Chapter 1

 

I was born to two eminently successful parents. My father was a top barrister here on the Gold Coast of Queensland and my mother had her own medical practice at Southport. As you might expect, they are very busy at these occupations and before I was born, mother invited her unmarried sister who had never really been successful at anything, to come and live with them, looking after the house and earning a salary as housekeeper.

Aunt Maud and I were the best of friends. Not that I didn't get on with Mother and Dad; just that I saw a great deal more of my aunt in my preschool days and she was like a sort of nanny to me.

That isn't to say I didn't love my parents. They were great, giving me a lot of love, teaching me discipline and respect and ensuring I did my chores, etc. I think all three of them contributed to my early learning regime so that by the time I went to school, I was well ahead of my peers.

And at school, I really shone. Not only academically but in sports as well for my father was a keen sportsman in many disciplines and mother played tennis and golf regularly - and they were both very good at it.

There was just one flaw in this seemingly idyllic household. I had learned at an early age that my sexual predilections were decidedly gay. I think I believed myself bisexual but with a gay bias and I still think that. However, from various conversations, I knew they strongly disapproved of such people and even mother, with her medical background felt that it was somehow wrong for men to like men sexually - and Dad was even worse.

So of course I hid it. As I said I was lucky to be blessed with good brains and an athletic physique, and, as I liked to help out others who weren't so gifted, and as I shone at most sports, I was popular at school (and later, university) and I learned how to date girls and even cuddle and kiss them, although I never went the whole way. I was able to cover this with a rather puritanical pretence that I was keeping myself for my future wife.

My friends and family bought it and I think gave me a grudging respect for it, although my girlfriends let it be known that if I ever changed my mind, they wanted to be the first to take my virginity.

My parents sent me to The Southport School (TSS) the top private boys school on the Coast and there I was class and later school captain all through the twelve years of my primary and secondary schooling, after which I attended Griffith University.

I had no interest in a medical career, but the law did intrigue me and so that's what I did there, achieving an Honours Degree in Law and then joining a prestigious firm of solicitors near where Dad had his own practice.

By this time I was well into my twenties and I need to go back to my twenty-first birthday to set out the nascence of my weird powers.

 

Of course my parents gave me a birthday party and they didn't stint. They booked a whole restaurant, a very upmarket one, and we all wined, dined and danced all night. They also gave me a lovely, sporty BMW as my present, so you can see I was really chuffed. Of course, all my friends, male and female were there along with family members but then, on the stroke of midnight, when I was now 21 + 1 day, I suddenly found that if I looked steadily at one of my friends there, their clothes seemed to totally disappear and I was looking at them stark naked.

If I looked away, even for a second, their clothing reappeared. If I then looked at someone else, (and I found I had to do it in a certain, rather formal way which I quickly learned that night to make it work successfully), then they now somehow shed their clothes until I glanced away.

I must have been attracting attention from the way I was jerking my head around and staring at someone for a few seconds then shifting my gaze to someone else for my oldest friend, who was at my table of course, gave me a dig in the rigs.

"What the hell are you doing, Cam?" he asked softly but fiercely. "Everyone's looking at you?"

I turned and grinned at him. "Oh it's just something in my eye, Charlie, I'd better go and wash it out..." He bought it and then I excused myself and hurried off to the Men's room. I did wash it out, just to prove a point and then returned, now forcing myself not to look at my friends in that certain way.

But then when we returned home, and I went up to my room, I stood in front of my mirror and looked at myself in that same special way, my clothes just disappeared.

What did it mean? Why had I been granted this so weird (and I thought useless if intriguing) power.

But then, a few days later, I discovered there was another twist to it: if I applied the first power - that is to observe the person I was looking at and make their clothes disappear, then, if I added another twist (both of these powers I came on accidentally) I could actually hear what they were thinking.

I didn't ever gain access to their memories; only what they were currently thinking - and it might be very different from what they were saying, too!

And so now, in my interviews with our firm's clients, still of course only the lesser ones at this early stage in my career, I could first undress them and then listen to what they were thinking as well as what they were saying and I actually learned to do both at the same time although that took time.

