I was in a hotel room, somehow at college again. Friends were still there somehow, yet they were away somehow. I had my suitcase packed but I couldn't seem to get out of the room. I was exasperated, wandering halls that looked like run-down tenanment buildings, holes and boxes scattered in off-brown colors. My room was large, yet confined, the bed lying on the floor. At one point I felt a pain wrack my body like railroad spikes, centered at my bladder. There was a man's style urinal in this yellow-tiled nightmare. I relaxed but realized I was soiling myself. I hadn't unzipped out of relief. As I let go the entire wall seemed to seethe with soap bubbles and evaporation. The urine was the color of polluted water, sickly brown and toxic. It feels like rolling out of a casket every time I wake up. I dream about leaving college often...that I still have a final exam I never took, that I am still there and can't leave.

Switching tracks, the last few days have been very different. First, the job prospects. I have two currently at UC Davis and the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Pennsylvania. Both jobs offer 30k/year. Monell employees get full medical, dental, a 5,000 stipend to spend on universities courses, a 401k plan after 3 months. The man there is interested in me. His work is well known. Our research backgrounds collide, like the impulsive thoughts of inexperienced gay boys as they look across to one another. It's like the void in those eyes. I'm coy but professional.

Socially, I've been blessed with the best fortunes and a new apprentice. Ah, first the apprentice. I met Drew half a week ago. He's fourteen and has the tell-tale signs of someone with potential: sensitive, thoughtful, wracked with pain and misery, treated differently, intelligent...and perceptive. I tried being calm and cool toward him, but in the time we spoke something clicked. Long ago, Debbie reached out to me and showed me how to connect to someone by connecting to me. The feeling is indescribable, as if an invisible thread is wrapped around your heart and infusing you with warmth. There's a bath of hot water flowing in and out of you, like a celestial conductor. Despite any defenses, you are naked and prone.

It's the very same feeling I had with this boy. Yet I could control it, make sure he didn't leech too much energy away. Almost like the embrace of an Anne Rice vampire. He quickly became enamoured, telling me that his loneliness and searching were at an end. He told me things...that I was a caring and loving man, that he would need no others. Those are nice thoughts to have. He practically curled up in my lap like a puppy. I was at a loss. I am at a loss. Pure love explodes through my barriers and severely disturbs me. Then again, he has more to fear from me than vice-versa. I hid from him today only to find out his father beat him again. I feel ashamed. What Caine said kept standing out in my mind..."Am I my brother's keeper?" I'll teach the boy what I can and hopefully it'll stick. I've gotten good at teaching gifted people over the years. Teaching what is a better question and I can't answer it. It varies from person to person, suffice it to say I bring out a strange little something in everyone that listens. That's my gift. I don't mind it anymore.

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