THE UNEXPECTED LEGACY OF UNCLE EDWARD


    Every  boy  should  have  a bachelor  uncle.   He  should  be
provided  automatically  by  a caring  state,  like  free  dental
treatment  and basic schooling.   It should be his  pleasure  and
duty  to  give  you  unsuitable  presents,   take  you  on  wild,
imaginative  outings  which get you back late  for  bedtime,  and
answer  all those questions which make your parents look  shocked
and change the subject.  One of my friends at school had an uncle
who  took  him  all around the world on a cruise  - and  another,
after binding me with a blood-curdling oath of secrecy,  told  me
that  he  often spent weekends with his uncle,  and slept in  his
bed;  and he described all the illicit and delightful things they
did together,  crucifying my pre-pubertal emotions between  shock
(which   I  knew  I  was  meant  to  feel)  and  jealousy  (which
predominated).   Whether any of my other friends who came to each
new  term with tales of uncles' generosity did the same  sort  of
things,  I never dared ask.  I think some of them must have done.
Certainly  those lucky enough to have uncles accorded them a love
and  a trust quite different from that which theyou,  but  uncles
took  you to Cup Finals and let you steer their cars and got  you
into X films when you were still four years too young.  There was
no  question who was the more important.   Uncles were adored  by
their  nephews,  and any boy without one deserved to be  regarded
with pity.

    I had an uncle.  I hated him like hell.

    Uncle  Edward  was my mother's only brother,  and  about  ten
years older than her.  He was long and thin with a red, raw face,
a nose like a parrot's beak,  and a mouth clenched as tightly  as
his  heart.   Whenever  he  came to visit us he had a  cold  - it
seemed  to be a permanent feature of his personality and he  used
to swallow bottles full of pills and potions,  in between blowing
his  nose repulsively on a series of evil handkerchiefs which  my
mother then had to boil clean.   I remember him as always dressed
in  the same clothes - black jacket,  gray  waistcoat,  and  gray
flannel  trousers that flapped forlornly around his spindly legs.
He 'touched up' his premat irregular black streaks,  and his eyes
watered,  and his hands were cold and dead.   All in all,  he was
about as affectionate as a mortuary slab.   He  was,  however,  a
brilliant  scholar and an internationally recognized authority on
a variety of abstruse academic subjects, and my mother worshipped
him with total devotion.   What my father thought he never  said,
although  as  I  grew older I discerned an aloofness  behind  his
impeccable good manners which told its own story.

    But  my father's work often took him away from home,  and  my
uncle's whim often brought him to visit us,  so I grew up in  the
shadow  of his clammy personality.   When he was at our house  he
ignored me,  and so did my mother.   When he was away,  my mother
talked  about  him  constantly.   Any small victory  I  won,  any
discovery  I made and took to her,  merely prompted  yet  another
story  of  what Uncle Edward had achieved by the time he  was  my
age.   If I passed an exam, Uncle Edward had passed it higher. If
I got a good report, Uy was able to surpass him - like when I was
picked  for the school swimming team - it was only to be informed
that of course Uncle Edward hadn't thought such things important.
By  the  time  I was 20,  I had been told so  often  that  I  was
inferior  to him in every way that I had started believing it  in
spite of myself.

      Maybe  that feeling of inferiority was the reason I  fought
so hard to be a success:  if I couldn't prove to my family that I
was  someone  to be reckoned with,  at least I could prove it  to
everyone else.   The success came hard, but it came.  By 26 I was
assistant manager in a firm that manufactured computer  software.
At  28  I started my own business in the same  field.   And  nine
years later, I was employing six hundred staff, and taking orders
from  27  countries.   Despite my mother's contention that I  was
simply exploiting the creative ideas of other people - such as my
Uncle  Edward  - I felt fairly good about what  I  had  achieved.
Nevertheless, I won't deny that there wa strong, and there was no
question  of  my nerves not being up to the strain.   But  social
life  and  leisure-time  became non-existent.   At 37  I  had  no
friends outside my work,  and I hadn't taken a holiday for twelve
years.

    It was at that point that Uncle Edward finally,  brutally and
irrevocably altered the course of my entire life.

                     He died.

  It happened in early September, and on the day of the funeral a
gray,  drizzle day - I picked up my mother in London,  and  drove
her  to Papworth Everard,  the village in Cambridgeshire where he
had lived so as to be close to the university.   We were the only
family present in the church;  indeed, the only family he had, my
father having long since died.   A few academic friends, and some
neighbors,  dutifully attended the service and stood around  with
us  for a few moments afterwards before drifting away about their
more urgent concerns.   We went to the crematorium alone.  But as
we emerged from that macabre charade into the gray drizzle,  an s
lawyer.   The will was quite simple.   Some books and manuscripts
to his Cambridge college library.  The rest of his estate came to
me.

