J. H. P. Cash, 367

When I Were Nowt But a Lad 18

English Language 'O' Level
Summer, 1972
...

3. Write a short piece of prose on ONE of the following topics (allow 1 hour):

a. A Sporting Hero
b. A Secret
c. A Hobby
d. The Sound of One Hand Clapping.

...

3.b. "Everyone has secrets," it is said. But it is also said the a "best friend is someone with whom you can share all your secrets." I have one secret which I have not shared even with my best friend, and he is the very best of best friends. He knows what the secret is, but I've never told it to him and we never really talk about it, except occasionally when it is obliquely mentioned but not actually stated out loud. In a way, everyone thinks they know, but they are just guessing, they don't actually know.

The secret is this: I'm getting bum-fucked (and the rest!) by the teacher (we call them masters, but you probably know that) who teaches me for this subject - English. He is very keen on us "writing from your own experience" so I imagine that he'll be pleased that I've chosen this topic to write about.

I think the best thing is to just tell it like a story, only a true one.

It all begun began last year when MGK (his initials - we often refer to masters by their initials) had just started at my school. He was my new English teacher when the school year started in September, but he didn't really know us all properly at this point. I was "Leave Off Games" (my leg) but I was told that I had to watch rugby practice even if I couldn't join in. I was in the Under 12s, even though I was in fact 13, but I hadn't been on 1st Sept., when they take the ages from the date from which they take the ages. But I was in a class we call "Remove", which is the year before you take your 'O' Levels (except for some of us who are taking English Language and SMP Maths a year early - i.e. now). But the point is that most people in my academic year do Rugby in the Under 15s, or even Under 16s.

MGK was wandering around the playing fields smoking (he smokes all the time - he'd even smoke in lessons if they let him, he has told me) and he strolled up to me and he said, "What are you doing watching this sprogs' game?" ("sprogs" is what we call the most J junior boys).

I can't explain this properly, I don't think, because you'd have to hear how he said it to really understand, but I knew that he was hinting that I was watching the sprogs because I fancied them. If you didn't know about the fact that some older boys fancy younger boys (sexually, I mean) then you probably wouldn't have got the hint. But I did know about that because I'd had older boys fancying me. I don't intend this to be boastful. I don't consider myself very attractive really. But, well, I have had my admirers and we have "done stuff", including my being bummed (I didn't call it "bum-fucking" until after I'd met MGK). So I knew what he was insinuating.

I told him how it was actually my age group and explained about my birthday and being a year ahead and all that. He said he'd check my date of birth and I said, "That's okay, Sir, you'll find it's true." And then we watched the practice game for a little while.

He had this thing he did of flicking the butts of his cigarettes away when he was outdoors that was like flicking them, still burning, as you would flick a spit ball of chewed-up paper off your thumb. He flicked his butt over to the back of the Music Block and I thought that was a bit rich, really, for a master. Then he wandered off.

I think that he knew that I knew what he'd been getting at about watching the sprogs, because I'd sort-of talked like I was defending myself or something, and there wasn't really anything to defend myself against, unless I knew what he was really suggesting. And he'd been pointing out boys on the pitch and asking what their names were and which House they were in and all that sort of thing, and of course all the ones he asked about were "hot sprogs" (the really pretty beautiful ones). So I think we both knew what was going on.

Oh damn drat, they've just said there's only half-an-hour left, so I better tell the story more quickly... But it's quite complicated really...

Maybe I should do "d." instead, because there's not much you can say about the sound of one hand clapping, is there?

******

No, of course I didn't. It's just a teensy literary conceit.

The thing is: when I set out on these memoirs I wasn't going to mention MGK at all. It was all going to be strictly "Young Friends / High School" stuff. Not that I've got anything against "Adult-Youth", you understand, it's just that, well, I'm still, thirty five years later, in two minds about this particular adult. Well, hundreds of minds, in fact. I thought that it would be just too complicated to write about what went on between him and me with any real honesty. But I have now realised that leaving him out leaves out quite an important factor in the development of my particular sexual nature. The story would be fine, probably, without MGK. But you may understand a little better how I came to be quite as liberated/depraved in my sexual behaviour if you know about MGK.

