Onward chapter three -- in which Draco is seen and knickers are found. See glockgal's illustration of chapter two's kiss here.

A Troubled Boy

Chapter Three: Nectar

By Little Needle

       

Yes, well. Perhaps 'die' was not the best wording for the so-called 'feeling' flaying this man's human heart. The boy did kiss me that day, all alone in a child's sun-bright corner room; one sock off, one sock on, sure, puckered mouth set hot and so new to my own lecherous flesh.

He pressed so carefully and insistent to me, I remember, as if it were I who needed to be protected. I suppose, were I to look back, I would have to admit to a mere thread of truth there.

       


The boy adjusted remarkably well to his new home. I don't have much on a teacher's salary but I am lacking in nothing of necessity. My home is spacious enough with a large front and back porch, a garden, two bedrooms and a study, a dusty kitchen space and a nice deep porcelain tub in the bathroom. There are not many windows in the space that I do have but the panes that the place boasts are large and vast enough to flood the house with mid-afternoon light.

I gave him the smallest bedroom that had been known strictly to me as the 'library'. Of course it was no true loss as I had only ever managed to fill one small case (three shelves) with almost nothing more than teaching texts. Before I had met Harry I ordered the lacking space outfitted for a small boy to occupy; there was a rather minute corner desk with a stool near the window, a day bed, round floor rug, a wooden trunk near the foot of the bed and a tall bookshelf for his belongings beside the closet.

I stood in the very room I stand in now nearly all morning after it had been completed thinking dully about what kind of change this boy would bring to my humble life. I did not know then, of course, that come the day he set his tiny little foot across the thresh-hold, my life would forever change. I did not know then (for how could I predict such a thing?) that he would be first the life of me and then very soon after, the death of me.

       


It was a sort of bliss; just me and the boy. We ate our meals together each morning, usually on the back porch beside the goldfish pond, while he dangled his naked, pink toes lazily over the cuff of my pant leg. He would come to the table always in his favourite navy blue sailor suit and I would indulge him until after he had finished his milk and then take him by the hand (pouting all the way, might I add) to change into something more fitting for the day ahead. He would never protest, but that did not mean that he complied in any way. In fact, once we got to the quiet of his room he would be as silent and pliant as a rag doll, standing there in the center of the narrow space but not a single step from where I had left him, round eyes trained to me as I picked out the days outfit.

I would stand at the closet, trailing a hand over the fine material of each garment until I caught a particularly shy smile over my shoulder from the boy. That was how I knew what he wanted; that soft, pink smile. And then he would indulge me as I dressed him, lifting his arms when need be but otherwise watching me in silence as I buttoned buttons, rolled cuffs and tied ribbons. I dreaded the day I would discover him without underpants with a certain guilty excitement. But, of course, that day never did come for me. Instead, when laundry day arrived I would gather his hamper and pluck out the pieces (with no small smile to my lips) I noticed he had begun to imprint my name upon between twin hearts with a felt tipped marker. 'No,' I decided 'it would definitely not do for the maid to see these.'

To my amusement the boy had a particular loathing for the socks he wore, and had I not such a fondness for catching those fleeting glimpses of his one sock-less calf as he patted past my door or later on finding a lone rumpled sock on the stair landing, I would gladly have abolished the wearing of any sock under my roof.

Over time I noticed the boy was positively peculiar on some days. He would tip toe around the house without a sound for long stretches of time until I had no choice but to become curious to his whereabouts. I would stop what-ever work I was occupied with and often enough found him perched happily on the edge of his bed, hands clasped in his dainty lap, ankles crossed and waiting only for me with the brightest of smiles. He hadn't taken to making friends with any of the neighbour children and so I accounted these days to loneliness and vowed to soon provide him with a playmate of his own.

Lucky for me, I had noticed a small boy playing in the neighbouring garden paths a few afternoons ago while taking tea on the porch. This afternoon he tossed a ball which landed just short of the pond. I retrieved it and reached over to hand it to the child and was met with an ethereal little beauty that would have stolen the breath from me had I not an even lovelier boy-child under my own roof.

Upon scrutiny I found no flaw; his mouth a bright red ribbon, skin rivalling that of an early morning Lily, and hair so fair and fine I would have thought it transparent had I not been at arms length.

He smiled up at me, mouth parted into a crest. There was something in that unflinching gaze that told me there was much more to him than appearance. He took the ball from my outstretched hand, stroking the soft pads of his fingers tips up over my knuckles as he grasped for it. I flinched visibly and that slow little smile widened. He drew his hand away and before I could turn back I heard the silver tinkering of his adolescent voice. 'Who is that boy I see, sir
       
is he yours?'