  "I don't want it!" I protested to my mother.

  "Don't  be ridiculous," she snapped.   "your Uncle  Edward  had
some beautiful things.   Beautiful.  Lovely furniture.  Pictures.
NOT that you'd appreciate them."

    "What the hell can I do with them?  Even if I auction them ..

  "You'll  do no such thing!  How dare you think of selling them!
They  were precious to your Uncle Edward.   Things he  cherished.
Auction indeed!  I never heard of such ingratitude.  You'll drive
me to London,  then you'll come back here, stay at his house, and
take a look at your inheritance.   And be grateful,  if you  know
how!"

  I sighed inwardly - I knew that tone.  But she was right. there
was  a  lot to be done filling in forms,  notifying  the  various
bureaucracies,  putting the house on the market and so forth, and
nobody  else  was  going to do it.   It would take m  this  late-
Victorian junk.  For once the business would have to cope without
me.

  So I ferried her to London, stopped back to pick up a few basic
supplies,  and then drove morosely back to Cambridgeshire.   Dusk
was falling as I parked outside Uncle Edward's dingy little  semi
and let myself in with the key the Yale lawyer had given me.

  My  inheritance.   It  was what I had  expected.   Heavy,  dark
furniture, bees-waxed and over-ornate.  Stolid still-life studies
in  oak  frames.   Books everywhere,  too - I pulled  out  a  few
drawers at random, and they were all bulging with manuscripts and
correspondence:  it  looked like as if my uncle kept every letter
he had ever received.   Bloody old man.   It would all have to be
gone through.  I left the bottle of scotch I had brought ready on
the desk and went upstairs.   two bedrooms - my uncle's cold  and
dark and still smelling of old age, and a comparatively civilized
spare room with a double bed.   I threw my overnight bag in there
and, depresated kitchen to knock up an early supper.  The tinned,
instant   chile-con-carne  ("the  authentic  tang  of  the  Great
Outdoors") did absolutely nothing to raise my spirits.   I washed
up morosely and then,  having nothing better to do,  took  myself
back to the study and the scotch, switched on the desk light, and
began  the Herculean task of reducing my uncle's chaotic  affairs
to some sort of order.

  I  worked through the top two desk drawers,  heaping the papers
into  piles  of  bills,  receipts,  correspondence  and  personal
affairs.   The  light outside dwindled,  the level in the  scotch
bottle got lower,  and the dank house seemed to close  broodingly
around  me.   I promised myself that tomorrow night I'd go to the
village - perhaps even into Cambridge.  Have a decent meal, maybe
go to the theatre or a concert if there was one on.  Something  I
hadn't done in years.  With a sigh I started on the third drawer.

  "What are you doing here?  Are you a thief?"

  My head jerked up as if I'd been.

  "Sorry," he laughed.   "Did I make you jump?  I didn't mean to.
I saw the light on through the window.   I knew the professor was
- you know - dead.   I thought it might be a ghost.  Or burglars.
You aren't angry are you?"

  I discovered that my mouth was still open, and closed it.

  "No,  I'm  not  angry.   But I'm afraid I'm not a burglar or  a
ghost.  How did you get in?"

  "The door was on the latch.   you have to give it an extra pull
to shut it properly, otherwise it sticks."

  "You seem to know a lot about it?"

  He moved easily into the room.   How old?  12?  13?   I  hadn't
noticed  children  for so long that I had no idea about  guessing
ages.

    "I've  been coming here twice a week for..." - he grimaced  -
"extra tuition.  I'm always bottom at school.  My ma arranged for
me to come."

  He  spoke  with  the Cambridge burr - a  soft  country  accent,
totally different from the metallic whine of the city.  His voice
was alto.   Soon,  I supposed, it would be starting to head. "I'd
best be getting back.  Ma'll be worried."

  "Stay  a  few  minutes,  "  I  said,  surprising  myself.   The
emptiness  of the house had obviously affected me more  than  I'd
realized.   "I'll make a cup of tea.   I'm afraid there's nothing
else, except this - " I tapped the bottle of scotch.

  "No, I'd best be going," he repeated.  "She's an awful worrier,
our  ma.   I only came 'coz I saw the light.   I'll pull the door
for you so's it shuts properly." At the threshold of the room  he
turned.  "Will you be here tomorrow?"

  "Yes, and most of the week."

  "P'rhaps I'll come and see you again, then."

  And with that,  he was gone.   For no reason at all,  the house
seemed  even bleaker and more dismal.   It was with an unexpected
pang of loss that I realized I didn't know his name.