So, we're now flashing back to the start of the previous academic year. I first fucked Guy in the Summer Term of 1973. I first met MGK in the Michaelmas Term of 1971, and he first fucked me in the Summer Term of 1972. I was just 13 in September, 1971 and the story of our first informal, non-classroom conversation is as given above.

That's where we were for a term or so. Knowing. I didn’t much like him as a teacher – he was good, but much more traditional than the English teachers I had had up to then – much less group-work, much less free verse, much less improvised drama. But, then, we were starting our ‘O’ Level courses. A little uncharacteristically, he announced that he would be willing to sponsor an alternative school magazine for junior boys if any of us wanted to get one going (there already was one produced by Sixth Formers). He asked me specifically, after a lesson, if I wanted to get involved. I and a few other boys in my year, and a few Fourth Formers, got to work on it. Fifth Formers aspired, I think, to try to get stuff into the senior magazine.

Why did I volunteer for the "alternative magazine", given that I didn't like MGK? I had literary pretensions. I had had a poem on the BBC World Service and another in a Schools Radio booklet. I'd acted in a children's radio series in my home country. I was a right pushy little poof. And, yeah, he intrigued me. He was very compelling in some ways. I certainly didn't think, "If I volunteer for this maybe he'll bum me", but I was, well, drawn.

Through the work on the magazine I got to know MGK better in a much less formal context than the classroom. After a few issues, the magazine staff dwindled to just me and a couple of irregulars. We struggled for contributions. The work on the magazine moved from a classroom during half-holidays or “Choice” to MGK’s small flat, in a building behind the Gym with one other master’s flat on the floor above. There we were even more relaxed together.

He was, I suppose, about 35 at this time. He liked music that I liked, watched the same telly as we were infrequently able to do, and could talk about films and stuff. He was quite smooth, but quite a difficult, moody man. He was a fairly strict figure in class, and a bit lacking in warmth even in private. But he was intellectually challenging, improving my reading by suggesting better books, and questioning any overly facile opinions. His moodiness and his refusal to be a typical "cool teacher" were in themselves attractive rather than off-putting. I could flatter myself that I was friendly with him even though he was "difficult", whereas it was easy to be friendly with a friendly master.

It later became explicit that he had a very strong belief in challenge and conflict as tools of intellectual development (and emotional development, come to that). And, I now believe, one reason that he was attracted to me was that he believed that I could take it (as it were).

And he let me smoke in his flat. I am ex-smoker now, but would love to write an essay or something on what smoking meant in that place at that time. Amongst the boys some of the places where we had sex were also the places where we smoked, and sex was often preceded and followed by smoking.

By what became the last issue of our magazine we were desperate for contributions. Someone anonymously submitted a frankly appalling teenage angst poem which didn’t scan or rhyme and wasn’t punctuated. It was crap and made no sense, but there was plenty of that kind of stuff around at that time and, as I said, we were desperate. MGK didn’t want to publish it, but I was swayed merely by the fact that it didn’t make sense but seemed vaguely dissident. At a time when people were still arguing over the meanings of the lyrics of Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, obscurity was its own good. A day or so after we’d published (using a spirit duplicator) a friend pointed out to me that the poem was an acrostic: the first letters of each line spelt out “JHPC is queer for MGK”. I went to show MGK and said how upset I was that someone had wanted to hurt me in that way.

We talked about it, and well, I ended up saying that maybe it was partly true.

“I mean, I think I am queer. Not you, of course. And not for you... but well..."

He was keen to know more. I very quickly understood that he wanted details. I was excited to be able to tell an adult about what I’d been up to. At first I protected the identities of the others I’d had and was having sex with, but he was keen to know, making it clear that no one was going to get into trouble. Amazingly, he asked me to keep a diary of my sexual exploits, in as much detail as possible. He made it seem like a Prep task, but a special one. I was a very good, well-behaved boy and tended to do as I was told.

