Date: Sun, 21 Jan 2024 08:56:18 +0000 From: Zack McNaught Subject: Playing with the Strings of my Heart The usual disclaimer: this story contains themes of an adult nature, and scenes of sexual exploration between a man and a pre-pubescent boy. If that's not what you're expecting to read, then please click back on your browser and move on. If you like story codes, then they're: M/b, mast. Author's note(s): first of all, thank you for all your support over the years. Its been about 23 years since I first started writing for Nifty, and although my output has slowed down significantly in the last decade, I like to think that each story is a little more complete than the last. This is a slow-burner. There's not a lot of sex, and what there is happens right at the end. But I hope (and I believe) it's worth reading to reach that point. It's written in British English, so pants are underwear. It's set in the town of Brighton, on the south coast of England, a place I've read about but never visited. I hope my time spent researching on Google was worth it, and I've done it justice. Finally, please support Nifty with a donation. All that I am as a writer of boylove stories comes from years of reading those at Nifty by my heroes like Ganymede, and I didn't pay a dime for any of them. Right, on with the show... Playing on the strings of my heart Our first meeting probably deserved better than an unremarkable Tuesday afternoon, with rain failing outside and mist on the inside of the windows. It was grey, cold and unpromising of improvement. It was miserable today, it would be miserable tomorrow, and it would be miserable the day after that. I opened the stove and threw in another log, grateful at least that there was heat, and light, and the rain was staying outside. Most of it, anyway. There was a bucket up in the loft underneath the skylight that I couldn't afford to replace. So much for the dream of moving down to the coast and enjoying the weather; I'd been here a year and it felt like it had rained every day. There were benefits, of course. I could afford a mortgage here, which couldn't really be said of where I lived up in London. Down here by the coast things were a bit cheaper. Or at least, they were when I bought my place; times have changed since. My little townhouse was small and falling to bits, but packed with character. The sea was close by, the shops even closer, and as long as you didn't mind the crowds in the summer it was a great place to live. Talking of summer, this was decidedly not it. Late March? Felt closer to mid December. I rubbed my hands together like an old man, holding them out to the fire. I wasn't old, not then, though this story takes place just about thirty years ago. Feels like a lifetime. I'm in my mid fifties now, so when my tale starts... well, you work it out. Looking over at the corner of the room as I type, the only thing that remains the same is that little wood-burning stove, which soldiers on, keeping the whole house warm as long as I keep it fed. I must have redecorated this room twice between then and now, as my tastes have grown with me, and as people have come and gone from my life. There's more than a little bit of Theo in this place, of course. But back to that rainy Tuesday afternoon. I happen to be certain that it was not a Monday, or a Wednesday, or any other day of the week. It was a Tuesday, and I met Theo at as close to precisely four o'clock as could be. I have the records of my music teaching business to look back on, after all. Although I also taught piano, Theo came to me that day for guitar. He had been learning at school, but both the boy's mum and his existing teacher agreed that Theo had outgrown his current tutor. Mrs Palmer had found me by word of mouth, via a conversation at the school gates with the mother of a young girl who had been coming to me for piano for a few months. Theo promised to be a bit of a different prospect to most of my students, who by and large didn't want to be having music lessons, and were being forced by parents who considered it `good for them'. Theo was different; he was - in his mother's words - absolutely obsessed with playing the guitar. It was all he thought about, all day and night. He didn't want to do his schoolwork, he just wanted to play guitar. He'd once been a keen cross-country runner, but now his sole focus was a wooden box with strings on it. He needed someone to take him to the next level, and stretch him properly, and apparently that was me. I wasn't entirely unprepared for this challenge. I was (and remain) pretty handy with a guitar, and I'd had a brief flirtation with fame, with a band my mates and I had started at school. Our biggest song had charted inside the top 40, and for a little while it seemed as though we would really make it. But fate had something else in store. Our lead singer - always a tortured soul - took his own life the day before he turned 21. Despite a brief resurgence of our music as a result of morbid curiosity, the band itself was doomed. We had no interest in going on without Alex, and so the day after his funeral we met in the pub and decided to go our own ways. The drummer was the only former bandmate I'd spoken to since that day. With the band gone, I turned to teaching almost straight away. It had always been an obvious back-up plan, even when I was still at school. Music came easily to me, and I was grade 6 in piano by the time I was twelve. My guitar playing was self taught, but I understood enough musical theory to successfully get kids past the first few grades with either instrument, and I'd been teaching since I was barely older than some of my students. To my surprise, I found that I enjoyed teaching. Especially, it occurred to me at some point, the young boys. By the time I was seventeen or so there was no doubt in my mind that I was only interested in males, and primarily those who hadn't yet reached puberty. If I remember rightly, it was an advert on TV that made me question my sexuality for the first time. One of my earliest crushes was a boy in a washing powder advert, who ran into his house covered in mud and immediately stripped off his t-shirt, throwing it at the camera. I managed to record it on VCR, and that tape became a treasured possession, the source of much pleasure. There was a great deal more to boys' bodies than his flat, muscular tummy, of course, but before the existence of the internet there was no ready supply of more intimate photos. Young boylovers these days have no idea how lucky they are. Once I had experienced that epiphany, I started really noticing the boys I taught. For instance, there was Thomas, a little green-eyed, freckle-faced waif with a mop of dark hair. As an older teen who was in a band at school, I was his hero. The admiration was very much mutual, and I would spend the lesson next to him on our side-by-side piano stools, drinking in his ten-year-old form. I would study his smooth neck, watch his shoulders and collarbones moving beneath the fabric of his t-shirt, lose myself in dreams of nibbling gently on his delicate little earlobes. I watched his fingers dancing across the keyboard and imagined them dancing across something else altogether. In summer he would wear satiny little football shorts to lessons, and I would eagerly study the front of them for the sign of anything at all other than a shapeless lump. But nothing ever happened with Thomas. I didn't try anything, and he wasn't about to throw himself at me. I reasoned that no young boy would do that, so if I wanted anything more than to gaze longingly, I would have to make it happen. With Thomas, I was always far too scared to even consider it. But there was one boy. The unexpected surprise package. A boy I hadn't even considered worthy of my lust, if I'm honest, because he was just so plain. Andy wasn't ugly, as such, it's just that there was Thomas, and Bryn, and Matt, and all of them were sexy little gods. Andy, on the other hand, had mousy brown hair, lacked Thomas' freckles or Matt's lovely bum, and hadn't - until the day something happened between us - shown me the slightest sign of affection or attraction. Which made it all the weirder that he ended up with his hand in my lap, squeezing my hardness through my jeans as I demonstrated a passage of Grieg for him. The last few bars went terribly wrong as I flooded my boxers. But that's a story I think I'd better save for another day, because we shouldn't keep Theo waiting; he's just knocked on the door... -- Theo looked very small standing on my doorstep, with his mother hovering nervously behind. "Should I come in?" she asked, unsure of the etiquette. "Only if you want to," I replied. "I can make you a cup of tea if you want to wait in the kitchen. I ask that parents don't sit in on the lesson, though. I've had a few interfering." "Oh, no, of course!" she said. "No, I'll go down to the cafe on the corner and wait there. Forty five minutes?" "Let's make it an hour today," I suggested, taken by a strange fancy. "Same price, of course. It'll just give us a bit longer to get to know each other." Mrs Palmer smiled warmly. "Of course. That sounds like an excellent idea. Right, Theo, see you in an hour, OK?" Theo, lost beneath the hood of a rain coat, nodded, gave his mum a little wave goodbye, and then stepped into my lair. I mean hallway. His guitar case was huge, dwarfing him. He looked as though he might struggle to carry it. I took it from him, and suggested that he take off his coat and hang it on a peg. He pulled back the hood first, and out spilled a mass of blonde hair, at least shoulder length. It wasn't silky and smooth, but wavy and unkempt, and it was a look I was used to around Brighton; Theo was one of those local boys who took full advantage of living by the sea. His hair had that `been in saltwater, washed a thousand times and never brushed' look that many of the local boys sported, and I loved it. I've always fancied boys who are real boys - rough and tumble, not too worried about how they looked, living life at one hundred miles an hour. Then he looked up at me, and my heart skipped a beat. He was just gorgeous - pale-skinned, blue-eyed and with a gap-tooth grin that rarely left his face. He wore dark green rimmed glasses, but they only served to enhance his appearance. "Hi," he said, softly. "Hi, Theo," I stammered. "Come through here and we'll get started. Do you want a drink at all?" He shook his head, his wavy mop of hair bouncing to and fro. I led the way into the front room where I held all my lessons. I had two upright chairs set up next to each other for guitar lessons, and my acoustic was on a stand next to one of them. I put Theo's case down on the floor, and he knelt down to undo it. He pulled out a full-sized acoustic which, while it was a decent enough budget guitar was actually far too big for him. I got him to sit down on the chair and hold it how he normally would, and one arm was craned over the body to reach the strings while the other was at full stretch to come even close to the end of the neck. I could tell that we weren't going to get much further with this, no matter how talented or dedicated Theo might be. "Pop it back in the case," I said to Theo, who frowned at me. "I want to try something." I had a handful of guitars from ex-students who'd grown out of them, bought up cheaply as opportunity arose, for situations just like this. There was one in the corner, still a six-string but scaled to two-thirds; I thought it would be perfect. I pulled it out and handed it to Theo, and asked him to play me a chord. He took a moment adjusting to the size of the new instrument, and then played me a perfect C, followed by a D-minor. He looked up at me and grinned in delight. "That was so much easier!" he said. To prove the point, he played me a couple of the little chord progressions he'd been taught so far - basic stuff, but well executed, and he had a lovely sense of rhythm. I sat next to him and watched him play, happy to observe just for now. Apart from his elegant fingering, one of the biggest things I spotted was that every so often he would stop and push a stray lock of hair behind his ear. It clearly bothered him, and interrupted his playing. "Have you thought about tying your hair back?" I asked him, when he'd repeated the action for about the fiftieth time. "I'm not a girl," he muttered, not looking up from the fret. "I didn't say you were. It just might make things easier." He shrugged, then looked up at me. "I don't have anything to tie it back with anyway." "Ask your mum to get to a couple of hair ties from Boots. I know, I know," I said, responding to the half-formed protest on his lips. "Nothing girly. Not an alice band or anything. Just a simple black bobble. You don't have to wear it all the time, just when you're learning new chords and songs, just so you can see what your fingers are doing. "That's why I have the mirror over there, too," I continued, pointing to the far side of the room, "so you can watch yourself play. Sometimes it helps." Theo looked up doubtfully, and didn't try to play to his reflection. The rest of the lesson passed as many first lessons do - getting to know what Theo had already learned, and identifying a few bad habits he would have to grow out of. Nothing terrible, of course, but the way young kids are taught guitar doesn't translate to how they should play it longer term. Theo was going to be limited by what he'd learned so far, so my first job was to take off those shackles. The last ten minutes or so we spent talking about the music he liked, and what he wanted to learn. He was fairly typical of a kid his age learning guitar - he knew some of the classics (if I have to teach another child to play Stairway to Heaven I might have