Circle Of Friends - Mike

High school kids today are a little bit different than they were in the 1960’s. Back then a kid could drop out of school and still get a pretty good job in one of the many mines or sawmills, and if a kid went ahead and graduated he could walk into a really decent training position without even having a college degree. Another big difference was that most guys had Viet Nam looming in their future one way or the other so there wasn’t any big reason to get excited about preparing for a future career.

Michael Anthony was the exception. He was totally focused on his goal and nothing was going to keep him from achieving it. He had wanted an appointment to the Naval Academy since he was a little fart, or so he told us anyway, and he busted his ass all through school to get that appointment. He was a straight-A student and I thought back then that he was really brilliant, and it wasn’t until much later that I realized that wasn’t the case; he just worked and studied harder than any of the rest of us.

Physically he was rather immature. He didn’t need to shave very often even as a senior and although he kept himself pretty fit he never seemed very strong. He thought he needed a letter in some sport so he joined the swimming team. He wasn’t very good but the coach carried him anyway, mostly out of sympathy, and although he never won an event he did make varsity.

Mike never seemed to have a social life but back then I just figured he was too busy studying to get really involved with a girl. He dated now and then, of course, and he always had a date for the big things like to Junior Ball and the Senior Prom. I took out a girl who was real gossipy and she told me that all of her friends thought that Mike was a little strange. He was fun to be around but he never tried to get into their pants the way the rest of us did, and she wanted to know if I thought he might be a queer. No matter what I thought I sure as hell wouldn’t have told her anyway, so I just told her the truth; he was perfectly fine as far as I knew.

Mike had to be the happiest kid in the State when he got the letter from his Senator congratulating him on his appointment, and although some of his friends didn’t particularly agree that a “fifty thousand dollar education shoved up your ass a nickel at a time” was worth the bullshit that came with it, the rest of us slackers respected Mike for the commitment that he had made.

I left for Army boot camp right after graduation and Mike left for Annapolis. The basic ideal of basic training is to basically break you down to roughly the basis of basic dogshit and then remake you as a soldier and give you the basic skills required to take orders and die on command. I t was rough but I got through it and I firmly believe that most of the baggy panted little snots roaming the streets these days would greatly benefit by the discipline and training that was hammered into me when I was the same age. I was surprised as hell to see that Mike was also back in town when I came home on leave. He was dressed in what would best be call hippie clothes and was sporting a scraggly beard. Dad said that he had told them to shove the appointment up their asses and that he was now sort of a ‘peace advocate’, whatever the hell that was. I didn’t talk to him, and I was only there for a few days before going to Nam.

Dad sent me a few local newspapers while I was over there and one of them showed a picture of Mike getting arrested at the airport in Seattle. He had been part of a demonstration that had gotten out of hand and was arrested along with some other jerks that were spitting on returning soldiers. That sure wasn’t like the Mike that I used to know, but then again, the Army and Viet Nam wasn’t like anything that I used to know either.

I had just mustered out of the service at Fort Lewis when I next saw Mike. He was getting off of the bus in Seattle and was headed for the Armed Forces Induction Center to be processed with the other draftees as I was waiting to board a bus back home. I talked to him for a few minutes and he seemed totally dejected. He had lost his student deferment and had been re-classified as 1-A and then immediately drafted. I just told him to listen to the sergeants and to keep his ass down and he’d make it, but there were enough kids getting blown away over there that he saw right through my false optimism.

I didn’t see or hear from Mike again until he got out of the Army. I was working with Dad, and it was hot as hell so I stopped in at a local waterhole after work one Friday night. Mike was there, still dressed in his Utilities, and he was telling some other guys about his time in Nam. He started in on one story about how ‘some Rear Echelon Mother Fucker had been hassling him, so he took him out and showed him a thing or two about real soldiering’. I could have taken offense at that as I had been a REMF myself, but instead of saying something I just walked up and greeted him warmly, welcoming him home.

A lot of guys had a pretty rough time in Nam but I didn’t. One thing about the Army is that you are just like a soft cock: You go wherever you are pushed. I had been at basic a couple of weeks when I politely asked the sergeant for permission to use his typewriter. He was pounding out his reports one finger at a time on an old Royal Office Standard, and was making so many mistakes that the reports looked like absolute shit. Unlike most guys in the 1960’s I had taken a typing class and could make about ninety words or so a minute with out many errors. My handwriting was so terrible that my dad could hardly read it and I wanted to type a letter home.