I used initials in the diary, but when I took it to him the following week, during a “Choice” period, he got out his copy of the Red Book and started translating the initials. I soon gave up and told him everyone’s names.

He asked me if a wanted a can of beer. At home we were sometimes allowed a drink of the local lager with meals, but obviously the offer from a master to a 13 year-old was, um, significant. I accepted and sat there, drinking a beer and smoking one of his Kent ciggies.

He opened a metal cash box and threw over to me two or three small colour magazines. “You may like these,” he said. They were Danish and Dutch and German. The photos were of boys of various ages. The first ones were relatively tame – “art” photos of young boys, usually on their own, in swimming trunks or shorts. One or two naked, but no naughty bits. Many, however, were posed in obviously provocative ways. I was familiar with the soft-core girly porn of the time (Mayfair and Penthouse, etc.) but this stuff did things for me that those mags had never really done. I was hard immediately as I looked through them. I badly wanted to have a wank.

MGK just said, “There’s plenty more if you like those. But not now – you need to get back for House Prayers." He took the magazines off me and sent me away.

I think that pornography is liberating. That sounds incredibly old-fashioned, and perhaps I should rather say that I think that pornography was liberating. From that time onwards porn always helped me to feel happy about what I wanted, made me understand that my fantasies were OK and were shared by others. And, of course, it fuelled my fantasies as well. Of course, I no longer have, nor want, access to the type of pornography I have described here.

I wanked off in the Changing Room bogs before House Prayers. It didn’t take long, thinking about the boys in the photos.

I wanted to please as a school pupil. I was bright and “promising”. I think that part of my excitement about this development with MGK arose from being sanctioned by a master to be naughty, while still pleasing a master by being so.

This was the Summer Term of my 13^th year. As I was on the swimming team I avoided afternoon-long cricket games and I began spending much of my free time with MGK, whom I now thought of as Mike. The porn became more hardcore – naked boys, then naked boys having sex, big boys and little boys together, then some with men and boys. Playing, wanking, sucking, fucking, even rimming. Mike never again offered them to me after that first time: I always had to ask. And I often did. We talked quite openly now about who I’d had and who I fancied. He never explicitly stated anything about who he had his eye on, but he occasionally asked me “what I knew” about so-and-so. Dab, Roger and I had by now conducted our "Red Book" exercise. We obviously knew less about boys in other Houses, but I gave Mike what goods I had on boys he asked about in the House in which he was an Assistant Housemaster.

Of course I found these conversations very exciting. And the magazines were wonderful. With the ciggies, the occasional beer and all the sexual talk and images, visits to his flat were arousing and frustrating. I begged him to let me take one of the mags back to the House so I could wank off over it, but he wouldn’t let me, of course. When I asked again on another visit, he said no, but I could go into his bedroom and wank there if I wanted. The next time he said I could wank there, in the living room, in front of him. And the time after that he wanked me off, talking to me about what was going on in the pictures, encouraging me to imagine myself in the pictures.

Considering how gradually the first steps had been taken, things progressed quickly thereafter. He knew what I’d done and what I liked doing. He knew I wouldn’t tell anybody. When he wanked me the first time I came very quickly and was briefly anxious and ashamed, running to his bathroom to clean up. But by the time I came out I was hard again and he handed me the mag we’d been looking at when I’d spunked. And wanked me off again. Then he sent me back to my House.

I didn’t tell anyone about this – not even Robert and not even Dab. By this stage my wank fantasies often included scenes in Mike’s flat, with other boys but also with him. The next time I went in my Games kit, not changing after Games on a half-holiday afternoon. After I had a ciggie, looking at a mag, he simply asked “Do you want to do some of that stuff here?” I wasn’t sure if he meant then, with him and so I said, “What? Now?” He looked comically exasperated and said, “Yes, now, dummy!” (This dialogue IS verbatim, I think).

He could, when he wanted to be, be quite, um, young-seeming. Coltish? No, that rings too much of playfulness. Anyway, enough so that I didn’t think too much that I was doing it with an adult – just with a big Big Boy. He could have just told me to strip, and I would happily have done so, but we played strip poker. I couldn’t play poker, of course, and had very few items of clothing to lose. By the time that I had to take my shorts off (no underpants allowed under Games shorts) I was giddy with excitement and performed a giggling strip-tease routine.

