I was painting a picture with my watercolors while Jerry watched me paint. "Why don't you put another mountain over here, Ben?" he suggested, his broad, handsome face close to my shoulder.
I turned my head to smile at him. Jerry looks a lot like the actor on that TV show, "Playing the Game," the detective who helps the lead actor, Steven Phillips, solve the crimes. I saw that TV show back when it first came out and the actor really caught my eye. That was the first time that Jerry was more than a person I talked to in my head. Now I could see and hear him, but if I tried to touch him or he tried to touch anything (rarely), his hand didn't touch it, and he could bring things out of thin air to show me. Imaginary friends like Jerry can do that.
Jerry was an adult man, of course, and maybe in his mid-twenties, well-muscled, with his neat black hair, clean features on his fair-skinned, square-jawed face, a broad, thin-lipped smile, dark eyes, small almost pug nose. He was genial, charming, clever and affable; the epitome of the best friend and, in many ways, like the father I had grown up without; just me and Mother, who worked long hours and had little time for me.
I was a typical eight-year-old boy, my hair was a sunny light brown shade, my eyes brown and my skin a soft pale white not yet tanned by the early warm days of late spring. My limbs were thin because I was at the age when a boy sprouts upward instead of outward and the muscles are stretched along them instead of inflating out. My face was cute instead of handsome, with my nose rather pug and my lips a little too small, my cheeks were round so that old ladies kept wanting to pull on them and waggle them though I squirmed out of that whenever I could.
I was a latchkey kid, and I would come home, use my key to unlock the door, come inside, lock the door behind me, and have to entertain myself alone until she came home at eight o'clock at night. Supper was something she would microwave in a hurry, and I had something like a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich when I got home to tide me over until she could fix even that for me. She was never mad at me, exactly, but frequently sort of sharp-tongued and short-tempered, I had learned to not bother her as much as I could. I had been really lonely, then Jerry had become visible to me and I was a lot happier.
I was painting the mountain as Jerry had suggested, a bright red color. I had the most color red which was why I had picked that color. Jerry was exclaiming that it was the best mountain he had ever seen, when I went to get more watercolor for my paintbrush. I knocked over the paint jar, spilling the paint, not just over, but knocking it so that it went onto the throw rug that lay between my work table and my bed. "Oh, no!" I exclaimed. "Mom will be furious!"
"You have to clean it up," Jerry told me. He was as worried as I was, of course. He didn't like having Mom mad at me.
"Yeah, but how?" I asked.
"You have to use something to mop it up as best you can, then the rug can be washed by your mother in the washing machine. You can wash out watercolors, surely, the label on the bottles say that it is water washable."
"That's right!" I said, I had known that but forgotten, Jerry had reminded me. "I know, I'll use my bedsheet, it's big and white and clean, it'll soak up a lot of the watercolors."
"Good idea, and then she can wash both of them together," Jerry agreed.
I worked my bedsheet over the throw rug and used most of the sheet by trying to dab and crush the watercolor out by stamping on the throw rug with my shoes, and that got the watercolor on my sneakers, too. Well, they can be washed, also. But my coloring for the day was over, my painting had also gotten ruined when I knocked over the jar of paint. That was too bad, I had wanted to give it to my Mother to hang on the refrigerator. I went out to the living room with Jerry and we watched TV until Mom came home.
Mom saw my sneakers and asked what happened. I explained, and she raced into my bedroom, saw the rug and bedsheet and turned on me, "Oh, Ben, you little fool!" she stormed at me. "Why didn't you just get some paper towels out of the kitchen to mop it up? Oh, your brand-new bedsheets, now they're ruined, just ruined!"
"It can be washed out, can't it?" I said defensively.
"After all this time, no, the paint has dried and the stain is set into the cotton fabric. I'll try, but you'll have a discolored bedsheet. Oh, the rug will probably stay stained, and your sneakers, too. I buy you nice things and the first thing you do is mess them up...." Well, she went off on me, then, telling me how clumsy and stupid and wasteful and careless I was, and I was left crying in my room while she went in to make us supper. I ate supper in silence with her while she muttered to herself, and then I went to bed. Jerry had gone away as Mom started to yell, he didn't like to listen to her get mad at me.
--o-8-o--
You have spent too much time with this specimen.
I am not interfering with his development in any way. He is young and in need of assistance during his younger years; he has improper supervision.
He got into difficulty with his parent despite your supervision.
Such mistakes are normal at his age. The parent will recover, and so will he. I will commiserate with him and comfort him, and he will do better in the future. Her language was severe but given from a place of love. I will urge him to see that and forgive.
