Eric and Jamie - Part 1
My mother died when I was 17, which left me in the "tender" care of my step father. They had only been married about three years, and he and I didn't get along at all. He became my legal guardian when my mom died, but the day I turned 18 he put me out on the street. As he put it (in his eloquent southern drawl) "Ain't gonna have no homos livin' under mah roof." I still had two months to go to finish high school, but being out on the street so suddenly and so unexpectedly I had to drop out just before finishing.
I didn't really have many friends. I was kind of a loner, and I was too embarrassed to ask for help from the few very close acquaintances I did have. After a week of sleeping in a park and being very low on cash I hopped a bus in desperation to the gay area of town. There was a coffee house there where most of the under 21 crowd hung out (too young to go clubbing or get into bars) and I made my way there with only a vague idea of what I was planning.
I had talked there one Saturday night with this guy named Randy who said that if I ever needed some "easy money" I should talk to him. Immediately thereafter some other guys warned me that he was a hustler and that I should just stay away from him. The second time I talked to him and he made his offer again I told him I wasn't a prostitute and wasn't interested, and he said that it wasn't always like that.
So, naively, I made my way back to that coffee house in hopes of getting more details from Randy. When I found him he explained that some guys just wanted to watch you jack off, others just wanted to jack you off or have you do that to them. There were a lot of things you could do that would be "safe."
To make a very long story short, I did go out with him and picked up a guy who supposedly just wanted to watch me jack off. He ended up trying to rape me, and beat me up pretty badly in my struggle to get away. I was scared to death, and I cried myself to sleep behind a dumpster that I had found to be relatively safe.
I woke up stiff and cold and decided to go walking in one of the nicer neighborhoods that were just south of "the boulevard." I didn't want to walk on the busy streets where so many guys "worked." I just wanted to walk around in a nice area and pretend that my life hadn't gone all to _s_h_i_t_ in the space of a few short days. I missed my mother terribly, but I had to push thoughts of her aside or I knew I was going to lose it all together.
I stopped dead in my tracks when I saw a McDonald's breakfast meal steaming deliciously on the hood of a car parked in the driveway ahead of me. I hadn't eaten since the night before last, trying to stretch out my last three dollars, and I was starving. I glanced quickly around, but I didn't see anybody. My stomach grumbled loudly, and I glanced nervously at the house where the car was parked.
It was obviously under heavy construction. Whoever was remodeling it was doing a fairly complete job, and there was no one in site. I walked quickly over to the tray of egg McMuffin and two hash browns and scooped it up in my hands, leaving the coffee where it was. Just as I turned to bolt a hand closed like a vice on my left shoulder and I yelped in surprise.
"What do you think you're doing?" asked a large, dark haired man. He was wearing a t-shirt, jeans, and work boots.
"I'm sorry" I sputtered, setting his food back down on the hood of the car.
"What are you doing?" he repeated, glaring at me.
"Nothing" I said, trying to pull free of his grip but failing.
"You're not going anywhere" he said, "so you might as well relax."
"Please let me go" I said, now very afraid. I was sure he was going to call the police, and then where would I be?
"Are you hungry?" he said, calmly.
His question kind of caught me off guard, and I swallowed hard but didn't say anything. "Were you stealing my breakfast on a dare or because you're hungry?" he demanded.
I stared back at him silently, thinking of dropping to my knees and begging him not to call the police, promising anything if he'd just let me go. Instead, I just continued to stare at him.
He raised his empty palm and said, "Do I need to smack you to get an answer out of you?"
"Please don't call the cops!" I blurted, and then started to shake as the whole situation began to sink in.
"I'm not calling the police" he said, just as calm as before. "But I do expect an answer from you."
"I'm hungry" I whispered and looked at the ground, deeply ashamed. Not only had I become a wanna be prostitute, but now I was a thief as well.
With his free hand he put a finger under my chin and raised my head to look at him. "Are you on anything?" he asked.
"What?" I asked, uncomprehending.
"Are you on anything?" he repeated. "Are you high or coming down from something?"
"No" I said, indignantly. "I don't do that." Again I tugged vainly at his grip and said, "Please just let me go."
"I don't think so" he said, and in his powerful grip forced me to turn around. "Pick all that up" he said, and I again picked up his food. "Come with me" he said, turning me painfully with his grip. He grabbed his coffee with his free hand and led me down the driveway to the back yard of the house.
