WARNING:

This story contains descriptions of sexual acts involving a man, a teenager and two MINOR boys. Such descriptions are an integral part of the story. While the story may appeal to prurient interests, it is intended to have serious literary value. As a friend once said: "Everyone has the right to fantasy. No one has the right to censor an imagination, or dreams."

With that in mind, know that this story is not true, although it is based on fact and some real events! Further, it is not intended to promote illegal acts against minors, but to demonstrate that men and boys can love each other despite the prevalent attitudes of western society. It is my goal to help readers appreciate that love. The sexual acts described in the story are the result of my imagination. I have not performed these acts, and I do not encourage others to perform them with minors. If the subject of man/boy love offends you, if this material is illegal in your place of residence, or if you are under the legal age for such material, do not read further!

By downloading this story:

"... you implicitly declare and affirm under penalties of perjury that you are not a minor or in the company of a minor and are entitled to have access to material intended for mature, responsible members of society capable of making decisions about the content of documents they wish to read...."

The story is copyrighted under my pseudonym, Ganymede. A copy has been placed in the Nifty archives for your enjoyment. The story cannot be used to derive monetary gain. The story cannot be placed in archives that require payment for access, or printed and distributed in any form that requires payment either directly or indirectly.

Any similarity to individuals, living or dead, is entirely accidental. Reference is also made in context to movies, characters, and actors that have become part of modern western culture. No other implication about the true sexuality of the people mentioned or their private lives is intended.

Now that the preliminaries are out of the way.....

THE NIFTY ARCHIVE:

The Nifty Archive needs your support. If you enjoy reading this story, please remember that it is available only because of the Nifty Archive. Instructions are provided on the Nifty home page for how to provide support. If you don't write for the archive, do the right thing and support it with a donation.

True Blue by Ganymede

Chapter 8

Macksville was a quaintly historic riverside town, the river being the Nambucca, surely one of the most beautiful rivers on the east coast of Australia. The town was far enough inland that going to the beach entailed a day out, but it was worth the trip. According to Byron, crescent-shaped Shelley Beach was spectacular to look at as well as having some truly great waves. However, Macksville was inland for a reason. It served the farming community of the Nambucca Valley. It reminded me of other towns that I passed through going west to Brindajari. Most rural towns of New South Wales were fairly similar, with streets that were wide enough to drive a herd of cattle through. Wrought iron decoration was richly applied to what was otherwise nondescript architecture. The old corrugated iron roofs were rusted to a dull red or painted white, very unlike the roofs out west which staying shiny for decades. Buildings marched along both sides of the street, seeming to honour the Star Hotel, which took pride of place.

With gnawing hunger dictating our priorities, we stopped at a fish-and-chips shop. Then, with ample amounts of greasy, heavily salted food wrapped up in newspaper, we carried our lunch to one of the parks along the river. However, as hungry as we were, Blaine and I immediately hurried over to the public toilet to empty our bladders.

"Man, I'm dying for a leak," Blaine muttered as he tugged the front of his board shorts down.

"Me too."

I was also in too much of a hurry to waste time unfastening the lacing at the front of my shorts. Fortunately, there was enough room to pull them down far enough to gain access. With bare bottoms and exposed fronts, we stood side by side and released our torrents into the black-painted, very smelly urinal. It smelled as bad as the toilet at Bulahdelah and it was a lot newer. There were names and times, some with dates, even a few phone numbers scrawled on the wall above.

"Yeahhh. That’s better," Blaine sighed, exaggerating the relief he felt. He even put his hands on his hips, allowing his penis to make a wandering stream against the urinal wall, targeting flies.

"Yeahhh," I groaned. "Man, I was ready to burst."

"So, um, how do you like it, Allan?"

By then, I was concentrating on aiming at the white disk in the bottom of the urinal. It was supposed to be a disinfectant, but most of the time it was a target to be aimed at. My pee splattered off if, but there wasn’t enough force to move it.

"Huh?"

I glanced sideways and then lower as Blaine nodded downwards. Until then, I had forgotten that my testicles had been dyed blue. I could see a patch of dark blue skin peeking out from underneath my penis as the last droplets dripped from the tip. I looked toward Blaine. He was shaking his penis. Realising he had my devoted interest, he didn't stop. Shaking became fondling, shamelessly bringing himself to erection before my eyes. I watched it grow, that miracle of a boy's body straightening out, thickening, stiffening, lifting upward. And all it took were a few gentle strokes. His scrotum was loose because of the heat and it sagged into low hanging thin folds that seemed to make his testicles appear even larger.

“Like what?” I asked when Blaine didn’t respond.

" Having blue knackers of course."

"It's okay.”

“Okay?”

“I suppose I’m getting used to the idea.”

“You’re enjoying the trip aren’t you?”

“Yeah,” I admitted. It was fun, if a little embarrassing, but the best part was being away from my mother and grandmother.

“Man, you had a stiff forever,” Blaine said smugly.

“Only because you were sucking on it,” I replied.

“So? But you really liked it, didn’t you?”

“What’s not to like? Anyway, you liked it as well,”I countered defensively.

“Bugger off.”

“You had a stiff most of the time too," I sniggered.

"I did?” He smirked. “You noticed that huh? No flies on you, is there?"

He waggled his erection back and forth, holding it between two fingers of each hand. We both giggled.

"Get yours hard too, Allie."

Given how hungry I was and how smelly the public toilet was, I wasn't all that interested. Besides, my penis seemed to be slightly swollen, puffed out and reddened. Perhaps all of the attention it received in the car was too much for it. It even felt a bit sore where I touched it.

"I'm hungry."

"I am too," Blaine added. He smirked and crudely licked his lips. "You know something? I reckon I could suck your cock all the way there."

"Poofter." I regretted saying it as soon as the word left my lips.

"Yeah, well you sucked mine last night," he reminded me.

I turned away with a million thoughts clamouring for attention.

"You sucked my cock too, so what's that make you, Allie?" he demanded abruptly.

"That was different," I rebuked.

"How so?"

I had to think of a reason, but there really wasn't one. I shrugged vaguely, implying that there was a reason, but it wasn't worth sharing.

"So are you going to answer my question? How is it different? Didn't you like doing it?"

I shrugged in response and began to pull my shorts up. It was harder pulling them up than pushing them down.

"Yeah, you liked it," Blaine answered for me. He stopped looking at me and began to pull up his shorts. "What's more, you liked what I did to you in the car, too. So I guess that makes both us poofs."

"Does not!"

Yet, even as I rejected the suggestion I wondered whether it was true. Maybe I, Allan James Harding really was a poofter.

"Stop acting dumb, man.” I said with the intention of pacifying him. The situation was quickly getting uncomfortable.

“I’m not.” He smiled slyly. “What's the definition of a poofter?”

“Don't know.”

“A man trying to do a woman's job.” He grinned.

“Not funny.”

Okay,... How about this one? How do you know if your milkman is a poof?”

“Don't know.”

“He leaves cream up your back passage. Get it.” He smirked. I didn't get it. “By told me that one yesterday,” he added under his breath.

“No more fucking poofter jokes, okay.”

“Embarrassed? You're really afraid you're a poof, aren't you Allan?”

“No! I'm not. By said it's normal for kids our age to do stuff and it doesn't mean anything," I said, less than certain that what Byron said was true.

Blaine shrugged in response and started out the open doorway. I caught up to him as he crossed the grassed cricket field. At the pitch, he ran and pretended to bowl. I followed up with a bowl of my own, and then we ran at full speed to the picnic table where Bruce and Byron were eating lunch. Blaine was a much better bowler than I was, but it was probably because he was able to practice in his backyard with his older brother and father. Not for the first time I resented not having a father, a brother, or an uncle like Byron.

By that point we had travelled about 500 kilometres from Sydney. It was under 300 miles, but it took most of the day. There were a few times when Byron was able to drive at 70 m.p.h., but most of time, we were lucky to average half of that. All that was needed was to be stuck behind a slow moving truck for a few miles. With about forty miles still to go before we reached Coffs Harbour, we ate our lunch quickly, then got back into station wagon.

We passed through a succession of small towns: Valla Beach, Urunga, Sawtell, each of them located right on the coast, although the highway was so far back from the shore that all we ever saw were glimpses of the ocean. And then, at long last we came into Coffs Harbour. Our final destination was nothing more than a rushed shopping trip because there was only the space of a few minutes before shops began to close for the day. Byron assigned responsibilities, taking Blaine with him to the grocery store and sending Bruce and me running to the butcher shop down the street. They were putting away the meat when we arrived, but the door was still unlocked. Bruce took over the ordering, but without my grandmother's expertise, he really didn't know what to ask for. It came to a head when he tried to buy a dozen lamb chops. The butcher was ready to cut up a side of mutton when I intervened.

"What we want is short loin lamb," I said awkwardly. I pointed to the curved glass window where some meat was still lying out on green plastic grass.

"Short loin? No way would I sell you that, fella. This is better. It’s top grade. I'll cut some nice chops out of this for you boys." The butcher replied brusquely.

"We want lamb." I repeated the order that Byron had given, then adding to it quietly. "That's mutton."

"No difference, mate. Lamb, mutton, it's all the same when they baa."

I wasn't about to correct him. There was a big difference between sheep and lamb on Brindajari. You could tell just by looking at the meat. It wasn't simply a matter of the size of the chops. There was an entirely different texture, and taste too.

"We’ll take these," Bruce interjected. “If that’s okay.”

He pointed to the window where the lamb chops were displayed. The butcher had no choice but to give him what he wanted, even though he hesitated for a while.

"Good move, Allan. I like my meat nice and tender," Bruce whispered to me.

What he did next took me totally by surprise. His right hand moved from being lodged in the pocket of his board shorts. He reached around and down to my bottom. He squeezed my buttocks. Maybe it was intended to be funny. It would have been playful if his hand hadn't stayed there, cupping my right cheek. Instead, it made me feel strange. All over strange. Squeezing, cupping, a warm pressure that flowed into me. Fortunately, no one could see because we were standing close to the wall. His hand stayed there while the butcher counted out chops, weighed them, and began to wrap them. Eventually, I scowled at Bruce and his hand dropped away. He smirked back at me.

"Yeah, now that’s what I call very tender." His voice was very low so than no one else could hear him.

"You're s-so w-weird."

"Yeah, maybe I am,... but so are you." He glanced at the butcher, now wrapping the chops. "You want to know something?”

I shrugged.

“You have a nice bum, Harding," he whispered. "You better be really careful where you bend over."

