Date: Mon, 4 Sep 2017 00:46:56 +0000 (GMT)
From: ovote@unseen.is
Subject: Discoveries - Chapter 1

This set of stories is going to be a series of stand alone episodes about
discovering the sexuality in all of us. The first realisation there is much
more to know about the grown up world than you ever knew, the different
ways the first stirrings of puberty intruded on childhood. All stories are
completely fictional, although some may loosely contain aspects of
conversations I've had over my life with people talking about their own
awakenings.

One of them will be most certainly be my own story, although I won't be
giving any indication which it will be. Sit back and enjoy. Show your
appreciation by going to the donate page and popping a little thank towards
the running costs of nifty. http://donate.nifty.org/donate.html

Thank you for reading, and thank you to all who took the time to write
about my other nifty stories.

ovote@unseen.is

Discoveries - Chapter 1

Looking back it was a happy childhood, both mum and dad working so money
wasn't tight. I was still an only child, but with lots of friends I didn't
feel there was anything missing, and my brothers and sister came along in
due course. We always had our annual holiday during the school holidays,
and then I went off to spend a week or so at Grandad's farm while mum and
dad had another holiday on their own. I loved that week with Grandad, but
to call it a farm was probably pushing it a bit. Once it was a full working
farm, but as he got older and became a widower he lost interest in keeping
it at the size it once was, and sold off land until it was in essence a
smallholding. The land he sold was developed into housing and the town he
was once outside then reached to his boundary fences. On the small amount
of land he kept he grew enough to run a farm shop at the side of the
farmhouse. He had quite a few outbuildings, and one, an old stables, was
connected to the farmhouse. I was allowed to "camp out" in the upstairs
part of the stables, but Grandad made it as if it was just our secret and
not to tell mum and dad. I was completely safe in a locked building of
course, and could go into the main house any time I wanted through the
doorway that led into the outer kitchen, nowadays we would call it a
utility room, or mud room in American homes.

I became aware that Grandad didn't really like my mum after I overheard him
talking to one of his friends and calling her a 'two penny toff'. But he
was old school and far too much a gentleman to ever let her know what he
thought. His son, my dad, may have married someone he didn't like but he
would never have acted badly towards her. Because of that, and other things
I would not have noticed if I hadn't heard that conversation, I became a
keeper of secrets he didn't know I was keeping.

Over the times I spent at the farm I got a different set of friends from
the nearby houses, and at nine years old I was as happy and content as any
kid I knew. Hot summer days were spent in the nearby park with my friends.
Sometimes they came to the farm to play there, and there were still one or
two horses that he had kept, just because they were too old to have much
value. He spent a lot of time looking after them so really I think he cared
too much for them to see them sent off to be put down.

I recall one particular farm holiday the year the light went on, and I mean
the light in my head telling me there was something strange and mysterious
in the grown up world I knew nothing about. It was approaching my tenth
birthday, and on the last day, a Saturday, before mum and dad came to pick
me up I had been playing football on the park with my friends. I was
wearing a new light summer zip up top over my T shirt, and had taken it off
so it wouldn't get dirty or damaged. I threw it on top of a bush at the
side of the field we were playing on, and boys being boys we ended up
heading off to the playground after the game, my jacket forgotten about
completely. It was only when I was packing my clothes to go home, and by
packing I mean stuffing everything in my bag whichever way it fitted, that
I remembered about the new top. Mum was strict with me, and I knew I was in
big trouble for losing it. For this last night I was camping in the barn
again, and Grandad would come and get me up in plenty of time before I was
due to be collected. Brainbox me came up with the crafty idea of sneaking
out once I had gone to the barn, running over to the park and getting my
top and scooting back again. It would only take me ten minutes and it
wasn't properly dark with it still being mid August.

Once I felt safe that Grandad was sat in front of the TV, and probably
dozing I was up and out of the side door of the barn. It did only take me a
few minutes to get there and find my top, but as I turned to make my way
back I saw the silhouette of a man coming down the path at the side of the
field. I froze hoping he wouldn't see me and inched my way further back
behind the bush. Instead of him keeping going he stopped to light a
cigarette and stood smoking it between me and the way home. The worst
possible thing that could happen came true for me then. I saw another man
coming down the same path. When he reached the first man they stood talking
to each other for a short time, although it felt like an eternity to me. I
watched as one of the men knelt down in front of the other. What on earth
was going on? The only time I had ever seen someone kneeling in front of
someone else was in church. Was the standing man a priest? If so why
weren't they doing it in a church? I had no understanding of what they were
doing. After a while he stood up then the other man knelt or crouched down
in the same way. I watched silently from my hidden position as the scene
was played out in front of me. Somehow I knew I was seeing something I
wasn't meant to see. This went on for some time, each man changing from
standing to kneeling from time to time. At some point they seemed to finish
what they were doing and stood together talking and lit cigarettes, then
they walked off together back the way they had come from.

I didn't run back to the farm, my mind was full of unanswerable questions,
not just about what I had seen but who could I ask about the strange thing
I had watched. How could I even ask without it leading to me being in
trouble for leaving my top, and more seriously for sneaking off in the
dark. During that walk back to the stable I worked out that it was another
secret I had to keep. It would be nearly four years before a man knelt down
in front of me and opened that secret door into adulthood.