The sergeant finished what he was working on, lit up a smoke, and watched me rip off a two-page letter, which only took a couple of minutes, before he collared me to finish his reports. That worked out great for me: While the other guys were on KP or some make-work chickenshit I was in doing the paperwork. I had no more than stepped off the airplane in Nam and joined the replacement pool before I was snapped up and sent to a cushy air-conditioned office at headquarters to be a clerk. I was issued a weapon, and I went to the range every week to burn up some ammo, but I never got out into the boondocks like the real soldiers.

Mike was pretty drunk, and looking at his eyes I could tell that he was also fucked up on something else. His speech was almost incoherent but I managed to get out of him that he had been in the boonies his entire tour. He said that he had been sort of punished for his anti-war activities, but now he didn’t give a shit about the Army, Peace, or anything else, that all he wanted to do was ‘stay high and coast’.

The Veteran’s Administration offers vets every opportunity to make a smooth transition from military to civilian life. Veterans are offer free health care, money for college or other technical training, and are given preference over non-vets for placement in both government jobs as well as the coveted apprenticeship programs for electricians and plumbers. Most returning vets bum around for a couple of months decompressing and then go on with their lives.

Mike already had two years of college and with his brains and study habits he could have went on to be a doctor, lawyer, or anything he desired, but instead he didn’t do a damn thing. He took various unskilled minimum wage jobs to augment the trust fund checks from his grandfather’s estate and rented a small room in one of the old hotels in town and stayed either stoned or drunk. I’d run into him now and then, but he was always on a different level, or planet for that matter, and most of the time it was hard as hell to understand what he was talking about.

He had an old piece of shit Ford Falcon until he wrecked it and lost his license at the same time. I would see him around but I tried my best to avoid having to talk to the nut case. He continued to wear old Army clothes long after he had outgrown the ones he had been issued, and he let his beard grow to the point that he looked like a bum, which he essentially was. His name would pop up in the newspapers now and then in the police reports, and I know he did a couple of little stints in the county jail. I never learned just what had happened to push him over the edge and I didn’t really want to know. His current problems seemed to be mostly booze and drugs and I figured that I would see his name in the obituary column before too long.

I am a reasonably good pool shot so I joined a winter league a couple of years ago. The tavern I frequent was sponsoring a team and it seemed like a good way to kill one evening a week and drink a little beer at the same time. Our first match was with the Shamrock, which is located in a part of town that I rarely get to. The Shamrock is just a dirty old bar in the basement of a tenement building but they have about the best pool team around.

We lost, badly, and were having a consolation beer when Mike wandered in. He spotted me immediately and elbowed his way in beside me at the bar. I was about done and was trying to make a graceful exit but he kept talking to me, so I finally ordered another beer and resigned myself to listening to him ramble for a little while. He was remarkably coherent that night and after a while he asked me if I remembered the Kitten Club in Saigon.

There were thousands of bar girls, or free-lance whores in Saigon, and hundreds of cathouses, but only a few like the Kitten Club that prostituted very young girls. A bunch of us went there one time and viewed the wares. Tiny little girls of indeterminate age were on display. They had only small buds for breasts and closely shaved pussies so small that it was hard to imagine them accommodating adult western cocks. Older girls, many of whom were absolutely stunning, were available for practically nothing and it was hard for me to get worked up over the prospect of having sex with young children, particularly when it cost most of a month’s pay for an alleged virgin.

“Yeah,” I answered Mike. “I remember the place.”

“They had boys there too. Pretty good stuff.” Mike informed me.

“What?” I wasn’t sure that I herd him correctly.

“I took a boy one time.” Mike replied, apparently unashamed of the perversion. “I had been out in the boonies for a couple of weeks and I knew that sooner or later I’d buy a bullet or a Bouncing Betty, and I’d always wondered what it would be like so I went to the Kitten Club and bought a boy for the night. He wasn’t more than twelve or thirteen years old and his nuts had just dropped. He gave me the best blow job I’d ever had and then let me fuck his ass. Wow! Talk about tight! It was better than any pussy I’d ever had. The next morning I sucked his cock and even let him fuck me. He was so small that he just kind of tickled my ass, didn’t hurt at all.”

That revelation was one I could have done without. I didn’t think too highly of Mike then anyway, and his being gay didn’t really make much difference. He would have had a hell of a time in the Army, though. Back then there wasn’t any of this touchy-feely don’t ask don’t tell bullshit; a gay man would have either had the shit beat out of him or gotten a court marshal with prison time or most likely both. Having a fondness for boys or men would have been difficult to hide, even in wartime Viet Nam.

