He would have made an excellent father, except that wasn’t a dream we were supposed to have. Hell, we weren’t even supposed to be together, much less get married and have a
family. Two men together was even against the law, but the heart
doesn’t follow popular opinion or laws and regulations. The being
together we could do, but the family…..not so much.
It was because of children that we met. We both loved kids, though I must admit to liking them more for the paycheck they generated rather than because they were wonderful. But He……He was a teacher in a school that handled a lot of special needs kids. His classroom had a dozen ten year olds that he called his children, all of them with various behavioral issues. It amazed me how he and Percy, his classroom assistant, managed to teach the kids actual facts and figures in amongst all the behaviors that kept the children from regular schools. Both of them had the teacher voice – you know the one that made your stomach do weird things when you heard it, knowing that you’ve done something not quite up to their expectations of you? The day we met I heard that voice and even though it wasn’t directed at me, it struck like lightening and tingled for the next few days as I kept running into Him.
Northlands had hired me for a week. I was a clown with an appetite for knowledge about what makes people tick. When I was young I read true crime novels. That carried over into psychology books about those criminals which lead further back into how they were raised. I devoured book after book and while I was performing for all sorts of children, I developed different shows that might appeal or be better for those kids that faced challenges. I like to be different.
So here I was, in front of His classroom, halfway through my show. Let me tell you, kids are a tough audience. If you’re not having the best day, kids can tell and they have no problem calling you out on anything. I learned quickly that if I was having a bad day, I had to figure out a way to drop all of that as I stepped on my stage. It’s hard. There are those days when you’re just in a sucky mood and you can’t or don’t want to let go of that feeling. I can mostly let those days go, because being called out for sucking by kids is a heck of lot worse than letting go of that, and sometimes feeling better by the end because of the children’s laughter.
I had just pulled a rabbit out of my shoe. I know, most people pull rabbits out of hats but as I said, I like to be different. The rabbit was obviously happy to see daylight and didn’t want to go back in his cage. He gave a mighty kick and wound up on the floor. That was too exciting for two of the kids, both of whom came flying towards the rabbit. I didn’t see Him move, but as I was bending down to grab the rabbit, He was bending over to stop the two children from grabbing him as well and our heads knocked together.
If I wanted to be more romantic, I’d say that I saw stars, then came to with an Angel carrying me off into the happily ever after. Instead, I stood up, grabbing my head and thought Ow! and then lightening struck. He had a hand on one shoulder of each child and said “Do NOT touch the rabbit.” Yup, I’m a weirdo and that was all that I needed to hear to fall madly, deeply in love. I didn’t know it at first, of course. I just thought that there must have been a nerve connected to the bump on my head that shot down through my stomach and out through my toes.
Deimos – most people think bunnies are cute and cuddly so he HAD to have that name – hopped over to the side and hid behind a trash can. The two children were escorted back to their pillows on the floor, with a stern reminder to stay put, and then He came to check on me. I had to swallow a smile because he had a smudge of my face paint on his face, looking for all intents and purposes like a child having gotten too creative with paint they were supposed to be putting on paper.
“I’m so sorry, are you okay?” He asked, taking a deep look into my soul. I blinked to break the spell and took a step back. I had never met anyone that seemed to think they were allowed that deep inside me, even before we’d officially met.
“I….I’m fine. Where did Deimos go?” Not sure why I was stuttering, other than for just having my head bumped, as I looked away from him, though I didn’t miss that twinkling eye and slight upturn of his mouth when I named the bunny.
“This cute little thing surely doesn’t have anything to do with dread and terror?” He said, picking up Deimos and bringing him back to me.
“That is kind of the point?”
“What point is that?”
I took Deimos and put him into his cage, locking the door to prevent another escape attempt as I tried to come up with an answer. His casual questions were sounding a bit interrogating. “Juxtaposition.”
“I haven’t met a clown with such a wide ranging vocabulary.”
I managed to get my eyes up to meet his. “There’s a lot more where that came from.”
“Where did the rabbit go?” a small voice said from the middle of the pillows. Both of us blinked and returned to the classroom with what felt like a resounding thud that everyone could hear. I managed to finish my show and escape the room while He and Percy were getting the morning snack together for their kids.
He told me later that Percy put her foot up his behind so that he’d actually ask me for my number, since I was only on day two of the four I was supposed to be in the school. She was a really lovely woman who didn’t see why everyone shouldn’t be able to love who they wanted to and I thanked her for that many times. The fact that he fell in love with me, without even seeing my real face, was amazing.