Do children ever fully forgive their parents for such treatment?
Forgive, yes, but never forget. This is what aids them in achieving maturity, as well as making them better parents themselves when they have children. But the child needs comfort, and I will provide that.
Do not go beyond our laws in doing this. And if you do, be careful. If you are discovered, you will suffer a severe punishment, you know.
--o-8-o--
I got undressed and in bed, sniffling, and saw Jerry standing by the bed. He was dressed as always in a skin-tight t-shirt and chinos, showing his well-formed chest and leaving his muscled arms free. "I'm sorry you got in trouble with your mother. You didn't know any better than to use the bedsheet, and you will know to keep the paper towels next to you when you use the watercolors the next time."
"I know," I snuffled. "But it's not fair. I did my best."
"Your mother knows that, and she knows you didn't mean any harm. Her words were harsh because she was tired and irritable and had problems at her job, and came home to more problems."
"I didn't mean to make problems for her," I said defensively.
"And she knows that. You'll see, she'll apologize in the morning when she's rested and can see things better. So your bedsheet isn't perfectly white anymore; it's still a bedsheet and new and it will last as long as ever. So will your sneakers and your throw rug. That's why you get to play with watercolors, they can be washed out, or mostly, most of the time."
"I hope so."
"You still seem sad. Anything else I can do to help?" Jerry asked, sitting down on the bed beside me.
"I guess not," I said, then I burst out, "I wish you were real, Jerry! I see you, I hear you, but I can't touch you, and you can't touch me! I don't get hugged by Momma much, either. It's just so lonely for me, so much of the time, with nobody but you, and you aren't even real. Just imaginary."
"Imagination can be real, Ben. As real as you want it to be."
"Not real enough to touch," I said resentfully. "If I could touch you, then you'd be real."
Jerry was quiet for a while, then he said, like making a decision, "You're right, Ben, it is time for me to be real."
Jerry bent over and I heard him removing his shoes and socks. Then he stood up and stepped a few steps away from the bed then turned to face me. "Reality is much less important than you think it is. The mind and the body are not separate things, but part of the same existence. Let me prove that to you."
He reached both hands down to grip the bottom of his t-shirt and pulled it up over his head in one sleek, lithe motion, and I saw his bare chest. I'd never seen it on the television, but he was just as I thought he'd look, smooth, hairless, his muscles all firm and even the pectorals and abdominals making a perfect synchronized pair of rows down his body from his neck where a slight V-shaped indentation showed where the neck ended. The muscles went down to his navel where the chinos blocked all the view lower.
"Did you imagine this?" Jerry asked me.
"I guess I did," I said, unable to tear my eyes away. "But golly, you sure look nice!"
"Would you like to touch it?" he walked over to me.
"I can't touch you, you know that."
"Try it, see how real I am," he challenged me.
I reached my hand out, and sure enough, there was a flesh-and-blood body there, the muscles were soft and warm, and my fingers made the slightest indentations as I pressed my fingertips into them. "Wow!" I said, and rose enough to sit upright in the bed and put both hands on his body, and began to rub. Jerry just grinned and flexed as I got to the upper arms, letting me feel the thick biceps in all their glory. "You feel so good to me, Jerry!" I gushed. "Can I feel the rest of you now?" I glanced down. My little dick was stiff and throbbing, I knew what it did and wondered if Jerry's would do the same. I was pretty innocent that way, I admit.
Jerry just grinned and said, "I wondered when you'd think of that." His hand went to his groin and he unzipped his chinos and showed his briefs. I hadn't thought of him wearing briefs, but of course he would. Snow white and plain as my own, there they were. Jerry pushed his chinos down his legs and stepped out of them. "How about now, can you see all you want to see?"
"Nu-uh," I pointed at the briefs. "Those got to go, if you want to get in bed with me." I was naked, of course, and with Jerry down to just briefs and looking at me with a knowing grin, I was dead to shame.
"Of course I want that," Jerry agreed, his hands went to his waist, the briefs slid down his legs in no time, he rose back up, and his manhood was revealed.
"Wow!" I said in a slow, long, hushed voice.
His cock was a thin, banana-like shape that hung down halfway to his knee, ending in a soft, strawberry-shaped knob. I licked my lips as I saw it.
"Can I come to bed now?" Jerry asked me. His handsome face, the same grin I'd seen on the television so long ago, but never forgotten, the grin that said he was my friend, now and always, and would never desert me.
My father had deserted me, even though I had clung to him begging him not to go, and with Mom crying in their bedroom. He had thrust me away, claiming I wasn't his son at all, just a bastard. I didn't know just what a bastard was, but it must be a bad thing, for it had caused my father to leave my mother. I was a bastard. Mom had changed that night, too. She went out and got the job, and since then, I could count on the fingers of one hand the number of times she had hugged me.
