"What is it, Mama?" Eric asked still half asleep.

"You boys gotta get dressed right away. Some men are here who want to see you."

"Why?"

"There's trouble, dear. They've searched all over town for young Erin Rogers and they haven't been able to find him. No one's seen him for weeks and now they think he deliberately ran away from his bride to be to avoid the wedding. They're talking to all the boys in town."

If Mama had been suspicious of us, the guilty glances we shot at each other would have unveiled us both, but she had already turned to the dresser and opened it searching for some clothes for us. "Talking about Boylovers again, they are. Even called for an Old One to come."

"We don't know anything, Mama," Eric said.

"I know you don't, dear, but you're gonna have to talk to them all the same. Here now." She returned to the bed carrying two sets of overalls. She set them down at our feet and started toward the door. "You boys hurry and get dressed and scurry down stairs. Lord, but they're in no mood to be waiting for you."

We lay in bed for a moment without speaking. We had no cause to feel guilty, at least none we were aware of, but we knew; we'd seen Erin leave with the Boylover. Erin pulled his half naked body from the bed and grabbed one set of overalls.

"What are we going to do, Eric?" I whined nervously.

"Nothing," he said stepping into the legs and pulling them up his body. "Just don't tell them anything. They don't know we if we saw anything that night or not." He pulled the straps of the overalls over his shoulders and his soft brown chest pressed gently out at the front panel. I crawled out of the bed and did as he had done, slipping into the overalls and putting them on without a shirt underneath. Eric looked so cute with his smooth skin partially covered, but I was too frightened to spend much time appreciating him. As soon as I had the straps over my thin shoulders and had sat down to roll the taller boy's pant legs from my feet, Eric was urging me out the door.

We walked nervously down the stairs, me holding to the belt loop of the older boy's pants and pressing my cheek against the smooth warmth of the bare part of his back between the straps of the overalls. I couldn't see where we were going as I followed the young boy, but could feel his slender body tighten and could imagine the faces on the men below us.

"Ah, here they are now." It was Master Thorne's voice and it sounded oddly comforting and reassuring. "Step out here, boy," he told me as we came to a stop at the bottom of the stairs. I could feel his hand grasp my little shoulder and his fingers in the small, hairless crotch of my armpit as he pulled me from the shield of Eric's soft body. There were a half dozen men standing there and they looked both of us up and down.

"This that Kovz Boy from the orphanage?" one of them asked.

"Yes," Master Thorne said. "He's Eric's boy."

"Mighty pretty boy for an orphan," one of the other men said......(cont)