Week 2

Danny walked back to his original seat and was soon joined by Jeremy, who was excitedly debating whether to try out for Romeo or Mercutio. He nattered on for several minutes before noticing that Danny was sitting glum and silent with his arms crossed over his chest.

"Which do you think I should try out for?" Jeremy asked, cocking his head to one side.

"That would depend," Danny smiled at him, the adorably cocked head lifting his spirits, "on whether you want to kill me or be killed by me."

"How so?"

"Please don't tell anybody about this," Danny whispered confidentially, "But Mr. Oland wants me to play Tybalt. And if I don't, my Aunt Claudia might renege on her promise to pay for the costumes."

"But that's great!" Jeremy enthused, "I wish I had an aunt who would guarantee me a role."

"Your talent guarantees you a role, Jeremy," Danny told him earnestly, "But everyone knows I couldn't act my way out of a wet paper bag, and that I'll be playing Tybalt because I'm a Vandervere."

"Wet paper bag," Jeremy snickered at the phrase, "But I can coach you, nobody will care that you got the role because of your name, once you show them you really can act."

"We'll be coaching each-other, then," Danny smiled fondly at Jeremy and stroked the back of his hand, "I'm to teach Mercutio and Romeo how to fence for the sword-fight scenes."

"That'll be fun," Jeremy said with a certain lack of enthusiasm; he was not an athlete and found strenuous physical activity boring, "So, which role do you think I should audition for?"

"You'd be wonderful in either," Danny said thoughtfully, "but I think I'd rather see you as Mercutio. He's not onstage as much, but he's so different from your own personality; Romeo wouldn't be enough of a stretch. And you'd have to kiss Felicia, which I don't think you'd like."

"Is she that bad of a kisser?" Jeremy looked alarmed.

"No, she's a fantastic kisser. She might turn you straight, and then what would I do?" Danny poked him playfully under the ribs where he was ticklish.

"Stop, someone will see!" he whispered, giggling.

"So what if they see?" Danny was often mystified by Jeremy's unwillingness to be public about their relationship. But Danny was a Vandervere, and had never been teased or bullied by a classmate in his entire life, so had little understanding of the risk most gay kids run by being obvious in high school.

"People! People!" Mr. Oland drew the club's attention again, this time to lead them in a discussion of lighting techniques, giving them examples of different moods, different colors for different actors, and how to use the lightboard. Though the actors would prefer to just act, and the crew would prefer to just deal with the stage, Mr. Oland believed that any denizen of the theatre should know about every aspect of a dramatic production: actors must know about stagecraft and crew should know how to act. Danny of course preferred the technical lectures, and was always embarrassed when he had to take part in dramatic exercises and improvisations; Jeremy found the discussion of lights pointless and tuned out, spending the whole hour thinking over what Danny had told him about playing Mercutio.

******

As usual after drama club, Jeremy and Danny spent the afternoon together, ostensibly to study but mostly just to be together for a little while without their peers watching them. Jeremy's parents were very strict about their son's time and didn't like for him to go out after school; if it was anybody less than Danny Vandervere asking permission for Jeremy to stay out late on a Thursday afternoon, they would have refused -- but one doesn't refuse a Vandervere. So awed were they by a Vandervere taking interest in their son, they probably would have even approved of them dating.

Vandervere High School sits on the edge of the old town, at the intersection of three main roads: Pine Street, which bisects the old town through the square; Lake Road, which leads not very surprisingly to Lake Augusta, a manmade body of water created by damming the Augusta River for electricity, which was surrounded by recreational facilities and a resort hotel, and on the western shore of which Danny's family home stood; and Watertown Road, which led to the Vandervere Mills' springwater bottling plant and a subdivision of homes that had been built in the eighties to accomodate the new plant's employees.

There was an electric streetcar system that ran along these roads, connecting the old town to the subdivisions and the mills and plants, built in the 30s and maintained as a free service by the Vandervere Trust; but Danny and Jeremy walked, since Pine Street was only a little over a mile long, and their destination was at the other end from the high school: the original Vandervere Mansion, a monstrous Gothic-and-gingerbread fantasia bristling with turrets and dormers, gables and cupolas and oriels, in which dwelt Miss Mathilda, Miss Myrtle, and Miss Maude Vandervere, collectively know as the Aunt Ems.

These three unmarried and slightly eccentric old ladies, the sisters of Danny's grandfather, were the only Vanderveres who actually loved Danny; they had taken him under their collective wing when he was twelve, overseeing his education as a "gentleman" by hiring extra tutors as well as music and dance instructors for him, teaching him etiquette and poise along with the more ceremonious social skills -- Danny was probably the only sixteen-year-old in the county, perhaps even the state, who could bone a fish at table, dance every dance at a cotillion, and play a skillful game of bridge.

Danny had been going to the Aunt Ems' every day after school since the sixth grade, and though he never slept there, he had his own room in the mansion. He always met the mannish eldest sister Aunt Mathilda at the Town Library on the square, where she served as head librarian and official town historian, and walked with her the rest of the way up Pine Street to the the younger two sisters, Myrtle and Maude, identical twins who still shared the same room at the age of eighty; high tea was then served in the shadow-cluttered music room by Oscar, a creaking butler so old he referred to himself as "colored."

After tea, Danny was taught piano and voice and dance under the eyes of the Aunt Ems, then retired with whatever academic tutor he was working under at the time to a dark-paneled study filled with the taxidermied remains of now-endangered or -extinct animals slain by his ancestors before the first World War; on Saturdays, he came into town with Mrs. Espinosa, his family's housekeeper, to do the marketing, and spent the rest of the day with the Aunt Ems learning directly from them about family history, table-setting, flower-arranging, appreciating opera, and the various philanthropic duties that fell to the rich in service of the poor.

Then at six o'clock, Oscar would drive Danny back to his parents' house in the Aunt Ems' bulbous old Cadillac limousine, not speaking one word the entire way until he opened the door to the car and said "Good evening, Master Marcus."

All of the Aunt Ems called him Marcus, which was in fact his name: Marcus Daniel Vandervere IV, though the rest of the family called him Marc-Daniel since the name Marcus had seemed too grandiose for a little boy, and he preferred to call himself Danny because he said the name Marc-Daniel sounded "like a Pekinese coughing"; but the second holder of Danny's name was the Aunt Ems' father, and in the grand tradition of elderly maiden ladies they worshipped and venerated their father, so they considered the name Marcus a compliment of the highest order.

Danny was devoted to the Aunt Ems, and they were the only feature of his day that he would not give up for his sexual pursuits. He did, however, start bringing friends with him on his after-school visits, and the Aunt Ems were not always enchanted with Danny's varied fuck-buddies; but they were especially fond of the pretty, gentle Jeremy, and Aunt Mathilda lit up when she saw him accompanying Danny into the library.

"Ah, Mr. Sinclair, how delightful," Aunt Mathilda said in her oddly brusque voice, which made even the frothiest pleasantries sound like the bark of a female drill-sergeant; she was dressed in one of her typical suits, the heathered blue herringbone jacket cut and draped exactly like a man's suit and worn with a white shirt and a silk necktie, but with a three-quarter-length skirt instead of pants; her shoes were similarly ambiguous, highly-polished masculine wingtips with a curvaceous two-inch heel. She wore her thick iron-gray hair parted on one side and brilliantined, but with a heavy bun of coiled braids nestled at the nape.

"Miss Vandervere," Jeremy responded gallantly, shaking her hand gently and bowing ever-so-slightly, as Danny had taught him.

"I have heard, Marcus," Aunt Mathilda said to Danny as she settled her hat — a man's gray felt fedora with a small curled pink feather and antique marcasite brooch on the band — and picked up her briefcase-like handbag, "that your Aunt Claudia has wedged her unfortunate nose into the Fall Play this year."

"Yes, ma'am; she's offered to pay for the costumes," Danny replied, taking his great-aunt's gloved hand and tucking it into the crook of his elbow as they descended the library steps and continued up Pine Street.

"Claudia doesn't 'offer' to do anything, Marcus," Aunt Mathilda sniffed contemptuously, "She blackmails people into falling in line with her wishes by making a pretense of some minor concession. What does she want in exchange for the costumes?"

"She wants me to be given a role in the play," Danny responded miserably.

"Danny — Marcus I mean — is going to play Tybalt in Romeo and Juliet!" Jeremy told her excitedly, still thinking this role was a signal honor.

"How times do change," Mathilda chuckled mirthlessly, "When Maude wished to appear in the school play as Lily Miller in Ah, Wilderness!, our sister-in-law — your grandmother, Marcus, who was just as much a blue-nose busybody as Claudia — made such a stink you'd have thought Maude was proposing to appear nude in public."

"Aunt Claudia seems to think that if a Vandervere is on the program, it must be in the cast rather than the crew," Danny snorted, "I wanted to do set design and construction, not to act."

"I'm sure you'll be a credit to the name whichever you do," Aunt Mathilda assured him, "Are they doing the sword-fighting on stage in this production? That is a talent you legitimately possess and of which you are rightly proud."

"Mr. Oland asked me to coach the other actors in fencing," Danny told her, "Which I am perfectly happy to do. But I am not an actor, it's not something I'm good at."

