Date: Sat, 6 Dec 2003 13:05:41 +1100 From: Janosz Poha Subject: Love Among Boys part 1 Copyright 2003 Janosz Poha The first time I saw Rowan, I fell in love. We were introduced on my aunt's farm where I spent the summer of my twelfth year. "Daniel, meet Rowan. I pay him to do some jobs on the farm, you're going to be working together." My god, I thought. He is beautiful. I was struck dumb. My aunt laughed but Rowan didn't seem to notice. He smiled angelically and shook my hand. It was hard for me not to stare; his features were so perfect: the small, angular face with a little upturned point of a nose was dominated by two large, round eyes the colour of the sky. They regarded everything with a curious innocence and zest; Rowan was a boy who saw fun in every opportunity. "Hey," Rowan said, happily. "It's so good to have someone else here my own age. It's going to be so much fun." I was taken back by his enthusiasm. At the school I came from, such a display was sure to make you an object of ridicule. I found Rowan all the more engaging. My heart ached. As if she could tell, my aunt smiled smugly and turned her head away, saying over her shoulder, "you two boys better get to work before it gets dark. I want those hay bails out in the paddocks." "Great!" Rowan said. "Last one to the shed's a rotten egg!" He raced out in front of me with surprising speed. From behind I noticed his golden body visible through the blue overalls he was wearing, without a shirt on underneath. They hung on him like a canvas tent, baggy on his skinny frame, but didn't slow him down in the least. I followed after him, as fast as I could. While we were unloading the hay, we spoke about our lives; school, friends and enemies, and what we liked doing. Rowan's existence was the very opposite of mine in many ways. He attended a small country school with fifty students; my school nursed six hundred. Furthermore, he told me that he had very few friends, whereas I had several, although not many close ones. I could already tell that we had found each other with the idea of filling such a gap in both our lives. At one stage, I saw Rowan bend over to pick up a hay bail, and his overalls hung down to reveal his smooth, tanned chest. The sight caused an instant tightening in my pants. Embarrassed, I sought to relieve my discomfort by turning away, and readjusting myself. "What's the matter?" Rowan asked. "You got a boner?" "Yeah," I said, a little less embarrassed, due to the steadiness of his voice. "I get them sometimes too." It was dark by the time we had finished our work; Rowan went back home with my aunt, while I went inside and soon found myself in bed, exhausted. Rowan was in my dreams, the sweetest that I had ever had, and when I awoke I found a sticky substance pooled on my belly. That week passed in much the same manner. Every day I would work with Rowan, who was no less thrilled to see me each day as I was to see him. His presence made every activity fun; not merely because of his beauty, which I loved to look upon, but also because of his infectious enthusiasm and ability to turn everything into light-hearted competition. Milking the cows became a competition to see who could relieve a cow of the most milk in the shortest space of time. Our trips around the farm on foot were usually races, although we would be sternly chastised if my aunt caught us running inside. Best of all, while working side by side, Rowan and I would have immense conversations on all nature of subjects, and I began to realize how close one could be to another through the act of confiding one's secrets. I told Rowan that, even at age twelve, I still slept with a nightlight when at home; about how my father was frequently drunk, and my mother was rarely at home. He told me about his dreams of having a farm of his own, with all his own animals, and often he mentioned the fellow students at his school who held him in contempt. When he spoke of them he did not take on an expression or tone of voice to match their contempt; rather his countenance showed the sad confusion of every boy who is disliked for reasons that they do not understand. Towards the end of the week he told me the name that had become his most common title while at school: fag. I offered my condolences to him for having to bear such an unfortunate name, and did not consider it further, until I was astonished to feel his lips brush my cheek before he smiled lovingly and dashed away from me, his work for the day finished. I stood for a moment, unsure of what had happened, and then felt my spirit soar. The world suddenly took on a different hue, and I half-skipped back indoors and to bed, where I was able to quickly and surely bring myself to orgasm with nobody but Rowan on my mind One day of the following week, I was more than a little alarmed to find that Rowan had not shown up for work. Usually after my shower I would find him talking to my aunt in the kitchen of her house, ready to get started. Today however, he was absent, and I saw my aunt show more emotion than I had previously seen, his boyish charms having clearly affected her also. "You'll just have to go on without him, Daniel. It'll be hard work but you'll manage." Wondering about my friend's whereabouts, I worked slowly and carelessly. The hours passed slowly, until I heard a "psst" noise coming from a tree behind me. Turning around, I saw