a nervous breakdown...) and liked some newer stuff like Oasis, who at that time were still breaking through. He asked if I'd ever been in a band, and when I told him that I had, asked what we were called, and whether he would ever have heard our music. I grabbed a CD from a pile in the corner (still hanging on to those glory days) and quickly span up track 3, our biggest hit. He listed for a moment, headed cocked to one side with a cute expression of concentration, and then his eyes lit up. "I know this! I've heard it on the radio!" His excitement was joyous to see. "Is this really you?" he asked, after listening for a few more bars. "On guitar and backup vocals, yep." "I can't believe my teacher's famous," he said, gleefully. "Do you want to take the CD? I've got tonnes of them sitting around." "Yes, please. Are you still in the band? Do you go on tour and stuff?" "No, we split up about a year ago." "Won't you get back together though? Have a reunion tour?" How do you explain to a ten-year-old that the band can't get back together because the lead singer topped himself? I couldn't. I just let the question hang there, and then I was saved by the doorbell. Theo's mum turned around and gave me a huge thumbs up as they walked down the steps outside my front door, pleased I think at the enthusiasm Theo was expressing for my teaching. He hadn't stopped chattering about how amazing the lesson was from the moment she had come back for him. I had also explained to her that the smaller guitar he now carried was on loan until he went through his growth spurt and could handle his own, bigger instrument. When they were gone, I sunk to the floor with my back against the door. For a long while I just stared down my hallway, seeing nothing. Plenty of pretty young boys had come through my door over the last year seeking lessons. Why had Theo been the one to make my heart race? -- I couldn't stop thinking about Theo. I wondered how I would get through another week before seeing him again. I hadn't felt this way about anyone since Thomas. I'd felt lust for some of my other students, and for plenty of other boys I'd met along the way, but this? This was something else altogether. I started thinking ridiculous things - could I bring forward his next lesson, just to see him again? Could I insist that he was such a promising young player that he should take lessons two, three times a week? How else could I see him? He mentioned he lived only a few streets away. What was the name of the street again? Damn it, I should have written it down. I could just walk over there and maybe I would bump into him. He'd been wearing a school uniform - what was it now? Light blue jumper. Which school was that? I caught myself just in time. I was half way out the door, thinking to myself that it couldn't hurt just to have a walk around and see if any of the street names looked familiar. I stopped on the doorstep, turned around, closed the door behind me and sat down heavily on the stairs with my head in my hands. I'd become exactly what I had promised I would never become - the boy-fixated pervert who had lost touch with reality. What would happen if I found him? Was I expecting him to coyly look up at me and tell me how much he'd been thinking about me too? Who was I kidding? This was madness, pure and simple. I did walk that day, but not looking for him. I took a notebook down to the beach, and for the first time since the band split up I started to write some songs. I still have that notebook, and I can tell you the first song I wrote that day was called `Theoretically'. Lyrically, it was probably the best song I ever wrote. Flexing my imagination this way helped. I was still living with my bizarre and unexpected strength of feeling for Theo, but I was channeling it into something useful, rather than sitting around my house diving deeper down the rabbit hole of my obsession. Over the course of the next few days when I wasn't teaching, eating or sleeping, I was writing and composing. Some years later I revisited those notebooks, and that week's burst of creativity became the foundation of my first solo album. If you've listened to guitar music over the last twenty years in England, you've probably heard some of the songs, and you'd have no idea it was me. -- An agonising week passed until Theo was at my doorstep again. This time his mum waved from the pavement, having not come up the steps to the door with her son. Theo came in and took off his coat, then wandered into the front room without having to be told. I smiled that he felt so comfortable around me already. "Before we start, can I play you something?" he asked as I sat down. "Of course. Have you been learning something?" He nodded, and then with the tip of his tongue sticking out of the corner of his mouth, he leant down to play. It was halting at first, but then his confidence grew, and what emerged from the missed chords and wobbly tempo was a more than respectable imitation of the first half of the lead guitar part from track 8 of the album I'd given him the week before. Given how long he'd had to learn it, it was incredible. When he finished, I sat there speechless, and moved almost to tears. "That was amazing," I croaked. "Did I do OK?" Theo asked, radiating concern. "You did brilliantly! Did you work that out just by listening to the song?" It was a stupid question with an obvious answer; in those pre-internet days it wasn't like he was going to be able to quickly Google and download the chords. He nodded, and gave me his characteristic grin despite my stupidity. "I'm really impressed, Theo. That must've taken a lot of hard work over the last week." He shrugged. "It was OK. I like learning things. Oh, there's something else, too." He stood up and shoved a hand into the pocket of his jeans, rooting around for something. I had a minor heart attack because it looked quite a lot like he was playing with his dick, but then when he pulled free his hand he was holding a thick, black hair bobble. "Mum has loads, so she gave me one to use when we're practising. I don't know how to put it in, though." "That's OK," I said, "I know how to do it." I avoided adding `because I used to put my little sister's hair in a ponytail before school', given his previous concern about being seen as `girly'. I got him to come and stand in front of me, but the angle was just a bit off; his head was a bit too high up. "Er, Theo," I started, not sure how my next suggestion was going to be received, "would you mind sitting on my leg when I do this?" He shrugged, and sat down astride my right thigh as I gathered his hair back, running my fingers along his scalp. I watched in the mirror across the room as I did so, and his eyes narrowed in pleasure, before a shiver raced up his spine. I lingered a little longer than I needed to, enjoying giving him such gratification, and got a second, smaller shiver from him. When I signalled that I was done, he lingered for a moment on my leg, then reached down to push against my knee, levering himself up onto his feet. For the next few minutes he seemed mildly catatonic, responding sluggishly to everything I asked him to do. The lesson went far too quickly for my liking, and by the end Theo was back to his enthusiastic self, chattering away to his mum when she came to collect him. He waved goodbye to me with a big grin on his face, and a promise to practice what I'd asked of him. I had another lesson straight after - a perfectly lovely but decidedly uninteresting girl who was working towards grade 2 in piano. So, it was more than an hour before I could decompress, and stop to think about Theo. The moment with his hair intrigued me. He had clearly been in great pleasure as I ran my fingers through his locks and tied back his hair. I suppose that wasn't too unusual - after all, head massages are a thing, right? - but the degree to which he had succumbed to his feelings took me by surprise. He'd been totally relaxed with me, not at all concerned that I was touching him. He trusted me, obviously. I made a pact with myself that night not to do anything to abuse that trust. -- Over the coming weeks, Theo and I grew closer and closer in lessons, in a way that I didn't force, but wasn't about to stop, either. You might argue that the responsible thing to do would be to push him away, to force distance between us, but I disagree. Back then, in those early few weeks, I was just enjoying his presence, and the growing closeness between us, without any expectation that it would lead to anything more. So, why should I put artificial barriers between us? That would only hurt him, and for no reason that I could ever explain to him. So, I let our bond grow. He learned more of my music, and came to me with his own compositions. I satisfied his voracious appetite for learning as much as he could about playing guitar, and soon became convinced that he would easily outstrip my abilities in the next few years. And, oh happy day, tying up his hair quickly became a ritual that we repeated at the beginning of every lesson. The second week he sheepishly asked if it was OK for me to do it again, in the third he merely held up the bobble with a quizzical look, and by the fourth lesson he just came over, plonked himself right in my lap and handed me the tie. Each time, he would be practically purring by the time I had finished combing my fingers through his hair and massaging his scalp, and I would be fully and painfully aroused. If he noticed the lump in my trousers, he never said anything about it. For his part, he would wriggle and writhe when the inevitable shiver took hold of him; his shapely little bum would grind in my lap in a way which did nothing at all to strengthen my resolve. Afterwards - much afterwards - he admitted that he himself had stiffened up from the very first time I did it, though at the time he couldn't explain why. -- There comes, in all matters of the heart, a point of inflection. Perhaps it's the moment where you realise you're never going to get anywhere with your crush, and you resign yourself to a life of celibacy. At least until the next crush arrives. But sometimes, just sometimes, it's the moment at which your desires become fulfilled, and your relationship becomes real, two-sided and very much a mutual thing. Of the latter kind, there was such a moment with Theo. A point where we went from teacher and pupil to... well, what? Boyfriends? I don't think we ever used the term for each other. `Lovers' isn't quite right, and sounds sordid anyway. `Partners' makes me think of law firms. Perhaps simply aware that I loved him and he loved me, and that we were both willing to express that physically, as well as emotionally. For Theo and I, that moment came, perhaps predictably, when I was tying up his hair. I had taken a little longer than normal doing so, because he was appearing to enjoy it more than normal. I could see in the mirror that his eyes were closed as my fingertips raked his scalp, but today brought something new - a little moan escaped him. Or a whimper, perhaps, in his high-pitched, boyish tones. I repeated the motion, and he whimpered again, and melted backwards into me, leaning on my chest, letting his head fall on my shoulder. I could no longer mess with his hair like this, but it was clear that he was beyond caring. His eyes were lightly closed, his untied hair spilling across my shoulder and chest. He wriggled further back into my lap until his bottom was right on top of the hardness in my crotch, and lay there for a moment. I wasn't quite sure what to do with myself, but I reached my arms around him, drawing him into a hug which brought a smile to his lips. We stayed that way for what seemed like an age, sitting in absolute silence until he whispered, "I can feel your heart beating." I wasn't surprised - it was trying to hammer its way out of my ribcage at that point. "Here, feel mine," he said, and grabbed my wrist and pulled it up towards his chest. With his free hand he lifted up the hem of both jumper and t-shirt, and dragged my unresisting hand onto the wondrously soft, pale flesh of his chest, before dropping his clothes back down and placing his arm across at waist height, in a gesture which said, `and keep your hand right there'. I did feel his heartbeat. I could sense that it was elevated, pumping harder than normal. We sat there for some time, he wrapped in my arms, my fingers lightly playing across his chest, occasionally toying with his nipple. Theo shifted in my lap, then grabbed my free hand and brought it up, holding it across his tummy on top of his clothes. I stared down the length of his body to his crotch, exposed to my eye by the falling-apart of his thighs. I wasn't sure what was the folded and protruding zip of his jeans, and what was his little boyhood beneath, but I would have bet my life that he was hard right then. He remained motionless there for several minutes, eyes closed and with a faint smile on his lips. When he finally stirred he looked up at me and grinned, unfazed by the vulnerability he'd shown. I gave him a quick squeeze before lifting him up. "Come on, then, let's play some guitar," I said, conscious that we had already wasted a third of the lesson. As Theo lazily stood and stretched, his jumper and t-shirt rode up high enough that I could see his belly button. His tummy was wonderfully toned - two strong flanks of muscle either side of a crevasse in which his belly button lay - and I found myself staring unabashed at it. His abdomen dived beneath the waistband of his briefs in a powerfully alluring way, flanked by hip bones so prominent that there was a gap between the waistband of his jeans and the tender skin of his torso. Theo spotted me practically drooling over it, and grinned at me, pulling