The Unforgiven

by Alan E. Rose

  “Odd nickname to call a friend.”

  “No, it was okay. He really didn’t mind. He walked funny, but no one kidded him because he was cool and a lot of fun to be around.”

  “So start with a memory of Billy then. Any memory, and see where it leads.”

  He sighed again and felt like he was sinking deeper into the couch.

  Morning shimmered on the lake’s mirror surface.

  “Swimming. We liked to go swimming together.”

  The boys and the counselors jumped and dove off the dock into the lake. Splashing and yelling and laughing. All were naked.

  “You swam naked?”

  “Yeah. It was all boys. The girls camps and boys camps alternated through the summer.”

  “What do you remember about swimming with Billy?”

  The two of them swam away from the dock, beyond the booms, to an outcropping of boulders. They pulled themselves up onto one of the large flat rocks. Billy was about a head shorter than Peter, and skinny, still the boy, while at thirteen, Peter was already filling out, having lost his boyhood belly and starting to develop the muscles and broadening shoulders of an adolescent. The boulder was sun-warmed and, after the chilling waters of the lake, felt toasty warm on their backs and backsides. The two of them lay there next to each other, the silver crucifixes on their bony chests glinting in the sunlight.

  Lying on the couch, Peter was feeling sleepy, drowsy from the swim and the sun’s solar massage, and he seemed to doze off.

  A cool breeze fluttered across his body and he awoke, heard stirring next to him and then a noisy yawn. He opened his eyes, shielding them with his arm from the bright sun overhead. Billy was sitting up, stretching as he yawned again, then looked down at Peter, his mischievous grin surfacing. It wasn’t until then that Peter became aware of his tumescent state. Billy reached over, grabbing the stiff organ, and squeezed it.

  He batted his hand away. “Queer,” he murmured. Billy snorted a half-laugh and lay back down on the boulder, closing his eyes once again, and sighing as he slid into a lazy, sun-induced nap.

  Peter stopped talking, suddenly embarrassed by the protuberance in his pants. He opened his eyes. “I thought you said I wouldn’t do anything I wouldn’t want to.”

  “Well, obviously, you wanted to.”

  “Not really.”

  “Let’s just pretend that it’s natural and happens to males from time to time, okay?”

  “That’s easy for you to say,” he mumbled, whereby she rose from her chair. He raised his head off the couch and watched her go across the room and bring back a light quilt. She unfolded and unfurled it over him.

  “There. Better?”

  “Much. Thanks.”

  She sat back down. “How do you ever manage to make it through a massage?”

  “I don’t do massages.”

  “Of course. What was I thinking? Can we return to you and Billy? He had just grabbed your penis. How did that make you feel?”

  “I had never been touched like that before by anyone.”

  “So how did that make you feel?”

  He shrugged. “It just happened suddenly and was over. That was it.”

  “I see. And how did being touched like that make you feel?”

  “I don’t know. I guess I’m wondering if Billy really was queer.”

  She cupped her hands to her mouth, “AND HOW DID THAT MAKE YOU FEEL?”

  “It was, uh...I guess…”

  “You liked it?”

  “Yeah. I guess I sort of liked it.”

  “Bravo. Score one for self-knowledge. What else?”

  He shrugged again, avoiding her eyes. “It felt good. It all felt good—lying out on the rock like that, being naked to the world, with the sun shining down on me. It was very…sensual, and I was feeling horny, although I think I was too young to think of it that way right then.”

  “Did anything else happen between you and Billy?”

  “Happen?”

  “Touching like that.”

  “Let’s see…” He paused, trying to recall. “I think we may have once compared and measured each other.”

  “I’m assuming you don’t mean your feet.”

  “Uh, no.”

  “What else?”

  “We may have fooled around a couple of times.”

  “Define ‘fooled around.’”

  “You know. Touching each other. Jerking off together. It’s a boy thing.”

  “Actually, never having been a boy, I don’t know. So you and Billy had sex together.”

