I had just turned 45 years old and was taking my 10 and 14-year-old kids to a water park in a neighboring city during their spring break. As I was sitting in our cabana I suddenly had a memory from my youth hit me. It was about the summer of my 16th Birthday and I was a lifeguard at my local club pool, Timber Oaks, in Delaware. I had great memories about that summer, but the one that stood out the most was the discovery that I was gay.
Before we get into the story, a little about myself. My name is Aaron Carter, and I am the youngest of 4 kids. I have an older brother and 2 older sisters. My Mom and Dad had moved us from North Carolina to Delaware when I was 4 years old. By the time I was 5, my parents had separated and my dad had moved out. It wasn't that they didn’t love each other, they just couldn’t live together. They never divorced and when my Mom passed away it hit my Family, especially my dad, hard. We saw him crying while he was moving her ashes into the urn that we had acquired.
The neighborhood that we lived in was the typical suburban type. Single Family homes with a lot of families with young kids. It was the type of neighborhood that when a kid got sick the other kids were sent to play so they would become infected and then have the immunity to the disease. My first experience with sex happened when a girl in my neighborhood suggested that we play a game called the ‘Anna Marie Club’. There were about 4 boys and 6 girls from the age of 6 to 10 years old. She had us all get naked and we started by feeling each other and then it progressed from there. When I was 7, I had my first dry organism, it happened with a couple of buddies of mine when one found his parents vibrator. We were sitting on his bed with our pants down around our knees and the vibrator on our 2-inch nails. We didn’t know back then what was going on, we thought that we just need to go pee real bad.
In the 4th grade, I had a couple of friends that I messed around with. You know, it started with Truth or Dare and then progressed into just making ourselves feel good. We would jack off each other, that lead into developing a “Full Body Stimulation”, then 69ing and fingering, and finally taking each other’s life essence. The one thing that my ‘Friends with Benefits’ never attempted was full anal, not that I would have objected, but they were afraid of our agreement of mutual opportunity. That lasted until we were in Junior High School, but like anything else that ended as they moved away or we went to different schools. There never seemed to be a problem finding someone to mess around with in the early to mid-80s.
Back then it was not unusual for us kids to be kicked out of the house in the morning and be told not to come back until dinner time or when you heard the call to come in. Yes, I am a survivor of the “Free Range Kid” generation. Anyway, during the summer of my 15th birthday, you could always find me at the swim club. My family had been members of the club since we had moved into the area when I was 4. It was the type of place where you could show up when they opened and stay for the entire day. The club had a swim team that any of the members could join. I participated with the team and my specialty was the 100m Breaststroke and 400 Relay. It was very rare that we didn’t make the summer state finals where we went up against all of the Swim Clubs in Delaware.
This story starts during the summer I turned 15. At the end of the summer, I was approached by the Manager of the Club, George Meyers. He had just found out that one of his current head lifeguards was not coming back the next year and he was going to need a new lifeguard and offered me the position. He said that the Club would pay for my training and that I had until the end of April next year to pass the Lifeguard Training course offered by the Red Cross. That would give me enough time to get my certification from the state to work at a Private Club. I agreed to his proposal and both my Mom and Dad were very happy with my achievement.
Trevor Jones and I were in the same grade but at the time attended different schools, but knew each other from the Swim Meet Circuit. He was a good-looking kid, about 5 foot, 7 inches, with a swimmers build and platinum blond hair and deep blue/green eyes. I had seen him in the locker rooms at different meets and was impressed with what I saw. He sported a nice looking dick about 4 inches long soft and about 6 inches hard, and yes he would get hard when he would get changed into his suit, but hell we all were in the throes of puberty and we all would, it was no big deal and no one said anything. The other thing that I noticed was during one of our swim meets was that he had started sprouting his pubes and then during the next meet he was clean and smooth. He caught me looking at him, and asked what I was looking at. When I asked him about his smooth look, he smiled and told me that he and his friends did it on a dare. Then explained that after a while he like the look and feel, especially when he was fooling around. I smiled at Trevor and said that I understood that and would have to give it a try. Trevor said he would like to help me out, but unfortunately, that is all that happened between us. It was about 5 days after I was offered the job at my Swim Club that Trevor went missing. He was walking home from the Green Acres Swim Club, which was a couple of miles from my own and never made it home.
The swimming community in our town was a close-knit group where if there was a problem or if someone needed help all you needed to make a call. At 6 pm his parents called the pool to see if Trevor was still there. The lifeguards told them that Trevor had left the Club at about 4 pm to head home. His dad started to look for him in his car while his mom made calls to Trevor’s friends to see if he went over to their homes. After searching for about 4 hours his parents call the police. The word went out to the other swim club in town and there was a large group that converged on Trevor’s house the next morning to organize a search of the area for Trevor. Us older kids joined the search for Trevor and this went on until school began about 2 weeks later. The local media and newspapers were heavily involved in keeping the city informed about any developments in the search for Trevor, but after a while, with no new information about the case, their interest faded as well.
