This story features four people.

The first person was a pedophile. I don't really have enough information to reconstruct his side of the story in full – or even to be sure that he was a boylover – so I've supplemented his story with other stories I've heard from boylovers. Even if he wasn't a boylover, I know boylovers who have gone through incidents like this.

This gentleman had fallen in love with his stepson. He talked with his stepson, who was about twelve years of age, and the gentleman received the impression from their talks that the stepson was interested in being sexually involved with him. And so they became lovers.

The second person was of course the boy. He hated what he was doing with his stepfather, but he loved and trusted his stepfather. He was afraid to tell his stepfather to stop, because he thought that his stepfather wouldn't love him any more if he did, and he was afraid to tell anyone about what was happening, for fear that his mother would be angry with his stepfather and throw him out of the family.

The third person was the boy's best friend, to whom the first boy confessed what was happening. Both boys were confused and were afraid to tell anyone, for the second boy cared deeply for his friend's stepfather as well. Perhaps, they thought, it would be best to say nothing.

And there the story might have ended, except that a fourth person had entered into the boys' lives. This was a boylover who had been corresponding with the second boy, and whom the second boy trusted. Because of this, the boys decided to write to the boylover and ask him what they should do.

By the time the boys received the boylover's reply, urging them to tell an adult, the second boy's mother had already learned of the story, but only because the two boys had discussed the matter with each other in preparation for writing to the boylover. And so, because the second boy had been befriended by a boylover, the gentleman in the story is now undergoing therapy, and his stepson is slowly healing from what happened.

And so a blue candle is lit in my window tonight for the boy who was hurt by a boylover and who was saved by a boylover, in acknowledgment of the fact that, for every boy who is hurt by a well-meaning boylover, dozens more boys have their lives enriched by boylovers.

Heather Elizabeth Peterson