up both t-shirt and jumper by the hem, wiggling his hips side to side. It was a moment of pure boyish silliness, but that didn't stop me drinking in the sight. As he walked over to the chair where his guitar stood forgotten, he turned and looked back at me - the smile was gone from his face, replaced by something ambiguous. He looked a great deal more fragile in that moment, as if he was suddenly years younger. -- The rest of the lesson was a shambles. I couldn't think straight at all, let alone teach. I'm not sure what Theo thought about the whole thing, but once or twice I saw a sly little smile curling the corners of his lips. Could he possibly have understood the effect he was having on me? The moment he was out of the door I rushed to my bedroom and unloaded my pent up tension, feeling a wave of shame washing over me even before I had cleaned myself up. My head span with memories of the last hour - the smell of Theo's hair as he lay back again my chest, the feel of his warm body, the soft, silky feeling of the skin on his chest, and the thump of his heart behind his ribcage. The sights, too - his pale, toned tummy, his backside in his jeans, the lump at his crotch. Now he had been gone for an hour and a half, and I was already desperate to see him again. Sated, to an extent, but in need of so much more. I sat in my kitchen staring out of the window, a mug of tea cooling in front of me, untouched. I wanted to take him to my bed, to cuddle naked with him, our bodies writhing against one another. I wanted to taste him; kiss his lips, his chest, his tummy, his dick. Frankly, I wanted to fuck him, too. The thought had crossed my mind, of course it had. I knew it was a distant dream, if not entirely impossible, but my God I wanted it so badly. I realised that even if he was in my bed, I wasn't really sure how to go about any of this. How would I even find out what you were meant to do? Our limited education in school had taught us all about how a man and a woman would connect, but two males? I understood the basics of it, obviously, but how would it actually happen? What was it like? How did you prepare? The truth was, I wasn't totally inexperienced. I'd had a brief fling with someone I'd always seen as a close friend, and in the end it had ruined our friendship for several years, but not before we had wanked each other off, and sucked each other a few times. So I knew the first few moves. But the idea of going any further, and `doing it up the bum' as we called it, was a step into unknown territory. I was horribly naive, and I could see no way of fixing that. It would be another few years before the internet was widely available; sitting in my kitchen that evening, it wasn't even a consideration. How would I find out? Would the library have something? Maybe I could wander down in the morning and subtly check. Frustrated at the four walls around me, I got up and grabbed my coat, and wandered out into the freezing night air. I wasn't sure where I was going, but I needed to be outside my house, away from all the reminders of Theo. I wandered into the centre of town. These days Brighton has certainly grown in popularity, but even thirty years ago there was life in the place, and it was already the UK's gay capital. It was Friday night and the streets were buzzing. I didn't think of myself as gay - I had no sexual interest in anyone my own gender over the age of about fourteen - but I had hung around on the scene a little when I was in the band, and occasionally since I'd moved down to the coast. I recognised which pubs were `gay' in the town centre, and even those in which I would get hassled, and those where I could have a quiet drink and a chat with someone without having to push their hands off me. I found myself drifting without really intending to into one of the latter. It was busy but not crowded, but it was early evening and that would probably change later. It was a pub I'd been in a few times before, but there was no way you could suggest I was a regular. I didn't even know what I was going in there for. I went and sat at the bar, and ordered a bottle of lager. The barman had barely set it down in front of me when I found the stool to my right suddenly occupied. "Evening," said a young man with bleach blonde hair, a tight, white t-shirt and a lovely Highlands accent. If he'd been remotely my type I'd have jumped at the chance. "Hi." "Adam," he said, holding out a hand. "Zack," I replied, shaking it more firmly than I really needed to. I was nervous. "Hmm, firm handshake. I like it. What brings you in here, Zack? Meeting your no-doubt gorgeous boyfriend?" I laughed. "Not attached. But, not looking either, sorry." Adam shrugged. "Shame. You meeting someone else, then?" "No. Actually, I'm not really sure why I'm here. Just needed to get out of the house. If I stay there I might go mad." "Well, you've come to the wrong place if you want to stay sane. This place is going to go nuts later, it's drag night." "Gets messy?" "Very. Fun, but... Anyway, what can we talk about?" I looked at him, wondering how much I could reveal. There was definitely something he might be able to help with, I decided. "Actually, there is one thing, but it's weird. Tell me if it's too strange, yeah?" Adam frowned, and cocked his head to the side. "Will do. Go on, then." "God, how do I say this. I don't... I don't know how to have sex." "With a man, yeah? That's why you're here?" "I just don't really know how it goes." Adam regarded me critically for a moment. "Y'know, if you did want to get laid, that would be a heck of a pick up line, with you looking so young. Plenty of old bears round here who want a little cub to curl up with. I'm sure they wouldn't mind showing you. "But it's OK, I get it. They don't teach you that at school, do they? Tell you what to do with a girl, but not a boy." I nodded. "I couldn't work out who to ask. I didn't come in here to find out, I just..." "Came in here to find out," he finished, a slight smile curling the corner of his mouth. "Y'know, you're not the first to wonder. Jim!" The barman wandered across. "What is it, you wee Scottish bastard?" "Love you, too, sweetie," Adam replied. "Got any copies of the Manual left under there?" "Not down here, no," Jim said. "But there might be a few round the back behind the crisps. Let me have a look." "You'll need a tenner," Adam advised, when Jim was gone. "Trust me, it's worth it." Jim came back a moment later with an envelope. "Have a careful look," Jim said, handing it over. "If you want it, it's ten quid, and don't tell anyone where you got it." For a moment, we need to pause and take a moment to remember the nature of sexual freedom in the UK in the early to mid nineties. It was still illegal at that time to sell hardcore pornography, and what I held in my hand, judging by a quick glance at the first few pages, certainly fell into that category. "What's in it?" I asked. "Everything you could possibly want to know about men doing it with other men," Adam replied, gleefully. "And probably some things a delicate little lad like you doesn't want to know. But it'll answer your questions, I'm sure of it." I handed Jim my tenner, then legged it out of the pub and home as quickly as I could. -- At 2 in the morning, I finally laid the Manual aside, and stared down at my boxers, beneath which I was rock hard. That had been... an education. Some of it I wasn't sure I really believed, things which I couldn't imagine for a minute were actually done. But other parts were far more interesting. I'd learned about the need for lube, and for making sure you're empty back there before trying to put anything else in. Rimming, too - what had seemed disgusting the first time I read it had become increasingly intriguing as time had gone on. I found myself wondering what it would be like to lick Theo's tight pucker. Obviously I wasn't going to do it, for all sorts of reasons, but... it made me hard just imagining it. I kept thinking of Theo's bottom. It was perfect, by the way. I slept fitfully that night, my sleep interrupted by dreams of Theo's youthful body. -- "He says he wants to learn even more," Theo's mum said down the line. "I'm not sure I can really afford to double his lessons, though. Is there any more material you can give him to work on during the week?" It was the following afternoon, and my phone had rung the moment I said goodbye to my last student of the day. When I found out it was Mrs Palmer my heart leapt into my mouth, but thankfully it turned out she wasn't about to call the police on me. "You won't have to pay," I said slowly, working it out in my head as I went. "I can give him an extra hour a week." "Er, OK," Theo's mum said. "Sorry, I don't want to sound ungrateful, but how come?" "When I was younger," I lied, "I was helped out by my piano teacher. He kept teaching me even when my parents couldn't pay after my dad lost his job. He said it was because he saw something in me and wanted to support that. Dad offered to pay him back but he said no, but if I was ever in a position to help someone like that, I should do it. It's not the same, I know, but Theo absolutely loves guitar, and he's good. Really good. Better than I was at his age by a long, long way. This might be a career for him, and if I can help with that I would love to." Mrs Palmer was quiet for a moment, and when she did speak there was a slight catch in her voice. "Is he really that good?" "One hundred percent. He just `gets it' in a way I can't really describe." "Well, it's an unbelievable offer, and there's no way I'm going to turn it down," she gushed. "Thank you, thank you so much." "No problem. Now, let's work out when he can come." By the time I put the phone down, I was shaking with adrenaline. -- Theo gave me a huge grin as he walked through the door, and unseen by his mother, waggled his eyebrows conspiratorially. What was that about? That day, we were friends playing guitar together. The only sign that perhaps we were closer than every other teacher and pupil was the way he melted into me for a hug after I'd tied his hair, and the little pat on his perfect bum I gave him as he hopped off my lap. He looked around in mock outrage and stuck out his tongue at me, but then giggled. When our time was up I retired to the living room, collapsed on the sofa and lay staring at the ceiling, utterly in love. The room still smelled of him, and it seemed as though the sound of his guitar lingered in the air. -- The following weeks were magical. Lessons were a blur of love for guitar and little moments which will stick with me forever. I fondly remember sitting next to Theo as he taught me one of his songs, the first time he'd showed anyone else how to play it. I picked it up and riffed on the chords, and soon we were sitting playing together, taking it back and forth. Darkness had fallen outside, rain was pelting against the window, but the fire was on, we were warm and dry, and we had music and each other. Then there was the moment Theo shocked and surprised me in a way I entirely hadn't expected. I'd just finished a piano lesson (the uninspiring but increasingly talented young girl I mentioned before, the one who's now a major recording artist, but that's another story), and ushered my pupil out of the door, along with her overbearing mother, when I spotted Theo and his mum walking towards my house. He was very carefully carrying a cardboard box, and they were apparently arguing, a disagreement which lasted right up to my front door, while I stood there bemused. "Hi," I said, with a significant look at Theo, who grinned like the proverbial Cheshire cat. "Mr McNaught, I am so sorry about this, but Theo said it was a good idea and he was very insistent about it, and God knows, when he has an idea in his head, he doesn't let it go." I smiled; I recognised that in him - he wasn't stubborn, as such, but he did like to hang on to a notion. Just then, there was a faint mewl from the box, and Theo giggled. "Why don't you both come in," I suggested. We reached the kitchen just in time for the faint cry to become a full on crescendo, and it became pretty obvious what was in the box. Still, Theo had planned this, and wanted to hand it over properly, so he carefully set down the box on the table, and looked up at me. "I know it's not easy to live on your own," he said, very seriously. Where on Earth had he got that line? "So you shouldn't have to. My cousin's cat had kittens. I remembered you saying you miss your cat from when you were little, so I got you one of them. He's called Freddie Mercury." He indicated the box, and I lifted one of the flaps. There, inside, was a kitten, coal black from the tip of his nose to the tip of his tail. "You don't have to accept it, Mr McNaught," Mrs Palmer said, with more than a hint of desperation. "It was all Theo's idea. We can take it back." I looked down at the little ball of fluff, which stared back at me with green eyes and gave a very hearty miaow. How could I possibly resist that? "He's wonderful," I said, eyes still locked with the kitten's. "Thanks, Theo," I said, looking up at him. He beamed at me. As they were leaving, and my head was spinning with the reality that I now owned a cat, Theo stopped on the steps, feigning a passable impression of having forgotten something. "Mum, I think I left my favourite pick behind here the other day. Can I look for it?" Theo's mother sighed, and agreed, and the boy dashed past me back into the house, and into the music room, with me in tow. "I didn't really forget my pick," he said, with a grin. "I wanted to give you this. Read it after I've left, OK?" He handed me a little envelope, then ran. Outside, I heard him call to his mum that he couldn't find the pick, then the door slammed and they were