Date: Fri, 04 Jan 2002 18:55:42 +0800
From: Colin Cleary
Subject: ONCE UPON A TIME

The following story is fiction, you might even say fantasy, and has been
written to amuse, intrigue, entertain, divert and delight.  It contains
scenes of graphic inter-generation sex; if these are not to your taste, or
if they are outlawed in your city, state, providence, or country, read no
further, stand not upon your leave, but simply go.

Above all, if you have not yet reached the age of consent, continue to read
no further; it is not the intention of the site nor the writer to fill your
head with dreams and desires which as yet may be only vague and inchoate.
There's lots of fun to be had on the Net; go and find what is appropriate
for you.

To everyone else who takes some pleasure from this tale, may you and yours
live long and prosper.


ONCE UPON A TIME

Once upon a time there was a little boy who wanted only to be loved. It was
not until a few years later the boy realised he wanted to be loved by a
man. I know. I was that boy. And even then I knew it was a man I wanted
though if you'd asked me at the time, I wouldn't even have understood the
question. But by six years old I had known a man, and something too deep
inside me for laughter or for tears knew that was what I wanted.

Six years old, a rocky shore, a sunny summer day, and shadow filled caves.
And the man had held me in his arms, sat me on his knee, stroked me, and
whispered things in my ear that made little or no sense. The words I didn't
understand; the feelings thrilled me, and I still remember that heady
mixture of tobacco and tweed, of rum and sweat, and the bristles sharp
against tender skin.

I knew the man only for a day, but for that warm sunny day he had played
with me down on the shore, showing me how to leap from rock to rock, how to
edge towards the inrushing tide, then jump precipitately backwards from its
greedy grasp. How to chase tiny crabs fearlessly into the nooks and
crannies of the sea-weed strewn rocks.

Then when I grew tired, sun-bleached, skin hot and tender, he carried me
into a golden cave that caught the shadows, and played fingers of lights
across its walls as his fingers played across me.

If it was wrong, I had no way of knowing it. I felt safe, secure and
wanted. And if his lips ran over my chest, my tummy, inside my thighs, to
those secret tender places, it made him happy at no cost to me. Why he did
this did not even cross my mind? I snuggled deep into his chest as he held
me and made my senses tingle, made my skin goose-bump, and my twig stand
hot and hard till it jerked between his fingers, exploding like sugary
sherbet in his mouth.

And then he was gone, and I made my tired, happy way home.

Call me Ian.

There I am, kneeling on a carpet, in a sun-dappled room, between the legs
of a beautiful boy who said that afternoon, "Sir, you owe me a massage,"
both of us knowing we had gone as far as we could. Any further and we would
be in that Dark Continent with its forbidden, luring signs that read 'Here
Be Dragons'. Both of us knowing it was the only place left to go. So the
boy, call him Pierce, lay stretched languorously on my study carpet,
stripped to the waist, looking into my eyes to whisper, "I really like
having a hard-on, I really do."

Pierce was 12, and had the strongest body of all the boys in the Junior
House, home to sixty boys between 7 and 13. Tall for his years, Pierce was
not heavily built but he had the elegant muscularity of a gymnast. Deep
chest, small waist, rounded buttocks, long legs, and a face that was more
handsome than beautiful. The planes of his face were sculpted like a young
Greek god. Strong eyebrows over large, wide-set eyes. Thick golden brown
hair that flopped over one eye.

Yet, what I remember about Pierce is his voice. Though not broken, it
seemed deeper and richer than the boys around him, and his diction was
flawless. Completely natural, completely flawless. And it was this voice
that was calling me: "I like having a hard-on, I really do."

The bulge was clearly discernible through well-worn denim jeans. My fingers
traced the denim on either side, fingers that had massaged his chest,
shoulders and neck for half an hour, fingers that had kneaded and moulded
his back, fingers that had clenched and unclenched on his denim-guarded
buttock. My finger tips traced the innocent, satin skin of his stomach, the
line where denim met skin, where snow white cotton peaked out from under
the slate-blue jeans.