"Marcus, you are good at so many things," Aunt Mathilda's voice took on the dangerous softness that signaled she expected you to take her next words to heart, "You have so many talents, almost everything you've undertaken has come easily to you. I think you should embrace this challenge and meet it head-on; it will be character-building to work hard at something that doesn't come easily."

"Why is it," Danny wondered in a stagey voice to show that he was joking, "that everything which builds character is either tedious or embarrassing?"

Aunt Mathilda and Jeremy laughed obligingly as they ascended the stairs onto the mansion's front porch and the ancient Oscar opened the front door to them.

"Good afternoon Miss Mathilda, Master Marcus, Master Jeremy," Oscar croaked in a voice that had once been an impressive basso profundo and now sounded like granite pebbles rattling around in a wooden box. He was well over ninety, possibly approaching a hundred, but refused to retire; the Aunt Ems had grown up with him in their home, first as the gardener's boy, then as a driver, then as their butler, and were loath to part with him — so since he was remarkably healthy for his age and had all his mental faculties, nobody wanted to force him out of work.

Aunt Myrtle and Aunt Maude were already ensconced in the music room, seated in matching balloon-back chairs with a tea-table groaning under the weight of cookies, petits-fours, scones with Devon cream, deviled eggs, and a glittering Edwardian garland-style tea service of unimaginable complexity. They remained seated as Danny and Jeremy kissed their hands, fluttering their lace handkerchiefs and fussing with their matching chiffon afternoon dresses, Myrtle in pale green and Maude in pale peach, as the boys complimented their appearance and Mathilda helped herself to black coffee and a plain butter cookie.

After putting away two cups of Earl Gray, a scone, and four deviled eggs, Danny went to the piano and played some Chopin etudes, then inveigled Jeremy into singing some respectable old show-tunes to Danny's accompaniment; at first Jeremy was too shy to sing to the old ladies, but Aunt Mathilda tartly pointed out to him that an actor cannot afford to be shy under any circumstances.

With tea over with, Danny and Jeremy went up to Danny's room to study; but they did no studying that afternoon: as soon as the door closed behind him, Danny pulled Jeremy into a long and intensively seductive kiss that eventually led to some hot and heavy making-out on the bed.

"Wait, stop," Jeremy gasped out after a while, putting his hand against Danny's mouth and arching his pelvis back and away from Danny's frighteningly huge erection. He had an infallible sense for when he was just about to give in and start pulling off his and Danny's clothes, and was absolutely terrified of going past that moment.

"Mmmph," Danny's protest was muffled against Jeremy's hand, but he acquiesced to the other boy's request and rolled off of him, though he kept his arms wrapped around Jeremy's narrow chest.

"I'm not ready," Jeremy said for perhaps the fifteenth time; every time they started kissing, they would get more and more involved until Jeremy's internal alarm went off; and every time he said he wasn't ready, in exactly the same tone and tempo, as if he were parroting back something he'd memorized.

"It's OK," Danny said for the fifteenth time, relaxing against the boy and letting his breathing return to normal, "I don't want to push you. But I want you to know I'll still love you either way."

"Do you really love me?" Jeremy turned his head and looked Danny in the eye.

"I really do love you," Danny equivocated: he wasn't in love with Jeremy, but he did feel a certain kind of love for him — the same kind of love he felt for his horse, and for Henry, and for chocolate pudding.

"Do you see other people?" Jeremy asked suddenly after a long companionable silence.

"Where did that come from?" Danny stalled.

"I see how people look at you," Jeremy was no longer looking into Danny's eyes, but rather at some point between his lip and his chin, "You can get anyone you want. And I see you looking at them, and I wonder if you are getting them."

"I'm not dating anyone else," Danny said carefully, choosing his words with legalistic precision. He never told any of his partners about any of his other partners, partly due to his code of honor which forbids kissing and telling, but also from a desire to not be seen by one and all as a ravening slut.

Jeremy gave him a long, searching look, kissed him lightly on the mouth, and extricated himself from Danny's embrace, saying, "This is such a beautiful room."

It was a beautiful room, octagonal since it was situated in one of the house's two towers, the one at the front overlooking the cul-de-sac around the grandiose fountain at the end of Pine Street. It had four tall Italianate arched windows heavily draped in pale lettuce-green damask, a coved ceiling centering a bronze chandelier crawling with Chinese dragons, and a pale green-veined white marble fireplace fitted with a beautifully ornate bronze Franklin stove; the walls were covered with silvery-green silk patterned with linden leaves above the carved green-gray pickled pine wainscotting, hung with lithographs of botanical illustrations in ornate silver-gilt frames, and the glossy hardwood floor was mostly covered with a circular Chinese rug featuring gold bats and white flowers scattered on a grass-green background.

The furniture, as in almost every other room of the house, was original: heavy, masculine Renaissance Revival pieces chosen by Danny's great-great-great-grandmother in 1880 when the house was built, upholstered in new but historically authentic cut velvets and embroidered satins in shades of pale green and silvery gray; the bed was narrow but surmounted by a regal half-tester draped in the same damask as the windows; there were gorgeous and valuable knick-knacks scattered liberally over every surface, ticking bronze clocks and gem-inlaid boxes, photographs and watercolor miniatures in intricate silver frames, little green Sevres vases filled with dried flowers and carved jade bowls on rosewood stands.

There was electricity, of course, all of the old gas fixtures and table lamps had been wired at the turn of the 20th century and updated in the twenties and again in the sixties; a heavy 1930s Bakelite telephone with a rotary dial stood on the table by the bed, and there was an electric button by the fireplace to summon servants; Danny had brought in a CD player that was hidden from view in the tall secretary desk, which also housed a laptop computer and a cell-phone charger; but at first glance the room had not changed much in the hundred and twenty-odd years since it had been decorated as the principle man's guest bedroom (in those days, even married couples were kept in separate accommodations).

"Isn't it?" Danny agreed, wondering what had brought on the non-sequitur, "I feel very honored the Aunt Ems gave it to me, it's one of the most important rooms. Three governors and five senators have slept here."

"That must have been quite a party!" Jeremy joked.

"Not all at once, smartypants," Danny reached out and grabbed Jeremy by the waist, tickling him until he fell in a helpless heap on the floor. And once incapacitated, Danny lay down on him and started kissing him again, taking turns between sucking on his mouth and gnawing on his neck just below the collar of his shirt, making him squirm and moan.

Before Jeremy had a chance to tell Danny to stop, they were interrupted by Oscar knocking quietly on the door to tell them that it was almost six o'clock and the car would be brought around to take them both home. Danny thanked Oscar without opening the door, and he and Jeremy spent a few moments straightening their clothes and quietly exchanging ideas about weekend plans; they headed down the operatically grand mahogany staircase, with its deep red Persian runner and tall stained-glass bay window at the half-landing, into the dark and strangely creepy front hall and onto the front porch. The Aunt Ems had already retired to their rooms to dress for dinner, so Danny didn't say goodbye to them, nor was he expected to; he and Jeremy slid into the back seat of the old Cadillac and waited for Oscar to shuffle around to the front and start the car.

They rode in silence all the way to Jeremy's house, which was just off the Lake Road in one of the older subdivisions; his parents, who both worked at Vandervere Mills in managerial capacities, lived in a large rambling mock-Tudor with stone chimneys and climbing roses, built in the mid-twenties, a really charming house that suited their very charming son.

When Oscar opened the door for Jeremy, Danny leaned over to give him a parting kiss, but Jeremy shied away from him with frantic glances at the elderly butler.

"Do you mind if I kiss Jeremy good-bye, Oscar?" Danny asked the old man, grabbing Jeremy by the arm so he couldn't get away.

"It's not my place to mind, Master Marcus," Oscar said, but smiled warmly as he said it, letting Jeremy know that he approved of them. Jeremy looked at the servant warily, but allowed Danny to kiss him passionately yet briefly before he scooted out of the car and scampered up the fieldstone walk to his parents' door.

Danny sat smiling in the back of the car the rest of the way home, unaccountably pleased to have made a public display, however small and forgiving the audience, of his relationship with Jeremy. The thing he most missed about dating girls was the openness of it, the social acceptance of the couple, the ability to be affectionate with someone in front of others.

With boys, everything was clandestine and secretive, and while this allowed him a level of promiscuity that he wouldn't be able to manage in a public sphere, he chafed at the restrictions on his actions -- he wanted to hold Jeremy on his lap in the lunchroom as he'd been able to do with Sandra and Felicia the previous year, to kiss him in the hallways whenever he liked, to lay claim to the boy in front of the whole school.

"I hope I didn't embarrass you earlier, Oscar," Danny said as he slid out of the car, "With that display."

"Not at all, Master Marcus," the old butler smiled at him, his tiny black eyes dancing in their nests of wrinkles, "I am a Fellow Traveller, as we used to say in my day."

"Well, wonders never cease!" Danny grinned at the old man; he wanted to hug him, but didn't think that would be allowed, "Thank you, Oscar."

"Good evening, Master Marcus," the old man bowed and shuffled back to the front of the car.