  He didn't turn up the next morning.  I finished sorting through
Uncle Edward's desk, burnt seven-eighths of what I'd found in the
heavy iron fireplace,  and at 1:00 walked down to the local pub f
back with me.  And left the door on the latch.  Then I started in
on  the  chest-of-drawers under the  window,  which  if  anything
contained  even older and more confusing documents than the  desk
had  done.   There  were  also dozens of  loose  photos,  showing
blurred groups of middle-aged or elderly academics peering  self-
consciously at the lens.  None of them were even labeled.

  He came at 3:00.  This time, being near the window, I heard the
snick  of the gate catch,  and looked up in time to see him wheel
his bike in and lock it against the railings.  He saw my face and
waved,  grinning  - then pushed his way inside as if he knew  the
door would be unlocked, and bounced into the study.

  "Hi," he said.  "I told Ma about you.  She says you must be one
of the professor's family.  Are you?

  "He was my uncle."

  "Was I cheeky last night?  I told Ma I wasn't, but she says she
bets I was.  I'm sorry if you're unhappy about him being dead. Ma
said I could come help you if I didn't get all, and I'm very glad
to  see  you."  I grasped my  opportunity.   "What's  your  name,
anyway?"

  "Danny. What's yours?"

  "William."

  "Shouldn't I call you Mr. Something?"

  "What on earth for?"

  He looked at me assessingly,  then nodded.   "OK. But William's
boring.   Willie?" - He burst into a fit of giggles - "Oh,  no, I
can't  call  you that,  can I?   I'll call you  Bill.   Is  there
anything you want me to help you with?"

  The  speed  with which he switched subjects  was  beginning  to
confuse  me,  so  I  put  him to work clearing out  some  of  the
cupboards  in the hall and stacking what he found on the  kitchen
table.   We  shouted conversation between us as we worked and  by
the time we stopped for tea,  I'd found out he lived on a farm  a
couple of miles outside the village,  had a sister he hated and a
baby  brother  he  adored,  and that he had few  expectations  or
ambitions  beyond leaving school and eventually taking  over  the
farm,  although  he  did sometimes think he might be a  racing  y
business - especially about how computers are applied to farming,
which intrigued him a lot.  Bottom of his class he may have been,
but  he had a deft grasp for the basic principals and a flair for
spotting  possibilities which were more valuable than  any  book-
learning.   When  we took our break,  I told him so.   He blushed
slightly and took a swallow of Coke to hide his embarrassment.

  "Oh, I'm thick.  All my teachers say so.  That's why Ma sent me
to the professor.   He was really clever.   Are you as clever  as
him?"

  I  felt the old stab of resentment.   "Not in the same ways," I
said.   "Like  I  told you,  there are different  ways  of  being
clever.   Uncle  Edward  was good at having ideas.   I'm good  at
making things work." Then,  as he nodded thoughtfully,  I  asked,
"Did you like him?"

  "He  was  all  right."  He  looked  at  me  with  innocence  as
transparent  as  a  gossamer.   "He used to take me  out  to  the
pictures sometimes."


  I told myself that this was one thing at which Uncle Edward was
not  going to out-do me.   "OK," I said,  "I tell you what.   You
come up and help me again tomorrow morning and we'll go  tomorrow
afternoon."

  His face fell.   "I can't come in the morning - I've got things
to  do on the farm.   Can't I come and work in the afternoon  and
we'll go in the evening?"

  "Sure  - but  won't your Mum and Dad mind your getting home  so
late?"

  "That's  OK," he said.   "You can write them a note saying  I'm
going  to  sleep  here.  That's what the  professor  used  to  do
whenever he took me.  You don't mind, do you?"

  "Don't  - don't  be  ridiculous!"  I managed  after  the  third
attempt.   "They've  never  even  met me.   How do  they  know  I
wouldn't - er - "

  "Wouldn't what?"

  "Well...."

  "They won't mind, honest.  I've slept away lots of times, don't
you want me to?"

  "Well, yes - it's just...."

  "Write the letter, then."

  I wrote the letter.

  And  after he had taken himself and it off home,  I sat in  the
gathering  dusk,  in communion with the remains of  the  whiskey,
astonishingly  confronting a gibbering riot of ideas and emotions
which  had  suddenly,  impossibly,  sprouted  all  over  my  nice
uncluttered brain.