gone, and it was just me and Freddie Mercury. I looked down at the letter. My name was written neatly on the front. I went to the kitchen and found a knife to carefully slit it open, so as not to damage the envelope. This was a letter I planned to keep. The letter was on a single piece of paper, and it wasn't long. It read, Dear Zack, I can't always be there at your house, but Freddie Mercury can be, and he can give you hugs when I'm not there. I wish I could see you all the time. Love, Theo xx I smiled at the way he'd signed off - it was what all young boys write at the end of letters until they realise there might be romantic connotations to those words. Of course, I wished that there were, while at the same time knowing that Theo's love was only platonic, nothing more. -- Spring - wet and cold - had turned to summer by the time that Theo turned eleven. July and August were hot that year, and the sun brought with it tourists. Even in winter Brighton was a destination, but when the sun was shining it felt like the whole of London had taken the A23 south and descended upon our community. I had anticipated issues seeing Theo during the summer holidays. Most parents expected lessons to stop, and so I was bracing myself for six weeks of no reason to see him. So, when it didn't turn out that way, I was over the moon. That it ever worked out at all was a mystery, and a surprise. In early July, as we were nearing the end of the school term, Mrs Palmer asked to speak to me after one of Theo's lessons, and asked Theo to wait elsewhere while we spoke. Theo happily followed Freddie Mercury outside into my enclosed yard and played with him for a while; the cat, who was growing bigger by the day, had only just been allowed outside, and was loving every opportunity to explore. "Mr McNaught, I'll be frank," Theo's mum said, when the door had closed. For a moment I wondered if she was going to raise the issue of how close Theo and I had become, or the amount of time we spent together. I could sense I'd already crossed quite a few lines. "I have a problem," she continued, and my blood went cold. "As Theo's already told you, his dad isn't on the scene. Now it's even worse - he's stopped paying support. He's claiming Theo's not his, although that's absolutely nonsense. Until we get it sorted, things are a bit tight. The court is saying it could be months before they can get a sample from him and run a paternity test. We're really strapped for cash." I thought at this point I could see where this was going - Theo would have to stop lessons, or at least they wouldn't be able to pay for them. I was entirely ready to offer my services for free just for the chance to keep seeing him, but that wasn't entirely what Mrs Palmer wanted to discuss. "It's going to be difficult for Theo," she went on, "but there's no chance of us taking a summer holiday this year. In fact, I'm going to take on extra shifts at the hospital just to keep us going, but it leaves me with a problem. Theo's a good kid, and he's very responsible for his age, so I think it would be OK to let him stay home alone, but he's going to get bored. There's only so much guitar practice he can do, even as obsessed as he is. Is there any chance we could keep his lessons going over the summer holidays? I know most music teachers only work during term time." I was surprised. It was such a simple request that it didn't really need the sob story behind it. I began to wonder if there was something more that she was angling for, without exactly saying it. "That's absolutely fine, of course Mrs Palmer. Are you sure he'll be OK on his own?" She shrugged. "I'm not sure what other choice I have, Mr McNaught. There are activity camps at his school during the day, but they all have to be paid for, and I can't afford it. I don't know how else I'll find someone to look after him." "Well, there is one option, and I'm only suggesting this because he's such a good lad and so well behaved and polite in our lessons..." "Yes?" she said, hopefully. "Well, he can come and hang out here if you want. Just when you're at work. I'm doing very little with my days. In fact, there's something I do have planned, but that might be good for Theo anyway." She looked quizzically at me, so I explained. "I'm going to be earning a bit of extra money playing guitar on an album for someone I know from my band days. It's their first solo effort, and they've asked me to come into the studio for a few days over the summer. I know the studio manager really well, and I'm sure Theo would be welcome to come and watch the process." Her eyes went wide. "Are you serious?" "Sure, why not? I'm sure he and I will have a great time - we can work on some of his songs while we're here, and at the studio he can learn about how an album is actually made. It's knowledge he'll need, trust me - that boy is definitely going to be a star." Mrs Palmer looked at me as if I were an angel sent from heaven. "I don't know what to say, Mr McNaught. It's such a generous offer." I shrugged. "Like I said earlier, Theo's a good kid. I like having him around." That was an understatement of the most epic proportions, of course. "Won't he get under your feet? And don't you have a girlfriend or something? Someone else who won't want him hanging around the house?" "Not a girlfriend, Mrs Palmer, no," I said, giving her a significant look. "Oh, I'm sorry, of course," she stammered, clearly flustered. "This is the nineties, after all." "Anyway," I smiled, "that won't be a problem. There's no man in my life right now." It was, in the strictest sense, the truth. -- "I can't believe I get to come over here while Mum's at work!" Theo said, stepping through the open door. For the first time since he'd first come to my house, he had arrived on his own, carrying his guitar and with a backpack on. "I brought some stuff with me," he said. "My Gameboy and stuff, in case I get bored." I nodded. In truth, I wasn't really sure what we would do together all day. Despite what Mrs Palmer had said about him only coming to mine a couple of times a week, Theo and I had already secretly planned that he would be over far more often than that. There was no way his mum would be able to keep track, as long as he was home before she was, which given her work schedule was at least a dozen hours after she left in the morning. Theo had happily conspired to see me every time his mum went to work, though I suspected his reasons were far purer and less tinged with deranged lust than mine... "Have you eaten breakfast?" I asked, as he kicked off his trainers next to my shoes. I felt a little lurch when I saw them there, almost as if he lived with me. "Yeah, I had something at home. So, what are we going to do?" "Well, should we start with some guitar?" Theo nodded, and we retreated to the music room, and spent the next couple of hours playing together. But even with our love of playing, after a couple of hours we'd had enough. "What do you want to do now, then?" I asked. Theo shrugged. "I could play Mario Bros." he said hopefully. "Sure, if you like." "Cool! Mum doesn't let me play very much." "Tell you what," I said, giving him a conspiratorial look. "If you can keep a secret, you can play as much as you like when you're here with me." Theo grinned, and nodded, and made a cute little cross shape over his heart. I retreated to the kitchen, made us a drink, and started to wonder. What consoles did kids play these days, and could I afford one? -- Theo didn't end up staying all day, though I would have had him longer. He got bored, and there was little I could do to change that. So, I walked him back to his (taking a very careful note of where he lived) and dropped him off. Then, rather than heading home, I wandered into town. I didn't know exactly where I was going, but I had a vague idea that my destination existed. Around the back of the high street, in a slightly shabby little hole in the wall, I found what I was looking for - a secondhand computer shop. I walked through the door and into a world that I really didn't understand. Half an hour later I walked out of the shop a hundred quid lighter, and with a big bag grasped firmly in my fist. Inside was one pre-loved SNES and a handful of games I was assured would be perfect for playing together with my `nephew'. I was already feeling buyer's remorse on the way home. It was money I really didn't have to spend. The only thing stopping me taking it straight back to the shop and getting my money back was the anticipation of Theo's reaction the next day. -- "Guitar again?" I asked next morning as Theo walked through the door. "Or, perhaps some Mariokart?" I tried to sound casual, and keep the excitement out of my voice, but I couldn't hold back a huge grin when Theo turned on his heel with his mouth open in pure shock. "Mariokart? You have a SNES? Since when?" I shrugged. "Well, you know, I didn't want you to get bored, so I went shopping." Theo started bouncing on the spot, doing a little dance of pure excitement. "You're not tricking me, are you?" he asked, desperately. "No, of course not. Go into the living room and take a look." Theo darted into the room, then I heard a "YES!!", and a thunder of feet as he came running back out of the room and barrelled into me, hugging me. It was an escalation of our friendship, but one I was very happy with. I hugged him back, thrilled at the sensation of holding his little body to mine. "Of course, it's not just Mariokart," I said, as he took me by the hand and dragged me into the room. "There's a pile of cartridges over there." Theo shook his head. "Later. First, Mariokart." So we sat in companionable happiness, Theo explaining to me how the game worked with typical I'm-eleven-and-I've-played-this-once-at-my-cousin's-house expertise. I floated on a cloud of contentment, revelling in the closeness of him. Theo had a particular smell which is hard to describe - a mix of his shampoo and washing powder, and underneath it all subtle tones of prepubescent boy. There's perhaps a reason that word ends with `scent' - there's something of the indescribable fragrance of `boy' which all those men and women who profess to love these angelic creatures know very well. It must be something subconscious, an order of pheromone we don't even realise we're attuned to. Regardless, I could have stayed there forever in the cocoon of Theo's presence. I wish I could suggest that the distraction next to me was the reason I fared so badly at the game, but the truth was that Theo was simply a lot better than me. He wasn't a particularly gracious winner at first, but then he realised that I was terrible at the game, at which point his attitude changed - he became far more supportive, and celebrated when I could keep up with him. It was a little thing, but the demonstration of his emotional intelligence only made me fall ever more deeply in love with him. At his heart, Theo embodied kindness. The morning flew by. As it did so, the heat of the day ratcheted up. I paused the game to turn on Ceefax and get the latest forecast, and was stunned to discover that the afternoon temperatures were now predicted to reach 36C, which for some parts of the world I appreciate isn't terribly hot, but for us in dear old Blighty represented what the Sun newspaper was fond of calling a `scorcher'. "I'm hot enough already," Theo said, and promptly melted, his arms flopping by his side, his body sliding down off the sofa. I took the opportunity to glance at his exposed tummy as his t-shirt rode up. Then, I was taken by an idea - a risk, surely, but one worth taking? "If you're that hot," I said, trying desperately to keep the hope out of my voice, "you're welcome to take off your t-shirt. No-one can see in with the blinds down." Theo turned his head to face me from his melted puddle of boy impression on the floor. The expression on his face was hard to read - he seemed to be trying to understand whether or not I was serious. "OK, cool," he shrugged, and with very little ceremony, up sat Theo and off came the t-shirt. That left him in some drawstring cotton shorts, and presumably a pair of pants underneath, but nothing else at all. Theo hopped back up on the sofa next to me, and I turned back to Mariokart, preparing to go back into battle. This time, I genuinely was distracted. I kept stealing glances across at him, and doing worse and worse in the game. He was a skinny little thing, with some muscle and absolutely no fat on his frame. His skin looked unimaginably smooth, lacking even the slightest blemish, save for a few stray freckles on his shoulders. He was as pale as anything - his forearms were tanned, but his torso was clearly hidden from the sun most of the time. His tiny nipples were almost indistinguishable in colour from the rest of his skin, and his innie belly-button was an enticing little fold as he sat leaning forward, intent on the game. Or, at least I thought he was focused. Perhaps not quite to the exclusion of all else, it turned out. "If you stopped looking at me you'd probably be better at Mariokart," he muttered, as he took out another of my balloons with a well-aimed green shell. I turned to face him, expecting to see a frown on his face, but instead there was a grin, and he was trying not to laugh at his own humour. He paused the game and returned my stare, then raised an eyebrow. "Next time you lose you have to take off your t-shirt, so we're even," he said with a smirk. "What if you lose?" I asked. "As if!" he laughed. "That will not be a problem, trust me." I don't recall consenting to the forfeit, but in reality I wasn't about to refuse my first ever game of Strip Mariokart. Sure enough, only a few seconds later he took my last balloon, and the battle was lost. Just like my t-shirt. I made a show