Pierce had already given me most of his body, now he wanted to give me all
of it. My right palm slide over his stomach, down over his belt, onto the
bulge, and pressed against the flesh, hot and hard beneath the denim. Even
then I could stop, I could draw back, I could retreat into my role as
teacher, master, mentor, man to the boy. I looked into Pierce's eyes and
saw the storms of desire, gold-flecks amongst the hazel. I saw and heard
his sigh, felt his fingers round my own as he pressed them into the
throbbing hardness of his boyhood. Saw his hips and buttocks rise from the
carpet, blue denim against blood red.

My thumbs flicked open the buckle of his snake belt. My thumbs grasped the
edges of his jeans and worked them down and over his hips, taking the snow
-white cotton of his underpants with them. Pierce held his hips high as I
worked jeans and underwear down his knees. His erection struggled free from
the cotton embrace, bounced against pubic bone, and stood hot and hard in
the sultry afternoon air.

I smile as I write this. My fate has been to ease denim jeans down the
thighs of willing boys. Memory fast forwards to another room, another
boarding school, in another part of the country.

Call him Troop.

Troop is sitting in my study-bedroom. He, too, is dressed in denim. Troop
is older, 14, with skin as unblemished as Pierce's, satin skin, sun-kissed
by a long hot summer in Tunisia.

It is late September, Sunday afternoon. We have been practising at
football. Troop is my goalkeeper. I have grown expert at hitting the ball
above his head so that he must rise to tip it over the cross bar. As he
rises, he reveals and expanse of skin, so beautiful that I am paralysed by
the need to see, touch and kiss it. Does Troop suspect? At the time I would
have said no, later I was not so sure. Did I seduce Troop or did he seduce
me? I hope it was mutual seduction.

We have been playing records for another. Troop loves my company as much as
I love his. Our conversation has wandered across continents; Troop, though
Canadian, lives with his family in Tunis; his father holds high office. The
conversation has strayed to what the boys in the dorm do at night, how
horny they are, who jerks off in bed, and who goes to the toilet to do what
boys have to.

"Sometimes I get so horny, I wouldn't care..." Troop leaves the sentence
unfinished. His eyes drop to the bulge in his jeans. Then he tells me about
the manager of the London hotel where he stops overnight before flying home
to Tunis.

"The guy's gay," laughs Troop, "but I don't give a shit about that. I think
he wants to seduce me, and I don't care..."  The sentence hangs unfinished
between us. The boy squeezes his legs together - "You know how it is."

"Look," I say, "don't do anything stupid. You don't have to do anything as
stupid as..."

"I know," Troop smiles, and pushes his hips towards me.

I gulp. Yes, I actually gulp, lean forward, and feel his erection straining
under my flat palm. My fingers seek out its shape, pull it away from his
body. I know what I want but I am not sure.

"Continue."

It is not a request, it is an imperative. And a strange choice of word. Not
"Go on," or "Please," but "Continue."

Moments later I am kneeling between the boy's legs, his denims are wide
open, his boxers pushed down his knees. I am hold his thick cock which
bends slightly to the left. His cock is around six inches in length, very
thick, set in a folds of thick, silky, dirty brown and golden hair. His
balls are big and press the column of his cock up towards me. His foreskin
is loose and slides back over the slick, wet head. The smell is
intoxicating... sweat, urine, pre-cum.

"Shit, this ain't comfortable enough."

Troop stands, hobbles backwards and lets himself fall onto my bed. His legs
are raised for me to yank his denims off. I push his shirt up past his
nipples. He is a well-built boy with skin like old ivory, hot to my lips as
they brush over his body, chest, nipples, stomach, thighs, and then finally
the length of his cock. He pushes himself towards me, eager for what...

For what?

For what he has only read in books.

Later, Troop and I discuss what we have done.

"No, I've never done anything like that before," he says. "I just wanted to
do it with you. Fucking horny, I guess.

"No, I'm not gay. I don't think I'm gay. I don't want any of the boys in
the dorm. I don't want any of the other teachers. I don't know why the fuck
I want you to do stuff with me. I just do."

And then he says something I will never forget. He says it afterwards.

"Sir, can I say something? I'll say it anyway. Don't go on fucking guilt
trip. I mean, don't try to get rid of me just cos you feel guilty about
what happened. I don't. So it's great if you don't. In fact, it will be
fucking boring if you do." (pause) "And, sir, can we be friends? Shit, I
know we can't be friends out there, around the school, I mean, but here,
when it's just us. Please, sir, can we, sir?"