When school began, Trevor’s parents asked the school's permission to address the students and ask if anyone had any information about Trevor's whereabouts to let the Police know. Unfortunately, no one came forward. Our parents were really shaken up about the lack of developments in the abduction and kept a closer eye on us kids. There was a noticeable increase in the visibility of City, County, and State Police in the area as they were trying to find any clue as to what happened to Trevor.
It wasn’t until the end of September before there were any developments in Trevor’s abduction. The Police received a call from the local Goodwill Donation Center, that they had found a bag of clothes in one of their donation bins. In the bag, the Police found a soccer team jersey with Trevor's name and number, a Green Acres Swim Team Suit, and a Towel with Trevor’s name written on it. Trevor’s parents identified the items as belonging to Trevor. The police were able to determine which donation bin the bag was collected from and then concentrated their search there. The police were very careful about not disclosing where the bin was to anyone outside of the departments that were involved in the search. Their fear was that if the abductors knew the police were getting close they would move Trevor out of the area.
Around the 2nd week of October, I remember because it was the week of my High School’s Homecoming, the police were still searching for Trevor in the area of the donation bin. There was finally a break in the case, but it was not the news that Trevor’s Parents wanted to hear. Trevor’s body had been found about 15 miles from his home, in a marsh south of town. Trevor’s body had been badly beaten with bruises all over his body. When Trevor’s parents were told that there were signs of sexual abuse they lost it. The information about Trevor’s sexual abuse was not released to the general public at that time.
Trevor’s funeral was held the following Saturday and when it was discovered that the entire Swim Club Community wanted to pay their last respects, the Local University offered to have the Funeral at their Stadium. Trevor’s Parents were overwhelmed by the support they were receiving from not only the Swim Club Community but also the Community as a whole. The funeral was attended by over 800 families and friends.
Against the advice of the police, Trevor’s Parents spoke about the abuse, both physical and sexual, that was discovered when Trevor’s body was found and during his autopsy. Trevor’s Mom, Julie, collapsed in her husband's arms after she was done speaking. With tears streaming down his face and a conviction that I had not heard before, Trevor’s father, Robert, swore to all that attended that Trevor’s murder would not happen to any other child if they could help it. They did not want what happened to Trevor to happen to another family. This news about Trevor’s death was devastating to not only everyone in attendance, but everyone in the community. Trevor’s murder was the cause that everyone in our community needed to jump into action.
In an emergency meeting of the YM/YWCA, The Jewish Community Center, and the Swim Club Councils of Delaware, it was agreed that all of the employees involved in Summer Camps and the Swim Club Association would undergo training on how to spot those who may try to abduct kids. A call was made to John Walsh, father of Adam Walsh who was abducted back in 1981. He was told about what happened to Trevor and was asked to help develop the training that employees of any organization that cared or monitored kids would have to complete. He agreed and developed the program that eventually became the Gold Standard for training any employee who has contact with kids within our area. The class that was developed was a 4-day seminar that would include lectures, role-playing, and self-defense training.
I had finished my Lifeguarding Certification Class at the YMCA by the end of January and then received my State Certification soon after. I also was able to convince the Aquatics Director at the Y to hire me part-time as a Lifeguard while they conducted swimming classes with the understanding that I would be working over the summer at the Timber Oaks Swim Club. Marcy was fine with that and even offered to have me come back in the fall to keep my Lifeguarding skills up for the following summer. I was beyond happy with the offer. I accepted and started getting a few shifts a week. I was very happy that the Y dress code was the typical Red Board Shorts and not the Speedos since I was constantly hard with all the scantily dressed Teenage Boys and Girls that would use the pool.
I received a call from George Meyers that the State Police had arranged that the Code Trevor class, as it was being called, would be offered to any High School or College Students who were employed at a member organization during the Mid-Winter Break. The training class would be held at the local community college. With my job at the Y and with my Swim Club as a lifeguard, I had to attend the class. I wasn't thrilled that I had to give up my Mid-Winter Break for the class, but I knew that it was important to prevent another kid from suffering Trevor’s fate.
My Mom dropped me off at the Community College and I went to the room where the class was being held. There were about 75 people in the room already and I found a seat with some of my new co-workers. About 5 minutes before the class was to begin He walked in and my heart started to beat really fast in my chest. His name was Devin Turner, I had seen him at swim meets the previous summer. Over the last 6 month I had seen him around and thought he was really cute, he was currently one of my jerks off fantasies.
Devin was 5’9”, slight build, light brown hair, and eyes. I found out from Jerry that he had turned 16 years old in January. When he started walking towards us, I began to panic. Our Assistant Pool manager, Jerry Gardner, greeted Devin and invited him to sit with us. As he was settling in Jerry told the group that Devin had been hired as a Lifeguard at our club since another guard had been invited to try out for the Junior Olympic team and would be leaving in Mid-June to start the trials. As Devon slid into the chair next to mine he noticed I had started breathing heavily and thought I was having a panic attack. Then Devin noticed the bulge in my crotch had started to grow in my jeans. He smiled at me, leaned in and whispered into my ear that he thought I was cute and asked if we could have lunch together. I shuddered as he spoke to me and then stammered out “sure”.