We met Philip Winthrop in 1981 because of Jake. Jake’s home was in flux and Philip decided the best course of action was to take him out of the city and move him to the middle of nowhere, which turned out to be a beautiful ranch in Wyoming. He was hired to visit the ranch to give Philip some help in getting Jake settled and schooled. What was supposed to be a two week, well paid vacation turned into finding our extended family for life. Philip was kind enough to invite the both of us and it was two of the most blissful weeks in my life to that point. Here was a house where you could show affection without worry, where you could run outside for miles completely naked and not see another soul, where there were horses and birds and trees and grass and mountains…..well, you get the point. Totally unlike Boston where you will see trees, but they’re manicured to within an inch of their lives and placed just so.
I hadn’t seen anyone else in a discipline relationship before. Didn’t even know there was a term for it, or that it was a thing. And no, I didn’t see anyone get spanked while we were there, but you could just feel that …current. I suppose you have to be wired for it to come across that way, because nothing was ever right in your face. You could just tell that Philip had IT, same as He did.
It was a very…..arousing two weeks. It had been a long time since my teens but I sure as hell felt like a teenager that fortnight, discovering a whole bunch of stuff I hadn’t known existed, was allowed to exist, especially for people like us. If someone had asked me to write down my dreams, this was it.
Three days in, He grabbed a bag, a blanket and my hand and we walked out into the pastures. We walked for a couple of hours, never in a hurry, and just talking about our good luck in having Jake in His classroom. I was getting rather hungry and had asked several times to stop and have our picnic, but He kept saying no, this wasn’t the spot.
The spot ended up being beneath a single large tree. It was on the crest of a hill, with a view for miles. You couldn’t pick a better view. You could tell the river was off in the distance because the trees were lining it. There were mountains elegantly placed behind that, a couple of them still seemed to have some snow left on them, even though it was early summer. There was a lazy breeze blowing, just enough to move the air, bringing amazing freshness with each breath. You could hear some birds calling to one another now and again but otherwise there was silence. Absolute, total silence. Boston wasn’t a loud city, but it wasn’t until you were in a place where there wasn’t anything mechanical within miles that you realized how much background noise there is in everyday cities.
The blanket got spread, the shoes came off and we settled on it and totally enjoyed the bits of meats and cheeses and crackers that were in the bag. It was topped off by a couple of apples and would have only been better with a bottle of wine. There was nothing that needed to be done, no place we needed to be and it was GOOD to relax.
We must have bored ourselves to tears because I woke up feeling a little warm. We had situated ourselves near the edge of the shade and the sun had moved, leaving my feet and calves in the sun. I poked Him, planning on getting up and getting back to the house but that didn't happen for a while longer. My poke elicited a deep and wonderful grumble and we rolled around on the blanket doing things to each other that would have gotten us arrested in Boston, but was blessedly, perfectly right in Wyoming. We barely made it back in time for dinner and it was one of the best days of my life. We had found our extended family and it was the best feeling in the world.
"William, come here."
I nearly jumped out of my skin as my gaze returned to the paint in front of me as my stomach landed somewhere near my toes. I slowly turned from the corner, torn as always between the relief that I'm out of the corner vying with the knowledge that what comes after that moment in time is nothing to look forward to. I take the few steps over to him, tears already stinging my eyes. He's pulling the chair out away from the table and the screech it makes sounding like my stomach is being pulled along behind me.
He has taken a seat in the chair. I have never figured out how someone can have such a commanding presence, even when I'm towering over them, but he does it well. His arms are well defined, just like the rest of him. Solid and strong, and still not an ounce of fat anywhere.
"What did you decide?" He asked in that teacher voice that reached all the way inside. Now was definitely not the time to confess to having the best parts of your life flash before your eyes when you were supposed to be thinking about your answer to this question the whole time you were in the corner. Since this was a recurring issue, I didn't really need all the time he afforded me to answer.
I swallowed to clear the lump that had formed in my throat and had to start twice to get out my reply without sounding like a ten year old child. "I......I need to check with you before purchasing anything that even resembles soap or lotion."
"And why is that a good idea?" He asks, as if I might have forgotten the answer to THAT question as well.
"Because I purchase too much, but -"
"Because we will be, our entire extended family will be, and probably every horse, cow and sheep on the ranch will be, clean and smelling like a daisy for months if there ever comes a time when the last bar of soap is ever manufactured. We. Have. Enough."
It's SO not appropriate to laugh out loud at that preposterous statement. So I work hard at not doing so but guess I wasn't controlling my mouth as well as I thought.
"It is not a laughing matter, William."
"It is a tiny bit. TINY bit. I don't think the horses want to smell like daisies. They would probably prefer to smell like marshmallows, or coconut, not flowers."
That didn't stop the spanking, and it was a good one, complete with promises, tears, and I'm ashamed to say a lot of blubbering. He's really good at making his point and I didn't buy any more lotion or soaps for at least an entire month that time. I was in the doghouse for a few days, but that didn't dampen the pleasure I felt in seeing the corner of his mouth upturn when he would have preferred it not to, nor the sparkle in his eyes right before I lost my pants, and my dignity, at his hands.
