of fact, I’m used to opposite situations, in which I’m expecting nothing that feels good and in which the pleasure comes from the boy and what he agrees to put up with. I don’t feel any disappointment about the fact that most of the boys I’m with barely touch me, adhere to their heterosexual code, neglect my cock and take no initiative, except to fuck me occasionally. But they often put up with a lot, and that’s what suits me.

  In some vague way, Andrès took me to heart as a friend or as a big brother. Evenings with him were sweet. There was no company more peaceful or more well-intentioned than his. He’s helpful, subdued, conscientious, I feel like a sick old man whom a little scout’s come to take care of. However, he bores me, and I don’t show him much consideration. But for him that’s part of my role as an elder, a good match for the one he plays so merrily.

  When he’s alone with me, nothing bothers him anymore. He knows I don’t gossip about boys, and spontaneously he has shown me his least allowable talents. The only rule is that I don’t take advantage of them in order to tell him that he’s a faggot. He’d never come back again. As long as that condition’s respected, he acts very freely.

  But despite what a nice body he has, his muscles, how smooth his skin is, I had no desire to touch him. I lay down like a despot and waited. We’d leave the light on. His routines with face and hands on my body hair lasted a very long time. I wouldn’t get hard. He’d slide his hand through it, exploring, fondling it deftly, delectably. His fingers seemed to sense minute reactions in my skin that told him where to touch, squeeze, press, dwell. He’d lower his head, suck me sensuously and would no longer get tired of eating my cock. Then he’d go lower, his nose rubbing against my balls, inhaling them, smooching them. I’d spread my legs, and he’d rim me. His tongue was as ingenious as his hand; it spiraled, flattened out, plunged, became limp, pointed, wide, narrow, pecking or solid.

  After that go-round with my body, I was aroused, on edge; I’d push Andrès flat on his stomach and fuck him selfishly. Then I’d resume my role as a despot. He’d go off to shit out the come, comb his hair, would come back relaxed and a bit fatigued, then smoke, sit in a chair, tell a few anecdotes, never talking about himself unless I questioned him. Then he’d lie down again, begin worshiping my chest or my arm again, etcetera. His flaccid, suction-cup kisses on my mouth disgusted me; but they felt great in other places. Often his lips were warm and his tongue cool. On my cock or anus, the effect got the better of me. If he kissed me, I’d soon turn his face away and pull his head toward my crotch. Such coarse macho gestures were OK with him. Obviously, he was seeing me for that. I wouldn’t have thought that as I neared thirty, I’d be seeing a teenager—a handsome one, no less—who was crazy about me, and that I’d be turning up my nose at him. To be worshiped by someone and not return it is rather refreshing. But it’s only by accident that I can be that kind of man, a master with a devoted servant. Not that I prefer the opposite.

  One night when I’d used him in an especially rough way, he asked to fuck me, and instead of refusing as I usually did, I said OK. I don’t even know where he’d been climaxing on the other occasions; in the bathroom, I suppose. He lay down on my back, shoved it in, his entire body began trembling and he came right away, then pulled it out. He’d almost never had a chance to be on top, and the simple sensation of starting to be got him off. He didn’t fuck me, he nicked me. If I’d imagined it would be like that, I would have said yes more often. But his little stone pestle did hurt.

  Francesco came up with the idea of raping Andrès one morning. We run after him, catch up to him, yank him forcefully onto the bed, and Francesco gets on top of him. Andrès laughs as much as he struggles, but also seems to be crying; he slobbers, yells, goes into a panic; but Francesco isn’t going to stick it in, there’d be too big a fuss. He fucks the crack. I watch. The two crotches in one heap turn me on, but Andrès’s is lurching so roughly that I don’t dare come as close to the sight of it as I’d like. Francesco has a nicely shaped butt, shapely thighs and, between them, a largely, powerfully rooted cock that either arches upward or twists toward the right when it gets hard. In that position, his smooth, heavy balls, as large as a couple of lovely eggs, have the laughable, healthy volume of a donkey or horses scrotum. The two boys wrestle for a long enough time, then the crack of Andrès’s ass gets soiled. Released, he runs to the toilet as the sperm trickles out of him all the way to the hollow of a knee. He’s not angry.