'Bending over' and 'touching your toes' jokes were like 'train' jokes at school. All train jokes ended up the same way. They all had 'poof poof' as the punch line. Everyone at school made poofter jokes so it wasn't the first time that I was on the receiving end of one. However, compared to some boys, I escaped being the brunt of most of them.

"Ha-ha, very f-f-funny," I returned caustically.

His hand started on its way back to my bottom. I slapped at him.

"Owhh! Hands off the merchandise huh? Speaking of which,…"

Bruce stepped up the counter to pay for the meat we had purchased. I stayed close to the wall, feeling my face getting red and hot, and it wasn't from being out in the sun. Somehow, Bruce always knew what to say or do in order to embarrass me. I was glad when we left the shop. Bruce handed me the package to carry back to the car. I felt bit like his servant, although I really didn't mind. We strolled along the footpath, stopping to check out a store window.

"Nice board," Bruce said admiringly of the surfboard propped up as part of the beach display.

"It's a Shane, r-right?" I was pretty sure it was built by Shane Steadman even if there was no label in sight.

"Yep. Not bad at all. You see how the fin is shaped different to a McIntyre?"

"It's got m-more curve. It's w-wider too. S-so it g-goes straighter, right?"

"You're smarter than I thought," Bruce teased. "Especially for a cute little bunny. And I was thinking bunnies were even dumber than sheep."

"Ha-ha." I pretended to glare at him. I wasn’t about to encourage him.

"You’ve had enough of the bunny stuff, huh? Okay. I'll stop if you want?"

"It's okay," I answered before thinking.

The truth was that I liked him calling me names. It made me feel special. It was no different to Byron calling Blaine ‘Snugglepot’ and me ‘Cuddlepie’. It was all in good fun.

"So, are you glad you came with us instead of going to Brindajari?" Bruce asked as we continued down the street.

What to say? No, I'd rather be sitting in the car with my mother and grandmother on the long drive from Bathurst to Dubbo, because that was where I would have been at about that time of day. We always stopped in Katoomba for morning tea, then in Bathurst for lunch. I always dozed off for a few hours during the next part of the trip. Past Orange, it was pretty dull. Was I getting homesick already?

"Yeah," I said concomitantly.

Bruce smiled. "Wait until you see where we're going. McIntyre Beach has got the greatest fucking surf between Sydney and Surfer's Paradise, and you know the best thing of all?”

“W-what?”

“Just about nobody else knows about it."

“Cool,” I said, not even beginning to grasp the importance of why being able to surf by ourselves was so important.

After leaving Coff's Harbour, the scenery began to get more beautiful. The landscape was more rugged. Pristine beaches, waterfalls were nothing short of spectacular and tropical forests verged on becoming jungle. Blaine and I kept staring out the windows. It was so very different to the flat plains west of the Great Dividing Range, that it could have been another country except for the towering gum trees.

Just a few miles past the turnoff to Moonee Beach, Byron pulled over to the side of the road, creeping slowly past tall eucalyptus trees that seemed to reach up to the sky. Bruce turned around in his seat and looked back at us. He grinned at both Blaine and me. There didn't seem to be any reason for us to stop there, especially since we had all used the toilets in Coff's Harbour before we left.

"We're here!" Blaine shouted. "We're here!"

He almost climbed over the front seat to look through the windscreen. There, ahead of us was a small dirt track that would be easily overlooked by anyone going past. It was all but overgrown.

"Yep. We're here, boofhead," Bruce confirmed jubilantly.

"Let's just hope the road is still in one piece. If it's not, you guys will have to get out and push," Byron said as the car started down the track.

"Part of the way we have to go through a nature preserve, Bun," Bruce explained to me. "It doesn't get any prettier than this."

I gazed through the window, now goose-pimpled with excitement. The exotic sounds and smells of the rainforest filled me with wanderlust, a myriad images of jungles from New Guinea to the Amazon. It was so very different to the dry dusty plains of Brindajari. An insect wandered into the car and buzzed around for a while. We crept along, meandering from one side to the other, sometimes even leaving the rutted track and trying to find a route that was less bumpy. There were times when Byron brought the car to a halt and made sure it was in low gear before easing across washed out sections of road. We slowly climbed away from a creek bed and the road became slightly better, that was until we reached a tree that had fallen across the road. It took all four of us to drag it to the side. It was clear than no one had driven down that road for several months.

At the crest of the hill there were openings among the trees that enabled glimpses of the ocean. We began to descend. On the sea side the sun and wind affected the vegetation. The rainforest disappeared whenever it was exposed to the wind, replaced by the typical Australian bush of gums and wattles and scraggly grassy bushes. We came to a headland and the track divided. One way led to a rickety iron pipe gate that swung open on rusted hinges. The other track went on for a dozen paces and petered out.

"You can see the beach from there," Bruce said, pointing to the path away from the gate. "It's one hell of a view."

"We don't have time today," Byron explained. "But the next time we'll stop for sure."

"It's worth a whole year of the shit I have to put up with at school for a few weeks up here," Bruce said smugly. He had been spending most of the summer holidays with Byron ever since he was my age. It was the reason why he was such a great surfer.

Blaine leaned over towards me. He inclined his head. "Remember what I said earlier about not telling?" he whispered.

I nodded in response.

"I really mean it, Allie. You can't tell anyone about what happens here, remember!"

He waited until I nodded, and then he undressed. Right there in the seat next to me, he started stripping off his clothes. I realised right away that he wasn't going to stop until he was naked as the day he was born. Off came his shirt. He put it on the seat next to him. He spent a few moments undoing the cord of his board shorts. Then, he pushed them down his legs, all the way to his feet. I had seen him naked before often enough, but never like that. It was like he was a different person, freed of whatever it was that made us do the things we were supposed to do. And no one cared. No one even seemed to notice what he was doing, except me that is. Byron and Bruce paid attention to the road, or what passed as a road as we began the descent to the beach.

"Are the guys in the buff back there yet?" Byron asked from the driver's seat. He sounded amused by the idea.

"Uh huh," Bruce snickered. He didn't even turn around.

"One of us is," Blaine giggled.

"Hm, too fucking bad." Byron mused. "I really thought we'd have two naked boys back there by now. What's the problem, Allan? Don't tell me you're still embarrassed about showing it off? There's nothing to worry about, you know, not when we've all seen it. We're all guys here."

I glanced at Blaine. He seemed perfectly content to lounge in his seat without a single stitch of clothing on his body. He smirked at me and moved his legs apart so that my view was unimpeded. His penis dangled between his slim sun-tanned thighs. His blue-dyed scrotum hung low, much lower than mine ever did. The eggs inside were almost touching the vinyl seat. I swallowed. I wasn't sure what I was supposed to do or say. I quickly looked away again. The temptation to keep looking was almost too much for me. My mouth was dry.

"Come on, don't be a dummy. Show us your stuff, Allan," Bruce teased. He looked back between the seats. "Going nude is what we do here," he added with emphasis.

I shook my head abruptly, yet part of me wanted to take my clothes off, to be naked like Blaine. After all, part of the tradition was that we went naked at McIntyre Beach. Not while we were surfing or when someone else was around, but at other times when it was just us it seemed like it might even be fun. The problem was that I didn't want to undress in front of Bruce, not while he was watching me.

"I w-will, b-but only if you d-do it f-first," I replied haughtily.

Byron laughed. "Yeah, good for you. Now that's what I call spunk. There's nothing like a boy with some spunk.”

Bruce smirked at me. He didn't say anything. I could tell that he had not expected me to say that. I hadn't expected me to say that either. And he said ‘spunk’! Spunk, just like Blaine produced, but which I still had yet to see.

“W-well?“ I demanded. I felt like I had control of the situation for once.

“Fair’s fair, mate. You know that bare bums are the rule as well as I do, Brucey. You better get your duds off,” Byron said. It was almost an order.

Maybe I was too excited, but I couldn't help it. My heart was jumping up and down. I couldn't understand why I was so excited. I think part of it came because I wanted to see Bruce without his clothes on, but a big part of me enjoyed making him do something that I wanted. I tried not to look at Blaine, knowing full well that once I saw his body I would start to get an erection. It always happened when I saw him naked.

“Deal,” Bruce answered.

He twisted around in his seat. For a few seconds I thought nothing was going to happen. Then, I realised that his shirt had buttons, that he was undoing them one at a time. His arms and shoulders moved. His shirt came off. I swallowed, trying to see what was happening in the sat in front, afraid that he really was undressing and then it would be my turn. He held his shirt up so I could see it.

“Your shorts too mate.”

“Gee, thanks By,” Bruce snorted. Still, he sounded amused. “Your turn will come once he's in the nude, you know.”

Byron shook his head mockingly. I risked a glance at Blaine. He was clearly amused by what was going on. His fingers cradled his still limp penis. My penis was already as hard as a rock. I wasn't even sure when it had happened, but I could definitely feel it sticking up into my shorts. Vaguely, I wondered whether it was because of Blaine, or his brother, but whatever made it happen it was despite the unsettling concern of having to take all off my clothes off as well. My heart pounded from the sheer thrill of what we were doing, of knowing that within just minutes all of us would be stark naked.

I didn't see Bruce actually take his shorts off. I was afraid that he’d see me looking. Suddenly, his red and black board shorts landed on the seat between Blaine and me. Like us, Bruce wasn't wearing underpants. From where I sat, I could see his long darkly tanned thigh. Until then, I hadn't noticed how hairy his legs were. They weren't smooth like Blaine's and my legs were. The hair was like half-inch strands of glistening gold and there was a lot of it.

“Now it's your turn,” Bruce directed.

It was my turn and there was no getting out of it. I took a deep breath and lifted my arms, taking the hem of my shirt with it. It was loose enough that it came off easily. I balled it up and tossed it at Bruce. It hit him in the face. It didn't stop him from laughing. He pretended to smell it.

“You’re a sweaty little bugger aren't you? Now, off with your shorts. Drop them so we can see Harding junior, again,” he taunted.

I rolled my eyes and contemplated saying 'no way'. However, something inside me said that it was more fun if I took them off. I took them off, unfastening the knotted cord so that I could slide them down. I didn't stop at my feet. I held them up high, proudly.

“There! Happy now?” I called out.

“Now, there's two boys sitting in the back seat,” Byron joked. “And they're just the way I like them. Both of them have bare bums.”

“You got it,” Blaine giggled. “Hey, you guys, you got to see this. Allan's got another stiffie.”