It never ceased to amaze him, how many gay men there were in Vandervere; he had once thought himself alone in the world, the only gay boy in town. It's one of the reasons he'd started dating girls, he'd been lonely and completely ignorant of the existence of others like himself.

It also amazed him that the instrument of introducing him to this hidden world was a girl, the young woman who took his virginity in June. Her name was Natalie, she was nineteen years old and a sophomore in college, visiting from Portland with her father; and since her father was gay, and her first boyfriend had turned out to be gay, and a number of her best friends were gay, she pegged him pretty quickly -- though he enjoyed sex with women, he vastly preferred males, and Natalie could tell that just by the way he looked at her. Afterward, she was an absolute fountain of information, ideas, slang, and code-words that opened up a whole new world right in his own backyard.

The most important thing Natalie taught him was how to identify The Look, that easy-to-miss variety of physical clues that let Danny know when someone desired him. That once piece of knowledge was the source of Danny's greatest happiness: knowing that he was wanted by an awful lot of people. He no longer felt lonely, no longer a bird in a gilded cage: he could connect to people.

But as cages go, the Lake House was fairly nicely gilded. It's a long, rambling structure, rustically elegant in the Art & Crafts manner, with wide eaves and screened sleeping porches, small diamond-paned windows and vine-covered pergolas, raddled brick chimneys and fieldstone columns supporting odd-angled porches and portes-cocheres, covered in old pine shingles and roofed with tin plating, in the cracks of which grasses and wildflowers grew.

Danny's bedroom was at the narrow end of the attic floor, as far from everyone else as one could get and still be indoors; but it was large and airy, with a south-facing sleeping porch and dormer windows on either side overlooking the woods and the lake, deep slope-roofed closets and its own large white-tiled bathroom; it was sparely furnished, little more than a spindle-turned oak suite with double bed, desk, chair, and bureau, but there were window-seats built into the dormers, where Danny liked to lounge and read, four built-in bookcases, and a tiny brick fireplace on the inside wall.

Danny paused in his bedroom to take off his boots and his belt, then emptied his pockets into the big shallow bowl on his chest of drawers before heading into the bathroom and turning on the water; while waiting for the hot water to make it to the attic from the cellar, Danny stripped out of his clothes, dropping the jeans and shirt into the colors' hamper and thoughtfully rinsing out his white boxer-briefs before stuffing them and the white boot-socks into the whites' hamper, so as to not let the 'protein stains' (as the housekeeper euphemised them) set irrevocably into the fabric.

The moment he stepped out of his shorts, his freed cock rose swiftly to full mast, demanding the orgasm that had been teasing it since Danny had started making out with Jeremy just an hour before; Danny gazed down at it lovingly and gave it a couple of slow soft strokes, then stepped over to the full-length mirror behind the door to enjoy the sight of it from the front.

The cock filled him with wonder every time he saw it, he could spend hours just looking at it and petting it; and knowing that it was so much bigger than everyone else's -- indeed he had only seen one so far that was bigger -- gave him a thrill of pride that custom could not stale. He turned sideways and leaned back from his pelvis to make it look even bigger in the mirror; staring intently at himself, he stroked himself to orgasm just as the steam from the shower began to obscure his reflection.

He didn't need much washing, since he hadn't done anything more strenuous than masturbate since his shower after gym class, so he was back out in his bedroom within a few minutes, toweling off and singing softly in Italian. He stepped into a fresh pair of boxer-briefs from the top drawer, then tan socks from the second drawer, a starched white dress-shirt from the third, and a pair of fresh tan khakis from the fourth.

Then he stepped over to one of the closets, buttoning his cuffs as he went, and chose a cordovan leather belt and a pair of cordovan penny-loafers; next came a blue-and-red paisley necktie that he arranged in a half-Windsor under his button-down collar, finished off with a summerweight navy blazer.

Stepping back to the dresser, Danny picked up a pair of old-fashioned silver boar-bristle brushes and started taming his damp curls into a respectable cap of flat glossy waves, the ends curling about his ears and fluffing out at the nape. He went back into the bathroom to hang up his towel and check his outfit in the mirror on the door, deciding that he looked as boring and invisible as it was possible for him to look.

Running down the back stairs into the kitchen, Danny greeted the two maids, Rosa and Maria, who were busy carting serving dishes out of the cupboards, before stopping to get a hug from the housekeeper, Mrs. Espinosa.

"You look so handsome, mijo," the squat little woman said fondly, reaching up to pinch his cheek and then his nose. She was a full foot shorter than Danny, but rather a bit wider; she wasn't fat so much as she was thick and sturdy, like a totem figure carved from a tree-stump. Her face was square and strong-boned, her hair coarse and coal-black, arranged in a braided coronet on top of her head.

"What are you serving tonight, Tia?" Danny always called the housekeeper "Aunt" in affection, which incensed his parents but paid due honor to one of the only people in the house who truly loved him; if it weren't for Mrs. Espinosa and Mademoiselle Marnie, his nanny, Danny would probably not have survived his childhood with any sense self-worth intact.

"We have shrimp-stuffed avocadoes to start," the housekeeper told him, turning back to her stove and stirring one pot while sprinkling herbs into another, "coq au vin over wild rice with asparagus vinaigrette, and a lemon trifle with cashew cookies."

"Ooh, I can't wait!" Danny enthused; Mrs. Espinosa's cooking was adventurous without being challenging, always delicious but within the bounds of a WASP palate. Danny's mother thought black pepper was "spicy" and his father wouldn't touch anything he couldn't recognize at first glance. When the elder Vanderveres were away from home, though, Mrs. Espinosa got really creative and tried out dishes on Danny and the other servants, crazy nouvelle cuisine combinations or imaginitive variations on her native Colombian fare.

"You will wait, mijo," the housekeeper smiled up at him, crinkling her tiny black eyes with pleasure, "You're such a good boy. Now go help the girls set the table, and there are some fresh flowers in the pantry, you can make a nice centerpiece, I know you like that."

"Gracias, Tia!" Danny gave her a peck on the cheek and went into the pantry to find the flowers. He was delighted to discover a whole bucket full of alstromeira and miniature hydrangeas in shades of russet, gold, and pink. Danny ran into the dining-room to retrieve an antique hammered-silver bowl inset with cabochon agates from the sideboard, then filled it with water in the pantry and placed a chunk of green florist's foam in the bottom; within minutes he had the flowers arranged in a professional-looking fountain effect -- but not too tall, since his parents didn't like their view of each-other obscured.

Settling the bowl of flowers in the very center of the table under the Tiffany floriform bronze and stained-glass chandelier, he started folding the napkins into fleurs-de-lys while chatting amiably with the maids in Spanish; they giggled delightedly at his American accent and sighed to each other over his beauty while they laid the plates, glasses, and silverware on the table, measuring the placements with little folding rulers as they'd been taught by Mrs. Espinosa.

With the table finished and twenty minutes left before dinner would be served at 7:30, Danny had no other option than to go face his parents in the living-room for a before-dinner drink. He knew that if he didn't, they'd complain at dinner, but that if he did, they'd complain about something else. It was a no-win, and he dreaded it every evening.

When Danny entered the long, beam-ceilinged living room, his parents were already seated by the wide tiled fireplace in low-slung armchairs, reading neatly folded newspapers and sipping scotch on the rocks. Danny drifted slowly into the room, straightening his jacket and his tie as he went, before stooping down to gently plant a kiss without quite touching his mother's powdered cheek.

"Good evening, Mother, good evening, Dad," Danny murmured quietly.

"Don't mumble, Marc-Daniel," Taylor Whitney Vandervere III told his son without looking up from his newspaper.

"You need a haircut," Beatrice Vandervere (nee Parke of the Beacon Hill Parkes -- Vanderveres were always educated on the East Coast and tended to bring home East Coast brides) said with a quick peevish glance at her son's black hair.

"Yes, ma'am," Danny replied, backing away from them and moving over to the drinks table to pour himself a glass of ginger ale. They didn't speak to him again, so he just stood silently and watched them reading, sipping his ginger ale and wondering what they were thinking.

His mother was a beautiful ice-queen, immensely polished and poised, a square elegant face with a short straight nose and prim pink mouth, hooded gray eyes and gleaming blonde hair worn in a simple bob that curled to a point under her chin; she was stylishly dressed in a simple gray cashmere tunic and chiffon skirt, her usual double strand of pearls with a diamond clasp and matching diamond earclips, a diamond tennis-bracelent next to her everyday platinum Cartier watch.

His father was a perfect match, slim and blond and chiseled, impressive in an immaculate but not flashy dark gray suit, still young-looking at fifty, perfect Hollywood casting for a charismatic politician. The two of them were so devoted to each other, and so comfortable with each other; Danny watched them together, the way they fit so seamlessly into their shared life and seemed to know what the other was thinking without speech. He wanted that for himself someday, with someone -- but in the meantime, their impenetrable togetherness made him feel desolately lonely.