He got me to sit on the sofa and sat beside me to suck my cock. He got me to put my feet up on the sofa and fingered my arsehole with a spit-wet finger. Then he was standing over me with his cock sticking out of his flies, telling me to suck him. He lowered his trousers and underpants and got a tube of KY (the first time I’d seen the stuff) and fucked me fairly unceremoniously, with me leaning back on the sofa, my head propped up with my legs up and him crouched over me. I was overwhelmed. Sort-of stunned. He got me to move down onto the floor, so that I was now propped against the front of the sofa. He put one of the sofa cushions under my lower back and stuck his cock back in me. I wanked myself. He came more loudly than any boy I’d ever been with, snorting and groaning. He knelt back and watched me bring myself off, then handed me a mess of tissues and lit a ciggie, pulling his trousers back up. I reached for my shorts but he said to stay as I was. He liked me to be naked.

That kind-of set the tone for our sex. He was very rarely affectionate, although we did come to kiss sometimes when he was fucking me. And he fucked me almost every time we met now. I'd suck his cock, and he'd suck mine ('though seldom let me spunk in his mouth), but he'd usually prefer to fuck me and so wouldn't spunk in my mouth either, saving that for my arse. I was soon visiting him at least three or four times a week and I got bum-fucked nearly every time. I can't remember if it was Mike or I who first initiated it, but I usually did not bother wiping my arse after he'd spunked in me, going off to afternoon lessons or House Prayers feeling his stuff still in me and leaking out of me. I'd sit in class or stand to pray, the well-behaved, attentive, polite schoolboy that I was, and I'd feel Mike's spunk leaking into my underpants. If I let myself think on it too long my cock would inevitably get stiff in my pants. I was almost disappointed on those occasions when Mike fucked me as soon as I arrived and then I stayed around, so that his spunk would have all leaked out and dried by the time I came to dress. Even then, however, I would take the ache in my bumhole with me. However much I loved being bummed, with Mike it still hurt, both at the time and afterwards. His was the biggest cock I'd taken, and I was proud that I could take it.

I have said that he wasn't physically affectionate with me. There was one notable way in which he was. Sometimes, after he'd spunked in my bum, he would have me stay on my back (or turn onto it if required) and hold my legs up so that he could photograph the spunk around my hole. Then he would put down the camera and press his thumb into my arsehole gently. Often I would not yet have come myself, so this would be intensely exciting. Even if I had come, this would usually get me hard again. My cock shrivelled on insertion of his cock into me (then later revived as I was fucked), but a finger or thumb was different. He would smile as he brought the thumb to his nose. On one occasion I asked if I could smell it (why - I could have put my own finger in to try it?). He held his thumb under my nose and then pressed it to my lips. My sucking on Mike's spunk-slick, arse-tasting thumb became our most affectionate physical thing.

We never did it in his bed. He would get completely naked on some occasions, but he also liked very quick, cold sex. Sometimes he’d come to open the door for me and have me suck him in the flat hallway, stripping me there, or having me strip, before taking me into his living room naked. While he seemed to like to come quickly himself, he often made me delay my spunking, keeping me naked and horny. This tended to mean that much of our contact was suffused with sex, even when he'd come and put his cock away. However long I stayed naked, until I spunked I felt as if I was experiencing a series of quick arousals, one after another, without ever actually coming. We could be watching telly or listening to music and a mere glance or gesture would bring me back into my sexual self. The sex was a constant hum: he could raise the volume and intensity instantly, and just as quickly let it subside into the background.

The most languid sexual activity we indulged in was the photo shoots. He took photographs of me dressed, semi-dressed and naked; relaxed, resting, thoughtful, provocative, aroused; wanking, spreading my bum cheeks to show my hole, fucking myself with my fingers, licking my spunk off my fingers.