“Look at that hard little dong,” Bruce shouted.

"He's not the only one," Byron called out jovially. "Is he Bruce?"

"Geez, By! Give it a rest, okay."

"Man, you kids ought to see the fucking whopper Bruce has up here," Byron teased.

"I’ve already seen it," Blaine guffawed. Before he could comment further, he shouted, "Hey, Allan, look!" He pointed out the window at what appeared to be a ramshackle shack. "That's it! That's By's place!"

What interested me more than the beach shack that Blaine had drawn my attention to was the surf that crashed onto the white sandy beach directly ahead of us. Lines of breakers seemed to extend out to the ocean as far as the eye could see. It was a surfer's paradise. There was a fair rip, judging by the way the surf was breaking, but it was nothing that I couldn't handle.

"Wow," was all I could say.

"Not bad, huh?" Blaine commented from beside me.

"It's awesome."

"Man, just look at that fucking lip on that wave! It's way better than most of last year’s waves," Bruce shouted.

It stayed a clean wave for as long as any wave that I had seen, a vast wall of water that came to a curl at the very top and hung there as if it wanted to become a pipe, but just couldn't make it over the crest. Finally, it pitched and the wave burst into white turmoil. A moment later the roar intensified. I had never seen such a beautiful wave, not even at Narrabeen or the few times the McIntyre’s had taken me to Cronulla.

"We get some pretty good ground swells this time of year," Byron said over his shoulder. "There's a nice reef break on the point," he pointed towards the distant headland. "We'll have you offshore and working it like a pro before you leave, Allan," he added.

The roar of the surf was louder than anything I'd ever heard, perhaps because there were no other sounds. Wave after wave pounded ashore, sending white foam boiling high into the air when they first broke. There was a channel where the waves reformed, allowing for some good inside waves before they became shore slop. Despite what Byron had just said, I suspected that was where Blaine and I would do most of our surfing.

The track stopped right outside the collection of corrugated iron and bleached-grey wood that had aspirations of being a building. Byron turned off the engine. The roar of the surf became almost deafening. It was also reassuring in its own way, a perpetual sound that seemed to echo in my ears.

"Fuck! That was one hell of a long drive," Byron declared with a mocking voice that was accented like the ABC announcer in the mornings.

Suddenly, we all started to laugh. It had been a long drive and Byron’s imitation was perfect. We had been sitting in the car for the best part of ten hours.

"Okay, you dick heads, stop giggling like a bunch of sheilas. Everyone out of the car," he continued. "We have to unload and get set up before it's dark."

"We will,... after you strip off, By," Blaine snickered. “Fair’s fair.”

Byron laughed. "You get yours tonight, Mister," he threatened in a friendly tone. "You might find sitting down a bit uncomfortable afterwards."

Jokes about 'sitting down' or 'taking a shit' fell into the same category as 'poof-poof' jokes. I wasn't at all sure what was so funny about it, but Bruce burst into laughter that wouldn't stop. He laughed while Byron took his clothes off. Unlike the three of us, Byron was wearing briefs, not white cotton 'Bonds' like the ones that Blaine and I normally wore, but bright red and skimpy. Sitting behind Byron, I couldn't see what was happening until he held up his briefs and waved them around triumphantly.

"Okay, you bare bums, it’s time to get busy," Byron said good-humouredly. “We’ve got some unloading to do.”

All four doors opened simultaneously and we spilled out onto hot sand that would have burned our feet had we not kept our thongs on. Because I had been sitting behind the driver’s seat, Byron stood right in front of me, his back facing me. It was like looking at a sports god. He had broad, brown shoulders, tapering down the knobby ridge of his spine, and very firmly muscled legs. Even his bottom was sun-tanned. Yet, as handsome and athletic as he was, there wasn't the same thrill that I felt when I saw Blaine's body. The difference was startling. Byron was a man, the very first man who I saw fully naked for more than a few seconds in the changing room at the beach. While I was interested, I wasn't unduly affected by what I saw. There was no weird thrill, no surge of overpowering excitement that made my skin instantly form goose bumps, and my penis certainly didn’t become hard.

He stood there for a few moments, allowing me to gaze at his nakedness. He stretched back, flexing his arms, kicking up sand, feeling wonderful.

"Yeah, that sun feels damned good after all this time," he announced to no one in particular.

Suddenly, he turned around. I saw his penis, long, thick, dangling down from a dark nest of hair. It reminded me of wire, tangled up into a ball. I stared, feeling strange.

"You like what you see, mate?" he asked boldly. He gave me a moment to think about it. “Hey, you heard the one about the guy from Leeds? He didn't wait for me to answer.

“There was a young man from Leeds, who swallowed a packet of seeds, and out of his arse grew a bushel of grass, and his balls were covered in weeds.”

“He was hairy like you, huh,” Bruce chimed in.

"You got it. Hey, Why are pubic hairs curly, Allan?” He looked right at me, giving me an unimpeded view of his crotch. “So they don't poke you in the eye.”

He smiled and I averted my eyes awkwardly, aware not only that I'd been caught staring, but that Byron didn't mind at all.

“So what you reckon, Cuddlepie? This has to be the most beautiful beach on the north coast, or what?" he added smugly.

"It's awesome," I said, spontaneously looking back again.

Despite the view, which was superb, I found it very difficult to look away from his penis. That man-sized penis was unlike anything I had ever seen. It was so much larger than mine or Blaine's that it was almost frightening. He did have a lot of hair as well.

"You know the best thing about my view?”

“Huh? No, what?”

“The boy in the middle of it,” Byron jibed.

“Huh?”

“Don’t be shocked. You have a nice body, Cuddlepie. It’s a real pleasure to look at you.”

That I had a nice body was probably more or less descriptive because I was well-built from playing a lot of sports and growing up on Brindajari, but no one had ever said something like that to me before, not even my mother or grandmother. I wasn't at all sure of what to think.

“ You're sexy too,... you know that, don't you mate?” he added quietly.

I think my mouth dropped open, or I gulped at that point. There was a strange feeling in my stomach as the words sank in. At the time, I really didn’t believe my ears.

"Yeah, you’re one really spunky kid," he continued softly. “Don't go getting uptight about it.”

It was said so quietly that only I heard him, and that was all he said. He said I was 'sexy', and if that wasn’t enough, he’d added ‘spunky' too, which was the same thing. The words resounded. To make it even more confusing, he had not said it off-handedly. His tone of voice and the way he said it was anything but casual or teasing. Despite his intonation, it wasn't even a question. It was a statement of fact as far as he was concerned. I stared at the view in the awkward silence that followed.

After a moment he reached up and unfastened one of the bungee cords that secured the surfboards to the roof racks. There was no way that I could have reached them. Instead, I stood idly by, watching this naked man, trying to understand why he found my boy's body to be interesting, because that was what the tone of his voice communicated. Me, Allan Harding, a mere eleven-year-old boy, was ‘spunky’. That was what girls were, or were supposed to be. And more, it had been said with such an approving tone, that I could tell that he meant it. Fortunately for both of us, only I heard it. It would have been very embarrassing otherwise. After a few moments of thought it struck me that it was almost as if he didn't want Bruce and Blaine to know that he was admiring me. And the expression on his face? It was as if he was somehow gratified merely by looking at me without my clothes on. It made me feel good inside.

Blaine and Bruce worked on the surfboards on the other side of the car. I saw occasional glimpses of them. Both of them were naked and carrying on as if not having clothes on was perfectly normal for them. I began to feel less exposed. The late afternoon sun warmed my body and touched parts that hadn't seen sun for several months since the last time I dared to undress and swim in the creek.

Again and again I glanced down self consciously, half expecting to see my penis in an aroused state. For once, Allan Harding Junior appeared to be relaxed about the whole situation. My penis drooped down, a little pink thumb flopping against my very-dark-blue pouch. It was vaguely amusing, knowing that Blaine and I were marked in same way, like initiates in some arcane ritual of growing up. Finally, Byron passed me my surfboard to hold while he unfastened the other somewhat larger board that was still secured to our side of the roof racks. I carried my board to the rear of the car and waited there, watching Bruce and Blaine.

Undressed, and from behind, Bruce looked a lot more like Byron than his younger brother. For the first time in my life I realised that there were some big differences between men and boys that couldn’t be accounted for by the difference in size. No matter how handsome Bruce was, it was still Blaine's body that really fascinated me. I liked how he was slender and smooth, how the only hair, at least noticeable hair was on his head.

Bruce, like Byron, had tufts of reddish hair under his arms when he reached up to remove the surfboard from the roof of the car. There was hair on his legs too, not the fuzzy down like Blaine had from just below his knees to his feet, but darker, thicker hair that extended all the way up to his buttocks. And then even as I looked, Bruce climbed down from where he had been standing on the door sill and turned to face me. He grinned nonchalantly at me and posed so that I saw the front of his body.

From the front, he looked just like Byron, only his penis was not quite as large. Not that it mattered. It was still huge to my inexperienced eyes. For the second time that day, I stared at Bruce’s penis and butterflies fluttered around in my stomach. It swung like a pendulum, back and forth. It even bounced against his thighs whenever he moved. In the daylight I could see that the end of it was fat and rounded and dark in colour, not small and bluish-pink like Blaine's was. It wasn't like Blaine's penis at all, and yet it was. I could see definite, undeniable similarities. It was like looking at Blaine when he was a few years older, at the man he would eventually become. At the time I had no realisation of what attracted me to Blaine. All I knew, and even then it was a vague inclination, was that seeing Bruce naked was no different to Byron, and in the same way, I did not find it particularly interesting to look at him.

It was all unsettling. Standing there, watching Bruce, thinking how strong and capable he was, about how he was able to do things that I could only dream about. Perhaps it was what my grandmother called ‘puppy love’, or hero-worship, but I found myself hanging on every word that he uttered, nodding my head enthusiastically when he held his board up over his head and suggested we should get a few 'fucking' waves in before it became too 'fucking' dark. True, I didn't like him swearing whenever he opened his mouth, but it was all in good humour and my inhibitions were in full retreat. We were laughing, joking, talking back and forth about surfing, even about getting our dicks stuck in the car door. It was male camaraderie of a type that I had never known beyond the far more restrained situations that occurred when I visited Blaine's family. I even used the 'f' word myself a few times, but only when Blaine could hear me.