  “Well, hand jobs, if you want to call that sex.”

  “I think it qualifies.”

  “We didn’t really think of it as sex—not like I think of sex now. It was more like playing together.”

  “Of course,” she murmured, “just with different kinds of toys.”

  “Billy always initiated. I’d never done that with another boy before—or since.”

  “Did you and your friend do anything besides hand jobs?”

  “No.”

  “Kissing?”

  He screwed up his face. “Boys do not kiss. Unless they’re gay.”

  “No, they play with each other’s dicks.”

  He squirmed on the couch. “You know, it didn’t sound so bad until you said it.”

  “So no kissing.”

  “Right. It was just boy sex. Not love.”

  “And Billy felt the same way?”

  “What way?”

  “That it was just sex. Not love?”

  “Sure. It was purely physical. Adolescent sex play. Don’t girls go through this stage?”

  She sat back, thinking. “Yes, I suppose we do. But there are differences.”

  “Like what?”

  “I can remember when I was fourteen, having the biggest crush on my best friend. It went on for a year. I’m sure we never touched each other’s genitals, but I can remember when sleeping over, how we would lie in each other’s arms and cuddle and kiss for hours.”

  He stared at her.

  “It’s a girl thing.”

  “Well, with us, it was quick. We got it over with. No feelings. No romance. Just physical release.”

  “Interesting. That’s how your wives describe your sex now.” She asked, “When did you first have sex with a girl?”

  “Uh, let’s see. I guess it was my senior year in high school.”

  “Did you enjoy it?”

  “It was okay.”

  “Just okay?”

  “We were on a date, and I felt she wanted to and I sort of wanted to. We were both very nervous and awkward. It was okay, but I didn’t love her. It was just sexual release again.”

  “So when did you finally ‘make love’ versus all this sexual releasing?”

  “With Allison. My first wife. We met as sophomores in college and dated and had sex together for a couple of years, then we married after graduation.”

  “I see. Did you ever do anything with any of the other boys at camp?”

  “No, just with Billy.”

  “And after that camp?”

  “No. Never. I told you, I’m not gay. And, besides, it wasn’t just Billy and me.”

  “This activity was going on between other boys at camp?”

  “Sure. I remember once entering the showers and seeing two boys jump apart. The way they went silent and were so intent on their washing with their backs to me, it was clear that I had interrupted something more than just handing off the bar of soap.”

  Lucia considered this. “I’m intrigued. You were Catholic boys. At a Catholic summer camp. Didn’t you feel guilty or sinful over those times?”

  “I don’t think so. We’d all probably started masturbating by then, and this was just like, you know, beating off, only with buddy accompaniment, not like having sex with girls. That would have been sinful.”

  “Let’s go back to Billy, and the two of you there on the boulder. I want you to close your eyes again and just stay with that memory.”


  She proceeded to guide him through another relaxation exercise—very sensory—and he settled back into the sun-baked moment of that summer’s day long ago. He could feel the warm sun toasting his body, smell the rich scent of fir and cedar in the air, hear the splashing and shouting of the other boys playing in the lake...

  Stretched out on his stomach in the baking heat produced a lazily erotic effect. His swollen organ under him felt three sizes too big and he was aroused from the pressure of lying on it. He turned his head toward Billy, who was once again napping—one leg stretched out, the other knee pointing to the sky—and he saw that Billy also had a hard-on. He studied it as his own throbbed beneath him, scrunched between flesh and stone. He had liked being grabbed like that, the sensation of someone else’s hand there, and he secretly wished that Billy would do it again. The heat lulled him, and he drifted in and out of a late afternoon snooze as the sun continued its way across the sky.

  The sound of the other boys in the distance stirred him from his dozing, and he slowly turned onto his back, his face to the sun, the under lids of his eyes a bright orange-red glow. He lay there, listening to the breeze whispering in the treetops, feeling its fingers rippling across his skin, when a hawk’s sudden cry roused him. He squinted his eyes open and was immediately blinded. Someone was shining a flashlight in his face.