The dinner bell went off at exactly 7:30, as it always did, and Danny meekly trailed after his parents as they trekked down the long broad corridor that connected the many rooms of the rambling house to the dining room at the opposite end. Danny stood behind his chair as Taylor held Beatrice's chair at one end of the long table and then seated himself at the other end, slipping silently into his place between them with his back to the drafty empty fireplace just as the shrimp-stuffed avocadoes were brought to the table and placed in front of them by the maids.

Danny's parents spoke with each other about various things that had occurred during their day apart, but in an intimate shorthand of half-finished sentences and inside references that Danny couldn't follow; instead, he focused on the food, which was amazing, and smiled at the little touches that he knew Mrs. Espinosa had added only to his portion: crushed mint and lemon in his water glass, an extra large helping of asparagus (his favorite vegetable), and a sprig of verbena garnishing his lemon trifle.

When the elder Vanderveres rose and took their coffee into the adjoining den to watch television for the evening, Danny politely excused himself from their company and headed back to the kitchen, stopping to shower Mrs. Espinosa with compliments on an amazing meal before going into the mudroom to peel off his dress jacket and tie, exchanging his penny-loafers for a pair of highly-polished English riding boots.

Exiting the house into the breezeway between the kitchen wing and the garages, Danny set off at a trot to the thick stand of imported cypresses and native pines that screened the house from the smells and noise of the stables; with an athletic spring, he leapt over the paddock fence and jogged across the vast oval expanse to where Kevin, the groom, had Tenorino saddled up and waiting for him.

"There's my beautiful boy!" Danny crooned to the horse, which nuzzled his shoulder impatiently, reproaching him for his tardiness. Danny had been spending less time with his horse in the last few months, and the tall dapple-gray Andalusian stallion resented taking a backseat to Danny's newfound sex-life.

Tenorino had been a gift from his parents on his fourteenth birthday, chosen primarily by Aunt Mathilda, who browbeat Taylor into buying the expensive animal when Danny showed a good deal of talent for the sport of dressage on the school's horses. Taylor gave in mostly because a horse of that caliber was always a good investment, and if Danny could train it to a dressage championship, the stud fees would make a lively return on that investment.

And Danny had trained the animal well, winning every juniors-division competition he entered; and aside from the training, he went riding every day, enjoying the wonderful feel of galloping along the lakeside on the beautiful horse, his hair bouncing in the wind, his thighs pressed tight against the animal's heaving ribs.

But dressage was one of the first sacrifices Danny made to sex: though he continued training assiduously for the division championships over the summer, come the day he only placed third. This was partly due to his distraction from training; but the chief culprit was meeting the man with the dick bigger than his own, who fucked him hard in a secluded storage room just an hour before Danny and Tenorino were scheduled to perform. Sitting on a dancing horse after being rough-fucked by a giant cock was considerably more painful than he'd thought possible, and the horse reacted to his pain and the faint smell of blood... the fact that he'd placed at all was a testament to very good training.

Losing the championship dampened Danny's passion for dressage, and his training with Tenorino dwindled into a perfunctory hour in the evening after dinner and a long midday ride on the weekends; he was no longer so emotionally devoted to his time with the animal, and the horse felt neglected and didn't perform as well.

Nevertheless, Danny kept at it, thinking that he would be able to spend more time with Tenorino and get the horse back up to scratch before the next season of championships came along in the spring -- like most young men, Danny believed he had all the time in the world, and there would always be plenty of opportunity to catch up on anything he missed, later on.

When night started coming down earlier in the autumn, he'd have to confine himself to exercising the horse in the well-lit paddock; but since it was still fairly light out in mid-September, Danny took the horse down the lake trail, galloping all the way, singing "Non più andrai" at top voice as they went (this was the song Danny was planning to use in his next dressage routine and he wanted to get the horse familiar with it, and though Danny's voice wasn't quite trained to opera, he managed the aria fairly well as a ballad).

They reached the meadow that stood alongside the trail halfway between his house and the resort hotel, where he took Tenorino through a few steps of the old routine, then turned around and headed back to the stable at a comfortable canter so the horse could cool down before being curried and put into his stall.

He took his time brushing the horse down and talking to him, whispering the secrets of his day into the incomprehending ears as he combed the animal's silvery mane into a gleaming silky curtain, lulling him into a restful state so he could be left to sleep in his stall for the night.

Danny was quite exhausted when he left the horse, slowly climbing the stairs he had previously bounded up, and collapsed into his desk chair with a weary but satisfied sigh. He needed to shower again, he smelled of his own and Tenorino's mingled sweat and the musky scents of the stables, but he wanted to complete his homework first, knowing the hot shower would make him too sleepy. So he spent the next hour working on calculus and chemistry, one after the next, knowing he could fake everything else the next day.

"You better get in bed, mijo," Mrs. Espinosa tapped on his door before entering, bearing a plate of cheese and a glass of warm milk, Danny's favorite bedtime snack; the housekeeper had been doing this ever since his nanny had been retired when he turned thirteen, visiting with a little snack before she joined her husband, the family's man-of-all-work, in their little apartment at the other end of the attic.

"I'm going, Tia," Danny answered, taking the plate and glass from her and kissing her hand affectionately, "I had a lot of homework to do, first."

"It's after ten and you smell like horse. You get a bath and get into bed right now."

"Yes, ma'am," Danny smiled happily at the retreating housekeeper, nibbling on a chunk of savory Cotswold cheddar.

Danny showered one last time, leaning against the wall under the faucet and letting the hot water soothe all the tension out of his neck and shoulders; when he felt himself starting to doze off, he got out and toweled himself as vigorously as his tired limbs would let him, and crawled warm and still slightly damp into the clean white sheets of his bed. With the lights off and his eyes closed, he masturbated again, this time slowly and pleasurably, enjoying the process instead of just trying to get off; he thought over everything that had happened that day, all the little turn-ons and pleasures, all the plans and ideas he'd hatched. He finally came with Jeremy smiling at him in his mind's eye, turned over and burrowed into his pillows with a happy grunt, and went immediately to sleep.

*****

It was early morning on the first Saturday of October, and Danny Vandervere was out for his usual run in the woods; he was floating along a broad, gently hilly trail that meandered in scenic curves through the dense trees, humming along to the vintage disco pouring into his ears from a tiny mp3-player strapped to his upper arm, wearing nothing else but very short royal blue running shorts and high-tech running-shoes.

He loved the feeling of near-nakedness, the chilly morning air bracing on his bare skin; soon he would have to start wearing more when he ran, the mornings were becoming increasingly frigid as autumn progressed, but for now he could run naked if he wanted. He had once tried running completely naked, but the pine needles and pebbles hurt his feet and his heavy genitals slapping against his thighs were much too uncomfortable.

Danny was an incredibly graceful runner, his torso erect, his arms tucked loosely against his sides, his long legs stretching out far in front to meet the ground, kicking back with the grace of a leaping gazelle, presenting a picture of effortless flight suitable for immortalization on a Greek vase. His hair floated around his head, his white skin glowed rosy with exertion and shimmered with perspiration, and the even sound of his deep breathing came in perfect unison with the crunch of his feet in the gravel and needles on the path.

The trail Danny used was one of three that connected the "wild" rose-garden at the edge of his family's property (climbing roses and reverted hybrids tangled around a rustic gazebo in a circular clearing studded with concrete nymphs and bronze sundials, designed and planted by Danny's great-grandfather, who had built the Lake House in 1905) to the Lake Augusta Hotel and Resort, two miles away as the crow flies; the first trail was a completely level bridle path that ran alongside the lake-shore below, by which Danny intended to return home, and the third was a narrow hiking trail that climbed up and down along a steep hillside above. There were more trails above that one, snaking through the hilly forests of the Trenion County Wilderness Area, a popular camping and picnicking site north of Lake Augusta, on the opposite side from the town.

This late in the season, Danny expected to have the trails to himself; the few people who did come out usually preferred to come after noon when the sun had warmed the forest. And so there was nothing to interrupt his thoughts, or rather the meditative lack of thoughts that his morning run usually produced. Danny always welcomed an opportunity to not think, sometimes worried that his head would burst from the number and variety of thoughts that often spun through it at high speed.

Coming around one of the more acute curves, a little more than halfway along the three-mile trail, something odd on the ground caught Danny's eye. It was just beyond the curve, a strange pale pinkish-grayish-white object that had an indefinable air of not belonging to the landscape. Danny hadn't intended to veer toward it, but his curiosity led his feet without his conscious mind taking note; as he got closer to it, the odder it looked, almost like a human hand, palm up with its fingers curled.

When Danny got close enough to see that it was in fact a human hand, he was still running at full speed; he tried to stop, some atavistic impulse telling him that a human hand was something that one should avoid rather than run toward, and his foot caught on a stray root that he ordinarily would have seen and evaded if his attention hadn't been diverted.

With a painful wrench to his ankle, Danny flew several feet through the air before crashing into the ground, skinning his right shoulder and cutting his side on the gravel, his hands instinctively covering his head and receiving the full benefit of the pine-needles, pine-cones, and small rocks that would have made a mess of his beautiful face.