I turn to follow his gaze which lands squarely on my Harry (yes, 'mine'), his eyes bright and glittering. Not focused on me, I see, but on the boy behind me. I feel a tinge of jealousy at this but push it aside in favour of introducing the two. I beckon him forward to us and he comes; each step he takes weightless, his tiny hips swaying with purpose. He reaches my side but says nothing, still looking at the boy who doesn't move. I notice now that that smile has been replaced with a grim little line of almost-defiance. 'Harry, the neighbour boy
       
''

'Draco, sir.'

'Yes, Draco, was just asking about you. Would you like for him to come over and join us for tea?'

       


My hopes of a playmate for Harry were dashed that first afternoon. No, it's not what you think. Really. The neighbor boy did come over for tea, and almost every afternoon there-after. But, you see, the boys didn't actually 'play' together at all. Instead we sat there most afternoons; Harry sunning his feet on the glowing floor boards at his nook of the table, Draco ignoring his tea except for when I brought my own cup to my lips. We would talk about games they liked to play and the places I myself have traveled but never venturing past that to family or school.

On some days I would be too inundated with grading papers to join them for long and could not help but to notice the curious silence that lay between the two whenever I left the room. Often times I was sure the boy had gone home only to walk in on them participating in some kind of staring game. Draco would see me and in a fluttering, gone was the firm line of his ruby mouth and there in place was the sensuous little pout he thought a smile. If it so happened that I should join the pair mid-way through cakes I would no doubt have a wiggling Harry warming in my lap for the remainder of the afternoon.

Every once in a while, when the other boy was most attentive to Harry, the strumpet would lean up as if on tip toe again and purse his mouth to my cheek or neck; a hot, triumphant little press of delicate flesh to my burning conscience. And then just as quickly as young Draco had come, he would excuse himself for home. Only when you could hear the creek and swing of the metal gate would the boy slip from my lap and trot away into another room to play.

Draco never stopped his visits and the boy never once protested to his presence each day so I thought it only due time before the two would take to a deeper friendship. And so my lunch hour was spent mostly in the presence of children. Yes, given (and taken) these were not 'normal' children, but all in the same, children. In fact, little by little, I began to detect a certain...'rivalry' between the two boys but could never figure out what for. I even dared to question the boy one evening while tucking him into bed, but he would not answer me. He only lay there coyly, lips pursed, sleepy eyes blinking slowly up to my face.

       


Things began to change over time. Once, on one of those quiet mornings, I could find the boy nowhere. In somewhat of a panic I recall rushing into the yard to be halted quite effectively in my tracks. For there stood my little boy, knees knocking, hands clasped behind his back, standing up on his toes to place one chaste little kiss to the pointed cheek of a man that struck me as a larger version of young Draco.

When men grow old, you must realize something unfortunate happens to our minds; it grows a rather thick skin to which we can escape no more than we can avoid hair loss. In my condition I was in no way fit to deal with the sight of that man receiving a kiss that should have been mine and...

I. Saw. Red.

Before I sought to do anything else, I sought to part those perfect lips from that sour, wretched flesh. In an awkward jumble of grown limbs I managed to bring my presence between the boy and my neighbour, gripping his fine little arm between my large roughened hands and savagely jerking him backward and away. The boy struggled with me, twisting frantically, soft little grunting noises escaping his throat with each kick and flail he exerted, his heart shaped face bright with mischief. He was tireless in his quest for freedom from my vise grip of him, that is, until I wrapped my arms around his waist and flung him neatly over my shoulder. With a squeal of delight he wriggled atop me, a pair of skinny legs kicking akimbo, his cotton clothed bottom perched high and exultant into the air. I recall taking one fleeting glance back at Malfoy and was greeted very plainly with a smile made familiar to me on a smaller, prettier set of lips.

       


I stomped through the groaning screen door and refused to set the boy down. I liked very much, I could admit to myself, this boy struggling at my own terrible mercy. 'What, may I ask, where you doing with Draco's father, boy.'

I haven't called him 'boy' in some time and I punctuate this indecency with a sharp swat to his backside. His body tenses under my hand, stiffening and then shattering the silence with a tiny keening cry made for kittens in a well and not for naughty little boys who've been kissing strange men. He takes a hitched, unsteady little breath, still shocked. 'N-nothing, sir. Mr. M-malfoy just liked my new skirt a-and
       
'

I punctuate the air this time with another harder slap to the curved crease of one round, bared buttock. He bucks as if in slow motion, arching his back and digging a hard little heat into the sharp corner of my shoulder. This time the cry is guttural and anxious, his shudder audible.

'Oh!
       
