Date: Sun, 19 Sep 2004 15:07:40 +0100 From: Nick Turner Subject: Tim Comes Home This story should not be read by those who ought not to read material of homosexual interest for whatever reason. It is about recovery from abuse, among other things, and readers are alerted to this before they begin. The author would be interested to hear any constructive comments or enquiries from readers, and will do his best to reply, assuming, of course, that the comments are polite... :-). Tim Comes Home by Nick Turner nickturner@breath.org.uk This story takes place in Southern England, in the Counties of East and West Sussex which lie directly South of London, along the coast. The lively City of Brighton and Hove lies on the seafront, and all the action takes place within a few miles of it. CHAPTER 1 It was a very cold night, late in November, with the wind blowing strongly, and there promised to be a heavy chill. The rain came down hard, sometimes turning to sleet, and the man was sorely tempted to miss his usual five-mile run when he came off duty at the police station. But he had promised himself to be regular about this, and so as soon has he got home, he stripped completely and pulled on his favourite blue adidas soccer shorts, sporty t-shirt and trainers. Track suit? Nah! The cold would encourage him to run harder. He looked in the mirror as he did his stretches, to ensure correct form. `Not bad', he thought complacently, as he took in his handsome face surmounted by short mid-brown hair, and his broad shoulders, tapering over a powerful smooth chest and abdomen to a narrow waist. He went out, locking the door and attaching the key to his wrist on an elastic band. He set off at a steady lope; instantly he regretted having started, as the cold rain soaked his few clothes in an moment. But he was wet now, so he might as well continue. His sodden t-shirt clung against his chest, and the wind chilled him to the marrow. He picked up his pace, running hard into the night. He decided not to follow his usual route, but to follow a shorter way along the Brighton and Hove by-pass where it ran through a cutting, and there might be a bit more shelter from the sharp wind. About a mile along the busy road, he saw a lone figure in tracksuit trousers staggering along into the wind. Another mad runner, he thought, smiling wryly to himself, but as he drew nearer he began to see that the other runner looked completely exhausted. He could see the three white adidas stripes along the legs moving irregularly in the car headlights. In another minute he saw that the figure was a boy, and that he had no shirt. Then he saw that he had no shoes either, and was staggering along irregularly; the boy's eyes were closed; he suddenly feared that any moment the lad was going to lurch into the traffic. So the man sprinted, and caught hold of the boy just as he fell. `What the hell are you doing, lad?' But there was no reply. In a moment, he realised that the boy was freezing cold, dangerously so, and nearly unconscious. Almost without thinking, he stripped off his own t-shirt, sodden as it was, and put it on the boy, rubbing him fiercely until he got some response. The boy awoke and looked blearily into the man's face. `Can you hold on, Soldier?' The boy nodded, and the man turned round and crouched down. He grabbed the boy's legs and lifted him onto his back. The boy wrapped his frozen arms around the man's neck, and the man started to run towards his home. He realised that this was a life and death situation. If he waited until he ran to call an ambulance, the boy might die. Carrying the lad straight to his own home was the only option. He had never run better or faster, despite the weight on his back, though the boy was thin and not very heavy; his legs pumped and his chest heaved. The lad drew some warmth from his pulsing body and the shaking up and down, and began to revive a little, retaining enough strength to hang on to the man's neck. In a few minutes, the man had reached his home and put the boy down, leaning him against the wall. He opened the front door. `Can you walk, Soldier, or shall I carry you?' The boy just shook his head blearily and took some steps into the warmth. As soon as he crossed the threshold, however, he fell to the floor, overcome by the sudden heat. The man kicked off his wet trainers, pushed the door shut and picked the boy up in his arms, carrying him upstairs into his tiny flat. He laid him out on the floor and tore off his own t-shirt from the lad. He did not even notice the bloodstains on it. Next he pulled off the blue track suit trousers; he was startled to see that the lad wore nothing underneath. Strange to be out on the bypass with literally nothing but trackie bottoms on. He ran to the little bathroom and brought towels. He chafed the lad's limbs and chest, rubbing and rubbing hard to restore the circulation. The boy groaned softly. That was a good sign. He turned his body over onto his front so that he could rub his back. An oath escaped him; `Fuck!' The boy's back was a mass of bruises and gashes extending down over his buttocks and to his knees. There was matted and dried blood and excrement down the inside of his thighs. He couldn't rub this; it would reopen the wounds. And the lad had clearly been sexually attacked. `You poor little bugger! No wonder you were running!' He lifted the boy into his arms tenderly, and took him to the bathroom. He ran a tepid bath, poured some antiseptic into the water, and laid him in it. The lad hissed with pain as the antiseptic found his wounds. He was slowly beginning to revive. The man gently washed the boy and cleaned his gashes. He lifted him up and examined the damage to his anus; there was less than he feared, but still the boy was going to have to go to the hospital in the morning to be checked properly. He drained the now bloody water, and refilled the bath with warmer water, letting the lad soak a while to warm up. He repeated the process a couple more times, each time with slightly warmer water until the boy was fully conscious and warm to the touch. The young recover quickly. The man relaxed. He eased himself up from his long crouch; it had been a busy hour. His shorts, still the man's only garment, had dried off with his mud-spattered body in the meanwhile, and he pulled them off to step into the shower next to the bath while the lad soaked in the tub. Five minutes later, he felt much better. He dried off and pulled a dry pair of shorts on, exactly like the other pair, while the boy watched him with puppylike adoration in his eyes. The man felt vaguely flattered. `You feeling better, lad?' The boy nodded. `Good. Stay there, and I'll fill the bath one last time'. He did it, and this time the water was quite hot. The boy had never had a bath before, at least since he was a baby, only showers. The feeling was good. This time the man poured in some bubbly stuff under the running taps, which felt wonderful. He then gently sponged down the boy who shut his eyes in bliss, having never experienced anything that felt so fantastic. After he had done his legs and chest, the man stopped sponging, and the boy opened his eyes to see the beautiful barechested man squatting at his side, grinning, foamy sponge in hand, looking at his groin. The boy looked down, only to see that he had sprung an enormous erection. He looked at the man, mortified. But the man just continued to grin at him; `It's okay, Soldier; happens to us all. You can clean that bit yourself!' And threw the sponge at him. The boy relaxed in the steam as the man left the bathroom. A few minutes later the man returned with a couple of mugs. `Something warm. Only home-made chicken soup, I'm afraid. Will it do you for now?' The boy nodded vigorously, afraid to speak. His eyes were glowing. The soup tasted more delicious than anything he had ever tasted before. He hadn't realised that he was hungry; he had had nothing to eat all day. When the soup was finished, he put the mug carefully on the side of the bath. The man was watching him all the time as he drank his own soup, crouched at his side, his knees apart and his spare hand gripping his thigh. The boy finally said one word, and put his whole heart into it. `Thanks'. And the man smiled. `He speaks!' The boy's eyelids began to close, so the man moved quickly and pulled the plug, then lifted the boy up and out of the bath. The boy felt the man's bare chest against his own, and he opened his eyes in surprise. He stood on the mat while the man towelled him down. He protested feebly `I can do that' but the man said `Soldier, you can barely stand. Let me do it for now, and we'll see tomorrow.' When the boy was dry, the man picked him up again and carried him into his room. He looked at the sofa, then changed his mind, putting the boy in his own bed. The lad was asleep in seconds. The man gathered up the boy's track suit trousers and tutted over the blood stains. He put them into the washing machine to soak and wash overnight. He then went and poured himself a glass of whisky, sat in his armchair, and looked at the boy as he slept. There was something about this lad that went to his heart; an innocence and a vulnerability that survived all that had obviously happened. `Who are you, lad?' he asked himself quietly, `and who did this to you?' A while later, the boy began to squirm in his sleep and to cry out. The man jumped up and put his arm over him, and the boy stilled. The man took his arm away, and in a few minutes the boy began his distress again. `Oh fuck it!' said the man to himself. `I can't have this going on all night; I'll have to get in with him.' He put his thumbs into the waistband of his shorts and pushed them down, throwing them over the chair. `Oops', he thought, `that's one'd interest the Child Protection Agency', and stepped into them again. He knelt and said his prayers quickly, then got into bed behind the lad and put his arm around him. The sleepy boy woke, nestled his wounded back against the man's chest and sighed contentedly. The man patted his shoulder. The boy, happier than he had ever been, determined to stay awake as long as possible to treasure this moment, and so he tried to think of questions to ask the man. He wanted to know all about him; was there anybody else in his life? He had never felt so good, so secure, and he wanted to stay here forever. `Do you have a girlfriend, or are you married?' The man stirred uncomfortably. `I used to be. My wife left me for another bloke a year ago. She took my daughter with her and most of what I had. That's why I have to live in one room now.' The boy didn't understand all this, but understood that the man was sad and lonely. He turned in the bed and hugged the man back. `That's so sad. Perhaps you'll find someone to marry again'. Find me a mother too, was the unspoken thought. The man answered softly `Not likely, Soldier. I'm a Catholic, and we marry for life.' `What's a caflic?' `A sort of religion lad. Now go to sleep.' The boy fought his tiredness as hard as he could, but his exhaustion finally won through, and he slept like a log. In the morning, the man woke early, as was his way, and somehow forgetting his bedmate, jumped violently out of bed. The boy was shaken awake, and saw his hero and saviour outlined against the window, his morning erection pushing out the front of his shorts, and his muscular chest and narrow waist silhouetted against the dawn sky. `That is the sort of man I want to be', the boy thought. `I wish he were my father', and a few silent tears made their way down his cheeks. The man had moved off to shower himself, and the boy stirred out of bed. He had never felt so clean in his life, nor so rested, though his back and bottom still hurt a lot. It was worth it, though, just to have had this night, he thought. He would have something to think about when they took him back to Dad. And something to tell his little brother. But just the thought of going back terrified him; he had crossed too many taboo boundaries in his escape, and his father would likely beat him worse than ever before. And that was seriously frightening. A thought struck him. After all, who but he knew even who he was? If they didn't know who he was, how could they make him go back? A plan began to form in his mind. He looked around the room for his tracksuit trousers, but couldn't find them. Oh well; the man had seen absolutely everything last night, even an erection, so it wouldn't matter being naked for a minute. The man chose that moment to come out of the shower, and came into the room completely naked himself, towelling himself vigorously. The boy looked in admiration at the man's beautiful muscular body. `How do you get to look like that?' he asked. `And good morning to you too' the man replied, then grinned to take the sting out of his words. `Hard work with weights, press-ups, sit-ups and pull-ups every day. You too can have a body like mine!' The boy didn't understand the joke. `I can?'. `Yes, Soldier, but first you have to have a shower'. `Again? But I had a bath last night. Several baths, in fact!' `That was last night. This is this morning. March, Soldier, and I'll get us some breakfast.' When the boy came out of the shower and dried off, the man shouted to him to wrap a towel round his waist and come to eat. The man was back in his shorts again, though he wore no shirt still. It seemed that he liked dressing that way when he was at home. They ate breakfast together, and if the boy thought it odd to be eating breakfast nearly naked with a nearly-naked stranger, he was enjoying the experience too much to comment. It felt so grown-up and, well, male. But `the talk' had eventually to come. After breakfast, the man sat the boy down in the big armchair. He hunkered down in front of the boy, but close, so their knees touched. The boy watched the tanned, powerful lean muscles on the man's bare thighs so near his own, and swallowed as the man rested his hands on them and rubbed them up and down their length. He watched the powerful pectoral muscles rise up and down as the man breathed gently, and the folding up and down of the strangely erotic ridges and bumps of his abdomen. It set up a strange longing in the boy, which he knew to be something like love, like desire; he longed to be with this man forever, or perhaps to be just like him in every way; that strange but intoxicating combination of strength, latent raw power, and yet extraordinary gentleness; the fascinating contrast of the man's sleek muscles and strong handsome face with the gentle melting brown eyes that gazed steadily on the boy. `Sorry?' said the boy, aware that the man had been speaking for some time. The man patiently repeated a few questions about where the boy came from, who his family was, and above all what his name was. He was sharply surprised when the boy's face drained of all its colour, and his bright blue eyes stared back at the man in a mixture of fear, puzzlement and determination. And he barely uttered a word of reply, but sharply evaded any attempt to get him to reveal what his name was or where he came from. The man pressed a little harder, but the boy grew more and more distressed, until the man gave up. His heart wasn't into pressing any further; it could be somebody else's job. He could see the lad was determined not to give anything away, and as for himself, he wasn't into the third degree, particularly just after breakfast. Nonetheless, there was something very appealing about this boy, and he found himself already becoming very attached to him. He certainly didn't want to hand him over to somebody else, particularly to an comfortless official body, but that was what was going to have to be done, and a report was going to have to be filed by somebody. `Well ok, lad. I may be a policeman, but this morning I'm an off-duty policeman'. The man leant forward and placed his hands high on the boy's thighs. The boy's whole body thrilled with the intimate touch. But you'll have to tell someone, Soldier, because your parents will be worried about you. They'll want to know where you are, and what has happened to you. They need to know that you have been attacked, for instance, so that we can catch whoever did it.' The boy, who had been looking at the man's hands on his thighs as if they were the hands of a god, suddenly looked up into the man's eyes, both tearful and terrified. `Oh shit... you mean that your parents...oh fuck...oh Soldier, I'm so sorry.' The man leant forward and hugged the boy tightly. The boy winced as his back hurt, but did not make a sound, as he was busy recording every sensation of the moment; the feel of the man's pectoral muscles against his own, his breath on his neck, the tight, safe, sensation of those strong arms around him, to treasure in his memory forever. The man sat back on his heels again, then unfolded his legs with lithe grace and stood smoothly upright. He looked down at the boy, who for the first time was smiling. And the smile was one of the most beautiful smiles that the man had ever seen. The boy's eyes were intense blue and looked directly into the man's soft brown eyes, full of trust and love, and the man found himself smiling back at his foundling and wishing that this lad could stay with him. `Oh, Soldier,' he said, `if only all the troubles of the world, or even all your troubles, could be solved with a simple hug, how much happier the world would be'. `Can I stay here with you? Live here, I mean?' Had the kid read the man's mind? `I'm sorry, Soldier. I don't know who you are, where you come from, only to start with. For all I know, I could get into real trouble. I live in one room which is hardly big enough for me; I only have one bed'. `We managed all right last night. It was really cool. And I sleep with my brother all the time'. `Well, I don't, and last night was a special occasion. You're only a youngster,--how old are you, by the way?' `Fourteen'. `Bollocks! How old are you, Soldier?' In a small voice. `Eleven and three quarters'. `Right. There has to be someone taking care of you all the time; I'm a copper, and I'm often out all night and half the day; I can be called at any moment. Son, believe me when I say that I wish I could take you. I've already grown fond of you, but in this world some things just can't be.' The boy was nearly breathless. `He called me Son!' he thought. `It's only four and a bit years until I'm sixteen. I'll wait. I'll come back. Then we can share a house or something. Then he can be my dad.' He smiled radiantly again. The man seemed relieved, if surprised, that the boy had taken it so well, so he told the lad that he would need to visit the hospital now, to get checked up, and they would alert the social services to take care of him. The boy thankfully seemed willing enough, so the man turned to get ready. The man stepped out of his blue soccer shorts and walked to his wardrobe to get some more suitable clothes. His casual nudity in front of the boy deeply impressed the lad, made him feel accepted and part of the manly tribe. The man pulled out a pair of khaki chinos and stepped into them. No underwear. The boy stored that away. Heroes don't wear underwear. It was followed by a green polo shirt and a pair of deck shoes, and the man was ready to go. `Let's go, lad' `Like this?' said the boy. He was still wearing only a towel. The man hit his head with the heel of his hand--this boy was getting to him somehow--and threw the boy his track suit trousers, as clean as he could get them, and now dry. `Catch! Sorry if you want underwear, I don't have any. Can't abide it. You'll need a shirt, though. Hang on a tic...' The man rummaged in a drawer and came up with a faded blue and white striped football jersey. `This should fit you, Soldier; it's my old school one, though I'm sorry to see it go; I scored a lot of goals wearing it. I hope it brings you luck, too. It's even got my name still inside, look! But I suppose I'll never wear it again and your need is greater than mine. Besides, it won't look odd with tracksuit trousers. The boy pulled on the shirt; it was rather big, but he was thrilled to the core to have his hero's shirt around his chest. `I don't think I've got any shoes to fit you, though.' `I've never worn shoes'. `Never? Well ok then, we're ready to roll, Soldier.' At the hospital, the lad was admitted to the long queue in Casualty. The man waited with him for his turn, and when the boy was taken to be examined, he held so tightly to the man's hand that the man had to come too. The man gave the doctor a rundown of the events of the previous night, and said what he had done. The boy was made to strip, and was examined. The doctor praised the man's quick thinking, and agreed that he had followed the best course in the circumstances, given that all the bleeding had stopped, and the essential need to warm the boy as quickly as possible. `But the condition of his er...back passage was surprisingly uninjured. I'm afraid that that is not as good news as it sounds, however, because it almost certainly means that he has been regularly sexually abused over a long period of time. This is a matter for the proper authorities.' The social services were contacted; the only thing was to wait for them to arrive. At lunchtime they had still not come, and the man had to go on duty at the police station. The boy got very tearful and frightened and the man felt himself getting tearful too. But it had to happen. The boy clung to the man's neck and hugged him fiercely. `Thank you, thank you, thank you! I will never, ever, forget you'. `Somehow, Soldier, I don't think I will ever forget you, either'. And the man kissed the boy on the forehead, turned and walked out to find his car; a difficult job, since he was having difficulty seeing anything much through his tears. Social Services were represented by a business-like woman in a trouser suit. The boy, still wearing a surgical gown, was very much in awe of her. She told him that he would not be returned to his parents if he had been abused by them, which news came as a great relief to the boy. She asked for confirmation that it actually was his parents who had abused him. The boy thought about it for a moment, trying to see what implications the question might have for him, and nodded. All right, we will need to take you into care at Turling Park until we sort this out. It's a sort of boarding school for children with special needs like yours. Unless you're a Catholic, in which case we'll take you to St Tarcisius' Home for Boys. Are you a Catholic? The boy shrugged. That word again. He had absolutely no idea what a Catholic was, so he had no idea if he was one. Now, the nurse tells me that you refuse to give your name. Why is that? The boy knew this game now. He stayed silent. The game went on for about twenty minutes until the woman lost her patience and snapped at the boy; `Oh for pity's sake just give us a name! Any name! Make one up, then at least we can get you off our hands!'. The nurse who had just come in with the boy's tracksuit trousers and the man's football shirt was very tight lipped with the social worker's explosion and said `There'll be no need for that! The boy's name is right here on his shirt. `Timothy Sullivan'. `Sullivan? That's about as Irish as they come. If you weren't Catholic before, you are now, Timothy. Put your clothes on quickly--oh, for pity's sake, have you no underwear? We're off to St Tarcisius. I've another case to pick up after you from the hospital here. CHAPTER 2 Tim was the first. It had never occurred to me to get into fostering, myself: I'd never even heard of a priest doing it before, but somehow I found myself manoevered into it by a charming boy and my best friend. I'd preached the annual retreat for the lads at St Tarcisius' Home for Boys, and when it was all over I was relaxing with the Principal, a colleague of mine from the seminary who had remained a close friend. Father Paul Topham was still a lovely guy, but very much a teacher and headmaster now. As such, he never had much trouble shooting from the hip when he felt the situation demanded it, and this was no exception. As we lingered over our whisky and diocesan gossip, he said suddenly, `Johnny, have you ever thought of fostering?' It was like a bolt from the blue. `What about it?' I asked suspiciously. `You want me to come and work here some more? I don't mind; you know I love the boys.' `No, you old sod, I mean take a boy home. We're getting over-full here, and could really use a bit of space.' `Less of the old sod; I'm only thirty. Same age as you! Anyway, what do I know about kids?' `You're really good with them. They warm to you because you're friendly, but you stay yourself with them. You don't try and pretend you're a teenager, like some priests do, which the lads see through straightaway and really hate. And they don't just like you, they also respect you.' I mulled this over for a minute. `Well, thanks, I think. It's true, I'm very fond of kids, but it's a big step from liking them to having them in my home 24/7. Don't you think there might be a reason why priests don't foster?' `Johnny; you have one of the smallest parishes in the diocese; it really can't take all your time. You can't be that busy'. `I write'. That's true; I write theological textbooks that people who like that sort of thing are kind enough to find useful. Don't go looking for them yourself, though, unless you find it difficult to sleep. `Exactly; you're at home almost all the time. It couldn't be more ideal.' I thought of the clinching argument: `The Bishop would never agree'. `He already has. He thinks it's a brilliant idea'. `WHAT? You've already spoken to the Bishop, you bastard? Well, thanks a bunch!' I was cross, most of all at having my most clinching argument blown away. Well, the most clinching argument that I was prepared to let on about then, anyway. I was saving the big guns for later. Paul was smug. `Well, whatever it takes. My boys come first, in my mind, and if I get a whiff of a good home for them, I want to see them happy. We do our best here at St Tarcisius for them, but really we are a sort of all-the-year-round boarding school, and we can never give them the individual love, care and attention they desperately need. Their lives are a desperate scramble for love, and when they don't get it, they try to grab our attention in other ways, and that means that, despite all we do, many end up in juvenile courts by the time they are sixteen. What do you expect me to do? I'm asking you to take one--well, perhaps another one later--because I am finding it difficult to find enough love for sixty-three.' I was silent. What could I say to that? I knew exactly what he meant; whenever I came to St Tar's, the smaller boys would clamber all over me like monkeys looking for attention, and the older boys would hang back, too cool to say anything, but looking with longing eyes at the smaller boys' frank admission of their need. I was very fond of the boys already, and felt deeply for them in their unsatisfactory upbringing. The only thing that could be said for it was that the Catholic home was better than Turling Park, the state alternative. I was weakening, but I thought that I had better stop this before I became so interested that I would be going home with a lad in the back of my car. I was going to have to tell the truth. Time for the big guns! `Look, Paul, there's something you need to know, and I think it's going to change your mind about my suitability. I'm going to have to ask for a lot of understanding here, and ask you to respect the confidentiality of what I am about to say. Since there's no easy way to say this, I'm just going to have to come out with it, Paul, and you're going to have to deal with it in your own way. Erm,...I'm afraid that I'm gay.' There was an uncomfortable silence; Paul's face was unreadable. I thought it necessary to add `I have always kept my vow of celibacy, though, if that's any comfort.' `Did you think I didn't know you were gay?' Paul said in an amused voice, smiling now. `Wha......?' `Close your mouth, or the flies will get in! Oh Johnny, I've known you continually since you were twenty-one, including living with you at the Seminary. I watched you perving at me when I was playing football or coming back from the showers... oh, don't worry; I was flattered, and you know enough about me to know that I'm not one for holding back if I'm upset about something. And besides, you're my best friend. I reckoned that if you were going to make a move on anyone you'd have made it on me, and you've never tried anything except steal a glance now and then.' `Paul...I don't know what to say! I'm so embarrassed! But it's true, you were then, and still are, a really beautiful guy, body and soul. I love you properly, as well as fancy you improperly.' Actually, I more than fancied him improperly; I was deeply in love with him, and had been for years. I smiled nervously at the very good-looking man who had occupied my fantasies for the last nine years and who was also my dearest friend. Paul kept himself at the peak of fitness, and had been sent to run St Tar's because three women in his last appointment, a parish, had fallen for him and fought amongst themselves for his favour. The repercussions were horrible, but I don't want to go into that here. `You're not so bad-looking yourself, you know, Johnny. And you don't act gay; I don't imagine anyone even suspects, unless they know you as well as I do.' he said back. Which was also true, I suppose, if truth be told. I have many women friends and have even been accused of having affairs with some. Which, as Simon, an openly gay friend, commented, did my reputation no harm whatever. `Anyway,' he continued, `the issue here is that I know how you perv, and you've never perved on the boys'. `No', I said. `Kids, thank God, do nothing for me in that area, apart from general admiration of their cuteness and so on. But that's not what people think. People think that all priests are child molestors these days; there's me with one or two cute boys living with me; what could I say if people start spreading malicious gossip? And don't say that isn't a possibility, because in fact it's only too likely.' `Yes, I can't deny that that is an issue, and we'd be fools to ignore it', said Paul. `So I think you need to get yourself a housekeeper. A female woman of the feminine gender. Not live-in, necessarily, just somebody to be a presence every day, who can spread positive gossip about what goes on in the house. And it'll be good for the boys as well, they need some feminine influence in their lives; this is far too masculine an atmosphere here at St Tar's'. `A breeder?' I said in my best queeny voice, `You want me to bring a breeder into my home, leaving fishy trails all over the furniture?' The crude joke made us both giggle and broke the rather tense atmosphere. It was followed by a few more cracks, and when we had subsided, I discovered that I was already making plans in my mind, taking it for granted that I would now have a family. Suddenly it hit me, and there were tears in my eyes; not having a family was the thing I most resented about being gay (though I suppose priesthood was hardly a way down that trail, either) and suddenly it looked like it was going to be possible. I knew now I really wanted to do this, that it was a fulfillment of a dream for which I had never dared hope. `No girls', I said. `I've got nothing against girls; I like girls, but I wouldn't know what to do with one. I have no sisters, or even female cousins. I went to an all-boys school. What do I know about times of the month and frilly knickers? And I've only got one bathroom!' `No, don't worry' said Paul. `We only have boys here; Tim is very definitely a boy, and he's longing to meet you'. `Wha...? You've spoken to a lad already? You're bloody sure of yourself!'. I was suddenly furious, aware that I'd been manipulated all through this conversation. `You already have every detail sorted out before I've even agreed? What about the boy? Don't we even get a chance to work out if we're going to like each other? What's the poor lad done to get dumped on a total stranger for the rest of his childhood?' `Trust me; I'm very good at my job, and I haven't gone wrong yet. Real parents don't get to choose their children, and in my experience it's better that way. This is not a consumer choice, Johnny, but a Christlike act. And anyway, you're not a total stranger, he knows you quite well; you've been coming often to St Tar's for a few years now.' `Yes, but do I know him?' `I suppose not; Tim's a quiet lad, thirteen and a half years old, and tends to hang at the back of groups. When he came here he was completely illiterate, but he's made excellent progress and if anything, he's quite bookish now. His home seems to have been sexually abusive and violent--his back is scarred--though he refuses to talk about it at all. Never a word. He's very gentle, and doesn't like the normal boyish rough and tumble, which might be due to his past, or our team sports, though he has recently been using the weights in the gym quite a lot. He's only got a couple of friends, but he's frantically loyal to them and they to him. And to be perfectly honest with you, I think he's probably beginning to suspect that he may be gay.' `Poor little bugger. Sorry, no pun intended.' `He's really a lovely lad, and I very much doubt he will give you any trouble; food, drink, clothes and love will be all he'll need. He'll be watching television with the others now; shall we go and meet him?' `For God's sake, no, Paul! I'm stinking of whisky, and this has all been too much to take in at once. Paul, this last couple of hours has turned my life upside-down and I've got a great deal of thinking to do.' `Sure, Johnny. I'm sorry; I'm just so keen to get you together. I know you'll love each other'. Paul pulled himself up from the sofa in one strong and beautiful movement. He went over to his desk, where he rummaged for a few moments and brought back to me a photograph. `This is Tim; it was taken last week at the local swimming pool.' For the first time I looked at the face that was going to become so important to me; the person I was going to love before anyone other than God. He had middle-blond hair, cut short, but not too short, and piercing blue, blue, eyes; a chiselled face with high cheek-bones and a smile that would make you do anything for him; this boy was truly beautiful, but with a sadness in his eyes that went straight to my heart. Was this to be my son? `Can I keep this?' I asked. `Sure; it was taken for you anyway'. I went home in a whirl, and I stayed in a whirl for the next month. The local child care authority came to inspect the house, interview me again and again, and run police checks on my background. I advertised in the parish magazine for a housekeeper and managed to secure the services of Teresa, a big Scottish mumsy widow with two sons who had grown up and left home. Perfect. I didn't mind cooking for an army, but washing and cleaning clothes and house were jobs I hated. Scrubbing boys' collars and cuffs, ironing school shirts and throwing football kit into the washing machine were things I was definitely not looking forward to. But Teresa said to me with a smile that she loved nosing around other people's homes, and cleaning was the best way to do it, so we were suited. My first meeting with Tim was not the great event I thought it would be. We met at St Tar's, just about the most awkward place for a good chat, so we shook hands uncomfortably, and I took him out for the afternoon. I recognized him as soon as I set eyes on him; he had always been around when I visited, hanging to the back of groups, but never saying a word. Somehow, I had never seen that magical smile, nor heard him speak, and so we had missed each other--or rather, as I was to find out, I had missed him. He already knew me very well. That particular afternoon, I was rather at a loss where to begin; I asked him what he wanted to do, and he had no particular ideas either, so we ended up simply wandering around the shops. I couldn't help noticing that his clothes were terribly ill-fitting--he told me later that boys had to fight among themselves whenever any new (which meant second-hand) clothes arrived at St Tarcisius. Being by nature self-effacing that meant that he was left with what remained when others had taken what they wanted, which often meant that what he got was nothing. He had on a scruffy old pair of jeans; the holes in its fabric were not fashionable ones, but caused by wear and tear. They were clearly too tight and too long; he had worn away the hems as they caught under his feet and the threads trailed behind him in the dust. He wore mismatched socks, and his plain once-white t shirt was far too small, leaving his midriff bare whenever he moved. Automatically and unselfconsciously he was always tugging it down. His training shoes were so old that they were actually back in fashion, but these were the originals. Again they were too small for him, and the backs were broken down by his heels which extended beyond the back of the shoes. So he walked along with a type of shuffle that had become part of him. My heart was broken just to watch him, simply because it did not seem to occur to him that he was in any way to be pitied. And I was filled with puzzlement and even anger at Paul and the other staff at St Tarcisius who had not noticed how neglected this lad was. Time would soon show just how I misunderstood them. Tim had a way of simply not being noticeable, of disappearing into the background; indeed it was his habitual state, especially when he didn't want to be found. We found a Macdonald's and, much as I abhor the place, I know that healthy lads love it. So we went in--Tim's eyes noticably brightening--and we had a Big Mac each and a drink. `Do you come here often?' I asked, mentally kicking myself for such a brilliant and original opening gambit. `No; this is my first time' said Tim, speaking around a huge mouthful. `I've heard about it from some of the others, though; it's brilliant, isn't it.' `Hm; it's alright for some, if they like this sort of thing.' I said grumpily. I immediately saw the pain in Tim's eyes as the food turned to ashes in his mouth; he said quickly `Would you rather go somewhere else; honestly, it's fine by me?' He was so eager to please, or rather desperate to please, that it hurt. I backtracked quickly. `I wouldn't dream of it, Tim. I want you to be happy this afternoon, and if this makes you happy, then there is nowhere else I'd rather be'. Tim smiled then, that same smile that he had made for the photograph--this time it was for me--and I began to love this quiet boy. He said softly `Nobody has ever said that to me before'. I had the most difficult time keeping the tears back. Why the fuck do people do this to children? I have no difficulty at all in believing in the existence of a devil. I was sorry when the time came to take Tim back. Although we hadn't said much to each other, we had `connected', and the silence was companionable, rather than strained. Back at the Home, I spoke rather sharply to Paul about Tim's clothes, asking if it was all right for me to buy him some more. Paul discouraged me, saying that he knew Tim was terribly shabby, but to get him clothes now would just rub into the face of the others that Tim was about to be fostered out of St Tar's, and simply emphasize their own need. Though I was still cross, I saw the point straight away. `Besides', said Paul, `Shopping is what I do best, and I'm not going to miss the little spree you and Tim will have when he moves in, for anything!' Three weeks later, again amidst the garish reds and yellows of Macdonalds Tim and I looked at each other over our polystyrene containers and polystyrene food and said nothing with words, but a bond was forming in our hearts. We had spent six or eight afternoons together by this stage. `So', said Tim casually, `are you going to be my dad, then?'. I choked on my Diet Coke `Bloody hell; you move quickly, Tim!' I saw the pain and insecurity in his eyes again, and he shrank back as if I was going to strike him. I saw immediately that I was going to have to tread very carefully with this lad. `Tim; it's very early days; there are a lot of hoops to jump through first for both of us. We've got to get to know each other better, you've got to come and see where I live, to see if you'd like it, there's school to be discussed, and so many other things, don't you think?'