I had begged for it for months, having heard what he did, what he provided, and having ached to get down to it. Every time he drove his van up to the tanks at my dad’s gas station, I was out there, begging him for it.

“You’re only fourteen,” he said. “A mighty fine-looking fourteen, I might add. Sex on a stick. You are an angel, but it’s too soon.”

“But you want to,” I whined.

“I’d be taking a risk.”

“The risk is a lot of the sexiness of it,” I persisted. “I’ve done it before.”

“Yes, it is, son, yes, it is. Maybe you’ve been done before, but I bet you haven’t done it like I do it.”

“You want to. And I want something different ... something more.”

“Yes, I want to. When you’re older,”

“I think you want it young—fourteen—more than later.”

“Maybe,” he’d say and then he’d finish filling the van while I walked around it, trying, without success, to see inside. I’d been told what was in there. I ached to be in there. I asked to see what was in there, and Stan just laughed, gave me a wink, as, finished filling up, he inserted the gas nozzle back into the tank, pulled it out, inserted again, pulled it out, and then slammed it back into the tank, got in the van, and, with a “Later,” and a wave through the driver’s window, drove off.

There was something by the way he played with putting the gas nozzle back into the tank while giving me “that look” that sent chills up my spine. I couldn’t wait any more. I don’t think he was really asking me to wait.

He must have heard the sound of my motorbike coming down his farm road, because Stan was at the door to his farmhouse when I pulled up in front of the porch. He had a shotgun with him but he put that aside when he saw it was me.

“Tommy?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said.

“You’ve come for the van?”

“Yes,” I answered.

He stood there for the longest minute, rubbing his crotch and looking at me. “I’ll get the keys. Do you want to come in for a beer first?”

“Maybe later.”

He laughed. “You may not feel like it later.”

“As long as I feel something,” I answered.

“I understand,” he said, and I thought maybe he did. I’d come to the right place. “We should shower first and you should clean yourself out. I’ll use you hard.”

“Yes,” I answered.

Neither of us bothered to dress after showering, although we both wore hiking boots. Saying that he wanted to feel the role, Stan. a beefy, hirsute, robust, and florid good old boy with red hair laced with gray, also strapped on a black leather chest harness and leather bands at his wrists. He drove the van down to a small patch of trees by the riverbank on the South River, well onto his land. No one would disturb us here.

We climbed in back and he turned the lights on. He turned the sound on too, on high volume. I asked him what was playing, and he answered, “The Ride of the Valkyries” from Wagner’s “Der Ring des Nibelungen.” “It’s a rousing song, with a strong, sensual, wild beat. Just what’s needed, don’t you think?”

Yes, I did think. My heart was thumping with the beat of the music. The music alone was making me hard.

This van was obviously one that he delivered produce to markets. But it also was where he brought young men—and boys, those who told me about him were no older than I was—when he could lure them, and where he fucked them—and not just fucked them. There was a mat on the floor. There also were other things—restraints and sex toys, which told me that he could go to extremes under the right conditions. The van was tall enough to stand in. The restraints attached to the walls were set so that they could fully restrain and spread-eagle a guy, either facing the wall or the interior. There were restraints on the other wall, where a guy could be suspended between the walls. Chains dropped from the ceiling. A black leather sling that could be hooked up to them was folded in the corner. The man could do serious sex work in here.

“Face against the wall. Raise and spread your arms,” Stan barked, taking on the role of dominator and tormentor.

With a low moan, I respondent and he lashed my wrists to hooks on the inner wall of the van, near the ceiling.