  It wasn't so much his confident suggestion that he should spend
the  night - for all I knew,  kids did that sort of  thing  every
day.   It  was  more the bacchanalia of memories that his  casual
proposal had needled out of my sub-conscious.   I hadn't  thought
about  boys  in  a sexual way for nearly 20 years  - in  fact,  I
suppose I hadn't thought about them at all.   Somehow it had been
expected that after leaving school,  one's sexual energies should
be  directed towards women,  and I had  - conformed,  I  suppose:
although  it must be admitted without very much  enthusiasm,  and
innocent  remarks  had  reached  across the  years  and  abruptly
brought back to me the words of my school friend,  describing his
weekends with his uncle.   And brought back too,  in a flood, the
remembrance  of the exquisitely intense pleasure I had  found  at
school in the beds and the arms of younger boys.  God knows why I
had  buried  the memories so long.   Now they tumbled home to  me
with  echoes  of breathless laughter and  images  of  soft,  warm
bodies  thrusting  against each other.   And suddenly I  realized
with a shock that the image which stood out above all the  others
was that of Danny himself.

  And hard on the heals of that uncomfortable revelation came the
inevitable, undodgeable question.

  Had Danny.... and Uncle Edward....?

  No,  of course they hadn't.   The idea was preposterous.  I was
reading  far too much into the boy's innocent remarks.   And even
if  he  was  that sort of kid,  he couldn't  possibly  have  been
attracted to Uncle Edward, with his colds, and clammy hands....

  Could he?

  And Uncle Edward certainly hadn't been that type of  man!  He'd
always said his work came before everything.

  Yet Danny had often spent the night here.   And Uncle Edward he
hadn't liked me.  Or thought it was too risky.

  As,  of  course,  it was.   Far too risky.   I wasn't sure what
happened  to men who got caught having relationships  with  boys,
but I had an idea that they put them in prison and threw away the
key.

  And on that salutary reflection I took myself to bed.

  The  cause of all my confusion breezed in at noon the next  day
with  a self-satisfied grin,  a carrier bag of overnight  things,
and a gift of a dozen eggs from his mother.  Awareness heightened
by the unresolved questions ricocheting around inside my skull, I
found myself watching him while he worked.   There was no denying
his  attractiveness.   Though  he was still small,  his body  was
sturdy and compact,  and he moved with the easy confidence of one
who is used to hard work.   Laboring on the farm had given him  a
late  summer  tan,  which stretched away inside his  open  necked
shirt  and  showed  up bleached,  preadolescent  down  along  his
forearms.   his  hair was sunbleached too,  streake.   He wore it
long  and ragged,  and had a habit of pushing it  brusquely  away
from  his  eyes  which delighted me with its  blend  of  childish
petulance and adult practicality.  His face wasn't beautiful - it
wasn't  delicate  enough for that - but the soft line of his  jaw
and the broad, firm mouth gave hints of strength to come.  He was
freckled across the nose and under the eyes,  and his skin glowed
with health.   In fact his whole body radiated a  clean,  outdoor
energy  which  cut through the gloom of my uncle's house  like  a
shaft of pure summer.  Occasionally, as we worked and chatted, he
would  glance up and catch me looking at him:  and then his  eyes
sparkled into a grin of something remarkably akin to complicity -
almost as if he knew what I was thinking....

  And what I was thinking, I finally had to admit, was that Danny
was  certainly  the sexiest young animal I had encountered for  -
well, far too long: and that more than anything else just then, I
wanted to put my arms around him ad myself,  was probably  enough
to  have  me  put away for  life,  besides  being  selfindulging,
impractical, corrupt, reckless to a lunatic degree, and liable to
frighten the horses.

  The day seemed to rush past.   We made good progress with Uncle
Edward's affairs:  indeed,  by the time we stopped, the worst was
done.   But  instead  of delighting me as it would have 48  hours
earlier,  I  found  myself  cast into gloom  at  the  thought  of
leaving,  and perhaps not seeing Danny again.  We had got to know
each other still better that afternoon, and he had opened up even
further  about  himself  and his life,  nudging past  the  normal
bounds of conversation as though trying to shock me,  or see  how
far  he  could trust me,  or I wasn't sure what.   He told me  in
detail  about taking one of his father's mares to be  covered  at
the  local stud;  and a few minutes later informed me that he had
started  masturbating  some weeks ago,  and did I  think  it  was
"wrong  or  anything?"  For  my  part,   I  found  myself  making
excuseying  him  on ladders,  even,  once,  sitting him up on  my
shoulders  to investigate some boxes on top of a  cupboard.   His
skin was warm and silky, and I could feel the soft flow of muscle
under the thin material of his shirt.   Lowering him to the floor
again when the jobs were finished,  and stepping away from him, I
needed all the will power I could muster.

