Violence from the parents, affection from a stranger

This report is an interview by the author Wolfgang Vogel with a grown up boy and his older friend.

Translated by JUMIMA
Original German text


Question: Would you introduce yourself briefly?
André: My name is André and I am 27 years old.

Question: Please also introduce yourself briefly.
Peter: My name is Peter and I am 55 years old.

Question: When did you first meet Peter?
André: Oh dear, that was a long time ago. – (to Peter) Do you know when we first met?
Peter: That was when you were five years old. We lived in the same house at the time. Until then, I had only noticed you as a boy who was scolded by his parents almost every day. One could hear your mother’s screaming up to the roof.
André: That’s right. My parents made a giant problem out of every little thing. Sometimes when I had to get beer for my father or cigarettes for my mother, I would buy the wrong thing or would not go fast enough. Then I got a beating. When I cried, I was grounded to my room.
Peter: When I first noticed you consciously, you walked down the hallway, with an empty soda bottle in your hand, your face full of tears. I asked you if you had to go shopping. You just nodded silently. Then I asked you if your parents had scolded you again; actually a pretty superfluous question when one looked at your face.
André: Yes, I still remember today that you crouched and hugged me. I had seen you a couple of times, but had taken no notice of you. It was good for me that someone took me in my arms.

Question: Can you express in a few words what you felt?
André: (hesitates a bit) No, I don’t remember that exactly today. Peter hugged me tightly and patted my hair, I think – (To Peter) Didn’t I give you a kiss too?
Peter: Yes, I remember this situation very well because it caused some confusion in my feelings. When I hugged you in the middle of the stairs in the stairwell, your tears suddenly ran free and ran down your cheeks. It was probably the feeling that you no longer had to suppress the pent-up mental pain and simply let it go. You must have suffered terribly from your parents' beatings and scolding. When you cried, I pressed you even closer to me and patted your head. I wasn’t sure how to handle a five-year-old crying child.
Suddenly something completely crazy happened: You looked at me with tearful eyes and gave me a spontaneous kiss on the mouth. At first I didn’t know what was happening to me and I thought: Don’t scold him again now. Then you wrapped your arms tightly around my neck and gave me a very long kiss on the mouth, and your tongue searched my lips and penetrated, and you literally blindsided me with a really deep kiss.
André: Right, now I can remember a few details. You were completely puzzled and asked me how I learned to kiss so well. I said, “From my grandmother.” At that time, I was often with my grandparents, who took me on their lap, comforted and caressed me because they knew about my parents' beatings and didn’t dare to interfere. On these occasions I learned to kiss, learned that a kiss on the mouth is something you only give to someone you love. I would never have voluntarily kissed my parents.

Question: What impact did this encounter have?
Peter: I was a little confused afterwards because on the one hand I really became aware of the fate of this five-year-old boy and on the other hand I felt his enormous need for love. For a few weeks I managed to avoid meeting him on the stairwell. I even went back to my apartment quickly when I heard that he was leaving his parents' home to get cigarettes. His mother still shouted at him not to dawdle again. A few weeks later I was on my way to the basement to get food supplies. André came towards me and beamed with joy at the reunion. I took him in my arms and gave him a quick hug. He asked me…
André: Let me tell you. So I asked him where he was going. He said, “I’m going to the basement.” I just went with him; I had the feeling that nothing could happen to me when I was with him. When we were alone in the basement, I jumped around his neck and kissed him for a long time. From the way he caressed me, I noticed that he really liked me. I told him that something had become stiff in my pants. He said he had the same experience. Then I just opened his pants to see it. And a little later I experienced the first sex of my life. It was so beautiful that I asked him to do it again. But suddenly he was very afraid that someone might notice us and said that I should now go to the apartment quickly so that my parents would not get suspicious.

Question: Could the situation have been dangerous for you?
Peter: Not really. We could have locked ourselves in the basement and turned off the lights. It was another form of fear that overwhelmed me in this situation. I thought: Goodness, what is this child doing to me, what does he want from me? I had never dealt with such small children, let alone this kind of things. My emotional state fluctuated between the joy of having done something pleasant to the child and dismay that something forbidden had happened. Afterwards, I asked myself for days: did André really want this kind of tenderness, or was it perhaps just my secret, previously suppressed desire? André answered this question clearly and unequivocally in the weeks that followed, at least for himself.
André: I remember well the exhilarating feelings that I experienced. It was clear to me that I was doing something forbidden. But it was not the sex that ws foremostly forbidden – it ws that I had entrusted myself to an adult at all.
My parents would have beat me half dead, had they known about it. But I would have let myself be beaten half dead and still would have told nothing. I really wanted to keep my friend. At first I was very afraid I would lose him because he seemed to be avoiding me. When I met him again in the stairwell I said that I would like to go to the basement with him. He hesitated a bit, because didn’t have the keys with him. I kept begging until he got the basement key, and then we did it again.

Question: You were five years old at the time?
André: Yes. Even five year olds can have great feelings; I now know from experience. My bad luck was that we moved away a few months later, because my parents separated and I had to live with my mother from then on.