  Peter jerked up into a sitting position.

  “What is it?” asked Lucia.

  He was on her couch in the softly lit office, feeling light-headed and dizzy.

  “What’s wrong?”

  He turned to her. “Nothing. Why?”

  “You were telling me about skinny dipping at the lake, and feeling sexually aroused as you were lying on the warm boulder. You had just heard a hawk’s cry, and you suddenly bolted up. What happened?”

  “Nothing.” His breathing was coming quick and shallow, as if he had been running.

  She sat, staring at him. Her look and posture said it all.

  He stuttered, “I-I’m not sure what I saw.”

  “Then tell me what you think you saw.”

  The crucifix was dangling in the flashlight’s beam.

  “I don’t know,” he began. “It was dark. And I was naked.”

  “You’re not on the boulder anymore.”

  “No. I’m not sure where I was.”

  “Just lie back down and rest. You look faint.” He did. “You said it was dark.”

  “Yes. And there was a bright light shining in my eyes.”

  “A bright light?”

  “A flashlight, I think.”

  “What was happening?”

  “I’m not sure. I’m not even sure it relates to the camp. It just suddenly came out of nowhere.”

  She studied him in the dimmed light. “What were you feeling when the flashlight was shining in your eyes?”

  He opened his mouth but nothing came. “I don’t know. Surprise. Shock. Maybe scared.”

  “Of?”

  “I’m not sure. It happened so fast.” He ran his hands over his face.

  “Are you okay, Peter?”

  He nodded. “Yeah.”

  “You look tired. Perhaps that’s enough for today.”

  Before he left, Lucia told him that there would probably be more memories of camp coming up. It was to be expected, like pumping water from a subterranean reservoir—once you start, the

  force continues the flow. Just let the memories come, she advised, don’t block them, don’t judge them, don’t push them away. And, if he wanted, they could talk about them next week—along with his and Megan’s different communication styles.

  He got up, adjusted his tie, saying grimly, “Can hardly wait.”

  *

  And the memories did come as Lucia had predicted. During the next week, Peter began to have sharper recollections of the camp. One memory led to another, which led to another, which led to yet another. Small details came back to him: he could remember the entrance to the campground, the rack of elk antlers mounted above the gate; the stone lodge and its huge rock fireplace; the food (the first time he’d ever had French toast, swimming in maple syrup and butter); the meditation point with its rough-hewn cross; the campfire circle, several hundred feet from the main campground, and roasting marshmallows around it in the evenings; and Billy’s high laughter. Many memories were of Billy.

  It was several nights later that Peter was sitting at his desk. It was late, and he was once again staring at the camp photo, propped up against a stack of books he was reading. That was one good thing about the ending of a marriage—it freed up a lot more time for reading. He was going through a book every two or three days now.

  He sat there, gazing again at his younger self. The photo was taken during their first week at camp, before skin was seared with sunburns and hair bleached by the sun. Like most of the boys, he was wearing shorts and a T-shirt—the unofficial camp uniform—his slender legs tapering down into white tennis shoes the size of small boats. Peter’s adult eyes glided around the faces. Most of them he didn’t remember. A few he could. There was Spencer, one of the older boys. A natural ringleader, he had that kind of self-confidence that inspired others who lack confidence in themselves. There was Larry and Mike, who seemed inseparable; you never found one without the other. And, oh yes, Foster. Among the smaller boys at camp, he sat there, staring seriously into the camera. He must have been eleven or twelve, but looked younger, one of those forever dreamy kids, always lost in a book or his own imagination.

  And more and more, Peter remembered the old cabin—its ragged look, the creepiness he felt walking past it, how it was kept locked and they were strictly forbidden to go in it. But nothing is more tempting to a bunch of Catholic boys than something that is “strictly forbidden,” so every boy there felt obliged to investigate it sometime during his two weeks at camp. The door was padlocked, but the back window could be easily opened, and it became a kind of game, a rite of passage, to sneak in at night and report back what one had seen.