  Question as I would, however, I could not discover what kind of
relationship Danny had with my uncle.  The possibility that here,
as  in everything else,  Uncle Edward had achieved what  I  could
not,  scarified  me with jealousy.   The alternative - that Danny
was   as  naive  as  he  pretended  - was  safe  but   infinitely
frustrating.   Merely  looking at the boy made me so hard that  I
was certain he would eventually notice it.

  At  6:00 we gave up the work,  washed,  and transferred  to  my
Jaguar  Convertible.   It was still warm enough to have the  hood
down,  and  Danny was thrilled by the thrusting sleekness of  the
car  as I pushed the needle nd then we queued for INVADERS OUT OF
TIME  - just like father and son,  I couldn't help thinking,  and
wondered  if  the same thought (grandfather and  grandson?)  ever
crossed Uncle Edward's mind.   The film itself was tremendous.  I
hadn't  been  to the cinema in years,  so  hadn't  realized  what
progress  had been made in special effects and trick photography.
The monsters were revolting,  the heroes handsome and daring, the
battles noisy,  and the 25th-century hardware utterly convincing.
I don't know who was more spellbound,  Danny or me,  and we drove
back through the velvet evening pretending to be  astro-cruisers,
power-zapping  imaginary alien sniper craft and then warping  out
of trouble into a different time-zone.

  Until  suddenly we were home;  it was 11:00;  the door had been
given  its extra pull to make sure that the lock clicked;  and  I
couldn't put off the decision any longer.

  There was the spare room; and there was Uncle Edward's room.  I
was sleeping in the spare room,  so iff Edward's room: whereas if
he usually slept with Uncle Edward,  he might automatically go to
the bedroom he was used to, or he might expect to be asked to use
mine.   Or he might assume I was sleeping in Uncle Edward's room,
and  go into the spare room because he'd think it would  be  free
or....

  I gave up trying to work out the permutations,  and led the way
upstairs.   Danny  followed silently,  even shyly.  At the top he
faced me.

  "Where are you sleeping?"

  My nerve failed me.   "In there. The spare room.  I'll make you
up a bed in the other bedroom."

  "Is that where you want me to sleep?"

  My heart jolted with something between disbelief and joy, and I
fell  back on aggression to cover my desperate  hope.   "You  can
sleep in the bath for all I care.  Or on top of the wardrobe."

  He laughed and looked away.

  "When   I  came  to  stay  with  the  professor,"  he  mumbled,
addressing his left shoe, "I slept with him."

  Silence ghosted between us like smoke.

  My the  risks, I was damned if I was going to be.

  "Would  you  like  to  sleep with  me  too?"  I  asked.  adding
incongruously, "Please?"

  His face lit up as he grinned at me.   Yes,  it had been a grin
of complicity.

  "Wow - for a moment I thought I'd got you wrong!" he said.

  "Come on!"

  Any  shyness  I might have imagined in  him  earlier  certainly
hadn't lasted long.  Inside the bedroom he thrust himself into my
arms  and  hugged me,  moving his hips so that his pelvis  rubbed
against the top of my legs.   And now I could feel,  through  the
course material of his jeans,  the hard shape of his erection.  I
pushed my hands down between us to rub it, and he laughed into my
face.

  "It's been like that all afternoon." He said.  "All the time we
were talking about wanking and things.  And when I was sitting on
your shoulders.   I was sure you'd notice!  I couldn't make it go
down!"

  "I  was  as well," I told him.   And then I slid my hand up  to
loosen  his belt,  and pulled the jeans to his legs,  across  his
thighs and over the strong cheeks of his buttocks.

  Abruptly he pushed me away,  and hurriedly kicked of his  shoes
and  socks,  wriggled out of his jeans and underpants and  pulled
his  shirt  over his head.   Then he leapt onto the bed  and  lay
there in tense anticipation.  Stripped, the young strength of his
body was apparent in his shoulders,  chest,  and the firm muscles
of  his legs.   He must have worked practically naked  throughout
the  summer,  because only the briefest triangle of white  around
his crotch interrupted the honey tan of his skin.

  He leaned across and pulled at the waistband of my trousers.

  "Come on!" he demanded urgently.