. Tim shook his head obstinately. `I know already,' he said. `Know what?' He looked exasperated. `Know that I want to come home with you. I don't care about the details; anything is fine with me. I'll sleep in the coal shed if I must. I just want to come home. Actually, I want to do it today. Now. I'm tired of waiting. I want to be your son. I want you to be my dad. What's the point of hanging around even longer?' `The point is, Tim, we hardly know each other. Look, I understand you want a home; hell, life must have been dreadful to you up till now, but there may well be a better alternative to anything that I could offer you. With me, your life would be a bit odd, to say the least; as for a real home; brothers and sisters, a mother; I can't offer you anything like that. You really have to be sure that you can do without these things if you are going to come with me. You mustn't just take the first option that comes along simply because it's a quick way out of St Tar's; it's got to be the right option.' Tim went bright red and his eyes teared up. `That's bollocks, bollocks, bollocks! Sorry, Father John, but it is. You often come to St Tar's, I've listened to you, I've been to confession to you, I've watched you and dreamed that one day you would take me home with you, that you could be my father in reality, and not just as in `bless me Father for I have sinned'. And you're not the first; Father Paul has tried me with two other families, and I wouldn't have them, because I knew what was right, I know where I belong. I wouldn't stay with them, because I knew I belonged with you.' This impassioned speech took me aback, and left me mute for a minute while I gathered my thoughts. When I could speak again, I said `Do you mean that this is all your own idea, about me becoming a foster-father, I mean?' `Well yes...er...no...well, it was a sort of mixture. After my last try with a family, I talked with Father Paul, and he was pretty cross with me for messing it up. The family was really nice, and they wanted me, but I didn't want to be there. He asked me what I did really want, and I told him I wanted to go with you. I thought he would blow up, but he didn't, he just went all quiet like you did just now. Then he said "You know, Tim, I'd been wondering whether Fr John would make a good foster father. We can always ask him, there's no harm in that". And I've been praying every day since then for this.' Tim squared his shoulders, and looked me in the eyes with his piercing blue ones that I found so irresistible. He said firmly, `Look: what I want isn't in doubt. The only question is whether you want me. And I want you to tell me, today. Do you?' I looked down. Was this really only a thirteen year old speaking to me? Thirteen going on thirty, perhaps. I looked up to be sure, and met his swimming eyes, filled with a deep appeal and need for that which he obviously felt only I could supply. I saw love there already, love and trust such as I had always longed for from an adult, and never thought to look for in a child. I thought to myself `If I say no, I am going to destroy him. He feels this to be his first and only chance of happiness. But am I ready for this? Is this going to destroy my life? I'm not ready to make this choice. It's too soon! Can I love this lad enough to be my son?' I looked up again at him, and the distress in his eyes brought a sudden pain to my heart; I felt his hurt as my own, and sensed for the first time an urge so overpoweringly strong to protect this boy, that anything that brought him pain I would resist to the last ounce of my strength. So I looked straight at him and, not able to bring myself to say a word, I just simply nodded. The tears in his eyes broke their bounds and poured down his cheeks. In a flash he was in my arms sobbing his heart out. I could feel his heart pounding against my chest as he clutched me fiercely to him. He turned his head so that his mouth was by my ear and said one word; `Dad!' In a moment I joined him in his sobbing, and we held each other there in Macdonalds while the crowds round us looked on curiously as they stuffed their faces with french fries, unknowing that here in their presence the world had jumped on its axis, the Jordan had turned back on its course, the mountains had skipped like rams, and the hills like yearling sheep. I pressed my face into his blond hair and for the first time smelt his special smell. I kissed the smooth lightly-tanned skin of his forehead. `Tim, my son', I whispered. CHAPTER 3 Tim Sullivan--the real Tim Sullivan--the policeman who had rescued the boy, lay in his hospital bed and considered what a fuck-up he had made of his life. He had once been a pious and idealistic youth who had thought of being a Franciscan friar. Something about the simplicity and extremity of the life had appealed to him, but he drew back at the last moment because his schoolfriend, Paul Topham, was going into the ordinary seminary to become a diocesan priest, and Tim thought he might join him. They had been very close friends at school, both of them very handsome, top class athletes and popular; most of the girls (and one or two of the boys) had been devastated when the prospect of marriage, or at least sex, with one or other of them seemed forever off the cards. Both young men had persevered at the seminary, and were ordained deacons, (the step immediately before priesthood) taking their vows of celibacy at the age of 24. But in his diaconate year, when working in his first parish, Tim met a pretty barmaid in a pub and fell hard. He abandoned all thought of the priesthood, and applied to Rome to be returned to the lay state. His dispensation from celibacy came through, and six months later Paul, now a priest, and not without private reservations, officiated at Tim's wedding to Sylvia. A little over a year later, baby Catriona was born, looking (as new-born babies will) like neither of her parents. Having now to choose another career, Tim had decided to join the police, and his five older brothers clubbed together and put down a deposit for a mortgage on a small house in Brighton. And, as the saying goes, Tim and Sylvia lived happily ever after until the next day. It was about a year and a half after the marriage that Tim returned home unexpectedly to find Sylvia in their marital bed with a stranger. Tim hit the stranger, and flung him out of the front door in his underwear, throwing his other clothes out of the upstairs window. It was the first and only time in his life that he had behaved violently. Sylvia could not understand Tim's rage and grief; she was a simple soul who liked to give her affections freely, and in her opinion, Tim was out of order. There was no meeting of minds. They raged at each other, and in the end, a couple of weeks later, Tim moved out and found himself a small flat. When he went to put a deposit down for the landlord, he found that the joint account he had with Sylvia had been emptied; it had contained all his life savings. The landlord was understanding, and gave Tim time to go back to his brothers and ask for a loan, which they willingly turned into a gift, together with something to help him buy again all the necessities of life, like saucepans, towels and spaghetti. A solicitor's letter arrived shortly, stating that Sylvia was divorcing him on the grounds of unreasonable behaviour and desertion. The court case did not go well, Tim was sullen and aggrieved, and behaved badly; the magistrate--a dyke if ever there was one, he thought-- was utterly unsympathetic to Tim on principle, as the violent and unstable man who walked out on his wife and their baby, and not faced up to the problems. She was not interested in Sylvia's adultery, which she considered understandable `under the circumstances'. In granting the divorce she ordered Tim, as the `aggressor', to pay all the court costs, maintenance for baby Catriona (to whom he could have one hour's supervised access every other month), and ninety percent of the mortgage of the house. Sylvia left the court and smiled smugly at a devastated Tim. She walked arm-in-arm with the man Tim had seen in her bed, who was wearing an expensive suit, and he decided then and there never to see her again. In order to meet his crippling financial obligations, and also to fill his mind with something not to do with Sylvia and Catriona, Tim began to work all the hours God sent. He took all overtime that was offered, and cajoled his colleagues into letting him do more. Unsurprisingly, after a while, he began to get seriously depressed, and it was only the intervention of a colleague at the Police Station that changed things. The friend, Thomas, was a serious keep-fit fanatic. He would call by Tim's bedsit, and sometimes physically strip Tim and force him into his sports gear. At times, Tim thought he hated Thomas, but as his fitness level grew, the world looked a kinder place, and he found his depression lifting. When Thomas was transferred to a station far away in the North East, Tim was functioning again, and had become once again a very fit and very good-looking young man, spending all his free time, such as it was, either in the gym or running. A substantial legacy from an understanding great-aunt helped to pay off a lot of the mortgage for the house he could never even visit, and he felt able to meet the world again. He had also grown in self-understanding, and the suffering he had experienced had made him a good listener, something not often found in policemen. At work, many of the people on his patch had a very soft spot for their local constable, and he loved that part of his job. But other parts he hated. He hated the violence, he hated the hatred, the bitterness of horrible people. He hated the police stereotype; the brutal over-careful enunciation in a South London accent that was supposed to suggest to the listener that this copper was someone to be reckoned with. As a gentle-spoken man himself, he was despised by many of his colleagues as being `superior', and not `one of the lads'. Since he was naturally affectionate, this got to him too. So his career, then, was going nowhere fast. He considered himself a good copper; his averages were among the highest in his station, but he had been several years in the Force, and was still a mere Police Constable. Only promotion could make the unpleasant aspects of the job more bearable. He had no illusions. He had been approached once or twice with offers to join the Freemasons, but his principles, as well as his Catholic faith, rendered that impossible. As a result, he was never promoted. Then one rainy night, Tim had met a young lad who had begun to change the way he looked at the world. He hadn't been on duty, he was just out for a run in the freezing rain and found this battered waif by the roadside. Taking the lad back home with him, he had cared for him like a baby, before handing him over to the hospital and social services the following day. The lad had somehow opened a window in his heart, and he realised as if for the first time that his real problem was loneliness, and the need for someone to love, unconditionally, and be loved in return. Remarriage was out, on account of his faith, so it was going to have to be something else. Something, perhaps, to do with children. That lad had been the first child he had ever interacted with; he himself was the youngest of six brothers, and he had always been surrounded with people who were either his own age, as at the school and the seminary, or older than him, who had shown him nothing but affection. Unlike that poor lad; the first person younger than Tim who had shown him affection, and who had actually needed him. And then, one night about a year and a half later, Tim had got beaten up when he was walking down a dark alley on his regular foot patrol. He never saw who did it, he just woke up in hospital with multiple fractures and abrasions. The month he spent in bed provided a lot of time doing nothing--the first time since the divorce when he had not been able to fill his mind with distraction--and, not being able even to hold a book at first, he spent the time thinking. He remembered how the lad he had rescued had wanted to stay with him, and he remembered the strange resonance that he found in himself. He couldn't even remember the boy's name, though the memory of his face, and above all his wonderful smile, was as fresh as anything. In fact, he remembered that he had never even known the boy's name. When he could stagger around the hospital feebly with a stick, he managed to take himself down to Casualty to see if they had a record of his visit. The ward clerk there rather primly told him that the records were confidential, and he had no right to any information. So that was that. One day he had a bedside visit from his old school and seminary friend Father Paul Topham, now the Headmaster of St Tarcisius' Home for Boys. It was wonderful to see him again, and they gossiped about their friends and what they were doing. Soon, Tim found himself pouring out his heart to Paul, and Paul was, as ever, straightforward in his advice. `Get out of the police, Tim. They don't deserve you, frankly, and as far as I can see it's doing you more harm than good in all sorts of ways'. `What else can I do Paul? I've made such a fuck-up of my life so far! I've failed in everything I've turned my hand to. I'm a failed Franciscan, a failed priest, a failed husband and father, and now a failed policeman.' There were tears of self-pity in Tim's eyes, and Paul gave his friend a hug. `Never a failure, Tim. You just haven't found your niche yet. But you have so much love to give, and you're like a blocked pipe; with no outlet for it'. Tim began to tell Paul all about the boy he had rescued in the night, and how he kept thinking about him, and how he would like to give him a home. He asked Paul how he might find him. Paul said, `Without a name, it's very difficult. If he were a Catholic, that would narrow it down a bit, because if he wasn't returned to his family, he'd have ended up with me at St Tar's. Was he a Catholic, do you think? Though, I suppose, the finer points of theology were not something you discussed in your evening together'. Tim thought, and then remembered a conversation in bed. `No, I'm certain he isn't a Catholic. He'd never even heard the word.' `Then start looking at Turling Park. That's where most of the others go'. And when Paul left, Tim began to think about his life, and what he might do with it, and how he might find that strange boy. Back home at last, he submitted his resignation to the Police Force, then began cutting out advertisements for job vacancies. He applied for many, and received many offers, but the only post that really jumped out at him was that of a groundsman at Turling Park, the regional state home for boys with special needs. An orphanage, by any other name. Perhaps, he thought, perhaps he would meet that strange lad again who had opened his heart which had been closed for so long. At any rate, there would be lots of people needing love there, and he could, as a sporty man, perhaps, have something more to offer the lads than just mowing their lawns. He applied for the job, citing Paul as his referee, went for interview, and was pleased to be offered the post two days later. CHAPTER 4 Back at St Tarcisius, we were met by Paul, who, when he saw our faces and Tim's hand confidently in mine--he may have been thirteen, but he wasn't going to miss any chance of affection just now--broke out into a broad smile on his handsome face. `I guess that's settled, then'. I was taken aback; I had thought that I was going to have to do some quick talking to even set the fostering on the road. But Paul took us both into his office and told me that all the checks had been approved. The only remaining authority to satisfy was Paul himself. `And I know you only too well, mate. Congratulations, both of you!' `How soon can Tim come home?' I asked. `He hasn't even seen where I, no, we, live yet'. `Right now, if you want. If, in the very unlikely event it doesn't work out, you can always bring him back here, but I think that what he needs right now is love and stability. As for the latter, I know you well, and I'm sure he'll have that. And as for the love, I can see it from here. God bless you both'. My head was spinning. So much had happened in a few hours, and with that short speech the course of my life was definitively changed. I looked at my foster son, and his face was shining, that is the only word for it, with that special radiant smile which had won me when I first saw it on the photograph. But this time it was for me, me alone, and that thought made me feel ten feet tall. `Run and get your things, Tim. We're going home.' Tim was off like a flash, as fast as his ill-shod feet could carry him. When he left the office, Paul pushed some papers across the desk. I read them, and signed them. Paul countersigned them, then looked seriously at me. `Johnny, I ought to warn you of something. As I said to you, I am pretty sure that Tim has been seriously abused, physically and sexually, and perhaps over a long period. No doubt you have seen for yourself that he is a lovely lad and appears quite balanced. But abuse always leaves psychological scars of one sort of another; as he moves into his teens, you're going to have to watch him so very carefully, especially to see that he does not turn to abuse of others. I think, given his loving personality, that this is unlikely, but there may well be other things; theft, self-mutilation, even suicide--I don't want to alarm you unduly, but these are possibilities. People who are abused often feel that in some way they deserved what they got, that there is a sort of justice about it. Given his reticence, and the importance he attaches to his own privacy, I don't think it is a good idea to force Tim to talk about it--indeed, I'd be surprised if he'd let the subject be addressed at all, given our lack of success in this area--but if it comes up, be ready for it, and certainly expect more than the usual traumas of adolescence.' Paul must have seen the apprehension on my face, because he then came around the desk and pulled me into his arms. `Oh Johnny, I feel so guilty at young Tim and me having manipulated you into this. I know we haven't let your feet touch the ground, but if we had let you hesitate, you would have prevaricated and procrastinated like you always do, and this would never have happened. Trust me, this is really going to work out. I can't tell you what joy it gives me to bring two of my favourite people together. Tim is a really special lad, one of the loveliest boys here, and if he is with you, I'll be able to go on seeing him, too.' And Paul kissed me on the cheek. Mm. Nice! He had never done that before. `Yeah, well' he said, looking at my shocked face, `I've done a bit of perving in my time, too, you old stud'. Before I could regain my wits or think of something to say, Tim burst back into the office and said `I'm ready!'. `That didn't take long! Okay, lad, time to go home'. Tim turned to Paul and said, simply, `Thank you. Thank you so very much for everything, Father Paul'. He hesitated a moment, and then ran to him and hugged him tightly. Paul hugged Tim back, patting his shoulder and saying `Be happy now, Tim, and, you know, I'll still be seeing a lot of you, because I come over to St Edward's parish often to see Father John. And I want you to know that I will always be here for you if you want to talk, or want anything I can help with.' We all got a bit sniffy and so I said. `Come on, let's go. Where's your luggage?' `Here' said Tim happily, and he held up a single Tesco plastic carrier bag. `Is that all?' My heart wept again for the boy's deprived life. Tim nodded cheerfully; he didn't care if he had nothing. He had a home now, and a dad, and that was all that mattered. Teresa was in the house when we arrived. She knew that I was probably going to have a lad to live with me some time in the future, but she was understandably taken aback to find it happen so suddenly. Nevertheless, having had two boys of her own, she was accustomed to taking shocks in her stride, and she opened her arms to Tim and gave him a huge bosomy hug. Tim looked over her shoulder at me crossing his eyes and sticking his tongue out of the corner of his mouth to suggest that he was being crushed to death, but he hugged back enthusiastically enough. Teresa then held him at arms length and said `I'm Mrs Wright, Tim, Teresa Wright, but I think it might be best if you were to call me Aunt Tess. That way, we'll get on just fine'. I thanked God for Teresa's quick wit. She had understood that what Tim needed most was to feel he belonged, and this was certainly going to help. I hadn't even thought about which room Tim might occupy, so we went straight upstairs to have a look. There was no contest; he fell in love immediately with the attic room, up its own little flight of stairs and lit by skylights and a single dormer window. It had cheerful blue and yellow paint and colourful painted furniture. `Is this all for me? Just for me?' He gaped. `Just for you, Tim. Glad you like it. This is your very own space, to do with what you want--within reason. Now let's unpack and get your things hung up in the wardrobe.' Tim upended his carrier bag and spilled all his worldly possessions onto the bed. There was a spare t-shirt, even tattier than the one he wore, a pair of blue adidas tracksuit bottoms, a old blue and white football shirt, a pair of navy nylon football shorts, seven assorted socks, a rosary and missal (standard St Tar's issue), some odd coins not amounting to more than fifty pence and a worn and dirty teddy bear. There was certainly nothing worth hanging up. I said, in horror, `Tim, is this really everything you own? You had nothing else at St Tar's?' I found it impossible to believe that Paul would have let the lad live so shamefully poorly. But then, as I was to learn, Tim was apt to fade into the background, and simply get overlooked. Tim answered `Well, there were a few other clothes and stuff, but we have a rule at St Tar's among the guys that when someone gets lucky, he leaves the best things for the others who have to stay. I'm not expecting you to buy me new stuff, it's just that I didn't want to be mean to the others. So I just took enough to get me by for a couple of years.' `A couple of years? Tim, one thing I know about boys is that they grow. Those jeans are already so tight on you that I suspect that your voice is never going to break while you still wear them. And you're going to break your neck tripping on the hems one day.' I picked up the tracksuit bottoms and looked at the label; `For boys 10-11 years' I read out loud. `They're ok, they're stretchy' Tim mumbled. `No, Tim, they won't do. Tomorrow we go shopping. It's a shame that tonight is too late. But it isn't too late to make a start. Put these things into a drawer now; I'll be right back.' I went downstairs, shaking my head, to ask Teresa if she had a measuring tape. I told her about the contents of the carrier bag, and she put her hand to her mouth. `Oh, the poor wee lad'. `Quite!' I said. `We'll go shopping for some new clothes tomorrow'. `I'm sure I can put my hands on some of my boys' old stuff' she said; `I'll bring a load tomorrow'. `Thanks, Teresa, but no thanks. I think that for the first time in his life Tim is going to get some brand new clothes that fit him, and that no one else has ever worn before.' She squeezed my arm and smiled. `You're a good man. I'll get you the measuring tape'. Back upstairs, Tim was sitting on the bed, smiling, and bouncing up and down, clutching his teddy. Suddenly he looked nine, not thirteen. I looked at him, and the most extraordinary protective instinct kicked in again. In a matter of hours his life, even more than mine, had been turned upside down, even if it was for the better, or at least I hoped so. `Slip your t-shirt and jeans off, Tim, and we'll get you measured'. He complied quickly, pulling the shirt over his head to throw it on the bed, and then sucking in his tummy to get a bit of slack to lower his trousers. And there was the next shock of the day. He had no underwear on. I remembered then that there had been none in the carrier bag, either. And I couldn't help but notice that for a lad of his age he was very well endowed, as they say. Still hairless, as one would expect, but that only made the generous proportions all the more obvious. `Gosh, Tim, don't you have any underpants?' `No, never have. Well, only occasionally. Can't abide them.' Abide? strange word for a lad, I thought; it's as though he's quoting someone. `Didn't they mind at St Tarcisius?' `They never found out. There were an awful lot of us, and not all of us wear them'. `Why?' `They make me sweat, they tangle my tackle and get caught in my bum, if you want to know.' Frank enough, I suppose. He'd obviously said that before, too. I thought about arguing, but then I postponed that particular battle for another day. He was so adamant about it that I could see he was going to take some convincing, and I didn't want to spoil his pleasure in the day of his great escape from St Tar's. `Well I'm not going to measure you like that, wearing only your odd socks, with your wedding tackle in the way'. Tim giggled and said `That's easily put right; I'll take my socks off!', and he did. `Tart', I said without thinking. But Tim didn't notice. He took his navy nylon shorts out of the drawer and pulled them on; I was pleased to see that for once we had found a garment that actually fitted him. No doubt he had acquired them when they were far too big. I took an appraising look at my son's body for the first time and noticed that he was really pretty muscular, with strong well-defined pectorals and abdomen. `Most of us work out in St Tar's' he said, seeing what I was looking at. `Survival of the fittest! Not bad, eh?' he preened. `Not bad is right!' I began to take his measurements and as he lifted his arms to let me put the tape round his bare chest, I saw several little scars dotted here and there, mostly on his pectorals. Cigarette burns. My heart thudded. I turned him round, and there were several long white scars on his back and the backs of his thighs. They were all old. `Excuse me, Tim', I said, and pulled down his shorts a little to reveal a web of welts on his buttocks. I pulled his shorts back up and turned him round, looking deeply into his eyes. I pulled him into a fierce hug, all my protective instincts raging, raging, raging. I wanted to kill someone. `My son, who did this to you?' I asked in a shaking voice. `Them', said Tim tonelessly, his mood suddenly turned black. I was startled at his voice. `Who's them?' `Just Them. The sperm donor and the owner of the cunt I came out of,' he spat viciously. `Your mother and father?'. `NO! ' He suddenly shouted. `They are not my parents, they are never my parents. YOU are my father. I don't WANT another. I HAVE no other'. He broke into a storm of weeping, so I took him in my arms, sat on the bed and rocked him gently until he calmed down. I was staggered at this sudden tempest that had come out of nowhere. I was going to have to go carefully. `Ssh, my son, ssh. You're safe now, you're home. Nobody is going to hurt you any more. Ssh, my son, my beloved son.' I don't know how long we sat there, but when I looked up, there was Teresa in the doorway, tears in her eyes. `Poor wee laddie', she whispered. `What a lot of sadness he's seen in his short lifetime. We'll have to do our best to make it up to him'. I could only smile ruefully. I was thinking that this was only the beginning of a long road that Tim and I were going to have to travel together while we unpicked all of this. Tim himself had had an awful emotional rollercoaster of a day, and now he was fast asleep in my arms. All for the best. I gently lifted him and laid him on the bed, pulling the duvet up over his bare chest. I kissed his forehead; his features had relaxed again and he gently smiled in his sleep, his good mood restored in slumber. `Has he eaten?' said Teresa. I smacked my head. Neither of us had even finished our Macdonalds burgers early in the afternoon. It was now eight in the evening. `I'll make him a sandwich, Father,' (she pronounced it `sangwich') `and leave it by his bed. I'll do you one, too' `Bless you, Teresa, for everything. But it's long after your going home time now'. `Ah well, it's a special occasion, isn't it? I've the car with me anyway.' After Teresa left, I sat down in my den and put my feet up to think about the events of this momentous day. No sooner had I done so, then the door bell rang. `Fuck!' I swore out loud. No doubt some old biddy wanting a Mass card signed. No peace, it seems, for the wicked. `I heard that, Father! Not very priestly, I must say,' came a voice through the letter box. `Paul, you bastard!' I said, opening the door to my best friend, he being dressed casually in chinos and a blue shirt. `But you're just the bastard I want to see right now'. We hugged, and he gave me a bottle: `It's the rest of the whisky we didn't finish the other day. I thought we might have another stab at it. Where's the lad?' `Fast asleep upstairs. Emotionally worn out, I guess. I'm pretty fucked myself.' `You wish!' `Piss off! Grab yourself a glass'. We sat together on the sofa in companionable silence. After a while, Paul asked me how it had all gone. I told him about the day, and about how it had ended. Paul gave a low whistle. `I knew about the scars, of course, but he would never say who had given them to him. We guessed that it was probably his parents, but he has told nobody before. You've done really well for a first day!' `Who were his parents?' `We haven't a clue. Tim was found wandering on the Brighton and Hove bypass at night eighteen months or so ago, wearing only some old tracksuit bottoms. It was late November, and he was suffering from hypothermia. He never gave any details of his family; we don't even know if has given us his real name. He was sent to us because Sullivan, being Irish, would make him probably a Catholic and the local authorities were anxious not to have to take another mouth into the county home, Turling Park, which is like a borstal in my opinion anyway, and therefore Tim's good luck. In the event, Tim hadn't a clue as to whether he was a Catholic or not, but took to it all like a duck to water, so after he begged, I baptized him and gave him his first Holy Communion last June. He is fixated with the idea of God as his father, Mary as his mother, and Jesus as his brother, so I guess it all fits together, especially his wanting to come to you. He badly needs to belong somewhere, or to someone. I think our faith supplies deep needs in him. Which is nice all round.' `Paul, I need to ask you a question, and it's been burning me for a while. Why is Tim dressed so badly? It can't have escaped your notice that he looks like a street kid. Surely St Tar's isn't that short of cash?' `Well, we are pretty strapped, Johnny, but no, we usually do better than that for the boys. Honestly, Tim would never take clothes or anything from us, more than the simple minimum. We do get clothes and toys given us quite frequently. We'd noticed that Tim tended to hang back when the scrum was on, and so got little or nothing, so we'd put one or two things aside for him. He'd give them to the other kids, though, saying that as he wasn't going to be here long, he didn't need them. They took them happily enough, as you can imagine. So we began to shift heaven and earth to get Tim fostered as quickly as possible. I even wondered whether he were playing some clever game and had manipulated us into this very thing. But then he turned down not just one family, but two. Unheard of! The other boys thought he was mad. I think he just wanted you, and was waiting for you to notice him. Finally, he had to stir it a bit.' We talked for a couple of hours about everything, and by the end of it we were both very relaxed and pretty drunk. Paul, leaning forward with his hand on my thigh, shook the last drops from the bottle into my glass and said `A pious bottle; made a good death with not one, but two priests.' He thought a moment. `Shit, I can't drive; I must be well over the limit. Can I stay?'. `Of course. As long as you want'. Forever, I thought. `I've got nothing with me, though'. `I'll give you a pair of my footie shorts and a new toothbrush. That do you?' `Mm. Fantastic. Am I in my usual place in the attic?'. `No, that's Tim's room now. You can have the room opposite me: the bed's made up. Good night!' `'Night'. We got up. Paul stumbled a little, or appeared to, and steadied himself on my shoulder. `Mm, you smell nice' he said, and he paused, looking intently into my eyes. An eternity passed, and then he gently leaned forward and kissed me for the second time that day, but this time full on the lips. I was too shocked to respond, even if I had known how. I looked into his beautiful brown eyes, and realised that neither he nor I were as drunk as we made out. `Sleep well, Paul', was all I could say. `Mm, you too'. In the middle of the night I woke up. There was someone in my room. I remembered Paul's kiss and my heart gave a bound of mingled desire and dread. I put the light on and saw Tim, still in his shorts, looking tousled and sleepy. He also had a raging erection. `Dad' (my heart beat even faster to hear myself called that) `Dad, I really need to pee, and I can't find the bathroom'. `Oh Tim, I'm so sorry, we never even gave you the grand tour of the house'. I hauled myself out of bed, wearing my usual footie shorts, and took him to the loo, leaving him to find his own way back. He did, but he appeared in my room, not his own. `Dad, can I stay in here tonight?' `What's wrong with your own room, Tim?' `It's lovely but it's all so quiet. I can't sleep very well'. Then, reluctantly, he added `and I'm a bit scared.' It then dawned on me that maybe Tim had never had to sleep in a room on his own before. `Er, well, sure... but how are we going to manage; there's only one bed?' Tim grinned happily and jumped into my bed, scooting over to the far side. All sorts of warning bells rang, including the fact that the director of St Tarcisius' Home was sleeping just on the other side of the corridor, and he would presumably not be at all happy to find us cuddled up together on our first night as foster father and son. The bed was only a large single, not even a double. I had to ask myself whether I was any danger to Tim. Had I any sexual desires for him? None whatever, I concluded. On the contrary, my urges were all to protect this lad, not exploit him. Tim, looking puzzled at my delay, patted the bed. `Come on, you'll get cold'. `Cheeky sod'. So I got in, and my son snuggled close to me. We slept with my right arm protectively wrapped around him. It was a first for me, too. CHAPTER 5 In the morning, I woke to two shocked shouts. Tim, who had gone to bed far earlier than me, had woken, then wandered sleepy-eyed into the bathroom and come across Paul stark naked, fresh out of the shower, shaving at the basin with my razor. Paul was the last person Tim expected to see, and especially like this. And Paul, with his headmasterly dignity to consider was shocked to be caught by a boy when in the nude. By the time I had made it to the bathroom, Paul had dropped the razor and pulled on his (or rather my) shorts. Tim found the whole thing highly amusing. I could see him trying to work out how to tell his friends back at St Tarcisius. He said to Paul `Nice to see you, Father Paul. I seem to be seeing quite a lot of you lately' and then collapsed into fits of giggles at his own joke. `Cheeky bugger', said Paul, going red, but smiling at me affectionately over Tim's head. Tim intercepted the glance, and stopped giggling. `Oh', he said, knowingly. `Are you and Dad...you know?' `Know what?' said Paul, puzzled. Then it dawned on both of us what the precocious little git meant. An Item. `NO!!' `BLOODY HELL! NO!' We were both aghast. Well perhaps not very aghast. My mind went back to that kiss. `Look, Tim', I said, `Father Paul is my dearest and closest friend. As he said yesterday, he comes here often, and frequently stays the night. As you brought up the subject and you seem wiser about these things than you should be, you should also know that I love him very much, but we are just friends. You know very well we keep separate rooms. And we are both priests. We are married in a way, to the Church, and so are not free to have that sort of a relationship with each other. Even if it were allowed, which it isn't. `And not that we want to' I added firmly, though the last twenty four hours had begun to shake my convictions on that score even further than before. `Shame' said Tim. `I'd love it if my two favourite people could live together'. `Fucking little charmer!' said Paul, though not without affection. `Oooh, Uncle Paul, you used a bad word!' Tim smirked. `What did you call me?' `Uncle Paul. Do you mind?' `No, Tim, I love it very much indeed. Call me that always'. Paul suddenly sounded choked up. Tim was always hungry, I was soon to discover. `When's breakfast?' `After Mass'. `Cool. When's Mass' `Nine o'clock, that's in half an hour's time. Do you know how to serve at Mass?' `Er, no. Can I have something to eat now?' `Nope, sorry. Too late if you're going to Communion.' He accepted this calmly. Was this boy real? `In the meantime, you'd better put some clothes on' He was still only in his shorts. He disappeared upstairs, passing Paul coming down. `Morning, handsome', Paul said to me, and kissed me on the cheek. Again! That's the third kiss. I was really confused now. I had spent the last ten longing years thinking Paul was terminally straight. But then, from what he said, he seems to have been thinking the same about me, or at least waiting to for me to admit my gayness to him. Isn't life a cock-up sometimes? Hang on; wasn't Paul in khaki chinos and a blue polo shirt last night? And surely he brought nothing with him? Now he was in a black clerical suit with smart clerical stock and collar. `Hope you don't mind', he said. `I found this in your bedroom, and it all fits really well. I wanted to say Mass with you this morning, and thought I should be properly dressed.' So far from minding, to tell you the truth I was a little turned on by the idea of the man of my dreams wearing my clothes. What on earth was happening to me? These last twenty-four hours had been the most extraordinary in my life. `No, you're welcome. Actually, you've given me an idea. You say the Mass on your own--I hate concelebrating anyway--and I'll serve you with Tim. I can teach him, so that he can do it on his own in future.' `Fine.' At that moment, Tim came downstairs wearing his tracksuit bottoms and the other t shirt. `My jeans have gone' he said. `Oh yes, Tere..., er Aunt Tess took them last night to see if anything can be done with them. `And it can't' said Teresa coming into the house. `Morning, Father John. Morning, Father Paul, Morning, Tim. So I've thrown them away. They were coming apart at the seams. I really think that if you had run in them again, they'd have fallen apart, and you'd have been left in your boxer shorts on the High Street.' Remembering that he never wore underwear, Tim and I both suddenly looked at each other and blushed, thinking that it wouldn't be boxer shorts that would flutter in the breeze. `And, Mother of God, what are you wearing now, boy?' Teresa said. We all looked at Tim. The tracksuit bottoms did stretch to cover him, but were stretched so tightly that nothing at all was left to the imagination as he stood in the sunny kitchen. He might as well have been wearing lycra. The t shirt was even smaller than yesterday's. `Tim', I said to him quietly, `you can't go out dressed like that; you'd better go and put your shorts on again instead. And take a t shirt from my room; better too big than too small.' When the boy reappeared, relatively decently dressed for once in shorts and t shirt, Teresa produced a pair of sandals. `These might fit you, Tim. I bought them for myself, and it was only when I got home that I realised they were mens'.' Finally, we were ready to go to Mass. It all went very well; the parishioners always liked it when Paul came to visit, as he celebrated Mass with reverence and always had something interesting to say after the Gospel. Tim learnt very quickly to serve, and I began to realise that he was naturally very bright as well as devout. Afterwards I introduced Tim to everyone and he was surrounded with surprised laughs as being `the priest's son', and made very welcome. He beamed with happiness, and I glowed inside to see that glorious smile that had already so endeared him to me. My life already felt so very, very full. I cooked a huge breakfast--Tim and I had eaten very little for ages--and afterwards as Paul and Teresa washed up I finished measuring Tim for his new clothes. Paul and I took off our black gear and changed into casual things. With a wicked thought, I went into the room where he had spent the night and put on his chinos and polo shirt. They fit perfectly. So Paul had to rifle through my cupboards and found some white jeans and an open-neck deep blue shirt. He looked amazing. `You look like a rent boy' I said. `Trust you to know' he retorted. `I wouldn't have any idea; and anyway, they're your clothes!' Paul, Tim and I set off for the shopping centre, ten miles away. I had made up my mind that I was going to spend a thousand pounds at least today on my boy. Sod the holiday this year. This was going to be much more fun, and give us all far more pleasure. Tim was surprisingly fussy. I had expected him to resist being bought for, as he had resisted being given clothes at St Tar's. But on the contrary, perhaps because these purchases were further links binding him to his new home, and perhaps because he could see the pleasure it was giving me, he was determined to spend my money like Edina Monsoon. He turned into quite a dandy for the day. No blue jeans, he swore. `I've worn them and nothing else for the last two years, and that's enough!' So he had to have khaki chinos like mine (`actually, erm, they're Fa..., er your Uncle Paul's') and white jeans like Paul was wearing. Some t-shirts, and plenty of polo shirts and button up shirts. A school uniform for the autumn term two months away, with black trousers, black shoes and socks, a blue blazer with the school arms and motto on the breast pocket, white shirts and striped tie. Then two suits, one in sober navy blue and another, which he begged for, in a sort of shiny silvery material. It wouldn't have suited an adult, but when he came out from the fitting room, Paul and I drew breath because he looked so handsome in it. Then socks, but we had a tussle again over underwear. `I told you, Dad, there's no point. I won't wear them, so why bother buying them? If you want to throw your money away, let's get another shirt, or another pair of trousers.' I turned for support to Paul, who was watching the exchange, highly amused. `Don't look at me, Johnny' he said, `I never wear underwear either'. I felt the stirrings of sexuality once more. I would never look on those white jeans of mine that Paul was wearing now in the same light again. `Ok, ok, ok', I sighed. `For now, but this argument isn't over yet'. `Whatever', said Tim. Then came the most expensive visits: the sport shops. Paul, fortunately, seemed to have a good sense of what was fashionable. Trainers, a (decent!) track suit, white socks, various sports shirts and shorts. Tim wanted some pairs of football shorts like the ones Paul and I had worn last night, but he insisted for some reason that they had to be by adidas, in royal blue. Then he had to have a back pack. And finally I threw away the last of my savings and bought him a mountain bicycle, arranging for it to be delivered. Paul, who seemed not to want to be outdone, decided that if he was going to be Paul's uncle, and not his headmaster any more, put the crown on the day by taking Tim to Computer World and buying him the latest Apple Mac computer. In the shop, Tim suddenly started crying uncontrollably, clearly unnerving the nice lady shop assistant. `Y...y...yesterday I had n...n...nobody and n...nothing' he sobbed `and now a family and all this. I'm terrified I'm going to wake up now.' He ran to Paul, and threw his arms around him, giving him a huge kiss on the cheek, and then did the same to me. It was the first time my son had kissed me, and I began to cry too, to see his happiness. I looked up and saw Paul doing the same. Even the shop assistant gave a sniffle or two. I gave Tim my handkerchief, as his shorts had no pockets, and after he had used it, I used it myself. The way families do, I suddenly thought. It wasn't disgusting, it was beautiful. And then I grinned when it occurred to me that it wasn't my handkerchief, but Paul's, from his trousers. He grinned back at me and blew his nose loudly in my hanky which he took from my white jeans. The three of us had a blast. Tim made us buy some things for ourselves, including sunglasses (which he called `shades') and said we looked `really cool'. And as we made our progress down the high street, a handsome trio, we drew admiring glances from many of the passers-by. Not often that happens in a priest's life, I can tell you. CHAPTER 6 It was late spring. From the very first day, Tim (senior) loved his new job at Turling Park. The house itself was a large Victorian mansion which had had several dormitory blocks built on to it over the years, until it could accomodate over two hundred boys in draughty discomfort. The compensation was the magnificent grounds and facilities, with playing fields and acres of space, and the formal gardens that the boys were expected to work on under the direction of the head groundsman. That wasn't Tim. Tim provided the unskilled labour; he had to drive the big motorized lawn mower and keep the acres of grass trimmed, and was responsible for keeping the hedges and trees cut back. One of the things that made the work such a pleasure was that every afternoon a couple of boys would be assigned to him as his assistants. Another pleasure was finally getting rid of his police uniform. He had hated the sweaty man-made fibre trousers and tunic which were unbearably hot in the summer, even though worn without underwear. He hated the belts that hung around his waist with walkie-talkie, handcuffs, plasticuffs, truncheon and half a dozen other impedimenta