When the dust settled, Danny hesitantly opened his eyes, and shut them again quickly when he saw two eyes staring back at him. Swallowing a spasm of revulsion and fear, he opened his eyes again and looked at the thing in front of him: a human face, swollen and greenish-bluish-gray, its light brown eyes bulging and riddled with purple veins, a blackened swollen tongue sticking out of its gaping mouth, its thin light brown hair full of leaves and pine-needles. There were scout ants and a couple of millipedes crawling on the face, right across the bulging eyes and tongue, and Danny let out a scream of terror as he scuttled backward away from the thing, fetching up with his back against a tree four or five feet away, his feet still pushing at the ground as if trying to get even further from the corpse.

Danny continued screaming for quite some time, until his throat hurt and a rational voice in the back of his mind asked him what purpose was being served by screaming. The scream broke apart into chest-wracking sobs, the animal horror of a dead body destroying what little emotional reserve he'd ever had. But as he sobbed, his rational mind was taking in and cataloging the details.

He noticed that the body was male, around medium height, with a heavy build, front-side down on the ground; that the belt pulled tight around its neck was familiar, brown leather with Western-style tooling but a standard brass buckle; the dress shirt was also vaguely familiar, with tiny brown diamonds arranged in stripes on an off-white background; the wispy brown-gray hair was familiar, too, but not familiar enough to spark recognition; the hand that he'd seen on the path was the left hand, which bore a silver or white-gold wedding ring and a Timex digital watch on a steel link band; the arm was stretched out full-length, and must have been dislocated from its socket to lay at that angle; the right hand was clearly broken at the wrist and tucked under the body's chest.

The corpse wore jeans that had worked down past its hips, the belt gone from the loops, with cheap white briefs showing above the waist, and clunky brown suede walking shoes; its skin was lacerated in many places, as if it had slid and tumbled down the hill for quite a distance before falling alongside the trail, the blood on the wounds was dark and still, indicating that it had been dead before it fell.

But as Danny stared, sobbing with his fist wedged into his mouth, recognition dawned: it wasn't an it, it was a he -- it was Mr. Janacek! Grief joined with horror and he started crying even louder, howling rather than screaming.

Danny crossed his arms over his knees and lay his head on them, letting the grief run through his body, making all the noise he could on the assumption that nobody would hear him; he was over a mile and a half from home and from the hotel, it was not quite seven a.m. on a Saturday morning, and nothing stirred but deer, rabbits, and birds -- all of which had gone quite silent when Danny screamed.

Therefore Danny was startled into a thrill of fear when he heard footsteps coming toward him; looking up from his folded arms, he saw a smallish teenage boy with a thick fall of inky black hair covering most of his face, dressed in shapeless black and dark blue clothes, an olive-drab canvas messenger bag slung over his shoulder and an expensive camera held out defensively in front of him.

"Are you OK?" the boy asked, one startling black-rimmed blue eye staring at Danny.

"No," Danny wailed, "He's dead!"

"Who is? Oh..." the boy had apparently not seen the corpse, his eyes only on Danny as he came around the bend with his camera; but he didn't seem as disturbed by it as Danny had been: instead of screaming or trying to get away from it, he approached the body and looked in its face, still holding his camera in front of him like a shield, "What happened to him?"

"I don't know," Danny sobbed, "I think he was strangled. Uphill somewhere."

"You're bleeding," the boy abandoned the corpse and came to kneel in front of Danny, finally stowing the camera away in the messenger-bag and reaching out to touch Danny's side, where a thin trickle of blood made a path from just below the lateral muscle down into the waistband of his shorts. The boy didn't actually touch him, though, seeming to think better of it before he made contact.

"Can you get help?" Danny asked, his sobbing subsiding somewhat, his attention leaving the corpse and finally starting to notice the pain he was in. He couldn't feel the cut, but his shoulder was screaming with pain and his ankle throbbed hotly, his hands stung and he was horribly cold.

"I don't have a phone," the boy admitted, "And I don't want to leave you alone with... with that. Do you think you can walk?"

Before Danny could answer, the quiet was shattered by a sudden electronic trilling, loudly approximating the theme to Star Trek. Both boys jumped at the sound and stared at the corpse, whence the sound was coming.

"It's his phone," Danny breathed, oddly fascinated that a dead man would get a phone call.

"Should we answer it?" the strange boy asked, moving toward the body. Without waiting for Danny to reply, he knelt down beside the corpse and reached a little hesitantly toward its pants, then plunged his hand into the front pocket and pulled out the ringing phone; swallowing hard, he opened it and said, "H-hello?"

The caller had apparently hung up, as the boy stared at the phone, nonplussed; he looked to Danny for guidance.

"Who do you think it was?" Danny wondered, the bizarre situation beyond his grasp.

"The caller ID said 'Home,'" the boy answered quietly, "Maybe his wife?"

"Do you think we should use his phone to call for help?" Danny asked the boy, grateful that there was someone there with him.

"Here, you do it," the boy handed him the phone, a cheap little silver plastic thing with lighted buttons, "I don't know what to tell them, I don't know where we are."

"Hello?" Danny said into the phone after he'd dialed; it didn't ring, but sounded as if the call had connected anyway.

"Nine one one," a brisk woman's voice came on the staticky line, chaotic noises in the background, "What is the nature of your emergency?"

"This is Danny Vandervere," Danny said haltingly to the woman, "Do you know who I am?"

"No, sir," the voice said, "This is the cellular dispatch in Redding, not the Vandervere police. What is the nature of your emergency?"

"There's a dead body here," Danny sobbed again, trying to keep control of his voice but failing, "It's Mr. Janacek, he's my teacher... or he was my teacher. And I'm hurt, I need help."

"Where are you, exactly, sir?" the voice asked calmly, seemingly uninterested in the news.

"I'm on the walking trail that belongs to the Lake Augusta Hotel in Vandervere, about a mile and a half from the hotel," Danny said, looking around himself to make sure of his location, "and an equal distance from my house. My parents' house, at the end of the Lake Road. I don't know the bearings, but I'm just north of the big meadow off the bridle path."

"Local police and an ambulance are on their way, sir. Do you want me to stay on the line until they arrive?"

"No, thank you," Danny said after thinking it over for a moment, "I'm not alone, there's another boy with me, he can keep me company until they come. Thank you for your help."

"Be brave, honey, help is coming," the woman's voice dropped its bored professional tone, letting a slight southern accent creep in, before she disconnected the call.

"They're sending someone right away," Danny said, looking at the phone sadly. It was Mr. Janacek's phone, something personal and intimate belonging to a man Danny had liked, someone with whom he'd been having sex fairly regularly over the last two weeks.

Danny just about jumped out of his skin when the phone rang again, but pulled himself together enough to answer it, "Hello, who is this?" The caller hung up immediately, but the caller ID said "Home" again, so Danny hit the redial button and waited for the party to answer.

"I'm sorry to bother you," Danny said to the silent person on the other end, "But something terrible has happened. Mr. Janacek is... oh, perhaps I shouldn't tell you on the phone, and maybe I'm wrong, but I think he's dead."

There was a horrified gasp, but the person at "Home" hung up again without saying anything. Danny folded up the phone and handed it back to the strange black-haired boy.

"I know you, don't I?" Danny cocked his head, trying to remember.

"Probably not," the boy said, looking down at his own feet in beat-up Army boots.

"I know you from school," Danny decided, chasing the memory down, "You're always drawing and taking pictures, but you're not on the Yearbook Committee or in Art Club. Is your name Ashton or Ashley or something like that?"

"Just Ash," the boy said, looking at him with wonder, "I can't believe you know who I am."

"I try to know everyone," Danny shrugged, wiping his wet face reflexively with the back of his injured hand and smearing blood and dirt all over himself, "But you don't hang with a clique, so I haven't had a chance to meet you in person yet."

"Wow," the boy said simply, then returned his attention to Danny's injuries, gesturing to his skinned shoulder, "Doesn't that hurt?"

"Like fury," Danny said, sobbing again when he looked at it and saw his beautiful skin broken and seeping pus and blood, "And I think I twisted my ankle. Oh, my hands!"

"It's OK," Ash was alarmed at the sudden crying jag that shook Danny's body, "It's just abrasions, it'll heal in no time."

"But my hands," Danny groaned, gaping at the cuts and bruises on his long delicate hands, his piano-playing hands that he was so proud of.

"Here, I have some water," Ash rummaged in his bag and pulled out a plastic bottle, "Let me wash them off, you'll see it's not as bad as it looks."

"Thank you," Danny eventually coughed out, looking up into the boy's face, or what he could see of it behind that curtain of black hair, "You're being very kind."

"It's nothing," Ash replied, blushing a little.

"No, it's everything. Thank you for staying with me."

"Are you cold?" the boy wondered, shrugging out of his outermost layer of clothing, an oversized faded-black hoodie, to drape around Danny's shoulders.

"I'm freezing," Danny whispered, shivering so hard his teeth rattled against each-other, "Thank you."

"I hear people coming," Ash said after a long silent pause, then stood and turned around to yell for the approaching vehicles, "HEY! We're over here!"