We still talked about literature, politics, religion, films and all sorts We often didn’t agree, but that was great for me. I was smugly, secretly pleased to be treated as if my opinions were worth something. And I really liked the cold, almost brutal sex. But I longed for affection too. I couldn’t understand why we couldn’t lie in bed together cuddling and smoking. Well, I could – because he just wasn’t that sort of guy – but I still wanted it.

I’m not being entirely fair to him, of course. He did have a sense of humour. He was a fine mentor in many ways. And he could be affectionate, but not usually in a physical way. Well, not with me, anyway.

One of the magazines was called something like "Knaben Pis" and featured pictures of boys pissing. A few of them showed boys pissing on each other. A couple showed men pissing on boys. One, very striking, showed an open-mouthed boy with an obviously adult stream of piss splashing into his face.

I may as well be blunt. If I liked the coldness and near-brutality of sex with Mike, I loved the dirtiness even more. The piss pics were the dirtiest thing I'd ever seen. He asked me what I thought of them, and I told him I thought they were dead horny. I waited for him to suggest that we do some piss shots. He didn't.

The next time I went to his flat I asked specifically to see the piss magazine. He was taking some photographs of me as I flicked through the mag, got my cock out, and started wanking. Finally, I asked him if he wanted to take some photos of me pissing. He asked if I wanted him to. I said "Yeah, if you like, I suppose." He said that if I did want him to take photos of me pissing then I should come next time in my Games kit.

Next time I got in the bath with my Games shorts on and I pissed myself while he took photographs. We rinsed the shorts and dried them on the radiator.

On another occasion we recreated some of the pictures in the mags: me lying in the bath naked pissing on myself, standing naked pissing into my cupped hand, rolled back with my knees up, pissing in my own face.

Later I stood in the bath in my shorts and gym vest while he pissed on me. Then he wanked off onto me as I lay down wet in my pooled piss.

I pissed into a glass and then drank it.

He eventually pissed in my face and open mouth as I knelt naked in the bath.

Most of these scenarios I suggested myself. "Well, what do you want to do then?" he would ask. I'd use the magazines for ideas and nervously ask if we could try something that appealed. As it became obvious that the naughtier it got the better he liked it (and the hornier it made me) I would take the lead. Ultimately I asked him to photograph me as he pissed directly into my mouth.

So, this carried on through from that Summer Term into the next academic year and the Summer Term that I first bummed Guy. I still hadn't told anyone about what Mike and I were up to, although friends knew that I spent quite a bit of time with him. Many of our meetings were semi-clandestine, with me signing out of the House to attend "Choice" activities which I never actually went to, snatching half-hours between Games and afternoon lessons, or sneaking out of Saturday evening films to go to his flat.

Robert commented that I didn't spend much time any more working or reading in his study and I just said that I liked being at MGK's. I felt something of a disloyalty to Robert, even though our sexual relationship was certainly not exclusive. I wasn't quite sure how he would react if I told him about the sex with Mike. He would certainly have disapproved of the smoking (even though we smoked together), the alcohol and the porn. Although much more relaxed now about what we did together, Robert, I understood, was always just "making do" with boys until he left school and got a proper girlfriend. Our friendship and affection, even, was slightly unreal, a product of the place - unsustainable without the context.

Perhaps that was part of what attracted me to Mike - he in some way represented the fact that my sexuality was not just something to do with my age and my circumstances. That may sound strange, since our relationship was probably as much bound by school, but I knew I was homosexual and it was good to know that you could still be that as an adult. (My own view of my sexuality actually became an issue between Mike and me later, but we'll come to that.)

Things changed a little in the Summer Term. Other boys would join us at the flat. They too were allowed to smoke and occasionally drink. As I see it now, I was used as a sort of example to these other boys to encourage them into also being sexual with Mike. In each case a boy would have been discussed with me at some point previously. I would have given a view on how likely they were to be willing to do stuff. (At first, I think that I usually thought "Yeah, he might do stuff, but not with a master. He's not as queer as me.") When the mags appeared, it was made clear that I had enjoyed them. I was encouraged to start being directly sexual with the other boys, in front of Mike. When this happened, there would always be only one other boy. The mags would be out. I'd start rubbing myself through my trousers, and encourage the other boy to do the same. At this stage Mike would be out of the room or "not paying attention". I'd get my cock out, lean over to touch the other boy's cock, undo his trousers if he was OK with that. We'd talk about the pics - which boys we fancied most. As far as I remember, it usually went one of two ways. The soft-core pics would fail to impress, so the hard-core ones would appear. Or else, the soft-core ones would impress, and so the hard-core ones would appear. Young teenaged boys are turned on by anything to do with sex. Even I wanked off over straight stuff in Penthouse or Forum sometimes. So even the straight(er) boys would be turned on by the naughtier stuff.