of being reluctant, earning an eye roll from Theo. "Just take it off," he said with mock frustration. I did so, flinging my favourite Black Sabbath t-shirt across the room. "You have tattoos!" Theo screeched when he saw my upper arms. "Loads of them!" Well, it was partially true. My upper arms and shoulders were well covered, and this was a good few years before the recent trend towards tattoos everywhere. It was unusual for someone like me - a straight-laced piano teacher whose band had been on the cover of the NME with the tagline "the band you'd be happy taking home to meet your mum". But there was another side of me which spent the money I got from relatives for my 18th birthday on my first tattoo, and had several more since. Theo was fascinated. "What are they all?" he asked, leaning across to me and without any hesitation tracing some of the lines on my right shoulder. My heart lurched at the contact. "They're mostly native American art. That one's a whale, and that's a bison. There's a few abstract ones in there. That one there was designed by someone very special to me." I hadn't intended to let it out, but I knew what question was coming, and I also knew that when Theo asked it, I would answer truthfully. "Who?" came the inevitable query. "My first boyfriend," I answered, quietly but distinctly. "Oh!" Theo responded, though it was hard to know what he meant by that. Was it, `Oh my God, I can't believe I trusted you, I thought you were cool and now it turns out you're a homo'? Or was `Oh' code for something else? Before I could ask him to elaborate, he followed up with, "What's it meant to be?" "It's our star signs, but merged together." Theo reached out again, a finger tracing the lines. "That's really romantic," he breathed, seemingly entranced by the design. "Is he still your boyfriend?" he asked. "No, not for a long time now. But it's a nice design, and I like to remember what it was like to be in love with him." I half expected Theo to make some sort of `yuck!' comment about being in love with anyone, as most eleven year old boys will tend to, but he did nothing of the sort. "Sorry," he said, averting his gaze. "I didn't mean to make you sad or anything." I lifted his chin, and smiled. "You didn't make me sad. And thanks for not being grossed out that I'm gay." Theo shrugged. "So's my uncle." And that was that. "Come on," I said, still slightly desperate to see where the game was going to go, "let's play some more Mariokart." But Theo had lost the desire to play. "Can we just put on a film or something for a bit?" he asked. "I'm tired. It's too hot." And so we did, and the possibility of more Strip Mariokart faded into the background. Theo lounged, half naked, as we watched my old VHS of Star Wars, and I watched him openly. If he minded, he said nothing. ---- "Can we go down to King Alfred and go swimming tomorrow?" Theo asked, after the fourth day of heatwave, and with no respite in sight. King Alfred leisure centre was possibly the prime attraction for kids in Brighton in those days, and rarely seemed anything less than chronically overcrowded during the school holidays. "Um, I'm not sure, Theo. I mean, I know your mum said you could come over while she's working, but she might think it's weird if I took you swimming." "Why would she think that?" I suppose he really was that naive... "Theo, I'm not really sure how to explain this, but I'm going to try. I'm quite a bit older than you. I'm more than double your age, in fact. I'm meant to be your guitar teacher. If your mum knew we just hang out together, she might be suspicious of me. Even more so if I take you swimming. She might think... well, she might think I'm a pervert or something. That I'm trying to do bad things with you." Theo frowned. "But you've never tried doing anything." "No, I haven't, but if she thinks I might then she'd going to stop me seeing you. She might even call the police on me." "But she can't do that! You're nice. You've never done anything rude with me!" I sighed heavily. "Theo, if they even thought I had, they'd throw me in jail." "But you don't want to do naughty things with me, do you?" Oh God. So, here it was. The crossroads. I could have lied to him to protect us both, but part of me shouted loudly that he deserved to know the truth, and from there he could make up his own mind. "Theo," I started, my voice ragged. My chest had tightened. It was hard to breathe. "I have to tell you the truth. Please don't hate me. I think... I think you're the most beautiful boy I've ever met, and the cutest. I don't want to do anything to freak you out, but if you're asking if I would want to do naughty things with you, then yes, I would. I'm so sorry." Theo's face fell. He looked close to tears. "I'm going to go home," he muttered, and pushed past me, grabbing his backpack and shoving his trainers onto his feet, not bothering to tie the laces. The front door slammed shut behind him, signalling the collapse of my world. -- I got drunk. Horribly, messily drunk. Then I wandered across town to an area I should have been nowhere near and bought an eighth, then wandered back and realised I no longer had a bong in the house. Had never had one. So, there I was, absolutely rat-arsed, trying to build a home-made bong. When I finally got the thing working the hash was too strong for me anyway. I threw up, dragged my pathetic arse to bed, and slept. -- The doorbell ringing over and over was what woke me at last. I rolled out of bed, my sight going dark as the blood drained from my head. I could have thrown up then and there, but gulped it down and hauled myself upright. The doorbell rang again, and then there was a banging on the glass. My blood went cold. I knew what this was. Theo had told his mum, who had called the police, who had turned up to drag me away. Fuck. I was still dressed from the night before, though that was a strong term for t-shirt and shorts and nothing beneath. Fuck it, I decided - if the police wanted to take me away, fuck them, I wasn't going to get dressed up for it. I stumbled down the stairs, trying to discern anything through the frosted glass of the door. Must be a WPC, I thought. Or a really short man. The bell rang again before I could reach it. Summoning all my strength, and expecting to be bundled into a van the moment I opened the door, I reached up and undid the latch. The door swung open, and there on the mat was definitely the youngest, shortest, skinniest, blondest police officer I'd ever seen, and he was apparently in plain clothes. "Theo," I tried to say, but nothing came out. I tried again, and managed a whisper. He was standing there with his backpack on, a silly grin on his face, and Freddie Mercury wrapped around his ankles, purring. "Morning," he said brightly, stepping past me and into the hallway. I shut the door, ridding myself of the evil, bright glare of the sun. I found him in the kitchen, looking curiously at the bong which was still on the table. "What's that?" he asked. Had the previous day not happened? Had he not fled the house at my admission of perverted lust? "It's, um... it's a science experiment. It didn't work." "Is it drugs?" he asked, incredulous, ignoring my pathetic attempt at a cover story. I hung my head. "Yes. It's marijuana." "You shouldn't do that," he said, seriously. "I'm not going to let you do that. It's really bad." I wasn't about to argue with him. I stumbled over to the table, grabbed the paraphernalia and the remaining resin, and dumped the whole lot in the bin. "There," I croaked. "Gone." "Good," he smiled. "Do you have your swimming stuff ready? We should go for opening, my Mum said it gets really busy later." "Your mum?!" I all but shouted. "You asked your mum? Didn't we talk about this?" "Yeah, but it's OK," he said. "I have these two friends from school, and they're going today. Mum said it was OK for me to go with them. She gave me a tenner, too!" That, at that point in time, was enough money to pay for swimming at the council pool, plus chips and a drink, and still have plenty left over for any other junk Theo wanted to buy on the way home. Theo was rich. "So, she doesn't know I'm going with you?" I asked. "Nope," he said, brightly, shaking his head. "Theo, this is getting a bit much. I could get in trouble for this." "No, you won't," Theo said. He seemed a lot more confident than I felt. "What about what I said, though? Aren't you scared of me? You ran away yesterday." Theo looked uncomfortable. "Sorry," he said, blushing. "That wasn't very nice. Mum said I should be understanding of people who are different. Like Uncle Matt... and you." "But I'm still a dirty old pervert, and you're still a young boy." Theo took a deep breath, squared his shoulders, and looked me straight in the eye. "Zack, you're my friend, and if it makes you happy you can see my willy. You can even touch it if you like." And, with that, my extraordinary little friend grabbed his shorts and pants, and shoved them down right to the ground, then stood to attention, his hands by his sides. I stood frozen to the spot, dumbfounded, unable to process what my eyes were seeing. Theo remained motionless, though perhaps shaking ever so gently with nerves. It must have taken all his strength to be so bold, and there must be in the back of his mind a very real fear that I would become a monster and attack him, but he'd come back here anyway, and what's more he'd exposed himself to me. It was an incredibly brave and touching thing to have done. I couldn't have walked over and molested him if I'd tried. "Theo," I croaked. "Thank you for that, but please pull your pants up before the neighbours see." I cocked my head in the direction of the enormous kitchen window, which was overlooked by Mrs Dewer, who lived next door with her grown-up daughter, Rebecca, and could certainly have seen the half-naked boy from their kitchen, dining room or the spare room upstairs. Theo gasped, and rapidly pulled up pants and shorts, then bent double, giggling. "Um, Theo," I started, not entirely sure where the sentence was going, but aware that I needed to say something. "That was really brave of you, and very kind, but please don't do it again. I might take you up on the offer and then you might end up feeling really bad about it. You might regret it afterwards, and you could never take that back." Theo looked down at his feet and mumbled. I didn't quite catch what it was, and when I asked him to repeat it, he shook his head without looking at me. -- It turned out that `swimming stuff' was something I didn't, in fact, have. The towel wasn't a problem, but the trunks certainly were. "It's OK, though," Theo said, when I'd searched every drawer in my room, "the leisure centre sells them." I sighed. I was going to have to accept that this trip to the pool was going to cost me a lot more than I really wanted to spend. I was frugal by necessity, not desire, but spending time with Theo seemed to equal spending money. It was money I didn't really have, unless I wanted to stop saving to have the roof repaired. Nevertheless, I stopped at a cashpoint on the way to the pool and made sure I had enough to cover it. As it turned out, the only pair that they had in my size were bright yellow and cost about three times as much as I reckoned they were worth. I grimaced, handed over my money, and decided that since I was going to be broke anyway, I might as well do it in style, so I paid for Theo's admission, too. Passing through the turnstile and heading for the changing rooms, I felt a weight lifting from my shoulders - not once had there been any sign that the bored-looking teenager at the desk was going to question my relationship to Theo, and whether or not I had a legitimate reason to be taking him swimming. It had been playing on my mind, you see. I was convinced that everyone around us would be able to read my mind, and instantly know that Theo was hanging out with a dangerous pervert. I expected at any moment we would be stopped, perhaps by the parent of one of Theo's school friends, who would no doubt walk around the corner any second and ask all sorts of awkward questions, like "How do you know Theo?", and so on. That I had passed the first hurdle was worthy of a minor celebration. What came next was entirely unexpected. If you were me, what do you think was about to happen when it came to getting changed? That's right - being the frustrated boylovers that we are, the boy disappears into their own cubicle, and you slope off to the communal men's changing area, hoping (and knowing that you'll be disappointed in this hope) to see maybe a young boy who's not too shy to show anything. That's how it always goes in real life, right? Not. This. Time. We were barely through the doors that separated the lobby from the changing rooms when Theo took my hand, and dragged me past the first row of individual cubicles, and down the second. I wondered where he was going, but allowed myself to be led. "In here," Theo said, entering the very last door on the right, and pulling me in behind. It was a double sized cubicle, or at least almost. There was a pillar in one corner that supported the roof, so they couldn't make two cubicles - one of them would have been far too small to use. Instead, they'd combined the space into one, big enough for both of us with room to spare. Theo held out his hands like a magician showing the denouement of a trick. "Close the door, then!" he said with a grin. I, of course, had been standing there dumfounded by the realisation that Theo wanted to get changed with me. This never, ever happens. As soon as the door was shut, he was stripping. Off came the t-shirt, and the shorts immediately after; he wasn't wearing any underwear. There stood Theo, stark naked, skinny and pale and perfect. I