(A small town in a southern State of the USA, September 2010)

Christopher, or Chris to his family and friends, was one of the most popular boys in his school. Other pupils admired him for his cheerful friendliness towards everyone, as well as for his plentiful academic and sporting achievements. Girls, plus a few homosexuals, who needed to be very discreet about their sexual preferences in their highly conservative small town, also lusted after his blonde blue-eyed beauty.

Chris, newly 16 year-old, had, however, somehow never acquired a regular girlfriend, despite the attempts by many young females to lure him into such a relationship. His failure was sadly dismissed as being attributable to an otherwise uncharacteristic shyness towards the feminine gender.

One of Chris’ best friends was a boy three years younger, another only child called ‘Matthew’, or more commonly ‘Matt’. The equally fair-featured and beautiful pubescent 13 year-old lived opposite the older teenager, across a wide suburban tree-lined avenue in a similar very large and well-appointed house, their residences being testament to the high salaries earned by their respective fathers.

As the families of Chris and Matt were also close, the two boys spent a lot of time in each other’s pleasant company, despite the 3-year age differential between them. They would go to and from school together. They would watch television or play music and computer games together. They would practise baseball, basketball or football in the large rear gardens of their homes. They would sometimes study together, and the older teenager would also frequently babysit the younger whenever the parents of the latter went out for the evening.

Chris and Matt also confided a lot in each other, including talking about the various domestic, scholastic, sporting, social and other pressures experienced by boys as they advanced through their teenage years. However, both failed to reveal one secret to each other.

Chris’ secret was that he was a paedophile. He had experienced the not uncommon crush for similarly aged boys as he had passed through puberty. However, his attraction for younger male teenagers had never passed, and was the true cause of his shyness with girls.

Anyone who knew both Chris and his well kept and disguised secret would be astounded that he was a paedophile. They would otherwise have thought him instead to be the ideal epitome of American youth, rather than someone who furtively lusted after Matt, although the close friendship between the pair had truly innocently developed.

Whilst Chris had advanced through his teenage years, he had gradually reluctantly come to accept his paedophilia as something within him that could not be changed. However, given the hysterical hostility afforded by others to anyone even suspected of such sexual predilections, he also appreciated that he could never let his secret to be known to anyone if he and his family were not to be ostracised and probably driven from their home. His attitude was assisted by the fact that he lived not only in a highly conservative small town but also in a State run by a reactionary right-wing Governor, who was heavily influenced by fundamental Christians and had introduced draconian but very popular laws against what he termed ‘sexual perverts’.

The highly intelligent Chris had researched paedophilia on the Internet. He became aware that he was undoubtedly far from alone in his sexuality but that current social attitudes had driven anyone of similar persuasion, at least in certain so-called civilised Christian first-world nations, such as the USA, to hide their predilections under the guise of reputable citizenship. He therefore wondered how many of the outwardly respectable people he knew in all walks of life, including those married with children and considered unblemished husbands and fathers, not least by their wives and offspring, secretly shared his torment.

Chris also wondered how many supposedly worthy citizens of the past had successfully gone through life whilst suffering his secret. How many of the names on tombstones in American military cemeteries worldwide, or on the Vietnam War memorial in Washington DC, who had died in the service of their country, were paedophiles?

Such thoughts made Chris particularly disgusted at the hypocrisy of modern society. Famous ancient historical characters like Solon, Sophocles, Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar and Mark Antony, plus such Roman Emperors as Augustus, Tiberius, Domitian, Trajan and Hadrian, down to more modern personalities such as Oscar Wilde, Lawrence of Arabia and Charlie Chaplin, all possessed paedophile tendencies. Nevertheless, as they were all dead, their reputations were little affected. However, if a real live paedophile was caught today, he would be forever condemned as a devil reincarnate, with his life under constant threat from vigilantes, even after fully serving any sentence awarded by the legal system for any perceived misdemeanours.

Chris condemned anyone who committed harm against children, just as he would rapists who assaulted women. However, he also realised from his research that, just like heterosexual attackers, criminal predators amongst those who shared his sexuality were very few in number and their danger grossly exaggerated. Youngsters in the USA were much more likely to be seriously hurt by their parents or in road accidents. From an alternative perspective, the teenager also sadly noted that more kids had been killed in the last 2 years by the US military in Iraq, albeit more from ineptitude than design, than in the whole of history by paedophiles.

Chris knew that he could never harm a child just to satisfy his desires and that his attitude would be shared by most paedophiles. Matt was therefore safe from any amorous approaches from his teenage friend, who was prepared to admire the boy secretly but otherwise followed the maxim ‘look but don’t touch’.

Chris’ paedophilia was therefore currently wholly confined to his computer, on which he would occasionally search the Internet for photographs of boys in non-sexual situations so that he could masturbate whilst admiring one of the images. His favourite websites were those displaying pictures of young teenagers in shorts or swimming costumes, or the naturalist boards where some young nudists might be displayed, joyously frolicking in their natural unclothed form in some countryside setting.