whose weight pulled down the waistband of his trousers and made them sag at the arse. He hated the helmet that looked like a tit, and made him feel like a tit. Now, especially in the summer, in the morning he could jump out of bed, into the shower, and just pull on a pair of footie shorts, and he was ready for work. That was all he needed until the evening when, if it got cool, he could add a t-shirt. In the winter, he could add a sweatshirt, but except for going to Mass, or special occasions, there was no reason, really, why he need ever wear trousers again. He revelled in the fresh air and in the sunshine, in which he tanned a smooth golden-brown quickly. He loved the hard exercise that his job provided, and the beautiful grounds and surrounding countryside in which he could run to his heart's content in the morning or when the day's work was over. He loved the well-equipped gym that the regional authority provided, and he loved it that the boys used to ask him for help on their workouts, seeing him as a sort of unofficial expert coach. He loved the olympic-sized pool in which he could relax as an alternative, or in addition to the run, and in which he could race and play with the lads. And he loved the little house that came with the job. For the first time since his divorce, he had a home with more than one room, and at first he found it difficult to fill up the space. But soon the boys discovered that he was good with his hands, and they brought to him their broken toys and then found out that he was equally good at dealing with broken hearts, and Tim found out that his loneliness had largely dissipated, and his life, as well as his house, was full. The boys at Turling Park had a tough life. The principle was that if they were kept busy, they would have little time to brood on their unhappy backgrounds. So the place was run along the lines of a boot camp. They were woken by an electric bell at 6.15am, on hearing which they had five minutes to put on their shorts and trainers, and shirt if they wanted (which most eschewed), and report to the front of the school for their morning run for which they were given a time within which it had to be completed. They ran a mile for each year that they were there, beginning at the age of 11 with one mile, up to the big lads of seventeen and eighteen who were expected to run nearly eight miles. When they got back, there were press-ups and crunches and other exercises, and then showers, which, unlike those of earlier generations, were no longer cold, but as a concession to modern soft living, had plenty of hot water. They could then dress in the comfortable but drab uniform of navy nylon shorts (which doubled as underwear) under grey sweatpants and t-shirts under grey hooded sweatshirts which they would wear for the rest of the day. These clothes were not their own; when returned from laundry, the boys would simply help themselves to any of the identical garments in a size that fitted them. In fact, they had very few possessions of their own, just an occasional toy or photograph, and they received no money, for fear that they would be tempted to escape in order to spend it in unsuitable ways. After their showers, beds were made, and breakfast was eaten in silence. Then the boys were left for half an hour to do whatever they needed, and classes began for the rest of the morning. Lunch was followed by a compulsory siesta, and then there was garden work, when the boys would strip to their shorts in fine weather and learn the management of land. There was `Trades' after this, when the boys would learn computing, carpentry, metalwork, plumbing, electrics and other skills. Finally, they had an hour to do with as they wished, and it was then that there would be a well worn path trodden to the house of the junior groundsman by those privileged souls who had got to know him, to listen and talk and drink his hot chocolate, and feel for once that they were more than just a number on the college books. If Turling Park excelled in its facilities, far beyond anything St Tarcisius' Home could offer, what it lacked was the human dimension. The staff were not uncaring, just far too few and far too busy to provide what the too-many boys needed on the scale it was necessary. The only answer to their lack of human resources was regimentation, and so the boys were very tightly regimented indeed. Most of the staff were kindly intentioned, though harassed and overworked, and this meant that the boys were given very little liberty. Counsellors came in droves every day, but the boys rarely availed themselves willingly of their services. There was something too artificial, too contrived, about the soft lighting and fake plants and antiseptic atmosphere of the rooms, and the professional caring voices that were not even remotely a substitute for what the boys really needed; a loving family. But not every member of staff was good or was liked. Since caning or beating was as illegal at Turling Park as in any other school in Britain, it was very much down to the individual staff member to improvise his or her own methods of enforcing discipline. It was not easy, as the boys had few privileges that could be withdrawn, and the teacher would have to be imaginitive. The metalwork teacher, known to the boys simply as The Screw, due to his previous employment as a prison warder, was especially feared and loathed. He had lost his last job because of his brutality to the prisoners, but this was never made known to the authorities at Turling Park, in case it reflected badly on the Prison service, who were under scrutiny at that time by the Government. In his metalwork classroom, The Screw had made a number of sets of handcuffs, leg irons, heavy collars and other implements, which hung up on the walls. Any misdemeanour by one of the boys--and it seemed that The Screw's list of punishable offences was longer than any one else's--would see the lad have to strip to his shorts and be locked into one or more of these artefacts for as long as it pleased the teacher. It wasn't so much the irons themselves that frightened the boys--that had a certain element of dressing up and showing off to it-- as the intense look that came into The Screw's piercing grey-blue eyes, and a certain menacing stillness. The older boys of seventeen or eighteen had also noticed that when they were stripped and locked into their irons, The Screw would develop a visible erection; the lads pretended to joke about it with each other, but secretly they deeply feared this man and what he might do, given the opportunity. The staff were not fools, and most of them were genuinely good people; they could see that if The Screw was a little unhinged, Tim on the other hand was providing the boys with a more than special service, something they all knew was really lacking, and so they were all prepared to turn a blind eye when a distressed lad would flee his class or his tormentors and run to where the motorized lawn mower was turning round and round on the cricket pitch, because they would see the machine stop, and a tall, barechested man get off and hunker down by the lad. Sometimes, he would pick the lad up on his back, or if he was bigger, put an arm round his shoulder, and leaving the machine, would walk over to his house where they would chat for an hour or so. The lad would always come out looking much happier, and often with a toy or a sweet, or something else good. The head groundsman was annoyed at first, but soon realised that Tim made the time up later, and was such a good worker anyway that it was worth tolerating his eccentricities. The care staff were relieved that Tim would find time to provide what they could not. Inevitably, in an atmosphere where Harry Potter was all the rage, Tim came to be known to both boys and staff as Hagrid. The summer came, with its long lazy days, and the classes stopped. Many of the luckier boys were able to go for the summer to stay with relatives or friends, or good people who were prepared to take a boy for a few weeks in the holidays; lots of others joined the many summer programmes available around the country. The grass became scorched, and it was no longer necessary to cut it so frequently, and so by mutual agreement of care and grounds staff Tim was free far longer to mingle with the twenty or so unfortunate boys who remained, to find things for them to do in their copious free time. He took them swimming in the large ornamental lake, and went hiking with them on the Downs round about, where they would play wide games; hunt the flag, manhunts, bulldog and all those sorts of activities that would be considered too rough if they were played within sight of Turling Park. They would end each day around a bonfire not far from Tim's cottage, where they would bake potatoes, and burn sausages and burgers, drinking copious quantities of drinking chocolate, as Tim sang to them and played his guitar and told them ghost stories in the firelight. One day, they were joined by the Principal of St Tarcisius' Home, Father Paul Topham, for a hike. Paul and Tim met infrequently these days, but had remained in close touch ever since their school days. As they walked along, keeping an eye on the kids, who were ever likely to get up to something, they caught up on everything that had happened to them since they had last met by Tim's hospital bed. Paul said, after Tim had just stopped a lad falling over into a river, `Tim; I have never seen such a natural at this job. You are really wonderful with the boys. I am as furious as all hell that I didn't think to get you for St Tar's. Somehow, I never connected you with this sort of work. You're wasted, cutting grass.' `To be honest, Paul, I never connected myself with it, either. I have a daughter of my own, but I haven't seen her since she was a toddler.' Tim had tried to go for his statutary visits, but Sylvia always found some excuse why it was not convenient, and eventually Tim realized it was useless, and stopped trying. He went on: `But then there was my mysterious visitor. That perhaps should have told me something sooner; I really connected with that lad, and both looking for him and my new interest in kids made me think of coming to work here.' `Oh yes; I'd forgotten about him. Did you find him here?' `No. There's nobody even like him, and believe me, I have looked... OY! YOU TWO! LEAVE JOEL ALONE!' Tim yelled at two bigger boys who were throwing another little one between them, and he sprinted off to deal with it. Paul stayed for the bonfire that night, and as Tim sang, he looked at the boys' faces. It was like Christmas for them; from the age of eleven up to eighteen, the lads were all entranced. They would remember the happiness of this time for all their lives, Paul thought, and in his heart he blessed his friend Tim Sullivan for having brought joy to this unhappy place. He was clearly no longer a failure. When the boys had been reluctantly seen off to their beds, Tim and Paul sat in the cottage talking over several large tumblers of whisky. It had been agreed that Paul was going to stay the night, and he had borrowed a pair of shorts from Tim (borrowing clothes was one of his favourite activities) and the two of them were sitting together companionably dressed only in their shorts. The whisky had relaxed many of their inhibitions, and they were in a very frank and confidential mood. Paul said; `Tim, I've been thinking, while watching you today. Have you ever thought of fostering somebody yourself?' `Well, only that lad I told you about whom I brought home that night. But I'm not really sure I'd be suitable. I'm a single man, for one thing. Isn't that rather frowned upon? And I'm divorced. Wouldn't that make me count as unstable?' `I very much doubt it. I know you very well, and can vouch for your stability, and I'm sure the staff here would be agree enthusiastically. Anyway, lots of single men are fostering. You must remember Johnny from the seminary: he's fostered a smashing lad from St Tar's.' `Johnny? Never!' `Yeah, honestly. And he's doing a really good job. The two of them are really happy together. I see a lot of them; Johnny and I have become close friends since we were ordained, and since you went your own way'. `But Johnny, he's... well,.... oh, never mind.' `What were you going to say?' asked Paul, suspecting what was coming. `Well, when we were in the Sem, I used to see him... erm,...' `You mean he was perving on you? Did that bother you?' `Paul! Honestly! Great subtlety, Soldier! Eat your heart out, Shakespeare! But, yeah, that's what I mean, though it's your word, not mine. For instance, I used to catch him sometimes intently watching me when I was shirtless for any reason, not that I ever need much reason to be shirtless. And I remember he `perved' on you too.' `Hm. That didn't, and doesn't, worry me at all. In fact, I was flattered! And I'd be flattered if I were you, as well.' `What the hell do you mean by that, Paul?' `Just what I said. Johnny's very attractive: he's handsome, a really great-looking guy, something of a hunk, and a really lovely person as well, don't you think?' Tim went red, then white with shock and then anger. `Handsome? Something of a hunk? What's that supposed to mean? Are you trying to tell me that you, whom I have known almost all my life--or obviously not known all my life--and are now sitting drinking my whisky, are... are...' `Are what, Tim? Gay?' But Tim was silent, his mind working furiously. So Paul continued `No, I'm not trying to tell you that. You could have worked that out for yourself if you had tried. In fact, I'm surprised you didn't. No, what I'm asking you is whether you think that Johnny is a great-looking, handsome guy, and a lovely person.' Tim spat out `God! You're really in the mood for shooting from the hip tonight! But I suppose that's always been your way. Shoot first and ask questions afterwards. Fuck, Paul, it's just not good enough! And for your information, read my lips, no I don't think that Johnny is really handsome. I don't think he's something of a hunk. I don't think about it at all! Have some more whisky, and let's change the subject, for Pete's sake.' There was silence for a while. Tim writhed uncomfortably in his chair, the horsehair bristles poking through the fabric and irritating his bare back and thighs. Paul watched him, an unfathomable sympathy in his eyes. Tim caught the look, and it held him, and as they looked at each other, tears began to well up in Tim's eyes, and he began to weep. He had not cried properly in years, even when Sylvia had betrayed him, but he cried now, like a little baby. No doubt the whisky had something to do with it. Paul rushed over to the other side of the room and drew his friend into a tight hug. `It's okay, Tim, it's okay'. `It's not okay. I told you again and again, I have totally fucked up my own life. How can I possibly unfuck somebody else's life, especially a child who's already fucked up by life?' `Let's not talk about all of this now.' `No, you don't understand. I want to. The point is...' and here Tim was sobbing hard, and had to try and master himself `...the point is, that I meant what I said, that Johnny is not in my opinion really handsome. In my... in my opinion...' Tim pulled himself away from Paul's grasp, stood up, and went to look out of the darkened window with his back to the room. `...In my opinion Johnny is drop dead fucking gorgeous! I have been so desperately in love with him since the Seminary, so hard that it hurts. All the time, all the fucking time...' and he broke into sobs again. He continued, when he had mastered himself, `I saw him draw close to you, Paul, I watched him watching you, and I hated you for it. I could see he found me attractive, but he adores you, Paul. I realized that only when I was a Deacon. I decided that I could never go through life like this, yearning after the unattainable, so I made the decision to turn myself into a man before it was too late, rather than a heartbroken castrate existence as a celibate, and what is worse, a faggoty castrate.' Paul winced, but Tim continued, `Yes, a real man. I bought porn magazines with girls' pictures and tried to masturbate, with some success, but hey, when you're young even misshapen carrots turn you on. I went to the pub and got drunk till I puked. I went to football matches--I even supported Brighton and Hove Albion; there's desperation for you--I learnt to strip an engine and put it back together again. I joined the police, one of the most macho jobs I could think of. I proposed to Sylvia and almost forced her to marry me. She was so slim, almost like a guy... Oh God, I did a wicked thing to her. No wonder she found me unsatisfactory in bed. I'm almost certain my supposed daughter is not mine, because we hardly had sex after the marriage, let alone before it! `The divorce magistrate was right, you see. I'm a rascal and a loser. In everything I've done I've failed spectacularly! And I'm as much of a celibate as I would be if I had been ordained. And all this time, I've played the sympathy card with all of you for all it was worth. Poor Tim, abandoned by his tart of a wife, and shafted afterwards by her and her new boyfriend. You see: I'm a hypocrite, all along. And now you know that I'm a poof too. No, they would never trust me with a child to foster.' And he sobbed again. Paul got up and put his arms around his friend again, and held him until the sobs died down. He asked `Have you ever told anyone this before?' `Never, not even myself, really.' `You poor, poor, lamb. Tim, you can't spend your whole life yearning over the impossible. But there is lots of possible happiness for you. You are certainly suitable to foster; I know of no-one better, in fact. I know that this is a strange time to bring it up, but fostering has brought such joy to Johnny! Yes, you're right, Johnny and I are very much in love. We've never said it to each other, and we probably never will; being faggoty castrates... Tim interrupted `...I'm so sorry, I didn't mean that to apply to you...' `...not at all. As you know, I approve of saying what you mean as directly as possible, and it is just a very direct way of saying celibate gays. And since we both love being priests, we are going to have to be very careful how much rein we give to our love. The love which I cannot express for Johnny, I lavish on my boys at St Tar's. And Johnny lavishes love on his Tim. There never was a boy who was so loved.' `His Tim?' `His Tim. His foster son. By some weird coincidence, his foster son has the exact same name as you; he's another Tim Sullivan, as if one wasn't enough. Perhaps you are distantly related,' `That's extraordinary! I'd love to meet him.' Distracted for a minute, Tim began to cheer up. `And so you shall. But not for a while, because Tim is going away to summer camp with the other St Tarcisius lads; he begged and begged so hard to be allowed to go, in order to catch up with his friends, that we agreed. And as there was no way that Johnny could afford a holiday this year, it seemed a good solution. Besides, it'll give me a little time to be with Johnny on our own.' The normal talk had calmed Tim down, and he felt at last and suddenly supremely at his ease, as if a huge burden had lifted off his shoulders. Oddly, even talking about Johnny had not produced the same agonies of heart that it had done for so long, even as recently as twenty minutes ago. Tim felt waves of the deepest affection and gratitude to Paul for having given him this occasion to say what he needed to say at last. `Paul' he began. `I can't begin to thank you enough for helping me to discuss and accept this. Just talking about it in a normal way for the first time has been so amazing. I thought that if I told you the truth, you would hate me, I would lose my job and all my friends. But in your generosity you `came out' to me first, so that I might have the courage to admit it to myself. Did you really know what was going on all along? `Oh yeah, Tim. It's sad, really. In the seminary, you perved on Johnny, Johnny perved on me, and until I fell for Johnny myself, I perved on you, Tim. I've always had a thing for you, even at school. It was a sad little love triangle, with each person aware only of their own love, and watching their own love loving someone else.' `Bloody hell! Was everybody in the Sem a poofter?' `Not at all. Most weren't. But I suspect that there were a larger proportion than in the general population. After all, if you are a devout Catholic, especially these days, you would find it very difficult to explain to your family and friends just why you are not bringing girlfriends home. A vocation to priesthood is an honourable way not to find girls attractive. Paul went on, `But I think that in the case of each of the three of us, there was a real vocation.' `The three of us?' `Yes, you too, Timmy'. `Paul, I really have fucked up, haven't I?' `Oh come here and give me a kiss, you great butch thing, you!' By contrast, the following morning, Tim was in a buoyant mood. He had been thinking about a great deal of things after he went to bed, and he had an idea to propose to Paul. Over breakfast, they talked. Tim said `Paul, did I hear you say that you and Johnny can't afford a holiday this year, and that this other Tim is going away with St Tar's. Do I assume that you are not going to camp with them? `Spot on. I have them all year round; this is my holiday, too.' `So you and Johnny were just going to stay in the parish? Not much of a holiday for Johnny, then. Why don't the two of you come here? The St Tar's camp is for a month, isn't it? Turling Park sends all the boys who remain here away to a boarding school in the highlands of Scotland for a fortnight during that period. I'm going, too. So why don't the two of you come and use my cottage for as much of that month as you want. I'll be here for part of it, but there'll be two weeks when you'll have the place to yourselves. What do you say?' `Tim, that would be just perfect. It's really kind of you! I know that Johnny will be thrilled, not just at your offer, but at the chance to catch up with you again. Honestly, it's time the three of us grew up, and found our friendship once more. It used to mean so much to us.' And so it was arranged. Tim Sullivan Junior was duly packed off to camp, too excited to eat his breakfast on the morning of departure. Johnny drove him to St Tarcisius' Home, the place that Tim had previously hoped he would never have to see again, and there was a great reunion. He had a small bag with him with some old clothes; bizarrely, they were new old clothes, and had to be specially bought from Oxfam, as Tim's own clothes were all new; Johnny had impressed on him how important it was not to make the other boys jealous, or feel second-rate. Tim began to climb onto the bus, and then it suddenly struck him that he would be leaving his new father for the first time. He suddenly felt insecure, and he panicked, running back to Johnny, and hugging him hard. `Dad, I've changed my mind; I don't want to go!' Johnny tugged him by the hair. `Listen, sunshine, you've got to learn to run on your own for a while. We've had a blast over the last few months. I'm going to miss you like crazy, but you'll be fine with all your old friends. Go! go and have a wonderful time.' He kissed the top of Tim's head, and pushed him towards the bus, hoping that Tim would not see the tears in his own eyes, and hear what his heart was shouting `Tim, I don't want you to go either!' Johnny waved hard until the bus was out of sight. Then all the St Tar's staff let out a huge cheer; "FREEDOM! YEAH!!" It was an annual custom, and Johnny was laughing hard, despite the sudden ache in his heart at the first departure of his son. They all went into the staff dining room to drink bucks fizz and let their hair down. By tradition, the staff party went on most of the day, and after an hour or two Johnny was already maudlin, missing Tim desperately. The rest of the party became increasingly difficult, and he was heartily glad when the last of the revellers went off home. Then he felt arms round him from behind, and a chin on his shoulder. `Just you and me, now, for a whole month'. `Yeah, and Tim.' `Tim's gone. He's having a whale of a time on the bus with his friends, and he's forgotten you exist already.' `No, not Tim Sullivan you silly bugger, but Tim Sullivan.' `Oh, that Tim Sullivan. Well, only for a week. And it'll be fine, you'll see.' And so it was. Though Tim senior's vigorous fitness regime was rather more energetic than either Johnny or Paul were prepared for. Paul and Johnny arrived at Tim's cottage that same afternoon in one car. Tim was out cutting grass, but he saw them and waved. He stopped the engine, and jumped off the machine, loping easily over the cricket field towards them, passing under the sprinklers as he ran. The water fell on his tanned and muscular torso, and glinted in the sun. Johnny had to swallow hard. This man, once a close friend, whom he had not seen for nearly ten years had become utterly gorgeous. Johnny gulped again. `Oh my! He's stunning! A real running wet dream!' Paul nudged him hard in the ribs. `Don't you dare perv on him! You're suppposed to perv on me, and anyway, Tim's still very uneasy with all that sort of thing'. The vision of beauty came near; though running, he was scarcely breathing any more heavily than normal. He went straight up to Paul and flung his arms around him, and kissed him full on the lips. Then he did the same to Johnny. Both men were flabbergasted. Johnny looked at Paul as if to say `uneasy with all that sort of thing, eh?' `There!' said Tim. `That's just to get us off on the right foot. We'll start as we mean to go on. No more angst! No more bloody nonsense from me! We are three mates, and we are going to have a real hoot this week! Come on in. Oh, there's one problem; there's only one bedroom, I'm afraid, so if you, Paul would kindly take your usual couch downstairs here...?' `Fine!' `...I'll take Johnny upstairs to my room and fuck him silly, like I've been wanting to do for years!' It took a moment for Johnny and Paul to realize that Tim was joking, but when it had sunk in, the three of them were crying with laughter. And the week got better from there. The boys had already left for their summer break in Scotland, and so the three men would have the run of the entire school and grounds, and have it all to themselves. Tim tossed a coin for beds, and ended up with the couch himself. Paul and Johnny got the big bed upstairs between them, which both excited and rather alarmed them. They rather suspected that Tim had engineered the toss this way, and had done so to give them what he thought they needed, but without embarrassment to to the visitors for having pitched their host out of his own bed. The first night, Tim built a big bonfire where he usually did for the boys, and the three friends cooked a sort of meal on it, and sat around until the small hours of the morning, drinking wine, reminiscing, and quickly rebuilding their relationship. Both Paul and Johnny realized how much they had missed Tim, and on his part he was thrilled to the marrow to have his closest friends back again. Above all, he now had two people with whom he could discuss the things that had been burdening him for so long. He, who was so good at helping other people through their difficulties, had had nobody to talk to about his own. But all that was changed now, and the deep loneliness he had borne for so many years was finally beginning to recede. The three friends found their way somehow to bed that night and fell immediately asleep. About eight o'clock in the morning, when Tim had been up and fretting around, bored, for two hours, he went up the stairs quietly to the bedroom. There he saw Paul and Johnny side by side on the bed, the sheets flung back because of the heat, they were not touching but lying on their backs, still fast asleep. And both of them were tenting out the fronts of their shorts with vast erections. Tim giggled quietly as an idea struck him. He tiptoed downstairs and filled a jug with ice from the freezer. Then returning to the room, he took a handful of ice in each hand and deftly pushed a hand down the front of each sleeper's shorts. In a New York second, the air was blue with foul language, and a moment later there was a three-way wrestle on the bed going on, with each participant trying to stuff ice into the others' various crevices. It was wonderful to be a kid again. When all the ice had melted, the three of them lay entangled in each others' limbs, like so many puppies, laughing and enjoying the moment. `Paul' said Tim. `Yeah?' `The bed's wet'. `So it is. Who's fault's that, I wonder?' Pause. `Tim', said Johnny. `Yeah?' `When's breakfast?' `Not for ages yet. Put your running shoes on, both of you.' `Why?' `Run first, then breakfast'. `Run? Me? Ooooooh, no. It's a while since I swore off that sort of thing for life! I'm a born-again couch potato!' `No breakfast, then.' `Okay. Fine by me, we'll just go back to sleep and get up for lunch.' Pause. `I'm going to tickle you until you put your trainers on' `Fuck you!' `Right! You asked for it!' Five minutes later, the three men were out of bed and jogging down the drive together. Despite their protests for Tim's benefit, neither Johnny nor Paul were as unfit as they alleged, but they were certainly not nearly as fit as their host. He made allowances for them, and set a gentle pace, so that they could talk as they ran. While they trotted past a lake and waterfall, Paul said quietly; `This seems almost too simple, and at the same time, too good to be true. My life normally seems so complicated, and yet here I am running through this wonderful scenery, accompanied by this wonderful scenery' --he looked at Tim and Johnny and smiled--`and I'm far happier than I was in my complex own life. I have just rolled out of bed, and thrown on a pair of trainers, and am now out and about in the same pair of shorts I slept in and nothing else. And I feel wonderful. Does life get any better than this?' `Yes, it does.' said Tim gravely. `It gets better every day now, I find'. They ran for about eight miles, and then returned to Turling Park. However, Tim would not let them rest, but pushed them through a series of gruelling physical exercises until every muscle group had, in Tim's case, received a good workout, and in the others' cases caused what was beginning to hint at some serious aches later. But Tim jumped up and jogged lightly off again, and the others had no choice but, groaning, to follow him. However, he didn't go far before he entered a big building and jogged down a tiled corridor to a set of double doors. `This', he said, `is one of the biggest pleasures of this place'. It was a vast shower room, with about twenty heads, so that the whole room would fill with hot spray. `It's made to take fifty boys at a time. Kick your trainers off,' he said, setting the example, and throwing them outside the door. He suddenly threw a switch, and the room was filled with freezing rain. The three of them gasped with shock, but the water could not be escaped. Slowly it warmed up until the temperature was almost as high as they could bear. They took soap from the wall dispensers, and washed themselves, both their bodies and their shorts. `Simplicity.' said Tim, `This way you only need one pair of shorts; you keep them clean all the time. And if the shorts are nylon, as all mine are, they dry in no time'. By common consent, they stood washing themselves close together far longer than was necessary, drinking in the sight of each others' hands caressing their own bodies, disappearing below the wet shiny shorts and washing below in the secret areas. Then, at some unspoken moment, they started washing each other slowly and tenderly. None of them could by this stage have said which of the other two he loved more; every sense was straining to suck in every detail of the others standing so close. The atmosphere between them was electric; the sexual tension zinged in the tropical downpour as by common consent they each pushed their neighbour's shorts to the floor and kicked them away. They stood there in the steamy rain of the showers, standing still, fascinated at what was before their eyes. They had never before seen each other completely naked, and they just wanted to experience the moment, wishing that it would last forever. They gently began to touch and run their hands over each others' bodies; their palms felt the hard ridges of each others' abdomens and their fingers brushed their pectoral muscles and nipples until their penises strained and strained for release. That release would certainly have come quickly had not the hot water run out, and they were all suddenly drenched and deflated by an icy downpour. The tension of the moment relaxed, and they waited together, their hands in each others' hair, laughing with laddish and rather foolish joy until they had accustomed themselves to the cold, and were enjoying its refreshing vigour. `You're going to ache so badly later' said Tim, turning the water off. `We'd better give you a massage'. And on the benches in the changing room they took turns kneading each others' limbs and torsos until each felt utterly relaxed. Finally, they pulled on their wet clammy shorts and went to dry off in the sunshine and eat breakfast. They wandered around the grounds after breakfast, and talked of their lives. They swam naked in the lake later on; Tim said that he had always wanted to do that, but with the boys around it was not a good idea. Then they lunched lightly with a bottle of white wine. After a siesta, Tim woke them again and took them to the gym, where they worked out under his direction for an hour, followed by another swim, this time in the pool. Then the three of them lay in the afternoon sun; the priests prayed their breviaries while they tanned, and then they talked and talked. At sunset they lit the bonfire. Tim sang to them with a passion that he had never felt before, and in the circle of the firelight their love blossomed and grew strong. They were all exhausted by eleven o'clock, and went indoors. Tim turned to go to the sofa as on the night before, but by one consent Johnny and Paul each took a hand and led him upstairs, where the three fell onto the (now dry) bed. The three of them wrapped their arms around each other, and relaxed into a deep and dreamless sleep. Each day the week following was like this, and both Paul and Johnny grew visibly younger-looking. Their waistlines tightened, their tans deepened, and they grew clearly more relaxed. The love that the three felt often came to the surface, but one of them would usually head off the passion with a funny remark or a practical joke. As the end of the first week drew near, they began to sadden, as Tim prepared to go away to join the Turling Park boys in Scotland. Not that the packing took long. As Tim said: `For the journey, shorts, t-shirt, trainers. For changing into, another pair of shorts, another t-shirt. Plus, wallet, sunglasses, toothbrush, towel, rosary. I think that's all I'll need for a fortnight.' `The simple life' said Johnny admiringly. Tim gave them no warning of his departure; he simply left early one morning while the others still slept, leaving a note on the kitchen table. At first, Paul and Johnny were lost without Tim, and rather depressed. But their joy at their good fortune at being where they were soon reasserted itself, and they resumed the vigorous regime that Tim had bullied them into. He had left his school keys for them, and they were able to continue to use the gym, pool and showers as before. In return, they were supposed to keep an eye on the buildings and drive the lawn mower around the cricket pitch once or twice. Paul was amused. `How many businesses would employ the managing director of their rival to look after their property in their absence?' But he took the opportunity to look over the wonderful facilities at Turling Park and plan how to persuade the diocese to invest more in St Tarcisius' Home. And he and Johnny found after all that the absence of either of the Tims was no brake at all on their fun. They regressed to childhood; they grew daring, scampering naked up and down the corridors of the college, playing hide and seek in the empty classrooms. They found the school uniform store, and tried on the drab uniforms, grimacing at the scratchy rough nylon of the boys' shorts. They climbed the climbing frames in the gym and swung from the ropes, doing Tarzan impressions. They had fun in the chemistry labs, trying to remember from their schooldays what made things go bang. They made rude pots in the pottery room, and, giggling, hid them among the prize exhibits on display, with false names attached. They found the headmaster's study and, dressed only in school shorts and his academic gowns, sat at his desk drinking his sherry. And then they found the metalwork classroom, with its bizarre display of fetters, yokes, collars and handcuffs hanging on the walls. They shouted with laughter, thinking the dungeon ironmongery was hugely camp, and assumed that the teacher responsible was both gay and quite self-mocking. They found the keys to the locks in the teacher's desk drawer, and tried on the various fetters and collars, photographing each other. Paul hung Johnny on the wall in manacles from a hook, Johnny locked Paul into a sort of yoke that held his hands out on either side of his neck. `If we took our shorts off, we could sell these photographs for a fortune on the internet' Paul joked. `It's no joke' said Johnny, yanking down Paul's shorts, and taking a snap. `I've got my retirement to save for'. Five minutes later, with a pair of handcuffs on his wrists, Johnny suddenly went quiet. `What's up, Johnners?' said Paul, concerned that he had fastened them too tight. `Paul, there's blood on these cuffs'. `Shit'. Suddenly the two of them shivered, and unlocked all the irons they had put on each other. They hung them back on the wall and went to put the keys in the drawer. Their mood was broken. As Paul pulled the drawer out he caught sight of a photograph. He took it out and looked at it, turning white. It was a boy, an adolescent, fourteen or fifteen years old, dressed only in school shorts and wearing presumably the same yoke that Paul had worn. The boy had fetters on his ankles too, and he looked the picture of misery. A short search revealed half a dozen similar pictures. Suddenly the two men wanted to get out of the room. They felt sick. For the first time in a fortnight, Johnny and Paul went back to the cottage and dressed properly in shirts and trousers. The naughtiness of playing in the school had somehow lost its appeal. `You know,' said Paul, `St Tar's boys call this place Alcatraz. They don't seem to be far off the mark'. The following day, the friends resumed their active regime, though they confined their visits to the school to the gym, the pool and the showers. They simply did a routine patrol through the other corridors to check on security. `There is one thing we haven't done, though' said Paul, one afternoon. `What's that?' `Gone through Tim's clothes and tried them on!' `You're awful! Paul, you are such a fabric queen! Does it really turn you on to wear other people's clothes?' `You have no idea! Particularly when they are as gorgeous as you or Tim.' `Well there's one thing, at any rate. It won't take long. Something tells me that Tim's wardrobe is not going to give you a lot of scope'. But Johnny was wrong. Tim's collection of sportsgear, especially shiny nylon shorts, was extensive. `A little bit of a fetish here, I think,' said Paul, gleefully. `I'm really disappointed I didn't find this little hoard sooner; it'd be fun to go running in a different pair each day'. But he tried them all on, anyway, and then insisted that the reluctant Johnny do the same. Another cupboard turned out to be full of uniforms. That was a real surprise. There were Tim's old police uniforms, but also an imposing collection of military ones. Since Tim and both Paul and Johnny were slim and fit, the uniforms looked magnificent on them, and the camera came out again. Then there were suits; about five really good suits, hardly worn, and three new pairs of leather trousers. But no underwear, anywhere. `Why three identical pairs of leather trousers?' said Paul. `What a lot you can learn from a guy's wardrobe!' `What a lot you can learn from watching a guy learning from another guy's wardrobe' said Johnny, highly amused. `Look, Paul, what is it, this underwear thing? What have you got against it?' `Nothing at all' he replied. `Underwear is very useful if you've got a hernia, or you are incontinent, or unhygienic, or you want to kill off your sperm, or you're so impossibly hugely endowed that you can't even carry your own weight'. Look,' he went on. `Tim and I went to the same school, as you know. In fact, we were really close friends, and we were both what the Americans call `jocks'; Tim has carried all that on, but I've let it slide, rather. At school I used to be even fitter than he was. Our school used to insist that none of us ever wore anything under our sports kit; they said it was unhygienic, with all the sweating going on. Dead right, I think. But it was the jock thing to do; it was manly and virile, the badge of our status, to do without underwear all the time, particularly when we heard that Mohammed Ali never wore it. Both Tim and I swore off underwear at fourteen, and have never changed our minds, nor have had cause to regret it. And others at our school who admired us did the same. By that age, both Tim and I were doing our own washing, so our families never knew. Happy now?' `Well, I understand a bit better, but I still don't get why everyone I love seems to feel the need to go without!' We lit our evening bonfire as usual, and we lay together with a bottle of wine, each of us wearing a pair of Tim's leather trousers (and nothing underneath, at Paul's insistence), looking at each other in the light of the flames, and watching the flickering light playing on our bare torsos. We drank each other in more greedily than the wine; there was no need for words. We moved closer together; I lay against the scratchy trunk of a tree, my legs wide apart and Paul came to lie with his back against my chest. I folded my legs around his waist and pulled him to me with my arms around his torso. His hand began running up and down my leathered thigh, while I let my hands roam over his smooth chest. I leant my head over his shoulder and began to blow gently in his ear. I explored its whorls and cavities with my tongue, while he gasped. I wanted to taste every inch of this man I loved. I clenched my hands hard on his pectorals as I bit gently on his earlobe. I could see his hard cock straining against the leather, and the sweat running down his beautiful chest, catching the firelight, as he writhed ecstatically in my grasp. The same writhing had made me painfully erect, my cock trapped in the tight leather as Paul frotted and rubbed at my groin with the waistband of his trousers. The sensation, at once painful and so very sweet made me clench my teeth on his earlobe and crush his nipples in my fists. Together we cried out and came at the same moment, subsiding into each other's arms in ecstasy. After a minute or two, Paul turned in my arms and began to kiss me passionately. We rolled on the grass there in the firelight, trying to suck the life out of each other--or was it trying to give each other our own