If Kaelin made five flights a week as steward, about four of them would find him in a lousy mood. Not surprising then that Kaelin had hardly any friends among his peers. It wasn't that the other airline stewards, men and women, hated him, but they simply found it impossible to tolerate an unfriendly soil to merry job productivity.

Being unpopular did not help Kaelin's already poor self-esteem any. What Kael really needed were more friends, not less, especially ones who accepted him despite his apparent aloofness.

Unfortunately, most people, Kael met, were apt to misconstrue what was a defense mechanism for snobbery. It was true, and Kael knew it, that he put up walls and these walls alienated him from almost everybody. But hurt too often in his youth, Kael simply found it difficult to trust anyone anymore.

Kael would be the last to make excuses, but truth be known, it certainly was not naturally easy to trust anyone if you had grown up living with an abusive stepfather who, when caroused, deemed it his right to treat you and your anatomical possession as _s_e_x_ual sport, all at his disposal to do as he pleased. What used to please Kael's stepfather every time was to thrust his penis into Kael's anus and cum into his rectum just before he would fall asleep with his limping dick still up Kael's overused hole.

Atypical of children of abuse, Kaelin Campbell would learn to develop a reticence concerning his past. Certainly he had also developed a deep feeling of shame for himself and for his having been in complicity with his stepfather's shameful act of abuse. In any case, Kael felt it pointless to air his emotional baggage even though he unwittingly and conspicuously carried this baggage with him everywhere he went. He had been doing so for the past seven years, from the day his stepfather started his abuse when he was fourteen years old.

Kael had sought professional counseling, but the way every therapist would look at him always made him feel a sense of ignominy that he was to blame for his own deep-seated emotional turmoil. Because it somehow always came out in the course of the therapy that he was gay. And consequently all his therapists had this way of removing their glasses to glare deeply into his eyes and make him feel, even though they never said so, that perhaps he, Kael, had wanted to have _s_e_x_ with his stepfather all along.

For the umpteenth time, Kael would arrive home from an encounter with his shrink, throw himself on his pillow and revile against such a preposterous observation. "Not true," he would cry into his pillow, while tears of confusion ran down his cheeks, "not true at all!"

And then Kael told himself he would never again let down his guard, or let any stranger have a glimpse of his unsavory past. Nor would he ever again let anyone make him cry. That was a year ago and Kael hadn't known how to cry since.

Now, there were going to be two hours before the plane landed. Kael was doing his rounds along the aisle, collecting the empty plastic cups from his passengers. He seemed surly.

For Kael knew the others were talking about him behind his back again. The condemnation, the belittlement and the demeaning conjectures were becoming the mainstays of their backbiting against him. What he needs is a _f_u_c_k_; no, he needs to be jettisoned from the plane like they do excess baggage; he wants a good spank; well, I think he ought to be raped; yes, he needs to be spanked and raped. These were some of the portable ideas being suggested by all the other stewards as far as how they should deal with such an unpleasant co-worker as Kaelin.

But there was always one who preferred to keep a benevolent distance from the idle talk. This was Chief Steward, Scott Vernon. Scott liked Kael; he had, from that first day six months ago when Kael joined the airline company as a steward in training. He thought Kael was hardworking, honest and quietly intelligent. And although lacking social graces, Kael was redeemed by being cute and photogenic.

"All Kaelin needs is a kind word, and a friend," Scott said to his colleagues in typical Christian charity of sympathy.

"You want to be the goodwill ambassador?" the others replied, snickering. "Well, good luck."

The Iowa native smiled. Scott secretly harbored an affectionate longing for Kael to be his romantic partner.

However, it was no secret that Scott was gay. He wasn't campy and effeminate at all, so this was not what gave away his identity. In fact, it could be said that Scott looked like your everyday college jock, blessed with rippling biceps on his upper arms and a masculine face and equally masculine coif framing that face. Scott simply never made any bones about his preferences and orientation. On the contrary, he was openly gay.