I finished my beer and left. All the next month I pondered what he had told me, and kind of wondered if I should tell the police that there was a person in the neighborhood who professed to liking little boys, but finally dismissed it on the basis that no boy would ever get close enough to the hairy, unwashed old drunk for him to make a move.

We lost again at the Shamrock two months later, and before I could make an escape Mike collared me.

“I’ve always liked you, Jeff.” He was pretty drunk, but still coherent. “I thought that you were about the neatest guy in school.”

“Your barking up the wrong tree, Bud,” I cut him short and started to leave. I wasn’t sure where he was headed, but I wasn’t about to go there with him.

“Not as an asshole buddy, Jeff, as a friend.” He said, giving me a wounded look. “So I want to tell you what happened a while back.”

I wasn’t particularly interested in what he had to say but there was something in his eyes that told me he was desperate to share it, so I let him continue.

“There’s this kid that walked by my place every morning on his way to school. He had to be thirteen or fourteen years old, they all look so young now. Anyway, I got to thinking about all the opportunities I had missed when I was that age, all the pussy I could have had if I’d only had enough balls to go for it, and yes, I know what you’re thinking, all the cock that I now wish I had sucked.

“The kid was skinny, had a bad case of zits, and wasn’t very well dressed but I still wanted to trade places with him. I never talked to him but I watched him every morning and fantasized about what I would do if I were he. I finally went down to take a closer look at the boy, and maybe even talk to him. He didn’t have any beard at all, just a light dusting of fine hair on his lip. I didn’t want to hit on the boy, just talk to him a few minutes and ask him how school was, rather or not he had gotten any yet, maybe ask him how long his cock was, you know, just guy stuff.”

I remembered talking that way to other kids when I was a teenager, but no way in hell would we have talked about those things with an adult stranger.

“So I walked up to the kid and said ‘hey, how’s it hanging’ real cool like, and the kid stopped and looked right at me, and right then it was like I’m that kid!”

How’s that again?” I asked, somewhat confused by what he had just said.

“I’m telling you, I traded minds with him! I had my mind, but I was in his body, and it was just my mind in there, his mind was in my body. He kept looking at himself wondering what the hell was going on, and he finally set down on the curb to sort it all out.

I led him up to his, or rather my room and left him there and went on towards the school. It was fantastic! I had so much energy that I felt like I could jump ten feet in the air and run a hundred miles an hour! Being a kid again was better than any drugs I had ever taken.”

I figured that drugs he had taken recently were probably behind this hallucination, but I let him keep talking.

“The first thing I did was step into an alley and open his, or rather my pants and take a look down there. I had to know how well hung I was and how much hair I had. It was weird being able to look straight down and see my cock, I haven’t been able to do that in years. I damn near stroked myself right there to see how big and hard I got, but instead I buttoned up and headed towards the school. I didn’t have a clue what classes I was in, where my locker might be, or even just who I even was for that matter, but I didn’t care.

“I got to the school and sat down outside and looked at my books. My name was Pete Simpson, and I was a freshman, and I evidently had a rotten memory because my locker number, lock combination, and class schedule were all noted on the inside cover of my notebook. I was trying to sort out what I should do when two girls walked up. They both had on tight jeans, you know how kids dress these days, and I took one look at that magnificent young ass and just reached out and grabbed a handful of it.”

“That should have gotten her attention.” I commented. I wasn’t sure if he was shitting me or if he had dreamed the whole thing or what, but it was a pretty good story so I let him continue.

“Yeah, it did that all right. She turned around and kneed me in the balls. Hurt so bad that I dropped to my knees.

“All the kids who saw it started laughing and congratulating me, and about the time I could get back up the first bell rang. A kid who had helped me get back to my feet told me to get a move on or we’d be late for Algebra, so I just followed him. I had been good at Algebra when I was in school and it all came back to me, and I even raised my hand and answered a question. The best thing about the class was the teacher. You remember how ancient even the young teachers seemed when we were in school? Well, this babe was hot! About twenty-three or twenty-four, blonde, real nice rack, and they even wear pants now instead of dresses like when we were kids, and there was no hiding that ass of hers.

“The next class was English, and the teacher gave us a creative writing assignment, which we were to start in class and finish as homework. I was seated right behind the little bitch who had given me the knee, so I composed a long letter about how I would like to field strip her, lick her pussy until she was sopping wet, and then hump the living shit out of her right on top of one of the desks.

“I had a Science class next and the teacher and a couple of the other kids kept giving me real funny looks when I spoke up in that voice that I still didn’t recognize to answer questions. Evidently Pete was somewhat of a bonehead.

