Date: Wed, 14 Mar 2018 10:47:42 +0000 (UTC) From: Peter Brown Subject: Queen Mary Bell Boys Queen Mary Bell-boys by badboi666 =============================================================================== Donate to Nifty - these buggers may do it for love but they still have to eat. http://donate.nifty.org/donate.html =============================================================================== It's worth pausing in Southampton, and stepping back briefly from the action to explain one or two things. There are four levels of "I" in this story. One of them - let's call him I(1) - is the person who is actually using his iPad keyboard to write the words you've been reading. You don't know his name, or indeed anything about him, and that's the way it's going to stay. Then there's I(2). He's called Peter Brown, and he's the person who appears to be the author of this story. He's written other stories on Nifty, also about the sexual adventures of a 14-year-old, so it's reasonable for you to conclude that I(1) has an interest in boys of that age too. Peter Brown sometimes calls himself badboi666, part of the email address he shares with I(1) - it's at the end of each chapter. I(3) is an old man of 96 called Patrick Mulloy who is remembering, with uncanny clarity, things which happened to him in 1936. I(4) is that old man's persona when he was 14. Most of the story is told by I(4), although occasionally a wistful I(3) appears to note how things were different 82 years earlier. I(3) and I(4) are complete inventions, although (as was the case in I(2)'s other stories) Patrick has become very real to I(1) as the adventures unfold. There's a big element of wishful thinking here. As seems so often to be the case, a character introduced early on merely for a passing incident quickly entered I(1)'s heart, as well as Patrick's. The ending then wrote itself, at least in terms of the final incident framing the story - Patrick's scattering of Charlie's ashes. I(1) was never on Queen Mary, although he did make a crossing on Queen Mary 2 in autumn 2017 as described in Chapter 1, and the photographs of the bell boys are exactly as he described them. Much liberty has been taken with the layout of the ship, which is entirely fictional. Indeed, I don't even know whether in real life the elevators were provided with boys for the convenience of all, and the delectation of a few, passengers. The maiden voyage did indeed take place in May 1936, but the crossing was actually accomplished in less than five days. In order to get in all the sexual goings-on I(2) has expanded the time. In fact the Captain did not cross as quickly as he might have done in order not to stress newly-built engines until he and the Chief Engineer were happy that all was bedded down. Normandie held the Blue Riband in May 1936, but Queen Mary soon won it with a crossing of just over 97 hours and held it for most of the next couple of decades. Our voyages, however, will continue to be rather more leisurely - and incident-packed - that was the case in real life. Some events which befell Queen Mary in real life will occur in the story as time goes on. Aficionados of Cunard ships must forgive my tampering with the truth; aficionados of sex with 14-year-olds should have no difficulty with making the transition from truth to fable. =============================================================================== We will return to the story in a few days in Chapter 33 as we set out on our second trip to New York. Drop me a line at badboi666@btinternet.com - that is after you've dropped nifty a few quid. ===============================================================================