However, there were other priorities that day and surfing would have to wait. We carried the surfboards to the side of the hut where they were carefully placed out of the way. The waves beckoned, demanding my constant attention. I wanted to charge across the sand and paddle out through the breakers. I wanted to find out what it felt like to ride my own surfboard, even if it was still unwaxed. Instead, we began the somewhat thankless task of emptying the station wagon and moving our belongings and food inside the place that I was to call home for the next few weeks.

The more-or-less ‘l’-shaped hut consisted of three square rooms around a central fireplace. It made of welded sheet metal and daubed with rust and peeling paint, although why there was a fireplace at all one could only guess. Maybe Byron used the hut during the winter? There was a kitchen-come-eating area with just enough room for the four of us to sit down at a rickety table, a sitting room with a threadbare floral-patterned couch that converted to a bed, and a bedroom that consisted of a large mattress lying on the floor. There were no closets or chests of drawers. We would have to live out of our bags. Instead of a fourth room to complete the square, there was an open deck that was littered with half a dozen aluminium-framed outdoor seats and a table that had been blown up against the handrails.

After moving three old twin-fin surfboards outside from where they were occupying the middle of the floor, Byron led us on the guided tour of the ‘Mac-shack’. The first thing I discovered was that there wasn't an indoor bathroom. Instead, there was a wood-planked walkway that led out over the sand dunes. It ended at a small platform partially enclosed by a wood slat wall. A shower nozzle held in place by wire indicated the intended purpose even if there was no apparent way of getting water to it from the storage tank. Byron said something about having to ‘fix’ a few things. Located behind the wall was the toilet. I had smelled worse on the trip and it was probably better that going off into the sand dunes. There wasn't much privacy, but by that point I was beginning to realise I would not need much privacy, not when I was already naked and was likely to remain so for most of the time I was there. No one else seemed to worry about it.

"This will be your bed, Allan," Byron explained on the return trip through the sitting room. He gestured to the convertible couch.

“Okay.”

"Um, if you don't mind,… you'll share it with Bruce. I promise he won’t snore too loudly."

No doubt, it was supposed to be funny, because both he and Bruce grinned, but I didn't smile. The confused expression on my face got his immediate attention. I didn't understand why I couldn't sleep with Blaine if we had to share beds.

"I think putting the two of you together will be best. That way I'll have Blaine in the bedroom with me."

"Why?" I asked abruptly. I knew I sounded rude, but I couldn't help it.

"Hm, well,…” He took time to think about his answer. “Let’s just say that I don't get to spend much time alone with him, not when his mom’s around anyway." Byron winked meaningfully. "This will be a good chance for us to catch up. You don't mind if I borrow your best friend at night, do you?"

I shook my head slightly, but I didn't mean it, My head was full of thoughts about the previous night, of being naked with Blaine, of reaching out and touching each other where we weren’t supposed to. Although I would never admitted it to Blaine or anyone else, I wanted to repeat what I had done the night before.

"Good boy. Besides, I reckon you'll have a lot more fun in here with Bruce."

"I guess," I said reluctantly.

I wasn't at all happy about the sleeping arrangements, not at all. It didn't make any sense. Why couldn't Byron and Bruce share the mattress? There was plenty of room for the two of them.

It was as if Byron knew what I was thinking. "Hey, Bruce could hardly share my bed, could he? Now he's grown up and all, people might think we're a couple of poofters." He finished with a laugh.

I shrugged disdainfully. Beside me, Blaine smirked. I didn't see why he was so happy. Part of me wanted to wipe the smirk of his face. It was the second time in my life that I thought about wanting to hit him. I swallowed. I felt angry. I felt envious. I felt alone. My confusion seemed to press down on me until I wasn't sure of anything any more.

"Hey, Bunny, no sweat. It'll be fun," Bruce said from behind me.

I glanced back at him.

"Yeah, r-right. A lot of f-fucking fun."

He grinned at me. "It's not like I snore, at least it’s nothing near like what Blaine does."

"He doesn't snore."

"It’s just for the night. You and Blaine can be together all day.”

I shrugged, pretending ambivalence.

“I know what he’s sulky,” Blaine chipped in.

“I’m not sulky.”

“Hey, if you're worried about not getting your cock sucked, don't worry about it," Bruce joked. "You guys can have sex whenever you want to."

"Fuck you!" I said viciously.

With that, I turned, ready to rush outdoors. Byron grabbed my arm and held me tightly. My mind was churning angry thoughts. He wouldn't let go even though I dragged against him. I wanted to get away from him, from Bruce, even from Blaine.

"Shut up, Bruce!" Byron ordered loudly.

He twisted me around, then took my shoulders in hand, holding me away from him so that he could see my face. I glowered at him.

"Allan, listen to me. If you really want to sleep with Blainey, it’s no problem. You guys are best mates. If you want to have sex with him, it's okay by me. No worries, mate."

I glared at him. "It isn't that! What makes you think I want to have sex with him," I countered defensively.

"Look, Allan. Bruce was way out of line for saying that." Byron smiled. "Maybe it's true, maybe it isn’t. I want you to think about what we talked about in the car. It’s no one’s business but yours."

"I don’t have to. It's not like that," I interrupted swiftly.

"Okay. I believe you. It doesn't matter. Just remember what I said in the car coming up. It's normal for guys to mess around with their friends. We all do it."

"Yeah. So what?"

Byron smiled. He took a deep breath. "You want me to teach you how to surf, don't you?"

"Yeah," I ventured warily.

He was quiet for a few moments. "Okay. I'll make you a deal, Allan. I’ll teach you how to surf like you won’t believe,… but only if you do something for me. You sleep in here with Bruce and,… don’t sweat it,…. and I promise you'll be surfing just like him by the time you go home."

I think my mouth dropped open in shock. Bruce was almost the state champion. I wasn't sure if I believed my ears. Yet, something, intuition perhaps, said that I wasn't being lied to.

"Like Bruce?" I finally managed to get out.

"Yeah, like Bruce. Maybe even a bit better than Bruce,” he added quietly. “You’ll have to work hard, though. Maybe I'm wrong about you, Harding, but I don't think so." he winked at me. “I’ve always been able to pick them.”

"Huh?"

"There you go with the fucking huhs again." He laughed and shook his head. “You’re really something else, Cuddlepie. I think I’m getting jealous.” He glanced at Bruce as he rubbed his hand through my tousled hair. "We'll find out tomorrow morning, I guess."

"Find out what?" I demanded.

"What you're made of," Byron replied as he nodded thoughtfully. "I'd bet the fucking farm you've got what it takes to go places. You’ve certainly got the body for it."

"Well, I told you that, didn’t I?" Bruce said. "I watched him at Dee Why a couple of weeks ago. He’s already pretty good, By."

"Yeah, I'm sure he is." Byron released my shoulders. His right hand caressed my cheek, turning my head to the side. "Goddamn, Bruce! He's a real cutie."

My ears burned. "If you really want me to sleep in here with Bruce, I will," I muttered self-consciously.

"Will you? See, I'd really like that, Allan," Byron said quietly. "The thing is, see, I'd like to spend some time with Blainey, alone,... just me and him,.... you know what I mean?"

I didn't know what he meant. I wasn't about to ask. There was too much at stake. I merely nodded.

"No matter what happens while we’re up here, he'll still be your best friend, Allan," Byron continued. He glanced at Blaine and Blaine nodded slightly at me, encouragingly. "If you guys want some private time together,..." Byron gestured behind him, using his extended thumb to indicate towards the bedroom he was going to share with Blaine. "Don't even ask. I understand what it’s like when you get the urge. Whatever you two guys do together, it's okay by me."

Chapter 9

As late afternoon became evening and the sun moved behind the hills to the west, long shadows stretched out towards the horizon. With the sea to the east, there wasn't the glory of a sunset over water. Instead, there was a kind of mystery to the approaching gloom. It was as if the world was being swallowed up by darkness until it was all gone. For a long while, until it became almost too dark to see what we were doing, Blaine and I played on the outside deck. We were naked, just as we had been since our arrival, but by then we were blissfully unaware of anything except the need to win at the game of Scrabble that had appeared from somewhere deep inside the rear of the station wagon. For once I could be next to my naked friend and not worry about getting an erection. My thoughts were focused on finding words, words that Blaine could not steal simply by adding an 's' or an 'n'.

The endless roar of the surf eventually became a reassuring drone, constant and loud. It seemed to come from just beyond the first row of sand dunes, yet it quickly became something I was always conscious of, but not to the extent of becoming a disturbance. Whenever I looked up from the board, I always looked towards the beach. Perhaps it was to convince myself that it wasn’t a dream. When I was certain it was real, only then did I give some thought to the adventure that lay ahead. The last time my attention was diverted, just before we went inside to eat dinner, the sky was so dark that I could barely make out the waves. The burst of white as the breakers crashed, and the fluorescent trails as the wave came ashore were all that could be seen. The time that I spent outside with Blaine that first evening was one of my strongest memories.

It was right after a much delayed dinner, that the sleeping arrangements also became the kitchen-duty assignments. It turned that I would work with Bruce and Blaine would work with Byron to do whatever needed to be done, taking turns every day. We drew cards for the first night’s cleanup. Bruce and I lost so it was our duty to clean up after dinner and straighten the kitchen. Having just two items on the dinner menu hardly qualified the meal a feast by any stretch of the imagination, but when someone was as hungry as we were that evening, it didn't matter. I ate ravenously, more than enough for my grandmother to have made a disparaging comment about my appetite, or to leave something for other people had she been there. I got through three barbecued short loin lamb chops and two ears of corn, but it was still one chop shy of Blaine's four chops.

With their bellies full, Byron and Blaine retired to the couch in the adjoining room. After some fiddling with the dial, the radio was tuned to one of the Coffs Harbour radio stations, the ever friendly 2-CHR. At that time of the night, it was 'surf's up'. As Bruce washed the plates and cups in luke warm water and I dried them with a tea-towel that had seen better days, I could hear the beat of the Chantay's Pipeline. It was all I could do not to pretend to play along. That song really got inside my head. It was easy to imagine a pipeline, the Banzai Pipeline in particular, because it was the wave formation that Bruce Brown immortalised in 'Surf Safari' about ten years earlier when a surfer shouted 'banzai' and was caught on film. I could imagine the ultimate wave cranking, bursting forth with the intense energy that only powerful waves can have, the blue sky replaced by a blue-green roof of water arcing overhead, being inside the tube and looking outward into the face of the wave before it curled over. In the car, Byron talked about surfing at Ehukai Beach Park. It was dangerous because the waves broke hard on a shallow reef. His first time, he walked away with some lacerations. The same day another surfer had one of his legs broken and two cracked ribs. People were killed there. The danger was part of the lure, Byron said.