gawped, unable to tear my eyes away, and Theo giggled at my predicament. Then, he put his hands on his hips and wiggled them about a bit, his little willy bouncing around on top of a plump, pink scrotum. As I continued to stare, and drool somewhat, he turned his back on me, and stuck out his perfect bum at me. I almost fainted. Then, as if he hadn't just delivered the sexiest show in town, Theo pulled his trunks from his bag, slipped them on and sat down on the bench with a raised eyebrow and folded arms, as if to say, "And now it's your turn." I paused, knowing that we were about to cross another bridge. Thanks to his willingness to display his goods to me, I was entirely hard, in a way that I couldn't remember feeling since I was Theo's age. The soft of stiffness that comes from the centre of your manhood, which makes it feel like at any moment it might burst. Powerful, uncontrollable hardness. I glanced down. It was very, very visible in my shorts, and when I looked up it was clear that Theo had seen, too. His eyes were locked on my crotch, his grin unmistakable. It amused him that I was agitated. It was funny that I had grown a stiffy because of his antics. He knew that I would be embarrassed by it, and that in some small, indefinable way he had won a game I didn't even know we were playing. "Theo," I said, slowly, "you might want to look away. You might see things you don't want to see." Still grinning, he looked me in the eye and shook his head. There. I had given him an out. I'd done all that any self-respecting boylover should be willing to do to protect the innocence of the boy they fancy. If Theo wasn't prepared to look away, then he was going to get an eyeful. I'm not well endowed, let's just say that. At full mast I tip the scales at entirely average for length, and probably skinnier than most. But to a boy like Theo - whose dick would have had to more than double in length to reach three inches hard - it would certainly look big enough. Judging by the way his giggles became shocked, blushing silence, it certainly did. His hands fell to his lap, covering his crotch in a protective gesture. He stared openly, while I took my time pulling the tag off my new shorts and slipping them on. With the baggy board-short-style trunks on, you might just about fail to see my erection, as long as you didn't actually look at my crotch. Which made the fact that they were canary yellow and sure to catch the eye a bit of an issue. Theo was still sitting there, his clothes discarded on the floor, watching my every move as I shoved my stuff into my bag. "Come on, then," I said, my heart pounding, making me lightheaded and certainly less confident than I tried to sound, "let's go." Theo snapped out of it, shaking his head, which then became a full-body shiver. "Yeah, sorry," he whispered. Even as he tidied his clothes into his bag, though, he stole glances at my crotch every few seconds. -- Thankfully, the cool water took the heat out of my problem, and we were able to enjoy splashing about in the water, and the frankly low-grade water slides, without me having to constantly bend double. This side of spending time with Theo lifted my spirits in a way that I'd never before known. It was like a cheesy montage in a rom com, where the protagonists have increasingly joyous fun to an upbeat music track. In the end, they usually kiss. Well, that didn't happen for us. What actually happened was that our time ran out in the pool, so we went for a shower (why is it so erotic to see water running down smooth skin?), then found our favourite larger changing room was taken, and had to get changed in separate, individual rooms instead. Honestly, it was a bit of a relief. As much as I would have jumped at the chance to see Theo naked again, I was all over the place mentally. I knew it was wrong to want him so much, and I could feel my resolve not to do anything weakening by the minute. Any more time spent naked with him would have put a serious dent in my resistance. It was obvious he didn't see me as a threat; in fact, he seemed to enjoy the idea that I was turned on by him. He seemed curious about me, and about my interest in him. I think he wanted to see what effect he had on me, and when we'd been changing before we went swimming, the evidence of it was pretty clear. As I got back into my clothes, I couldn't help thinking about Theo in the cubicle next door. Would he be naked right now, towelling himself dry? I had a strong enough mental image of him to imagine what it would be like. I could see his skinny torso, his well-toned tummy and prominent hip bones. The `v' leading down to his boyhood, which itself was small, uncut, perkily bouncing around on a plump little sack which maybe, just maybe, was showing the signs of swelling a little with the onset of puberty. And his bum - tiny, perfectly formed, a smooth curve from the back of his thighs to the small of his back, one single brushstroke of the creator's art. The closest thing to perfection in nature. It was easy to see why artists and photographers down the years have considered young boys' naked forms to be the peak of beauty, worthy of intense study. Snapping out of it, I stuffed my troublesome manhood into my shorts, wrapped my trunks in my towel and got out of there before I was tempted to relieve myself. Theo was waiting for me at the exit of the changing rooms, his perpetual grin glowing. "Can we get chips?" he asked, as if I was responsible for deciding. The habit of ceding control to adults was clearly baked in. I happily agreed, and Theo bought us a large chips to share from the cafe in the leisure centre. It's hard to imagine anything more perfect to eat when you've been swimming - hot chips with masses of salt, washed down with a Coke. We sat on the wall outside with the chips between us and eyed up the predatory seagulls, ready to defend our snack to the death. Theo chatted away happily as we sat there, licking the salt from our fingers. He wanted to talk about everything, from the slides we'd just been on, to the Mariokart tournament we were currently in the middle of, to guitar playing, and a whole lot more. He was missing his friends a bit, but was looking forward to going to secondary school after the summer. He was a bit worried about being so small - he looked at least two or three years younger than some of his peers - but he couldn't wait to be at `big school'. He wondered if he was ever going to start growing, and as I considered the ambiguity of that statement, he leaned over and whispered, not quite as quietly as I would have liked, "Y'know, down there," nodding significantly at his crotch. "I think it's perfect as it is," I told him, quite honestly, which actually made him blush for once, though not without a broad grin on his face. "I could tell," he whispered, this time looking not at his own midsection, but at mine, one eyebrow cocked provocatively. He laughed as I gawped like a goldfish, my mouth moving but making no sound. "Come on," he said, standing and stretching, giving me another look at that lovely couple of inches of smooth skin between the raised hem of his t-shirt and the waistband of his shorts, "let's go home so I can beat you at Mariokart again." -- It was two weeks into the holiday that I finally got a call from the old friend who needed my guitar in the studio. I'd already primed him that I would be bringing along my little prodigy, which had left him confused at first. Now, though, he was high on the possibility of studio time, and was happy to just roll with it. I called Mrs Palmer that evening, and explained that I would be going into the studio for about a week, and wanted to confirm that it was still OK for Theo to come. She seemed delighted - apparently she was under the impression that Theo had hardly left the house during the last two weeks, though of course I knew different. "Are you sure the others won't mind him being around? And what about all the drinking and drugs you hear about?" I couldn't help letting out a little laugh. "With the cost of studio time, we won't take any chances messing about with anything like that! Besides, I'm not sure if I told you, but Gareth's record is a folk album. It's not exactly rock 'n' roll." "Oh, I see. I had no idea! Folk music. That's very interesting." Of course, it wasn't really, but she didn't have a clue what else to say. "Look, I won't lie to you," I said, "the producer, Mikey, will probably nip out for a fag every half hour, but that's about it. It'll be tea and biscuits and a lot of hard work, but Theo will love it." "Well, if that's the case, of course he can go with you. I don't know what to say, Mr McNaught, or how to repay you." "Well, a fifty percent cut when Theo's famous wouldn't go amiss!" I joked, and Mrs Palmer dutifully laughed along with my terrible humour. We signed off, and I collapsed onto the sofa with a big, soppy smile on my face. This was going to be amazing. -- "And what about that one?" Theo asked, for possibly the nine thousandth time. He pointed to an obscure slider right in the corner of the sound board. "Know what?" Mikey responded, frowning, "I don't have a fucking clue." This set Theo giggling, much like every other time Mikey swore, which was practically every other sentence. We were amongst MEN. Theo, as I predicted, absolutely loved going to the studio, and frankly the lads loved having him around. Gareth had brought a beardy guy nicknamed Mole with him, who would go on to feature on an archaeology TV show later in the decade, but at the time was known particularly for his experience with a number of more obscure Cornish instruments, and also a slender, long haired youth called Sam who didn't appear to serve any purpose. Only three of us - Gareth, Mole and I - would be playing on the album, with Gareth and I singing. Mikey immediately took Theo under his wing, being as he was almost the same age as Mikey's own boy, who was spending that fortnight with his mum. Mikey missed David a great deal, and so Theo became his surrogate son for the week. No question was too mundane, no profanity out of bounds, and they quickly became best friends. What warmed Gareth and Mole up to him, however, was when Theo finally agreed to play the guitar in front of them. He had been nervous, claiming that he was nowhere near good enough, not like them. But when he picked up his mini-acoustic and started expertly strumming out the guitar part he'd first learned from my album, Gareth actually sat down in shock. "Fuck," he said, not quite under his breath. "Fucking hell, Zack, he plays that better than you do." I nodded. "Good, isn't he?" "He's absolutely fucking amazing. Hey, Theo," he said, standing up and going over to a stack of music, "do you think you could play this?" He put a music stand in front of Theo, and propped up a crumpled sheet. I recognised it as one of the parts I would be playing on the album. "I can try," Theo shrugged. He was hesitant at first, then more confident. Parts of it were almost too hard for him, but his little fingers flew across the fret, as he got more and more into it. He seemed to be able to predict what was coming next, as if the `right' notes to play next were obvious to him. By the time he was done, everyone was standing there staring. Mikey had come through from the desk, and Mole and Sam had wandered in from a fag break out the back. No-one clapped. We just stood there in shock. "Was it alright?" Theo asked, nervously. Gareth nodded silently, then turned to me. "You're sacked," he said, nicely breaking the tension. Suddenly everyone was around Theo, laughing, talking over each other, congratulating him, telling him how amazing he was. "Theo," said Mikey, when the clamour had died down, "just play that again, will you? Wait until I say go. And the rest of you, either get behind the desk or fuck off somewhere else." As he was saying it, he was hastily moving around the room, bringing over a mic on a stand and placing it in front of Theo. The boy looked nervous, but I gave him a smile and a thumbs up, and then five of us crammed in behind the desk while Mikey hit record. And that's how Theo ended up appearing on his first album at the age of eleven. His raw, soulful, lyrical, melodic, magical way of playing was like nothing any of us had ever heard. -- Towards the end of the week, we were outside the studio taking a break in the late afternoon. Clouds were gathering overhead, and there was the occasional rumble of thunder; it looked like the heatwave was about to break, and spectacularly. Gareth and I sat on a wall with a mug of tea each. Mole was inside repairing a weird lute-like thing, and Sam had wandered off to who knows where. "He's one hundred percent infatuated with you, you know," Gareth said, looking across to where Theo and Mikey were kicking a football back and forth in the studio carpark. "What, Theo?" "Yes, Theo. It wasn't going to be Mikey, was it?" I had to admit that no, it wasn't going to be Mikey. I'd rarely met anyone as thoroughly heterosexual as Mikey. His wanting of women knew no bounds. "Why do you think that?" I asked. "Oh, come on, you haven't seen it?" "No, I've not," I said, entirely truthfully. It was incredible news if Gareth was right. "How can you tell?" "Give it a rest, Zack. I think I know what it's like to be in love with you." I hung my head. "Yeah, I suppose so." I felt a twinge in my arm, just about where the tattoo of our conjoined start signs held a record of a time when Gareth and I had been in love, or at least the next best thing. "I missed you," he said, "after you went all weird on me, you know." His voice was suffused with pain. It dripped from his words. "I'm so sorry. I just couldn't..." "Couldn't what? Admit that you're gay?" "No, it wasn't that! It wasn't as