What happened next would depend on the reactions of the particular boy. If he was obviously keen, then we'd move on that day. If he was hesitant we'd just wank off and he'd be left to decide whether to return. They always did. Mike determined the pace. If he saw that the boy was relaxed and randy, he'd mention that I'd done most of the stuff in the mags. If he said that, then I'd start suggesting that we tried some things. If Mike didn't mention my experience, then I'd just leave it to a wank unless the other boys pushed things. We never set this up, it just worked like that. Even with the most hesitant boy it would only take a couple of visits after the first appearance of the mags before he and I would be sucking each other off on the rug in Mike's living room. Mike would only offer very slight verbal encouragement up until this point. At some point, whether first or fifth visit, it would come time for Mike to bum me in front of the other boy.

As he had with me, once there was a basic understanding, things moved quickly. Mike would switch from minimal involvement, just observations and encouragement, to fucking me. And it worked as it had with me. The other boy would be stunned and excited. Early "Shock and Awe", I guess. I would be delighted to make it very obvious how delighted I was to be buggered by a teacher.

Then the boy would be ready to fly solo. On one occasion a boy was so keen that he wanted me to bum him after I'd been done buy Mike, and that was deemed to be acceptable. Usually, however, the boys were invited back alone after they'd watched me being bummed, so that Mike got first go at them.

Of course I wasn't exactly an unwilling participant in this somewhat cynical game. I got to have sex with boys from other Houses who I may never have been able to have anything to do with normally. And sharing the secret was reassuring, somehow. If there were more than two of us together in the flat we never actually did anything sexual, but sex was discussed and joked about: who was doing who, who was pretty in each house. We all knew what all of us were doing with Mike, but it wasn't referred to directly. There were probably five of us in all by the end of the Summer Term, but I still at first somehow regarded myself as Top Boy, because I'd been the first.

Now you may be thinking that this is going to turn into the bitterness of the scorned lover, and there is a part of that in my feelings now, but I've never quite worked out how big the part is. And, anyway, I wasn't scorned ... quite. But our relationship changed quite quickly. There was a process by which a new boy was introduced, seduced by me and then Mike and then he became one of "his boys", independent of me. Gradually (and this is on into the Sixth Form now) I became more of a collaborator with Mike than I was one of the boys. Quite early in my Lower Sixth year, we stopped having sex, except very occasionally. Instead we talked about which boys we fancied and which might be persuaded to put out. In some ways my role became quite explicitly that of a procurer and accomplice (to use negative terms which don't properly convey how I really see it). At the time I didn't at all mind this shift and felt it to be somehow natural. We had discussed what our favourite ages were in boys and, although I was by then still only 15, I recognised that I'd grown out of his favoured age-range. And, anyway, I was now a Big Boy myself, so it seemed appropriate that I be a fellow of Mike rather than his love-object.

So far, so classic a case-study, eh? Abuser selects a vulnerable child (not only an absent father, but an absent mother as well; a little unsettled amongst his peers; already "inappropriately sexualised"; desperate to please). Child is groomed gradually and pornography is introduced, then the sex begins. The child colludes in the secrecy: alcohol and cigarettes are part of the deal, both themselves naughty. The child is used to recruit other boys and used as an example to encourage them to engage in sex with the older abuser. When the child no longer appeals he becomes a side-kick, a trainee abuser, aiding and abetting in return for his own pickings.