"You like that huh?"

I looked up at Bruce. He was grinning at me. I hadn't realised that I had stopped wiping the dishes. I was transfixed, dreaming of the world's most spectacular tubed surfing break, listening to the music, the crescendo, the long gliss of the lead guitar at the refrains. I nodded when it ended.

"It's really c-cool."

"So is your dick," Bruce quipped without a moment’s hesitation.

Before that day I would never have imagined Bruce saying something like that, never in a million years, but he winked at me. It was all in good fun so I shrugged at first, and then I smiled back at him. Indeed, it wasn't the first time that evening that he had commented on my penis or dark-hued scrotum. He seemed to find it a source of amusement.

"Ha ha!" I replied sarcastically. "You're j-just j-jealous." With my one free hand, I wagged my penis at him.

"Jealous of what?"

He had me there. I had to think. If anything, I was the person who should have been jealous. "B-because y-yours is all h-hairy," I answered finally.

"Hm, am I to assume that you don't like big hairy dicks?" he teased.

He turned to face me, his hands on his hips, his legs apart, giving me a close look. My eyes dropped instinctively, taking in the maleness that was so much larger than mine.

I managed a feeble shrug, furrowing my brow momentarily. I had never thought about it before. The more I looked the more I realised that there was hair everywhere. It began as a fuzzy patch on his chest, but it really started a few inches below his belly button. I shook my head slightly.

"D-do you?" I asked with boldness that surprised even me.

It was all I could think of to say. The reason why I asked him was because I could think why anyone would like to be hairy like that. I didn't want to look like that! It was hardly an epiphany, but it was an important episode in my life. I liked the way that I looked, and Blaine, and my friends from school. Bruce smiled slightly as if acknowledging my audacity to ask him the same question that he asked me. For a long while his eyes were fixed on the region between my belly button and knees. He stared until I felt uncomfortable. Finally, he looked up again. Our eyes met.

"Na, not much, I guess. Blaine does, though," he said quietly.

He raised his eyebrows to imply something. Not surprisingly, I didn’t understand.

"I reckon if I had choice I'd rather have one like yours, Bunny," he added teasingly.

I shrugged, not really understanding anything except that I felt the same way. For some reason I didn’t find his hairy groin attractive, or interesting, or anything. It was manly and vaguely threatening and it was right there in front of me. Even more threatening was what did he mean about Blaine? I was about to find out.

"I'll finish up here," Bruce offered agreeably. "You go see what they're doing. If By wants to play cards tell him I’ll be right in."

I expected to find Blaine reading one of the hundreds of comics that had accumulated in the shack over the years. There was an abundance of my favourites, in particular, 'Scrooge McDuck' and his nephews. I thought they were the 'bestest', a term that upset my grandmother almost as much as my reading comics. One thing was certain. I didn't expect to find what I did.

Blaine was still lying back on the couch in much the same position as he had been in when I last saw him. Like me and Bruce, he was naked. He was also reading the same comic as well, or maybe it was simply open in front of him. His attention was very much focused on something else. Byron was kneeling in front of him. He was wearing the same resin-stained tee shirt that he had put on to cook dinner. For a few seconds, I wasn't sure of what was happening. Maybe I should have made a quiet exit and gone back into the kitchen. Instead of saying something, or going further into the room or doing something to announce my presence, I stayed next to the fireplace. I watched quietly, aware that something important was happening, something that maybe I wasn't supposed to see, or maybe I was.

Blaine's eyes were closed to slits, his mouth partially open. His hands were by his sides, palms up. He squirmed a little, then quickly settled back down. The sound he made was very familiar. Any boy who masturbated knew that sound. I knew that muted sigh, almost a whimpering sound because it felt so good. I stared, knowing what Byron was doing even though I couldn't actually see it. Perhaps they weren't aware of me. Perhaps they thought I was still working in the kitchen with Bruce. Perhaps they knew I was watching. Perhaps they didn't care.

"Good huh?" Byron asked quietly.

"Yeah!" Blaine murmured. " It’s good. Go faster."

"Not yet! I want this to be your best one ever."

"Ohhh,... Oh man. Yeah!" Blaine's hips lifted as he groaned, almost coming off the couch. His hands closed, clenching. "Faster," he demanded through gritted teeth. Blaine always liked it faster at the end.

From where I stood, I see Byron's right arm moving. Suddenly, it began to move even faster, jerking between them. Blaine groaned again. His legs strained, pushing down towards Byron. His breathing was suddenly ragged, quavering gasps.

"I'm close.... Yeah, yeah,... faster By,.... Oh fuck! Do it faster."

I gulped, not wanting to believe, but taking it all in nonetheless. My mind teetered on the truth, rejecting, resenting, gnawing anger distorting my vision. Jealousy and the raw thrill of watching them prevented a rational response. Perhaps under other circumstances, I would have backed away and remained silent. Instead, I tried to stop what was happening.

"What are you doing?" I blurted out.

Byron stopped what he was doing. He glanced over his shoulder at me. His expression was not one of dismay, or shock, or even surprise. Instead, it was a 'what do you think I'm doing' look.

"What's it look like?" Blaine gasped. "He's playing with my fucking dick."

Suddenly, I became more self-conscious than I had ever been. I was the interloper. I wasn't supposed to be there.

"It's wrong!" I retorted.

"Is it?”

I nodded back at Byron. He studied me, then he smiled right at me.

“There's nothing wrong with a wank between friends. You ought to know that by now, Allan. You've wanked Blainey off often enough to know he likes it. Do you want him all for yourself?"

I shook my head. Instinctively, I understood his point. I didn’t own Blaine even if he was my best friend. He could do whatever he wanted to. To make matters even worse, there was an insistent voice inside me that said that Blaine was much closer to Byron than he was to me. And worse, even though we called each other best friend, it would always be that way. The sense of loneliness was overpowering.

"Blaine?" I beseeched. I wanted it stop. I wanted us to continue to be best friends.

"Don't be dumb, Allan," Blaine said cruelly. He seemed to smirk. He licked his lips. He was breathing through his mouth, still breathing hard.

"I thought we were best friends," I muttered.

Blaine lifted himself from among the pillows. He rested one of his hands on Byron's shoulder, guiding him to move away. Only then did I see, really see, what they were doing. Blaine's penis was hard and straining upwards. His penis tended to become reddened like mine if was rubbed too hard. It practically glowed. Byron's right hand was underneath it, holding Blaine's testicles. I could see bits of blue skin between Byron’s fingers. His thumb stroked along the stretched shaft, each time reaching to the tip and smearing over the rounded knob. It was shiny and it appeared to be wet. Each time he did it, Blaine quivered. Whenever we masturbated each other he didn't let me touch him on the tip like that. He said it hurt too much. It was how I liked it the most. It was more than I could stand.

“We are.”

"I don't care what you do," I said, trying to mean it, but falling a long way short. Instead, I sounded mean.

Byron slowly shook his head the way that adults do when they're disappointed in you. "You know what we talked about today, Allan?" he asked without turning around.

"Yeah. I know. It's cool. It's no big deal." I tried to shrug. Instead, my shoulders slumped down.

"That's right. It’s no big deal. We were just having some fun together while you guys were cleaning up in the kitchen," Blaine added.

"Yeah, I can see that." I sounded supercilious, a lot like my grandmother except for the ‘yeah’.

"What's the problem?” Blaine challenged. “It's never a big deal when you and I do it, Allie. You don't want me doing stuff with someone else?"

"It's not that," I grumped, even though it was.

"Then I don’t know what you’re pissed about. You already saw him wank me when we were in the loo," Blaine reminded me.

He sounded callous, but what he said was true. And I had been jealous then as well. It made me think that what happened in the toilet earlier in the day had largely been for my benefit.

"Yeah, so?" I said bitterly.

"So,… we were just finishing off what we started then, boy-o," Byron added with a smirk. "If you'd rather do it, you can, Allan."

"I don't care." If I sounded resentful it was for a good reason. I started to turn away to go back to the kitchen.

"Don't you want to watch?" Byron teased. I glared back at him. How did he know that was what I was thinking? “If you want I’ll make him spunk for you.”

"Don't be a wanker, Allan." Blaine leered at me as if there was nothing for me to be angry about. "If you must know, I want him to do it, okay."

"I don't care what you do with him," I rejoined.

"Yeah you do.”

“Do not!”

“Do too. He does it differently to you," Blaine said with a nervous giggle.

“How?”

"Do you think we should show him, By?"

Byron didn’t answer. He kept watching me even as his right hand moved from holding Blaine's blue-dyed testicles to taking hold of his penis again. He held it differently to me. Instead of using his whole hand the way I did when I rubbed Blaine’s penis, he used just his thumb with two fingers on the other side. There was no room for more fingers. His left hand came up from below, replacing where his right hand had been. One finger seemed to be reaching back underneath Blaine's bottom. Blaine's feet were braced against the couch, readying himself for sensations that only boys who have been properly masturbated can appreciate. Byron's right hand squeezed the hard shaft, then his left hand clasped Blaine’s testicles. Blaine shifted slightly, wriggling, almost wincing, and Byron hadn’t squeezed that hard. He glanced at me, then back to Byron. He took a deep breath.

"Not too far, okay," Blaine muttered. "I've got to get used to doing it again, remember?"

Byron nodded slightly. His left hand pushed up underneath Blaine slightly. "Just a bit more. That's far enough. Feel okay?"

"Yeah. That’s nice."

Then Byron's right hand began to move, rhythmically travelling up and down. It was much the same motion that Blaine and I used on each other except that Byron's fingers kept going up to the tip where my fingers weren’t allowed to go. Each time, Blaine tensed up and then relaxed. Byron's other hand was squeezing gently, rubbing too, moving back and forth under Blaine’s bottom. From where I stood, I realised that his extended finger had to be very close to Blaine's anus, maybe even touching it.

"Yeahhhh!" Blaine sighed. "Oh man. That's feels so fucking good, By. I’d nearly forgotten how good."

He stretched his arms back behind his head, laying back into the couch, assuming the same position that he had been in before I interrupted them. And I stood still, a silent witness to them, thrilled by their shameless pleasure. It was very unlike when Blaine and I masturbated. The expression on Blaine's face was startling, revealing shameless lust , anything but the mischievous boy who I was used to.