I still have the Year Book. And there is grin with his classmates.
Standing, grinning out of the photograph without a care in the world.
Troop, my Canadian adventurer, who knew how to give as much as he took.

Our last time together. Troop arrives at my rooms on a Saturday night. He
has sneaked away from the disco. He is slightly drunk. He dives uninvited
onto my bed, it's been a long time since he needed an invitation.

"How do you want me?" he asks. "Anything's okay. In fact, anything's cool
tonight."

"Anything?"

"Anything."

Troop knows what I want. He has been reluctant before, not fiercely
reluctant, but hesitant enough for me to draw back. I love the boy and
would not offend him for the world.

Moments later Troop is lying on his front reading a porno book I brought
him from Amsterdam. It's a fucking hetero porno book! It's what he wanted;
it's what he can have. I am in no way disappointed, insulted or offended.
I'd rather Troop didn't go through the difficulties, the sadness, the
barriers of being gay. He is lying on his front, his jeans and underpants
dragged down to his ankles.

I am lying between Troop's legs, towards the bottom of the bed, my tongue
probing, pushing, penetrating Troop's rectum. Reaming? Rimming? In those
days I was innocent enough not to recognise either word. And I was puzzled.
Why was I so hungry to get my tongue inside this boy? I suppose I would
have fucked him if it had not been such a momentous step, but funnily
enough there had been an unspoken agreement between us that fucking was not
something I would try with Troop.

But what was this fascination with his anus, his rectum, his asshole? Why
did I find this small orifice so luring, so fascinating, so bewitching? I
am sure Freudians have a theory for it, but at that precise moment as my
tongue tip penetrated Troop, and my tongue muscled its way inside him,
theory was the last thing on my mind. Troop had large, well-muscled
buttocks, not fat, but solid in their presence. I leaned my cheek against
his and licked the walls around his anus, as if the sweat was a nectar to
my darker gods.

Troop gave me as much time as I needed, then suddenly rolled over on his
front.

"Quick," he gasped.

My mouth closed over the head of his hot throbbing cock - I describe it in
these pornographic terms only because it was hot and throbbing. It pulsed
with life and he squirted five or six jets of sweet-salty cum into the back
of my throat. I gulped it back, and held his cock inside my mouth until I
felt it soften, slide onto my chin, then flop heavily onto my neck.

Troop reached for me, pulled me up level with him, and for the first time
kissed me long, deep and hard, fencing my tongue with his, letting his
saliva dribble into my mouth as mine dribbled into his. The boy smiled,
held me tight, and for the first and last time in our relationship, I was
the little boy being held tight in the arms of his cosmic maleness.

The last time I saw Troop he was stretched out in a public park surrounded
by boys and girls his own age. Troop was smoking a joint. There was no
ostentation. He was just a teenager lying in a park on a warm June
afternoon toking on a joint. I saluted him with a smile, a wave and went on
my way. Our paths had crossed, separated, and resumed their separate
journeys, but I am glad that we met and carry something of Troop with me
always.

Always...  I'll be loving you always, with a heart that's true, always. And
it is true that we love our boys always.  I see them now, all of them,
stretching backwards in time through the mist of their youth. I keep them
with me always, young and unspoiled by the cancer of age, names, faces and
places stretching to the horizon forever. Generations of love.


Spin the knife. Spin the kaleidoscope. Spin the bottle.

The world turns and there is Matteo. He is twelve. His mother is Italian,
his father is Lebanese. He is beautiful. He is lying on my bed, it is hot,
a devastatingly hot August afternoon. The building is empty. The world has
fled to the sea.

Matteo and I are going to play tennis. He has stretched out on the bed to
rest after lunch. I have been massaging (yes, smile, I am smiling, too) his
shoulders and legs before the match. He is shirtless, wearing only a tiny
pair of tight white tennis shorts.