  Billy had started it within the first week.

  “Me ’n Peter, we was in there the other night, and it was totally dark.”

  Ten of them were sitting around the fire after dinner. Billy was relating their expedition into the forbidden realm. He hunched forward, leaning into the circle, his voice low, lest the ghost (or, more likely, counselors) should overhear him. The other boys mimicked his posture, leaning in, all quiet as they listened. The fire crackled and snapped in the hushed silence, its flames highlighting Billy’s thin face. He looked around the circle. “And suddenly we heard breathing coming from behind us.”

  All eyes were glued on him. Including Peter’s. He hadn’t remembered hearing any breathing behind them but, now that Billy mentioned it, he realized, yeah, come to think of it, there was breathing behind us.

  “And without even turning around,” said Billy, “we knew it was the murdered kid. That he was in there with us.”

  A communal shiver passed through the group like an electric current.

  “Oooh!”

  “Wow!” they whispered.

  There comes a time in every boy’s life when he wants to be Stephen King. He wants to give his friends the creeper-jeepers. This frequently occurs when he’s at camp, sitting around a campfire, telling campfire stories. Billy was a master at this. Once he started it, the others all had their stories, and each one tried to top those before him.

  Another boy was relating his experience in the cabin. “And then I seen him. The dead kid. He had a hatchet stuck in his skull, and his face was covered in blood...”

  “Oh, man!”

  At his desk, Peter smiled, remembering the delicious creepy chills of those stories. They were all delightfully gory, grotesque, and gruesome; and the more gory, grotesque, and gruesome, the better. The boy who elicited the strongest reaction was the master storyteller for the evening. So, along with the creepy, it was also helpful to throw in the gross.

  “I seen him, too,” said Tommy McPherson, a
carrot-topped kid. “He was coming toward me. His stomach had been cut open, and his guts were spilling out...”

  “Eeww!”

  “Oh, gross!”

  “No way, man!”

  Clearly, Tommy was going to be a major contender that night.

  The enjoyment of these stories rested on a collective “suspension of disbelief,” like when you’re watching a horror film in the cinema. You know it’s not real but the audience has made a tacit agreement to believe it for the moment.

  “Mike and me was in there last summer,” said Larry, “and we saw him, too. His throat had been slit open. He was coming at us, and in his hand he was holding a hunting knife.” Mike nodded confirmation. It must be true. “Man, we got out of there fast!”

  Spencer jumped in. “Well, I saw him just last night, when the moon was full.” Their collective heads swung around to the older boy. He had the group’s full attention—and got extra points for including the full moon. (Damn, Peter thought, why didn’t Billy think of a full moon?)

  Spencer’s voice was low. “I turned around and saw him in the moonlight, coming out of the shadows. He was heading straight for me and in his hand…” Spencer’s eyes slowly swept around the circle, “he was holding his dick.”

  The group exploded into laughter.

  “Oh, man!”

  “Spencer!”

  Boy humor. Not exactly on par with Leno and Lettermen, but absolutely hilarious if you’re twelve or thirteen. Peter remembered that Spencer had a gift for destroying the mood, the one member of the audience who wouldn’t play along.

  The group was still laughing and howling and shouting at Spencer, when Foster, the serious little kid, said quietly, “Did you see the boy hanging from the ceiling?”

  The others stopped laughing and turned to him. He was poking at the fire with a long stick, gazing into its flames.

  “What?” asked Spencer.

  Foster continued staring into the fire, as if mesmerized by its dance. “He was hanging by a rope from one of the beams.” He said this with such quiet certainty that it had an unnerving effect on the other boys. They were all looking at him.

  Finally, Spencer broke the silence. “Oh, g’wan, man. That’s so lame.”

  Yeah, the other boys agreed, lame. Very lame.