Date: Sat, 24 Dec 2005 17:59:18 +0000 (GMT) From: roy p...... Subject: And He Scores! A coming of age story which shares a boy's learning of same- sex relationships with a man's understanding of letting the past go. I hope you enjoy it, if you do and want more, please let me know. Roy. sunbeamtb@yahoo.co.uk And he Scores! "And he scores!" 13 year-old Bryan shouted as he kicked the football high into the air. He was fanatical about football, and spent almost all his spare time in the garden kicking one about, more often than not wearing his favourite team's strip, the red shirt and white shorts of Manchester United. His parents and younger brother were at the shopping centre, but he would rather stay home and play his pretend part in a cup final game, where over and over he would kick the winning goal in the last seconds of the match. It certainly was a cup final winning goal kick; the ball soared high in the air, right over the apple tree and into Mr. Hopkins' garden. Oh no, not again! He'd have to go next door, apologise yet again and hope that the ball hadn't damaged one of Mr. Hopkins' rose trees this time. Wearily he trudged round to the house next door and pressed the doorbell. "I'm sorry, Mr. Hopkins, I've kicked my ball into your garden again." Bryan said as the door opened. "Again?" Fred Hopkins sighed. "You'd better come and get it then, and we'll see what damage you've done." Bryan followed him through the hall and kitchen, and out into the garden. The football sat at the base of one of the rose trees, which luckily was still standing. "You're lucky this time. Winning goal at the world cup, was it?" Fred asked, relieved at the lack of damage. "Yeah, something like that." Bryan said, still ashamed at what he'd done. "I'm sorry, Mr. Hopkins." "I'll forgive you when you're captain of the England squad that wins the world cup!" The 50 year-old said pretend- sternly, "and not before!" The two smiled at each other. "I suppose David Beckham's neighbours had to put up with the same thing!" Fred joked, resting a hand on Bryan's shoulder. Bryan's mind jumped to his hero. David Beckham. He adored everything the man did, except perhaps marrying that awful singer. Why get married when there's football to fill your life? Bryan mentally pictured the photographs of a schoolboy Beckham he had in a book about the player, and remembered his wish to have been at school with him, to learn from, to watch him play, to see him in the changing room as the hero of all his classmates, to watch him shower- "You look hot, Bryan. Would you like a glass of cold lemonade? I've got some in the fridge!" Mr. Hopkins' words snapped Bryan back to reality. They were in the kitchen, and Mr. Hopkins was getting two glasses off the shelf. "Oh-oh-yes, er-thanks!" Bryan said, and realising that his thoughts had given him a visible tent in his shorts, held the football in front of them. Fred Hopkins poured the drinks and moved them to the kitchen table. Bryan had a problem now, he couldn't pick up the glass while he was holding the ball, and he couldn't put down the ball because- "Let me have that!" Mr. Hopkins said, taking the ball from Bryan's hands. 'Nooo!' thought Bryan, 'He'll see!' Fred Hopkins saw, but just smiled at Bryan, put the ball on the table and handed him the lemonade. "I used to play, you know," Fred said, picking up the other glass, "I was on the school team, then after I left school I played for a Saturday league team in the park." He saw a glimmer of interest in Bryan's eyes. "Did you, Mr. Hopkins?" "Its Fred, Bryan. Call me Fred." "OK, Fred, were you really in the league team?" "I've got some photos if you'd like to see!" Bryan smiled and nodded. He followed Fred into the living room. "Sit down, Bryan, I'll have to find them." Fred said, waving an arm at the settee. Bryan sat, and Fred opened a cupboard and pulled out a cardboard box. After rummaging through it, he came and sat by Bryan with a couple of wallets of pictures. Bryan finished the lemonade, put the glass down, pulled out the photographs and looked through them one by one, as Fred leaned over him and told him who they were of and where they were taken. The first ones were of the school team, some taken lined up in the gym or on the pitch, and some taken during games. "That's me and Jimmy Carson. He was my best friend at school!" Fred said as Bryan came to a picture of two boys in football gear, wide grins on their faces, arms over each others' shoulders. Bryan looked at Fred to compare him now with him at about 15 in the photograph. Fred wasn't unfit now, but then, with his darker hair in a 'Beatles' fringe, and in the short shorts and tight football shirts of the period he looked - well, Bryan didn't know what, but he felt the stiffening in his shorts again. Suddenly embarrassed, he put the photo to the back of the bunch and for something to say, came out with, "You two look very close!" Fred's hand fell on Bryan's bare leg as he said "We were. We did everything together. Everything." Bryan's head shot round as he felt the hand slide up his leg, but Fred's eyes were glazed, lost in a memory of long ago. "W-who's this?" a red-faced and very hard Bryan asked as the next photo was of a team line-up. Fred came back to today. "Oh, that's the Saturday league team. There's me. That's Billy, and Jack, and Jim, and another Fred, and-er-I think his name was Jacob, or Jason or something like that." The hand had gone from Bryan's leg and was now indicating players in the team photograph. After several more photos taken from the touchline of various games, there was another one of the team, in the changing room. All lined up, side by side, and all naked. "Oh, I don't know how that came to be there!" exclaimed Fred as he went to take it. Bryan turned his hands away from Fred and quickly studied the faces to find the younger Fred, then down to check out something else. His eyes zeroed in as it was hard to see, it was smaller than the others - no! it was sticking out, towards the camera! So were one or two others! "Just a bit of fun!" Fred gulped. "We'd just won the league championship, and were a bit excited-er-about winning!" Bryan smiled at Fred, and noticed he now was red-faced. He tucked the picture at the back of the others, and the next one was another of Jimmy Carson. As was the next, and the next. In the first he was in school uniform, in the second he was casually dressed in faded jeans and a jumper, but in the third he was in the school soccer strip that he'd been wearing in the earlier picture of them both together, except now he was holding a noticeable bulge in the shorts, through the first fingers and thumbs of both hands. Half embarrassed, half excited, Bryan turned the photograph over. 