Once the initial shock wore off, I was excited by what I saw. It was impossible not to be affected by what they were doing. A man and boy, totally at ease, uninhibited and unrestrained, so engaged in the act of giving and receiving pleasure that it became something of a spectacle. They were showing off and I watched with growing fascination, marvelling at how fast Byron's hand could move, and the look of sheer exhilaration that formed on Blaine's face. Of course, I had seen him like that before, contorted in ecstasy because that was why boys masturbated for, but it had never been for long periods at a time. Blaine was barely able to breath for long stretches at a time. Then, suddenly he began gasping, tormented by delight, writhing on the couch until Byron slowed his movement to a gentle pace, sometimes barely touching his penis. Only then did I begin to understand. It wasn't about who could finish first. It was all about making the other person feel good, better than good.

I learned a lot just by watching Byron. I saw his finger moving with increased agitation under Blaine's bottom. Whatever he was doing, it was enough to make Blaine go into trembling fits. Sometimes he pushed hard enough to lift Blaine's bottom off the couch. It was enough to make him groan and shudder. It seemed to affect Blaine even more than what Byron was doing to his penis. I could tell that it was a pleasure of very different sort. It was but one of many lessons I was soon going to learn about a boy's body.

"Oh shit,.... Man's that's so fucking good...." Blaine growled.

His eyes opened, meeting mine. I saw recognition there, something that said he was happy that I was watching him. There was a feeling that we were sharing something that would always keep our friendship strong. It wasn’t bad or wrong. It was all about pleasure. It was also something that we could do ourselves when the opportunity presented itself, assuming that I was brave enough to do it. And then, he made a funny snorting sound, covering his mouth with his hand and stifling the strange sound that threatened to come out. It sounded as if he was trying to stop from laughing. A moment later he groaned loudly and shook his head wildly, muttering incoherently.

I was so caught up in watching them that I didn't realise Bruce was finished in the kitchen. I didn't even think about him until he came up beside me.

"He's a horny little bugger, isn't he?" Bruce commented. He was standing very close to me.

"Yeah, just like you were," Byron joked. He tenderly held the end of Blaine’s penis in his fingers. It looked slightly wet, but that was all. "Hey, you want to do me a favour, Bruce?"

"Yeah?"

"Take Cuddlepie down to the beach for a while, will you?"

Bruce glanced at me. He smirked knowingly. "You need some privacy for a while, huh?"

"Yeah, something like that. Old Blainey wants to go all the way."

"No surprise there." Bruce smirked. He hesitated, still looking at me. "He's okay with it, huh?"

"Yeah, I think so. From the look of him, at least. He seems to handling it pretty well so far. I just don't want to push it at the start."

Bruce smirked and turned to look at me. For a second, his eyes glanced down. My penis was hard, perhaps as hard as it had ever been. The blue lines of veins were standing out on the surface as it strained outward and upward from my body. It was as shiny as it had been in the toilet at Bulahdelah, perhaps more so. Immediately, I worried about how long it had been like that. Perhaps that was why Blaine had been trying hard not to laugh. Was he amused because I had an erection from watching Byron masturbate him?

I responded guiltily, but tried to hide it. "So, w-what are you l-looking at me f-for?"

"Hey Bun, it's cool." He smiled and looked away. "No big deal. So, do you want to go for a walk on the beach? I'll show you some of the best surfing spots."

I wasn't certain of anything at that point, but it was obvious, even to me, that they wanted me out of the way.

"They need some time alone," Bruce added pointedly.

There wasn't much I could say. Byron didn't want me around. It was hard to tell what Blaine wanted. His eyes were all but closed again. It was almost possible to believe he was asleep except for the occasional spasms that made him tremble. I left them there on the couch, whispering something I couldn't hear and followed Bruce out onto the deck. The air was cooler, not cold, just cooler than it had been earlier. It was refreshing on my bare skin. I inhaled deeply, breathing in the salty air. I had so many questions that my mind was in turmoil. The first of them burst out even before I put my things on.

"Y-you d-don't m-mind?"

"Huh? Don't mind what? Oh, that!" Bruce smiled knowingly. "Hell no. Not a bit."

"I d-don't g-get it!" I reached for my thongs, trying to separate them from Blaine's. His were red. Mine were blue, but in the darkness they all looked the same.

"It's nothing, okay," Bruce said authoritatively. "By's giving him a good wank, that's all."

"B-but he's a g-grown-up!" I exclaimed.

"Yeah, and? What’s your point?" Bruce started down the short flight of stairs. He stopped on the sandy mat where we were supposed to get the sand off our feet. "It’s no big deal. By's doing not doing anything to Blaine that he doesn't want."

"B-but?"

"Getting wanked is no big deal, Bunny. It doesn't mean anything, not unless you want it to."

"Except B-Byron,... well,... h-he's a g-grown up." I sounded like a little whiney kid.

"Yeah?" Bruce walked a few paces and stopped. "What's your point?"

The earlier blue-black darkness was relieved by a sky full of stars and a moon that was just coming over the horizon. The night sky was just as immense and wonderful as it was at Brindajari, but it was also different. A large part of the sky was hidden by the hill behind us. The sound of the ocean constantly dwelled in my ears. What was my point? Something inside me insisted that it was none of my business.

I came up to him, standing only a few feet away. The top of my head was an inch below his breast. I had to lift my head to see his face. At least he wasn't laughing at me. I was still a little kid. A boy in a world of men, trying his best to grow up and become part of it. Suddenly, I felt very small. I had just finished primary school yet I was insignificant in his world.

"It's no big deal, Allan," Bruce confided. His hand lifted and brushed over my head. "Don’t sweat it. You'll see them mess around lots of times while we're here. If you don't want to watch just ignore them or go outside."

"B-but?.... It's,… it’s wrong."

"Nuts to that, mate. It's nothing but a way of having some fun. It's what guys do when there's no girls around."

"I g-guess." I let out a deep breath. I was beginning to understand, at least I thought I was. "Why d-did B-By want us to g-go?"

"Why do you think?"

"I g-guess,... I d-don't know. He w-wasn't all that e-embarrassed w-with us there."

"No, he never is." Bruce shook his head. "Okay,… If you must know, he wanted some privacy."

"W-why?” My agitation made my stammer worse, or so it sounded to me.

"So they can mess around, of course. It’s pretty fucking obvious."

"B-but?" Again, I was confused.

“But what?”

“M-mess around h-how?”

“Look, Bunny. I’ll spell it out for you. By wants to have sex with him,” Byron continued evenly. “S-e-x.”

"B-but they w-were already d-doing it. Having s-sex.... They w-were, weren't they?" I asked uncertainly.

"Yeah, I guess you could say that. Look, don't worry about it! It's not a big deal. Get over it. Don't make something out of nothing!"

Bruce began to walk towards the beach. I followed in his footsteps like an obedient puppy dog. All I could think of was were they having sex or not? Did sex mean that Byron was going to put Blaine's penis in his mouth? That was part of sex too. At least, that was what Blaine told me. However, I also knew that there was more to sex than masturbating and sucking another boy's penis. A boy had sex with a girl by putting his penis inside the girl’s body. Boys could do something similar. That was why there were 'poofter' jokes.

I stumbled in the sand. I took my time getting up, trying to organise my thoughts, thinking of where Byron's finger had been rubbing and how Blaine had responded.

"Hey!" Bruce called out. "Allan!"

He had reached the edge of the water where the sand was packed hard. I hurried to catch up to him.

"Yeah?"

"I know it's hard to understand, okay." Bruce dragged his toes through the sand, carving out shapes that looked like letters. He formed another shape and smiled at me. "You do stuff with Blainey all the time. Whenever you stay over at night. It’s no big secret.”

“You know?”

He nodded. "It's cool. I’d be lying if I said I haven’t done the same things with my mates, Bunny. Guys mess around all the time. Everyone knows about it, even if they carry on like it’s the worst thing in the world. "

"B-but it w-was b-before you had a g-g-girlfriend right?" I interjected anxiously.

Bruce looked at me and smiled. "Yeah, that’s right," he formed the third shape and stepped back. "And if she does anything with me besides let me feel her tits, well pigs will fucking fly first. You know something?”

“What?”

“By doesn’t have a girlfriend. You know that, don’t you?”

“I g-guess,” I said offhandedly.

“The thing is, well,... he doesn’t like girls all that much. See, that’s why he likes to do stuff with Blaine."

"B-but?" I tried to find the words. "D-does he want to? B-Blaine,… I mean,… He’s a b-boy."

"Don't worry about Blainey. He's okay with whatever By wants to do."

Only then did I look down to where Bruce's feet had been scraping the sand. He had formed three letters, 'A', 'J', and 'H". My initials were carved in the sand. Almost as soon as I'd seen them his foot hastily disturbed the sand so as to make them illegible. He seemed embarrassed by what he had done. I needed time to think. I walked away, not stopping until I was ankle deep in the water. He was trying to reassure me, but I wasn't sure I wanted reassurance. Byron wanted to do sex things with Blaine, and from Bruce had said, Blaine wanted to do them as well. I stared out to sea. The feeling of being alone had returned with a vengeance.

"Allan?"

"Yeah?" I glared back, my anger cloaked in the night.

"Don't go in any deeper," Bruce warned.

"Why n-not?"

"Sharks, mate. They come in pretty close at night."

I stepped back until the water barely covered my toes. “W-what d-did you mean?"

"About what?"

I hesitated. "W-what you s-said. About them,... d-doing s-stuff?"

"You mean sex, right?”

“You d-don’t care?”

“Nope. If they both want to, there’s no problem. Why the fuck should it matter to me? He’s old enough to know what he wants. It's none of our business what they do," Bruce answered quietly. He wasn't standing that far away from me. "I expect Blainey will tell you all about it when he's ready."

"T-tell me all about w-what?"

"What he and By do. Hey, you want to go for a run?"

He didn't wait for me to answer. He started to run, splashing through the water where it spilled in sheets onto the sand. I took off after him, running as fast as I could to catch up to him. If there was one thing I was good at it was running. Still, no matter how hard I tried I couldn't catch him, not until he slowed down enough for me to draw even with him. Then, we ran side by side.

The sense of freedom of running naked on a deserted beach at night was unlike anything I had ever experienced. It was as if something was released inside me. I ran as fast as I could, pounding through the water, breathing deeply, feeling the air blowing on my face. No doubt there was an added pleasure because of where we were, and because Bruce was right there beside me, as naked and carefree as I was. We laughed and shouted at each other, we called each other names, and we ran like the wind. That night would stay with me forever.