So my answer to that question was "Sure!" very enthusiastically. I scooted over as he pushed the covers away from both of us, and when he settled into the bed, I scooted over to lie very close to him and so our bare bodies could touch each other all over! He hugged me and I tried to paste myself onto him, so warm, so soft, so WONDERFUL! The covers shifted off of us by our movements, to cover us only to our upper thighs,
"Can I touch your peter?" I asked Jerry, my voice trembling. We'd had a guy come to our class to teach us about people who touched us in those places, and told us to never let anyone touch us without our permission. He hadn't stayed long and didn't explain much after his speech, and I didn't fully understand all he had said, but I understood I had to ask before I touched.
"Yes, you can, if I can touch yours. You can touch me anywhere you want if I can do the same with you," Jerry answered.
"Oh, yes, go ahead!" I almost screeched out those words. I was so eager, and I grabbed his prong so fast, I nearly clawed it with my fingernails. He just chuckled, his own hand more sedately gripped my wiener, and I sighed as his warm hand felt so good.
I could see Jerry because my nightlight was burning, enough to see the muscles glowing from the small but powerful light, giving me a sort of twilight, the arcs of his body shining like he had been painted with moonbeams.
"Jerk it for me, Ben," Jerry sighed. "Work it for me, make me squirm and moan, and I'll do the same for you, like this," His hand held my two inches of cock like it was three times as long and he began to pump the shaft, moving the cockskin back and forth and I gasped, feeling the amazing reality that other people knew how to play with a dick the same as I did, I know, I was really innocent, but remember that I had lived very alone, my mother wouldn't let me sleep over with other boys or do anything but come home and be there when she got home. I couldn't have friends over, either. If I asked for permission, she got mad, I don't know why, like I was a secret or something.
I moved my hand up and down experimentally, and Jerry gasped, "Uhhhhhhhhh, yeah, like that, jack it like that, only faster, a whole lot faster!" He showed me by speeding up his own work on my prick and I tried to imitate him. I must have done it right, for he let out a long, low groan of "Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, yeahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, that's it, flog it for me, Ben, flog it fast and hard, really fast and hard, I love it, love it, oh, oh, OHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
My hand gave out in a hurry, I had to let go, and I said, "Oh, I'm sorry, Jerry, I'm not very good doing this, I want to, but my hand got tired."
"It's okay, it's okay, but I can teach you other things we can do, okay, okay?"
"Sure, I'd like to learn other things we can do," I agreed.
"First one, let me show you what to do," Jerry offered. His handsome face was lit up with dedication as he moved his lithe, strong body around in the bed, I saw him move his head toward my dick, and I gasped as his lips closed over it. Was he going to bite me?
No, his lips gripped me and I went from the gasp into a moan as he bobbed his head up and down, his mouth turning its purchase on me into a liquid, soft, bathing feel and motion of joy and love and life and freedom! "Ahhhhhhhhh, ahhhhhhhhhhh, huhhhhhhhhhh, ohhhhhhhhhhh, ohhhhhhhh, ahhhhhhhh, ahhhhhhhhhh, hahhhhhhhhhhh!" I sighed out in my pleasure as his head moved swiftly back and forth.
He let go and said, "Now you try it on me," then went back to his manipulation of my prick.
He moved with me so that we were head-to-toe and face-to-groin and I met his cock, a nine-inch scimitar of male beauty (he had gained stiffness but not much length as he grew erect), and my mouth slid over it, the soft skin like plush cloth but rich in flavor, and the shaft beneath it was so firm, I understood why they called it a "boner" in that moment, it felt hard as bone. But the cockskin was smooth and easy to grasp, I gripped it and pulled it down with me as I glided down the pole. When I had taken him down as far as I could, I grabbed him tighter and pulled back up again.
"Huh-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h!" Jerry groaned as I pulled upwards. "Yeah, like that, but work up saliva, use plenty of spit, you'll need all you can get, so you can go deeper, go as deep as you can go, it'll get easier with practice."
He worked my pud while I worked his, and I hit my own climax relatively quickly, of course, for he was a master at this, shuddering and gasping and joyously groaning in my glory. He let me pause while I guttered out my passion and caught my breath, then he said, "Can you finish with me, now?"
"I'll try," I swore. I rolled over onto my stomach, stretched out flat, and got busy nursing that long prong, and really got into it. Jerry was gasping and muttering how wonderful it was and how he had never experienced anything in the universe as magnificent as this, and why had his own people ever given this up, and such things, I didn't understand any of it.