But when they weren't actually talking, they were definitely thinking and in that way I gained incredible insights into how best to work out their problems for I could now discover the truth (at least as they saw it) on the issue.

This aided my advice to them immeasurably and I soon gained a reputation as a most perspicacious young lawyer.

Dad even got to hear about it from the senior partners at my firm and asked me what ticked. I looked at him as if I didn't know what he was talking about and as I looked at him, I delved into his mind and found him wondering how I had really become so successful.

From this, I learned to be careful whose minds I looked into for I could see some pretty horrible scenarios emerging if I wasn't careful. And so I now tempered my office-time use of the power although I freely looked at handsome young men and mentally undressed them and then searched their minds for their current thoughts.

Mostly it was about sex with their girl (and in a few cases, a boy) but not all. Some were worried about a debt; others were planning a night out - I'm sure you get the picture.

Anyway, that was the beginning of it and now, at night, instead of me dreaming about some dreamboat of a guy I had seen that day, I tried to fathom what this power was, why I had been given it, and by whom? And there were no answers. I could use the powers on anyone I chose and I could switch them on and off with ease. But for what purpose, I asked myself over and over again - and still there were no answers.

A couple of years passed and in them I worked hard, became a junior partner and pursued the same very unsatisfactory social life with my friends, still pretending to a heterosexuality I could only dream of shedding.

It wasn't that being gay these days meant one was ostracised. Those days were long gone. It was my parents and friends. I had so long been seen as a top scholar and a star sportsman at many events by them all, if I was now to come out and proclaim that I had been secretly gay all my life since puberty, it would have devastated them all and that I was not prepared to do and so I continued on with the pretence but on my daily early-morning jogs around our district and at other times when I was alone, I would mentally undress some handsome young buck and delve into his mind - and sometimes, he would reveal himself (unconsciously, of course) to be gay and I would agonise over whether to make real contact with him.

I never did. I knew the moment I revealed my sexuality to a single soul, it would be out on the streets in hours and my life as I knew it would be over. I loved my parents very much and as I thought of the shame it would generate in both of them, I backed off.

Another year passed and then we, all three of us: Mother, Dad and me, were going to be flown down to a family wedding in Sydney in Uncle John's plane (he was Dad's brother and had his own Cessna but at the last minute, I couldn't go due to an urgent matter in the office.

Yes, I'm sure you can guess what happened. The plane went down over the hellishly rugged terrain of the Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park and there were no survivors. I was heartbroken, as you will imagine. Now I was alone except for Aunt Maud and while she was a wonderful support, it wasn't the same.

I was now in my thirties and, as I discovered very soon, an extremely wealthy young man. My parents lived in a beautiful home but they didn't waste money and their joint share portfolio was in the millions.

Once the double funeral was over, I took stock of myself and where I was going and found no answers. My career in the firm was secure. I believed I was a good lawyer and looked after my clients diligently but now gone was the delight I had had in my work and my future as a lawyer.

My friends tried to be supportive but all the time, I just questioned which way was up and what was I going to do?

 

And then it hit me.

It was my sexuality that was bothering me. I decided to confide in my aunt and her response was wonderful. "Oh Camden, you can't know how long I've waited for you to tell me this..."

I stared at her in awe. "You knew, Aunt?"

She smiled at me. "I've known all along, young man. Virtually since you went through puberty. It takes one to know one, my boy. I've been gay all my life but like you, and for the same reasons, I could never admit it. Now that you have, I can reveal that I have a secret - a very secret lover and she and I want to set up house in a little place somewhere a long way away from here.

"Now, I suggest that you think about doing the same thing. Sell up this place. It's too big for you anyway and you'll get a fortune for it to add to your inheritance. You, too, might like to move away from here - away from the friends and relations who will sneer at your sexuality once you come out. You are a good lawyer. You could set up in some country town or even move north to Cairns or Townsville, you know you love the climate up there. And then you can look for a young man to be your partner, just as I have with Emily."

"Oh Aunt, poor you. Here you have been under Mother's thumb all these years and unable to break loose. Well, what she left you should see you comfortable, I think?"

"Oh yes, she was very generous to me. But don't think like that. She and your father were very good to me. All I had to do was keep the house and cook and they paid me properly for it so I now have a nice little nest egg and I will ever be grateful to them both for I have watched you grow up and develop into a fine young man who is going to make a great lover to some other nice young man.