We ran for a long way, far away from the shack and whatever was happening inside it. We ran towards the headland that loomed out of the moonlight like a sentinel that guarded us from an outside disapproving world. Just Bruce and I, running together, burning off my frustration and whatever resentment that remained to make me brood. Somewhere on our trip along the beach I realised that if Blaine had Byron as a older best-friend, then I could have Bruce. He wanted to be my friend as much as I wanted to be friends with him. Finally, we stopped, breathless.

"You're fast, Harding," Bruce said admiringly. Like me, he was gasping.

I grinned back at him and brushed my hair from my forehead as he slumped down onto the wet sand. I kept moving, jogging right in front of him even though I was tired.

"C-can't g-go any further, huh?"

"Nope! I'm fucking exhausted, Bunny," he laughed.

He grabbed my leg and pulled me down on top of him. It was the first time that our bodies touched in any real way, and it was unforgettable. I sprawled over him, not even thinking about being naked. He hugged me, wrestling me from side to side, giving the appearance, at least, that I was as strong as he was. I felt a bit like a rabbit that a dog had gotten hold off. Of course, I tried to fight back, quickly pushing him down into the sand and straddling him in triumph. I raised my arm over my head.

"And H-Harding w-wins again," I shouted.

Bruce flipped me over like I weighed nothing at all. He pushed me down into the sand forcefully, but not in a way that was intended to hurt me. He was at least twice my weight. He leaned over me, grinning.

"Did I hear you say Harding wins again?"

"Yeah!" I nodded eagerly.

He began to tickle me. Older brothers had a habit of knowing where to tickle boys, probably from all the practice they get. Bruce certainly knew my weak spots. Underarms, ribs, feet, and crotch, although he didn’t touch me there. Within seconds he had me giggling hysterically, squealing and shrieking for mercy as his fingers dug into my ribs.

"Enough a-already," I begged.

"I've barely started," Bruce laughed. "Blaine said you were ticklish, but man, you're really bad."

"So!" I retorted. "L-let m-me up."

"No fucking way."

I glared at him and waited until he relented. Then, when he least expected it, I squirmed away. For a moment or two we chased each other on our knees, me trying to escape and Bruce trying his best to catch me again, ducking and weaving, both of us getting closer to the water. Finally, I leaped to my feet and began to run. Bruce was right on my heels, splashing and shouting, and both of us laughing like we were crazy. He pursued me into the water, beyond where it was ankle deep, but not so deep that there could be any risk of sharks. He caught me, spun me around, kicked my legs out from underneath me so hard that it hurt. I dropped into the water.

"Who's the winner?" he demanded, holding my head against his thighs so I couldn't escape.

"Me!" I whooped.

He twisted my head, bringing it close to his crotch. Suddenly, his sex organs were almost in my face. It wasn’t so dark that I couldn’t see. It wasn’t small and cute like Blaine’s almost hairless crotch. It was huge and hairy and unsettling.

"Who's the winner?" he shouted.

"Me!"

Using both hands, he pulled my head closer and closer to his groin. All I could see was his belly, and in particular, the trail of scant hairs that started at his navel and led downwards. His penis pushed up against my nose, but I couldn't smell anything. It felt like it was stiff, or it was getting stiff. It also felt awfully big, and then it moved to the side and pushed into my forehead, my cheek, even my eyes, whipping across my face as he jerked my head from side to side. I was unable to stop him, not because I was smaller or weaker than he was, but because I was laughing too much.

"Who's the winner?"

"Y-you are! Y-you are!" I screeched.

And then, as if realising that he was going too far, he shoved me back so hard that I went sprawling into the water. In an instant, he was down and lying over me and the tickling resumed in earnest. I laughed until I cried and I begged for mercy, which for Blaine’s older brother was tantamount to saying that you wanted more. I didn't have an older brother, or even a younger brother, not even a sister, but I did have Blaine for a best friend. Bruce tickled him all the time, especially when I wasn't there to help protect him. Together, everyone who knew us said that Blaine and I were like twins.

A couple of times I tried to tickle Bruce back, but it was a waste of time. He had a lot more strength and he was quicker. To make matters worse, he seemed to anticipate my every move. All of his practice tickling Blaine had to account for something. Then, when I had all but given up hope of not laughing hysterically for the rest of life, he lifted upward. That was when I made my escape. I lurched forward, shouting and whooping in a burst of energy, scraping my feet deep into the sand to get more leverage. I almost succeeded in getting away.

I was nearly out of reach when Bruce launched himself onto me again; this time knocking me flat on my front into the water. His body covered mine completely, pushing me down, his hands grasping mine to stop my struggles.

"Shut the fuck up," he ordered brusquely.

The urgency more than his tone of voice got my attention. I stopped moving. The first thought that came to me was that maybe there was a shark moving around in the dark water. They did that, making wide sweeps before closing in to attack. Then, I reasoned that the water was too shallow for a shark, even a small one, to present any real threat. I relaxed somewhat.

It was a strange feeling with Bruce lying on top of me. It wasn't at all like when Blaine and I wrestled, not even when we were naked and playing in the bed. Bruce was much heavier and larger, but that wasn't all. He pushed down onto me, his body hard and unyielding and making me feel as if I was completely covered by him. Somehow, in some way that I couldn't begin to grasp, he made me feel protected and safe. Maybe it was the heat of his body. Maybe it was just the touch of his bare skin against mine. Whatever it was, it was very reassuring. So I lay quietly, feeling his muscular frame pressing down onto me, squashing me into the sand. After a few moments, I lifted my head up, looking in the same direction that Bruce was looking. Not far along the beach, a hundred yards at most, there were two bright lights, unquestionably the headlights of a car.

"Fuck!" Bruce cursed quietly.

"W-what is it?" I asked nervously.

The sound of his voice conveyed that something was wrong. Perhaps he was frightened about being discovered naked. I knew I was. The car was definitely coming towards us.

"Shh! Just lie still!" he ordered.

As it approached closer, I could tell it was a Land Rover. Its four wheel drive was engaged as it moved along the shore on a line that would bring it within a few paces of where we were lying in the water. I had a passing worry that it might even run over us. Lucky for us, at the last moment it swerved back onto the dry sand and stopped. By then it was almost adjacent to us, a dozen yards further up the beach.

"I tell you, I bloody saw someone, mate."

"The hell you did."

The voices were loud and rough, strongly accented men's voices that my grandmother would have said sounded like they belonged in a back-of-Bourke pub. They certainly sounded drunk.

"Fucking hell. It was right around here."

"You reckon, mate?"

"One of them was a guy for sure, man. I saw his dong sticking out ready to fuck."

I tensed underneath Bruce. They were looking around them, the one nearest to us scanning the shore. However, he didn't see us. Perhaps we were too close and lying in the dark water, but he overlooked us. Perhaps he was drunk. As if to prove the point, he lifted a beer can and swallowed noisily. He heaved the can into the water. If he was drunk, it had not affected his throwing ability. Bruce pushed my head down until it was almost under the few inches of water that swirled around us. I wished we were in deeper water even if there were sharks around at night. And yet, even as I cringed at the possibility of being discovered, having Bruce's body lying over mine offered a degree of comfort that was completely unexpected. His groin was directly above my bottom, his penis wedged between my buttocks. I could feel it, hot and thick and all but forcing my cheeks apart. Indeed, he seemed to press down even harder, pushing himself further into my crevice. It was strangely exciting, lying there in the darkness, knowing that someone was only a few steps away and looking right at us while he was doing that.

"Yeah, so you said."

"There was two of them, mate. Flamin’ fuckers were starkers, too!"

"You've had too much fucking beer, mate. There was a sheila too, right."

"Had to be a sheila for a guy to have a hard-on like that. Even if her tits weren't that big, his dick sure was."

"Like you saw that! It's too fucking dark to see anything."

"I reckon they probably headed off to the dunes for a root."

"Then, I wouldn't waste my time looking. They could be fucking anywhere."

The gears grated as the driver shifted into low gear. The car accelerated, spinning its wheels in the dry sand, then turning in a wide circle to go back the way it came. Bruce didn't move. His face was next to mine, our cheeks touching. At some point, his hands had moved to cover mine, to hold me still in case I tried to move. His penis was still squashed up against my bottom, only more so. Now, I could tell it was hard. It was very hard and much, much bigger. It felt like it reached halfway up my back. And then the hot, hard mass moved against my bottom, pushing forcefully before it slowly pulled back. After a few strokes it moved away. I felt the heated shaft being repositioned along my crack, straining, forcing its way between my buttocks. I held my breath, not believing that Bruce's hard penis was what was doing it, yet knowing that it was because there was nothing else that it could be. By that point I was frightened, yet the shock that came was from less from being touched there than from realising that he was deliberately rubbing himself against me. The feeling of his flesh burrowing into me was intense and thrilling. I didn't move.

Bruce seemed to tremble every time his body moved against mine. There was an urgency to his movements that was unsettling. Within seconds it became erratic jerking, stopping abruptly, only to resume its back and forth motion. Deep inside where a child’s innocence should have been, I liked what was happening. I did nothing to stop it.

I was not a boy who was easily dominated by others. A boy didn't grow up on a sheep station and be easily overpowered by anything or anyone, yet lying under Bruce, I was overpowered. I succumbed to the sheer joy of being beneath him, of having his body pushing down on mine. There was also the problem of having no way to stop him from doing whatever he wanted to do, but that thought never really entered my mind. It had never happened with Blaine. We wrestled continuously, but we always fought to win. It was the same in everything else, whether it was playing monopoly or a game of tag. We both wanted the superior position, no matter what it was at the time.

I lay perfectly still, a thousand thoughts filling my mind, knowing that I would keep all of them to myself. In truth, I didn't understand much of what was happening. All I knew with certainty was that I didn't want it to stop. I felt closer to Bruce than I had ever been, and I relished that feeling. What we were doing was no different to when Blaine and I engaged in sex-play. Not that I gave much thought to what Bruce was doing to me as being sexual, at least not at first. Instead, for me at least it was mostly about being close and bonding, and just a little bit about sharing a special pleasure that would always be a secret. That my penis became awfully hard at some point wasn't something that I thought about. Only later, when it was over and we were both embarrassed, did I grasp the importance of my arousal.

"You okay, Bunny?" Bruce murmured in my ear.

I nodded, my awkwardness becoming an accepting confidence. It was very enjoyable in its own way. He kept on doing it, sliding his body up and down, keeping his erection buried between my buttocks, becoming increasingly erratic, jerking faster and harder, gasping in my ear. I thought I could feel his heart pounding against my back. By then, it was not like wrestling with Blaine. It wasn’t like our sex-play either for that matter.