  I fumbled out of my clothes,  leaving them muddled with Danny's
on  the floor,  and joined him on the bed.   To be honest,  I was
still  a little unsure about how to go about  things,  but  Danny
knew what he wanted.  As I stretched out beside him, he pulled me
over  top of him,  hugging me around the waist,  tilting his hips
round  that elastic epicenter,  less acute but still  deliciously
perceptible,  I  was  aware of the smoothness and warmth  of  his
body,  of  the smell of his hair in my face,  like grass  in  the
summer,  and the excited panting of his breath in my ear.  I slid
my  hands under his back and down to his buttocks,  straining him
harder  to me,  and his grip squeezed tighter in return - then  I
felt him pushing me sideways;  so I rolled over,  bringing him on
top  of me,  and rubbed his back as he pushed and writhed  wildly
against  me,  pressing the length of his body down on  mine,  his
skin  sliding over me like living velvet.   His  urgency  mounted
quickly,  the movement of of his hips and pelvis transposing into
a  deep  rhythmical  thrust which grew fuller and  more  frenzied
every minute until at last,  with a shuddering gasp of  pleasure,
he went rigid in my arms,  strained in quivering ecstasy for long
moments, and then sighed and sank voluptuously and damply onto my
stomach.

  I lay and stroked him softly,ooked down at me,  his eyes sleepy
and contented.   I kissed his lips,  and he allowed it, giggling;
then he eased backwards and took me in his hands.

  "Now you."

  I was already so intensely aroused that I had been on the verge
of  culmination  several times,  and he didn't have much  to  do.
Pressing me between his hands and the soft skin of his belly,  he
rubbed himself along until everything went beyond control,  and I
pulled him back on top of me.   Then finally we lay quiet, making
little  movements of pleasure against each other,  in a  drifting
nimbus of security and peace.

  "Is that what you did with Uncle Edward?" I murmured.

  "Mmmm. Sometimes."

  The  security  and peace wavered as a jagged shaft of  jealousy
clawed at them.

  "Its better with you, though."

  The jealousy went away quickly.

  Soon after that I heard his breathing slow and deepen, and when
I  whispered his name he didn't answer;  so I eased him  off  me,
pulled the sheet over us, and went to sleep.


  It was 8:00 AM when I woke,  and Danny was still sleeping.   He
had  turned  over during the night,  and was lying with his  back
against me,  his buttocks pressed against my groin.   By  raising
myself  on an elbow,  I was able to look down into his face.   He
appeared  impossibly young,  all the passion of the night  before
smoothed  away in the innocence of sleep.  I let my  hand  stroke
down his body,  exploring gently, so as not to wake him, his firm
chest,  his flanks,  and the silky skin of his stomach rising and
falling  with  his sleeping breath.   He was flaccid;  but as  my
fingers fondled him he started to tumesce and soon,  although  he
hadn't  awakened,  he  was stiff under my touch.   I  rubbed  him
gently  until  with  a sigh,  he rolled over and  nuzzled  warmly
against me.   I lay and stroked him while he gradually woke,  and
mumbled something in my ear.

  "What was that?" I asked,  startled,  sure that I had  misheard
him."

  He put his arms round my neck and hugged closer to me ...

  I hadn't misheard.  Uncle Edward, I forced myself to admit, had
been quite an operator.

  That  sort  of  thing  had  never  figured  in  my  school-days
experiments,  we  had been too naive,  I suppose.   But if  Uncle
Edward had done it, I was damned if I would refuse: and anyway it
would give Danny pleasure, which just then was something I wanted
to do very much indeed.

  So I kicked the bedclothes off us and went down on him,  taking
him gently into my mouth.   Like most boys his age,  he had hair-
trigger sexuality, and within seconds I found, as I had the night
before,  that  in fact I needed to do very little.   Danny's  own
movements  served his own needs,  some times pushing  deeply  and
luxuriously  right  to the hilt,  sometimes rubbing just the  tip
rapidly across my tongue and teeth.   He was making noises,  too:
tiny  grunts  and whimpers of delight - and as my  hands  stroked
over and across his body, I found his legs and shoulders to be an
erotic  experience  in  a purely oral  sense  - but  nothing  had
prepared  me  for  the incredible intensity of excitement  I  now
felt.   I  found my whole awareness telescoped down to  that  one
area  of  sensation.  I don't know whether it  is  scientifically
possible to have an oral climax: I do know that there is no other
way to describe what I was feeling.

  Then Danny was on the move again.  Hardly daring to believe it,
I  felt him swivel around on me so that he was still in my  mouth
but his knees were either side of my head.   Seconds later, there
was a nudging between my legs,  and then a delicious sensation of
warmth and tightness as his lips closed around me,  and that  was
without  any  question the single most wonderful thing  that  had
ever  happened  to  me in my life.   Soon my body was  moving  as
urgently as his, and my excitement must have communicated itself,
for now we were racing each other toward the finish.

I felt him throb six or seven times while his body tensed rigidly
against me.   The taste was sweet and slightly salty - there were
only a few drops as yet.  Slowly he relaxed, rubbing himself with
infinitesimal movements back and forth between my lips,  clinging
to the last ecstatic moments.  At the same time I realized my end
was  approaching.   I tried to pull out of him,  but he  held  me
there  insistently,  caressing me with his tongue,  until he took
all that was in me,  and swallowed convulsively.   Then, gasping,
we let go of each other and rolled apart.