Chris knew that his State’s harsh new laws now forbade accessing nudist websites. However, the teenager felt safe doing so as long as he took suitable precautions against detection.

Chris was one evening inspecting one of these naturalist websites on his computer in the privacy of his bedroom when he finally discovered Matt’s secret. Suddenly, there portrayed before him was the beautiful naked form of his smiling younger friend in a series of six photographs, clearly taken informally and innocently, although in a couple the boy’s penis appeared to be erect.

Matt and his parents went off on regular prolonged summer holidays to California, from which they all returned looking extremely happy and healthy, with apparent full natural body tans, and Chris now knew why. His friend and the younger boy’s parents were furtive naturalists!

After eagerly and quickly masturbating in response to his first sight of Matt in the nude, as he had previously only seen the boy dressed in swimming briefs at least, Chris wondered whether he should download the photographs, which was a practice that he had never followed previously. The teenager did not want to leave any evidence whatsoever on his computer in respect of his guilty secret and, in fact, always took great care to hide his tracks as regards the websites he had visited.

As Chris contemplated his options, he was torn between two considerations. The first was a desire to possess the photographs so that he could use the portrayals of the naked boy of his dreams for future masturbation purposes. The second contradictory one involved a wish not to betray his friendship with Matt by retaining such keepsakes.

Chris eventually set up his computer so that it was ready to begin downloading the first photograph onto a floppy disk. On the screen was the download prompt, offering two options, namely ‘Save’ and ‘Cancel’.

After much thought and hesitation, Chris eventually fatefully right clicked his cursor over ‘Save’ and he then heard the loud downloading of the first of Matt’s nude photographs onto his floppy disk, which he would later carefully hide in his room. Subsequently, as he tried to sleep, the teenager could not stop remembrance of the pictures invading his mind, as well as a nagging guilt that he now had them secreted, and he eventually only slept when he finally promised himself to destroy them.

Chris had not yet carried out his promise to himself by the time that he and Matt strolled to school together next morning. Throughout the walk, whenever he glanced at his friend, he then somehow saw not the reality of a clothed boy but instead a naked 13 year-old, which caused beads of sweat to form on his brow and his throat to become dry.

Matt noticed his friend’s obvious unusual discomfort and asked whether there was anything wrong. However, all the now blushing Chris could squeak in answer was that he had an upset stomach.

Chris had still not destroyed the floppy disk over a week later, when at dawn one Saturday morning police unceremoniously and unnecessarily battered open the front door of the teenager’s house, in the process naturally awaking the residents, as well as some of the neighbours. "What do you think you’re doing?" the quickly attired and incredulous father then asked in shock of the unexpected and unwelcome intruders.

The burly policeman in charge did not immediately reply to the paternal question but instead enquired "Where do you keep your computers?"

"Only my son has a computer," the father replied, "and he keeps it in his bedroom. Why do you ask?"

"Because," the policeman in charge responded, "we have good reason to believe that child pornography has been downloaded on it!" The officer’s ‘good reason’ stemmed from the fact that federal authorities, using the latest technology, had been furtively monitoring and tracing downloads from the naturalist website accessed by Chris and, in line with current gubernatorial policy, the State had quickly reacted to the information received.

The father glanced at an equally rapidly dressed Chris, who had followed his alarmed parents downstairs. The man had always been able to tell when his normally good son had perpetrated something naughty because the guilt was invariably evident on the boy’s reddened face when challenged. The teenager’s parent therefore vomited the contents of his stomach onto the expensive carpet of his home when he now observed such a visual confession.

Not long afterwards, after the policemen, expert in relevant searches, had speedily discovered Chris’ hidden floppy disk and inspected the photographs still present, the teenager heard the appalling words confirming his arrest. He also experienced the dreadful feel of handcuffs around his wrists, as his hands were fastened together behind him, and he was taken away in a waiting police car for further questioning.

One person who remained oblivious to Chris’ arrest was Matt. After he rose late from his bed on this weekend morning, the boy therefore played in ignorance about his friend’s plight on the front lawn of his house with his new puppy, a recent replacement for the sadly lately deceased long-standing family hound. However, the dog was not yet fully trained and decided to run into the adjacent normally quiet wide suburban road. The unthinking 13 year-old followed and was instantly killed under the wheels of a white truck.

Matt’s tragic death was subsequently recorded in the media alongside unsavoury reports about Chris, who was accused not only of being a possessor of child pornography, the photographs in question being classified as such because of the portrayal of a young erection in two of them. He was also charged with previously grooming and abusing his now sadly accidentally deceased younger friend.

