This is the story of a charismatic young man whose boyish appearance gave no hint of the peculiar power he was able to exert over some people.
It's also a story of betrayal by a couple and of their being manipulated by a persuasive young man, and involves a degree of humiliation and consensual degradation.
***
I had just finished my coffee and was preparing to start one of my long-postponed household projects when the doorbell rang. My first temptation was to ignore it, since it was probably somebody handing out religious pamphlets or selling cookies, and in retrospect I should have done just that.
I didn't.
Instead I went to peek out of the side of the window curtains, and there he was. He didn't see me looking out at him, so I could have just moved away from the window and gone about my business until he went away.
I didn't.
Like I was walking against the force of a hurricane, I found myself going to the door and opening it, despite knowing that I was making a mistake.
"Hi Mr. B.," my daughter's boyfriend said, giving me a smile, the kind of smile that someone gives you when they know a secret of yours - something about you that no one else knows.
"Kenny," I said, nodding and finding myself unable to look him in the eye. "Uh... Katie isn't here. Her mom and her, they went..."
"To visit Katie's grandmother," Kenny said in finishing my sentence, smiling that smile and showing those dimples that probably melted a whole lot of hearts over the course of his 19 years.
"Uh," was all I could say as I shrugged my shoulders and shifted my weight from foot to foot in the doorway.
"Aren't you going to invite me in?" Kenny said, and as he spoke he moved right past me and into my home.
It wasn't like I couldn't have stopped him, because Kenny's only about 5'7" and maybe 135 pounds soaking wet, so I'm almost a half foot taller than and maybe 50 pounds heavier than him.
But I didn't.
Instead I stepped aside and let him stroll right past me. All of the authoritative attitude that kept my staff at work in line was nowhere to be found, and now I was closing the door behind me and following Kenny into the kitchen.
"Didn't come to see Katie," Kenny said, his thumbs hooked into the belt loops of his shorts as he leaned back against the sink.
"Ahem."
Kenny had cleared his throat, having noticed that while I was having trouble looking him eye to eye, I had no problem staring elsewhere, and I forced myself to look up from the bulge in his camel colored shorts to face him.
"Came to see you."
"Look, about last night," I started to say, but Kenny cut me off.
"Ah! Last night," Kenny sighed. "That was really something. That's why I'm here."
"You don't understand. Last night - I had a couple of drinks and..."
"Yes, the old demon alcohol!" Kenny said with a smile. "I've used that excuse myself many times. Hell, I had a couple of drinks too, so maybe that gives us both a reason for what happened - for what you did and what I let you do."
"It's more complex than that," I explained. "Katie's mother and me, we..."
"That's another good one," Kenny said as he came over to me and put his hand on my shoulder.
Part of me wanted to kill Kenny. His angelic looks and his Eddie Haskell-like attitude toward me were now replaced by this new angle. It was like us seeming to change roles, with me acting like a 19 year old college kid and Kenny playing the part of the middle aged business man.
"Remember this?" Kenny was saying as he showed me a picture on his phone, and when I saw the shot of the back of my head and Kenny's lap I closed my eyes, but that didn't work because in my mind I could still see it.
"You're cute when you blush," Kenny said as he clicked the phone shut and slipped it in his pocket.
"What do you want?" I said, fearing I was about to be blackmailed.
The photo wasn't clear. After all, it was pretty dark in the car and you couldn't really tell it was me, unless you knew me well.
"You know what I want," Kenny said. "Go lock the door."
"I can't."
"Your room or Katie's?" Kenny sort-of asked me, and then answered his own question. "Yours. The bed is probably nicer."
Down the hall Kenny went, leaving me standing in the kitchen wishing that everything that happened last night between 10:45 and 1 in the morning had never happened.
***
What had happened to bring young Kenny to my house that morning?
I had to pee. That was why I found myself walking down the hall a little before 11 the night before. My wife Barbara and I turned in early, as is our custom on Friday nights, but because our daughter was home we didn't do what we usually do.
Instead we just went to sleep, and after Barbara dropped off I found myself wide awake. I heard a noise downstairs and decided to peek down through the rails of the stairway.
It was Katie and her boyfriend of a couple of weeks, Kenny. He was a goody two shoes type that my wife was crazy about, but I was a bit wary of him. I guess all fathers look at their daughter's boyfriends like that, so it was only natural that I made a point to keep an eye on him.