And I don't deny that any or all of that might be true in the case of Mike and me. Where the complication arises is that I wanted all this (apart, perhaps, from the "moving on" bit). Not "was made to want it", I wanted it. I may not have known exactly what I had been doing in the Speedos in my previous English teacher's lesson, but I knew that I was doing something. Similarly, when I "came out" to Mike, I was not (simply) seeking an adult "to help me come to terms with my sexuality". The conventional psychology of abuse has not, as far as I know, addressed the very different issues that might be involved when the "victim" is actually gay. I have met very few gay men in my life who have not admitted quite happily that they "fancied the pants off" their PE teacher, their swimming coach, or their Latin master or piano tutor (yes, we're not all shallow). "Of course," most say, "if anything had actually happened, I don't know what I would have done." I do.

If it hadn't actually been Mike, I would happily re-write the case-study. A bright but somewhat unhappy child, a little insecure and unsettled amongst his peer group (indeed, unsure about who his peer group are), abandoned by his parents, is attracted to an interesting man who takes him seriously and does not patronise him, recognising his keenness to learn and his ability to argue his point in doing that learning. The boy is sexually experienced and knows that the man might be interested in him sexually. The man becomes a mentor figure. The boy smokes anyway, and the man allows him to smoke in his company. The boy eventually "admits" his sexuality, half-hoping that this will lead somewhere. It does, but very gradually. The man wants to be sure that the boy really wants what is happening. They have a great time. The boy does not get everything he needs from the man, but no one gets everything they need from one other person. The boy doesn't want to be confined to the man for his sexual and emotional needs. He fancies other boys too. They both indulge themselves with other boys. The man has made it plain that he has age limits: he says explicitly that he has always moved on from his previous boys when they got too old. The man moves on and the boy moves on to other boys, but they remain friends.

Take your pick. Or, rather, don't bother, since both interpretations are mere rationalisations and no relationships ever actually fits any pattern.

My relationship with Mike was complicated. I hope that I have not bored you with its complexity, 'cos there's more to come.

Although I found the changing role with MGK difficult to understand and deal with sometimes, in a way it freed me up to feel closer to Guy. If Mike was the one secret that I kept from Dab, Guy was the one secret that I kept from Mike. I was in thrall, but not that much in thrall.

Little Spurt 07

Sherbet Dips

Need I say more? Well, yes, for our younger and overseas readers I probably do. Sherbet Fountains were cardboard tubes of sherbet with a hollow stick of liquorice to suck it all up. I hated liquorice and so was never very interested in them, until one day, in my Junior House, a boy got his dick out in the Common Room and dipped it into his Sherbet Fountain. He offered it around for anyone who wanted a suck. No one took up the offer, but on my next visit to the Tuck Shop I bought a Sherbet Fountain for Dab, who did like liquorice. I gave him the liquorice stick, but held onto the tube of sherbet. That night in the dorm I got him to shove his dick into the tube and then licked the sherbet off. After the next dip, I sucked it properly. It was great, but left a sticky mess (of sherbet, silly: we weren't spunking yet). I dipped my cock into the tube, but we'd spilt quite a bit of the powder and only the tip of my cock was coated. Dab sucked it off.

Matron was outraged at the state of our sheets the next morning (the game had expanded across both beds). Eating the dorm was not allowed and we were banned from the Tuck Shop for a week. When we were allowed back I bought a packet of Sherbet Dib-Dab, which had a lolly rather than a liquorice tube to pick up the powder. The packet was wider than the tube of a Fountain and, while I'm not certainly not making any claims to early physical development here, it was definitely easier to get at the full bag of sherbet with your dick, as the quantity diminished, than it was with the tube. We were more careful about getting stuff on our sheets.

Dab briefly tried calling me "Dib", but it didn't stick. My name for him, though, did.

I remember when Space Dust ("Popping Candy") first came out, a few years after I'd left school, wishing that it had been invented earlier. You poured the sweet granules into your mouth and the crystals "exploded" and fizzed. If you opened you mouth you could hear the popping. I would have loved to have sucked Dab's cock with a mouthful of that stuff.

I hope that people are still enjoying this. Email: spelchek@hushmail.com