He was a beautiful boy. He’d been in the games shop fronting on Hendricks Avenue in the San Marco district of Jacksonville, Florida, in a bend of the St. Johns River, about half dozen times in the last two months. He always came at the same time, about 7:30 p.m. It was late, even in the summer, for a beautiful fourteen-year-old boy like this to be out alone, especially in the red light district of San Marco, and Lew, the proprietor of the games shop, had asked the boy about this. That’s how he knew Cody Grant was only fourteen—a really good age for the clientele Lew had on the other end of this store, the less-conspicuous enterprise opening behind this one onto Thacker Avenue.

Cody was a race mix of white and black. But he had all the really nicest attributes of each: curly black hair, light-coffee skin, but otherwise Greek good looks and physique, small of stature for a boy his age but really, really finely honed of slim, willowy body, with a good chest and narrow waist and hips. The boy always came to the store with a pair of ballet slippers tied together and draped over his shoulder. He obviously had an X Box at home, because he’d gone straight for the X Box games in the front display room of this store, which offered both video games and comic books. He’d linger at the more expensive action games, but the few times he bought anything, it would be the cheaper, $10 games.

He’d seemed a bit lonely and, over the visits, Lew had sounded him out on his circumstance, using the opening of coming in at the same time of day—late for a fourteen-year-old boy—and always having those ballet slippers.

He didn’t have parents who were around in the evening. His dad, who had been black, was a long-distance truck driver, or so Cody had been told. He’d been at long distance for as long as Cody could remember. Although a variety of big bruiser, muscular black men visited Cody’s mother, Cody couldn’t tell if any of them was his father or not. He could say that they were men that he increasingly fantasized about himself, though, as he matured into having sexual urges himself. There had never even been a mention of a marriage with any of these men.

His white mom was a ballet instructor at the nearby Jacksonville Ballet Theater just across where I-95 went through Jacksonville, on Atlantic Boulevard. She taught there in the evening, arriving as Cody’s late-afternoon ballet class was letting out, and she and Cody ate dinner near the theater before he came back to this side of I-95 and she started her evening classes. Cody would be in bed when she got home, but she often didn’t come home alone. Often in the morning, when Cody got up, there would be a muscular black man, half naked, sitting at their kitchen counter, drinking coffee. Cody looked forward to those mornings, as seeing these men got him all tingly.

Cody and his mother lived over in this area of San Marco, off of Flagler Avenue. The games shop was between where Cody was taking ballet lessons as part of his mother’s compensation package and where the Grants lived.

Once Cody had gotten comfortable with Lew, a big black bruiser like those who visited his mother, their limited small talk while Cody was perusing the games and comics in the front room of the store became freer and more open and Lew sensed that Cody’s interests in coming here went further than video games. Evidently, someone had told the boy about the room behind the front display room, which was another display room. Back there was an adult bookstore that also had more racy video games—specializing in gay ones.

With each successive visit by Cody, Lew got stronger vibes that Cody was interested in men. Lew most definitely was interested in Cody. The ballet shoes also fed Lew’s greater interests as well as the more expansive games shop business in the building that ran from Hendricks Avenue back to Thacker. Behind this front showroom was the adult section showroom. But behind that was an area of peep show booths and then a couple of dressing rooms that could, for a price, also be undressing rooms. Then, discreetly fronting on Thacker was a gay porn theater, with a stage for stripping and pole dancing.

Cody, all grace, beauty, and willowy body and moving around the games store with ballet slippers draped off his shoulder, had given Lew an idea—and hopes. To liven up the porn movies, he occasionally brought in a stripper or pole dancer. The guys who came to the movie house liked them young—the younger the better. Fourteen was a perfect age for them—they were beginning to develop into the bodies of men and the interests, uncertainties, and speculation about their sexuality, but they were still malleable, flexible, and more curious than wise. From the second time Cody appeared in the store, Lew started cultivating the boy, with the hope and plan to put him on the stage in the movie house and maybe even more.

From the second time Cody was in the store he increasingly showed interest in what was behind the beaded curtain doorway that led into the adult section of the store. On the third visit, Lew invited him to go back and take a look. On the fourth visit, he gave Cody some freebee time in the peep show booths. By the end of that visit, Lew knew that Cody was interested in men. He didn’t know if Cody had done it with men, but he’d be just as happy if Cody hadn’t yet. He was most interested, of course, if Cody would do it for men, starting with dancing the pole for them. And he most certainly was interested if Cody would do it with him.

“I might have a deal for you. You might even have been thinking about wanting to do it yourself.”