It was because of children that we met. We both loved kids, though I must admit to liking them more for the paycheck they generated rather than because they were wonderful. But He……He was a teacher in a school that handled a lot of special needs kids. His classroom had a dozen ten year olds that he called his children, all of them with various behavioral issues. It amazed me how he and Percy, his classroom assistant, managed to teach the kids actual facts and figures in amongst all the behaviors that kept the children from regular schools. Both of them had the teacher voice – you know the one that made your stomach do weird things when you heard it, knowing that you’ve done something not quite up to their expectations of you? The day we met I heard that voice and even though it wasn’t directed at me, it struck like lightening and tingled for the next few days as I kept running into Him.
Northlands had hired me for a week. I was a clown with an appetite for knowledge about what makes people tick. When I was young I read true crime novels. That carried over into psychology books about those criminals which lead further back into how they were raised. I devoured book after book and while I was performing for all sorts of children, I developed different shows that might appeal or be better for those kids that faced challenges. I like to be different.
So here I was, in front of His classroom, halfway through my show. Let me tell you, kids are a tough audience. If you’re not having the best day, kids can tell and they have no problem calling you out on anything. I learned quickly that if I was having a bad day, I had to figure out a way to drop all of that as I stepped on my stage. It’s hard. There are those days when you’re just in a sucky mood and you can’t or don’t want to let go of that feeling. I can mostly let those days go, because being called out for sucking by kids is a heck of lot worse than letting go of that, and sometimes feeling better by the end because of the children’s laughter.
I had just pulled a rabbit out of my shoe. I know, most people pull rabbits out of hats but as I said, I like to be different. The rabbit was obviously happy to see daylight and didn’t want to go back in his cage. He gave a mighty kick and wound up on the floor. That was too exciting for two of the kids, both of whom came flying towards the rabbit. I didn’t see Him move, but as I was bending down to grab the rabbit, He was bending over to stop the two children from grabbing him as well and our heads knocked together.
If I wanted to be more romantic, I’d say that I saw stars, then came to with an Angel carrying me off into the happily ever after. Instead, I stood up, grabbing my head and thought Ow! and then lightening struck. He had a hand on one shoulder of each child and said “Do NOT touch the rabbit.” Yup, I’m a weirdo and that was all that I needed to hear to fall madly, deeply in love. I didn’t know it at first, of course. I just thought that there must have been a nerve connected to the bump on my head that shot down through my stomach and out through my toes.
Deimos – most people think bunnies are cute and cuddly so he HAD to have that name – hopped over to the side and hid behind a trash can. The two children were escorted back to their pillows on the floor, with a stern reminder to stay put, and then He came to check on me. I had to swallow a smile because he had a smudge of my face paint on his face, looking for all intents and purposes like a child having gotten too creative with paint they were supposed to be putting on paper.
“I’m so sorry, are you okay?” He asked, taking a deep look into my soul. I blinked to break the spell and took a step back. I had never met anyone that seemed to think they were allowed that deep inside me, even before we’d officially met.
“I….I’m fine. Where did Deimos go?” Not sure why I was stuttering, other than for just having my head bumped, as I looked away from him, though I didn’t miss that twinkling eye and slight upturn of his mouth when I named the bunny.
“This cute little thing surely doesn’t have anything to do with dread and terror?” He said, picking up Deimos and bringing him back to me.
“That is kind of the point?”
“What point is that?”
I took Deimos and put him into his cage, locking the door to prevent another escape attempt as I tried to come up with an answer. His casual questions were sounding a bit interrogating. “Juxtaposition.”
“I haven’t met a clown with such a wide ranging vocabulary.”
I managed to get my eyes up to meet his. “There’s a lot more where that came from.”
“Where did the rabbit go?” a small voice said from the middle of the pillows. Both of us blinked and returned to the classroom with what felt like a resounding thud that everyone could hear. I managed to finish my show and escape the room while He and Percy were getting the morning snack together for their kids.
He told me later that Percy put her foot up his behind so that he’d actually ask me for my number, since I was only on day two of the four I was supposed to be in the school. She was a really lovely woman who didn’t see why everyone shouldn’t be able to love who they wanted to and I thanked her for that many times. The fact that he fell in love with me, without even seeing my real face, was amazing.
We met Philip Winthrop in 1981 because of Jake. Jake’s home was in flux and Philip decided the best course of action was to take him out of the city and move him to the middle of nowhere, which turned out to be a beautiful ranch in Wyoming. He was hired to visit the ranch to give Philip some help in getting Jake settled and schooled. What was supposed to be a two week, well paid vacation turned into finding our extended family for life. Philip was kind enough to invite the both of us and it was two of the most blissful weeks in my life to that point. Here was a house where you could show affection without worry, where you could run outside for miles completely naked and not see another soul, where there were horses and birds and trees and grass and mountains…..well, you get the point. Totally unlike Boston where you will see trees, but they’re manicured to within an inch of their lives and placed just so.
