He just kept stoking himself. It didn't go very hard, but then he didn't really know how hard it should get. What he was not remotely expecting was orgasm. It was as if he were on some kind of donkey cart with no brakes, steering wheel or anything to drive or control it. He watched helplessly as it rolled down a hill. There was a terrible sense of acceleration, of going faster and faster, higher and higher, and as if in crash, a sudden loss of all control, and a tumbling fall.

Michael lay stunned and messy and embarrassed. He would have to wash. He didn't know there would be so much of the stuff, or that it seemed to crawl everywhere as if it had a life of its own. I'll get the sheets dirty, and Dad'll know, Michael thought.

He pushed his pj bottoms down with his elbows and kicked them off. He didn't want to touch anything with his hands. The doorknob became an obstacle: it would not turn between his two elbows. He gave up and used his hands, but they were too slick with semen to turn it. Would he have to call his Dad? He decided to sacrifice a sock. He stuck his hand into it like a glove puppet and managed to open the door. Padding out quickly to the bathroom, he kept his pj top hanging low. He washed his hands for ten minutes, and then the sink and the taps several times. Then he snapped his pj bottoms back on.

He felt abused. Orgasm had come as a thumping physical shock that left him a bit weak in the stomach and knees. It was as though something that was not himself had temporarily taken over his body. It made him feel a bit soiled, a bit guilty. He told himself: I only did it to see what it was like, and I won't have to do it again now.

Michael wanted to talk to his Dad. He could tell his Dad about it and his Dad could tell him what to expect from sex. His Dad would be good about it, no shock or outrage.

Michael stood outside his father's open bedroom door. His father left the door open in case Michael needed him. If Michael stood in the doorway, his father would say: 'Mike? Is there something wrong?' Michael stood and waited. He could hear his father breathe, a delicate hissing sound that reminded Michael of baby rabbits. He could smell his father's breath too; sometimes it was stale, mostly after he'd overdone the exercise and hadn't drunk enough water. The sense of his father's physical presence was overwhelming.

Michael wanted to sleep next to his father. He wanted to curl up beside him, and smell the big bear-like smell and be cuddled. He wanted to have long conversations about life, and about the future, and what it was to be an adult. He even wanted to smell his father's breath.

He waited, but there was no invitation, and he wasn't brave enough to invade. He could talk about it in the morning if he still needed to.

So Michael crept back into bed, still breathing in the scent of his father, and pulled the pillow round and hugged it from the side, as if it were his father's torso, and a great heaviness, a stillness settled over him, like liquid lead was oozing out of every pore. He had a dream about melting, as if he were wax.

When Michael returned at sixteen, it was altogether different.

First off Michael flew on his own from LA International to San Diego. He had to find his own way across the huge airport to a domestic departure lounge. He had to carry his own bags onto the runway, and leave them on the cart beside the tiny aeroplane while the guy tagged them for him. Doing all of it unaided made Michael feel he had glimpsed what it was like to be an adult. It also meant that his father thought he was old enough to handle all that.

This time, Michael and his father were the same height. 'Hey, Mike, you've grown up, guy!' They hugged in a guy kind of way and patted each other on the back. His father had the same battery of teeth, the same shaved head. Ultraviolet radiation may have creased the face a little bit more, but that only wreathed the smile more. Michael pulled back to look at him and was stunned again.

Everything about his father pulled at his heart. If Michael had seen his father for the first time in a restaurant, he wouldn't be able to take his eyes off him. If he had wanted a guy for a friend, somebody who could teach him about all the tilings he knew he needed to find out, somebody who could give him anti-dork lessons without making him feel like one, it would be his father. If he wanted a companion, someone to share a house with, it would be his Dad. He wanted to spend his life with him.

And this time, at sixteen, Michael recognized the undertow, that pulling, for what it was.

'So how's the cross country going, Mike?'

'They need me. They want me.' Michael slipped into this new self as if it were a body stocking.

'Good man!' His father slapped his knee.

'So, like I'm in real serious training now.'

'Sounds good to me.' His father was being laid back, changing gears like he was playing ping pong.

'So like, I really need someone to run with and stuff.'

'Well, I was kinda planning on doing what we were doing the last time you were here.' His father was looking out the window, at the distant billboards, as if they were passing women. 'If that's OK with you.'

'Do a beach run every day.'

'If that'll do the trick. I don't know.' Finally Joe Cool looked back around at his son. 'It depends on what you want to do. We may be looking at getting you some professional coaching.'

Michael was brisk. 'I'd rather run with you, Dad.'

'Well maybe. But you gotta consider how far you want to take this thing and how well you want to do it.'

'Maybe we could do both. I was… uh… kinda thinking…' Michael seemed to be hurling towards some kind of decision; the sensation was not unlike the acceleration towards orgasm. He suddenly sharply knew what he wanted. He could see it, there was no doubt. A couple of hundred still images flickered in his brain: them in the apartment together, at the beach together, chores together, breakfasts together.

'I'm thinking I might go to school here, you know, college, and um, work on my running, you know, maybe be on the team while I study.'

This had never been discussed with his mother. Michael had just invented it. He was betraying his mother to talk in this way, to make this offer without her knowledge.

Michael pressed on, like a car careening zigzag across a roadway. 'I was thinking it could be UC San Diego. Um. I don't think it would be fair to make Mom pay and all.'

'No, no, no,' his father said and seemed to have to stand up in the front seat, like he was having to break hard, in an emergency. Michael was perfectly aware that he was offering his father the thing he most wanted in the world.

'So. I was kinda thinking I could, like, you know, live with you.'

His father was not looking at billboards any more. His father was looking straight ahead. 'You'd have to make sure UCSD was good in your subject.'

'Yeah.'

'Maybe we could drop into the school now. It's on our way.'

Michael nodded slowly, surely, as if this were something considered and serious. That would be good.

The Chiclets chewing gum stopped clicking. His father's jaw clenched, and then he swallowed. 'I would like that a whole bunch,' he said, and then he turned and looked at Michael, and nodded, and smiled a strained, tight smile. His eyes were impossible to read behind the mirror shades. All Michael saw in them was his own reflection.

They stopped at UCSD and wasted an hour. Michael's flight had got in at 3.30 pm, and it was late to show up on a huge campus and expect to find somebody to answer their questions. It took them fifteen minutes to find out where they were supposed to park, and another twenty to find the registrar's office. A woman behind the counter spent another ten minutes showing them on a map where the Sciences Administration Building was. The office would close at five.