“The bell rang at noon so I followed some other kids to where I hoped the cafeteria was. I didn’t have any money in my pockets, but I was hungry as hell and hoped that I had an account or something so I could get something to eat.

“A door opened and I felt a hand reach out and pull me inside a small office. It was the girl who had earlier kneed me. She was holding the letter that I had started in English. It must have fallen out of my pack and she must have found it and realized that it was about her.”

“Is this how you really feel about me?” She asked, accusingly.

“Yes’. I answered, with a smile. ‘It sure the fuck is.’ She went over and locked the door and then sat on the edge of the desk and shed her pants, and I forgot all about lunch. I don’t know if Pete had lost his cherry yet or how long it had been since he had jacked off, but he, or I, was still a horny little shit and it was over with way too soon.”

The beer I had been drinking got to me so I interrupted his Stephen King moment and went to the can to take a piss. I still didn’t know if he expected me to believe this line of bullshit, but I had to admit that it was a pretty good story.

“My first class after lunch was P.E., so I followed some other kids to the locker room. I stood in line and they gave me my basket with Pete’s gym clothes in it, so I sat down on the bench and stripped down, wondering if it showed that I had just had sex. The guy beside me said that I was acting kind of funny, like I was on drugs or something, and I took one look at the beautiful little hunk with his almost hairless balls dangling low beneath a pink, slender cock and offered him a blow job. He got all red and embarrassed and didn’t say anything, but as soon as we were out on the field he led me to a secluded place behind the grandstands.”

“What you said earlier?” The kid challenged, dropping his shorts to reveal a swelling boner. “Well, prove it!”

“I did, and as proof of my appreciation for his contribution I swallowed every drop. It was great; even better than the boy I had taken in Saigon all those years ago.

“My next two classes were both in Computer Programming, which I don’t know anything about, so I cut them and went back home. I walked up the stairs to my room and found myself, or who I used to be, had his pants down and was stroking his cock. I didn’t say anything; I just dropped my own pants and sat down beside myself on the bed. The old man knelt between my legs and started sucking me off. It was absolutely fantastic; it must have been like what sucking your own cock would be like. The sensation of the old man’s beard brushing against my balls and his tongue working around the head of my dick gave me the feeling that my cock was a foot long and when I finally came the orgasm was so intense that I blacked out for a few seconds.”

“Sounds to me like you had a hell of a trip.” I commented. I didn’t like the way he was telling this, and he was so worked up that I almost expected him to go to the restroom or outside somewhere and jack off.

“Pete was gone when I woke up. My cock was still out and my mouth was full of his cum. Once you taste it you never forget the taste and it can’t be mistaken it for anything else. I know it all sounds like bullshit, but that’s the way it was. I never saw the boy again, and I think he found a new route to use to get to school.”

I didn’t believe it, of course, but the important thing is that Mike did. The human mind is an amazing thing even without the influence of whatever hallucigenics he had added, and under the right circumstances I’m sure that Mike could make himself believe that he could soar with the eagles on his own feathery wings. I finished my beer, bought him another, and went back home.

A month or so later I had sort of a low key dinner date with another former classmate, a lady that I had dated for a while and who now worked in the VA clinic in town. I picked her up at her house and on the way to the restaurant we happened to drive by Mike.

“You two were pretty good friends in high school, as I recall.” She commented.

“Yeah, we were, but the guy’s so strung out all of the time now that I can’t stand to even be around him.” I answered.

“Well, given what he’s been through it’s no wonder he’s a little messed up.” She explained.

I told her that the way I saw it his only real problem was the drugs that he had gotten into, and that he hadn’t been any more traumatized by the war than any of the other guys who hadn’t went off the deep end when they got back home. She was a councilor of some kind and she sort of resented me telling her my opinion on a subject that she was supposed to know all about.

“That’s easy for you to say!” She chided me. “You didn’t lose your balls over there and come home a eunuch!”

“What?” I exclaimed, pulling over to the curb and stopping the car. “What was that you said?”

“I’m really not supposed to release information like that,” she said, embarrassed by her disclosure. “You two were such good friends that I thought you knew. He comes into the clinic every couple of weeks for hormone shots. The official report states that he got castrated in enemy action, but he told me under hypnosis that some of his own guys found out that he was gay and took him out in the jungle and nutted him with his own bayonet.”

Mike is still around, and every time I see him I can’t help but wonder; was his story just bullshit or did he really trade minds for a day with a boy?

Author’s note. This is the last story in this series. All of the characters are fictitious, but all resemble kids that we have all known from school. The author’s experiences, as related, are all true except for any involvements in the various castrations described.