Rowan peeking out from behind a tree. "Rowan!" I shouted. "Where have you been?" He waved at me to be quiet, and stepped out from behind the tree. I saw at once that he was covered in dirt, his overalls ripped. His right cheek glared an angry red under its covering of dirt and grime. "What happened to you?" I asked. "Guys from school.." he started, "they followed me on my way here and started pushing me down. One of them even punched me!" Sensing that he needed comforts, I stepped forward and put my hand on his bare shoulder, the overall strap having fell slightly down his arm. "Don't worry, Row," I said. "Those guys are just a bunch of bastards." This felt like a weak thing to say, but I could see that Rowan didn't notice. He smiled tragically. "You're such a good friend to me," he said, and a solitary tear ran down his cheek, collecting dirt as it went. "Let it out," I said. This was what my mother said to me when I cried over something. I hugged Rowan and he rested his head on my shoulder. I wanted to keep this moment forever. After he had cried to his content, he asked me, "what should I tell your aunt?" "Tell her you got sick today," I said, "and go home." "I need to get clean first, or my parents will suspect something," he said. "I know," I said. "You can wash off in the stream. Come on." I led him by the hand out of the paddock and over the dirt track, through a path that led to Appleby's Creek. With the strength of the last autumn's rain, the creek was more like a river. "Here you go," I said. "Let's just get these overalls off. It's like you're wearing a tent, you know?" He laughed, a clear, lovely sound, and stood with his back to me so that I could brush the straps from his shoulders, and let his heavy overalls fall to the ground. I was touched, instantly, by the flawlessness of his form, his whole body a golden brown, thin yet graceful. He was wearing a pair of white cotton briefs underneath. Turning to face me, he grinned cheekily and said, "I think I have a boner." I saw that this was so. The front of his underpants rose upwards into a small point. "Don't worry about it," I said. I had one too, after all. "No peeking," he said, in a tone that sounded as though he wouldn't mind if I did peek after all. He walked towards the water, and thumbed his briefs down without a hint of self consciousness, dropping them on the moist ground, and entering the water elegantly, as I was sure he had done many times before. I stood gawking, the image of his little tanned ass sticking in my mind, feeling as though I had been watching a movie, rather than really witnessing something happen. His voice interrupted this. "You should come in with me!" he shouted, splashing and swimming backwards. "I won't watch you undress." Without second thought, I kicked off my shoes and pulled off my socks. My shirt went over my head and I took off my jeans and underpants in one motion. Still slightly self-conscious of my nude form, I entered the water deftly and awkwardly, but Rowan did not look, as he had promised. "I know what we can do," Rowan said. "Let's play sharks!" He dove under the water and swam around beside me, circling me as a great white might do. Suddenly he grabbed my thigh and jerked me downwards, my head going under. I grabbed him around the waste while he attempted to swim away from me, and pulling him towards me with playful strength, felt my penis brush his backside for a split second. We both jerked back above the surface, laughing. We continued wrestling in this manner for nearly an hour. After this, Rowan wanted me to see if I could catch him. He swam speedily beneath the water, surfacing occasionally to give me a chance to grab him, before ducking back under as soon as I got close. "That's it," I said, after a while, and launched at him with more strength than he had expected, tightening my arms around him and carrying him from the shallows of the water to the wetland adjacent. Although he was thin, and wouldn't have weighed much at all, I was just a boy and hadn't much strength, hence we soon collapsed on the soft wet ground, laughing and howling, his head resting on my chest. When our laughter stopped I knew that the reality had set in for both of us -- we were naked, completely exposed to one another. His small, thin penis resembled a finger, resting lazily across his stomach. I saw that one testicle seemed smaller than the other, as with my own. His head was also turned towards my area, and I felt a thrill at being examined closely in that private place. "Hey," he said, "how come you don't have skin on the end like I do?" "My parents had me circumcised when I was born," I answered. "I don't know why." I placed my hand on his chest, and stroked gently. He turned to face me, and gave me another coveted angelic smile. I smiled back, and we lay there in each others arms in the sun, smiling contentedly, for an hour longer. When we had lied to our content, we dressed without saying a word. I was careful not to take my eyes off Rowan, still touched by the idea that there was dubious reality in all this; that this creature of mythical beauty would make myth of himself and disappear. Still, after we parted for the day, him racing with vigor down the path towards the town, and me going back to the paddock to resume the day's work, I felt a surge of excitement for the prospect of seeing him the following day.