The Gilroys lived diagonally to the south of the Douglas place and from that day on the young lad would always make a point of saying hello to them whenever he spied them in their yard or if he saw them on some of his constant outings.
The Gilroys were easy going and a very nice couple. David was an engineer, his interest mainly in mining and he had moved to the property on the eastern district of Brisbane to spend some time with his new bride that he had finally manage to extract from the clutches of a fiercely competitive colleague in the firm that they had both worked for in New South Wales. David was 38 and his wife 37.
Kelsey had been a prize to be won from his rival, when she had accepted his offer of marriage he had joyfully taken her away to the northern state and away from any further temptations. She came from a wealthy, very wealthy, family and her marriage to the lowly engineer had not completely been welcomed with joy by her family.
David's opinion of himself was high, he believed that his easy smile, reasonably handsome face and stockily built body had given him the edge over the skinny, big eared and freckled faced man he had beaten out for the hand of the gorgeous brown haired and brown eyed Kelsey. Her full figure and warm willing body was his and he believed that she was content to be his faithful companion.
Mrs Gilroy, "Please, call me Kelsey," she told those that she met, had fallen for the small skinny, child that had come to her with a bloodied nose and swollen eye. Ensuring that she always had biscuits or cakes just baked or ready in a tin she kept close by the table, she was delighted when the young lad came and shyly knocked on the door a couple of days after her husband had found him talking to the ducks. Welcoming him into her home with open arms, ensuring that he pressed against her warm breasts and made him sit and have "bikkies," as she called them and tea with her.
She chatted to him in a constant stream asking about school, friends and sport.
Noting the surprised look he gave her when she told him that she had watched him make a century for the school last summer, she had asked him if he was going to be opening again this year. Sydney changed the subject and was embarrassed when she asked the question again. The lad looked at her closely realising that she was genuinely interested in his answer and shyly nodded yes.
Kelsey was saddened when he said he had to go. She let him run from the house and was very worried when he didn't return for several weeks.
From a long time habit Sydney would change the subject if any of his friends mentioned some achievement in earshot of his parents, he figured that adults didn't really want to hear about those sorts of things and it had confused him when Mrs Gilroy had shown an interest. When finally he found enough courage up to go back and see them he explained to them both that his parents didn't really care about his sport and didn't talk about it with them.
Mr Gilroy coughed and ruffled his hair, his wife handed the boy a plate of bikkies and said she had to get something from the back room. Kelsey Gilroy wept in her room, how such a small, beautiful boy could be so abused and neglected she thought to herself. She composed herself, applied a little make-up to cover her slightly red face and returned to listen to her husband talking to the small boy about the ducks.
Sydney ate Kelsey's bikkies as her husband asked if Sydney came and talked to the ducks often. The laughter and statement that the ducks were his friends and his naming them off for him and descriptions about their habits and nesting places made her heart ache as she realised how lonely the little boy was.
David sat staring at the boy for such a long time that Kelsey thought her husband was going to make the boy feel as if he had said something wrong, so she gave a little cough and when he looked at her shook her head quickly. David stood up and said, "Seeing as how all these ducks live at my place I'd better get down there and start learning all about them!"
Kelsey Gilroy asked Sydney if he wanted to stay for a bit longer but he told her he had to go to soccer practice shortly so he'd better get home and changed before he went.
Over the next few months Sydney showed David Gilroy all the ducks and their nesting places. He got very good at naming them when the boy pointed them out on the pond.
David and Kelsey were very good to Sydney and they enjoyed his company on the rare occasions that he came over. Sydney's mother, introducing herself as Sophia, tried to interfere with the boy's visits but Kelsey laughingly told her that the boy could come over and visit whenever he wanted, besides she told the obnoxious woman she also had some chores that she needed doing occasionally.
Sophia had responded, "Well as long as the little devil isn't making a nuisance of himself!" Before turning about and hurrying back to the house to attend to Sydney's brothers.
The next few years saw more and more beltings and beatings handed out to Sydney, as it seemed his parents went out their way to find any excuse to deliver punishments. Peter Douglas had received further instructions that wanted the child cowered, afraid and the beatings should ensure that the boy never reached full maturity. It was something that his masters did not want to occur. Why they didn't tell him to simply kill the child he was not at liberty to ask.
The Gilroys and the ducks were his only refuge though he steered well clear of the Gilroys whenever his face was damaged or the bruises were too obvious around his legs or arms. There would be periods when sometimes he did not go to school or to any of his normal sporting activities while his body recovered.
Kelsey Gilroy always got so worried when the little man did not come to her back door for bikkies and tea, she suspected that the monsters in the house to the north were beating him but she could not prove it. Sometimes she would see him sneaking off furtively to school via the back tracks around the estate in the very early hours of the mornings before anyone else was awake. Watching his small frame run down the tracks with a school bag that she was sure only carried his book discs as his skinny frame certainly showed no signs of getting the nourishment it needed.
Whenever she asked Sydney how come he had been out of touch for a while he would tell her that he had been sick or very busy with school-work. At times she thought that the lad would die of embarrassment at having to tell them a lie, but as the months passed he began to vary his stories judging when he could use different stories such as hinting that had been away or injured playing sport and having to have a few weeks recovery.
Kelsey Gilroy never believed a word but she let the lies go as she would smile and pass him some more biscuits. Her heart always broke as she watched him eat them hurriedly, furtively sneaking one of two into the pockets of his threadbare pants. Eventually she would simply give him a small paper bag of biscuits before he left, telling him that he could keep them for later when he needed a midnight snack. Her hand would always brush his hair out of his eyes and her smile and open eyes would try to tell him that she was there to help him.
Her love for the boy and her motherly instincts were not as innocent towards him as she told herself they were. As they boy went through a small growth spurt, which she believed was triggered by the extra food she gave him, his body and face triggered deep emotions within in her and in passionate afternoons of daydream she would pleasure her body with thoughts of his properly developed body giving her hours of intense pleasure.
Something about his demeanour, the way he simply believed in living, the brave way he battled whatever atrocities were being perpetrated upon him made her love for the little boy grow. She had bouts of depression when he did not come to her home for weeks as he recovered from the beatings, followed by nights of lusty passion with her husband when his handsome face would sit opposite hers as he ate her biscuits and haltingly gave her some story to cover his absence. Her husband's face was always replaced, in her mind, by the boy as she imagined him to be as a man.
A couple of years after they had become Sydney's neighbours David picked him up as he wandered slowly home from school, pulling up beside the boy in his work hover and beeped the horn to get his attention. As Sydney leaned in through the passenger window and asked him how he was going he offered him a lift home. Sydney told him he wasn't in that big of a hurry to get there if it was all right by him. David thought he knew the reason for the lad's reluctance to go home but then he laughed saying, "Well I think Kelsey might have some bikkies at home for a growing lad if you don't mind hanging out with a pregnant lady!"
When David told Kelsey her how he had jumped in the hover pressing for all the news about this latest development, she had softly cried into his shoulder. David laughed as he told her how he had a million questions like when the baby was due and what was it going to be.