  He  scrambled  around and came up with his head on  the  pillow
beside me.  I put an arm around him and stroked his hair.

  "That was - incredible," I told him.

  "Mmm. Smashing."

  "I've never done that before."

  "Haven't you?  Oh, I have.  Heaps of times.  With the professor
and people."

  "Christ! is there anything else you used to do with my uncle?"


  For breakfast we cooked some of the eggs he had brought  - much
tastier  than  the supermarket variety I had been getting all  my
life.  Then, the washing-up done, I looked at him regretfully.

  "I suppose I've got tot take you home, Danny."

  He nodded.  "I'd better be getting back.   But I'll come  again
tomorrow.   I'll come every day, if I can; though it can't be for
so long when I'm back at school."

  "I'll be in London by then, anyway."

  "How do you mean?"

  "Well,  I'll have to be back at my job soon.  I'm only here for
as it takes me to put this house up for sale....."

  He interrupted me "But - but I thought - you were going to come
and live here!"

  "Danny, I can't. I've got a business to run."

  "Won't I ever see you again, then?"

  "Don't  be  daft.   I'll  come up whenever  I  can.   Weekends.
Perhaps  your Mum and Dad might let you come down to London  some
time.."

  He still looked mollified.  "Wow - I thought you meant you were
just going to go away and never come back."

  "After last night?  Christ no!"

  He grinned.   "Well,  you didn't ought to sell this place  then
did you?" Then,  when you come up to see me, we'll have somewhere
to be, couldn't you sell yur house in London?"

  "I've got to be near my work.  And now," I said in what I hoped
was a decisive voice,  "I'm taking you home.   You're getting far
too inclined to organize my affairs."

  He'd  come in by bus the day before,  having more than usual to
carry,  so I had said I'd take him home in the car.  Privately, I
quite wanted to meet his parents and make my mark with them.  If,
as  I hoped,  I was going to see more of Danny,  I  needed  their
approval and blessing.

  Half-way to his farm,  as we were just leaving the village,  he
again produced the words I was coming to welcome and to dread:

  "When I was out with the professor...."

  I sighed. "Yes?"

  "Well,  there's an old airfield close to here where nobody ever
goes.  He sometimes let me drive his car."

  "Did he indeed!" I said in some surprise.  "How good are you?"

  "Dad's taught me a bit, too.  On the farm."

  "OK," I agreed. "But only if you promise to exactly as I say."

  The way his face lit up made even the risk to my belo quivering
with excitement.  Not many boys get a chance to handle an XK-150.
That,  at least,  I told myself smugly,  was something that Uncle
Edward had not been able to give him.

  Indeed,  as  far  as teaching him to drive  went,  neither  his
father  seemed to have got very far.   We stayed mostly in second
gear, and got away to some very jerky starts.  Nevertheless, when
I called a halt half an hour later, he'd grasped the rudiments of
the art.   We changed places again, and he laid back in his seat,
tired  from the concentration,  his eyes closed.  I  looked  with
pleasure at the smoothness of his cheek and the damp hair falling
across his forehead, and wished it was 11:00 the night before.

  "Danny," I said gently,  "I'm afraid you've just gone and given
the game away."

  He jerked his head around, startled. "What do you mean?"

  "You've never driven before."

  "Yes, I have."

  "Maybe a bit with your dad, but with Uncle Edward?"

  "Well  - not  every  time,   actually.    Only  three  or  four
times.."

 "He never learned to drive.   And he certainly never owned a car
in his life."

  I saw guilt flood into his eyes.  Color mount into is face.  He
looked away.   "It's all right.   Really, I'm not angry.  But I'd
have  let you drive my car anyway.   I don't understand  why  you
wanted to lie about Uncle Edward."

  He made a small noise.   I put out my hands and turned his face
to me, concerned that he was crying.  I should have known better.
He was trying to stiffle a fit of giggles.

  I laughed too.  "All right," I said, "so tell me the joke."

  He  took a deep breath.  "Well you see - you know when I  asked
you  to take me to the cinema - when I said the professor  always
used to?"

  "Yes?"

  "Well,  I  didn't really mean it.   I mean,  I didn't  actually
think  you would truly take me.   But you did.   And I thought it
was  probably  because of me saying that the professor  had  done
it."

  "And he didn't."

  Danny rocked with another explosion of giggles.  "The professor
would  never take me,  I just figured I could make you do  things
just by saying the professor had done them."

  The boy's grasp of elementary psychology was uncanny.  Then the
implications  of what he was saying hit me.   "You mean my  uncle
never...?"