  On another morning, on the same little bed, I’m feeling up Francesco. Andrès, who’s already dressed, is watching and lets out a sigh, then rubs the flat of his hand against his fly and smiles sadly. He decides to jerk off standing up, takes out his cock and kneads it, an absent look on his face, eyes closed. He’s in front of the mirror (the one where I’ll see Pedro a few days later as I discover his theft), and I tell him to watch himself in it, it’ll be better that way. He gets closer, but keeps closing his eyes. I tell him, as well, that he’d better not come on the floor, or I’ll rub his nose in it. He keeps going, gets worked up, sucks air through his clenched teeth, pulling the lips away from them, jerks off at top speed with his left hand under his balls, and comes. I keep an eye on him; grab him by his clothing, twist his arm, knock him down and shove his nose in his come; he laughs and protests so much that he gets it in his mouth. I let go of him, he rushes to a towel and complains that he hadn’t even finished.

  When we’re alone together, he covers me with compliments. When I go to comb my hair, he follows me, studies me in the mirror and expresses pleasure in what he sees. When we eat, what he’s eating is the best dish on earth, I’m a fantastic cook. The most ordinary bottle of soda is the most refreshing he has drunk, and I have the best cigarettes. I get undressed, each piece of meat extracts an expression of adulation from him. I open a closet, the clothes in it are the most beautiful. If I rough him up for a laugh, he admires my strength, and when it’s over, he comes up to me to touch the source of it. He doesn’t utter these compliments like someone in love, but as if he were alone, busy with some manual task and commenting about what he was doing: yes, this piece of wood is nicely cut, sure is, good … it holds up … it’ll look great … works well, this saw”—he says it casually, his hands already busy with the next task. He’s expressing himself not for me but for himself. A way of behaving that disconcerts me as much as his remote fondling of my arm. The compliments have hardly any effect on me, despite the fact that they’re a rare thing for me to hear; I’ve had a reliable idea of myself for a long time, nobody’s going to change it like that. It’s made me indifferent to how I look, and with a boy, I forget quickly that I’m visible. But Andrès’s admiration, the excited, disjointed monologues he murmurs, for which I’m the object yet not the person being addressed, offer me—despite myself—that animal pleasure I’ve described. A thousand times I’ve loved thinking of them again and trembling. It’s only when I write about them (as I’m now discovering) that they do nothing for me.

  When invited, he helps with everything, sets the table, humbly gazes at my pots and pans, even if there’s nothing cooking in them but noodles. My opening a jar of jam fascinates him; when it’s empty, he picks it up again with a respectful gesture to throw it in the garbage, as if he were the assistant of a great magician. In the morning, he won�
�t leave without doing the housework. He makes the bed, washes the dishes, puts theru away, sweeps, dusts the furniture, all of it calmly and skillfully, more or less in the nude, while whistling inane songs from the radio, because there’s always a tune on his lips. His graceful form moves across the kitchen with such delight that you’d think he’d only been flattering me for the last twelve hours so that he could finally satisfy his real vice: the art of housekeeping.

  After he stopped coming with Francesco, his visits got less frequent. I’d run into him in the street, and we’d share some news. He’d come over for a little while, have a drink, primp in front of the mirror. His life was taking its toll on him. In five or six months, his face got thinner, more wizened, his features hollowed, drained, the eyes ringed by circles, his complexion yellowed and sickly. People maintained that it was his lifestyle of depravity, in view of the brutality of the boys who kept an eye on him, but I think it was the state of nervous tension in which they kept him.’

  A casual friend had left a box of condoms in the bathroom. I almost never use those things, except as entertainment. Francesco wanted me to put one on and fuck him with it. He liked the feeling, I didn’t at all; it felt like I was being inflated by my sperm rather than discharging it. But these were luxury condoms, with reservoir ends. Andrès inflated them. By moistening and twisting the end, you can tie them closed. You end up with balloons as big as your thigh, which float sluggishly in the air. Andrès would keep up two at a time, running from one to the other like a volleyball player to send them back up to the ceiling. With my cigarette, I popped one that sounded like a gunshot. It was night. Frightened, Andrès stopped moving. He started juggling again soon after, but cautiously, as if he was afraid of being caught in a dormitory by a student supervisor.