life? We paused for breath, me underneath, and Paul on top, his beloved handsome face only a couple of inches from my own. I gazed at him, my chest suddenly constricting as I felt a rush of the most ardent emotion. `Oh Paul', I began, `I lo...' but he covered my mouth with his own. When we separated again, he said, `Don't say it. Don't say the L word. There's still too much at stake.' I was saddened, but agreed. We got up and went hand-in-hand to Tim's cottage, stripped off the leather trousers, peeling them away from our caked privates (ow!) and tried to clean them up as best we could. Then we got into Tim's tiny shower together, and washed each other tenderly. We each put on a pair of Tim's shorts and went to bed, holding hands, lying and looking at each other until we could keep awake no more. The following morning, we ran as usual; this time Paul insisted that we ran wearing the official school shorts `out of solidarity for the poor bastards who have to wear them all the time'. By this time much fitter, we were really able to speed along, and there was no breath for talking. So when we reached the waterfall, I took Paul's arm. `Paul, I want to talk a minute.' `Anything you want, baby. And I mean anything'. He smiled wickedly. `But I'm only too glad to stop, because these rough shorts are giving my tender bits no end of gyp. Why don't they just make them of sandpaper? It would surely be kinder. Poor bloody sods here at the school have nothing else to wear, ever. Perhaps they are designed to cool their adolescent ardour!' But I was serious. `Paul, up to this point, it's all been fun. But last night we crossed a barrier. Things are different now. We may not have said the L word, but we have had orgasm together, and taken physical, sexual pleasure in a way that is different from what was before. We could kid ourselves before that we were playing. But last night was not playing. `I certainly enjoyed myself!' `Paul, be serious for a minute! Do you think we actually did the deed?' `The big nasty? Well we didn't bugger each other, if that's what you mean.' `Did we have sex?' Paul sighed. `Well, sort of. If you're splitting hairs, we helped each other to achieve orgasm. But it wasn't directly intended. I wasn't directly trying to make you cum, and I suppose you weren't directly trying to make me cum. It just happened, though you might fairly say that our activities made it pretty inevitable. Don't worry about it, darling, just enjoy the memory. I certainly do!' And Paul laid a gentle kiss on my forehead, kissing away the worry lines he saw there. He added, smiling: `And don't ask me to hear your confession, because if I absolve an accomplice, we'll both be excommunicated.' `Let's swim under the waterfall.' So we kicked off our trainers, and jumped in the water, and frolicked for a while before running back to the cottage. Tim returned a few days later. We had frantically tidied everything up, and put everything back in its place, as well as we could remember, but we still felt anxious that he might detect that we had been on the rampage. He came breezing in looking the picture of health and fitness. Bitch. He floored us with his first sentence. `I hope you girls had fun with all those uniforms while I was away!' We didn't know what to say. `Well I certainly hope so: I was having no end of fantasies imagining you in all the various outfits! I can see you both in the leather trousers, now.' We must have looked guilty, for Tim gave a wicked laugh. `Well, we've only got two full days before the horrors return from Scotland, and a week before you go, so we'd better make the most of it'. He had us into all the uniforms again, until he decided that we were all best in the leather trousers. And that was that for the evening, all three of us. I wonder now if Tim hadn't bought three pairs in anticipation of our coming. No pun intended. In some ways wearing them that evening desentitized us to that particular garment, for Tim kept chattering merrily in a way that kept any sexual tension out of our interaction. It also gave us an opportunity to bring up what we had found in the metalwork room. Tim looked grim. `Thompson. The boys call him "The Screw", and they're all scared of him. He certainly gives me the creeps, but as far as I know, he's never laid a finger on a boy in a sexual way; he has only used those irons as short-term punishment. But he uses them too frequently, and now that you have told me about the pictures, I'll keep my eyes and ears open. It ought to be stopped in any event. It's pretty seedy.' At the end of the week, we went home. Paul had to prepare for the new term at St Tarcisius, and I couldn't wait any longer to see my beloved son home again. CHAPTER 7 After the holidays, life returned to normal. The autumn drew on, and Tim Sullivan Jnr (as Paul and I now jokingly called him) went off on his bicycle each morning to his new school, St Thomas More's Catholic Secondary School for Boys. He fitted in happily enough; for a while I don't think anyone noticed he was there, really. He used his usual skill of blending into the background and lying low, though after a term or two he made something of a name for himself in gymnastics, since he was in such good physical shape. He was found to be of above average intelligence, as I suspected, and his reports were good, though unremarkable. He rarely brought any friends home except, from time to time, a nice sporty lad called Jack, nor went to their homes, seeming to be content with his old Dad, Teresa, and his Uncle Paul who came and spent the night at least once a week, and often visited for meals at other times. I was sorry that Tim Senior did not find time to come up, but once term had recommenced, the needs of the grounds, and even more of his boys, who spent a precious hour every evening in his cottage, meant that he was never free. We spoke often on the phone, however. Tim Jnr grew over his fear of sleeping alone, and grew to love his attic room, where he surrounded himself with all the things that boys of his age like. I had warned him that priests didn't earn a lot of money, and the big expensive shopping blow-out we had when he first moved in was going to be a very rare, and possibly unique, event. He didn't mind, and seemed to manage on the pocket money I could find for him, plus little extras he managed to charm out of parishioners from time to time, especially at Christmas, when he benefitted from the bonanza that priests tend to receive from their parish. For me it was bottles of wine and whisky; for Tim, computer games, footballs and book tokens. The parish had adopted him as a sort of mascot, and he revelled in the attention. Boys in residential homes are starved of attention, but now he had amassed an audience of several hundred! It was now early summer again, when Tim had been with me for about a year, and we had settled down very happily indeed. Paul had indeed been correct that we were made for each other, and I blessed him for his intuition. The weather had grown unseasonably hot, and I could hear Tim in the attic room above me tossing and turning on his bed as indeed I was doing on mine. I heard a car pull up outside erratically, crunching into something, followed by a big crash as if a dustbin had been knocked over. `Shit'. I thought. `Another drunk'. The doorbell rang and rang. This happens to priests rather a lot; drunks and tramps think that the presbytery is the very place to get whatever they want. Which is usually money, and the time is almost always unsocial. As usual, I was only in my shorts, so I pulled on a t-shirt and went to the door. I was confronted with a most terrible sight. A man stood swaying in front of me, his hair and face a mess of blood, his clothes torn. I gasped. The vision spoke indistinctly, `Johnny, Johnny, please help, please...' and fell forward into my arms. I was frantic. It was Paul! I half carried, half dragged him inside to the sofa. I heard Tim call down `Dad, who is it?'. I didn't want him to see Paul like this, so I said as calmly as I could, `It's your Uncle Paul, Son. Go back to bed.' But he must have heard something in my voice, so he came downstairs and saw his beloved Uncle in that dreadful state. I fully expected hysterics, but was reassured when he said calmly to me: `Shall I ring for an ambulance, Dad?' `Yes, Son, good idea'. Inside, it was me who was nearly in hysterics. Paul started slurring again `please, please...' `Oh God! Paul, the ambulance is coming; hold on, my love'. Paul began to get agitated. `NO, NO, please, please, St Tar's, breaking it up, boys in danger, please p'leeease' Now I understood: Police. I shouted to Tim `Tim, urgent, Police to St Tars!'. Paul collapsed back in relief and closed his eyes. Soon after, his breathing became erratic; I put my ear to his chest and could hear that his heart beat was irregular, too. `O please God, no!' I ran for the holy oils, then absolved and anointed my beloved as the tears ran down my face. I clutched him to me hard `Oh Paul, Paul, please don't die. I have never said that I loved you! Oh Paul my love, my love, my heart!' I was frantic. I had forgotten that Tim was there listening, but he said to me quietly `Dad, I'm sorry, but you'd better put Uncle Paul down; there may be internal injuries.' He was right. I wasn't thinking straight. I stood up, my t shirt covered with my beloved's blood, in a mental state little better than his. It seemed like an eternity, but it must have been only a minute or two before the ambulance came. Tim, still calm, let them in, and his tranquility brought me to a sense of myself again. The ambulance men were friendly, steady and professional. While Tim brought me a clean t shirt, they asked me for Paul's details, and for his next of kin. I told them that we were the nearest thing Paul had to family, and that I thought Paul had named me as his next of kin. So Tim and I got to ride in the ambulance to the hospital. On the way, Tim talked to me to keep me calm; he said that when he had called for the police to go to St Tarcisius', it had been unnecessary; someone else had called both them and the fire service. And of course, that makes sense; it must have taken Paul at least twenty minutes to drive from St Tar's to my home, especially in the state he was in. It still baffles me to think how he managed to drive at all, though it is wonderfully comforting to think that he turned for help to me first. At the hospital, Paul was rushed into emergency care, and from then on there was nothing we could do but sit in the corridor in our bare feet, shorts and t-shirts leaning against each other for comfort. We said the rosary on our fingers and just waited. Tim remained calm as ever, and my heart, even in its distressed state, swelled with pride in my beloved son. `Don't cry, Dad, it'll all be fine. You'll see.' My son was no fool. He had always known that I loved Paul: he saw the way we interacted, but had the good sense to keep his knowledge to himself. I dared not ask him whether he thought my feelings were returned, because no doubt he would know that too. And I wasn't sure I'd be able to cope with the answer--whichever answer it was. I thought back to the night nearly a year before when Paul had put his hand over my mouth to prevent me telling him I loved him, and the thought tormented me now. A kindly nurse brought us a blanket and a warm drink, seeing that we had no pockets in our shorts, and therefore no money with us, and we fell asleep in each other's arms. An hour or so later, a policeman called and woke us in order to take a statement. We learnt what had happened at St Tarcisius before and after the attack on Paul. A drunken man whose child had just been taken into care and placed at St Tarcisius by Social Services had gone on the rampage, attacking Paul with an iron bar and running amok. Eventually he set fire to the whole building. Thanks to Paul's warning, no lives had been lost, and the boys and staff were being taken care of in a local school. The man was in custody; the irony was that his son was not even at St Tar's but away for the night, staying with his grandmother. St Tarcisius Home for Boys, however, was no more; it had been entirely gutted by fire; the roofs had fallen in. All the students and resident staff had lost everything they owned except the night clothes they stood up in. The news cast another gloomy pall over us after the policeman left. St Tarcisius' Home had saved so many unhappy lives over its hundred years of existence. Tim was especially downcast. It had been the place he called home for eighteen months, and had been the beginning of his happier life. He was also worried for his friends who were now homeless. But with the dawn came better news of Paul. He was safe, thank God, though terribly battered and weak. The wounds to his head were all superficial, though they looked so awful; the important thing was that his skull was not broken. His right collarbone, however, was shattered, and the shoulder itself was dislocated and his left forearm and upper arm were broken where he had tried to shield his body from the iron bar. Several ribs were broken, and there was extensive bruising and lacerations over all his body. The irregular breathing and heartbeat that had so freaked me were the result of the shock he had taken, and these had both now stabilized. Apparently, the fact that he had become so fit on our last summer holiday, and had got his muscles so strong and firm had probably saved his life. We had both kept up our exercise since. We were allowed in to see him for a few minutes, and we each took hold gently of a bandaged hand and spoke to him of our love, though we were unaware whether he could hear us. A nurse came in, and ushered us out, and we left. It was as we were at the front entrance that we both suddenly realised that we were still in bare feet, clothed only in football shorts and t-shirts. Well that was not too strange, since it was hot summer, but several miles to walk in bare feet during morning rush hour was a little daunting. Then Tim thought of Teresa, and slipped in to charm the receptionist into letting him phone her. She arrived shortly, full of concern for Paul. Paul recovered slowly in hospital, and I was with him when at last he woke. His first thought was to smile at me, `Hello, handsome.' and then he said, his face clouding over: `My boys?' `They're all fine, Paul; nobody except you was in the least hurt.' After Paul had visibly relaxed, we chatted quietly for a while, and I was able to fill him in on the details, which were nearly all sad news for him. `All the boys have been rehoused with families or at the Seminary or the ones with the short straw at Turling Park, poor sods. It's a bit tougher on the staff, because they have lost everything, but the diocese and the local authority are seeing to them. I guess there'll be a huge insurance claim. You don't have to worry; it's all being taken care of.' But then I had to break to him the news that St Tarcisius' was destroyed beyond the hope of rebuilding, and that with it he had lost everything he himself possessed. I hated to have to tell him. But he looked at me and said quietly `at least I still have something which means more to me than anything else'. I looked enquiringly at him. `You, above all' he said. `But Tim, too. Both Tims, in fact.' A fortnight later he was discharged into my care. Tim and I turned up at the hospital with a pair of my shorts and a t-shirt, since he had lost all his own clothes in the fire, and those he had been wearing on the night of the attack had to be thrown away. Somehow the nurses got him dressed, but from there on it was down to us. It was a terrible job to get him into the car with both arms in plaster; we couldn't even grasp him around the torso because of his broken ribs. In the end, we sat him on the passenger seat and swung his legs in. Getting him out wasn't quite as bad, and I was relieved to get him upstairs and into my own bed which, being bigger, was better for the purpose than the guest bed he had always used before. As he eased back onto the pillows he said to me `Oh Johnny! It's good to be home.' I just smiled down at him, thrilled that he thought of my home as his, then I leant forward and kissed his forehead. `Mmm. That's nice. That reminds me', he continued, smiling `I have this faint memory that somebody not a million miles from here told me that he loved me when I was bleeding myself dry over his sofa'. Shit! He had remembered, even through all that. So, the moment had come, and I was dreading the time of acknowledgement. `Oh Paul: I'm so sorry; it came out all on its own! I couldn't help it; I was so terrified I was going to lose you that I didn't know what I was saying.' `Are you saying it wasn't true, then?' `No, never that. I can't deny it; I do love you. Always, everywhere, with all my heart. And I simply couldn't have lost you without telling you'. `And now you've got me into your bed at last, you old pervert, hmm? Still, there won't be much hot passion with me plastered up like this, so I think the Vatican can relax for now.' I think Paul saw my distress, so he grew serious for a minute. `Come here', he said. `Kiss me again'. So I did, on the cheek. `No, you blushing virgin, properly!' So I kissed him on the lips, so very gently. And he turned and whispered in my ear `And I love you too, and I think I always have done from the first day I saw you at the Seminary. And now that I have found you again, I find that I cannot bear being away from you; my heart sings when I see you, when I smell you, when I hear the sound of your voice, I love you always and forever'. There were no tears, but a silent content. I got onto the bed and lay by his side. And Tim, who had been watching from the doorway, having heard everything, tiptoed out and left us together. It was Paul who broke the silence with a little giggle. `Ow! my ribs! Johnny: I've got this little problem'. `Yeah, what is it?'. `Actually, it's a big problem; I desperately need to take a leak'. `Well, you can stand, you can walk, you can use the loo, can't you?' It was then that the problem struck me, and I was both amused and appalled. How was he going to extract his little friend to do his business, with both arms in rigid plaster? He looked at my consternation and tried to laugh. `I've had Nurse Nasty doing it for the last couple of days, after they took out that bloody catheter. It was so embarrassing! To have you do it will be infinitely preferable, believe me.' `It wasn't your embarrassment I was thinking of; it was mine!' Paul only smiled. It didn't work out well at first. If we were simply two mates, no doubt it would have been fine, bar a little embarrassment, which a couple of crude jokes would have solved. I got Paul off the bed and once he was on his feet, he walked to the bathroom easily. But when the moment came to begin operations, my hand began to shake with the sexual tension there was always between us, and the same tension made him nervous when I approached the leg of his shorts to extract his pride and joy. In short, he dried up. `Hell, I'm not going to be able to go now!' he said. But, nothing daunted, I found his penis and drew it out with trembling fingers. All I could think was `Here I am, holding Paul's cock at last'. A similar thought must have crossed Paul's mind, because he began to grow hard. That was the end as far as peeing was concerned. And then I grew hard too. `This is so fucking humiliating!' he said, and then characteristically started laughing, and yelping in pain from his ribs. In a moment we were both hysterically cackling. When we recovered, I had another idea; Before he could protest, I jerked down his shorts over his erect penis (`Ow, careful!') and spun him round to sit down on the loo. I reached over for the shower head, and turned the tap to cold. I aimed at his groin'. `Johnny, no, please, NO!! Aaargh! You BASTARD! I HATE YOU!! Oh shit, that's cold. Haha! Oh! my poor ribs!'. He swung himself from the waist and clonked me on the side of the head as hard as he could with a heavy plastered arm, but I pushed him back and persisted until his equipment was soft. His urine released then, and he sighed with relief. I said smugly `If at first you don't succeed, try, try again!'. That night Tim and I tried to undress Paul. There was no way we could get the t shirt off, twist as we might, without causing him excruciating pain, and so we resorted to scissors. He would have to stay barechested until the plaster casts came off. Naturally this distressed me enormously. Not! I then went off to sleep in the guest room. But Paul spend a dreadful night on his own, with all the little discomforts that hot weather, illness and incapacity bring, literally being unable to move a finger to alleviate them, and unable to wake me through two doors when he called for help. When I went in to see him in the morning, late, since I thought to let him catch up on sleep, I found him exhausted and drawn, sorry for himself, and a little fractious and tearful. So the next night, I slept on the floor by his bed, which was almost where I wanted really to be, and tended his little needs through the night. It made me so happy just to be near him, listening to his breathing close to me, and taking in his special smell. Tim suggested we move the spare bed in for me and put it next to Paul, and that is what we did. I could lie awake and just look my fill at my beloved, asking myself `who needs sex?' I nearly convinced myself, too! Tim's sixteenth birthday came and went; he was so much part of our lives now that I could not imagine life without him. His quiet logical presence, so accepting of the strange relationship between Paul and me, gave me daily more joy. There seemed to be no problems of adolescent angst, and even the humiliating agony of acne hardly troubled him. His schoolwork gave no cause for concern, though the headmaster told me that he was very reluctant to join in the violent games that most boys enjoy; the school had a good rugby tradition, and Tim would be physically sick with apprehension before every game. I went into school and had a chat with the head, and mentioned confidentially the fact that Tim had had an abusive past, which might have led to an exaggerated fear of violence. Secretly, I suspected that the real reason Tim hated rugby was that he was simply gay. So, every day, when the other boys were hitting each other around on the rugby pitch or soccer field, Tim was allowed to go to the school gym weights room, pumping iron. It was already beginning to show in his deepening chest, his broadening shoulders and his narrow waist and hips. And as a result, he was beginning to attract attention from the girls who liked to hang around the school gate, and the boys who simply tend to hang around the jocks. It rather amused the three of us to think of Tim being thought of as a jock! The hot weather, which continued well into the autumn, meant that I had to wash Paul three or four times a day. It was hardly a chore. I loved tending to his beautiful smooth body, kneeling on the bed astride his slim waist, and our intimacy grew apace. I had to do almost every action for him from feeding him every mouthful to cleaning him when he went to the lavatory. But I loved every minute of it and would let nobody else help. Our summer holiday the year before both of us had regarded as something different, out of the ordinary conduct of our relationship. Midsummer madness had taken us over then, and we treasured the memory without thinking that it would be the norm. We had both taken our vows of celibacy freely and joyfully, and neither of us took that line beloved of certain High-Church Anglican clergy who thought that celibacy was simply not having sex with women. But would we ever have taken those vows at all if we had known at the time that our love was reciprocated? Probably, because our vocations meant so much to us both. We were also both on the more traditional wing of the Church, and we really believed that the consummation of our love which we both desired would not be a good idea. So there we were; not an ideal situation. But we loved each other, and loved each other's company, chattering about absolutely anything and nothing, so I was getting very little writing done which was annoying my publisher. No doubt it was all for the best when first one, and then another plaster came off Paul's arms, and he was released into the world once more. But I missed having my little captive audience; I missed the intimacy, frankly. Paul had lost all his belongings in the fire, as I said, and at first he twitted me, saying that he wanted me to outfit him as I had Tim. But there really was not the money any more; that had been a one-off, there was not a lot left, and Tim had to be my first priority. So, since we were the same size and build, I told him he could share my clothes with me. I knew the naughty effect that would have on him. And truth to tell, we both found the idea very intimate and rather erotic; it served as a kind of secret surrogate bodily love. Thereafter, whenever either of us bought clothes they went into the common wardrobe. Our weeks of intimacy had blunted the sad loss of St Tar's for Paul, but there was little doubt that he had lost a part of himself too, because he had loved the work, and adored the boys. He missed them all and worried about them terribly. I had had to hold the phone to his ear while he made detailed enquiries about each of them, and where they were, and how they were doing. When the plaster came off his arms, I had to drive him round to see all the boys, so that he could see for himself that they were well treated. He worried most about the ones at Turling Park, and spent a lot of energy unsuccessfully trying to convince the headmaster there (with guilty glances at his sherry bottle) that none of `his' boys would benefit at all from the metalwork classes. He couldn't come out with his accusations against The Screw without admitting that he had himself been rampaging round the school during the holidays! Tim having been so easy, and there being a lot of homeless boys since the destruction of St Tar's, Paul (now living with me) and I began to apply our minds to fostering again. It was hard to choose among the boys, but in the end we decided to take two of those who had been sent to Turling Park, and of whom Paul had been particularly fond. So Marc, who was 12, and Conor, an Irish boy of 10, arrived in time for Christmas. Tim was delighted with the prospect of two new brothers, and spent all his free time decorating the spare room for them to share. This left us with a problem. There was no bedroom left for Paul. Tim, characteristically, offered to move in with his soon-to-be-brothers, but we told him that we thought that he needed his privacy. Which, let the reader understand, meant that we knew very well just how badly sixteen year old young men need their privacy, and we didn't want Marc and Conor finding out about all that sooner than they would find it out for themselves anyway. And secretly, we thought that if we left ourselves no other option, Paul and I could continue sharing a room with a clear conscience. As long as we had separate beds, nobody could point the finger. We hoped. From the first, Marc and Conor were a complete delight, though they were far noisier and much more rumbustuous that Tim had ever been. Paul, believing that the St Tarcisius phase of his life had come to an end, had decided himself to be the fostering parent, and so he was `Dad' to them, and I was Uncle Johnny. It worked fine; Teresa had easily fallen back in to the role of part-time-mother, and she said that she felt ten years younger. But really, Tim did most of the work with the lads; he was truly wonderful with them. Even then, Paul and I wondered whether he had done this sort of thing before; he seemed a complete natural with younger boys. The first time they saw Tim shirtless in the bathroom, the boys conceived a towering awe of this godlike muscular hunk who was their new big brother; they started walking like him, imitating all his little catch phrases, and dressing like him, never wearing their blue jeans again, but sticking to khaki chinos and slim-fitting white jeans. And on his part, he kept an eye out for them at school; he took them there, and brought them home. He picked them up and comforted them when they got hurt (which was often, for both the boys were very athletic and competitive), and even mended their clothes. He sorted out their many quarrels and occasionally, when he thought we were not looking, clouted them over the head for some misdemeanour. He taught them to serve Mass reverently, and would pray the rosary with them every night. In our own prayers, Paul and I used to thank God fervently for Tim, for we should never have managed the lads so well without him. And the boys simply adored him. As he began to get fit once more, Paul started to worry that being made jobless by the loss of St Tarcisius' Home, the Bishop would now send him to be a Parish Priest at the other end of the diocese and we would be separated just as our life together was becoming so rich. He hated the thought of being far from Tim, too, for the two had become closer and closer, and separating Tim from Marc and Conor just was not to be thought of. Then finally, just before Easter, the summons came. Instead of just sending for Paul, however, unexpectedly the Bishop sent for us both, and so, with our three sons in tow (all in smart suits), we set off to hear Paul's fate. The Bishop was charming, and put us at our ease straight away, complimenting Tim on being a fine young man and a credit to his father, and then asking the two lads about school football statistics, complimenting them on their prowess. He was a canny man, who knew that even in the case of priests, the way to parents' hearts is through flattery of their children. He then sent the three lads out to feed the ducks in the local pond, (Tim was a little chagrined at that) and finally turned to us. He got to the point straight away. There were, he confirmed sadly, no plans to rebuild St Tarcisius. The project was just too large to contemplate, even with the insurance money. The land would be sold for housing. Therefore, henceforward all Catholic boys would have to be sent to Turling Park. I saw Paul's look of horror, and I groaned inwardly. However, the Bishop had not finished. The Headmaster and Governors of Turling Park had agreed to the construction of a Catholic house in the grounds of the College, and the Bishop wanted Paul as its Warden, and me as its Chaplain, both jobs to be residential and full-time. The insurance money from the destroyed Home, plus the money for the sale of the land, should pay for the building work, and also provide a substantial endowment for the new House. The school would provide the land free of charge, since it would benefit from the greater numbers (hence getting more money from the state), and be able to hire more staff overall, to everybody's satisfaction, and the new St Tarcisius House would mean that the boys could benefit from the wonderful resources of Turling Park while still having the loving family atmosphere that had always been a feature of St Tarcisius' Home for Boys. The best of both worlds, in other words. In the meantime, we could both continue at St Edwards until the new building was ready. The boys made homeless by the destruction of their old home could stay at the seminary for the time being, but would be admitted gradually to the existing Turling Park buildings as soon as places became available, and when the new building was ready, hopefully in two years' time or so, they could all move in together. In the meantime, Paul could go in on a regular basis to keep in touch with the boys. By this time, Paul was grinning from ear to ear. His recovery was complete. We celebrated that night with champagne and a big dinner. Even Marc and Conor got a little champagne, and a lot tipsy. Tim carried both of them up to bed as they fell asleep. CHAPTER 8 Tim Sullivan Senior had enjoyed his little game with Paul and Johnny. The uniforms had not been his at all, but had been borrowed from a friend who collected all sorts of militaria, simply in order for Tim to give his visitors something to talk about, and some fun. Next time they came, he would have to think of something else. The suits (for Mass and meetings) and the sports clothes (for everything else) were his, however, and he had bought the leather trousers simply because he thought they would all look dishy in them. He was right. He decided that he would have to buy another pair for Tim Junior, his own young namesake, whom he had yet to meet, but whom he heard on the grapevine was also something of a dish. His life was getting better all the time. Just before Christmas, he had received a letter from his former wife, Sylvia. He had written to her himself, largely to apologize for having used her; he told her that he had finally acknowledged that he was gay, and hoped that she would find it in her heart to forgive him. Sylvia was not a vindictive woman; her behaviour at the trial was untypical of her, though sadly not at all untypical of divorce courts. She wrote back warmly, also frankly acknowledging her own part in the breakup. She was bitterly sorry for her unfaithfulness; she knew how much it hurt Tim, and she said that she did it partly for that reason, to try and make him jealous and notice her again. And no, she was sorry, but Catriona was not his daughter. Her father was the man that Sylvia had been married to these last few years, whom Tim had seen her with in the courtroom, whom she loved to distraction, and to whom she had not only been faithful, but had borne three more children. He was, moreover, a prosperous architect, and they had never needed Tim's and Sylvia's old family home, for which Tim had been paying the mortgage. Instead, they had been renting it out to students and saving the money. They felt dreadful about this, but since Tim had disappeared without leaving any forwarding address, there had been no way of contacting him. The house was still in Tim's name, and was not needed by her or Catriona, and was therefore at his disposal; she had pleasure in enclosing a cheque for nearly ten thousand pounds back rent, and another couple of thousand pounds of Tim's savings which Sylvia had taken from their joint account at the time of the divorce. The house agents would henceforward send Tim the rent directly, and he could either contine to rent it out as a source of income, or put the house up for sale. In any event, the house was now his, without strings attached. Tim even went to see Sylvia in her new imposing home, and was genuinely pleased that she was now so content. Catriona had no memory whatever of this tall handsome man, but she liked him, and though now eight years old, happily sat on his knee, to be quickly joined by all her younger siblings. Tim also got on well with Sylvia's husband, Roger, and he spent a happy few hours with him putting up the Christmas decorations. It was a sign how well Sylvia and Roger liked the new Tim that they invited him to spend Christmas with them, and it was a sign of how well Tim liked them when he genuinely regretted having to refuse, because the boys at Turling Park who had nowhere else to go used to spend the day with him. So Tim was now relatively wealthy, and could reduce the hours he worked in the grounds to allow more time with the boys. He had received promotion, too, and was no longer the grunt who cut the grass, but he had moved to work in the vegetable and flower gardens. For this he took night classes in horticulture. He had to go and buy some ordinary trousers for this, and a couple of shirts; the first in several years. The new job brought a new home, too. He moved out of his old cottage and into one with no fewer than three bedrooms, which he would use to put up the occasional lad who found the privacy-deprived dormitories of Turling Park too much to bear in whatever grief was uppermost in his mind at that time. Easter brought the news of the building of the new St Tarcisius' House in the grounds of Turling Park. Tim was overjoyed. His rediscovery of Paul and Johnny's friendship had been the biggest event of his recently new and happier life, and the thought that they would be always near was wonderful. That summer, the old St Tarcisius boys were reunited to go on Summer Camp together. They met at the old site, sad to see their old home standing blackened and empty, and soon to be demolished, but the reunion was a happy one, and several former members of staff came for the occasion. Once the boys were seen off, the old staff, eschewing their former triumphant shout, went off to a pub for their traditional bucks fizz and caught up on the gossip. Paul and Johnny came down to see Tim Senior again. This time, however, they spent only a couple of days at Turling Park, and Tim did not go away with to Scotland at all. Instead, the three of them took bicycles over on the ferry to France, and spent a wonderful fortnight pedalling around Normandy, squeezing together in one tent designed for four (and therefore with only enough room for two) and eating large French meals. Their delight in each other continued to deepen, and somehow the flippant humour that was naturally created in the particular combination of these three individuals kept them from the sexual consummation that each of them longed for, and yet feared. On coming back to Turling Park, Paul and Johnny walked over the site for the new house with the architects--among whom was Roger, Sylvia's husband--and made a lot of decisions. The new term at Turling Park opened a new chapter in Tim's life. He was hunkered down weeding a flower bed early one afternoon, wearing as usual only his blue football shorts, and waiting for his assigned boy assistant to arrive, when he was tapped on the shoulder. `Mm?' he said. A small voice asked `Are you Mr Hagrid?' `Grr,' he said, without turning round. It was an old trick to play on a new boy, to make him call one of the staff by his nickname. They should try that with The Screw! As a joke, it was as old as sending a boy to the stores to ask for a tin of elbow grease. `I'm Mr Sullivan, Soldier, though you can call me Tim if you like, as I'm not a teacher'. `Erm... thanks Mr Tim. But could you please tell me where I can find Mr Hagrid?' Tim sighed. `Its ok, Soldier, that's what some people with what they think is a sense of humour call me. You've found me'. He turned round on his haunches to inspect his new recruit, and looked into the piercing blue eyes and took in the light, fair hair. `Oh my God!' he said, and fell on his backside into the flower bed. He was instantly transported back four, five years to that freezing night when he had rescued......this boy??...Surely not! That boy was nearly twelve, and must be sixteen or seventeen now. This boy was about thirteen. And this boy clearly did not recognize Tim. `Are you all right, Sir?' said the vision. It must be a coincidence, he thought. He pulled himself together and out of the flowerbed, brushing soil off his shorts and legs, feeling rather foolish. `Yes, Soldier, I'm fine, thanks. You just reminded me of someone. What's your name? `Thompson, Sir. Dan Thompson.' `Well, Dan Thompson, we'll get on fine, if you can tell the difference between a weed and a flower. The first lesson is to get yourself some sun. Take off your sweatshirt and sweatpants; you'll get them filthy. Good, that's better, isn't it? Take off your t-shirt too, if you like, but don't lose it, or there'll be hell to pay from the ogres in the clothing department.' Dan stripped quickly until he was, like Tim, dressed only in shorts. Tim looked appraisingly at the boy. He was clearly a sturdy, good-looking lad, and his initial impression of waif-likeness was immediately dissipated by his confident, athletic movements as he stripped, and the developed boyish musculature on his chest and arms. But Tim was reminded more and more of that lad whom he had rescued in the night. It was something in the way that the lad moved, as well as his striking looks. `Are you new here, Soldier?' `Yes sir. I've just come from Welling Court.' Welling Court, far away in the Midlands, was the elite of the state junior homes for boys in trouble. It worked more or less like a private prep school, taking in the brighter younger boys that needed special housing and care. It had the disadvantage of removing the boys from all that was familiar, and taking them far away, but it gave them an unprecedented start in life, which they otherwise would not have. They were also kept there until they were thirteen, when some lucky boys could win scholarships to public schools. Dan was not that lucky, and so was sent to Turling Park. The man and boy worked companionably side by side. The boy learnt quickly and worked very hard, so Tim and he finished the bed in record time, with half an hour to spare. `Well, Soldier, I think we've earned ourselves some refreshments before your carpentry class. Grab your things, and we'll go back to my house'. That was the start of a close friendship between Tim and Dan. Somehow they found that they understood each other without much needing to be said. Each afternoon they worked together in the gardens, and simply enjoyed each other's company. Tim's mind went back to what Paul had said to him about fostering, and he thought that, much as he loved the other lads, this was the first boy he could really imagine sharing his life with since his nocturnal visitor five years ago. Dan was one of Tim's most regular visitors during the evening free time; there was scarcely an evening when he did not put in an appearance, making himself entirely at home with confidence. His natural ease and charm, his physical strength, his intrepidity, and his prowess on the games field made him popular with the other boys and with the staff too, and so nobody questioned his growing closeness with Tim, whom he soon came to idolize. Unknown to Tim, Dan had begun to wonder whether he could persuade Tim to foster or even adopt him. And neither had any notion that the other was thinking, let alone wanting, the same thing. One evening, Dan was Tim's only visitor. Over the hot chocolate, Tim took his chance, and gently began to explore Dan's background. He sensed immediately from the boy's tension that he was going to have to go extremely carefully. On his part, Dan was apprehensive. He had never spoken to anyone about these things before, but somehow those understanding brown eyes made him think that this man was special, and so he was prepared to risk it. Dan could not remember his mother, he said; she had died when he was an infant, but he remembered others talking about her without much respect. The only family he could remember were his father and his brother. Even at this distance of time, he cried when he remembered his brother. `He was the only good thing in my life at that time. I was very small, but Ben looked after me. He fed me, changed and washed my clothes, and tucked me into bed, but most of all, he protected me from Dad.' `How much older was your brother?' `I really don't know. When you're that small, everyone seems so adult. But I think that he can't have been that much older, because Dad used to hang him by his arms from a hook in the roof of the caravan to beat him.' `Oh my God! What did he do to deserve that?' `Nothing, nothing at all!' The boy was crying now. It was all pouring out of him. Somehow