I turn away for a moment to adjust my own arousal. I turn back and the tops
of Matteo's shorts are open, the flaps pulled back to reveal grey Calvin
Kleins. The boy's huge brown eyes are open, gazing at mine. I sit on the
bed and edge open flaps still wider. His hard penis is outlined beneath the
thin silk. I trace it with my finger tips and feel it jump.

My fingers edge down Matteo's slip. His hard cock jumps free. It is about 3
inches long, very hard, brown, and circumcised, the tiny lips of the
cockhead wine red. I lean forward and kiss the tip, my tongue flicking away
the bead of cum at the tip. Matteo pushes his hips higher, his erection
slides into my mouth. One hand slips beneath him to prise open the cheeks
of his bottom; I press a finger tip against his hot slippery opening.

"Mmmmmmmm," he sighs.

Where did this boy find the courage I never had? This is what he wants. He
has made a decision and opened himself up to me.

His anal lips and rectum are very slippery and sweaty, my middle finger
slides in easily. I finger-fuck him with the same rhythms my head bobs up
and down on his throbbing cock. I have to use "throbbing" again because
that is what I feel between my lips.

"Ian..."  Matteo's voice seems to come from far away.

"Ian, can we try more?"

I am not sure what Matteo's "more" involves, but I raise my head, eyes
glazed, lips already puffy, and whisper: "Let's go round the world."

Going round the world involves starting at his forehead, then kissing and
licking every part of him in a line down his nose, chin, neck, chest,
stomach, cock, balls, asshole, buttocks, back, over his head, and back to
his forehead. I think Matteo wants me to try and fuck him, but I am scared.
No, perhaps not scared, but I don't feel the need to. I am satisfied and
more to be this way with him.

I go down on him again, slide my middle finger inside him again, suck and
finger fuck in a variety of speeds and rhythms. I can feel his body tense
under the palm of my hand, sense his head roll on the pillow, feel him hump
himself into my mouth, and then...

Matteo pushes me away, springs from the bed, and is out in the corridor of
one of the most famous schools in England, sprinting naked for the toilet.
I am stunned. I sit on the bed and imagine...  what?

Matteo returns. He is laughing. He holds out his small clenched fist
towards me, and unfolds the palm. There in the middle of his palm is a tiny
tooth. And in the tooth a tiny metal filling.

The boy hops back onto the bed. "You can have it," he laughs, handing me
the tooth. "It's been loose for days and you got it."  He lowers his eyes
for a moment, the lashes of his eyes are thick and beautiful. "Can you
finish me now?" he whispers.

I take the tooth and place it carefully on my dressing table. Then I
'finish' Matteo before we have our tennis match, our swim, and our stroll
into Brighton for afternoon tea.

I still have Matteo's tooth. I keep it in a small wooden treasure chest. It
reminds me of a feat I never accomplished again: sucking a boy's tooth
right out of his head. It also reminds me of one of the sweetest, funniest,
most generous boys I have ever met. Way to go, Matteo!

Boys who knew what they wanted and had the courage to ask for it. I had
never had that kind of courage though when I'd allowed myself to be taken
it was such relief, delight and liberation that I bounced for joy days
after.

I was 12. I was late out of school. I'd been kept in back in detention by
some sadistic bastard who'd driven away in the falling darkness while I ran
along the lane in the pelting rain towards the bus station.

The bus had gone. Half an hour to wait. Rain bouncing like hailstones from
the tin room of the shelter. Only the station toilets sent out a beacon of
light in the gathering gloom. I made my way into its shiny tiled comfort,
only half needing a piss, but at least it would pass a few minutes.

There were two urinals with a tiny partition between them. I stood at one
fishing my penis out of my thin grey flannel trousers. It was half hard and
pleasantly warm.

The door swung open, then closed. A man took the urinal next to mine. I
kept my head down. I tried to focus on the wet tiles, but my eyes betrayed
me and slid to the left. Wow! He was big, and he was making little effort
to hide himself. I jerked my eyes away, they slid back, the piss was
squirting from him in an almost continuous flow. It was beautiful. Shit -
was I sick or what? Between my own fingers I felt my own dick thicken,
harden and stretch to a fullness through which I could never hope to piss.

The man half turned to me. He edged me backwards, I hardly resisted, edged
me backwards into the single cubicle. The back of my knees bounced against
the toilet seat. Reflexively I sat down.