Soon they were surrounded by flashing lights and authoritative men in uniforms hustling them up and away from the dead body. Danny was half-carried to the back of the ambulance, where two paramedics (one of whom he knew intimately) cleaned and dressed his wounds, which were minimal and less than skin deep, though they hurt incredibly and looked ghastly; they bound his swelling ankle and put a cold-pack on it, but it would have to be x-rayed at the hospital and might well be sprained. They wrapped him in a silvery padded blanket and gave him some painkillers and a warm cup of electrolyte solution to drink.

While Danny was being ministered to, Ash was being questioned by a police officer, who wanted to know why he was in the woods that morning, what exactly he saw when he came around the bend, and what he and Danny had said to each other and to the mysterious caller on the dead man's phone. The boy was calm and thoughtful, answering all of the questions clearly and succinctly; the officer wrote everything down in his little notebook, took Ash's contact information, and then walked across the path to talk to Danny.

"What's your name, son?" the officer asked Danny solicitously, his pencil poised above his pad; he was a handsome man, in his mid-thirties and fit, with neat sandy brown hair and warm hazel eyes, not quite as tall as Danny, impressive in the sharp navy-blue uniform of the Vandervere town police.

"What?" Danny goggled at the man, confused by the question.

"What's your name?" the officer repeated.

"You must be new," Danny decided, peering into the man's face.

"Yes, I joined the force a couple of weeks ago," the officer explained impatiently, "I was on the force in Yreka for ten years before I moved here. Now, what's your name?"

"I'm Danny Vandervere," he said, gazing curiously at the officer, memorizing his features.

"Oh," the officer looked up at him sharply, suddenly embarrassed, "I'm sorry, I didn't recognize you, sir."

"Don't start with that," Danny sighed wearily.

"But you're the Mayor's son, Marc-Daniel, aren't you?" the officer was puzzled by the name that differed from what he had been told.

"My family call me that. My whole name is Marcus Daniel Vandervere, the Fourth," he smiled self-deprecatingly, "But please, call me Danny."

"OK," the man agreed, scribbling all the different names on his pad, then pulling himself back into his professional demeanor, remembering that this half-naked youth was a Vandervere and had to be treated with kid gloves, call-me-Danny or no, "Can you tell me what happened here?"

"I don't really know, he was like that when I came," Danny said, his voice breaking a little, "I was running, and I saw a hand, and then I tripped and fell badly, next to the body. It's Mr. Janacek, he's my calculus teacher. At the high school."

"And the boy over there, how do you know him?" the officer gestured at Ash, who was standing off to one side, not allowed to leave but not being watched; he had his camera out, Danny couldn't tell if he was taking pictures or just fiddling with it, but he seemed more comfortable with it in his hands.

"I don't know him, I mean I didn't before this morning, but he goes to my school."

"Was Mr. Janacek his teacher, also?"

"I don't know," Danny shrugged, turning to look at the officer's badge, "Officer P. Kelly? What does the P stand for?"

"Pete," the officer answered in surprise.

"Not Peter?" Danny wondered, cocking his head at the officer.

"No, just Pete," Officer Kelly smiled.

"You're very handsome," Danny sighed wistfully.

"Huh?" the officer was startled.

"Oh, I'm sorry," Danny blushed, "I think the painkillers just kicked in."

"It's OK, Danny," the officer laughed uneasily and took a tiny step backward, then put his professional voice back on, "That's all for now, I'll ask you some more questions after you've had a chance to rest. Is there someone you'd like me to call? Should I call your Mom to meet you at the hospital?"

"My mother?" Danny scoffed, then remembered that the newcomer wouldn't know about his relationship with his family and couldn't be expected to see the ridiculousness of the suggestion, "You should probably call my father, he'd have you fired if something happened to a Vandervere and he wasn't the first to know. But before you call him, call Mrs. Espinosa, that's our housekeeper, she'll come to the hospital for me, and you can tell my father that she's coming so he won't have to worry about me. Do you have the number?"

When Officer Kelly walked away, Danny was left alone for a few minutes as the paramedics kicked around talking to the police, chatting about the crime and speculating about what had happened. Danny felt very alone, until his eyes lit on Ash standing by himself looking slightly forlorn.

"Can Ash come with me?" Danny asked the paramedic he knew, whose name was Dirk, "To the hospital, I mean?"

"It's supposed to only be family," Dirk told him, casting a look at the other boy, "But for you, I can always make an exception."

"Thank you, Dirk, you're sweet," Danny gave the man the most charming smile he could dredge up in the circumstances, a ghost of his normal devastating smile but still fairly potent.

"Just come lay down on the gurney so we can strap you in for transport," Dirk told him gently, reaching out to stroke his cheek, "Bill will settle you in, and I'll go get your friend."

Danny kissed the palm of the man's hand and winked at him before moving back into the ambulance; Dirk glanced around quickly to see if anybody had noticed that little interplay, but everyone seemed quite focused on the dead body.

"I hope you don't mind," Danny said to Ash when they were alone in the back of the moving ambulance, "I know I'm asking a lot, but I was afraid of being alone."

"I don't mind," the boy replied simply.

"But you must have had plans for the rest of the day," Danny insisted on painting himself as selfish.

"Not at all," Ash smiled at him, "My mom wants me to clean my room, but I'd just as soon not."

"Did you leave your car somewhere?"

"I'm parked at the hotel, I'm sure my old bucket is safe there."

"I'll make sure someone takes you back," Danny promised, then was struck by an unconnected thought, "Why were you in the woods this morning?"

"It's a public place, isn't it?" the boy asked defensively.

"Oh, I didn't mean that," Danny assured him, "I'm glad you were there, I don't know what I would have done without you. I was just curious what brought you out so early in the morning."

"Taking pictures," Ash relaxed visibly, "I was trying to catch that kind of light you get early in the morning in woods, sort of green and clean, crisp and sort of ultrareal. I started off by the lake at dawn, trying to get the sunrise, but the trees were in the way, so I hiked up to the next trail. Want to see?"

"Wonderful composition," Danny said, focused on the LCD screen on the back of the camera as Ash scrolled through some of the pictures he'd taken, first at the lake and then in the woods. They were nicely composed, catching attractive lines within their frames, and had good color, but the screen was too small for Danny to make out much detail.

"It's just a hobby," Ash said quietly, but with a touch of pride, stowing the camera back in his bag, "I prefer painting, but it's hard to carry an easel and canvas around with you, so I take pictures and sketches, then work them into paintings when I get home."

"May I see your face?" Danny non-sequitured again, the emotional trauma and the pills making his mind disorderly and robbing him of his well-bred politeness.

"Why?" Ash was startled by the request.

"I don't know," Danny admitted, "I just wonder what you look like without the hair in your face."

"You don't like my hair?" the boy sounded crushed.

"I do, I just like seeing behind things. Inside houses, under clothes, behind curtains. Nosy, I guess."

"OK," the boy said after thinking a moment, then pushed his hair back with both hands and gazed at Danny. His face was quite pretty, heart-shaped with small delicate features; his large eyes were a beautiful bright blue, the color of oceans on a map, thickly rimmed in smudgy black eyeliner. His small cupid's-bow mouth was also painted, but in a pale flesh-tone to make it disappear into his face, leaving the eyes the only noticeable feature. His skin was stark white, with an ivory undertone, marred by a few pimples beside his mouth and along his forehead. There was something terribly vulnerable about the face, it was a face that cried out "don't hurt me"... it was no wonder the boy chose to guard it behind that curtain of hair.

"You're so pretty," Danny sighed with a smile, causing the boy to blush furiously and drop his hair back over his face, "I'm sorry, I keep saying things that I should only be thinking. Please forgive me."

"My face is insipid," the boy corrected him bitterly, "Like some stupid Nancy Keane waif."

"Nonsense," Danny replied in surprise, then tried to lighten the mood by reaching out and grasping the boy's knee, jiggling it back and forth, "I say you're quite lovely, and I have exquisite taste. I shall not be gainsaid."

Ash laughed at that, shaking his head in disbelief at the twelve-dollar words and the grandiose tone. Their conversation was interrupted by the ambulance's arrival at the small hospital in Vandervere, another state-of-the-art facility that benefited greatly from being used by the Vandervere family: if the Vanderveres weren't in residence, it would be a standard-issue employee clinic and county hospital, not a large and expensively equipped showplace that drew talented doctors, nurses, and specialists from all over the state.

Danny was of course treated with the respect and care due a head of state, called "sir" at every turn and kept informed at every step of his treatment. They gave him a set of scrubs to wear, instead of a flimsy hospital gown, and even produced a warm fuzzy bathrobe from somewhere. The doctors never talked over him, including him in their conversations, and the radiologist actually asked Danny's permission to touch his leg and position it for x-raying. There were no interminable waits for a room or a doctor or a service, Danny was hustled through the process, his wounds recleaned and redressed, his x-rays developed within minutes, and his ankle put in a padded brace and bound again.

Within thirty minutes, Danny was propped up in a bed in a private room, his ankle (which was strained rather than sprained, with a bruised ligament that would heal in a few days) propped on a towel full of ice, working his way through an immense breakfast (he hadn't eaten anything all day except an energy bar before leaving the house at dawn) that he shared with Ash.