Then suddenly, he let out a sort of shocked gasp, "Oh, oh, something is happening to me, Ben, something happening! AHHH-AHHH-AHHH-AHHH-AHHHHHHHHHHH, OH, OH, I'M GOING TO EXPLODE, EXPLODE, HAH-HOOOOOOOAAAAAAAHAAAAAAAAAAAH!"
He spurted his wads into my mouth, a huge quantity, and he seemed to be in complete surprise, as if he were discovering something unprecedented. He thrashed about so much that I expected Mom to crash in and see us; Jerry was making enough racket, but it all ended and was done, and Jerry was panting hard, gasping for breath.
"Oh, my, oh, my, oh, my, I didn't expect that at all, this was unbelievable!" he exclaimed. "It was marvelous, wonderful, exciting, incredible, oh, I can't think of enough words."
I was still working on swallowing that huge load of come he had squirted into my mouth, but I gulped a few times, choking a little, and got it all down and coughed a time or two, then I said, "Are you all right?"
"I'm all right now!" Jerry exclaimed. "Oh, this was so amazing, I want to do it again, right now, over and over again! Whew!"
"Well...okay," I agreed.
I started to go for his cock again but he stopped me.
"I said I wanted to, not that I could, my body is not yet ready, I can see this form needs a recharge. But we can share this more times than this. I need to leave soon."
"Can't you stay the night with me?" I begged him. "I get so lonely without you. Can't you stay with me all the time, forever?"
"Ben, Ben, I wish I could tell you more, but the answer I fear is 'No.' I am forced to only spend short times with you, I hope they are sufficient, but you are young and you will have other friends who can give you more."
"You're about to leave me?"
"For tonight," Jerry clarified. "I can come back later, you will see, and we will play like this again." He smiled, "In fact, I will insist on coming back as often as I can."
I had to smile at his honesty, "Okay, I guess that can be enough."
"Sleep now, Ben, and know that I will always be with you."
"Always?" I asked, thinking of my father.
"Always."
"Okay," I sighed. I got back up with my head on the pillow, Jerry pulled the cover over me, and I closed my eyes. When I opened them a moment later, Jerry was gone. For now.
--o-8-o--
There you are, you have gone too far, and you have been noticed. Be ready to be judged.
We have considered your transgression between our realms and decided. You have chosen the other realm and that shall be your fate. Return there, to remain as one of them to the end of one of their lifetimes. When that is done, you may return.
I understand and I greet your verdict with great joy, it is in accord with my own wishes. These people have much that we lack, and I have discovered the greatest thing they have. We can envy them that, the joining of their two bodies, for it gives a pleasure far beyond any we have experienced. I long even now to feel it again, in fact.
I can help you this much, give you a parting gift. I can give you an identity on their realm, a way to survive without suffering the failures of acclimating to their culture for lack of experience or what they call "wealth," an odd thing to need. From that, though, your fate on that realm will be your own.
That is all I ask and I thank you all for your gracious answer to my actions.
--o-8-o--
I woke up and Jerry wasn't waiting for me, like I expected. He usually came to talk to me while I got ready for school. Mom had to get ready for work at the same time, so I poured my own cereal and washed out my own bowl. She said she was sorry for her hard words of the night before, and that she would buy me more watercolors and some paper towels to keep in my room for such spills. I forgave her quickly and wondered if she'd kiss me this time, but she didn't, just nodded and turned away as if satisfied that that was over with. Sometimes I just don't understand adults at all.
School was the usual thing, Jerry didn't visit me there but he only came to see me there rarely. Nor was he with me on the way home. I walked up to our apartment and stopped in surprise. A strange man was standing by my front door. Were we being evicted? That had happened once when Mom was out of work for several months, we had to go to a shelter until she got another job and money for a new place to live.
He turned and said, "Hello, Ben."
My face lit up and I ran to him. "Jerry!"
He held me tight and I invited him in. He was firm and warm and REAL. He and I talked, and he ordered us both food to be delivered (a very rare treat for me, with food for Mom as well.)
Mother came and he introduced himself as Gerald Starover, who lived in the apartment just down the hall. He had a trust fund that let him stay home a lot, and he wanted to be able to come see me when I got home from school, if Mom was amenable to that. I begged her to agree and she relented. Seemed relieved to have a live-in babysitter.
Jerry had explained it to me this way: he was no longer my imaginary friend, "but I hope I can be a real friend to you now, if you will have me."
I was more than happy to say "Yes!" to that. The best kind of imaginary friends are the friends that turn out to be real, after all.
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