He groaned suddenly. Something pulsed between us. He quaked and jerked, became very still. Then his massive penis jerked again. His entire body responded with a shudder, driving his pelvis against my bottom. For a moment he seemed very hot. He lifted away from me, separating his front from my back. It was only then that I felt the warmth along my spine. It reached from my shoulder blades all the way down to my bottom. And then, cool water splashed over my back and the hotness was gone. He eased down onto me again, this time taking most of his weight on his knees and elbows, but still pressing onto me. His nose nuzzled my hair. He was breathing heavily, taking deep breaths.

"Sorry, Allan," he muttered in my ear. "I didn't mean to do that."

I nodded awkwardly. There was a long silence. I liked how his body draped protectively over mine. His penis was back, buried between my buttocks, but no longer rubbing, just resting. In the space of a minute or two Bruce McIntyre became the older brother and father that I had never had. I felt very close to him.

“Do what?” I asked meekly.

"Nothing,… Don’t worry about it, Bunny. I washed it all off," he added hastily.

What had he washed off? He held my hands again, still taking deep breaths. He appeared to be exhausted. That wasn't surprising because we had run a long way along the beach. He pushed down onto me again, pressing against my buttocks once more, holding me so I couldn’t move.

"Your hands are so small," he said affectionately. "They’re much smaller than Blaine's."

"You're h-hurting," I complained.

"Sorry."

He lifted away again, tossing another handful or two of water over my back. He made a feeble attempt to rub it over my bottom, and then laughed. It sounded as if he was embarrassed.

"No big deal, right?" he asked. He sounded guilty.

I shrugged. "It's okay. I liked wrestling with you," I added hopefully, even though we had not been wrestling.

I got to my knees. Part of me wanted to lie down again, but not in the water. I felt tired. All I could think of was how nice it had been with Bruce lying on top of me. Bruce stood up and pulled me to my feet. He held my hands longer than he needed to. He gazed at me, smiling slightly.

"Allan,.... Geez. Man! You are so fucking sexy," he said softly. There was a tone in his voice that said he meant it.

"I think y-you're out of l-luck. The l-last time I l-looked, I w-was a b-boy," I rebuked with a laugh.

"Yeah, well, I'm looking too, and from what I can see you're most definitely a boy. A very sexy boy at that." Bruce swallowed. He was staring at my body, right at the part that defined my gender.

"You s-sound like a p-poof or s-something.” I gulped to get the words out.

He shrugged as if it wasn't important. Still, he glanced away. "Yeah, maybe. I suppose I do. We better be getting back, I reckon."

"W-what about the g-guys in the Rover?"

"Fucking idiots," Bruce answered with a grin. "If they’re lucky they made it past the headland."

He sighed, then looked away, towards the headland. It was like a bulky ship looming ahead rather than a dark shape against the horizon. We ran a long way.

"It's nearly high tide."

"W-what's that g-got to do with it?"

"When the tide's all the way up, you can't get around the headland, Bunny." He grinned in the darkness. "Maybe they got stuck."

"I h-hope so."

We laughed for a long time about that.

It was a slow walk back to the beach shack given our dawdling pace. We talked on and off, almost always about surfing. I learned a lot that night and realised just how much I was missing by not having an older brother. Certainly, there were times when Bruce and Blaine fought because I was there to see it happen, but they had a relationship that I had never known. Although Bruce could never be my brother, we still shared something important that night. Time and time again, he was surprised by how much I already knew about surfing, and I was always eager to learn more. I peppered him with questions constantly and hung on his every word. Bruce became my hero and I was his enthusiastic acolyte, yet it was nothing like the fawning hero-worship that my grandmother accused me of when I hung around the shearers when they worked at Brindajari. She always finished by saying that there was no reason why a thinking person needed men like them around. They were brutish and uncouth, with little to say beyond repeating yarns or utterly obscenities, but I liked them nonetheless. Sheer intellect was a large part of what drew me to Bruce.

For good reason, Bruce and I didn't talk about what had happened in the shack before we left, or on the beach either for that matter. I don't think either of us wanted to bring it up and it would have spoiled the friendship that was forming between us.

I would have missed the shack in the darkness. All the lights were off. However, Bruce seemed to know exactly where it was. He turned away from the beach and crossed a small creek. It was the same creek that we crossed coming down from hill. After another hundred hard yards of soft sand we reached the sand dunes. The shack emerged out of the night. We crept inside. Fortunately, Byron had already converted the couch into a bed before he retired, even going so far as to put on sheets and arrange pillows. We brushed our teeth in the kitchen sink, me giggling as Bruce continually tried to tickle me in places where I least expected it. Only once did he make a grab for my groin and then I playfully slapped his hand out of the way. It was nearly pitch dark in the cabin when we carefully made our way over to the converted couch. I searched through my rucksack to find my pyjamas.

"What are you looking for?" Bruce asked. He was already under the sheets.

"My jamas."

“Jesus! You've been in the nude ever since we got here and you want to wear jamas to bed, Bunny? You really don't need any with me around, mate. I’ve seen it all, haven’t I?" Bruce whispered back.

He was right, of course. I pushed my rucksack away.

"Besides, you and Blainey sleep in the raw all the time, don’t you?" he added with a snicker.

How did he know about that? In a way, I wasn't surprised. I was quickly beginning to realise that Blaine must have told him everything that we did together. I shrugged and came back to the bed. Bruce grinned up at me. I could barely see his face. He lifted the sheet back for me to get into bed. His body was dark against the white sheet underneath him. His penis was big and very hard. He kept grinning at me. I kept looking at it. It flexed, jumping up and down against his belly.

"Well, hop into bed like a good little bunny," he instructed.

I obeyed and slid in beside him. I kept as far away as I could, trying to avoid skin-on-skin contact because, even after what had happened on the beach, I still felt funny about being so close to him. I settled down, stretching out to find a comfortable position. There was a ridge under my hip from where the couch was divided. I wriggled around.

"What's up?"

"Other than y-your d-dick?" I giggled. It was spontaneous humour, and it was logical too, given that his penis was sticking straight out and occasionally bumping against my flank.

Byron laughed. "Yeah, other than that. Are you stiff too?"

"N-none of your b-business.”

“I think you’re either fucking the bloody couch or you’re wanking with your feet instead of your hands.”

My ears burned. Some mornings when I woke up early I rubbed the front of my body against the sheets of my bed, or into my pillow, pretending it was Blaine.

“If you m-must know, I'm trying to g-get c-comfortable."

I wriggled around some more. It was better if my legs were across the ridge. I closed my eyes and tried to let my thoughts drift into aimless territory where there was nothing to concentrate on. That was how I usually fell asleep. Counting sheep was a waste of time. Then, I always thought about Brindajari. I spent half my awake life counting sheep. That night there was no chance of me falling asleep quickly. There was too much to think about.

"B-Bruce," I began tentatively.

"Yeah."

There was so much I wanted to know that I didn't know where to start.

"Are you g-going to t-teach me h-how to s-surf? Or is By?"

"Both of us probably," Bruce answered after a moment. "It’ll be mostly By, though. You’re lucky, you know. He’s a great teacher. Depending on the surf, he'll probably want to take Blainey out with him in the morning to get him ready for the championships next year. I reckon he’ll want me to work with you in the channel break for a couple of hours and then he’ll take over."

"Blaine's that g-good?" I asked enviously. To even compete in the junior championships a boy had to be great on a board.

"He's okay,” Bruce said deprecatingly. “Don't worry! It'll only take a day or two and you'll be going out to the line as well. At least in the morning anyway."

"It p-picks up in the afternoon?" I asked. That was the opposite of what I expected. Usually, where Blaine and I surfed the afternoon breeze flattened the surf out unless it came from the right direction.

"Not really." Bruce settled closer to me. I could feel his warmth radiating against me even though we hadn't touched. "In the afternoons By and I'll go to the reef break for a while if the rip isn’t too strong. You two will hang out here or surf the channel. The waves aren’t that big if you stay in close, but it’s a great way to practice."

"Oh." That made more sense.

Bruce's fingers touched my flank. A shiver ran through me. His fingers brushed lightly, moving towards my hip, then slowly back to where he started.

"Your skin is so soft," he whispered after the second pass.

"Y-you're so w-weird."

His hand stopped moving. "You want me to stop?"

"It's okay," I murmured. For some reason, I didn't mind him touching me like that. His hand was a lot like Blaine’s hand, but bigger and not quite so soft. I closed my eyes again, pretending.

After a second or two, his hand moved again. His thumb stroked where my skin rounded the prominent bone of my pelvis. It followed the ridge for an inch or two and then stopped again. He seemed to be thinking about something. Was there a problem?

“W-what’s up?”

“Nothing. Are you sleepy?”

Was he waiting for my permission to continue? I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t want him to stop stroking me.

"It's okay," I repeated nervously.

"You don't mind if I touch you there?"

I wasn't certain of what he meant. He was already touching me. Where was there? I shook my head. He inched closer. The heat from his body increased even though there wasn't any more contact.

"Are you sleepy?"

"A b-bit," I answered.

By then I was awkwardly aware of what was happening. I tensed, almost trembling, feeling hot. One thing was certain. I didn’t want Bruce to stop what he was doing, but I was worrying that he was going to move his hand even closer to my private parts.

His hand moved on, gliding down my thigh, his thumb following a slightly different course that brought it ever closer to my groin. Suddenly, I wasn't sure whether I wanted him to stop or keep on going. When he stopped, his hand was flat on my upper thigh and his thumb was stretched out into the junction of my lower belly and thigh. I reached down and rearranged my testicles from where they had been caught between my thighs. With shock, I discovered that my penis was erect. The skin was taut and hot and it tingled where my fingers brushed against it. My hand jerked away guiltily. It was obvious why I had become erect. It came from Bruce touching me. My shame was so great that I immediately rolled away from Bruce and turned onto my belly. What if he had touched me down there and realised what caused it?

"What's wrong?"

"I'm sleepy," I mumbled through the pillow. "G-good night," I added.

"Yeah,... okay,... good night, Bun. See you in the morning."

He sounded unhappy as he turned away. I thought he would have been even more unhappy if he knew what was sticking out from between my legs. All I could think of until sleep overtook me was that the thing every boy hated, the thing that I feared the most was true. Maybe it was me who was the ‘poofter’.