Though Danny was still feeling dopey from the drugs and the shock, and occasionally let out little confidences and observations that he would ordinarily have kept to himself, he was feeling a good deal more lucid as he discussed art with Ash while they waited, displaying a depth of insight into the subject that surprised the other boy.

"You're different than I thought you'd be," Ash said, pulling out his big drawing pad from the depths of his messenger bag and rummaging for some pencils so he could sketch Danny.

"How did you think I'd be?" Danny wondered, slurping down a cup of diced peaches, enjoying every bite as if he'd never eaten such things before.

"I don't know," the boy shrugged as he started arranging his composition with broad strokes of a light pencil, "You're so popular, and an athlete, and rich... I guess I thought you'd be kind of self-involved and a little stupid. But you're interesting and smart and really nice. It doesn't seem quite right."

"You've described my brothers to a tee," Danny laughed, "Most of my family, in fact. I just didn't want to be like them. I can't help being a Vandervere, and I take all the popularity and privelege that comes with it; but I can choose to be nice, and to devote my intelligence to the life of the mind rather than using it to gain power over people or make more money. Not that I'd turn my nose up at power or money, mind you, those are nice, too... it's just the manner of gaining it where I have some scruples. Not many, but some. Are you drawing a picture of me?"

"You don't mind, do you?" Ash looked up from his drawing, having not really been listening as Danny spoke.

"I look such a mess," Danny objected.

"You look beautiful," Ash said simply, going back to the drawing, "I think I'll draw you as a wounded warrior, Greek or Roman or something. Saint Sebastian Tended by Irene or like that."

"Classical, neoclassical, or postmodern neoclassical?" Danny asked, trying to visualize the idea.

"I don't know, I'll see how it develops," he murmured vaguely, focused on the drawing.

"Are you feeling better?" Officer Kelly stepped into the room after knocking on the doorsill.

"Yes, thank you," Danny smiled at him.

"I have some more questions for you, if you're up for it," the officer pulled up a chair facing Danny.

"I'll try," Danny promised, "Have you found out anything about what happened to Mr. Janacek?"

"Well, yes," the officer took out his notepad and consulted some earlier pages, "It looks like the victim was not killed where you found him, we followed a trail all the way back up to the Wilderness Area, there's evidence he was killed there in one of the picnic grounds."

"Did he fall?" Danny wondered, trying to remember the landscape, whether it would be possible to get all the way down to the middle path by mere gravity; but there were so many places where a falling object would have caught and stuck, the thickness of the trees and the placement of rocks, and the intervening trails.

"No, it appears he was pushed, pulled, and in some places dragged to about ten feet uphill from where you found him, then he slid the rest of the way on his own."

"Why would someone do that?" Danny wondered.

"I was hoping you could tell me," Officer Kelly looked sharply at him.

"What do you mean?" Danny felt a thrill of fear at that question, though he couldn't say why.

"Who knew that you'd be running on that path this morning?" the policeman's voice took on a strange hardness, almost accusatory.

"Nobody," Danny tried to think of who knew his running routes, he never ran with anyone and in the last few weeks hadn't encountered anyone else on that trail early in the morning, "Mrs. Espinosa knows which way I go, she insists I tell her before I go out in case I don't come back in time, she'll know where to send people to look for me. She gets worried that I might meet a bear, or break my leg, or something. She wanted me to take my phone, but where would I put it?"

"Nobody else knows when and where you go running?" the officer seemed suspicious of that explanation.

"I don't think so," Danny frowned with concentration, "I always go alone, I haven't met anybody on the trail that early in weeks; unless Mrs. Espinosa told someone where I was going, I can't think of anyone. Why?"

"Well," Officer Kelly leaned back in his chair, "I have to wonder if someone meant for you to find that body."

"Why would you think that?"

"The only two logical reasons I can think why someone would drag and push a body for almost a quarter of a mile down all of those hills and cliffs would be to either hide the body or to hide the site of the murder. But since the tracks led very clearly back to where the man was killed, and the body was left somewhere that it would be found -- if not by you, then by someone from the hotel, before the day was out -- then those two reasons can't stand. I can't help but think the body was put where it was for a reason, and the only reason I can think of is for you to find it."

"Oh," Danny said, trying and failing to find a flaw in the argument.

"So what I have to ask you, Danny," Officer Kelly fidgeted in his chair, clearly unwilling to ask what he needed to know next, "is if you had some kind of relationship with Mr. Janacek that somebody knew about."

"Um," Danny was stuck: he couldn't admit his relationship with Mr. Janacek, not to a policeman, and not in front of Ash; and yet, he was a fundamentally honest person and had no idea of how to go about creating a lie.

"Um, what?" the officer prompted.

"He was my teacher," Danny equivocated.

"I have a cat," Officer Kelly said, seemingly out of nowhere, "His name is Groucho.
He's a hunter, he's always catching birds and mice and things. And he always brings them to me and lays them at my feet, or by the side of the bed next to my slippers."

"Oh?" Danny couldn't imagine why the policeman was suddenly talking about his cat.

"I wonder if someone was offering this kill to you, like my cat brings his kills to me."

"You think a cat killed Mr. Janacek?" Danny was confused, and the confusion was magnified by the pain-killers he was on.

"Think about what I said, Mr. Vandervere. If something occurs to you, some idea about a person related to you and Mr. Janacek who might do something like that, you should contact me right away."

"OK," Danny eyed the man askance.

"And you, Mr. Phillips?" Officer Kelly turned to face Ash, startling the boy considerably.

"And me what?" Ash stammered, having thought himself completely invisible in his dark corner behind his sketchpad.

"Was Mr. Janacek your teacher?"

"No, I have Ms. Cummings, third-period algebra."

"Did you know Mr. Janacek outside of school?"

"No," the boy blinked at him with his one visible eye, pulling the hair that covered the other.

"If you think of anything you haven't told me, something you forgot about, you'll let me know?"

"Of course," Ash whispered, taking the officer's business card and tucking it into his bag.

"Your housekeeper is here, Mr. Vandervere," Officer Kelly put out his hand to Danny, "She'll take you home. Thank you for your help."

"I wish I could help more," Danny said, shaking the man's hand and watching him walk out the door.

"Danny! Mijo!" Mrs. Espinosa burst noisily into the room, grabbing Danny's cheeks and kissing his forehead, "What happened?"

"I just fell down, Tia," Danny tried to calm her.

"This is more than a fall," she started examing his bandages with a critical eye, making sure they were on right.

"I was running and I caught my foot on a root, and so it was a pretty bad fall, but I'm OK," Danny assured her, "I skinned my shoulder and my hands, and I got a cut on my side, and I strained my ankle. But I'll be healed in a week. Honestly, I'm fine."

"And what am I hearing about a corpse?" she stood back and crossed her arms in a suspicious manner, as if Danny was trying to hide something from her.

"It was awful," Danny said, tears starting again in his eyes -- he had managed to put that horror out of his mind; even when he was talking to the policeman, he had thought of the body as an abstract idea, not the lifeless remains of a real person he knew.

"Oh, my poor mijo," Mrs. Espinosa came back at him and threw her arms around him.

"It was my teacher, Tia. Mr. Janacek, my calculus teacher," Danny sobbed into his housekeeper's shoulder.

"It's OK, baby, it's OK," she rubbed his back and rocked him gently, and from that position finally noticed Ash sitting there in the corner with his sketch pad, and challenged him with a whispered, "Who are you?"

"That's Ash, Tia," Danny said into her shoulder, "He goes to my school. He was there, too. He's been keeping me company."

"Thank you, Ash," Mrs. Espinosa beamed at the boy, "That was nice of you."

"It's nothing," Ash blushed, hiding behind his sketch-pad.

"Are you ready to go home, mijo?" Mrs. Espinosa asked Danny when he stopped crying, "I have Mr. Harrison and your SUV here, you can lay down in the back and keep your ankle up."

"Can we take Ash to his car, Tia?" Danny asked her, "He's parked at the hotel."

"Of course, mijo! Anything you want."

With Mrs. Espinosa there to escort Danny home, the doctors and nurses all came clustering around, all trying so hard to be helpful that they were getting in each other's way; they lifted him into a wheelchair and trolleyed him out to Danny's big black SUV, settling him into the back with blankets and pillows and boxes of juice. Danny was a little embarrassed by the attention, but he was gracious to everyone who helped him, thanking people by name and making eye contact and shaking hands all around.

Mrs. Espinosa sat in the back with him and had Ash sit in the front with Mr. Harrison, the chauffeur; she held his head and stroked his hair, singing Spanish lullabies; Mr. Harrison tried to have a conversation with Ash, but the boy was so shy that he replied in terse monosyllables.

"Which car is yours, sir?" Harrison asked Ash when they pulled in to the parking lot of the Lake Augusta Hotel at the end of Dam Road, which led to the resort over the dam that created Lake Augusta from the eastern end of town.

"You can let me out here," Ash said nervously.

"I am happy to take you to your car, sir," Harrison protested, slowing to a crawl in the driveway.

"It's not necessary," Ash insisted.

"As you wish, sir," the chauffeur stopped the car and popped the locks from his control panel so Ash could get out.

"Ash?" Danny called out from the back seat, as he stepped out of the car, "Will you come over tomorrow afternoon? If you're not busy?"