Question: That was the end of the short friendship?
André: It would probably have ended if there had not been a reunion by chance when we met in the locker room of a swimming pool, locked ourselves in a cabin and repeated the basement experiences. After that I had to wait a very long time before I was allowed to have sex with you.
Peter: Strictly speaking, until you were twelve and a half years old. I met you near your apartment, probably by accident, and I managed to make a date with you. It was summer and we drove a bit out of the village into the forest, where I took the first photos of you. Then we cuddled on a blanket and almost forgot the time. I had to drive pretty fast on the way home to drop you off on time.
André: You only had to race like this because you bought me some ice cream just before the drive home. We were sitting on the terrace of an Italian ice cream parlor, and I enjoyed that you had bought me something for the first time.
Peter: (visibly astonished) Gosh, what else do you remember! I had forgotten that.

Question: Did the friendship continue afterwards?
Peter: It actually only really started. But there was another two years in between, when I completely lost sight of André.
André: That came about because I no longer lived with my mother, but with my father, who had remarried. I got on really well with my stepmother, who became my real mother throughout my youth. She protected me if I had done something wrong. If I didn’t know something, she helped me and didn’t scold me. She taught me to cook and bake cakes. Because I was the oldest child at home, I had to take care of my younger siblings and was therefore not allowed to leave so often. But overall, I felt quite comfortable with my father and stepmother.

Question: When did you meet again?
Peter: I saw André one summer day when I happened to be driving by car through the town where he lived. Due to the move from birth mother to step mother, he had moved to another place. I stopped and spoke to him. The little boy had grown into a big teenager. I was amazed when he stood in front of me like this: a 14 year old with shorts, long legs and in the middle of voice change. I had a great need to meet him again. We made an appointment for the next day after class.
André: I had to think of something to get away from home. I said I wanted to help a classmate with school work. We met at 2 p.m., and I was allowed to stay until 4 p.m. Peter and I drove into a nearby forest where we were undisturbed. Then he said, “I’d like to see how much you’ve become a man.” It was good to feel how amazed he was that I had grown up. I said to him: “You are astonished that I am no longer a child, right?” In response, he took me in his arms and hugged me tightly. He was visibly moved to no longer have little André in front of him. He had his camera with him and asked me if he could take a picture of me. But unfortunately we had very little time and I was also eager to make love with him in this remote forest.
Peter: You really attacked me, said I should finally put the camera down, and then literally ripped my clothes off my body.
André: No wonder – I had to do without you for so long.

Question: Did your friendship continue?
Peter: The meeting just mentioned was the beginning of the actual friendship, as I see it. From then on we met frequently and almost regularly, about every two weeks. As long as it was summer, we took small trips, went swimming together or hiked in the forest. In the cold season we spent time at my home. André always had only a few hours because his parents shouldn’t know anything. I wanted to offer him more than just physical contact, but André never wanted to give up sex and demanded his right so consistently that he just took off my clothes.
André: (to Peter) And you were very happy to participate, my dear. – But it’s true: he always acted coyly so much that I took the initiative, otherwise I would have had to go home and nothing would have happened. The few meetings with Peter were too valuable for me to do without sex. Once you get to know how beautiful it is, you don’t want to be without it.
Peter: That’s actually what we adults feel as well.

Question: How long did this friendship last?
André: Basically, it still lasts today. We have stopped having sex since I have had a girlfriend, at the age of 19. I am engaged to her and would like to marry her as soon as my education is over.

Question: What profession do are you learning?
André: I am training in the social field.

Question: Did the relationship with Peter only bring you joy, body contact and occasional excursions, or did you benefit from it in any other way?
André: Well, the pleasure that the friendship gave me is actually enough, isn’t it? But there are still a few things that I have benefited from. First of all, Peter helped me a lot when I didn’t know something at school. He advised me on my professional training. And finally: I copy him in some things today; for example, how he furnished his apartment, how he laid the table, how relaxed he was in many things.
Through him I became a tea drinker, dress more carefully and ask him today how he likes the things that I bought. I think that when there are so many years of living a little bit together, you influence each other. Children learn a lot from parents; why not from other adults? My teachers have also influenced me in many ways.

Question: This relationship could have been dangerous for the adult had it become known. Did you ever talk about that?
Peter: Yes, when André was about 15 years old, I took up this topic at some point. On the one hand, I did not want to hide the danger, but on the other hand I wanted to avoid making him anxious or have him feel that he was doing something wrong. André quickly relieved me of all worries and said that he would never tell anyone what was going on in our friendship.
André: I would not have jeopardized this friendship which meant so much to me! Of course it was clear to me that we could only meet secretly, that we had to be careful.

Question: Would you have liked to talk to someone about this relationship with Peter?
André: On the one hand, no, on the other hand, yes. I would never have wanted to talk to my parents about it, for example, because I know how they think about such friendships. My father is very conservative and my stepmother would have worried what relatives or neighbors would think about it.
On the other hand, I’ve sometimes felt the need to talk about what I experienced with Peter. If such relationships had not to be kept secret, the first thing I would have done is tell my teacher and my classmates about it. I’d have been proud to have a treasure that others did not have. At 14 I would have loved to walk the streets and tell everyone that Peter is my friend.