He shoved me roughly onto the steps of the back porch, and I looked up at him with wide, fearful eyes. "Eat that" he said, nodding at the food in my hands as he sipped on his coffee. I only hesitated half a second before tearing into the food.
"When was the last time you ate?" he asked.
"Day before yesterday" I said around a mouthful of hashbrowns.
"Who did that to you?" he said, pointing at my head.
"What?" I said.
"You've been in a fight" he said, nodding at me. I wondered suddenly what I looked like.
"I guess" I said, not wanting to go into any details.
As I finished the last bite of food he said, "You want some more?"
Deeply embarrassed, I looked at the ground and whispered, "No, thank you."
"Suit yourself" he said, grabbing me by the upper arm and dragging me up the porch steps.
"Hey!" I said. "What are you doing?"
"That meal wasn't free" he said, shoving me ahead of him into the house.
"Stop it!" I said. "Just leave me alone, okay?" I was panicking and very near tears at this point. The house, I saw, was completely empty. The whole thing was under construction in some form or another, and I looked around nervously for a way to escape.
"Time to work off your debt" he said.
"What do you mean?" I asked in a strangled voice. I'm about 5'8" and 130 lbs, with light brown almost blonde hair and brown eyes. This guy had dark, dark hair, almost black, and steel grey eyes, but he had to be at least 6'3" and well over 200 lbs of muscle. He was so much bigger than me that I knew he was going to get what he wanted no matter what I did.
As he walked over to me I squinted my eyes shut and let the tears flow, sure that what I had escaped last night was going to happen then. It seemed to be my fate, and as something hard and cold poked into my chest I made one last desperate attempt and sobbed quietly, "Please..."
"Hey" he said, slapping my face very lightly with one hand. "Come on. Relax" he said, and as I opened my eyes I saw that he was pushing a paint roller into my hands. "You're going to paint this entire room" he said. "That'll pay for your breakfast. Then we can negotiate lunch if you're up to it."
Again I glanced nervously around for a quick exit. His face got very dark then, and I gulped as he unhooked his belt and pulled it out of its loops. Folding it in half he said, "Don't _f_u_c_k_ with me, kid. You're lucky I don't beat your ass for trying to steal from me."
I sniffed loudly and cowered there in the middle of the room as he opened a can of paint and poured it into a tray. "You CAN paint, can't you?"
"Sure" I said.
"Good" he said. "Get to work" and he nodded at the tray of paint and walked back out onto the porch. I watched as he crossed the back yard, and went up the stairs that went up the side of the garage. The moment he went through the door at the top I dropped the roller and ran for where I thought the front door might be. I found it immediately and flung it wide open as I raced out of the house and down the block.
It wasn't that he had a creepy vibe like some of the guys we had turned away the night before. I was just so scared and confused at the moment. I didn't know what else to do, and the whole thing was just so weird. I avoided that area for the next couple of days, and I was able to buy one more meal with the money I had left.
I was so hungry by the second day that without even realizing it I had made my way back to the house where I had tried to steal breakfast. It was about 7:00 in the middle of summer, so the sun wasn't going to go down for nearly a couple of hours yet. I thought that if I could talk to this guy and try to explain why I had run away that he might help me again.
As I walked up to the house I saw him loading things into the trunk of his car. I walked up to within a couple of feet of him and nervously cleared my throat.
He glanced over his shoulder, and when he saw me he stood up straight and said, "Huh" in kind of a disgusted tone. I started to speak then, but he came at me poking a finger painfully in my chest and said, "Get lost. Just get out of here, or I WILL call the police."
"I'm sorry" I said, trying hard not to cry.
"Get moving" he said, calmly pointing down the block.
"Can I please explain?" I asked.
"No" he said. "You can't explain. You came here looking for another handout, and you're not going to get it. You have five seconds to get moving."
"I'm sorry I ran off!" I said to his retreating back. I assumed he was making his way to a telephone, and I felt like I only had a few seconds to convince him to listen to me.
"Mister, please" I said, tugging at his arm as he reached the bottom of the stairs that went up the side of the garage.
He turned on me then, grabbing a fistful of my shirt. "You're a thief" he said calmly but determinedly. "And I think you're a hustler, and you need to leave before I lose my temper."