Scott was also openly religious and faithfully attended Sunday services at the Presbyterian Church whenever he chanced to be in Cedar Rapids, which was where he was born and grew up. The church was a radical one, one of the first to ordain a woman as pastor and embrace homo_s_e_x_ual men and women into its membership.

Of course a gay man could sometimes sniff out another gay man in an enclosed work proximity. But as much as Scott was certain about Kael's orientation, Kael was certain he wanted nothing to do with Scott. It wasn't that Kael was not attracted, for Scott was a gorgeous older man, but Kael didn't need the added trouble of a friendship that could blossom as something deeper that his predisposition to failure, due to a scarred past, might not be able to nurture.

So then it was hardly surprising that Kael had turned down Scott's first friendly overture. That was on their last port of disembarkation in Tokyo two days ago.

Preferring to strive for victory rather than languish in defeat, Scott determined to make another chase for Kael when they arrived at Minnesota in the evening, withal running the risk of a second rejection. Kael and Scott were going to be roommates while in transit, and so it would simplify the effort for Scott. Scott was a devotee of the philosophy that Kael could benefit from knowing an all-powerful New Testament God, who might have the remedy for whatever was hurting Kael. Indeed, Scott had the prescience that Kael was carrying plenty of hurts in his soul.

However, little did Scott count on his pals carrying out what he had assumed were but bad jokes. But there they were, on top of Kael, when he arrived back at their suite after an extended dinner.

There were four men in all that were accosting Kael, and they had stripped Kael naked. They had lain him flat on his stomach, the sheets on the bed all twisted, and three of them had been gagging his mouth and holding down his arms and feet to allow the fourth man, Zak, to thrust his exposed tool into his captive's equally exposed anal cavity. It was already done by the time Scott made sense of what he was witnessing - the act had already been completed - and Zak was just lifting himself up. Zak's penis was softening but still wet with semen and Kael's fluid. Zak was laughing and inciting the others to laugh along.

No one gave food to the thought that what they had done was a felony - _s_e_x_ual harassment of a co-worker.

There was something about the presence of a righteous man that could always make an evil-doer feel ashamed. Zak and his accomplices were soon to erase the grins of jubilation from their faces and as they filed out of the room, Zak issued a friendly warning to Scott.

"The royal pain had it coming to him," he told Scott. "He simply had to be humbled, and besides, it's all done in the spirit of camaraderie. We were trying to make friends, that's all. We've known one another for a long time, Scott. And that punk's just the new kid on the block. It would be professionally sensible to deny anything happened."

Finally left alone with each other, Kael crawled under the sheets as Scott came to sit on the bed beside him. "I should call the house doctor," Scott said when Kael seemed calmer.

Kael shook his head, which he had buried under his slim arms.

"Would you like me to call the police instead?" Scott asked cautiously.

"No," Kael muttered, "forget it, okay?"

Now Scott couldn't be sure what it was that made him do it, but he found himself overcome by anger, righteous anger, perhaps, and he forcibly yanked his subordinate up.

"Forget it?" Scott exclaimed, holding Kael by his shoulders. "What's the matter with you? Why do you keep doing this? You carry this huge chip on your shoulder, you mope about as if you have the entire weight of this burdensome generation on you, but you allow no one to come close to you. Why do you want to go through everything alone?"

"And why do you care?" Kael hissed rudely. "Who are you? Are you my father? Are you my brother?"

"No," Scott replied, peeved, "coz if I were your father or brother, I'd not let you get this way. I'd have spanked you a long time ago."

Kael scowled, astonished, and then he wrested himself from Scott to retreat behind his protective wall once more. "Why the hell do you care?" he whispered before burying his head in his hands.

Scott had never seen Kael like this. No one had. Curled up like an orphaned kitten, Kael suddenly seemed small, helpless and lost. Scott's heart turned over.

"I just do," Scott confessed tenderly. "I had, from the first day you joined the company."