I risked glancing up. The man was about thirty years old. Dark haired,
strong eyebrows, straight nose, cheekbones, good-looking. Good-looking!
Yes, he was! And wearing what looked like an expensive jacket.

"Don't do anything you don't want to do." His voice was low but not
whispered. His voice was dark and warm.

I risked a look at his penis, his cock, his dick. Shit - it was huge. Hard
and huge. It looked tanned though the head sticking out from the foreskin
looked a mixture of brown and purple. And, like him, it was
beautiful. Don't do anything you don't want to do. That meant to anything
you want to do. And I knew what I wanted to do.

I raised my hand and fitted my fingers round his shaft. Shit! My fingers
hardly touched. It was hard and soft at the same, warm, satiny, slippery.
Pointing right at my face. At my mouth. I flicked my tongue out and licked
the head. Shit! Was I crazy or something? I knew people did that. I knew
prostitutes, fallen angels as my mum called them, did that to men for
money. I even knew that gay men had their own way of having sex. I knew
that some men liked to do things to boys. But here I was, sitting on a
toilet seat, in the bus station toilets, in my full school uniform, licking
a good-looking man's erection.

"Go on."

That must have been him because I wasn't aware of myself speaking.

Go on. So I did. I let the head of his cock slide into my mouth till the
tipped touched the roof of my mouth. Then I adjusted my mouth until his
cock was sliding in and out like a huge stick of Brighton rock you've just
started and you think you'll never finish. My lips slid up and down the
shaft, a bit of an exaggeration since I could only take in about half of
the hot hard shaft. Sometimes I let it slide out and pressed its length
along my cheek.

The pressure felt wonderful, but, to tell you the truth, it was the smell I
loved. You can't describe the smell to anyone who hasn't experienced it.
You might as well describe a rose to a blind man. It was the smell of a
man, of a man in heat, of a man who had the hots for me. It was me who was
exciting him, me who was arousing him, me who had taken possession of
him. And I wanted him as much as he wanted me.

I slid my spare hand under his balls. They hung heavy and low. I want to
feel their weight, feel their texture, feel the dark hairs brush against my
hand. My fingers slide past his balls to his crack, and he shuffled his
feet wider.

The man moaned! He fucking well moaned! And he moaned for me!

I had been scared. Maybe he didn't want me to touch him there. maybe I was
being too forward, or even dirty, in seeking out his most private place. I
put the tips of two fingers against his hole, not that easy to find as they
wriggled through the dense hair, but I found it! The entrance to King
Solomon's mines and I had found it. The opening was hot, sweat-slick, and
hot. Do whatever you want? Go for it! I brought my fingers back, raised
them to my mouth, let his dick slide out for a few moments, slid my fingers
in my mouth and sucked them. Bliss!

Okay, I am crazy. I was twelve years old. A grammar school boy from a good
family. And I was sitting on a toilet seat in the bus station sucking two
fingers that I'd just removed from a grown man's arse. Crazy!

I am not even going to try and describe the thrill, the terror, the ecstasy
of holding a grown man's hard cock in my mouth, letting it slide in and out
as he tousled my hair, as I heard his moans high above me, as I felt his
cock push deeper and deeper into me, until I gagged, he withdrew, and I
insisted he penetrated me again and again.

His cock seemed to swell, get even thicker, and suddenly it was exploding,
spurt after spurt, deep into the back of my throat. Too much, too much, and
I wanted more. So much that my mouth couldn't hold it all, and it came
squeezing out of the sides, through my swollen lips, until I was coughing,
choking, and trying to lick up every last drop.

It was the man who had to push me away from him. I didn't realise how
sensitive a cock could become, and I didn't much care, I wanted more, just
more of more, and more than more, and more forever inside me. I wanted to
eat him devour him, swallow him more, eat him till he became me, and me
him, and... I might have passed out for a few moments. I definitely don't
remember how I got into his car.

A BMW! And he was driving me home. Driving me home and telling me what a
wonderful, silly little fool I was. Having sex with a stranger. Swallowing
what he called his cum. Getting in a car with a bloody stranger. Didn't I
have any more sense than that?