those warm brown eyes of Tim's had opened gates that many counsellors had tried to breach without success. Tim moved unconsciously to hunker down in front of Dan, his knees against the boy's, looking into his eyes. From his looks and his story, Tim was beginning to suspect who the lad was now. `Dad used to do something mean to Ben most nights, but some nights it was worse than others. If he had been drinking and had friends around, it was worse. Then Ben would be tied up as I said, and hit really hard with Dad's belt. His back used to be covered with bruises. And then Dad would... I don't know how to describe it ... he kind of pretended that Ben was a woman, and put his... his willie up Ben's bottom. And sometimes Dad's friends would do it too. Often there would be blood. Sometimes they took him out of the caravan to do it, and when they came back, Ben wouldn't be with them, but he would come back later, crying. I think it was probably worse, what they did to him then. `The last night was the worst of all. It is stuck in my mind for ever. They tied Ben up and beat him so hard that I couldn't bear it any more. I tried to take the belt from Dad, but he hit me across the face. That was the first and only time he ever hit me, but then he pulled my trousers off, and untied Ben to tie me up to beat me. Ben saved me again, and threw me out of the caravan door. I was terrified, so I went and hid. But I heard the terrible noises, and Ben screaming. I don't think I can ever forget that sound.' Dan and Tim looked into each others' eyes; Tim was deeply shocked, and Dan was weeping hard. `A little while later, Ben came looking for me. He was covered in blood, his whole b...b...back was in a terrible state. He only had a towel on, and even that was covered in his blood. But he still was thinking of me! He took me back to the caravan, and tucked me up in bed. Dad and one his friends were asleep at the table. I suppose they were drunk. I wanted to stay with Ben, but he said that he had to go and get rid of the blood. He told me to be calm, that everything was all right, that he would come back for me. And he took his tracksuit trousers and went. Those were the last words he ever said to me. `Dad stirred at that point and I lost it. I scrambled out of bed and ran to find Ben in the shower block only just in time to see him running out of it as fast as he could go. I wondered what could have so scared him. Perhaps one of Dad's friends was in there. I called to him, but he didn't hear me. I started to run after him--I was only in my night things--but he was too fast for me. I followed along as best I could, but I only had little legs, and was too slow and it was too late. I found the towel soaked with his blood that he had worn around his waist, but I never saw my brother again. I still have the towel. They tried to take it away from me when I came here, but I wouldn't let them. `He promised to come back for me, and he always kept his promises, especially to me. So I think he must be dead. I think Dad found him and killed him that night, or one of his friends did it.' Dan broke down and sobbed. Tim leant over and hugged him tightly. He had such a powerful sense of the past repeating itself. Nothing had ever seemed so right as the young man in his arms now. He felt no erotic desire, just a strong protective sense. Nobody is going to hurt this lad again, if I can help it! When Dan had calmed down, he continued, `I don't remember anything else after that. I was completely lost, and the night was dark, raining and terribly cold. I remember lying down on the pavement and going to sleep with Ben's towel in my hand, but the next thing I remember I was in the Royal Sussex Hospital, still gripping the towel. `They questioned me, but I hadn't got a clue where I lived, other than in a caravan, and clearly Dad hadn't bothered to report me missing--perhaps he was afraid that the police would discover he had killed Ben--so I was sent to Welling Court, and I've been there ever since, until I came here.' Tim went over to the telephone, and rang Dan's housemaster to ask if Dan could stay with him tonight. Permission was given for this on special occasions, and this was no exception. Tim returned to squat down in front of the lad. `He said you can stay the night, Soldier'. For the first time in the evening, Dan smiled. The smile was radiant, and when he saw it, Tim was now completely certain whom he had in front of him. He laid his hands on the boy's thighs. `Now I've got something to tell you. I don't know where your brother Ben is, nor do I know if he is even alive. But I do know by the most extraordinary coincidence that he did survive that night, and you have explained to me some of what has been perhaps the most puzzling episode in my life so far.' And Tim proceeded to tell Dan the story of that evening when he had rescued the boy he now knew for the first time to be called Ben. And so he finished the story `...and at the hospital, the social workers took him. But I had had to go by then, and I never saw who took him, nor have heard of him since, though I have been looking for him all the time, because I think now that I acted wrongly to abandon him. And now perhaps you understand why I reacted the way I did when I first saw you, because you are very like your brother indeed, though something tells me you are a bit tougher. Perhaps because, thanks to him, you never got the abuse that he did, and you had his love and protection in your formative years, something he never had.' `I think you're right, Sir. Am I like Ben? I'd like that; he was wonderful! But do you think that my Dad found him at the hospital and took him back home?' `Very unlikely. The staff at the hospital were extremely shocked at the state of Ben's abused body, and they would never have handed him over to anyone but the proper authorities. I thought it most likely that Ben would have been brought here to Turling Park, but there was never any sign of him. He was too old for Welling Court. The only other place was St Tarcisius, the Catholic college, but your family is not Catholic, is it?' `No; we're nothing, really'. `Yes, I remember asking Ben if he were a Catholic, and he didn't know what the word meant'. `Yes, theological nicities were not frequently discussed in our family'. Tim smiled at the lad's precocious language. That's Welling Court for you! Tim said; `But I have never given up hope that one day we will come across him. You know, he would never tell me his name, his home, his family, or anything about himself. He hoped that I might be able to take him in, but when he discovered that it was impossible--which I really thought it was, then,--he made up his mind to disappear completely, and he has succeeded only too well. When I changed my circumstances--in order to make it possible to take him in, among other reasons, by the way--it was too late, and he had vanished. `But I am certain in my heart that he is alive, and now that there are two of us with a real interest in finding him, perhaps we shall have better luck together.' Dan gave Tim his radiant smile again. Tim held out his hand, `Come on, Soldier, time for bed.' `Sir, Mr Tim, could you do me a favour?' `Depends on the favour, Soldier'. Give you a home for the rest of your life? Sure, kid. But Tim only thought it. `Would you look after my, that is, Ben's towel for me? I'm so scared that the school will take it.' `Of course. I'd be honoured.' And Tim was. The boys at Turling Park had so few things of their own, that what they had was extremely precious. They went upstairs, and Tim showed Dan to a spare room, and showed him the bathroom. He then went and drank a thoughtful glass of whisky by himself. He had lost his heart to the brave little lad. When all was quiet upstairs, Tim tiptoed up himself, knelt as usual to say his prayers, and went to bed. He had only just turned out the light when the door of his room opened. There was the boy, in his school shorts. `Tim, Sir?' "Yes Dan?' `I've never slept on my own before. Can I sleep on your floor?' And against all his better judgment, Tim flung back his coverlet, and the lad scrambled in to join him. Just as well, thought Tim, that he was at least wearing his shorts. He prayed hard that his instinctive, and, he thought probably stupid, action to take the boy into his bed would have no unforseen consequences. And so that night Dan shared Tim's bed just as his brother had done five years before. Tim pulled the youngster against his chest, and was almost surprised by the smooth and unblemished skin, where he had expected welts, blood and scars. They both slept soundly. CHAPTER 9 When my Tim turned seventeen, his purgatory began, and our life was never the same again. Overnight, almost, he began to change; to stay out at all hours--most unlike him--and when he returned, he would never tell us where he had been, plead or shout as we might. He was always apologetic, even to the point of tears, but as to details, he stayed clammed shut. One day he returned in tight white trousers which left nothing at all to the imagination, since he was obviously wearing no underwear as usual, and a mesh muscle shirt with his beautiful blond hair cropped like an american marine. I was shocked at the substitution of this tart for my beautiful little boy; I lost my cool, and shouted at him that he looked like a rent-boy. He shouted back that if that was the way he looked, perhaps that's the way he would behave! Our fears ran riot. We searched his room when he was at school (very carefully; there is no better way to alienate a teenager than to invade his space) to look for evidence of drugs, or whatever, but we found nothing suspicious. Not even a dirty magazine. For that matter, not only was there nothing suspicious, but there was simply nothing, and that was suspicious. He seemed to have very much less stuff than we thought; both of us saw his bare shelves and sparse wardrobe, and we wondered, with sinking hearts, whether he was planning to move out. Even many things that we had given him and we knew he loved were no longer here. His books seemed to have dwindled, too; just a couple of spiritual books, which narrow interest, though edifying, did not seem entirely healthy, even to a priest's eye. Which all led us to worry that he might have a girlfriend--or far more likely a boyfriend--of whom we would not approve. Given his new dress sense, even allowing for the fact that he was a teenager, and teenagers tend to do odd things, this seemed quite likely. But he seemed to have so little joy in it all, even of the secret sort that one might associate with an illicit relationship. He appeared morose, rather, and withdrawn. Was he taking drugs? Had he become addicted to casual sex? Was he going cottaging? Had he caught a disease? Paul and I even put on our secular clothes and went out in the evening to the local cruising areas to see if we could find him, but there was never a sign. We got several good offers, though. At this stage, Tim's moods, too, were very mercurial. You could never know whether he would be grumpy and uncommunicative, or garrulous and manic. There would be several days in a row when he would be entirely his old self, at least apparently, and these days Marc and Conor would monopolize him, reassuring themselves that their beloved older brother had not abandoned them, as he seemed to do on the days of his black moods. But there were good times, too. It was about this time that the Underwear War began. This was to prove the last really good memory we had as a family while we lived at St Edwards. I may have mentioned before that Tim had been working out on weights at school instead of going to Physical Education or Games. In fact, most days he spent an hour and a half or more in the gym, and had become very powerfully built for his age. Frankly, with his blond hair, chiselled handsome 17-year-old looks, his golden tan and his broad shoulders tapering over a magnificent smooth chest and six-pack abdomen to a narrow waist and slender hips, he was, as they say, a walking wet dream. He began to be noticed by girls, in whom he showed less than no interest, and boys began to cultivate him too, I suppose to learn how he attracted the babes, and then they began to imitate him. And some cultivated him for more personal reasons. Blue jeans (which Tim would still never wear) went out of fashion among his contemporaries--and, more to the point, so did underwear. One morning I received a letter from the school's headmaster pleading with me to make him wear at least boxer shorts, because the mothers of other boys were complaining that their sons were starting to go commando all the time. Well, I spoke to Tim, but he refused to change his habits, and that was that. In his current mood, I wan't going to press him over something that I thought wasn't really important. For some reason, the whole underwear thing was never negotiable with him; there was some deep reason for his behaviour that I didn't understand until we had been through the long and painful process that I am going to narrate. Even going to the doctor, or putting himself in situations when most people would have thought that underwear was de rigeur, he never could be persuaded to wear any. So on this occasion I didn't try hard, knowing it would be fruitless, and anyway, underwear was not a specified item of school uniform, so there was no rule broken; if boys saw him without pants when changing, admired him, and thought that it was a cool thing to go without, then who was Tim to disagree with them? He never saw any point in underwear. So to speak. The two tearaways Marc and Conor overheard our discussion, though, and were fascinated at this revelation of their godlike elder brother's private life. Henceforward neither of them could by any means be persuaded to wear underwear either. So, resigned, I made Paul give them the stern hygiene talk about shaking willies and wiping bottoms, and decided that there was nothing more to be done about it except to make sure that all the loos in the house were amply provided with moist toilet tissue. I also resigned myself to the fact that now the only non-commando in the family was going to be me. My intransigence obviously posed a challenge to the others, and few males can resist a challenge. I got home from the shops late one afternoon to find a little gathering in the garden around a bonfire. They had obviously been waiting for me, so I came to join them, wondering what it was all about. Marc told me portentously in his rough adolescent voice; `Today, Uncle Johnny, is World Go-Commando Day!'. `You what?' `Watch' Marc and Conor each had an armful of their underwear that they began feeding article by article ceremoniously onto the fire. I raised my eyebrows at Paul who was watching and grinning, and I shrugged resignedly. It was his money going up in flames, after all. They were his boys. My son Tim went next, though. I didn't know he still had any underpants, but he obviously kept a pair or two, just in case. They were still in their plastic wrappers, which were torn off for the first time, and the brand new pants went onto the fire. Then everyone looked at Paul, who shrugged and said that he hadn't had a pair since he was fourteen. But, he went on, he didn't want to disappoint us. He disappeared behind a tree and came out with a large pile of undergarments. I wondered idly where he had found them. He had cast two onto the fire before I began to recognize my own property. I shouted and lunged at Paul, who ran laughing off up the garden. I rugby-tackled him, but as he fell, laughing hard, he threw the pile of my clothes to Tim. Tim fumbled the catch, and my boxers scattered everywhere. Tim, Marc, and Conor, shouting with laughter, chased my underwear all over the garden, pulling it from the branches of trees and out of the small pond, fighting each other for every article of my most intimate clothing, while I was trying to free myself from the clutches of Paul, who was now wrestling me to the ground and tickling me until I was helpless and breathless. I managed somehow to fight him off, and tried to rescue as much as I could, but it was useless; I was hopelessly outnumbered. As soon as I had wrested one pair from the boys' hands (I never managed to get any off the muscular Tim), I would be rugby-tackled by Paul or, more efficiently, by Tim himself who was now so well-built and strong that he was impossible to resist. One by one, I saw my beloved collection being consigned to the flames until eventually Conor said in his high Irish voice `That's the lot!' `Er, not quite', said Tim with a wicked glint in his eye. `What now?', I thought, and I poised myself for flight. Paul moved quietly behind me and suddenly pinned my arms behind my back. Tim grabbed my belt and undid it. Oh no! I knew what was going to happen now! It did. Tim pulled down my trousers and tugged them over my shoes. They were followed by my boxers, and there I was, naked from the waist down, swinging gently in the breeze. `Have you no bloody respect for the clergy, let alone your own father, you heathen, you unnatural children!' I shouted, but I was laughing. The boxers went on the fire, then Tim hugged me and said `Welcome to the Commandos, Dad!' I was then pinned down and tickled until I swore a solemn oath to join the Commandos from that moment. And I must say, as I reflected to Paul later in bed, all the happiest times that he and I had spent together, such as that summer at Tim Senior's cottage, had mostly been spent `commando'. Paul had been out to a closing-down army surplus shop earlier that day, and had bought everyone ex-army camouflage jackets, trousers and boots. We all had to change into them (nothing at all underneath, naturally) there and then in the garden. Teresa chose that exact moment (of course) to come into the garden with some food that she had brought for the barbecue which Paul had obviously planned in advance. Marc spotted her first; Er... hello, Aunt Tess.' Five pairs of hands shot to their corresponding naked groins, and five faces went bright red as she left the food, making some comment to the clouds about what a lot of weather we seemed to be getting these days, and how she ought to be getting home sometime in the next six months. But she was smiling; she was used to men in her own family, and we all loved her, and we knew by a thousand ways that she loved us. Once dressed in our combats, it felt strange but kind of virile to feel the rough canvas clothes against our skin without wearing boxers, socks or shirts; and the combination of our male bonding (which the feminists love to sneer at) with the love, tenderness and togetherness of our family was so wonderful that I wouldn't have changed that evening for the worlds. I would have given a lot more than some old underpants away for times like that. We baked potatoes and cooked sausages and burgers on the fire, and hunkered around on our heels until late, drinking beer (for Paul, Tim and me) while the boys drank Coke, talking about nothing and everything, and putting the world to rights. After the boys had gone to bed, Paul Tim and I stayed outside talking quietly. Then I looked my watch and saw that it was gone eleven. So I said to Tim: `You too. Time for bed, Soldier! School tomorrow.' Tim went suddenly very still. `What did you call me, Dad?' `Soldier, Son. You are dressed in the gear, and you are going commando, I happen to know that for a fact.' I grinned at him, thinking of Teresa. Tim relaxed again. `Sorry, Dad; it was just a memory.' `Did your real father call you that, Son?' Oops. We might have opened something up here. `No, Dad. It's all right; it was a happy memory. It was just a surprise to be called that again.' `That's good to know, Soldier.' His eyebrows raised. He said, dangerously, `And what would you know about Commandos? I've been one for years. This is only your first day as a recruit, Soldier.' Like a frog, he powerfully leapt on me from his squat, and sent me flying. We wrestled for a while, but Tim would always win now. He sat triumphantly astride me. `I submit!' I said, breathless. `You submit, what?' `Er; I submit, Soldier' `Wrong! That's not the way to address a senior officer!' He undid my jacket, and pushed it back from my chest, and tickled my ribs, then squeezed my nipples. I wondered even then whether he realised just how erotic that was. If it had been Paul on top, I would have disgraced myself with a hard-on. `Ow! Ow! All right. I submit, Sir.' `That's better! Captain Topham, I think we'd better keep an eye on this squaddie for a while yet; he's a bit lippy.' `Yessir. I had noticed, Sir. Oh yes, definitely lippy! Perhaps you'd better stay around for a bit longer, Sir,' said Paul. I relented, and Paul passed Tim another beer. In the end, it was after three o'clock in the morning when we finally called it a night. We had shed our camouflage jackets a while before, and the three of us left them in the garden as we went indoors arm in arm. Paul and I just fell as we were onto the nearest bed--mine--and knew no more until the morning, when we awoke together, our arms entangled and still in our camouflage trousers and boots. I gently disentangled myself, and went upstairs to call Tim, to get him to school. Finding the door open, I went in to find him asleep on his back, on top of the bed, also still in combat trousers and boots, his morning erection pushing hard at his fly. With his cropped hair and his muscular torso, he looked every inch the young soldier. I kissed his forehead, and said `Reveille, Soldier'. He woke, sleepily gave me his glorious smile and got up. I treasured the memory of World Go-Commando Day for a long time, for it was the last occasion that we were so happy in quite that carefree way. There were dark days ahead for us all. CHAPTER 10 As autumn moved into winter, I began to suspect that Tim was no longer going to school. It worried me enormously, because despite his late start in education, he eventually did justice to his considerable intelligence and had been doing well. I phoned the headmaster, who told me that Tim had hardly been in at all for about a month and a half. They had assumed that he had been unwell, since he had always been so punctual and regular in everything. I was angry, and thought that they had been negligent with regard to my son by not keeping me informed, and nearly told them so, but a parish priest has to stay on good terms with his school. I tried talking to Tim about it, but uncharacteristically, he would not discuss it. He said `Look! I'm seventeen, so it's my business if I go or not. Just mind your own business!' I was shocked; other than the incident over his new haircut and clothes, he had never talked to me disrespectfully before. I hoped that it was just overdue teenage angst (which I had expected at some time, after all), and decided to talk it through with Paul. What with one thing and another, the opportunity never came, and Tim always warned me off with a black look whenever I tried to broach the subject of school with him. As with the matter of underwear, there was not the slightest room for dialogue, and so I left it until we could find a good moment. By the time Christmas had come, he had missed too much school to be able now to take his A level exams; he would simply have to repeat the whole year or go to a college to start again. I was secretly happier than I let on, as it would be another year before I lost Tim to University or to whatever else he wanted to do. So I did nothing, and Tim continued to not bother with school. How foolish and self-deceiving we can be when we love! I shall reproach myself to my dying day that I made no serious attempt to find out where Tim did spend his time. One day Tim came in, looking very sheepish, with a scarf around his neck. Even when it was cold, he never wore scarves. And it wasn't cold. He was also walking awkwardly, rather carefully, and pushed past me without giving me my usual hug. I was immediately suspicious. `What's up, Tim? Have you been in a fight? Has someone kicked you in the unmentionables?' `No. It's nothing. Get off my case, will you?' `Tim!' I was hurt, and not a little worried. But he went upstairs and didn't reappear for supper. Paul raised eyebrows enquiringly to me. I shrugged, so Paul went upstairs to Tim, and was there a long time. The two of them came down together and sat on the sofa to watch the TV. I sent a questioning glance to Paul, but he simply shook his head and shrugged. He'd obviously had no luck either, except to convince Tim to join the rest of us. Tim was wearing a button-up shirt, and the collar was, unusually for Tim, a casual dresser, completely closed. This intrigued Marc and Conor, who began to tease and tickle him, which he was definitely not in the mood for. He tried to push Conor off his neck. He underestimated once again his own strength. Conor flew off, still with a grip on Tim's shirt collar. The shirt buttons popped off, and the shirt tore right off Tim's shoulder. Marc, who was pulling the other side of the shirt, sat back heavily as the buttons gave way. We all looked in amazement. Tim, his strong shoulders now bare, had around his neck a heavy steel chain closed with a huge padlock. There was an awkward silence. Tim seethed with fury. Paul looked at me, puzzled. `Tim, what's that?' I asked. `What does it fucking look like?' Paul reacted furiously: `Tim! How dare you speak to your father like that'. `He's not my father, he's only my fucking landlord! The state pays him to look after me!' Pandemonium. Conor screamed something incoherent at Tim, and Marc battered him hard with his fists. Paul went white, then red and was building up to a whole explosion. I yelled to everyone to get out except Tim, and we would sort this out between us. When they had left, I looked at my son closely. Tim's beautiful eyes were brimming with tears. Careful, Johnny, I thought, this wasn't what it appeared to be. I went over to my son, who seemed to want to be that no longer, and put one hand on the back of his head. He didn't pull away, but seemed in some way to want me to be there. With my other hand I picked up the padlock that lay against his breast. It and the chain were horribly heavy. I was beginning to suspect what this might mean. `Tim?' `Yeah, what?' he said sullenly. `Do you really want this around your neck?' `What do you think?' he retorted rudely. `Where's the key?'. `I'm not taking it off, and that's that!' `I didn't ask you to. I just asked where the key is'. `Never you mind. It's none of your bloody business!' `Well, all right. Just get the key of that padlock, and show me that you can open it, and I'll leave you alone. You can wear what you like, as far as I'm concerned'. `No.' He looked trapped. `Do you mean that someone else has the key?'. `I didn't say that'. Tim still wouldn't lie to me. He looked at me desperately, willing me not to push him any further. The tears in his eyes began to spill onto his cheeks. I wiped them away with my thumb. I wanted to cry myself. `Tim, something has to be going on for you to speak to me like that. I cannot believe that you are fighting me of your own will. We have always loved and honoured each other, and been more friends than foster father and son. What have I done to you that you would push me away from you like this? Do you know how you are breaking my heart? Paul and I are so very worried for you, my darling. Tim steeled himself and pulled away from me. `Don't be. I'm not your `darling'. Paul's your `darling', your bum-chum. I'll look after myself. I've always had to, after all. I'm an adult now and can do as I want' Tim sniffled through his tears, his eyes pleading with me. His words spat hate, but his eyes begged for understanding and love and forgiveness. He never could lie to me. What the fuck was going on? `No, Tim, you're not an adult, and all this proves it. Yes, you'll be eighteen in a few weeks and in law our fostering relationship ends. You will no longer be a ward of court. You can go where you want, do what you want, if that's what you want. Up to you. But now? Tim, for the first time that I have known you, you are not behaving responsibly. Perhaps, my son, I know you better than anyone else on earth does, and I know that this is untypical behaviour. I had wondered whether you might be on drugs, but I don't think so now.' Tim's head shook strongly. I continued. `I think you are steeling yourself for some life decision. You think you know what you want, and I fear that you are about to make the biggest mistake of your life. Won't you please tell me what is going on?' I had struck a nerve. `It's none of your fucking business! I've got to live my life my own way, not your fucking way. Get out of my fucking hair'. Tim was sobbing now, his voice cracking, and pulling the shreds of his shirt to try cover the obscene chain and lock. Unsuccessfully. I had to persist. There was something wrong here. I knew Tim far too well to even think for a moment that he really no longer loved me. He was putting on an act for some reason that I could not fathom, and though that act hurt me, I could see that it was hurting Tim much, much, more. `Tim, I will always love you, and wherever I am will be a home for you. You may not want to think of me as your father any more, but I shall always think of you as my son. You can say what you want, do what you want, call me what you want, but you won't change that. Now please won't you tell me what's going on?' Tim shook his head again. `Okay. Then perhaps I'll tell you what I think is going on'. And I told him what I thought, and I read in his frightened eyes that I had got it at least partially right. As time was to prove, I was not right enough. Tim hobbled out of the room, as quickly as he could. I wondered again how he had injured himself. Later as we lay in our twin beds, side by side, with a heavy heart I told Paul what I had guessed. `Paul, I think that Tim has a Master'. `A what?' `It means that he has got into BDSM or something." `What on earth's that?' `Bondage and Domination, Sadism and Masochism.' `Sadism? Oh God! He's only seventeen!' `Quite. I don't know how far it has gone, but I think that he may have committed himself in some way to some man or woman. I suspect a man, from what we know of him. I can't think why otherwise he would be behaving quite so badly towards us unless someone were forcing him somehow to choose between us, or to otherwise alienate us from him. His `Master' I think is making him say all these things as a sort of test of his obedience. The chain and lock are another test; they must be really uncomfortable.' `But why, Johnny, why? Tim has always been the gentlest, loveliest, sunniest lad. We've all always got on so well. Why would he do something like that?' `Who can tell what lies below the surface? He was terribly abused as a boy, and perhaps this is somehow a bubbling up of the problems. Perhaps it is how he learnt from his father to express sexual passion. Perhaps as a result he feels more fulfilled as a gay submissive. I never got any further with him on the subject of his father than we did that first day when he arrived. He would freak out every time I approached the subject, so I took the cowardly route and decided to let it come out in its own time. I never guessed he would turn against me.' `I couldn't bear the way he was talking to you. Calling you his `landlord', after all you have done for him.' `That wasn't him, Paul. I cannot believe he would ever willingly say that. His `Master' has probably told him to call him `Daddy' or something--it's quite common--and told him that here is merely the place he lives now. I could see in his eyes that it was breaking him up to say it'. Finally I wept, and Paul came across from his own bed, got in with me and simply held me, our bare chests pressed together. We were both so full of grief that the erotic significance of what we were doing quite passed us by. Christmas and another month passed without incident. Tim continued to be sullen and uncommunicative. Marc and Conor, after refusing to speak to Tim for some days, had with the resilience of youth bounced back and they treated him as always before, mutatis mutandis. Tim still wore his chain and padlock, but now he made no attempt to hide them, which drew some startled glances from the parishioners, as did the tight trousers he had resumed, in which his bulging genitals seemed to have doubled in size. But most of the parishioners had children too, and simply passed me sympathetic glances. One evening, Tim returned, and came into the house so quietly that we could hardly hear him. But Conor, who had just been brushing his teeth ready for bed saw him and called out `Tim why are you walking so funny?' Paul came out of our room at that moment, and saw him hobbling along, wincing. As soon as he realised he was being watched, Tim straightened up and ran briskly up the stairs to his room. We heard a thud as he threw himself onto his bed followed by a groan of pain. Paul knew from recent experience that questioning Tim would be fruitless, so when the lad left for his mysterious destination in the morning, Paul went up to his attic room and found the khaki chinos Tim had been wearing the previous day. Inside the seat of the trousers there were bloodstains which Tim had inexpertly tried to remove. Even Paul knew what that meant, but he did not tell me what he had found for a very long time, knowing how it would distress me. Tim stopped serving at daily Mass, or receiving communion and just sat in the back pew with his head in his hands. It was shortly after Easter that Tim returned with his padlock and chain gone, and in their place was a thin shiny steel collar. It actually looked rather good on him but for the fact that there was no opening or even lock on it. It had been welded in some way. Then over the succeeding weeks, and as the days became warmer, Tim's habits of dress began to change again. He had always loved the feel of shiny 80's-style brief nylon football shorts, (he had told us once that that was another happy memory, as it was for us, remembering Tim Senior's cottage holiday) and now he would wear nothing else. We never saw him in trousers any more--we had another row when I tried to make him wear some to Sunday Mass. Even the obscene tight white trousers had vanished. He wore shirts less and less (though his torso seemed to grow ever more defined), and never shoes or socks. I was losing my son before my eyes, and there was not a thing I could do about it. We were all watching the television together a few days after this--it was two days before Tim's eighteenth birthday--and Tim, who was looking very tired, fell asleep, sprawled in the big armchair, shirtless as usual, his strong legs apart, wearing only his shorts. The rest of us, since the business of the day was over, were dressed casually, ready for bed, though it was still early. A little later, Conor giggled and pointed, `Look everyone, Tim's got another collar on his balls!' From where he was seated on the floor, he could see up the leg of Tim's shorts, and he scooted across to Tim and gently lifted back the nylon for us to see for ourselves. Yup, he was right. There was another solid steel collar welded around the neck of Tim's scrotum, which strained his angry red testicles down painfully. No wonder he had been hobbling. And that wasn't all. His whole groin was entirely smooth. I looked up at the young man's outstretched arm and saw that his armpits, too, were like Conor's, totally hairless. I had to talk to Tim. It was going to be fruitless, but I had to do it. So I woke him up, and asked him to come into my den for a while. He looked grumpy, but complied, growling at Marc and Conor, asking what they were giggling about. Tim and I sat side by side on the sofa--it was the one that Paul had bled on so copiously that night when St Tar's had burned, and I could still see the stains. It was why we had moved it out of the sitting room. Tim sat slumped, his shoulders the picture of dejection, and his eyes closed. My heart went out to him again. I had to get his attention, seriously. So I got up, and hunkered down before him, our knees touching. Tim looked startled, as if this brought some memory for him. Not as startled as he was going to be in a second! I moved my arm across quickly and lifted back the nylon of his shorts before he could react. I grabbed hold of his testicles and held them firmly. He gaped at me, baffled and shocked. I tugged his balls to bring him to himself. `Tim, what's this?' `Aaaaargh,...what does it fucking look like?' `Isn't it terribly uncomfortable?' `Yeah, when you do that! Let go, for God's sake! You're hurting me!' `And when I'm not? Does it hurt the rest of the time, Tim?' I squeezed gently again. He shouted. `Yes! yes! yes, Fuck! Ow! Yes it hurts all the time. It hurts when I take cold showers, when my balls pull up, it hurts like hell when I run and they slap against my legs, it's agony when I sit down too quickly. It aches all the time, all the fucking time, all the fucking, fucking time. It doesn't stop, it just gets worse sometimes. There, are you happy now? Are you happy now?' Tim was crying with his pain and frustration. And, to add to his embarrassment and humiliation, while I had been holding his balls he had grown a fierce erection which tugged on his scrotum, pulling his testicles hard against the steel of the collar. `Ow! ow! ow!' And Tim sobbed with the pain and the humiliation. I let go and tried to cover his privates with the nylon shorts, but the tented royal blue shiny cloth looked even more obscene. The shorts were really too brief to cover him properly. `You asked if I am happy now, Tim. Look at me. Look at me, Tim! Do I look happy to you?' Unwillingly, he dragged his head around and saw my anguish and my tears. The answer was whispered. `No.' `Why am I unhappy, Tim?' There was a long silence. I repeated the question. Another long silence. `Shall I grab your balls again, Tim? Why am I unhappy?'. Tim gasped, but said nothing. So I grabbed him again. His erection hardened, and I could see the front of his shorts growing wet. He cried even harder from the pain in his balls and from embarrassment, and blubbered out `Aarrrgh! Ow! Please let go! I'll talk. All right! ALL RIGHT! I know why you're unhappy! You're unhappy because of me. You hate what I'm doing, you hate what I'm becoming'. I relased his balls again leant forward, and placed my hands high up on Tim's slim but powerful thighs. `Correct, my son! Do you really want me to be this unhappy, Tim? Do you really think I deserve this?'. `No!' Quietly, though. That was something, at any rate. Progress. `Tim, have you been happy living with me?' `Yes. This has been the best time of my life'. `And are you happy now?' Tim spat out `Do I fucking look it, Johnny?' I edged forward until I held Tim's knees between my own. His erection was still straining at the cloth of his shorts, the blood flow no doubt constricted by the collar. I laid one hand on his shoulder and the other on his waist, and looked directly into his beautiful blue eyes. `Son, I want you to ask yourself something. You have said some atrocious things to me over the last few months. Things I never in my wildest nightmares thought to have my beloved, my gentle, my loving son say to me. I have cried, agonized, asked myself where I have gone wrong, but never for a single moment has my love failed for you. Tim, you come first in everything I do, before myself, before Paul who is my life, before those terrors Marc and Conor whom I adore, before my parents, before everyone except God. Even, God forgive me, before my priesthood and people; so now, perhaps, I understand why the Church is so wise in insisting on celibacy for its priests, because, Tim, this is tearing me apart to see you like this. Tim, I would die for you. What is more, I would kill for you. I would go through hell and high water just to see you smile your wonderful smile for me once more. If this goes on for much longer, frankly, I think that I will want to die! This `Master' you have, whatever his name is. Could he say any of that? Or is he just using you for sex, to gratify his own sexual needs without a thought for yours, let alone your wider needs? Would he kill for you, die for you, love and hold you tenderly? Tim was yelling his sobs now in his grief and confusion of mind and he threw himself into my arms with all his force. I rolled back onto the floor, and Tim fell on top of me, hugging me fiercely. His sore balls connected with my thigh and he screamed blue murder as he dragged me against his chest with his considerable strength; he was as tall as me, and much stronger now. I feared for a moment that he was trying to fight me, but he just hugged me as hard as he could. When his bawling subsided into wracking sobs, and he let me finally breathe, he just lay in my arms on top of me, quietly crying, beating his forehead against the floor over my shoulder. His tears fell as he calmed, and I could feel his heart within his chest banging hard against my ribs. `Tim, my beloved son, what does he give you that I can't?' Tim thought, still gripping me tightly. He said haltingly `He gives me what I need. And I give him what he needs'. `What do you need, Tim?' `Resolution. Closure. Peace with myself. You've always said that Jesus said that the greatest thing someone could do was to give his life for another. That's what I need. And I need to put right what I did wrong all those years ago. This is the only way.' `What did you do wrong?' `I walked out. I hated where I was. I hated my parents, even my mother, who died when I was little, who gave me these scars on my chest, but now I know that hate is wrong. Hate is wrong. Hate destroys. I doubled what was already bad. That was where God put me and I should have stayed. I was so wicked, so wicked. I ran away. I should have stayed. Perhaps my father needed me more than you need me, and certainly my brother did'. `Tim, your parents abused you horribly. And now you feel that you have to be abused again by somebody else to get yourself back?' `Something like that. I must go through it again, if necessary. After all, if that was what my parents were like, that must be what I'm like. Its genetics.' I spun Tim over so that now I was on top of him. I sat astride his thighs, leaning forward and pinning his shoulders to the ground with my hands. He didn't resist me: I wouldn't have stood a chance if he had made even a small effort. `Bollocks. Do you really think that God wants this? I reached down and grabbed his balls again. Tim groaned and his erection hardened again. I continued relentlessly Do you really think your coming to live with me was something wrong, not something right?' Tim wailed: `I don't know any more. I really don't know. But it's too late now. I've made up my mind.' `And does this decision bring you peace?' `Sort of'. `Does it make you feel good?' Tim whispered `No, but at least it's the first truly unselfish thing I have ever done. It's time to repay.' `Bollocks. Double bollocks!' I said again. But I could see that he truly believed it. There was silence, while we both thought. Tears continued to trickle from Tim's eyes, and an occasional sob heaved his chest. After a while, I broke the silence: `Tim; this man. Does he like to hurt you?' `Duuhh. Look at me! That's the idea, Johnny. He loves to hurt me, and he likes to fuck my arse hard.' `Why do you let him? Does he love you?' `He says he does, though I'm pretty sure he doesn't. But he finds me pleasurable' `I'll bet he does. But why do you allow it, Tim?' Softly Tim answered: `Because he has the right'. `Did you give him that right? Did you sign something?' `I didn't need to. He has the right anyway. But yes. I have signed a slave contract, Johnny'. The world turned black, and I saw stars. I struggled for breath. `Oh God! Oh Tim! Oh my son!' There was a deep silence as I lay down on Tim and held my son to my breaking heart. Eventually, I had to ask `Why will you no longer call me Dad?' Silence. Tim started shaking. `Does he make you call him Dad?' Silence. I said bitterly `So in your view, the man who abuses you, chains you, collars you, tortures you, and fucks you till you bleed is entitled to be called Dad, while I who love you so deeply, who have fed you, protected you, adored you, given my life to you and have never consciously or deliberately hurt you in any way am allowed no relationship to you at all except that of landlord, simply because the bastard whom you let torment you says it must be so. Oh this is too, too much! I'm not sure I can handle this any more! Well, all I can say is that the sex must be really fantastic for you to come to think this way! You sad, sad, sad, twisted fuck-up! I got off my son--or was he my son any more?