"I'm not" I said, tears spilling uncontrollably out of my eyes.
"What do you call what you did?" he demanded.
"I'm sorry" I said, again unable to speak above a whisper.
"I expect you to pay for what you stole" he said.
"I don't have any more money" I sobbed. "That's why I came back" and I just gave in then and let myself cry. It was humiliating to stand there like that, him holding me captive by the front of my shirt, bawling my eyes out like a little kid.
"You think I'm going to give you money?" he asked, incredulously.
"No" I shook my head. "No. I thought -- maybe I could do painting or something."
"Since you did such a great job last time?" he asked, sarcastically.
I swallowed my tears then and decided that I had nothing to lose. I defiantly pulled away from him and said, "All right, you want the truth? Fine! I've never stolen anything in my entire life. I don't have any place to go and I'm out of money and I can either do some kind of work for you or sell my ass on the boulevard, okay? Does that satisfy you?"
My face was hot with embarrassment, and it flushed hotter when he said, "ARE you a prostitute?"
More tears sprang to my eyes, but I managed to croak, "Not yet" and then I did lose it and just sat down on the ground and put my head in my hands.
I felt his hand on the back of my neck then as he knelt in front of me. "All right" he said, massaging the back of my head. "Just cry it out" and I did cry even harder for just a few seconds and then all of a sudden the tears stopped.
"You want me to give you a chance, kid?" he said.
I could only nod my head vigorously.
"Get up" he said, patting my back. "I can use some help around here" he said. "I can use a lot of help, actually. If you're willing to do exactly as I say, you can work for me for a few days and we'll see how it works out."
"Okay" I said, shakily.
"First we need to take care of our little discipline problem" he said, unhooking his belt and pulling it out of its loops.
I gulped and said, "What are you doing?"
He grabbed my upper arm firmly and led me toward the back porch saying, "I'm going to punish you for running off. Then, if you're still willing to stay on, we'll go get something to eat and get to know each other."
He was so calm and determined, like he just expected that I'd go along with what he said. I let him lead me to the porch steps where he pushed me forward so that my hands were resting on one of the steps.
I looked back at him over my shoulder as he stood next to me, the belt doubled over. My step father had spanked me several times, but not in the last year or so that I had lived with him. I knew how badly it hurt, and I wanted to run but I didn't see that I had any way out.
Without any warning he brought the belt painfully across my lower butt and I yelped in pain. "How many?" I asked, now too scared to cry.
"Six all together" he said and wrapped his free arm tightly around my waist. SMACK! SMACK! SMACK! SMACK! SMACK! The belt quickly whipped five more times across my butt and upper thighs and I squirmed in his grip but didn't make any sound. I wasn't going to give the bastard the satisfaction. In the few seconds between the first smack and the rest I had decided to get as much as I could off this guy and get away from him when it was convenient.
"Stand up" he said, gently patting my butt. As I stood he pulled his belt back through its loops. "You've been spanked before" he said as I wiped angrily at my eyes.
"Yeah" I said, spitefully.
"What's your name, kid?" he asked.
Bewilderedly I realized that after all that had transpired I didn't even know his name. "James" I said.
"James what?" he asked
"Moore" I said. "James Moore."
He reached out his hand and I shook it, resentfully. "My name is Eric Weiss" he said, shaking my hand firmly. "You can call me Eric or Mr. Weiss. As long as you're with me I expect you to be respectful and obedient, and we'll get along just fine. Is that clear?
"Yeah" I whispered, nodding my head at the same time.
He pulled me to him then and grabbed my shoulders gently but firmly. "I know this was a terrible way to start, James" he said, squeezing my shoulders. "You don't have anything to fear from me as long as you do as you're told, okay?"
"Uh-huh" I said, nodding warily.
He smiled and said, "You think I'm a crazy bastard, don't you?"
I opened my mouth to speak, but then closed it without saying a word. He laughed good naturedly and patted my shoulder. "Give it time" he said, turning away from me. His actions were those of a kind man, but foremost in my mind was the sting in my butt. I didn't trust him, but I also didn't have much choice or say in anything right then and there. I decided that being around him was better than selling myself on the street, and I followed him up the stairs to the little room above the garage.