'Come and get it, Freddie!' was pencilled on the back. Fred Hopkins sat back on the settee with a thump from his back. "I'm sorry, Bryan, I honestly didn't know that was there." He said sadly. Bryan turned the photo back over. "I wish I had a friend like that at school." He said quietly. "I bet you had a lot of fun together." Fred turned and looked quizzically at Bryan. Bryan studied the picture intently, and allowed the stretching in his shorts to become fully erect. "Have you got any more pictures of him?" he asked. The lack of response caused Bryan to turn to Fred. "Please? I'd like to see." Silently Fred got up and crossed the room to the cardboard box. He pulled several wallets of photos out, then from the bottom of the box lifted an album. He handed it to Bryan, then sat down again, watching as Bryan opened the album. Various pictures of Jimmy filled the pages, some posed, some not. Some he probably didn't even know were being taken. On turning the fifth page, three old Polaroid photos fell out. Fred gasped. Two showed a naked Jimmy with a fully hard erection posing in a boy's bedroom. The third must have been taken on a time delay setting as it showed both Jimmy and the young Fred standing face to face in the same bedroom, lips puckered and touching, and with each others' cocks in their hands. The hands were slightly blurred, so they must have been moving when the picture was taken. "Wheew!" whistled Bryan. Fred sat back on the settee, staring at the ceiling. Bryan put the Polaroids down and went back to the album. In the first picture on the next page the two boys were together on a beach, wearing only swim trunks and throwing a ball between each other. "Where was this?" Bryan asked. Fred leaned over, took the edge of the album in his hand to turn it slightly towards himself and looked. "Mum and Dad took us both to the seaside." He said. "We camped in tents for a week." "Two tents?" asked Bryan. "Did you and he share?" "Yes." Said Fred wistfully, remembering. Bryan tried to imagine. "Did you do stuff - together?" Bryan asked. Deep down perhaps he understood one boy's infatuation for the other. As Fred tried to decide how much to say, Bryan took Fred's hand from the album edge and placed it squarely in his own lap. Fred gently squeezed the rod tenting Bryan's shorts making Bryan sigh and shudder at the same time. "Yes." Fred said quietly. "We did a lot of stuff together." "Show me, please!" Bryan panted, putting the album down alongside him. Fred looked at, then leaned towards Bryan, who had closed his eyes in anticipation of what was to come. The contact of lips sent electric shocks through Bryan's body, making his erection harder than it had ever been before and making his balls almost painfully tight. Bryan was just aware of his shorts slipping down his legs, he couldn't tell if he was pushing them down, or Fred, or both of them together. He felt Fred's tongue pushing between his lips and teeth, then wrapping around his own. The hand on his cock pleasured him as his never could, his whole body felt like a clock spring so tightly wound it was about to snap and burst out with all its energy. New exciting sensations flowed through Bryan's mind as they explored each others' mouths and Fred's hand worked a magic far beyond that of Harry Potter and all the wizards of the world. For something new, it felt so right, so wonderful, so - what he had been born for. The feeling of release started as a tickle simultaneously in his balls and at the crown of his cock, and turned into an unstoppable tidal wave of ecstasy that swept over and drowned Bryan in an urge so basic, so primeval in its intensity that he shook and quaked as his sperm jetted in thick cables from his body. The muscle that clamped tight inside him over and over again as it forced his juice, his boy sprit, hard, fast and far from him ached with a cramp that made him try to scream into Fred's mouth. Eventually it was over. Bryan sat, completely and utterly exhausted and with wonderful new realisations running wildly through his mind as Fred sat up and away from him. "Was it like that?" he asked. "With you and him? It's the most utterly fantastic feeling I've ever known!" "Yes." Fred said. "And better. When you love somebody like I loved Jimmy, you do things together and give yourselves to each other like we did, and it just gets better every time." "What happened to him?" Bryan asked. If they were like that why weren't they together now? Fred sat back. "We drifted apart" he said. "Eventually he said he didn't want to do 'that' any more and we saw less and less of each other. He's married now, with three children, so I suppose he wasn't - like I am." "Oh." Bryan said. There was nothing else he could say. Except "I'm sorry." "No, Bryan, it's me who should be sorry. I should never have done that to you-" "But I wanted you to!" Bryan said, squeezing Fred's hand again. "I wanted to feel what you and he had. And now I know how wonderful it was." "Thank you." Fred said. "I hope you find your own Jimmy soon!" "But-" Bryan started to speak, then thought better of it. He stood up, pulled up his shorts and said, "Sorry about the mess on your carpet!" "It'll dry." Fred smiled. "I'd better go - Mum and Dad will be home soon." Bryan said, although the last thing he wanted to do was go. Fred stood, tucked the Polaroids into the album and closed it. "Can I come round again? I'd like to see the rest of the photos!" Bryan said. "Of course, just don't kill my roses with your football first!" Fred joked. They laughed as they went to the kitchen to collect Bryan's football, then they walked to the front door. Just before Fred opened it, Bryan put an arm round Fred's waist and held him close. "Could you ever love me just a little bit like you loved Jimmy?" he asked, looking up with pleading eyes. Fred looked down at Bryan, and realised that to deny what he felt would be pointless. "Yes, Bryan, I could." He said, and opened the door. Fred watched the young teen walk down the path from his door and realised that it was time to bury the past. He'd grieved too long for a love that had died, now he could nurture one that was growing for him. Back in the living room, Fred picked up the album and turned the pages. It didn't hurt now to look at the pictures, they brought back pleasant memories, not bitter feelings. Tomorrow he would go and buy a new album.