--and went back and sat down on the sofa. I looked down at my boy lying on his back on the floor, sobbing into his hands, his erection still tenting his shorts--due, no doubt more to the collar than to any erotic sense, and waited. Silence. For a long time. Tim whispered. `It isn't'. `What?' I had forgotten my question in my misery. `The sex. It isn't fantastic. In fact he never lets me cum at all. Even when he fucks me he ties up my tackle with wire.' `What?? And this is the man you prefer to me?'. Tim began to sob again. `No, n...no, NEVER, NEVER, NEVER. DON'T think that, ever, ever. I love you more than I've ever loved anyone else. This is not something I want to do; I've told you, it's something I've got to do. He has the right! Well, that was some small consolation, I suppose. But I had to ask. `Tim, does this have anything directly to do with the abuse you suffered as a child?' Silence. Tim shut his brimming eyes. Well, I suppose that gave me my answer. I had guessed it was something of the sort, when Tim had said that this man had a natural right to abuse him. `Tim, I'm nearly finished for now. I think we are both far too traumatized and exhausted to go any further. But I want to ask you a very important question. I've never been in an BDSM relationship, it doesn't really do much for me, but I have read a bit about it. And so I want to ask you; what is your safeword?' `My what?' `Your safeword. Your `Master' will have given you a word to say when you and he are... well, you know. When you say that word, it is a sign that you have taken as much as you can and you want him to stop. What is the word he has given you? `He hasn't given me any such word. He just stops when he wants to.' I was now very frightened. `Tim, this man is a dangerous lunatic. You have made me so very afraid for you. He cannot, must not, be your lover. We must talk this over further. In the meantime, call me Johnny if you can't call me Dad. It's better than silence.' We went slowly to bed. I was shocked to my core and utterly horrified at the prospect of what the future might hold. Earlier in the evening, when the shouting and screaming had started in my den, Marc and Conor had got very distressed, and Paul had taken the two of them to Macdonalds. When I came into the bedroom, after brushing my teeth, I found Paul undressed and in his bed with his eyes closed. I was already in my shorts and so just slipped into bed. As I reached to turn out the light Paul asked `Well? I heard the commotion. I take it you have some news.' I told him everything briefly, and by the end he was white with shock. He loved Tim nearly as much as I did. I asked him `Do we tell the police? Tim is still a minor, just.' Paul thought about it. `You might alienate Tim forever if you do. And he'll only be a minor for two more days. He will almost certainly grow out of it when he realises that this guy is out of his tree. Apart from those collars, which I suppose are largely symbolic, if uncomfortable, and the sex, which seems to be consensual, if rather violent, he doesn't seem to have hurt Tim in any serious way. The contract thing couldn't possibly hold Tim against his will; it'd never stand up in court; slavery is still illegal. Even if this monster were to claim that it was a binding exchange of goods and services, the very fact that the man made Tim sign it while still a minor goes against him.' `I still have a very bad feeling about this'. `Well, leave any action until after Tim's birthday. Let's take that opportunity to show him how much we love him, and he can work out any comparisons for himself.' `Okay, lover boy. But I'm still uneasy. He's very, very determined, as only Tim can be. And we know only too well how he sticks his heels in if he really wants something.' `True enough! Do you think he's going to do a runner?' `It's not impossible. But it shouldn't be too difficult to trace him if he does.' `How? We've not the slightest idea who this bastard who shafts him is.' `On the contrary. Because Tim is so insistent that this man has the right to abuse him, and because of other things, such as his refusal to call me his father any more, and his insistence that he is somehow righting something in the past, I'm 99% certain that Tim's abuser is none other than his dear old dad. No, not me, you silly bugger! His natural father. It shouldn't be impossible to trace him. How many Sullivans can there be within an area small enough for Tim to get there and back on foot--barefoot, in fact--in an afternoon?'. Paul looked troubled, but said nothing. Both of us slept uneasily. The following day, Tim and I were alone in the kitchen together eating breakfast. Though Tim was still wearing only the same pair of shorts and his collars, things were much easier between us. I was glad that we seemed to have cleared the air. I leant across the table and took Tim's hand. `Tim, I explained what a safeword is last night. Do you remember?' `Yes: it's a word you use when you want the hurting to stop, when it's too much.' `That's right. I want to give you a safeword, Tim. It's "Roses". Say it, Tim.' `Roses'. `Tim, if you're ever in trouble, you've only got to say that word to me, find a phone, or whatever, and I will be there for you. I will cross the world, I will tunnel through mountains, I will do whatever necessary. Do you understand?' `Yeah, Johnny, thanks.' He looked as if he meant it, but he changed the subject quickly. `Is Uncle Paul in?' `Yes, I think so.' `Good. I want to go to confession'. Another hopeful sign. He was with Paul for over an hour. I would have given anything to know what he said, but Paul, of course, kept his mouth shut, simply shooting me a look of anguish when it was all over. Tim, on the other hand, seemed transformed, radiant. He went to Mass and served again with the boys for the first time in months, with the most tender devotion. I had never seen him so transported, and I felt a whole lot better. Hopefully he had turned a corner. That evening, Tim had a few close friends around for a barbeque to celebrate the eve of his eighteenth birthday. We, the family, were going to celebrate on the day itself with a special outing, a trip on the Eurostar to Paris, kept very secret. Tim was the life and soul of the party; his friends thought his neck collar was dead kewl (they didn't see the other one). Tim wore the same pair of shorts that he had worn for the last few days, but this time added a new shiny t-shirt. He looked so beautiful, tanned and fit from all his workouts and shirtless weeks that no one could keep their eyes off him. He shouted and laughed and played practical jokes in his old happy way that I had not seen for some time and even I began to relax. As his friends departed, Tim would press something into their hands, a little gift. I was touched. His best friend, Jack, was the last to leave, and I watched from a window as Tim gave Jack his own rosary, and then pulled his new t-shirt off and gave him that too. Odd gift, I thought. For the last hour or so of the day, Tim was very affectionate to all of us, and we all went off to bed in a decidedly better frame of mind than the night before. As midnight struck and Tim turned eighteen, he got off his bed where he had been lying awake, and took off his shorts. They were his last remaining possession. Over the last weeks he had given absolutely everything else away, the more noticeable things like his bike and his computer going to his brothers. Now, literally, all he had in the world were these shorts, and he carefully folded them and laid them on his bed with a note for me. He knelt naked on the ground until he was sure everyone else was asleep. Then he rose and let himself quietly out of the house. CHAPTER 11 I woke early, and went down to the kitchen to make breakfast in bed for Tim. His first day as an adult was going to start well, and we had an international train to catch. I fried bacon and egg, poured cereal, made toast and a pot of tea, and put it all on a tray. I knocked at his door, and was not amazed to get no answer. Well, at least I wouldn't surprise him in the act of wanking! So I turned the handle and went in. No Tim. Just his shorts folded neatly on the bed, and a letter addressed `to Dad'. I hoped that was me and not the other bastard. I put the tray on the floor and opened the letter. An hour later, Paul, who had been searching for me all over the house, anxious about our trip, found me curled up on Tim's bed too shocked even to weep. I simply clutched Tim's shorts against my nose as I treasured his fading scent for the last time, staring at the wall and barely breathing. Tim's note was short and to the point. He said that he was going off to be a slave, he had found his true vocation and state in life. He was hoping by his self-sacrifice to right the wrongs he had done in the past. After thanking us for all we had done for him, he asked us to forgive anything he might have done amiss while he lived with us, and freely forgave any wrong we had done him, not that he could think of any. He asked us not to attempt to find him, but doubted we would succeed anyway, even though he knew we had worked out that he had gone to his natural Father. `You see, Dad', wrote Tim, `Tim Sullivan was never my name anyway. You have never known my real name.' That was the most terrible blow of all. Had these last few years all been a complete deception? What else had he not told us? There was a sad little postscript in which he said that he was glad in this letter to be able to call me Dad one last time. He would have to acknowledge his fault to his new Master, his real Dad, and knew he would be severely punished for it, but, he said, it was worth it to bring me a little happiness in return for the great deal of happiness I had brought him. Paul pulled the bedclothes over me, and then got into bed behind me. He wrapped his arms around me and tried to warm me with his body and with his love. In some distant way I was grateful for his presence, but even more for his silence. It was another two hours before we were found by two hungry boys. `Dad', said Marc to Paul. `Where's Tim? ... Golly! Where's all his stuff gone?' `He's left home, Son.' `Cool! Can I have his room, then?' Four terrible months passed, with no word from Tim, or whatever his name is. I can't call him anything but Tim. But he was rarely out of my thoughts or my prayers. I lost a great deal of weight and for the first time began to look my age. Paul was wonderful, as always. He pushed me around, shepherded me, spoke to the police for me, took me to the doctor for my happy pills, ran the parish, and generally organized my life, never complaining at the three dependent males clamouring for his attention. `It's a lot easier than seventy boys, which I had at St Tar's', he said. Though his grief at the loss of Tim was not so very much less than my own, it was compounded by the daily sight of my own sorrow, and the work with the diaspora of St Tar's boys, and the building of the new home was already heavy enough as a burden. The police were not a lot of help. They pointed out that my legal guardianship had ended on Tim's eighteenth birthday, that he had plainly taken himself off, and he was now responsible for bringing any charges of assault that he wanted to on his own behalf. No, they wouldn't institute a manhunt. Yes, they would keep their eyes open in the area. No, you're right. I didn't believe them either. Their looks implied what they were thinking. `We all know about little boys and Catholic priests. No wonder the poor blighter got out of it the first moment he could, and good luck to him!'. I knew with every fibre of my being that Tim was in trouble. I knew he had bitten off more than he could chew; it was simply not in his nature to fight back despite his awesome physique. He wouldn't hurt a fly deliberately. I was sure that he would simply submit to his father's abuse as he had done before. And I had little doubt that his father would eventually kill him. This thought did not help me to sleep any sweeter. The parishioners were puzzled at Tim's disappearence. What could I tell them? That he had gone to University? I didn't want to lie to them, so I just prevaricated. I had one ray of hope. One day a Mrs Flanagan spoke to me after Mass. `You know, I thought I saw Tim yesterday'. I affected great nonchalance. `Oh really, where?' `Oh, it couldn't have been him, of course. This boy had a neck brace and was completely bald. Tim has such lovely hair.' `I'm sure you're right. Where did you see this lad? Perhaps he's a relative of Tim's; Tim was fostered after all and for all we know might have brothers and sisters all over the country'. And she gave me an address where she had seen this boy in the company of an older man who was holding firmly on to the lad's arm. No sooner was she out of sight, than I ran to my car and drove like a maniac to the house she had told me about. I parked a little distance away and just looked and waited. Nothing. Nor the next day. Or the next. Or the next. Or the next. I saw men going in and out, but never anyone who looked remotely like Tim. Or anyone with moustaches or in leather chaps and caps, for that matter, either, though I don't know why I thought that Masters always dressed according to sterotype. I don't know why I stayed. I even stayed when no one had gone in or out at all for several days. Something kept me glued to the spot. I returned only to do my duty by celebrating Mass, to eat once a day and shower; I snatched a few guilty hours of disturbed sleep in the car. Meanwhile, the time for the St Tarcisius' summer camp had come. The new building at Turling Park was almost finished, so this year, not only the old residents of the former Home were coming, but also those who were due to move with us into the new buildings in September. It was thought that they would integrate together more happily if they had a chance to do so in a neutral and enjoyable place. Besides, those boys incarcerated in the old buildings at Turling Park would be able to get a full month's holiday instead of the two and a half weeks in a Scottish boarding school that they normally got. So Marc and Conor left happily, waved off by Paul on his own. I was still obsessively sitting in my car, watching that bloody house. It had been four days since I had seen anyone at all at the house--I had been watching now for over a week and a half--and Paul had had enough. With the boys gone, he was lonely, and he was worrying, with good cause, about my mental health. So he waked across town to the place where I had parked my car, and reached in through the open window, taking the keys out of the ignition. He got in beside me, talked to me with his hand on my knee, and finally forced me to see sense and get a good night's sleep. He drove me back, undressed me, bathed me and even gave me a massage to relax me. He helped me into my shorts and put me to bed. He kissed me on the forehead and tiptoed out of the room. I was past thinking about sex, and his attentions didn't even cause a flicker of randiness. Poor Paul. He came up to bed at the usual time, but I was deeply asleep, and did not stir when, instead of getting into his own bed, he got in behind me and put his arms around me. It must have been about 3am when I woke. I had had the strangest dream. In the midst of it, I thought someone had shouted `Roses', several times. `Roses?' Tim's safeword! I was awake in an instant. I tore myself from Paul's arms without a backward glance, without even particularly noticing that he had been in my bed with me. Not bothering to dress, I ran downstairs in my shorts, flung and left the door wide open, and ran out into the warm August night. I had no doubt as to where I was going. I was drawn as if by a magnet to that same house I had been outside for the last week or more. I ran and ran through the town, paying not the least heed to my sore bare feet. When I arrived, the house was in darkness. I tore up to the front door and battered on it like a maniac. No response. Some little voice in the back of my head calmly told me that I was behaving stupidly, a nearly naked man disturbing innocent strangers in the early hours of the morning. I had not a shred of evidence that my son was even here, and I was undoubtedly trespassing. But I was driven by my love and my desperation. I went around to the back of the house and tried the other door. A large half-starved Alsatian dog chained to a kennel barked and strained to get at me; I couldn't have cared less. The back door was locked, but I was so desperate that I picked up a large brick from a pile nearby and shattered the glass panel. I put my hand through and opened the door, passing through, not even feeling the shards of glass on the kitchen floor. I could see in the moonlight that the place was a disgusting tip and it stank of rotting food. About a century's worth of filthy dishes stood in the sink. I choked as my gorge rose, and ran on into the house. `Tim! Tim! Are you there, Son?' I called. I heard a movement upstairs, so I ran up and called again. `Tim, Son?' This time there was a faint gurgling noise from one of the rooms. I went in, and was plunged into deep darkness. There must be heavy curtains over the windows, and no light was able to percolate from the streetlamps outside. I turned back to the doorway and felt along the wall for a light switch. I found one; it worked, and the resulting brilliance dazzled me for a moment. When my eyes adjusted, I nearly passed out with shock. There, hanging from the high ceiling by manacles was a powerful young man, but in a terrible state. He was completely naked, his neck in a huge steel collar, and his ankles in heavy fetters. His nearly black testicles dangled low, pulled by heavy weights. His feet could scarcely touch the ground, and he alternated by hanging from his arms, when he could raise one or the other foot to lift the weights hung from his testicles and then standing on the toes of both feet to give his arms some relief while his balls screamed pain instead. The outline of every muscle could be seen, which suggested that he was seriously dehydrated. He was gagged with some sort of ball in his mouth, tied with a cord around the back of his head. Every inch of his body was shaved clean of hair, though there was a little stubble on his scalp. There was no doubt it was Tim, though. I moved like a robot. First I had to to ungag him. As I went round the back of him, I saw that the skin of his back, buttocks and thighs had been flogged brutally. And trailing down the inside of his legs was a dried and caked mess of blood, shit and semen. I untied the cord; Tim, his jaw helpless, was unable even to spit out the ball, and I gently took it out. He then whispered thickly and hoarsely through scarcely moving lips:`Oh Dada! Roses! Roses! Dada, oh Dada!'. He had never ever called me that before. Only Dad, or sometimes Father, when we were being formal in front of parishioners. `Dada' was the cry of a little child. I understood immediately that he was giving me a new and more precious title than just `Dad'. `Oh Tim, oh my beloved, poor, poor Son'. I kissed him tenderly on the shoulder; this was as high as I could reach. My first priority was to take the weight off his testicles so that he had only one problem to manage at a time. Thankfully, the weights had not been fastened in any secure way, but were simply attached with small shackles. Tim groaned with relief as the terrible weight was reduced to the weight of the collar on the scrotum itself, to which I turned my attention next. There was nothing I could do about that. It was much thicker and heavier than the one I had seen him wearing before, but, like that earlier one, it had been welded on in some way. Even if Tim's balls at normal size could have passed back through the aperture in the collar, which I doubted, there was no way that they could do so in their current swollen and bruised condition. Tim's weight was suspended by manacles on his wrists, which were connected to each other by a chain, and a shackle on the mid point of this chain was suspended from a pulley in the ceiling by another chain, attached to the wall behind Tim. To lower him gently would take another person to hold his weight as the tension was released. And the tension was so great that I could not release the chain from the hook on the wall. Tim could not push himself any higher to release the tension--he was already at full stretch--and so I looked around desperately to find some tool to use. A metal bar was nearby, with shackles on each end of it--no doubt used to hold Tim's legs apart at some time--and I battered at the hook on the wall to try and release it. I fitted the bar behind the hook, put both feet up on the wall and pulled with all my might, shouting to Tim to lean all his weight downwards on the chains. After what seemed an eternity, the hook came free from the wall, and as I fell backwards to the floor I snatched at the chain to try and break Tim's fall. However, even in his pitiful state, his weight was too much for me, and Tim crashed to the bare floorboards, a look of absolute agony on his face as his outraged arms were wrenched from the place where they had almost set, and from having been tugged around by me on the other end of the chain; his sore balls were trapped under a thigh also. But he had no voice left to cry out; he could only gasp and make dry sobs. I could only sit there and pull him into my lap and sob for him. At that point, my heart suddenly nearly stopped. I heard footsteps coming up the stairs! At that stage I didn't even want to move. If I couldn't get away, then I just wanted to die there with Tim, and that was that. A tall man came into the room, and I didn't even look up. `Oh there you are' he said. It was Paul, in shorts and a t-shirt. He had guessed where I had gone as soon as I had torn away from his arms to run into the night, and had brought the car to try and bring me back to my senses. Though he had followed me immediately, he had waited outside until he could bear it no longer, and now he had found us both. I suddenly found his simple `oh there you are' hilariously funny. So utterly inadequate to the appalling situation. I cried and laughed--I'm not sure which; I suppose it was a hysterical reaction, but Paul soon joined in, chuckling, and even Tim heaved his ribs trying to laugh. Somehow between us we got Tim home. We thought of trying to find him water, clothes or medical help there at the house, but we were nervous still that his tormentors would return, and thought that the more quickly we got him out the better. No doubt we should have taken him to hospital, but somehow that did not occur to us. Perhaps unconciously we thought that the humiliation for Tim would have been too great on top of everything else. In the event, our instinct that his hurts were not life-threatening was to prove right, but if he had had some serious injury, I suppose we might have put him in danger. After what he had gone through, though, we wanted no other hands touching him but those who loved him. I suppose it was as well that nobody saw us that night. Two almost-naked men carrying one completely naked man in chains to a car and driving him off in the night; well, that would have given Mrs Flanagan something to gossip about, wouldn't it? Particularly if she'd recognized us. We tried to lie Tim on his back on the back seat of the car, but his wounds were too painful. We couldn't lay him on his front because of his tender testicles. In the end, we sat him up in the back seat, and I supported him with my hand behind his neck. Paul drove slowly and carefully. I alternated ecstatic joy and happiness at having found Tim with bitter tears at his distress. Tim just sat in silence, too overwhelmed to have any reactions yet, groaning from time to time, perhaps out of habit, perhaps at the little potholes in the road which Paul could not avoid. I could see by the trembling of his shoulders that Paul was finding it hard to keep back the tears. Back home we brought Tim and laid him gently on the couch in my den, where Paul had been laid when he was had been injured on the night St Tarcisius' Home burned. On that couch, Tim's blood could mingle with Paul's almost like a strange blood-brotherhood ritual. Tepid water, gently administered sip by sip, from a spoon held by Paul, was the first priority, followed by a weak solution of sugar and salt. In all this, Tim lay in my arms as gentle as a lamb, his beautiful, beautiful eyes fixed on us both with love. He never uttered one word of complaint, though moving him and all the manipulation must have been terribly painful. We then got a camera, and carefully photographed all his hurts; it might be necessary for evidence later. We explored his body minutely, testing the feeling in each of his fingers and toes, to see whether there had been any nerve damage from the long suspension in steel bonds. It seemed that he had been very lucky in that regard. We carried him upstairs to the bathroom; as life returned to his limbs, he found that he could slowly and agonizingly walk, as long as he went between us with an arm around our shoulders, and we supported him around his narrow waist. We tenderly washed him clean, pushing our face flannels under the steel that still bound his limbs. We cleaned up his lacerated back as well as we could--it had always been scarred--and examined his anus for tearing. Thankfully there appeared to be no major damage. I suppose he had been raped so often in the last year that he could take whatever his father had to give him in that area. He bore all these indignities so patiently that I was moved beyond description. Never had I loved him more than at that moment. We fed him a little fruit juice, and some warm milk. We took him downstairs again and laid him on a sheet on the floor; we had to do something about his irons. While Paul went down to the shed to find some tools, I examined them. The collars that he had been wearing round his neck and balls at the time he left us had gone. In their place were these new, much heavier, ones. These, like their predecessors, had been welded into place; there were burn marks here and there on Tim's skin, as if he had not suffered enough! Tim's testicles under their heavy collar had already returned to a more regular colour, though they were still swollen, terribly bruised and sore. Tim choked with pain whenever they were touched, though he still said not a word in protest. The fetters on his ankles were terribly heavy too, and the chain between them was thick, heavy and short, only about just over a foot in length. About the same length of lighter chain connected his wrists, from which he had dangled. Paul brought a couple of files, and we set to work. We made almost no progress at all, and by the time dawn came, we seemed to have barely scratched the surface. We decided to call it a night. I was on my last legs. I left a note for Teresa, asking her to go around quietly with her work, and went up to our room. There I found that Paul had pushed our two beds together and remade them as one big double bed; I hadn't thought where Tim was going to sleep. We couldn't leave Tim alone, so now there was room for the three of us here. Paul said `Somehow, I don't think it would be fair to make Tim sleep on his own tonight'. `Well, Tim, we have one big bed. Where do you want to sleep?' I asked him. "Between the two of you, in the middle, Dada,' he whispered hoarsely. It was the first time he had spoken since we had brought him home. `On the crack between the mattresses? I asked. Tim smiled wanly. `Dada, I've been sleeping in a dog's kennel, on concrete or standing up, for the last few months. I think I can cope with the crack of two mattresses!' And his smile broadened into his characteristic beautiful, radiant smile. It was at that point that it all became too much. The dam broke, and it seemed a lifetime of tears and sobs rushed out of me. Tim painfully raised his arms, lifted his chains over my head and hugged me tightly, then Paul came up behind me and hugged us both together. I wanted that moment never to end. And so we went to bed. CHAPTER 12 We woke at about two in the afternoon, and Teresa cooked us brunch. She cried too when she saw her beloved Tim home, and still more when she saw his bare back. His chains puzzled her, but we could not tell her the whole truth. That would have to wait. His arms would still not fully obey him, and were terribly sore, having stiffened in the night, so we had to feed him. Because of his irons, Tim could not get dressed, and so we had simply tucked a towel round his waist. `Still,' he said cheerfully, his voice husky but returning, `it's more than I've worn in a while!' After brunch, we filed away a little more on the irons, but we were beginning to realise that removal was going to be a professional job. That was more complicated. We had no wish to involve outsiders. Paul had the idea of going back to the house to see if the tools that got the irons on might get the irons off. `Tim; how long were those bastards going to be away?' `I'm not sure, Uncle Paul. A few more days, I think. It's a bit risky.' `I'll come too,' I said. As I left, I thought to take the camera. A few photographs of the dungeon and other evidence might be useful in case Tim's tormentor tried to make trouble about our breaking and entering or retrieving his victim. The house was as we left it last night, and in the daylight somehow the interior seemed even more sinister. I took my photographs of all the implements that had been used to torture Tim and perhaps other young men too. And as I prepared to leave, my eye fell on a pile of books in the corner; they were photograph albums; clearly the monster liked photography as well as torture, and had compiled his own record for revisiting happy memories. On top were some envelopes of new photographs. I dreaded to look inside for what I might find; probably pictures of Tim suffering. I took the lot; these should ensure Tim's safety and hopefully that of others. There was a video camera, too, and that inspired me to look in the sitting room, where there was a large collection of videos simply labelled by date. Paul came in from the garden, where in the shed he had found some tools that he thought would help him. He also had the Alsatian with him on a length of cord, and who was now completely tame from hunger; thus we returned to Tim. We fed the dog, who was completely won over by our friendliness, and who seemed overjoyed to see Tim for some reason. The dog, sated, then found a warm corner and went to sleep. He became a most welcome addition to our family, and we later called him Butch, which sounds rather camp, but the name was Conor's idea, after the Disney dog. We had drawn the line at Goofy! Teresa dropped by a little later; she had made Tim a sort of kilt out of an old white sheet which he could wear to cover the necessaries. A great improvement on the towel. Tim said `Great: I've always wanted to look like David Beckham! Now at least I've got the sarong.' She kissed him warmly, and went home. She had over the years become totally one of the family, and had recently agreed to move with us to Turling Park to become the house mother to the boys. We men--Tim could no longer be classed as anything else--sat down that evening, just the three of us, and we had a serious talk about what had happened. Tim got very weepy, not out of self-pity, but in sorrow for everything that had happened. His memories were harrowing, and we were soon grimly silent. `You were right, Dada, so right, and I was so determined that what I thought was right was right.' The whole story poured out of him. He told us at last of his abuse as a child; how his mother was a drug addict who never touched him except to hit or burn him and only spoke to him except to order him to do this or that, and of his father, a bisexual rapist whose appetite or even need for causing pain in other had grown more and more overpowering as Tim grew older. He told us how his mother died of an overdose when he was seven. We heard how Tim used to have a brother, and how he had no idea what happened to him. He told us of the night he had run away from home wearing nothing but tracksuit bottoms--`the same ones I tried to go shopping in the first day I came here, the ones Conor wears sometimes now,'--and his life at St Tar's, how even life in a orphanage was like a heaven to him, compared with his life before. `And then here... Dada, you and Uncle Paul have been so wonderful. I just felt it all had to be paid for. It wasn't right. I didn't deserve it. I had abandoned my brother. I had done nothing to earn such happiness. I had stolen that happiness by running away; it wasn't mine by right. I promised myself that I would go back to my father, but most of all to my brother, who must have suffered so badly as a result of my cowardice, just as soon as I could bear even to think about it. I was sure that as soon as I left our home in the caravan park, my father would have started in on him. I couldn't bear the thought; I had always tried to protect him, but I couldn't bear the thought of going back. But I had to, one day. One morning at St Tar's I looked at myself in the mirror and thought that if I was going to cope with that prospect, I would have to prepare. I was far too easily intimidated, far too physically weak and weedy. Dad had made me terrified of strength and somebody needed only to shout or to shove me for me to to capitulate entirely. I think I'm still the same way, a bloody coward. So I started to work out, really hard, I wanted to learn to be able to bear pain, and make myself as physically strong as I could. Perhaps I could stand up to Dad if I were bigger than he was, perhaps I could bear his beatings and his abuse if I could tolerate pain better. And then you came along, Dada, and I saw the possibility of a new life. A different way. In fact, you reminded me very strongly of someone else who was once so kind to me when I badly needed it; he saved my life when I nearly died of hypothermia the night I ran away. Other than my brother, that guy was the first person whom I loved, though I only met him once, and that for only about twelve hours. That man inspired me, you can't imagine how much. He became my hero, my model, even my fantasy, and I used to sit in the chapel at St Tarcisius, and pray that he would come and take me away to his home to be his friend, his son. Then you came, Dada. You and Uncle Paul had taken a bunch of us swimming; someone had lent us their private pool, and when you came out of the changing room in your blue shorts, you reminded me so much of that guy whose memory I treasured that it just took my breath away. And you and Uncle Paul were so wonderful, both of you! You raced with us, you let us clamber all over you, we dunked each other, and then you both picked us up and threw us into the water, one after another. None of us could get enough, and eventually you were both exhausted, and lay down on the mats by the side of the pool. Both of you lay with two of us next to you, one on each side, with one of your arms round us, holding us tight to you. I couldn't remember being that happy in my life before. You can't imagine what it is like growing up with no affection at all; when it comes, it is the most precious thing you can imagine, and all of us yearned for it, and loved you so much for giving it to us. When it was somebody else's turn to lie beside you, I would cheerfully have killed them for pinching what I saw as my place at your side Dada. I decided there and then that I wanted you as my new dad; you were so handsome and strong; everything I wanted to have and be. I no longer wanted the other guy to be my dad; I knew that he was a preparation for you, really. And Uncle Paul, perhaps this says something to you about how all of us at St Tar's adored you. You were a sort of combination of priest and father, but also our big brother and our closest friend. If any of us have turned into any sort of decent human beings, it is nearly all down to you. I don't know what would have become of me without St Tar's, if I had been sent to Turling Park, for instance. And you two are so great together; the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Uncle Paul, you were always so much more fun when Dada was around; you two used to lark around like you were one of us. I knew it drove some of the staff mad to see you playing like kids, but we absolutely loved it, and we would do anything for either of you just to earn a smile from you. And then I came to my new home here, as I said, and things got even better. School was difficult at first; I found it hard to make friends. I was still terrified of all contact sports and getting hurt, and there was a lot of that sort of thing. The school seemed to sense my reluctance--perhaps you told them something, Dada--and so instead of making me play rugby, they let me work out in the gym. I had got myself not a bad physique at St Tar's, before I came to you, but now I became a real gym junkie. A lot of good it did me: I should have recognized that making my body strong wouldn't necessarily make my spirit strong. I was as much a coward as ever, as I was to find out. I then set a date. I decided that I would try to find my father when I turned eighteen, when I became a legal adult. I knew that before that age, and even perhaps after, you, Dada, would move heaven and earth to prevent it, and so for that last year, from my seventeenth birthday I actually tried everything I could bring myself to do to make you stop loving me...' Here Tim gasped and choked when he saw my shocked face ... `be...because I knew how unhappy you would be with my decision, and I wanted you and Uncle Paul not to regret my going, since you had made me so happy, and I love you so very much. So I wanted you to be glad that I went. The night before I went, the night Conor discovered the collar on my balls, you made me realise that all my efforts had been in vain, that there was nothing I could do to change your love; I came so close to telling you everything, but I still knew I had to go, that I could never live with myself if I didn't try...' I said `Oh, Tim... I'm so sorry for not realising all this. I feel it's my fault for having failed to understand you properly'. `No, no, never your fault! Not even slightly. And what is more, when I was hanging in the chains, I finally began to realise that it wasn't even very much my fault, that in all my abuse I was at least a little bit more sinned against than sinning. And that finally set me free. In my chains, and in my pain, my heart felt free of the burden it had carried for years. And so I called for you, Dada. I knew at that moment without any doubt who was really my father.' Tim, unable to speak for a moment, and seeing me about to say something, leant across and laid his hand on my mouth, shaking his head. The chains meant that he had to raise both arms to do it. We sat in silence. Then Paul asked quietly, `Tim; I'm so happy to hear that. But I still can't understand why, having escaped from hell and having found somewhere you felt secure and happy, you felt the need to go back to hell. Tim cried a little, and then said simply. `Dan.' `Who's Dan?' `My little brother. You should know, Dada, and Uncle Paul, that what I wrote in my letter, about Tim Sullivan not being my real name, well that's true. It's a name I borrowed from that policeman who was wonderfully kind to me the night I ran away. I fantasized about being really his son. He was the one who was so kind to me, the one you remind me of so strongly, Dada, My real name...' Tim paused, trying to get hold of himself, `...my real name is Ben, Benjamin Andrew Thompson. I'm so sorry to have decieved you all these years, but I spent all that time trying to hide from my past, until I was ready to go back to it and confront it. And now I've run away from Dad again, even though I know now it was the right thing to do, and I don't know now whether I'm Ben or Tim, or who the hell I am!' I said, to forestall more tears, `Tell us about Dan.' `Dan's wonderful. He's about four or five years younger than me, so I suppose if he's alive, he must be nearly fourteen now, and I almost had to bring him up, because Mum couldn't, and then she died, and Dad wasn't interested in us until we were big enough to beat with his belt or to fuck... er, sorry, but that's what it was. It wasn't love, or even sex. It was just fucking. My biggest problem was trying to protect Dan from Dad. We only lived in a small caravan, so that was difficult. There was a double bed, for Dad and whoever he shared it with at that time, and a small single bed for Dan and me to share, though we often ended up on the floor, or even under the van if Dad had more than a couple of friends over. Though we were never sent to school, or even taught to read or write, we knew all that there was to know about sex before most kids can ride a bicycle. I must have been about seven or eight when my Dad first fucked me; it was after my mother's death, so perhaps she protected me in her strange way, when she wasn't stubbing out her joints on my chest. Dad's cock isn't really very big, so he didn't do as much harm as he might have done to me. But he began to experiment, and he found that if he tied me up, he got more pleasure out of it. Eventually he used to hang me from the caravan ceiling, or in a barn nearby. That wasn't too bad while I was little, but as I grew heavier, and he used to leave me for longer and longer, it got really painful. I developed good arms and shoulders, though, from pulling away from him and his belt. He began thrashing me every time he fucked me. I don't know why, but my pain made him get really hard. He got into a circle of men who were into the same thing, about the time I was ten. He used to bring them home and take me out to the barn and they would all use me. Some of these had really big cocks, and then I was in real pain, and sometimes injured, I think; at least, if blood is any indication. I would be left for a few days to heal, and then it would all start again. Dan was my only happiness and my only friend at that time. He worshipped the ground I walked on, which is a nice feeling, but I'm not really sure how