simple as that." "No, it's not, is it?" Gareth said, slowly, suddenly intrigued. He looked over at Theo again, and then turned back to me. "It's not simple at all, is it, Zack? There's a word for people like you. Not a very nice one, either." I couldn't answer. I stared at the floor, my mind racing. I could feel the walls closing in around me. "I don't use it, though," Gareth said, his tone softening. "I tend to try to be more understanding." I looked across at him, my vision blurred by tears. "I would never hurt him. I promised myself I would never touch him like that. You have to believe me." He took a deep breath, then let it out slowly. "Because it's you, because I probably still love you even though you're an evil bastard, I'll believe you. I suppose I should be happy for you. Anyway, I'd be a hypocrite to judge you. Sam's only sixteen, after all." I turned to him. "You and he...?" "Yeah. He's my agent's son. Marcus knows nothing about it, obviously. Folk music's very traditional. He still tries to hook me up with women he knows. He can't even get his head around the idea that just because I'm not effeminate, it doesn't mean I can't be bent. Officially Sam's here as a runner, to earn a few bob before he starts his A-levels, but... well..." Gareth grinned, and raised his eyebrows. I grinned back, and gave him a gentle shove. "Thanks, mate," I said, close to tears. "You don't have to thank me," he replied. "Just don't break his little heart like you broke mine." -- We wrapped the next afternoon, miraculously close to the time we were meant to. There were hugs all around, and the odd tear, and promises to meet up far more often, which we all knew were entirely hollow. Theo bounced around from person to person, getting his t-shirt signed like it was an end of year celebration. Sam, who had been taking photos all week on an ancient Minolta 35mm, knelt down and took a shot of Theo with his skinny arms bent upwards in a muscle man pose, and that grainy black-and-white image appears in the liner notes for the album. I have a copy of the original up on the wall of my music room to this day, and I still use the story of that week to inspire my students. -- After the excitement of time at the studio, everyday life was a bit of a come-down. I liked returning to normality, to my routine, to the familiar, but Theo seemed pent up each time he came around. Freddie Mercury - who had missed us during the days and was quite furious when we returned late each evening - was very pleased that the house was once again occupied during the day. He was growing into a fine young cat, and was deeply attached to Theo, who he appeared to much prefer to me whenever there was a choice. Perhaps it had to do with the fact that Theo had never taken Freddie to the vet to be put to sleep and have his balls whipped off; I was certain that he thoroughly resented me for that. After the week together, it was strange not seeing Theo for the weekend, which his mum had off work. There was no reason nor excuse for Theo to come to mine, and he understood that the situation with his mum was one of gentle subterfuge, so there was no chance to see each other. Or, at least, I expected. Until Saturday afternoon, that was, when a phone call came; it was Mrs Palmer. "I'm glad I caught you, Mr McNaught," she said, once we'd been through the pleasantries. She always seemed oddly formal when she called. "I wanted to thank you for taking Theo with you to the studio for the week. He came back with a quantity of money, and says he earned it for being on the record. Is that true?" "Oh, yes, that," I exclaimed, relieved. "Yes, he got a day's rate for a session musician. They were blown away by his performance, and Gareth is going to use Theo's guitar part on one of the tracks." "So, he really is that good then?" she asked, as if up to now she hadn't really believed it. "Yes, Mrs Palmer. He's that good and then some. It won't be long until he's better than me. In some ways, he already is." "I know you said it before, but... well, I don't really know what to say. It's not really what I saw him doing, I have to say, but it does seem to make him happy. He came back absolutely buzzing. I wanted to thank you for that. In fact, I wanted to ask if perhaps you're free this evening. I'd like you to come over for a meal. My way of saying thanks." "Oh, wow. Yes, of course I can come over. That would be lovely, thank you, Mrs Palmer." "Oh, I think we can dispense with that now. Please, call me Jane." "Well, Jane, in that case, please call me Zack." "It's a deal. You know where we are, yes?" "Yes, I know. What time should I be there?" "Let's say six thirty. I think a certain young man would like to spend some time with you before we eat. He's bouncing off the walls right now, listening to my end of the conversation." "I'll see you six thirty, sharp!" I put the phone down, stared at it for a moment, and then jumped off the sofa and did a little jig. -- The Palmers' house was a great deal nicer than mine. Theo had told me the story of it at some point - before his father had left, he and Mrs Palmer had bought an old townhouse and spent a huge amount of money doing it up. It was owned outright, and Mrs Palmer had been living there with Theo ever since her husband had walked out on them. When their divorce went through the house would probably have to be sold, but right now it was still theirs, and absolutely beautifully decorated. Almost as soon as I was through the door, and while Jane was still raising an approving eyebrow at the quality of the bottle of red I'd brought (one I had filched from my father's overflowing cellar on my last visit home), Theo thundered down the stairs from his room, grabbed me by the hand and hauled me up behind him. Apparently, I just had to see his bedroom. The first thing that struck me as I walked through the door was the smell. It was concentrated Theo. If those boy pheromones I mentioned earlier are a real thing, a sensor would have exploded in an attempt to measure the concentration in the air. God, it was good - a sort of biscuity, musty, very boy-parts sort of a smell. I could practically see the ghost of Theo furiously wanking on his bed, just from the signature of the aroma. It was exactly what you get when a boy is occupying a space and there are no scented candles, air fresheners, cooking smells or anything else to displace the pure, undiluted BOY smell. Not, of course, that this was a bad thing. It wasn't a foul stench. It wasn't stale like sweat, or acrid like unwashed skin. It was the smell you might find in the underpants of a boy who keeps himself pretty clean most of the time, but has been running around all day, being the very essence of life itself. Only when I'd allowed myself to process and store that scent, did I actually take in my surroundings. There was not a square centimetre of wall space free of posters and pages clipped from music magazines. There were musicians everywhere. The rest of the room was simple - his guitar was propped up in one corner next to the chair in which I guessed he sat to practise, because next to it was his CD player, and a stack of sheet music on a little table, which had spilled onto the floor. There was a pile of worn clothes in the corner of the room, surrounding but not within the hamper, which looked (at least from where I was standing) quite empty. His bed was roughly made, and it warmed my heart to see that his teddy still had a place in it, tucked down between the pillow and the wall. And, standing with his hands out, was Theo. "Do you like the walls?" he asked. "I did it all myself. Look, there's Oasis, and Blur, and there's all these other ones, too. I thought you'd like it because you like music and stuff, and look, there's your band, I found that in an old NME in the secondhand place down on...." Theo was still talking, but I had stopped hearing him. I looked over at the photo. It was a shoot we'd done with the NME. I remembered it now, though it had slipped my mind until I saw the picture. I stepped closer. We looked so young, so full of life. There was a light in my eyes which had only recently begun to return. And there, in the midst of us, looking sullenly towards the camera through his long bangs, was Alex. This must have been only a few weeks before he killed himself. The signs were there for everyone to see. It's not that we didn't see them, either, just that we were powerless to stop him. We tried, so many times, but his will to leave was stronger than our will to keep him alive. I moved closer, and frowned at something. There, almost hidden because it was black biro against my black jacket, was a little love heart, scrawled onto the page. Had Theo done that, or had it been the first owner of the magazine? I was dimly aware that he was still talking. "What was that, sorry?" I asked. "I said that I was sorry about what happened to Alex. Mum found out about it, and she told me." I turned to him, my throat tightening. "Thanks, Theo. It's not easy to understand why he did what he did. He found things really difficult." "Mum said he was depressed, and that it's like being sad only you don't come out of it. That's what she does at work, she helps people like that." "It's a really important job, Theo. I'm grateful that she does it." "She doesn't like it sometimes, but she keeps doing it." "She's a very good person, then, Theo. A wonderful person." Just then, there was a shout up the stairs, and Theo smiled at me. "Come on, let's go and eat. Mum's a really, really good cook." -- Theo wasn't wrong. The food was amazing - far better and more interesting than I had eaten in a long time. These days everyone knows spaghetti alla puttanesca, but that evening was the first time I'd even heard of it. Jane cooked it wonderfully, and had even made her own pasta, and it went perfectly with the wine I brought. Desert was more traditionally British, but no less wonderful - sticky toffee pudding with the lightest, fluffiest sponge I'd ever had and treacle sauce that made you want to lick out the corners of the dish it was cooked in, which was exactly what Theo did, much to his mum's disapproval. After dinner, we played board games, which I enjoyed far more than I would have expected, and then while Theo was sent to shower and get ready for bed, Jane and I retreated to their terrace to watch the sun go down and finish the wine. "I really have to thank you, Zack," she said, looking at the view rather than me. "It's been an awful time since my husband left. Theo has taken it very badly. When he's around you, though, he's completely different." "Oh. Well, I'm glad I could help. I suppose it's just the chance to get away into music that helps." Jane shrugged very slightly. "Perhaps it's that. I don't think so, though." "Sorry, I don't understand." She sighed, and drained her glass, then emptied the rest of the bottle into it. "Sorry, far too good to share," she said, looking at the bottle with slightly unfocused eyes. She took another gulp of wine, then continued in a much quieter voice. "It's not just the music, Zack. In a way I wish it was just that, but it's not, and actually if it wasn't this, then Theo wouldn't be being himself, and Theo being himself is wonderful." "I'm sorry, Jane, I don't think I understand." "Ha! Me neither. But I do, of course. I know what it's like to be young and in love with someone totally out of reach. Except perhaps not so far out of reach... Do you write songs, Zack?" "Yes, all the time. I thought you knew that." She waved it away lazily. "Sorry, stupid question. Well, Theo does, too." "Yes, I know. He's played some to me." "Does he ever tell you the lyrics?" "No, I didn't think he wrote any. I assumed it was just the music." She shook her head. "God, I'm drunk. I'd need to be, I reckon. No, Zack, there are words. Lots of them. I found his notebook in that pigsty of a bedroom." "They're probably private," I said reproachfully. "Yes, alright," she said, raising her hands as if under arrest. "I didn't really mean to pry. I just... well, I'm his mother, so there. Do you know what he writes about?" This was a bit of a stupid question, given that I didn't know he wrote lyrics, and had just said as much. But I shook my head obediently. "You, Zack. Love songs about you. Other kinds of songs, but I can't tell you about those, they're... well, a mother shouldn't have to read about her son thinking things like that." I stared at her. My mind was going a million miles an hour. Why was she telling me this? Was this why she seemed so determined to get drunk, so she had the courage to tell me? "Tell me, Zack," she went on, slurring slightly. "What was it like to be young and gay when you grew up?" "Oh, well I... I didn't actually know. Not until I was quite a bit older than Theo is now. I was about sixteen when I first had feelings for another boy." "No crushes on older guys?" "No, not really. I've never... I mean..." "You don't like older guys, is that it?" "Yeah, I suppose so," I shrugged. "Who knows, it might happen some day." "You prefer younger guys?" she asked, sitting more upright now. I had a weird feeling about where the conversation was going, and decided to steer for safety. "I don't think I really have a type," I lied. Of course I did - my type was Theo! "So you don't have anyone you have a crush on right now?" she asked, archly. "No, no-one," I said, but I could see she didn't believe me. "Really? Hmm. Wait there a moment, I'm getting more wine." -- We got horribly drunk that evening, and I staggered home through the streets feeling strangely warm inside. I was too far gone to even try to process any of what Jane had said. After she went for more wine, the topic of conversation had wandered away from youthful crushes and my preferences in men - or