I hadn’t seen anyone else in a discipline relationship before. Didn’t even know there was a term for it, or that it was a thing. And no, I didn’t see anyone get spanked while we were there, but you could just feel that …current. I suppose you have to be wired for it to come across that way, because nothing was ever right in your face. You could just tell that Philip had IT, same as He did.
It was a very…..arousing two weeks. It had been a long time since my teens but I sure as hell felt like a teenager that fortnight, discovering a whole bunch of stuff I hadn’t known existed, was allowed to exist, especially for people like us. If someone had asked me to write down my dreams, this was it.
Three days in, He grabbed a bag, a blanket and my hand and we walked out into the pastures. We walked for a couple of hours, never in a hurry, and just talking about our good luck in having Jake in His classroom. I was getting rather hungry and had asked several times to stop and have our picnic, but He kept saying no, this wasn’t the spot.
The spot ended up being beneath a single large tree. It was on the crest of a hill, with a view for miles. You couldn’t pick a better view. You could tell the river was off in the distance because the trees were lining it. There were mountains elegantly placed behind that, a couple of them still seemed to have some snow left on them, even though it was early summer. There was a lazy breeze blowing, just enough to move the air, bringing amazing freshness with each breath. You could hear some birds calling to one another now and again but otherwise there was silence. Absolute, total silence. Boston wasn’t a loud city, but it wasn’t until you were in a place where there wasn’t anything mechanical within miles that you realized how much background noise there is in everyday cities.
The blanket got spread, the shoes came off and we settled on it and totally enjoyed the bits of meats and cheeses and crackers that were in the bag. It was topped off by a couple of apples and would have only been better with a bottle of wine. There was nothing that needed to be done, no place we needed to be and it was GOOD to relax.
We must have bored ourselves to tears because I woke up feeling a little warm. We had situated ourselves near the edge of the shade and the sun had moved, leaving my feet and calves in the sun. I poked Him, planning on getting up and getting back to the house but that didn't happen for a while longer. My poke elicited a deep and wonderful grumble and we rolled around on the blanket doing things to each other that would have gotten us arrested in Boston, but was blessedly, perfectly right in Wyoming. We barely made it back in time for dinner and it was one of the best days of my life. We had found our extended family and it was the best feeling in the world.
"William, come here."
I nearly jumped out of my skin as my gaze returned to the paint in front of me as my stomach landed somewhere near my toes. I slowly turned from the corner, torn as always between the relief that I'm out of the corner vying with the knowledge that what comes after that moment in time is nothing to look forward to. I take the few steps over to him, tears already stinging my eyes. He's pulling the chair out away from the table and the screech it makes sounding like my stomach is being pulled along behind me.
He has taken a seat in the chair. I have never figured out how someone can have such a commanding presence, even when I'm towering over them, but he does it well. His arms are well defined, just like the rest of him. Solid and strong, and still not an ounce of fat anywhere.
"What did you decide?" He asked in that teacher voice that reached all the way inside. Now was definitely not the time to confess to having the best parts of your life flash before your eyes when you were supposed to be thinking about your answer to this question the whole time you were in the corner. Since this was a recurring issue, I didn't really need all the time he afforded me to answer.
I swallowed to clear the lump that had formed in my throat and had to start twice to get out my reply without sounding like a ten year old child. "I......I need to check with you before purchasing anything that even resembles soap or lotion."
"And why is that a good idea?" He asks, as if I might have forgotten the answer to THAT question as well.
"Because I purchase too much, but -"
"Because we will be, our entire extended family will be, and probably every horse, cow and sheep on the ranch will be, clean and smelling like a daisy for months if there ever comes a time when the last bar of soap is ever manufactured. We. Have. Enough."
It's SO not appropriate to laugh out loud at that preposterous statement. So I work hard at not doing so but guess I wasn't controlling my mouth as well as I thought.
"It is not a laughing matter, William."
"It is a tiny bit. TINY bit. I don't think the horses want to smell like daisies. They would probably prefer to smell like marshmallows, or coconut, not flowers."
That didn't stop the spanking, and it was a good one, complete with promises, tears, and I'm ashamed to say a lot of blubbering. He's really good at making his point and I didn't buy any more lotion or soaps for at least an entire month that time. I was in the doghouse for a few days, but that didn't dampen the pleasure I felt in seeing the corner of his mouth upturn when he would have preferred it not to, nor the sparkle in his eyes right before I lost my pants, and my dignity, at his hands.
The End
Copyright Rolf & Ranger 2021
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