much he understood of what went on. I had to feed him and look after him, because nobody else was interested, and I loved him more than anyone else on earth. My main concern was keeping Dan out of the way when Dad got randy or drunk, because I knew that it would not be long before Dan would be seen as fair game too. I wanted to postpone that inevitable event as long as possible. One night, when Dan was seven and I was eleven and a half, Dad got really roaring drunk with a friend, and he boasted of what a good fuck I was. They tied me up in the caravan, and both fucked me so hard I cried. Then Dad beat me with a belt, more violently than ever before. Dan got really distressed and the valiant little bugger tried to take the belt from Dad's hand. I didn't realise he had that courage in him; more than I ever had! It was a new side of my little brother. In his place I would never have dared. So they decided that he was old enough to take a little treatment. They took down his shorts and decided to fuck him, so they untied me, and started towards Dan with the rope. He got frightened, hid behind me and started screaming. I grabbed him and pushed him out of the door. So Dad and his friend started on me again. They stripped me naked, tied me up to a hook on the ceiling of the van and gave me the beating of my life. Then they took me down, and still with my hands tied together, fucked me again and again and made me do all these really disgusting things. It wasn't just the sex; there was something else in them. I could see they were getting a real kick out of my pain, which frightened me more than anything. Eventually they untied me and settled in to a drinking session. I had been there before, so I just sat on the floor, all covered in blood and really hurting, as quiet as a mouse in case they noticed me again, and I waited for them to fall asleep. When that inevitably happened, I pulled a towel round my waist and crept out to look for Dan; I was really worrying about him, that he had got lost in his fright. I found him in his usual hiding place, though, under a neighbouring van where he could get some warmth. He was shivering and crying...no bloody wonder, and he was still naked from the waist down. When he saw me all covered in blood he started to scream. I put my hand over his mouth until he calmed, then picked him up and took him back to the van, telling him he was safe now, and everything was ok. I undressed him properly, put him in his night things, and tucked him up in the bed we shared, hugged him, then grabbed a pair of tracksuit trousers and some soap to go to the shower block to clean myself up. I had done this often before. Dan started to cry, begging me not to leave him. I shushed him, and told him I'd be back as soon as I could. Then I went out carrying my trackies. The night was freezing cold; I remember cracking through the icy puddles in my bare feet, with only a towel round me. It was November, you see. I went into the cold shower block, and then for the first time caught sight of my reflection in a mirror. I looked absolutely terrible. It completely freaked me out to see that I had never been as badly beaten as this. There was so much blood all over me. No wonder Dan had been so frightened! That's all I can say in excuse for my behaviour. Without even stopping to think, even of Dan, I just ran; all I wanted was to get as much distance as I could from my Dad. My mind was empty, or rather it was full, only full of terror. There wasn't room for anything else. I ran and ran and ran, with no idea where I was going. Somewhere, I lost the towel round my waist; I didn't stop, but ran on naked. I learnt later that I must have gone something like fifteen miles--and all in my bare feet, though I'd never had shoes and so my soles were pretty hard. I ran so hard that I didn't feel the cold, and when eventually I could go no further, I stopped for breath, and realised why cars were hooting at me: I was stark bollock naked! I had thought it was my Dad after me in his van, and that is what spurred me on. Then I saw that I still had my tracksuit trousers in one hand, and the bar of soap in the other. I felt so stupid! I dropped the soap and pulled the trousers on. By this time the sweat on my body was beginning to freeze, and I was getting really cold. It began to rain really hard again, freezing rain that was turning to sleet. I had not the slightest idea where I was; just on the side of a busy road. I started to run again, just to get warm, but I was beginning to get frightened now, not of Dad, but because I was lost, and I thought I might die of cold. I ran faster, but I had used up all my energy. I got a stitch, and slowed to a walk, then got cold and tried to run again, but I couldn't; I had nothing left. I just kind of lurched along trying to think of something else. Then it was really weird; I got really hot-feeling and really sleepy; I wanted to take off my trousers again to cool off; it was only embarrassment that prevented me. They told me later that I had hypothermia. I suppose I would have died if this man who was out for a run hadn't found me and carried me to his home. He warmed me, bathed me, fed me, and put me in his own bed, lying with me and cuddling me. No, it was not remotely sexual; I was certainly experienced enough by then to know the difference. He washed my trackie trousers, and the next day he gave me one of his own shirts to wear, then took me to the hospital for a check-up. I begged and pleaded for him to let me stay with him, but he told me he couldn't; he was a policeman with terrible hours, and nobody at home when he wasn't there. He looked so lonely, too. In a way, I still wish it could have worked out, although of course I would never have come here. At the time, I was devastated! I wanted so badly to be with him, to be like him, to live in his home, oh, above all to be a man like him. I suppose I fell in love, in a way. He was the first man who ever showed me any tenderness or kindness; in that one night he gave me an ideal for my life; he actually showed me some affection, what it was like to be a human being, and I have never forgotten him or his lesson. I suppose he has long forgotten me, though. When he left me in the hospital, it was a lot worse than when my mother died. And it made me all the more determined not to go home. The nurses were really sweet, but I was determined to tell them nothing, not even my name. If I couldn't have my policeman, at least I must give them nothing which would connect me back to my father. One of the nurses thought she was really clever when she took off my clothes to treat the wounds on my back and my bottom, because she read the name tag on my shirt. Only she didn't know that my rescuer had given me the shirt, and the name was his, not mine. `I thought that if I couldn't have the man himself, I'd at least have his name. His name was Timothy Sullivan, and that is what I have been called from that day to this.' Paul and I looked significantly at each other. Tim went on, `I never told a soul otherwise, and that is why I ended up at St Tar's. If I had not given an Irish Catholic name, I would have been sent to Turling Park --we called it Alcatraz--not St Tarcisius, and would never have met either of you. So I'm sorry for all the lies, but I'm not sorry, if you know what I mean. Tim--or was it Ben?--started to fill up with tears again. `But I never forgot my little brother Dan, not all these years, and I was so terrified for him. I felt so guilty in my happiness, because I could never forget that he was now getting everything, all that abuse, from our Dad that I had been getting before, and should have been getting for several years now. I knew I had abandoned him to his fate. In my mind he is still seven, though I know that he must be thirteen or fourteen, and I imagined him tied up by his hands in the caravan or the barn being r...raped and b...b...beaten. So I knew that one day I would have to go back for him as I promised. `Then, about a year ago, I met Dad, my real Dad. It happened by accident on the way home from school; he saw me on my bike and followed me in his van. I'm surprised he recognized me; it was never my face that he was interested in--except when I was sucking him off, of course. I wanted nothing to do with him at first, and I sprinted hard on my bike, but he made me get off by nudging me with the van until I was afraid he would run me over. `He got out of the van and we talked, or rather he talked. He made me feel so guilty for abandoning him. He hit me twice across the face. Day after day he waited outside the school gates, then followed me, and would try to knock me off my bike until I got off and talked to him. He would tell me nothing about Dan, though I begged him to. I made him all sorts of promises if he would let me see my brother, and he dropped all sorts of hints about what he made Dan do; the sorts of things I knew only too well. He said that Dan thought that I had abandoned him, that I had gone after money and comfort and left him and his Dad alone. He said I could never see Dan again, because Dan hated me for what I had done to him. There was only one thing to be done to make amends, and that was to come home, but not as his son, because I had forfeited that, but as his slave. His property, to do with as he liked. And that made sort of sense. I had been expecting it for years; preparing for it, even. It was agreed that I was to come to him, to his new home, willingly and alone, at midnight on my eighteenth birthday, the first moment I was free of the fostering order, naked, and wearing only the collars that he would put on me as a sign of his ownership. Until that time, Dan would be fucked and beaten every night. And if I said anything to you or the police, Dan would be killed. `I agreed. What else could I do? I knew he was completely capable of everything he had threatened. As a sign of my agreement to his ownership, he told me to get my hair cropped, and to wear those horrible see-through clothes which he got for me, and soon after, he hung a heavy padlock and chain around my neck, which you saw, and hung another padlock on my balls, which you didn't, just locking the hasp over the neck of my ball sac. That was the day you thought someone had kicked me in the nuts. The lock was incredibly heavy, and fucking painful after a few minutes, and the hasp nearly cut off the blood supply; I must have looked as if I had half my sock drawer stuffed into my groin! Whenever I took a step, the padlock would bang against my balls or thighs. Then he took away the tight trousers, because they supported the padlock to some extent, and I was only to wear loose trousers or footie shorts. The only relief I had was to go round to his house each day, when he would take my ball lock off for a couple of hours, chain me up and fuck me. By this stage he couldn't even get it up unless I was chained and in pain. He never let me see Dan, but told me he was tied up and gagged in the next room. I could only see him when I came to be his slave permanently. I dropped out of school, as you know; how could I go in that state, with the locks on my body? My days began to take on an awful familiarity, like when we lived in the caravan. Despite all my working out and my good physique, I was paralyzed whenever I saw my Dad, and I failed completely to stand up to him. I should have, because there is no question that I was much bigger and stronger than he was. I should have gone and searched for Dan to take him away, but I was so weirdly afraid of this man and what he could do, that I did nothing except submit to whatever he wanted. `The last stage of my freedom was when he made me sign my life over to him in what he called a `Legally Binding Slave Contract'. He said that when I fulfilled its terms, on my eighteenth birthday, he would stop abusing Dan, and would take me in his place. Everything would return to the way it was before I ran away. So I signed, agreeing to be his slave, without condition whatever, and do for the rest of my life whatever he wished, relinquishing all my human rights to his will. He then shaved my whole body except my head, and welded on me those collars which you saw. They were a little less uncomfortable than the padlocks, but these new collars were never removed at all. And then Marc and Conor spotted my ball collar the night before I left, and I had all that explaining to do which I could never do until now, for fear of what that bastard would do to my little brother. `I left here the following night, as you know, and ran to his house, naked apart from my two collars. It wasn't easy, dodging the people coming home from the pubs, but I don't think I was seen. It was a bit painful, though, because with the extra weight and no restraint from clothing, my balls and cock banged against my thighs as I ran. I went to his door and rang. He told me to wait outside until he was ready for me, and shut the door. I knelt naked on his doorstep until the following morning; the milkman was a bit surprised to see me, but he passed no remarks. I assumed he was used to seeing Dan, whom I was longing to see again, if only to apologise for never coming home that night I had left. `Dad woke up eventually, and saw to me. He wouldn't take me inside, but cuffed my hands behind my back and chained me up with the Alsatian in the kennel outside in the back yard, connecting my neck collar by a chain to a staple to the kennel opening. I have to say that the dog was my best friend there; he's a big softy. It's lovely to have him here with us. He didn't mind sharing his kennel with me, and both of us were at least warm at night. We ate the same food out of the same dish--it takes some getting used to without hands--and the dog seemed to understand that I was upset. `Days later, I was unlocked from the kennel, and my hands were unlocked. A lot of my hair had grown back by this time, and I was made to shave myself again, squatting in the back garden, without soap, using only cold water from the garden hose, while they watched and masturbated themselves.' `They?' I asked. It was the first word I had been able to utter for ages. `Dad had a couple of mates around for the show. Oh Dada! Please see how I couldn't bear to call you Dad any more! I couldn't liken you to that man!' Tim/Ben cried again quietly for a moment, and then continued; `So, there I was, sitting on the concrete behind the house, shaving my balls, legs, armpits, eyebrows, scalp: everything. How the neighbours didn't see, I don't know. Perhaps they did and didn't care. Perhaps they were used to it. It took several disposable razors. When I finished, he smeared some foul-smelling stuff over me which he said would kill off the follicles, and mean I wouldn't need to shave again for several months. He only left my eyebrows and scalp, in case, he said, he wanted to sell me at a later date to someone who preferred hair on their boys. He cuffed my wrists behind me again and put me back in the kennel. Not even the dog would come near me because of the smell. The stuff itched and burned, but it did its job, because I haven't seen a sign of a hair in all the normal places since. I haven't even needed to shave my chin; it feels just like when I was a little boy. The next day he washed me down with the hose. This was the worst day so far. He got out his oxy-acetylene torch, and putting a sort of blanket next to my skin, he cut off my collars. Good job, I thought. But it was only to make way for all the assortment of ironmongery that I'm still wearing now. The burns of the torch were horrible, because the asbestos blanket wasn't much protection. I've been wearing the irons for several months now. Weeks passed, and then things changed. One day, about a fortnight ago, Dad decided to take me indoors; he put an old raincoat around my shoulders, and led me round to the front door. I saw Mrs Flanagan passing, and tried to hide my face, but I think she saw me.' `She did' I said. `It was how we found you.' `Despite everything' he continued, `I was elated. It was the day I would finally see Dan and make it all up to him. I thought it was all going to be worthwhile. Dad took me into that room where you found me, and chained me to the wall. It was then that he told me the truth. Dan was not here. Dan had never been here. It was all a ruse to get me back for him to play with. `It seems that the night I ran away, Dan must have woken and found me gone. He wandered out to look for me, presumably, and he never returned either. Dad just found our bed completely empty when he woke in the morning. He had no idea what had happened to either of his sons. Perhaps Dan was kidnapped, or died, or found by someone else, but was missing, anyway. Not that Dad ever bothered making enquiries, or even bothered to report him missing. There were two less mouths to feed. `When Dad told me this, I despaired. I had hurt you both, Dada, and Uncle Paul, but also Marc and Conor, myself and everybody, and done it all for nothing. I retreated into myself, and Dad tried everything to get me to scream, respond, interact with him in some way. Maybe in his own way he was lonely too. He never tried talking to me as another human being, though. All his dialogue was with violence. I cannot tell you how awful things were, but perhaps all my workouts had done something to help me bear it. My big body made him randy though, so he made me do push-ups, sit-ups, pull-ups, loads of exercises for hours on end in my chains while he wanked himself off. And he flogged me, burnt me, raped me, cut me, taunted me...I just endured. I'll spare you the details, but if you can imagine it, he did it. Perhaps if I had screamed, it might have been easier. I just wanted to die, knowing all the harm I had done to Dan, and to you both, who had loved me. I remembered Jesus on the cross, and I asked him to accept my suffering as a penance for my sins, especially for what I had done to you.' Tim/Ben stared into space for several minutes. Paul and I were speechless. `Finally, after some weeks, he chained me up as you saw me and began to starve me. I think he was fed up trying to break me. He used to bring the dog in and feed him in my presence to torment me. He only gave me water. Then he tied the weights to my balls which you saw, hauled my arms above my head until I was standing on tiptoes and said that he had to go away on some business to do with his job. He left me to die, he said, of dehydration and pain, if I was the weakling he always took me for. I was an utter failure as a son to him, and an even worse slave. `Think on that', he said, and left. `I didn't think on that, surprisingly. After he had gone, my mind was occupied principally with keeping the weight off my arms and my balls. I got into a sort of rythym, but I knew I could not keep it up forever. Actually, I prayed, and tried to prepare for death, which I felt I deserved for having abandoned first Dan and then you, Dada. I tried to remember bits of the Gospels. Above all I remembered the Gospel that was read at the Mass I came to, the day before I finally went back to Dad. It was the parable of the prodigal son, who stupidly left his father's home against his father's will, and starved among the pigs whose food he was not allowed to eat. I thought how I had left my father's home in the caravan park, and run away, leaving my brother, to make myself happy. `And then I realised that I had it the wrong way round. Yes, I had run away from my father's home, but it was the wrong father and the wrong home. Who was the father but the one who loved and protected his son despite what his son had done against him? I remembered the last talk you and I had, Dada. And I thought of the father in the parable watching out for the return of his son, and celebrating at his return. Fatherhood has nothing to do with biology. My natural father was simply an accident of fate: God had sent me instead the gift of a most wonderful father, who had said repeatedly that he would always love me whatever I did, wherever I went. What on earth was I thinking? And here I was, in a strange place where the dog was fed but I was not: Here I was, unloved and literally starving to death. `I will arise,' I thought, `I will arise and go to my father and say; "Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am not worthy to be called your son. Treat me as one of your hired servants". `And then I remembered the safeword you had given me. I couldn't speak, because of the gag, but in my heart I called "Roses, Roses, Roses" again and again. And, Dada, you heard me! you heard me! I know now who my father is. I want no other. There can never be any other, whether you forgive me or not.' Tim/Ben got painfully to his feet from the chair, and hobbled his way across the room, his fetters dragging and clanking on the carpet, and knelt down slowly in front of me. He took my hand, kissed it, and said humbly: `Dada, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am not worthy to be called your son. Treat me as one of your hired servants'. Paul and I got on our knees too, and the three of us embraced and wept for a long time. I went to the hall, and took my best coat, and put it round Tim's shoulders. I found my father's signet ring, and put it on Tim's finger. I took off my own sandals and put them on Tim's feet. I took Tim's hand in my right hand, and Paul's in my left: `Rejoice with me,' I said shakily, `For this son of mine was dead, and is brought back to life; he was lost and is found! `Tim, or Ben, or whatever your name is; all that I have is yours. I love you, my son; you are no hired servant, but my pride and joy, my beloved son.' Paul, who had been watching this with tears running down his face, suddenly smiled and said `There's one thing missing. Where's the fatted calf?' `Damn' I said, laughing through my tears; `there's always something missing! Well, there may be no fatted calf, but how about the magnum of Dom Perignon 1995 that someone gave me for Christmas?' And we all began to celebrate. CHAPTER 13 Tim went up to bed before we did, because he was emotionally drained. I went up with him, to help him up the stairs, brush his teeth, help him off with his kilt and generally do any little thing he might need. Then when he was settled, I kissed his forehead and went back down to Paul. We discussed it all a little bit and then wondered what to do. We had both picked up on the reference to Tim Sullivan. Our Tim must have been rescued by our best friend; surely there couldn't have been two policemen of that same name in that same area? We didn't tell our Tim (we couldn't get used yet to him being Ben) that we knew his hero; that would have to wait until we had thought what to do. The priorities were, firstly to get his irons off, and second, to do something about his father. Paul had an idea. `What about Turling Park? Do you remember that awful metalwork room? It was full of dungeon equipment; surely we can find something there which will help us with Tim's irons. Tim Senior has the keys.' `Hasn't he gone to Scotland with the boys?' `No; he didn't go this year. He's stayed behind to do some thinking; there's a lad at the school he's considering fostering.' `Well, well, well. Even mighty oaks fall!' `In any event, it would be good to get our own Tim away from here as soon as possible. I don't like to think of his father knowing where he is until we have him under control.' So there and then, we rang Tim senior, and arranged to bring our Tim down to meet him. We told him that we thought he had met our Tim in the past, though we mentioned nothing of the circumstances, which he would surely have forgotten in the meantime. Tim senior sounded delighted. He had always wanted to meet his namesake. He giggled wickedly, and asked for Tim's waist and leg measurements. I told him 30" waist, 33" inside leg. I could guess what was in his mind, but said no more. I told Tim that our visit was not entirely pleasure, and told him simply that our Tim had got himself locked in some ironmongery and needed releasing, so would he mind looking out the keys of the metalwork classroom. `Sounds kinky,' said Tim. `Sounds like we're going to have some fun!' `Tim, you don't know the half of it!' We chatted a little longer, then Paul and I went up to join Tim junior in bed. The following day, we packed the car with all we would need. I put in a lot of clothes, as I planned staying there at least a fortnight, and Paul took most of them out again, saying that I had completely forgotten what Tim Senior was like; suits, clerical collars and smart shoes being the last things we would be needing for a while. But we did take the photographs and videos we had taken from young Tim's Father's house. That was vital evidence, and we could not risk a burglary while we considered the best course of action. And Paul packed our commando outfits. `We must have some fun', he said. It was wonderful to see Tim senior again. He was as usual wearing only his trademark shiny blue shorts, this time while he was painting the woodwork on the windows of his new big cottage which lay near the new buildings for St Tarcisius. Paul and I leapt out of the car, and the three of us hugged and kissed, forgetting for a while about our passenger. `Tim,' I said, `we have somebody who wants to meet you.' Our Tim, with a puzzled look on his face, swung his fettered legs together out of the car and with difficulty stood up, trying to pull down his kilt as he did so. And so he was looking down as he got out. When he raised his head, it was to look directly into those soft brown eyes he had remembered so well, and which had widened in shock and recognition of the piercing blue eyes of the chained boy before him. Both of them said together `You!' and young Tim fainted, with a rattle of ironmongery. I had not bargained for this; I had expected suprise, pleasure, even shock, but not this. Our Tim had never fainted before, as far as I knew. Tim Senior was white, and no use to us at all in getting our boy into the house. We laid our Tim on Tim Senior's couch, and gently revived him. Then, when we were sure that he was in one piece, Paul and I withdrew to inspect the new buildings, tactfully leaving the two Tims to renew their acquaintance. `It was your eyes, Ben,' said Tim. `You've grown so much, got so big, lost that frightened look, shaved your head... I'd never have known you otherwise, Soldier. Oh, lad, I cannot tell you how happy I am to see you at last!' Ben was speechless. So many powerful emotions raged through him as he looked at the man who had occupied so much of his dreams, thoughts and aspirations for the last seven years; he could only gape. His hero squatted beside him with a quizzical smile on his handsome face. The years rolled away. Nothing at all seemed to have changed. Eventually he found his voice. He croaked `How...? `How what?' `So many, many things. But, for a start, how did you know my name was Ben? I took very good care not to tell you or anyone else for that matter. Not even my Dada--Johnny, that is--knew until yesterday. Did he tell you? I think he hardly took it in himself.' `No, it wasn't Johnny. Look, Ben, I will tell you how I know, only not yet. I don't think you're quite ready. But I have got a lot I want to say to you, and I've been waiting seven years to say it, so please sit back and make yourself comfortable.' Ben did as he was asked, but he was feeling far from comfortable. He was fighting back tears very hard, and wanted to throw himself into this man's arms and be held as he had been when he was a frightened eleven-year-old. He wanted to tell him everything; his whole life story, what he had for breakfast, the name of his favourite footballer, how to programme an Apple Mac, everything, and he wanted to know...... `Ben, relax! We've got all the time in the world! And now's my turn. You can have your turn later.' Tim took the young man's manacled hand in his own. `Soldier, the first thing I want to do is to humbly, no grovellingly, apologize to you--no, don't say anything, shush--yes, apologize to you and beg you to forgive me for walking out of that hospital! Within an hour of doing it, I regretted it, and have regretted it more and more every day of the last seven years. I thought my police career was more important that you, and by the time that had sunk in, the social worker had taken you away. My selfish, thoughtless, act sent you into an orphanage; had I stayed with you, no doubt you would have been released into my care sooner or later, and we could have sorted everything out between the two of us. We could have gone and found your brother, got your father arrested and charged--yes, I know about that--and you and your brother would have been spared years of loneliness and misery.' Tim then added in a very quiet voice; `And so would I'. The silence was profound. Tim went on, `Don't think I didn't search. Ask Paul. He even advised me on where to look, and when I came up with a blank, it was he who made the suggestion that I do some fostering myself. Imagine it: you were right under all our very noses, and we never realised it. I knew that Johnny had fostered a lad with my name, and that was what made me rule you out, besides the fact that you had come from St Tarcisius, and were therefore a Catholic meant that you couldn't be the boy who had never even heard the word Catholic in his life. I came to work here, among abandoned boys, because that night we spent together touched something very deep inside me, and I thought that maybe I could expiate my guilt for abandoning you by making the lives of the boys here a little bit happier. And maybe find someone to foster. Maybe even you were here. But none of the lads, much as I love them, ever came anywhere near that meeting of souls I experienced with you. Until recently. I think now I have met a lad I want to foster, but I'll tell you about him later. `But for now, I don't want to rush you into forgiveness, Soldier. No doubt all of this has been a shock, and I've been a selfish sod again, getting it all off my chest before you can even say "hi" to me, or hit me, if that's what you want to do. `Ben, I don't know. I've been beating myself up about all this for so long. Perhaps you never felt the same way I did. Perhaps your asking to stay with me that night was simply a lad looking for anywhere at all to be safe. Perhaps I've been deluding myself all along, and you haven't given me a thought from that day to this...' `O yeah', Ben broke in. `I faint all the time. It's my party trick. "Fainting Nelly", they call me. Don't be so BLOODY stupid! I have never stopped thinking about you. I worshipped you. When I was at St Tar's, the other lads had Superman, and Batman as their heroes; I had Tim Sullivan. When they got older, they dressed and talked and walked like David Beckham or Michael Owen. I dressed, and talked and walked like Tim Sullivan. I've never even worn underwear, simply because you don't, or didn't then, anyway. "Can't abide them", you said, and that's what I've always said. I hate sports, but I wanted to look like you, so I worked out, and pumped iron--you told me how to do it, in fact--and here I am. I even tried dying my hair dark brown to look like you. I looked stupid, by the way. I wanted Dada to buy me brown contact lenses, but he just laughed himself silly, and wondered why I would want to hide what he calls my beautiful eyes. Forget YOU? I even took your bloody name! How could I forget you, when every day I heard "Tim Sullivan, you haven't done your homework", "Time for bed, Tim", "Sullivan, how could you miss such an easy goal", "Tim Sullivan, I love you, my son"? Not even my beloved foster father, whom I love so dearly, knew that I lit such a candle for somebody else that I even took his name.' Both Tim and Ben were now in tears. Ben carefully lifted his manacles over Tim's head and bare shoulders and the two men embraced tightly. Ben whispered in Tim's ear `I could no more not forgive you than stop my heart. There is nothing to forgive. I never thought there was.' They held each other silently for a very long time. This was not the first time that we had been to inspect the new buildings. We had carefully involved ourselves in every detail. The old St Tarcisius Home buildings had been well loved, but they had their faults. Lots of them! This time we could begin from scratch. Roger, Sylvia's husband, was the main architect, and we had chosen well. He belonged to the school of Quinlan Terry; architects who wanted to design buildings according to traditional principles of beauty and function, and that suited us fine. Neither of us wanted a glass and concrete box, but somewhere that the boys could learn to love beautiful things. There must be proportion and elegance, we thought. Dioceses are prone to do everything on the cheap. We had every expectation that the Bishop would allow us only the bare minimum from the insurance money and the sale of the old land in order to build the new home, keeping the remainder for other purposes. But the Charity Commissioners had intervened, and the Bishop himself had agreed that every penny could be spent on the new building, and on establishing a trust fund to pay the staff and provide other amenities. Since the old St Tarcisius' buildings were in the middle of town, on a very valuable site, the sum of money was very sizeable indeed, and it meant that we could really afford to push the boat out. We wandered around the echoing new corridors. The building itself was complete now, and the plasterers and electricians had just finished. All that remained was to decorate and furnish our new home. The boys at Turling Park slept in large dormitories, twenty to a room, in bunk beds, each with a little cabinet to keep whatever few small possessions they had. The old St Tarcisius boys had done better; the old dormitories had been divided off into cubicles, so that the lads had privacy of sight, if not sound. But, remembering the early days when Tim, Marc and Conor had come to us and been frightened to sleep on their own, Paul and I were absolutely adamant that each boy should have his own room, unless he positively wanted to share, for which purpose we would provide a number of larger double rooms. The seventeen- and eighteen-year-olds would even have their own bathrooms. Our own accomodation was nice, too. There was a large Warden's flat for Paul, large enough for a married couple to live in one day, if a priest were no longer to do the job, and a slightly smaller Chaplain's flat for me next to the Warden's accomodation. `When the dust has settled, my love, we shall put a connecting door through between our flats', Paul promised me. `Good,' I said. `But, Paul, there is one thing that we have not talked about, and we must do it right now. What about our Tim, Marc and Conor?' `I thought it was obvious. Tim can have the spare room in your flat, and Marc and Conor can share the spare in mine.' `Tim, fine. He's eighteen, and there are not many St Tar's boys who will have known him well--we still haven't decided about finshing his schooling, by the way--but Marc and Conor are a different matter. Presumably they will go to school here at Turling Park with the other boys?' `Presumably. What's your point?' `Then how is it going to look? Our two will be loved and cherished in your flat. While on the other side of the wall are forty or fifty boys who are less loved and cherished, with whom Marc and Conor will have to mingle every day. Our boys' lives may well be made hell. At the very least, the other boys will be made to feel second-class citizens!' `Oh shit! I hadn't thought of that!' `It wouldn't matter so much if they weren't physically under the same roof. There are quite a few Turling Park boys who live with foster parents locally, but get their schooling here'. `Well, Marc and Conor will have to have rooms with the other boys, and not in our flats.' `Then what are you saying to them? That they are no more special to us than anyone else here! That is to send them right back where they came from. You will fuck them up properly, Paul.' `Boarding school elsewhere?' `And having taken them under your roof, you are effectively sending them away again. No, it won't do. And I won't be separated from them; I love them too much.' `Oh, Johnny! What are we going to do? This is terrible!' `My love, what we are going to do is to pray for a solution.' And there and then we knelt down in the beautiful but still bare new chapel which lay at the heart of the building, and we prayed with all our hearts for our two boys. We knelt before the statue of St Tarcisius, still wrapped in plastic after its journey from its old home, and begged that this early Christian boy martyr would look after our two deeply-loved tearaways and find us a way to keep them in our family without breaking any more hearts. Paul and I returned from inspecting the new buildings and we came in quietly. We saw Ben and Tim crying down each other's bare backs and knew that something special was going on here; no doubt it would all be explained in good time. Seeing the two Tims so intimate brought a pain to my heart. I knew that my son had first been attracted to me because I was like his hero, but seeing his affection returned in such measure by that same hero was a shock. I felt the first stirrings of jealousy. Paul must have seen my face, for he slipped his hand in mine, and nodded his head towards the door. We went outside the house, and stood on the roadway. Paul put his arms round me. `Sweetheart, Tim has to grow up. He's eighteen, and he has been carrying our friend in his heart all his adolescent life. This is a fulfillment for him. Be happy for him!' I let a tear or two of self-pity trickle down my cheek. `I love my son, Tim, and I also love my friend, Tim. But I have spent so long keeping an eye out for that boy, that nobody should ever hurt him, that I have come to think of myself as his only protector. Seeing a rival on the scene, and somebody I love myself, is not easy, not easy at all. That he should cry on somebody else's shoulder, hurts. I love my son so much, so very, very much. And I'm terrified to lose him. After all he has been through. Oh, dear Lord, he was in that house only two days ago!' And this trivial incident suddenly opened the floodgates in me. All the tension and the worry of the last few weeks found an outlet, and I screamed, howled and cried in Paul's arms. He took me away quickly into the woods, out of earshot of Tim's cottage, and held me closely while my grief had its way. I rolled on the ground, tore at my clothes and hair, wept, sobbed, yelled, swore, and probably blasphemed, until I finally subsided, spent, in Paul's loving and strong arms. `Paul, my love,' I sobbed, `He's only eighteen, scarcely a man. What did he do that this should happen to him? In his short life he has seen so much pain, violence and misery. He's only eighteen!' `In the first world war, Johnny, eighteen-year-olds boys were considered old enough to die for their country, and hundreds of thousands of parents lost their sons forever to bombs, bullets, poisoned gas, trench fever, and a thousand other horrible deaths. We have got our Tim still safe and sound. He has been through a terrible time, it cannot be denied, but we still have him. He is safe, Johnny, bar some scars on his back, and some sore balls. And what is more, in his head he is better than he was before. He was worked whatever it was out of his system. He was a loving, wonderful boy, and can you doubt that he will be a wonderful, loving man? Especially now that he has sorted himself out. This pain has been a catharsis for him; he is clean, whole, new. And I think that now it really is nearly over. His father cannot trouble him again while we have those photographs safe. All we have to do is help him become a fulfilled adult, which in many ways he has already become. Do you really grudge him intimacy with our friend Tim? Think about how intimate we have been with Tim! Tim's that sort of guy. If our Tim loves Tim senior, that's good, isn't it? We love Tim senior. It's just that we have to let our Tim grow up and join our circle of friends. He really is a man now, no longer our little boy. The three of us will become the four of us, in other words. That's all. And actually, I rather think I'm looking forward to it. Something tells me it's going to be a whole lot of fun!' `You know what I hate about you, Paul Topham?' `No, what?' `Why do you always have to be so fucking right all the time?' `Natural genius, my sweetheart!' We kissed, hard and long, and then, hand in hand, we walked to the waterfall, and then returned to Tim's cottage. It wasn't quite the same as his old cottage, which had special memories, but, as Paul said to me, we could create new memories just as easily. Eventually, Tim said to Ben, `Having seen you that night, I can understand why you did not want to be identified as Ben Thompson. But how did you find out my name in order to be able to pinch it? I never told you, any more than you told me yours.' `It was your lucky shirt' `Eh?' `I had no shirt when you found me, so you gave me one of yours. It was a blue and white football shirt, and you said that you had scored loads of goals in it when you were my age. It had a school label with your name inside the collar. The nurse in the hospital thought that the shirt was mine, and so when I refused to give my name to the social worker, she told the woman that my name was Tim Sullivan. Who was I to argue with her? If I couldn't be your foster son in fact, I might at least be so in name.' `I remember now. I hope the shirt brought you luck on the soccer pitch too'. `No it didn't. I was always hopeless. But my little brother Conor has it now, and he's amazing at football.' The ordinary talk had relaxed them both, and Tim got painfully up from his long crouch to make a pot of tea. Ben clanked into the kitchen to help. As they sat at the kitchen table with their mugs, chatting aimiably about nothing, Ben slopped his tea; his arms were still not fully under control, and Tim had to rush round the table to help him, and wash the scalding tea off his chest. His kilt was soaked, too, and Ben yelped with pain as his already outraged balls were scalded. While Tim was mopping up what he could, he saw Ben's back again, and his mood sharply sobered. `Ben; what happened? Your back looks even worse than it did the night you came to me. I see it's been cleaned up and is healing, but I can't imagine what must have happened to you. And all these chains and things? They're not locked on, but welded, or soldered, or something. I take it you're not on your way to a kinky party, so something awful must have taken place, Soldier.' So Ben took a deep breath and calmly told him everything. By the end of it, Tim was white, shaking, and sobbing like a child. Ben was still calm, but he got up and pulled Tim into a hug, placing his chains over his head as before. Through his tears, Tim said `Ben, you say you have forgiven me, but I shall never, never, forgive myself for bringing all this onto you.' `You didn't bring it on me, Tim! It was my father who brought it on me. He, and nobody else. He started this whole train of consequences. You had no way of knowing the consequences of what you did in good faith. If you had taken me in, how would you have prevented my father coming after me as he did when I was with my Dada, Johnny? My Dada would have done anything to have avoided that. You could not possibly have done more. And how can you know that we would ever have found my brother