  He laughed into my face.  "Well, it worked, didn't it?"

  "But - I mean - did you ever know my uncle?"

  "Oh  - I  used to go to him for lessons - like I told  you  the
first time I saw you.   But I thought he was really mean.  And he
never  asked me to stay or anything.   And I wouldn't have wanted
to even if he had."

  "But  - last night - Danny,  you've done all that  before.   It
wasn't the first time.  You were too good at it."

  "It was,  honest....with a grown-up anyway.  I've wanted to for
ages.   I've  got this mate at school called Billy - you'll  like
him - anyway,  me and Billy muck around together - you know.  But
last term Billy met this man at the amusements in Cambridge,  and
the man took him into Midsummer Common and did it to him - sucked
him  and  everythilots of times,  but he's never seen  the  bloke
again. Ever since I've really wanted to do it with a man."

  "You and Billy...?"

  "Oh yes.   And we pretend I'm the man and I pick him  up.   But
it's not as good - and anyway, I don't want to do everything with
him  ,and he doesn't want to do it with me.   I never thought I'd
want to do all of it it with you, actually.  But when I found out
how good it felt I wanted you to feel it as well.   And it's fun,
really once you've started, isn't it?"

  I  nodded,  feeling the inadequacy of such a simple  agreement.
One thing troubled me, however: "How the hell did you know that I
was...well...  interested?"

  "I  didn't.   Not at first.   But you kept looking at me  - you
know - and asking me to come round,  so I sort of hoped you were.
And you were, so that was all right."

  "But  - if you never used to stay with Uncle  Edward,  how  the
hell  did  you  get your mother to let you spend last  night?"  I
thought of my note to her,  and shuddered at the risk I had  run.
Anyone that moldy have to have boring, safe relatives. Still," he
added  thoughtfully,  "perhaps  you'd better come in and see  her
when we get back."

  "Yes,  perhaps I had," I said grimly as I put the car into gear
and moved off.

  "Then when she's met you she won't mind if I come over to  your
house every day."

  "Danny,  it's not my house! Get it into your head that it's got
to  be sold!  I can't afford two houses!  I promise I'll come and
see you - often - but living in Cambridge is out!"

               -------------------------------

  It's  already a year,  now,  since I sold my London  house  and
moved  to Papworth Everard.   It's not as difficult as I  feared,
running the business from outside London:  and to tell the truth,
I'm not doing as much as I used to - I've promoted a couple of my
executives  to full partners,  and they've taken on a lot of  the
donkey-work.  I sometimes go a whole week without visiting London
at all.

  Ten o'clock and we have just shown the last of the kids out the
door,  latched  it securely.  The redecorating of Uncle  Edward's
old, dark victorian rooms was done almost entirely with volunteer
boy-labor, and having worked so hard on it, they rightly consider
my  house  partly their own,  to come and go in as  they  please.
Danny  himself  lords it over them,  and views me mainly  as  his
property, although he graciously lends me out from time to time.

  I  switch  off  the  lights  and we  walk  towards  the  stairs
together.  Except during the busy times on the farm,  he  usually
stays with me:  its more convenient for his school - of which, to
his intense disgust, I have recently become a governor.

  On the landing at the end of the stairs, in the place of honor,
hangs a portrait of my uncle Edward.  My mother came to stay last
week, and she was suitably impressed.

  "I'm  glad  to see,  William,  that you are paying  your  uncle
proper  respect!" she said - and I'll swear she did a little  bob
in front of it, as if genuflecting a shrine.

  "But  of course,  Mother," I told her,  straight faced.   "I do
appreciate it. I don't think he realized how valuable some of his
legacy was."

  "Edward always had a good sense of values," she said smugly.

  The  house  is  dark,  except for the light  shining  from  the
bedroom.  Danny sighed luxuriously.

  "Mmmm. Saturday. No school."

  "What do you want to do?"

  "What do you think?"

  "Billy's coming round at nine o'clock..."

  "So what?  He can let himself in.  And - er - join us."

  "I thought we might all dive over to Allen Towers?" I suggest.
"You know - that amusement park that was on T.V."

  "What,  where they've got those bob-sleighs?   Could we?   That
would be brill!" He looks up mischievously. "Afterwards."

  I ruffle his hair. "Don't you ever think of anything else?"

  "Course I do.  Lot's of things.  But - er..."

  "But what?"

  The front of his jeans was noticeably fuller than it was a  few
minutes ago.   He drops one hand to rub it as he pulls me towards
the bedroom.

  "Well - Christ - it's nearly midnight. I mean, what else....."


                             THE END
                             _______