Lew had come up to where Cody was looking, while sort of trying not to show he was looking, at an animated gay pornographic comic book in the adult section of the games store. Lew had let Cody pass into the room fifteen minutes earlier after the boy had looked at the X Box games in the first showroom. Lew had watched what games Cody looked at and he had one of them—a new, expensive one, “Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order”—in his hand. Also in the hand was a small, red-silk jock strap.

“A deal for me?” Cody asked. His eyes went to the game box. He took in the jock strap too, but it was sort of bunched up and he didn’t appear to have any idea what it was. He certainly didn’t act as if it was threatening in any way.

“You’re always coming in with those ballet slippers hanging over your shoulder. And you’ve said you stop in here after dance classes. Have you had a lot of dance classes, Cody?”

“I’ve been taking dance since I was five,” the boy said. “My mother’s a teacher at the school. It’s something we can do together.”

“You do it at the same time?”

“Well, no, not usually. When there are productions we’re together. There aren’t many boy dancers. They always need me. But usually my classes are in the late afternoon, after school—no school now, of course, since it’s summer. My mother teaches classes in the evening.”

“So, she’s not around in the evening.”

“No, not usually.”

“But you like it, don’t you? Dancing, and being in productions?”

“Yeah, I like it. It’s something I can do, and do well, that other guys aren’t doing. But I’m also into sports,” he said, somewhat defensively. “I play soccer and basketball at school and I’m on the swim team. The dancing helps me with those.”

“Yes, I can see you’ve got a good body, Cody. A great body. And I can understand where dancing would make you really flexible and fast with the reflexes. Do you just do ballet, or do you do other dancing too? Modern dancing?”

“Yeah. Modern and tap, everything. My mother makes sure I can do more than ballet.”

“Do you use a pole ever when you dance?” Cody moved to a slightly guarded look. “It’s OK if you do,” Lew quickly added. “You’ve looked at some of the magazines in this room. You see that it has some of the guys dancing on a pole. They have great bodies, just like you do. Have you ever thought about—?”

“Yeah, I do dancing like that,” Cody broke in. “Not at the dance school, but I was looking at these magazines and at a couple of the films you let me see in booths. I thought I could do dancing like that—so I’ve tried it out. Without the pole, of course ... at home when I’m alone. I think I’ve got the moves down pretty well. I think I could do it fine on a pole.”

“Would you like to have an audience for it?”

“What do you mean?” Cody asked. His eyes got big when Lew switched the game box to under his other arm and shook out the red-silk jock strap. He let it drape down from his fingers.

“We have a theater back beyond the area with the film booths, Cody. It’s got a stage and a pole and all. And a sound system. We could play some background music for you. There are guys back there now. They’re watching a movie, but I know they’d like to see you dance—like you’ve seen in the magazines here and in the movies you’ve looked at in the booths. You’re a really good-looking young man”—Lew was avoiding calling him a boy, but that, in fact, would be his biggest attraction to the guys in the theater—”and I think with a great little body like yours, the guys would really like to see you dance.”

“Just wearing that?”

“Yes, just wearing this. And not wearing this when you comfortable with that. They’d send money up to the stage, I’ll bet, and you could afford those X Box games you’ve been looking at.”

“Like that one in your hand?” Cody asked.

“Not this one, Cody. You wouldn’t have to pay for this one. I brought this one here because I saw you looking at it—not just today, but the last couple of times you were in here. You could have this one if you wore just this jock strap and you danced for the men for fifteen minutes.”

“Fifteen minutes? On a stage, with a pole? Now?” Cody asked.

“Yes, now. I think you’ve been thinking of doing this in front of guys. You’ve put all of this work into your dancing. I think you want to show it off—and to guys who can think about you like you think about those guys on the poles in the magazines and the movies I’ve shown you. Don’t fight it Cody. I’ve watched you. It’s what you want. Follow your natural wants. Dance for the men.”

“Well, I don’t know.”

“You’ve looked at other more expensive X Box games in the other room. I’ve seen you do it. I’ve seen you look at ‘Call of Duty: Black Ops II,’ for instance. I’ll give you that one too—the two X Box games—if you put this on and dance the pole for the guys in the theater. Fifteen minutes. Two expensive X Box games for fifteen minutes of dancing.”

“I guess maybe I could.”

“And then you could dance just for me, Cody. We get along good. I’ve seen the way you look at me. I think I can help you get to where you’ve been dreaming to go.” Lew had been saving this card. He knew the kid pined for him—that Cody kept coming to the store as much to be with a big, black dude as to look at the games. Lew was banking on Cody wanting him so bad that he’d lay down and open his legs to him. The boy had told Lew of the black bruisers who visited his mother and revealed, whether he meant to or not, how they turned him on. Lew was just such a black stud and he was attracted to Cody as much as Cody could possibly be attracted to him.