Fucking hell, it was like getting told off again by that sadistic bastard
back at school. But the man was smiling at the same time, tousling my hair,
tracing my cheek with his fingers, showing me where his 'cum' had
splattered onto my school shirt. Thank god for that; at least I'd be able
to dump it into the laundry basket as soon as I got home. Stick it under
the tap first. Soak it. Tell mum it got soaked in the rain.

Silly little fool. Yes, that was me. Yet not that silly. I gave the man a
false name. Billy. I gave him a false telephone number. I told him to let
me off on a street two away from my own road. I went hopping and jumping
and skipping home in the rain, half worried that I'd end up pregnant, and
half worried that I was stupid enough to believe a boy could get pregnant.
But I was elated, yes! I wanted something, and I had got it. I had made a
man love me, not only love me, but take a desperate risk to show his
love. well, at least his desire.

The cubicle door in the toilet didn't even lock, was half off its hinges,
and I had sucked off a grown-man when, at any moment, anyone could have
walked in!

That night fantasy took over. What if there hadn't been one man, but two,
three four, half a dozen. And they all wanted me to suck them off! I'd sat
there for ages, sucking each one, teasing, tormenting, bringing to the
edge, backing off, sucking fast, slow, shallow, deep, until even I was
filled up, filled by their 'cum' down my throat, in my belly, squirting out
of my asshole. Crazy, crazy - beautiful and crazy!

I have got lots of photos of me from that year, school photos, summer
photos, Christmas photos. God, I am just a baby! Twelve years old and
looking about ten. Not a hair round my dick, but checking most mornings,
praying for them to show up, so that I could stand in the showers with
twenty other boys, casually unaware that I, too, was entering puberty.

Crazy, crazy - beautiful and crazy!

That was Diego, and he was only 10! And what was I doing, skinny-dipping
with Diego on a hot, lazy summer afternoon when everyone else had gone off
in the coach shopping, and I'd been left behind with crazy, beautiful
Diego.

Diego, with his shoulder-length corn-coloured hair, hazel eyes, perfect
teeth, and smile that seemed to have escaped from a television
advertisement. Diego, whose English was so fractured that it was difficult
to determine when he'd switched from Italian into the language he'd come to
England to learn.

And there he was, with me, swimming naked, in a back-garden pool,
frolicking like a demented baby dolphin, climbing on my shoulders, then
diving headfirst into the water's sparkling embrace. And he hopelessly
embarrassed to feel my cock rising hot and hard as underwater he wriggled
between my legs.

Damn it! Don't tell me I am a pedophile. Just let me enjoy Diego for what
he is - a beautiful, crazy Italian boy having a great time with me in the
pool. And out of the pool as he climbed out, butt white in the tanning sun,
and sprinted into the house. Forbidden! He hadn't even tried to find his
towel. Just climbed out of the pool to spring step by step across the
garden and into the house. The carpet would be soaking; I would get my ass
kicked, or my wrist slapped by the boss when the coach got back. Little
fucker!

I climbed from the pool, grabbed a towel, gave myself a perfunctory rub,
and strode into the house after him. Where the fuck was he?

"Diego! Diego!"

Up the stairs. Check the boys' dormitories. The toilets. The broom
cupboards. No Diego.

My room.

There he was, stretched across my double bed, legs hanging over the edge,
his hair splayed out on the green bed spread, lying on his back, holding
above his face a copy of 'The Beano' and laughing at the comic antics of
the Bash Street Kids.

God, but he is beautiful. Skin kissed by the Italian sun. Shoulders broad
for his age though he is close to being skinny. Cream coloured chest topped
by the cherries of his nipples. His stomach so flat there could only be
five inches in depth. The dimples of his thighs carved by Donatello. Long
legs, big feet, long toes. His genitals curled up like...

Not quite.

Diego had an erection. A hard on. His stiff dick rose like ivory asparagus
from the twin orbs of his balls, the little sac lying between his join of
his legs. Long legs that had to bend at the knee as his toes brushed back
and forth across the carpet. Reading 'The Beano' with an erection, or at
least looking at the picture. He laughed and his hard penis, around three
inches in length, wobbled in time with his laughter.