"Now, may I suggest you think deeply about what we have said and then decide. I can stay on here as long as you keep the house but then I want to go off with Emily and make a new life for myself. Not that I am running away from you, mind. We will stay in touch and we can visit one another often. I'm all you've got now in the close relative class and we must stay close, alright?"

I kissed her fondly and agreed with everything she had said. As to what I would do with my life and where I would go, well that was in the lap of the gods but I knew one thing - or rather, two: I would be selling the house and I would resign from the firm, pleading that I needed a new direction in my life after my parents' sudden and so tragic deaths.

I think my seniors were shocked at my decision and tried to talk me out of it, but I said I was sure and thanked them for all the support in the past. I believe they were genuinely sorry to see me go, remembering my skilful handling of my cases, perhaps.

 

The house brought me in another couple of million dollars and after all my years with the firm my superannuation account was another few hundred thousand so I was pretty well set up financially.

I did go up to Cairns and Townsville but didn't really see me settling down there. I somehow knew I wanted to live back on the Gold Coast but some distance away from Southport and my old haunts.

Accordingly, I bought a very much smaller house on the southern end of the Coast and it suited me very well. During this phase, I had thought deeply about what I was going to do with my life. As already indicated, I had fallen out of love with the law, but then, as I thought about the huge inheritance I now commanded, and of my parents' joint interest in fostering it, I realised I too was interested in this area and so I now began to study the stock market, read reports, bought the Australian Financial Review each day and read it from cover to cover and thus slowly acquired an understanding of how the market worked.

And then, as I started to dabble, I realised I had a knack for it and my parents' portfolio began to grow very nicely so that I now had an income and at the same time was building my capital.

And what has all this to do with my sexuality, you wonder?

Nothing. But I felt I needed to set the scene for what I was now going to do with my powers. Of course I kept up with some of my better friends but I now 'came out' informing them of the true nature of my sexuality and stressing to each of them that if they found this now repugnant, I would understand if they didn't wish to see me again. All protested, and told they were quite comfortable with it as long as I didn't come on to them.

But now that I lived further away, those friendships gradually died anyway as they were all married now and had children of their own. And so, more and more I was looking around, mentally undressing handsome young men and probing their thoughts - without much success, I have to say.

And then it happened. I was visiting Bunnings, the huge hardware store that has spread all over Australia, for some items I needed when I caught sight of a new employee there. I stopped in my tracks and just stared at him. I am sure he had to be one of the most handsome young men I have ever seen.

He had a full head of jet-black, fine curly hair that gleamed with good health. His face, always smiling, was a model's dream with large, dark violet eyes, a classic nose and a wide mouth with twin rows of pure white, perfect teeth.

His chin was well-formed but not too aggressive while his whole body, or all that I could see of it at first glimpse, was covered in as smooth a skin as I've ever seen on a man. Many women have such a fine body covering, but few men do. And as for his physique, well, even clothed, it was clearly as athletic as any man I've seen.

He wasn't over-muscled. I don't like the massive (and to me, ugly) muscles the body-builders aspire to and his was nothing like that. But as I could see even before I applied my powers to him, that every one of his muscles was cleanly articulated and totally fat-free so that their definition was superb.

His name tag proclaimed him to be Alexander and I then lost no time in mentally stripping him. The moment he appeared naked to me, I just gasped in shock. Such perfection! And there was another thing: you will recall I said I was blessed with a good natural physique? Well his beat me by a mile and there was this other thing: he was totally hairless - another of my fetishes. I had never been game to have my body depilated although I knew it was possible but while Mother and Dad lived, I was too scared of them finding out to try.

His body, now stark naked before me, was as smooth as peaches and cream and its muscles so beautifully etched that I was having difficulty in standing still. He caught me looking at him (although of course, he had no idea I was actually seeing him naked) and smiled.

I thought all my Christmases had come at once at that moment. I then delved into his mind and was even more excited by what I found lurking there. He had realised I was looking at him with a more than casual interest and his mind had immediately reacted. It seemed he was looking for a master and apparently he liked what he saw in me.