H-he made me promise n-not to tell!'

A third slap.

'Professor!'

A fourth.

'M-my skirt!--he said my skirt w-would be prettier if he could see w-what was under--'

A pause.

'And did you show him what was under that pretty little skirt, boy?'

'N-no, sir!--not ever, sir.'

'And did you let him kiss you on the mouth?'

Silence.

A sharp, cruel smack.

'Uh-huh!'

He pants those last words, placing a delectable little strain on the last syllable of his babbling. In my fury I let a rain of painful strikes come down on his untouched backside. With each strike my hand grows heavier; I lose count, the bliss of this lithe heap of limbs squirming. Unbearable, that this could never be mine. I stop, my palm numbed, and try to set him down. He wobbles and I catch him around the waist, steadying him. He blushes, hanging his head submissively and cups a small hand to the seared skin of his bottom, rubbing slowly and then blushing.

From between his legs protrudes a little swelling that he tries to cover too late if it was me he meant to hide it from. I'm amused to notice that the pleats covering him flatten and unfold slightly between his thighs. He tries to smooth them with trembling fingers and succeeds only in flattening a few more. A laugh bubbles from my throat and his mouth immediately clenches to a most petulant pucker. He glares.

'What in blazes is going on in here?!'

The maid. Harry's back is turned to her and I breathe my first sigh of relief. 'Nothing Charlotte. Only a tiff--nothing to concern yourself with my dear.'

She frowns deeply, rolling her eyes, obviously willing to keep to herself but disbelieving. Harry takes this moment to burst into a run, skittering from the room on his quick little feet. Silence. Both of us look after the boy who we can now hear stomping leadenly up the stairs. She breaks the intensity of the moment, bursting into sharp juts of laughter, shaking her head merrily and then going on her way past me to the kitchen.

I stand dumbfounded and bemused, not truly believing that I could have escaped so much disaster in such a short amount of time.

       


I don't catch him again with Mr. Malfoy but neither does Draco return. For all the reaction the boy gives to this I would say he barely notices Draco's absence. Now, when we are alone and I touch him in soft places, I catch contented little sighs and every now and then a hitch in his breathing. The boy is never *not warm* but it seems now that when he comes to me in my study or to curl into my lap for tea he is in a fever state; his skin heated and sensitive to the point that the wool of my trousers on the backs of his thighs cause a reaction of scrubbed pink abrasion.

I called for the Paediatrician but when all was said and done it was supposedly as simple as the heat of summer. He squirms in my lap now, bumping his bottom against my abdomen as he leans across the top of my evening paper for a sampling of the strawberry danish on my plate. He stays in the position perhaps a beat too long but then settles down firmly over the most sensitive part of me. I imagine I feel the little crevice of his most secret flesh part around me, snuggling up to me the way the boy does during our night time story telling.

Now it is my time to squirm and I do, abruptly standing and placing him on his feet before rushing off to 'make a telephone call'. I think for a moment that I see him smile but when I look over my shoulder to check he is already back in my chair, kneeling and perched over a tray of shortbread cookies and concentrating fixedly on which to choose first.

       


The days have become longer and longer in-between and when I make it home in time for dinner the maid has Harry freshly bathed and waiting in his finest little jumper at the table with a veritable feast of simple, hearty foods. Charlotte tells me proudly one evening that young Mr. Harry helped her with the roast this afternoon and as I take my first bite he flushes beautifully. I nod and take another bite and only then does he pick up his fork. I watch the little bud of his mouth work around the prong gently with each bite of potato. He swallows thickly and then looks up at me through lowered lashes, stopping mid-forkful.

I nod again in encouragement, expecting him to return to his meal but he stays fixed to me. A fleck of brown gravy stains the corner of his lip and he licks it away absently. My heart skips a beat at the sight of his tongue; pink and wet, pointed and slipping up over the smooth, clean silver. Suddenly I feel my hunger develop to something much more palatable than mere food. He shifts in his seat and I watch in horror as his cheeks stain the colour of a post-coital glow.

Charlotte reappears in her flawless timing with a pitcher of cool mint tea and stops upon seeing the boys vampish flush. 'You feeling alright, boy?' She asks this sharply so that Harry flushes an even further shade of pink. I cringe and thank God above that neither she nor the boy are looking my way.

He looks down at his lap and then slowly up at her. 'I--I just-- may I excuse myself, please?' He rushes away, napkin landing on the floor at Charlotte's feet who tuts in her kind sort of way and bends to pluck the napkin from the carpet.

       


Later that evening I would find his favourite pair of ribbon knickers soiled and crumpled with his own innocent nectar, hidden in the pit of the bathroom trash basket.

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