I sat, towel-wrapped, by his side and let me fingers brush his hair, thick
and wet from the pool. Five, ten, twenty times. Diego threw the comic
backwards over his head, cupped his hands beneath his head, gazed at the
ceiling and closed his eyes. His cock stayed hard.

Damn it. Not this temptation. Take this temptation from me.

I leaned over and kissed his belly button. Tiny kisses. Flutters of tiny
kisses. The boy smelled like freshly-baked bread. He was still wet, wet and
slippery, so how could he smell like fresh bread? I ran my lips across his
tummy, up his chest, in his armpits as smooth as a chalice, and down to the
forbidden lands again. A tiny pressure on the back of my head. Diego was
pushing my head downwards. This was crazy. This was impossible. This boy
was ten years old. This boy was from one the richest families in northern
Italy. I know that Diego and I had developed a close, a special
relationship over the past two weeks, but what signals had I given off that
led him to this.

Noises in the drive. The coach crunching over gravel. Excited voices,
Italian, squabbling, must be the Italians.

I sprang from the bed, grabbed Diego, the little bastard was giggling,
half-carried him to the shower room, stuck him inside, turned on the
shower, and then retreated to my own bedroom, my own bathroom, my own
shower. I let the water run hot and cold until the witness of my desire
subsided. Dried myself. Hopped downstairs to greet the weary shoppers. At
the top of the stair my hand was grabbed. It was Diego. He had on his blue
jeans with Mickey Mouse braces. He was laughing. We skipped down the stairs
together.

Close, so close, but close to what?

Catastrophe or ecstasy? Depression or delight? Self-knowledge or
self-denial? That summer I did not find out. I surrendered to the joy of
being with Diego as his friend, his teacher, but never his lover. I know
that Diego was discovered in the bed of an older Italian boy, 13, and as
handsome as Donatello's David. We discovered Diego tucked in between
Diego's legs, sound asleep, his thumb in his mouth. All the other boys
laughed, but it was kindly laughter, for they were Italian boys, just
crazy, beautiful Italian boys.

Diego knew what he wanted. And I knew what I wanted. I saw what I wanted in
my dreams, sleeping and awake, I saw me in my dreams, held, caressed and
loved by a man, by men. Men who wanted me. Wanted to hold me and love me. I
am not sure if my cousin David counts as a man, but he knew what I wanted,
and he gave and took it from me.

I was 13. It was Christmas. The house for once was empty. David was amongst
our visitors. He was 17. He was handsome, movie star handsome, and he was
fun. So we were Home Alone at Christmas. David was drinking cherry brandy,
and allowing me a few sips, and we were talking when the music came on. Do
I remember what it was? Will I ever forget it?

U2 - Unchained Melody.

Playing again and again through the PC in my study/bedroom.

How did it start? I am not sure. One moment we were sitting chatting, next
minute we were dancing a slow dance, body to body, skin to skin, my head
jammed somewhere underneath David's chin. Maybe he was teaching me to
dance; I honestly don't remember. But I could feel him hot and hard pressed
against me.

As usual our home was over-heated. Outside snow was falling. If memory
serves, we both had on T-shirts and shorts. One hand stroked my hair, the
other went round my buttocks as he rocked me in time with the music.

Then we were on the bed, naked. How the hell had that happened? I was on
top of him, my face between his legs, taking him into my mouth, afraid I
might choke, and afraid I might not be taking enough of him.

David had thick black hair down there, not on his chest, but down there,
black and silky. It tickled my nose. I felt like sneezing but though that
would be cheeky. I felt him grow harder as the head of his cock moved
through the foreskin. I inhaled smells of soap and sweat, of unnamed scents
of sex. As his prick moved back and forward in my mouth, in my throat, I
tightened my lips, then relaxed them, I sucked fast, then slow. I'd read a
lot of stuff on Nifty and I just prayed I was doing it right.

I felt David's tongue run from my scrotum backwards towards my most private
place. I gulped, almost bit him, prayed for more. I felt the hot tip of his
tongue press against my bum hole, my anus, probe and push it way in.
Nothing, nothing I'd ever known felt as good as that.

U2 were rocking in time to our motions: I need your love, I need your
lu-u-v, I need your lu-u-u-uv...