Headlines in the town’s newspaper for weeks afterwards referred to Chris as being ‘The Monster in Our Midst?’ or ‘The Pervert Who Groomed his Young Friend for Sex?’ or similar. Meanwhile, the teenager, deeply distressed at his own predicament and Matt’s death, was kept in custody and in solitary confinement for his own protection whilst he awaited trial. His appalled parents had also disassociated themselves from him and fled their town and state for secret sanctuary elsewhere, abandoning their son to the care of his expensive but ultimately powerless lawyers.

The State Governor’s new draconian laws in respect of ‘sexual perverts’, supported by an equally right-wing national government and Supreme Court, allowed for the fast-tracking of relevant court cases, including appeal procedures. They also encouraged hostile paranoid hysteria amongst the media and bulk of the citizenry towards those accused of such deviant offences.

Chris therefore appeared in court quickly and was rapidly found guilty of all charges, with the full appeal process speedily exhausted. The teenager’s sentence under the new draconian laws was equally uncompromising.

"You will be chemically castrated," the judge had announced to the tearful and fearful Chris, "in the island hard-labour penal colony specially established for perverts like you, and then you’ll spend the rest of your life there with the other emasculated sex criminals!"

Chris eventually arrived at the secure, remote and very harsh penal colony, where all the staff were males and all the inmates, apart from new arrivals, eunuchs, to be greeted by smiling guards. "Hmm," one of the four reception officers commented to his colleagues, as they received the teenager into their sinister permanent custody, "we have a pretty one here!"

The staff worked at the remote island penal colony with little outside interference, as who was interested in the welfare of a bunch of perverted criminal eunuchs? The employees also fulfilled, away from their homes and families, rosters lasting a full three months before taking a similar amount of time off. Given such practices, and the absence of women from their lives for such long periods, many of the allegedly thoroughly heterosexual guards hypocritically sought, not uncommonly in such circumstances, to relieve their own sexual needs by using the younger prettier male inmates as community whores.

"Well, boy," the reception officer then suggested to the appalled Chris, "if you want an easier life here after we’ve castrated you, you’ll allow us regular use of your body for our pleasures. Otherwise, you’ll find yourself the object of frequent mental and physical torment, including long hours of hard penal labour in an unforgiving environment under the severest supervision. In fact, you can begin to prostitute yourself now, after you’ve stripped and had your compulsory shower in readiness for your initial medical inspection. I’m sure the doctor won’t mind waiting for the four of us to have our cocks serviced by your orifices!"

Later, Chris woke in a sweat. He was lying on a bed in dense darkness.

The sleepy-eyed Chris could not initially tell whether he was in earthly heaven, in the form of his bedroom at home, having experienced a dreadful nightmare, or in mortal hell, in the shape of the cell in the penal colony, in which he was being physically starved and purged in readiness for his castration.

Chris eventually set up his computer so that it was ready to begin downloading the first photograph onto a floppy disk. On the screen was the download prompt, offering two options, namely ‘Save’ and ‘Cancel’.

After much thought and hesitation, Chris eventually fatefully right clicked his cursor over ‘Cancel’. Consequently, on a Saturday morning over a week later, there was no police raid on his house. He was also present on his own front lawn, advancing towards Matt on the other side of the road when his friend’s puppy ran into the middle of the thoroughfare.

Chris was unable to prevent Matt from rushing thoughtlessly after the dog. However, after noticing the white truck approaching rapidly, with the careless speeding driver apparently distracted by a pretty woman on the sidewalk and therefore oblivious to the presence of a boy in front of him, the older teenager did have time to race to the scene.

Using all his football expertise, Chris then dived full length to push Matt, with puppy in the surprised boy’s hands, out of the way of the truck. However, the older teenager was then himself fatally run over by the rapidly approaching vehicle.

Chris’ secret paedophile love for Matt meant that, rather than ever harm the boy, he was instead prepared to sacrifice his own life for him.

Headlines in the town’s newspaper for weeks afterwards referred to Chris as being ‘The Hero in Our Midst!’ or ‘The Brave Teenager Who Sacrificed his Life to Save his Young Friend!’ or similar. Meanwhile, the teenager’s funeral was the major event of the year in his small town, with the church overflowing with mourners, including the Mayor, State Governor and other dignitaries. His parents, although sad, were also nevertheless proud to be associated with their son’s sacrificial heroism.

Later, Chris again woke in a sweat. He was lying on a bed in dense darkness.

The sleepy-eyed Chris could not initially tell whether he was dead or alive and in real heaven or hell.

Chris could also not tell whether he was instead in more earthly heaven, in the form of his bedroom at home, having experienced dreadful nightmares, or in mortal hell, in the shape of the cell in the penal colony, in which he was being physically starved and purged in readiness for his castration.

Only one person can give Chris his answer and that is you reader for you are the arbiter of his end. You must decide the finale of this story by judging what should be the fate of such a paedophile……..

THE END

of

‘THE PAEDOPHILE’

by Pueros