rather, boys - and onto more mundane things. Looking back, I'm convinced she knew that it wasn't just Theo dreaming of romance. I could only surmise that she had come to terms with who he was, and had decided that I wasn't likely to hurt him, otherwise surely she would have kicked me out of her house right then and there, and probably called the police. At some point Theo had appeared in just a pair of shorts, which was apparently what he was wearing to bed; it was another muggy evening. He kissed his mum goodnight, and then came over to me and did the same, a fact that I only really registered in the morning when I came to and relived the events of the previous night, while trying to stop the room spinning. It had been nothing more than a peck on the cheek, but I felt my cheeks burning as I remembered it, and then even more hotly as I recall patting his bottom before he went to bed. He'd said something about how drunk we were, and rolled his eyes, and then grinned at me, and disappeared upstairs. I don't remember much after that. Jane and I had talked late into the night, but if the topic of my sexual proclivities had come up again, I couldn't recall it. I stumbled out of bed, had a shower, and vowed never to drink that much again. The rest of the day was a wipeout, but of course that was absolutely fine - it just brought Monday morning around more quickly. And Monday morning, what did it bring? Why, Theo, of course, seemingly out of breath, sweating somewhat. "Did you run here?" I asked, as he stepped through the door and ignored me to say hello to Freddie Mercury. "Yep," he replied happily, once feline greetings were concluded. "In a hurry?" "Yep!" he said, even more brightly than the first time. "I want to beat you at Mariokart, of course!" "Still Mariokart, eh? Don't want to play any of the others?" "Nope! But..." He looked down at the floor, a slight flush in his cheeks. "But what?" "Well, it's really warm outside today." "And?" "Well, maybe because it's hot we could, you know..." "No, Theo, I don't." He sighed in frustration. "We could play Strip Mariokart!" he said in a stage whisper. My stomach did a little flip. "Oh, yeah, of course." Theo grinned, and ran through to the living room, where he proceeded to flip the blinds, turn on the TV and the SNES, and generally be self-sufficient. I followed in, walking on air. I had assumed he had forgotten all about the extra spice to the game. I sat down on `my' side of the sofa, and watched him working busily away. Grinning, he handed me a controller, and then over the next few minutes proceeded to relieve me of both my t-shirt and my shorts, leaving me in nothing more than a pair of boxers; I should've put some socks on that morning! Theo smirked at me, enjoying the fact that I was having to get naked while he still had everything on. But a little over-confidence from Theo saw him lose first his socks, and then his t-shirt. He giggled nervously as the next game started. "Decider," he said, eyes wide. When I frowned, he giggled again, then managed to find enough breath to say, "I'm not wearing any pants!" So, it really was winner takes all. Or, perhaps, loser bears all. I thought perhaps I had a chance of winning. Within the first thirty seconds of the battle I had burst two of his three balloons; surely victory was mine! But no. From somewhere Theo found another level, and became a balloon-bursting machine. First a red shell, and then a green bounced off a wall and around a corner, a piece of marksmanship a sniper would have been proud of. I was left reeling, and it showed - it wasn't very long before I had succumbed to Theo's all-out assault, and lost my last balloon. With a yelp and a punch in the air from my opponent, I was defeated. Theo looked across at me, his laughter at my expense all but out of control. He was doubled over and finding it hard to breathe. The battle had taken all of my concentration, and so although I'd certainly been excited earlier, I was luckily flaccid as I stood to pull down my pants. Theo's giggles subsided, until he was simply staring at my dick. I wanted him to look. It was thrilling for him to see it, just as it had been at the swimming pool. Emboldened by everything I had learned about Theo over the past few weeks, and with the last tatters of my resolve blowing in the breeze, I simply stood in front of Theo with my hands on my hips, wiggling them back and forth while my manhood swelled and raised up, until it was dancing stiffly to and fro. Theo laughed at my exhibition, but his amusement slowly subsided, until he was staring at me, his face unreadable. He shuddered, swallowed, and muttered, "Let's keep going." Theo threw the next round, that much was obvious. He was desperate to get through it as quickly as possible, and to ensure that he lost. I thought I understood why, too - he had decided he wanted to play naughty games, but he didn't really know how to get started. Nor, perhaps, was he quite willing to admit even to himself exactly what he wanted. But if the game told him he had to get naked, then he was powerless to do anything about it. It was the game's fault, not his. It was logic which could only make sense to a very horny eleven year old boy. The second his last balloon popped, he was on his feet, but all of a sudden was curiously reticent. "You don't have to do it," I said, giving him a way out. "You already won." He frowned slightly at me, and then with his mind apparently made up, hooked his thumbs into the waistband of his shorts and pushed them down to the floor. When he stood back up, I saw something I'd never seen before: Theo's erection. I couldn't help staring. He stood with his hands by his sides, as if awaiting judgement. His little willy hadn't grown into a monster five inch cock like some deranged Nifty fantasy. It was still small, but it was absolutely beautiful, and so upright with stiffness that it almost touched his lower belly. Two inches long, perhaps, with a pucker of pink-tinged foreskin which extended it perhaps a quarter of an inch further, even when he was as fully, totally hard as he was now. His balls were drawn up tight beneath, the wrinkled pouch containing them now barely more than a gently sloping mound. He let me stare for a good long moment. The sounds of the game must have been playing in the background, but I couldn't hear it over the thunder of my pulse in my ears. My god, this was it. The first moment in my adult life when I was in the presence of a naked, aroused boy, a boy who had shed his clothes and deliberately shown me his stiffness. He wanted me to see him this way, and he was stimulated by that salacious desire. He stepped closer, his eyes flicking back and forth between my face and my crotch, where my stiffness was already slick with anticipation. A droplet of crystal clear excitement had rolled out of the opening of my foreskin and dripped down the length of my shaft, darkening the skin in its wake. He had come close enough now that should I have wanted, I could have reached out to touch him, yet still I held back, entranced by the sight of him, frozen to the spot. Still closer he came, until he was standing between my parted knees. His leg brushed mine, and I shivered. I could see the pulse in his neck, pounding strongly. His pupils were dilated, his nostrils flared as his body desperately sought more oxygen to fund his arousal. "Please," he whispered, looking into my eyes. "You want me to touch you?" I asked, desperately hoping that he would agree. He nodded. Permission sought, permission granted. The very last line to cross, a decision I could never reverse. Once my hand touched him, that would be it. No more denying what I felt for him, no more pretending I didn't want to bed him. This would cease to be forgivable hi-jinks, and become something much darker, much more real. The fantasy would be stripped away and replaced with... what? Sex? Lovemaking, I'd prefer to say. Hopefully never `regret'. Not that. I reached out. His body tensed even before contact was made, and then his breath exploded from his lungs when at last skin touched skin. He trembled as my fingers gently stroked his boyhood up and down. It was granite sheathed in silk, and I had never handled something more utterly precious than this. "Sit down," I whispered, and he did so, lying back on the sofa, exposing himself to me. His arms went over his head - trust, submission, desire. I took the little morsel back between finger and thumb, and gently wanked him as I took the chance to drink in his perfect form. Theo's eyes had fluttered shut, his mouth had dropped slightly open. A frown furrowed his brow as he bore the intense pleasure of another human being touching his most private place. I had seen him naked before, of course, but not like this. Not with his face and chest blushing pink with growing desire. Not with his abs squeezing into tight knots every time a bolt of pleasure shot out of his smooth groin and through the rest of his body. I was gentle with him. Slow, almost. I wanted to take him to the peak on pink, fluffy clouds of pleasure, not rush him to his climax. He writhed beneath me, telling me to stop with a hand gripping my wrist, breathing heavily for a moment before whispering, "OK, go on." The next time the tide threatened to overwhelm him, he let it. His tummy tensed until it looked painful, his eyes screwed themselves tightly shut, and Theo's legs alternately drew up, then shot out straight, three or four times. And he came. A huge, heaving almost-completely-dry cum of the kind particular to young boys. An orgasm which involved every part of his body, which took over control as the spasms wracked his immature form. And then, at the very end of it, with the last pulse of his over-stimulated willy, a single droplet of his glassy, seed-free cum landed on his belly. I swiped it up and brought it to my tongue. It had no real flavour, just a gentle buttery saltiness, yet I could have dined on it for a lifetime. -- I snuggled down next to Theo, warm skin on warm skin, and he rolled into me, his legs pressing into the hardness at my crotch, one arm draping itself over my chest. He roughly rubbed his nose on my shoulder, then lifted his head and lay atop it. I reached my arm around behind him, and used the gentle swell of his bottom to hold him close to me. After a while, I sensed his face turning up towards mine, and I looked down at him. He was filled with desire, romantic and sexual. I leaned down and our lips touched, gently at first, and then ever more eagerly. I tasted him for the first time, and realised I had, unwittingly, been incomplete until this moment. I had been walking the Earth for twenty-three-and-a-bit years and never realised I was missing something. This was it. Theo was it. The missing piece of the puzzle. We kissed a little longer, and I felt his legs rubbing against my stiffness. It was soaked with excitement, slippery with arousal. Theo felt it too, as the wetness spread across his skin. He raised his head and looked down, moving his legs out of the way. He lifted himself onto one elbow, and then trailed elfin fingertips down my tummy through the meagre patch of hair there, to wrap around the centre of my being. A jolt shot through me as his hand touched me at long last. Theo smiled, and slid his hand up to the head, watching as another glistening droplet of arousal slipped out. "You make lots," he commented softly, as his fingers became slippery with it. "Want me to do you?" he asked, with no more hesitation than asking if I wanted a drink from the fridge. I couldn't answer, but I didn't have to. Theo sat up at my hip, and stared down at what he was doing, his face a picture of concentration. There was no rhythm, no back-and-forth of his hand on my shaft, just a gentle exploration and a total fascination with that part of me, allied to the unusual sensation of the smallness of his hand compared to the size of my manhood. My eruption came forth like lava from a volcano, coating my chest liberally, repeatedly. Theo expression was part shock, part joy. "I heard about that," he breathed, "but I never thought it would be like that!" Nor, indeed, did I. No ejaculation of mine had ever come close to half the volume of this one, nor indeed had any orgasm been nearly so intense. I lay gasping for air, my head spinning, my member so sensitive that I could no longer bear to have Theo touching it, and had to ask him - regretfully - to let it go. When finally the lights had stopped dancing in front of my eyes, I looked up at the boy I was in love with. He looked back, eyes glittering. We had done it, we had crossed the line and it was all going to be absolutely fine. -- We showered together, to get the sticky mess off me, and the sweat off him. It was glorious, sensuous, and we both got hard as nails, but other than picking Theo up and holding him by the bum as he wrapped his arms around my neck and kissed me, there was no more fooling around. It was as if we both knew that to do it again so soon would sully the memory of that first time. Clothed again, we turned the blinds to let back in the light, and the spell was broken. -- That afternoon, leaving for home as late as he possibly could before his mother returned from work, Theo stood on the second step in my hallway, and leaned into me as our lips met again. "I love you," he whispered, as he pulled back. I stared into his bright blue eyes, and brushed a stray lock of hair behind one ear. "Theo Palmer," I said, solemnly, "I love you more than any single other human in the entire world." He smiled, and my world was complete. "I have to go," he said, smiling. "I told mum I wouldn't stay here too late." I smiled back, and then it hit me. "You told her you were HERE?" The end. And also, the beginning...