Kael looked up from his hands, his face contorted in bitterness and then he laughed cynically. "Right," he said resentfully, "you and just about every other testosterone-crazed male on earth. All you care about is getting your prick into my ass. Like my stepfather. You're all the same, everyone of you."

It wasn't planned, this delineation of his perception, as obscure in reality as it was. Neither had Kael wanted to tell on his stepfather, however fragmented the truth. It might as well have been a confession to the police of his and his stepfather's crime. Frightened, Kael withdrew into himself yet again.

But of course Scott had already taken offense to Kael's remark as an unjust effrontery of his moral standards. "You're wrong about me," Scott said in an even and calm tone. "I'm not anything like that, or like your stepfather, for all that you said he did. Nothing at all, my friend."

If in some future, Scott were asked about his next action, he couldn't deny that it was premeditated. Surprising Kael, Scott reached out for his arms, gripped them tightly in his hands and then pulled him forward. Scott shifted and forced the younger man to lie facedown across his lap. It was just as well that Kael was naked, Scott thought, ignoring the unfortunate reality that Kael had just been raped. Scott lifted his arm quickly and suddenly bludgeoned Kael's nude flesh. It was only the first of a succession of correctional spankings Scott felt necessary to hand Kael in order to disabuse him of his misperceptions.

Hollering from the pain, Kael issued mild versions of verbal and physical resistance to being spanked. In reprisal, Scott twisted Kael's arms back, pinned them down against the small of his back and then crossed a leg over his thigh, spreading apart his, Kael's, legs. Kael was immobilized. Scott was thence allowed to carry out Kael's spanking. Scott's hand rose and fell and rose and fell unhindered, like an automaton out of time.

Some time in the spanking, Scott rested his arm to inform the whimpering Kael that he planned to make a police report. This was notwithstanding Kael's expressed wish against it.

"For some reason, you don't think it's a crime what they did to you," Scott continued. "You seem to think you ought to let yourself be used to compensate for somebody else's _s_e_x_ual inadequacy. Perhaps it's on account of what your stepfather did. He hurt you bad, didn't he? He raped you, Kael, is this it? That was what you started to say, wasn't that? Is this why you don't want to press charges against Zak and the rest? You think you deserve what you got, just as you think you deserve what your stepfather did to you.

"I'm right, aren't I? But my foolish boy, you've been so completely wrong about everything and especially about yourself. Maybe you've heard this before, but let me say it again. You don't deserve to be abused in any way, not by anyone, and not for any reason. One day, my friend, I hope you will learn to love yourself the way I know I want to love you."

Scott resumed spanking Kael's bottom and thighs until he was no longer weeping but sobbing uncontrollably, his breathing becoming erratic. Scott relaxed his arm to study the crying boy. Kael's tears had nothing to do with the pain on his buttocks. Scott knew. Scott had been waxing perplexed about Kael's unnatural fortitude toward the burden of all his hurts. So it now pleased him to hear Kael's emotions totally racked and finally given vent by a spanking. Scott could always count on a spanking to fulfill his mission.

"Go ahead and cry, baby," Scott whispered, gathering Kael under his wings and hugging him tight. It was over for now. Kael had been spanked enough for one night.

"Cry all you want," Scott continued. "It'll do your soul a lot of good."

Of course Scott was only too aware that a hurt as deeply-entrenched as Kael's did not get spanked away in one day. It was going to be an uphill battle to repair Kael's distorted self-image and Scott foresaw many trips across his knees for Kael while he, Scott, himself led the charge against all those demons of abuse and hurt that haunted Kael. But Kael didn't need to be told any of this right now. They'd just have to take things one day at a time.

Kael had already pressed himself deeply against Scott's bosom, seemingly somnolent. Scott's face broke into a soft smile. Someday he would ask Kaelin about his stepfather but in the meantime he would revel in the pleasure of giving comfort and security to this beautiful young man in his arms.

(Copyright, JRK, December '99.)