Dan? My father told me that he ran out that night and was never seen again. He's probably dead; either in a ditch somewhere, the poor little sod, or else my father killed him in one of his scenes or rages. Tim, believe me, you've been one of the good things, no, one of the very best things, in my life, even if we knew each other only a few hours. Never think anything different.' `Soldier, I have something else to tell you now that you should know.' Tim spoke into Ben's bare shoulder, the tears still flowing freely. `I think you should prepare yourself.' `Mm?' `Ben, Dan isn't dead. He's here at Turling Park. He's also the boy I have been hoping to foster.' Ben fainted again. This time his chains were around Tim's back, and so Tim was pulled down on top of him. Johnny and Paul, still hand in hand, chose that moment to return. Paul said, in an amused voice `We'd better stay; if we go off again, your son and our best friend will be at it like jack rabbits!' When Ben revived, he was pleased to find himself back on the couch with Tim's arm around him, and his father and his Uncle Paul looking concernedly at him. Then he remembered the last thing Tim had said to him before he fainted. He looked around frantically `Dan......?' `...is in Scotland, soldier, with the rest of the boys. You'll just have to be patient!' `Patient! After everything I've told you, you tell me to be patient!' Johnny then spoke; while Ben had been unconscious, Tim had told him and Paul everything. `Tim,--my son, Tim, that is--we've got to think how to do this. If this is a shock for you, just think what a shock it's going to be for Dan. I think that there are a lot of things to sort out first. I'm really sorry, Tim, but patient is what you're going to have to be. For a start, do you really want Dan to see you like this?' Ben looked down at his chains and his tea-stained kilt, and thought of his ravaged back. `No, Dada, you're right as always! I'll try and be patient. But I think you're going to have to get used to calling me Ben. It'd be too confusing otherwise. And besides,' he added wryly, `I'm embarrassed as all hell to be caught using my hero's name. It sounds really pervy.' Everyone laughed, and the tension was broken. It was decided to wait until the following morning before going to the metalwork room; it was only the ball collar that was really giving Ben much discomfort; the rest was merely awkward. Ben's sodden tea-stained kilt wasn't exactly decorative or comfortable either, but he didn't want to take it off both for reasons of modesty and also because he knew the sight of his red, imprisoned balls would make the others uncomfortable. So when Tim suggested that they turn it into fun and all get naked, Ben shook his head, smiling. Then Tim suddenly said `I've got it!' and sprinted upstairs to his bedroom, where he rummaged around in his impressive collection of sportsgear and returned triumphantly. `Breakshorts' `Eh?' `They've got popper fasteners all up the legs. Ben will be able to wear these.' And so it proved. Once in the shorts, Ben was much more comfortable. He could sit with his knees apart, like a man, instead of having to keep them together like a girl. And they gave a measure of support to his weighted balls, though the crotch of the shorts did tend to push his bruised nuts against the collar. It was decided that they would start on Ben's irons in the morning. There was some concern about discovery, but Tim reassured the others that The Screw was in Scotland with the other boys; `One of the staff dropped out, and so The Screw had to go, all of a sudden. Poor bloody kids, that's all I can say!' Paul and Johnny brought in their belongings from the car. Everyone was longing for a swim, but with Ben still in his irons, it seemed unfair. So they lay together in the late afternoon sun. Johnny offered to cook dinner. `I'm a fantastic cook, and we deserve a real blow-out, I think.' Everyone agreed, so Paul and Tim were dispatched to the shops to buy ingredients and wine. While they were gone, Johnny and Ben had a long talk. Nobody knows what they said, but by the time the others had returned, the two were hugging with all their strength, and so everything was fine, and Johnny went to the kitchen to start work. Gin and tonic in hand, Tim was looking at the pile of books that Paul and Johnny had brought. `What's all this?' `Definitely not pre-prandial reading. Those are the photographs albums that we found in Tim's--I mean Ben's--Father's house.' But it was too late. Tim had taken one of the books and opened it. He turned a page or two. The glass fell from his hand and he choked; `Oh my God!' Paul rushed to Tim's side. `What is it, mate?' `These photographs...' `Yeah, they're really horrible.' `No, no...well...yes, but you don't understand! They're all Turling Park boys! I know them all!' CHAPTER 14 The following day, the four of us set off across the meadow towards the main block of buildings and specifically to the metalwork classroom. Poor Ben (Ben, not Tim, I kept reminding myself) had to kind of hop along with us; we kept forgetting his irons, walking too quickly. In the end, Tim senior turned to him and said `I think that on the occasions I save you, I am supposed to carry you piggy-back. Don't you think that we ought to be deferential to tradition, Soldier?' `Fuck you!' said my polite son, and hopped as well as he could, the leg irons chafing his ankles and his balls jumping up and down painfully under their collar. A few hundred yards further, and Ben had had enough. `Ok, ok, I submit. Please carry me; This isn't working!' So Tim made a back, and Ben clambered aboard. He only got a few hundred yards, because Ben was no longer an eleven-year-old waif, but a very muscular, and therefore very heavy, young man. `Oooof!' said Tim, dumping Ben on the ground. `I think you'd better carry me!' In the end, we all carried Ben, and we got to the metalwork classroom eventually. It was really creepy being back there. Looking again at the various implements of restraint on the walls, there was no longer any doubt in our minds that The Screw and Ben's father were one and the same man. The workmanship on Ben's irons was identical. Tim, always the most dexterous with his hands for any job, assembled the tools and said, `Right, Ben. What do you want off first?' `There's no question Tim. This fucking ball collar, that has caused so much pain, not just to me, but to Dada and Uncle Paul, and you, and everyone I love'. He tore off the studs on the breakshorts and stood before us naked without any embarrassment. We all saw him as if for the first time. He was really magnificent; despite all his suffering, and the irons that were still on his body; his physique was what models dream of. I could hardly believe that this was my little boy, that I had brought up and tended, loved and nurtured. Tim was businesslike, however. `Right; up on the bench, Tarzan, and spread your legs!' I couldn't bear to watch, nor could Paul. We went out into the sunshine and sat on a bench overlooking a cricket pitch where the grunt groundsman, the one who had succeeded Tim, was driving a lawnmower round lazily. We took off our shirts and sat there in our shorts watching him, shoulder against shoulder, arms around each other. `Paul', I said, `does it worry you that we don't have sex?' Paul sat upright and choked. `And they say I am the one who shoots from the hip! Worry me? ` He sat and thought for a long time, his knuckle between his teeth in the way I loved, and then resumed `Johnny, I have loved you for so long, but I love the whole you. Let us assume for a moment that God, the Church and the rest do not exist and we could do what we liked: If you were a rent boy, a hustler, as the Americans say, would I want to bed you? The answer has to be yes, yes, yes, and twice on Sunday! And I'd pay all that I had for the privilege. Your presence and your body excite me passionately. When I know you are within half a mile of me I start tingling and longing to put my arms around your amazing sexy body. Without your shirt you are a revelation. The fact that I know you are now going commando makes me so randy I can't tell you. `But in the end, it is not your body that I love--I lust for your body, God knows how much--but it is you that I love. The you that is inside your body. If we were to tear off our shorts and fuck each other silly here and now, no doubt we would have huge fun. But would we respect ourselves and each other tomorrow? Could we live as Warden and Chaplain of St Tarcisius' contentedly together? I very much doubt it. In the end, Johnny, you and I are priests, and that is more than a job we do; it is what we are. The priest is a part of the Johnny I love, and if the Johnny I love were not a priest, I think I would not love him so much. My love for you is immeasurably increased by the respect I have for you as a man, and even more as a priest. `My darling, you mean more to me that I can ever say. But it is the whole you, not just your body, that I love. I want to stay close to you for the rest of our lives, and then I want to be close to you when we die, I want to hold your hand and share strength when we go through Purgatory, and, please God, I want to be beside you for ever in Heaven. I never want to be away from you, my love. If you were in Tim's cottage now, and I were here, half a mile away, I would ache, and every second away from you would be an eternity of sorrow. I don't intend to throw away something so precious for the undoubted privilege and pleasure of sucking your cock!' We held each other and talked of nothing for hours and hours. Our stomachs were rumbling ominously when we decided to go back to the cottage, make sandwiches, and then see what was going on in the metalwork classroom. We were shocked when we returned to find Tim still burrowing into Ben's groin. Both the men looked exhausted. Because of the sensitive location, Tim had to proceed with his cutter millimetre by millimetre, and the metal was extremely hard. Ben lay back on the hard table, his face unreadable, beyond embarrassment, as Tim cut slowly through the metal that held his most private parts bound. We went over; I embraced my Tim--Ben, I should say--and kissed his sweating forehead. Paul squeezed Tim's shoulders companionably. He asked `Is there nothing we can do in the meantime?' It turned out there was. Ben's other irons, because they were not quite so intimate in location, shall we say, were much easier to deal with, if one had the proper tools, which were all there. Though we were not as good with our hands as Tim, we set to work willingly. I took Ben's neck collar, and Paul his manacles. We had both finished before Tim had finished Ben's ball collar. We all cheered as each of these horrors fell to the floor with a clang. Now there were only the fetters to deal with on Ben's legs. While Tim addressed himself to these, Paul and I wandered round the classroom, discussing how we were to deal with The Screw, Ben's father. This was not going to be easy. In the end, there was not much evidence against him. If we charged him with assault and violence against Ben, he could produce the `Slave Contract' and argue that even if the contract were invalid on account of Ben's minority, it nonetheless made all the abuse consensual, Ben being above 16 years of age. The photographs of the boys only showed them in his irons; though if they had been prisoners, this would have been illegal, contrary to the Geneva Convention, these were not prisoners, and there was no photographic evidence of further abuse. It was just the sheer quantity of photographs that suggested the man was sick. For us, the important thing was that the man was no further threat to anyone. His sexual and extreme physical abuse had, as far as we knew, been confined to his son, and so we thought we had better leave the final decision until Ben was sufficiently recovered to make a contribution to what we were going to do. The important thing in the short term was to ensure that the boys at the school were safe from this horrible man in the future. Paul sprinted back to Tim's cottage, and returned soon carrying one of the unpleasant photograph albums we had found. We chose some of the pictures, and laid them out along the teacher's bench in the classroom. We added Ben's broken irons. When The Screw returned, he could not but know that someone at the school had been to his house, and knew everything. That was all we could think of in the short term. There was a clatter from the other end of the classroom, and a triumphant shout. Ben was free at last of all his irons! He and Tim were sharing a warm embrace. I suppressed a momentary jealous pang, and went over with Paul to join them. We filled the others in on our ideas regarding The Screw, and they agreed that what we suggested was probably best. Ben jumped down from the bench, revelling in the freedom. `I just want to run and run', he said. `Not quite like that' I commented dryly. `Why not?' he said. Paul went and took hold of Ben's newly released balls: `Darling, you're as naked as the day you were born!', and he threw his arms around Ben and kissed him. `Oh Tim--I mean Ben--it's so wonderful to have you back with us!'. We all hugged, and everything was fine. We determined to break the difficult atmosphere. Tim was, as before, the master of ceremonies. He had a job keeping order at first, as Ben kept skipping round the classroom in his delight to be free of the irons for the first time in many weeks, not embarrassed about even flipping his balls around. `Right, men,' said Tim. `We've all been under a bit of tension recently, which some might regard as the understatement of the year. So right now we're going to let off some steam. The only garments permitted for this activity are shorts and trainers--the trainers being optional, and, I suppose, the shorts being optional, if some of you kinky buggers want to go as nature intended, like our friend Ben here.' Ben quickly pulled on the breakshorts again, and we all ran full stretch back to Tim's cottage, leaving the classroom open. Ben came last, unsurprisingly. His limbs had not yet returned to full use, and he had never been aerobically very fit. He was humiliated, though, as he said, to be beaten by all these old granddads, and challenged us all to wrestle though, he said with a sly look at his host `These breakshorts aren't very comfortable. Have you got any more of those nice shiny blue adidas shorts, Tim?' Tim blushed. `Yes, several pairs, I have to admit'. `Well, bring them out, then, you old perv!' These shorts had become a sort of leitmotiv of our relationship, and above all of the relationship between Tim and Ben. We all stripped and dressed in them, and wrestled. Ben beat us all, naturally, his muscular limbs beginning to recover their power. But the final wrestling was between Ben and Tim, and as the two powerful men writhed and tugged at each other, something was clearly going on between them. This was not simply a struggle for dominance, even a good-natured one. These two men were trying to learn from each other, learn about each other; they ran their hands over every part of each other's body in a way that if they had not had the excuse of wrestling, they would never have dared, especially in front of me and Paul. Paul and I could clearly see that these men were becoming obsessed with each other. They made a play of wrestling, but in their own way, they were courting. This was an ancient ritual, but these two had made it their own. Their play went on for a very long time, and when finally Ben sat astride Tim, their eyes were like fire, and fixed on the other. They both had erections, and did not even notice. Paul said sadly to me `Our little boy is growing up. I think he's going to leave us soon'. We swam naked in the lake, we swam races in the pool. Then we all went and stood in the shower room and washed each other. I can honestly say that never have I felt love so strongly for those three men, or for anyone else. Ben had truly joined us as an equal in our love. Back at the cottage, Tim decided we were going out for a meal. `I'm paying! Don't forget, I am a man of means these days.' And with great care (and much changing of minds) he dressed us all in his own suits, reserving the best for Ben, who looked so handsome and adult. We stood silently and looked at him, so very happily; we were all in the shadow of this boy who had come from an abused childhood in a caravan park to be loved so very deeply by us, his three best friends. Our relationship with him as a boy had disappeared; this was so much better. The meal was wonderful; we all gazed at each other over the food, and wondered what we had done to deserve such good friends. That night we lit a bonfire as before, and Tim had another little ceremony to perform. `Ben: you've had the shorts, you've had the workout; but there is one other little thing that you lack if you are going to join our outfit.' Ben looked wary. But Tim produced from behind his back a pair of leather trousers. `These are for you, with my love. And that, my love, I mean.' Tim pulled off his shorts--what need for shyness now?--and pulled on the tight leather trousers. We all pretended we needed to help, but when finally on, the trousers looked fantastic on him, of course. Everything looked fantastic on my son. I was lost in admiration, until another pair was thrust into my face by Paul. `Come on, Johnny, it's tradition, now!' So we all wore the trousers, and Tim sang to us. No, actually, he sang to Ben; every word a word of love. We had given Marc and Conor a mobile telephone between them, the cause of many of their fights, on the understanding that they paid for their own calls. Our first priority the following morning was to call them to let them know that their big brother had returned. Although the ever-practical Marc had been glad to snaffle Ben's bedroom, the two boys had missed their brother terribly. Paul and I had to face it that Ben had been more of a parent to them than either of us had been, and we could not supply that combination of tender care and hero that Tim had done. The boys loved us, certainly, especially Paul, but Tim--Ben, I should say--was the one they really looked to and thought of as their `significant adult'. They were overjoyed that Ben had come home, and wanted to return from camp immediately. Paul told them to stay on, however, and Ben himself spoke to them (he had to do some fast work to explain to them why he was no longer Tim) and told them that there were things to be sorted out first. They accepted this, reluctantly, but only because they had no other choice, really. Paul and I had another long chat, this time about Tim and Ben. It was clear to both of us that something very important needed to be sorted out by these two, and that our presence was making it more complicated than it need be. So we decided to let them be on their own for a few days, and see if that helped. `Where will you go?' said Tim, ever the anxious, and now rather guilty, host. `Oh, anywhere' said Paul. `A hotel somewhere, I suppose. We could do with some time together, and poor Johnny is still rather frazzled after the last week's goings-on.' And Tim offered us the use of his house in Brighton, the one he had shared with Sylvia during their brief marriage. Apparently it was now rented out to students, who did not use it during University vacations. So to Brighton we went. And had a wonderful time. Brighton is the British San Francisco, so we could openly walk through the town hand in hand, and nobody noticed; the only close call was when we saw Canon Riordan from the Sacred Heart Church in Hove on the other side of the road, but he did not notice us when we ducked into a doorway. We behaved disgracefully, really. We went to pubs and drank too much, we went onto the pier and played on all the arcade machines. We swang on the swings (and were thrown off for being over age; the man pompously asked us `Are you under fourteen?', and we found this so funny that we rolled around with laughter, which made him even more angry) and rode on the helter-skelter. We even went to `Cockatoo', entranced by the name, a gay club run by an Anglican clergyman (and we recognized one of our colleagues in the distance) but found it loud and too aggressively `gay' for our tastes. We ate often in restuarants--we were thrown out of Latin in the Lanes for Paul insisting on smoking a cigar. He never smokes, so of course he did it deliberately. We went to the cinema, lay on the beach for five minutes--it's stony--and even swam in the dilute sewage that is the English Channel. But above all, we enjoyed each other's company. Funnily enough, even though we loved each other to desperation, sex seemed not to be much of an issue any more. Perhaps we had lanced the problem with our conversation while Ben was being freed from his irons. But our love was deepened in so many ways. Those few days were some of the best in my life, and I look back on them with the deepest gratitude to God, to Paul, and to Tim, who lent us his house. That house was not very nice, really. It was a standard Brighton small terraced town house, with three small bedrooms, but years of renting out to students had made it very shabby. They had nailed up their posters on the walls, dropped glasses of wine on the carpets and stubbed out their joints on the soft furnishings for so long that it was like living in a sixth-form common room. With one consent, Paul and I started work. We bought tins of paint and slathered the walls in a new coat. We scoured the second-hand shops for furniture, and in the end bought lots of items from a Catholic charity in Portslade called Emmaus, giving them Tim's in return for them to restore and sell for their work with the homeless. We scrubbed, hoovered, and did everything to make the house liveable in. And by the time we left, it was. When Paul and I returned to Turling Park, it was all decided. Ben was moving in with Tim. Well, it made sense, I suppose. I would have had to have been blind and deaf not to have seen the extraordinary bond between those two, initially forged before either Paul or I had even met Ben. And Ben had assured me with tears that he was not abandoning me for Tim, that I was and would be always his dear Dada, and that was that. Although I cried, I didn't worry much; after all, the new St Tarcisius House was only a hundred yards away, and we would see lots of each other. Marc and Conor's rumbustuous return was very memorable; they had made Ben a whole selection of woodcraft ornaments to welcome him home, each more revolting and impractical than the last, (the pipe-rack and ash tray was a particular favourite, especially as Ben didn't own a single pipe, nor did he ever smoke) but Ben took it all in his stride and pretended he loved them. Perhaps he really did, knowing whom they came from and that they were made with love. Watching our three sons together, a solution began to present itself as to the boys' future. We had a quiet word with Tim and Ben, and it was agreed that if the boys were happy, they could move into Tim's home. That way they would be apart from St Tarcisius enough to feel special and part of a family, but still be near us. The boys thought the idea was wonderful, and so that was settled happily enough. Which left Dan, whom nobody but Tim had met yet. He was going to return from holiday and find his life turned upside down. As far as he knew, he was simply going to quietly move in with Tim some time in the next few months. But while he had been away, he had suddenly acquired his real brother again, as well as two foster brothers, with all of whom he was going to be living. Tim thought it was going to be all right, however, as Dan was a well balanced, sturdy lad, easily capable of holding his own against Paul's two rascals, and of giving as good as he got. But in the shorter term, there remained the decision of what to do about reuniting Ben and Dan. It was clearly going to be an emotional and possibly difficult occasion, and it was important to manage it carefully. Tim knew that the first evening the boys returned, his cottage was going to be full of Turling Park lads anxious to share stories of their various summer exploits in the highlands of Scotland. That was no way for Ben and Dan to meet again. Tim thought and thought, and in the end decided that the only thing to do was to go up to Scotland himself a day or two early and fetch Dan home. It would spoil the surprise a little bit, since Dan could not but conclude that something was up, but that could not be helped. And so we took Marc and Conor back to St Edwards, inviting Tim to come and join us as soon as Ben and Dan had met, in order to leave them space together. Thus it was decided. The following morning, Tim flew to Inverness, and hired a car to take him to the school where the Turling Park boys were staying. As soon as he entered, he was mobbed by a great crowd of lads who were delighted to see him, and who were falling over themselves to tell him of their various exploits over the last couple of weeks. Tim looked vainly for a sign of Dan, but he was nowhere to be seen. Suddenly the whole group fell silent. The Screw was standing in a doorway, looking menacingly at Tim and the excited boys. `The next one to speak gets the handcuffs for 24 hours!' he said. `Go about your business silently. You do not want to see me angry! Leave now; I want to talk to Mr Sullivan.' The boys, abashed, left quietly. `In here,' said The Screw coldly to Tim. They went together into a small sitting room, and sat opposite each other, looking grimly at each other. Tim had never before looked closely at The Screw, but now he studied his face, trying to find some trace of likeness between him and his sons. It was there if you looked for it; there was a sort of elusive beauty that had become somehow corrupt and twisted. He was a kind of caricature of his boys, their beauty seen in a distorting mirror; someone who could have been beautiful in body and soul, but had been changed by too much unhappiness and bitterness. Self-hatred and loathing was written into the lines of his face; there seemed nothing but despair and unhappiness. How did a man get like this? thought Tim. Was he ever a carefree and happy little boy? Is this what would have become of Ben and Dan had they stayed with their father? Finally the Screw spoke. `So you are the shit who thinks he can steal my son from me again! You won't succeed; I've got him back again, and he's not going to get away.' Immediately Tim's thoughts jumped to Ben, and how this man had left him chained up in his house. But before he could say anything, the Screw continued, `Last thing I expected, to find him here, the little sod. But now he's back with his old Dad. Oh yeah; he told me you were going to foster him, but I told him he can forget that. We've got years of meaningful relationship to catch up on, the two of us, and I have plans to enjoy every bloody moment. Don't look at me like that, Sullivan; he's my son, not yours. I have the right to do what I want with him, even if the little shit did run away seven years ago, and what I want to do with him is not to give him to you!' Tim's heart constricted in his chest with fear for Dan. Why, oh why did he let Dan come on this trip; he should have rescued him the moment he knew that The Screw was his father. Tim got to his feet unsteadily. Fresh air! Think, Sullivan, think! He left the room, no longer able to bear the cruel smirk on the face of The Screw. He walked quickly towards the boys' common room, grabbing the first lad he met. `Nick; can you tell me where Dan Thompson is?' `Yes, sir; the Scr... er... Mr Thompson has put him in his own room. Sir, is it true that he is his father?' But Tim did not answer. `Where's the room, soldier?' The boy called Nick told Tim to follow him; like the other Turling Park boys, he adored and trusted Tim implicitly. They went to a door upstairs, and Tim knocked. There was no answer. Tim tried the handle; the door was locked. He called out Ben's name, and there was a strange shuffling, knocking sound at the other side of the door. Tim turned to Nick. `Quick, Soldier, go and get a couple of your friends. I'm going to break the door down, and I want some witnesses. Run, lad.' Nick sprinted off, and within half a minute had returned with a couple of curious lads. Tim set his shoulder to the door and heaved. Nothing. He retreated to the other side of the corridor and charged. The lock broke with a sound of splintering, but the door did not open. Tim pushed hard, and there was a groan; he eased himself through the gap between door and frame into the darkened room; someone had drawn the curtains. He strode across to the window and pulled back the hangings, flooding the room with daylight; he turned to see that Nick and his friends had come in to the room, and were looking around puzzled. Why had Tim wanted to break into this room? Tim looked back at the high door, and saw why it had been so difficult to open. Hanging on the back was a naked boy, his hands cuffed together and attached to the clothes hook above his head. He was gagged, and Tim and the others saw with horror that his back, buttocks and thighs were a mass of bruises and gashes. It was Dan, of course. Finally his father had caught up with him. Tim groaned aloud, his eyes springing with tears. The boys gaped with horror; some of them had been abused in their past also, and understood something of what was going on. The Screw chose that moment to return to his room. `What the fuck...?' He got no further, because Tim seized him by the throat and threw him against the wall, banging his head again and again with one hand, while with the other he battered his body anywhere he could reach. Nick thought quickly; he was seriously afraid that Tim would kill The Screw, and, though the thought brought him a certain satisfaction, he knew that it would not be a good idea. He seized a large jug of water that stood beside the bed and threw the contents over Tim's head. Tim gasped, and came to his senses. `Thanks, soldier. You did right.' He let go The Screw, who slid to the ground, unconscious. Tim turned to one of the other lads. `Go quickly; phone the police.' He went to Dan and removed his gag, then, raising his body, lifted his hands over the hook. The boy began to collapse to the floor, so Tim, shouting to Nick to find the handcuff keys, lifted him into his arms and carried him out of the room to the nearest dormitory bed; he could not bear to stay in The Screw's presence a moment longer. It took a few minutes for Dan to come to himself, but eventually he focussed on Tim, kneeling by his bed with his arms around him, and Nick and the others. He turned his beautiful blue eyes on his saviour and simply said `Dad.' The tension burst out of Tim, and he sobbed as he held the boy against him. Dan cried too, and was soon joined by Nick and the other lads, one of whom had found the handcuff key and released Dan's chafed wrists. The police came, and took statements, and photographs. They went to arrest The Screw, but found the room empty; clearly when he was left alone, he had revived, quickly packed up his things and made good his escape. They promised Tim that they would put out an alert for him, and would do their utmost to find him and bring him to justice. Meanwhile, they understood that even though the Screw was his father, the court order for the protection of Dan was still in force, and therefore he could remain where he was, in the care of Turling Park, though they thought he ought to be seen by a hospital. Tim agreed, though the first step was to get Dan clean. He picked the lad up in his arms and took him to a bathroom where he carefully washed all his injuries; he discovered that Dan had also clearly been sexually violated. It all became too much, and he wept again. `How many times in my life am I going to have to do this?' he cried. `Once was bad enough.' `Dad,' said Dan, `please don't cry. Actually, in a way, this makes me feel better. I always hated that Ben had had to take all the treatment; this sort of evens things out a bit. And now I understand what he went through to keep me safe!' `What is it with you Thompson boys, that you feel you deserve this bloody treatment?' Tim took Dan on the long drive to Inverness General Hospital, where they were seen almost immediately. There was very little that could be done; none of the gashes were so severe that they needed stitches, though some might leave a small scar. As Tim left the treatment room, Dan panicked and called `Dad, don't leave me...!' Tim choked up, remembering Ben all those years ago, and how he had left him in a hospital. `No, Son, never again. I'll be right outside. I'm here for you, always and forever. ' Tim had phoned Ben to let him know what was going on, and that his return would be delayed, though he did not go into details. Sufficient unto the day was the evil thereof. So Ben grew anxious, waiting for the return of his brother whom he had longed to see again for so many years. He tried all sorts of activities, simply to keep his mind off things; he went running, to try and build up his aerobic fitness, he worked out in the gym, and managed to thus pass an hour or two, but the remaining hours went painfully slowly. Would Dan even recognize him? Would he be angry with Ben for having abandoned him? Finally at about eight in the evening, Ben heard a car draw up outside the cottage. He went outside and stood with the rays of the setting sun shining through his blond hair, which was growing back nicely now. He had thought carefully about this moment, and, remembering his last words to his brother, had chosen his clothes with care; he wore simply a pair of Tim's blue adidas tracksuit trousers and his--now Dan's--towel, which he carried over one arm. As he stood there, dazzled by the low sun, he heard the car doors close, followed by a gasp of shock and a crunch as baggage was dropped; the next thing was a large and solid mass of blond teenager had hurled himself at him. The brothers embraced and wept loudly, oblivious to everything around them; they never noticed Tim quietly driving himself off to stay with Johnny and Paul; they never noticed the sun setting; they were simply wrapped up in each other. After a while, Dan said, chokingly, `You came back for me, Ben! You kept your promise; I always knew you would!' `Yeah, well, I had one or two things to do, but better late than never, Dan.' And with their arms around each other, the two brothers went into the house to talk and talk and talk. A day later, Tim returned, as the rest of the boys were returning from Scotland the same day. He was delighted to see Ben and Dan so happy together. Since Ben was now an adult and the natural full brother of Dan, there was nothing to prevent Dan moving in straight away, the need for a foster father being now redundant, and that was done, him taking one of the two spare rooms. But Tim remained Dad to Dan; never would he forget what he had done for him. Ben moved into Dan's room, and the two began to build up their relationship once more, though truth to tell, they related to one another as if there had never been any break at all; Dan was so utterly happy to be back with the two people he loved most in the world under one roof. It also had to be explained to him that he had two new brothers, in a way; Marc and Conor, who would soon be moving in as well, but Dan just shrugged and said that he was used to sharing a house with hundreds of boys, and so anything was an improvement. That night there was a bonfire with the returned Turling Park boys, and Tim sang and told ghost stories to an audience of more than fifty. Ben looked at Tim with quiet pride and saw how much the boys worshipped him. He thought how proud he would be if he, too, could do something like this with his life. On the first day of term, as Tim, Ben and Dan returned from their morning run, they found a policewoman on the doorstep of Tim's cottage. She looked uncomfortable, and spoke to Tim; `Sir; would you confirm your identities, please? Am I speaking to Timothy Sullivan, Benjamin Thompson and Daniel Thompson? Thank you. I understand that the three of you know the man known as Bernard Thompson?' The Screw. The three confirmed this uneasily. Had he been found? `Would you please accompany me. I'm afraid there is an unpleasant duty needing doing. I'm sorry to trouble you.' `Can we change out of our running things first?' `I'm afraid not, sir; this needs to be done immediately.' The three walked across the meadow with the policewoman to the school; it was clear that they were heading towards the workshops and in particular to the metalwork room. Were they going to meet The Screw now? Ben, more than anyone, was frankly terrified; he knew that he found resisting his father nearly impossible; the only times he had been able to do it was when he was defending Dan. Perhaps it was as well, after all, that Dan was coming. The classroom door was open, and there were several policemen there, the area having being cordoned off; The Screw's car was nearby, so he was obviously home. The three squared their shoulders and went in; they saw first the desk with Ben's broken irons and the photographs. And then they saw The Screw. As befits his name, he was swinging round and round from a hook where he had hung boys in chains. Only he was hanging by a cable around his neck, and he was dead. Ben knelt down and sobbed with a conflict of overwhelming emotions; Dan got down beside him, weeping quietly, and the two comforted each other. By this last act, The Screw had forced the very thing that everyone was trying to avoid; publicity. Now everyone would have to know about the boys' abuse, since it would all come out at the inquest. `Sir' said the policewoman to Ben, after allowing him a pause to compose himself, `I need you to confirm that this is Bernard Thompson, your father.' Ben just stood up and nodded, then strengthened his voice. `Yes, that is our father, Bernard Thompson. May God rest his soul and finally bring him peace.' Tim looked at amazement at Ben, marvelling that he could find it in his heart to pray for the man who had so abused him and his brother. He looked at Ben's face; he saw no anger, but only tranquility and a real sense of peace. He saw Ben's arm snake around his brother's shoulders, pulling him into himself; both young men were wearing shirts to hide the wounds and bruises both of them had received from that hateful man. Dan winced a little, but settled into his brother's embrace, wrapping his arm around Ben's waist. Ben saw Tim's look of disbelief. `Look, Tim. Look at our Dad; that is where hate gets you. Why should I hate him now? Isn't he truly to be pitied? For all the unhappiness he gave us, he must have been at least twice as unhappy himself. Dan and I have each other again, and that is wonderful; I don't think Dad ever had anyone at all. He and Mum always fought--you wouldn't remember that, Dan--and I don't think either one of them was ever happy. I have learnt to be happy, and I have learnt to recognize love and perhaps to give it, too. Dad never had that chance. I hope now that he has finally found Someone who loves him, and Whom he can love; God Himself. Perhaps death may be the very best thing that happened to our Dad. Suicide wasn't the best way to do it, sure, but somehow I think that God will understand.' `And what about you, Dan?' `Look, I don't understand all this religion stuff, but what Ben says seems to make sense to me. Where's the point in hating him? It'll only make us miserable, and I don't propose to let hatred win. He can't hurt us any more, so let's just draw a line under it and carry on with our lives.' And something melted within Tim. Years of barriers and self-protection crumbled. He remembered the Lord's command to `Love your enemies; do good to those who hurt you,' and the nobility and faith of the young man he loved, and the natural goodness of his brother awakened in him once more that love of God he had had as a young man; finally, finally, he began to realise what he must do. Tim walked across to the body, now lowered to lie on a bench, and made the sign of the cross on his cold forehead. He made the Church's solemn prayers for the commendation of the deceased, and prayed for the salvation of the man Bernard Thompson, that, though he had taken his own life, God may yet have mercy on his distress of mind, and find it in His heart to forgive all his many sins. Ben, at his shoulder, answered the prayers, and Dan joined in as best he could. All three of them found peace in the solemn and gentle words that returned surprisingly easily and quickly to Tim's memory. When they had finished, one of the policemen said to Tim `I'm sorry, sir, I didn't realize you were a priest, in your running gear.' `I'm not a priest,' said Tim. `I'm still a deacon, but somehow I think I'm going to be a priest quite soon.' There was a great deal of upheaval over the succeeding weeks. Tim submitted his resignation to the Turling Park headmaster, and there was great distress among the staff and boys, who had come to see Tim as one of the greatest resources of the establishment. The Bishop, who had always had a soft spot for Tim, welcomed him back among the ranks of the clergy with open arms, and talked with Tim for a long time about his future. He was well aware of the important work that Tim had done at Turling Park, and was very reluctant to end it. So it was decided that instead of returning to the Seminary to prepare for priesthood, that Tim would move in with Paul and Johnny and study with them for a year, while continuing his pastoral work full time among the boys at Turling Park. If it all worked out well, he could join the staff at St Tarcisius' House permanently; that would mean three priests on the staff, but if the Bishop didn't have to foot the bill to pay them all, then it ought to work out all right. The news was greeted with great relief by all concerned, and especially at Turling Park. Tim would have to vacate his cottage, however, for the new groundsman, though an appointment was not made for another year, which gave Ben and Dan the chance to build their own house next to St Tarcisius with the money from the sale of their Father's house, the house where Ben had been tortured, and to which he wanted never to return. The house, with bedrooms for both Marc and Conor, and a flat for Tim, was complete in a couple of months, and was connected by a short corridor and hallway to the Warden's and Chaplain's flats in St Tarcisius House. So the family was united properly. On Christmas Eve, in the big Cathedral at Arundel, Tim was finally ordained a priest. He would have liked to have been ordained in the new chapel at St Tarcisius House, but it was far too small to hold all the people who wanted to be there. Almost the whole of Turling Park turned out for the occasion, most of the boys deeply puzzled but intrigued at the complicated Catholic ceremonial, but deeply happy for Tim, their Hagrid, who had been father, mother and best friend to so many of them. Sylvia and her family were there--Tim had had his marriage to her easily annulled, since she had been having an affair with her present husband even at the time she and Tim had married, as were all Tim's friends from the police force and the seminary. His brothers, their wives, his nieces and nephews; all were there to share his happiness, and all could see that Tim, finally, had come home. The End. Comments to nickturner@breath.org.uk