"If you want," the boy paused, looking at him over the back of the seat.

"Do you know how to get there?" Danny asked, smiling up at him.

"I think so," Ash answered, though still nervously.

"Just follow the Lake Road to the end. Mrs. Espinosa will expect you."

"OK," Ash paused and looked at Danny wonderingly, "I'll see you tomorrow."

"Thank you so much Ash, for all your help today."

"It was nothing," the boy said again, blushing, then scuttled out of the car and around the side of the hotel in the direction of the staff parking lot.

"I wonder why he wouldn't let us take him to his car?" Danny asked Mrs. Espinosa as the car started up again and pulled back onto the Dam Road to drive around the southern shore of the lake.

"Maybe he's embarrassed by it, mijo," the housekeeper said reasonably, "maybe it's not as nice as your car."

"That's silly," Danny frowned, "I don't care about such things."

"I know you don't, sweet boy, but Ash doesn't know you as well as we do."

"I can change that, though, can't I?" Danny smiled at Mrs. Espinosa and kissed her hand.

*****

When Ash arrived the next afternoon, Danny was propped up in bed, his ankle elevated on a pile of pillows, working on the Sunday New York Times crossword puzzle. He was wearing gray fleece lounge pants and a forest green scoop-neck t-shirt, his uninjured foot in a fleece-lined slipper, the foot of his injured ankle and its brace swaddled in what looked like a hand-knitted Christmas stocking. He was surrounded by books, mostly schoolbooks but also several volumes of epic poetry open face-down, to be dipped into at leisure.

"Ash! Thank God you've come!" Danny cried gladly when the boy crept quietly into the room, dressed in baggy blacks and blues again, carrying a tray with two glasses and a bowl filled with ice and bottled sodas, "I am dying of boredom."

"This house is so confusing, I actually got lost," Ash said with a tone of wonder, looking around the large bright room for a place to set down the tray.

"Oh, here, put that down," Danny cleared the books off his night-table, "I'd get up, but Tia won't let me. The doctor told her I was to stay off my feet for three days at least, and she has taken that to mean that I am simply not allowed to stand up or walk around for any reason. I think she's got my floor rigged with sensors, when I got up to go pee a while ago, she came roaring in here and practically carried me back to the bed."

"She gave me this and just told me to go to the top of the stairs and turn right," Ash laughed as he laid the tray on the table, then started peeling off his outer layers of clothes, laying his messenger bag, coat, hoodie, and knit cap on the small desk-chair, "but she didn't tell me to go forward to the hallway and then right. I ended up in a linen closet first try."

"I'm sorry," Danny smiled up at him ruefully, "Sunday is the maids' day off, only the live-ins are here. It's their day off, too, but Tia always comes back from mass and spends the day concocting in the kitchen. We're all usually over at The Aspens for Family Sunday, so she has the freedom to experiment."

"What are The Aspens?" Ash was looking around for a place to sit, having already filled the one chair in the room with his outerwear.

"It's my Uncle Charles's place, a few miles west of town. Do you like ginger ale?" Danny asked, prying open two of the bottles and putting ice in the glasses, "Since he's the head of the family, we're all supposed to go to his house on Sundays after church and spend the afternoon. Of course, none of us goes to church anymore, except on holidays, but the tradition stands. Oh, hey, there's an armchair in the next bedroom down the hall, why don't you drag it in here so you can sit comfortably? I'm sorry I didn't think of it before you came, I don't have visitors up here much."

"That's OK," Ash assured him, "I don't mind. How many doors down the hall? I don't want to get lost again."

"Two doors... no, wait, three doors, there's a utility room between my bathroom and the empty bedroom. Just open doors on the right and you'll find it."

A few minutes later, Ash came back dragging a heavy Mission-style oak armchair that probably weighed more than he did; Danny was impressed by his strength, though he felt horribly guilty for not getting up and helping. But Ash managed quite well on his own, putting the chair into position, getting settled into it, and taking a few gulps from his glass of ginger ale.

"Is this really your room?" Ash wondered, gazing around with curiosity.

"Of course," Danny looked at him questioningly, "Why wouldn't it be?"

"Well, it's so bare. It's not what I expected at all."

"What were you expecting?"

"Oh, I don't know," Ash hesitated, not sure if he should continue in this vein, "Big-screen TV, video games, monster stereo, posters. Rich-kid stuff. This looks like a guest room, bigger than the one down the hall but not much different."

"My brothers' rooms down on the second floor are like you say," Danny looked around his room trying to see it with a newcomer's eye, "But nobody ever gives me those kinds of things. I didn't really want them. I do have a stereo, it's in that cabinet over there, I usually keep it closed so it doesn't get dusty. And I have my laptop, and all the books want... though I must admit, a big-screen TV would be nice. I'll remember to ask Santa."

"You don't feel like you belong here, do you?" Ash blurted an observation that had been brewing since he entered this Spartan room.

"No, I guess I don't," Danny answered slowly, letting the idea sink in, seeing for the first time the transient look of his bedroom, a room that for most people was a reflection of their true selves, "I guess I should decorate it more. There are paintings in storage I could use, and souvenirs and things I could set out instead of keeping them in boxes. But I just don't spend that much time up here. I'm outside most of the time, or at the Aunt Ems'."

"Who are the Aunt Ems?" he laughed at the strange name, which gave Danny the opportunity to entertain him with stories about his great-aunts, their personalities and his special relationship with them, telling him about the lessons he received there and the room he'd been given (though it occurred to him that his room in the Pine Street house was no more personal than the one at the Lake House, being more of a museum display than a private room).

"I hope you're hungry," Mrs. Esposito came into the room backwards, carrying two bed-trays piled high with food, stacked one on top of the other, "I made tapas today, and I got carried away with the different recipes I've found."

"But, Tia, it's your day off!" Danny protested, though he was grateful for the food, "you shouldn't be waiting on us."

"What, I should honor the Lord's Day by letting you two sit up here and starve?" the housekeeper gave Danny a sidelong look as she set both trays over Danny's lap and then carried the topmost tray over to Ash, "You're doing me a favor, eating up all this extra food. You boys tell me what you think when you're done, OK?"

"She's really nice," Ash said when Mrs. Esposito had left, picking over the pile of unfamiliar bite-sized morsels on his plate.

"She's wonderful," Danny agreed, digging into the food, "She's a mother to me."

"But you have a mother," Ash pointed out.

"Yes, but Mother doesn't like me. She still resents me for almost killing her when I was born."

"That's not your fault!" the boy was aghast.

"Yes, well," Danny shrugged, not wanting to go into it, "Tell me about your parents."

"They're divorced," Ash sniffed suspiciously at a roll of salmon and cress wrapped in transparent rice-paper, "My Dad is an accountant, he lives in Maine, I don't see him much. My mom's a veterinarian, she works for County Animal Control."

"Oh!" Danny looked up in surprise, "I've met her! Andrea Phillips, isn't it? She came out to The Aspens for the annual deer hunt in August. She's absolutely delightful."

"You hunt deer?" Ash frowned at him, unable to puzzle that piece of information into the general picture of Danny that he was forming.

"I have," Danny admitted, "I don't anymore, it always made me so sad. Deer are such beautiful creatures. I know they have to be culled, it's for their own good, and I do love venison... but to destroy a living creature, bring that wonderful gracefulness to an end, convert it into hides and meat... I just don't have it in me. Nevertheless, I have to go to the Hunt Breakfast, it's a family occasion. That's when I met your Mom, she was seated on my left and told me the most wonderful stories about family dogs and wild animals forming attachments. You used to live in Boulder, didn't you?"

"Yeah," Ash said simply, amazed that Danny would not only remember meeting his mother and the exact topic of their conversation, but even remember on which side she sat.

"I've been there, very briefly, on a trip with the cross-country team. It's really breathtaking."

"The winters are way too cold," Ash told him, "But yeah, it was nice. It's a lot like here, but with more people."

Over the next two hours, the boys got to know each other, asking each other questions and revealing things about themselves that surprised and delighted the other. It turned out that Ash was the same age as Danny, and like Danny had skipped freshman year because he was too smart; they both liked opera, though Ash wasn't as educated on the art-form as Danny and only knew a few Puccini standards and a fairly obscure French opera that he'd bought when an aria from it had been featured in one of his favorite films; they neither of them seemed to understand other kids their age, and enjoyed socializing with adults, though Ash never quite knew what to say to strangers and so knew no adults in Vandervere except his mother's boyfriend, a forest ranger who Danny could tell Ash didn't like but endured for his mother's sake.

Before too long, Ash had his drawing pad out again and was scribbling dozens of little character-sketches, trying to capture Danny's facial expressions, his different kinds of smiles, his little pouts of distaste, his way of playing with his hair when he was thinking; but this didn't interrupt the flow of their conversation, it just gave Ash something to do with his hands.

Mrs. Espinosa came back at 3:30 with another meal, a high tea with fried-egg sandwiches and chocolate cake, and quizzed them on the tapas, taking note of the things they liked and the things that were "too challenging to the palate" (as Danny phrased it), then left them again to their own company.
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