Every nerve in my body seemed to rush towards his tongue pushed, probed and
wormed its way into me. Too much, it was too much to bear. I pushed him
away, swung myself round to lie beside him, keeping my lips round his
hard-on, and sucked, my head moving up and down, taking in as much as I
could without choking.

Suddenly I felt it, a rush, a squirt, a spurt inside my mouth and throat,
again and again. I kept my lips tightly round his shaft and swallowed as
best I could... "hunger for your touch a long and lonely time..." I held on
as he pulsed himself into me. I opened my eyes and felt more than saw his
stiff cock slowly draw back into itself, leaving a big silvery drop hanging
where the foreskin had folded itself up like a flower as evening fell. I
ran my tongue around the inside of my mouth: I both tasted and smelled the
after-taste of toasted salted almonds.

David pulled up and held me close, running his tongue over my eyebrows and
closed eyelids. I couldn't open my eyes; I was ashamed, but I wasn't sure
of what I was ashamed. Certainly not of the sex; I loved that. But maybe
ashamed that I wasn't enough for him, that I was only a boy, only 13, with
a little cock - little compared to his - and no muscles, and no hair, a
baby, just a baby.

Ashamed because his tongue had felt so good, down there, down there in the
centre of so many of my dreams. Ashamed that I couldn't give him what a
girl could give him. Though I ached to give him it, down there. Did he read
my mind? He was down there again, his hot tongue everywhere. I thought I
would faint. I whispered to him. Sex things, dirty things. I whispered:
"Put it inside me. You can put it inside me. If you want. I want it inside
me."

We kissed deeply while he pushed a finger against my anus, trying to slip
it into my rectum; my body betrayed me, resisted, contracted. David raised
his fingers to my mouth. I sucked his digit and middle fingers together. He
pressed again, and down there I opened, slowly, until he could slide in two
fingers, then three. He moved them around, seeming to open me, to widen
me. Pain, dull then sharp cut through me down there. I bit my lip.

"Tell me if it hurts too much," he whispered.

I said nothing. I lifted and swung my legs over his shoulders, closed my
eyes and tried to relax. "God speed your love to me..."  I felt his penis
against mt anus again. He began to push and withdraw gently. I felt myself
open, felt the head bludgeon its way in. Excruciating pain, and I wanted
more. The back of my head buried itself in the pillow. I was unable to
speak; I was impaled and felt his cock slide into me deeper and deeper. He
asked if I was all right, and I pushed my arse harder against him, sliding
more of him into me. Nothing mattered except what was happening everywhere
and nowhere in my body. "I'll be coming home, wait for me."

I was heavy and falling, light as a feather and drifting through the air. I
opened my eyes and saw his, huge and sparkling, as little bolts of
lightning were shooting through them. Huge dark pools in which I wanted to
drown forever. Tears ran down my cheeks; I raised my face and kissed him as
he drove into me, withdrew and drove home again. My body was spiralling
somewhere amongst the stars. I was a constellation and I would be fixed in
the night sky forever.

David stopped. I opened my eyes and frowned. "Do it," I whispered. I
clasped my legs round his back and humped him best I could. From behind
closed eyelids I saw stars spatter my eyelids, the universe exploding in a
million pinpoints of light. I thought I could feel him thicken and pulse
inside me. His hair tickled the inside of my thighs. He was cumming,
cumming, cumming. No! That was me! I was spurting hard against his belly,
and for a moment I felt ashamed again. What would David think? A little boy
who couldn't even hold in his own... And David was cumming, too. And I
thought of the million trillion zillion little spermy-Davids swimming up my
bum.

Pregnant!? Maybe I would get pregnant. The thought was wonderful.

I fainted.

I know I fainted because David told me later. Because for a few moments he
was sick with worry. Then, he says, I stirred, opened my eyes, wrapped my
arms around his neck and pulled him to me. Cherry brandy kisses, kisses
sweeter than wine.

"Oh, my love, my darling, I hunger for your touch."

We showered together, in the hot and splashy water. David checked my anus
to see if there was any damage. Just a little. He put some cream inside my
with his middle finger, and I started to hump it. Dirty little bugger, he
laughed.

Then we dressed in woollies and anoraks, went outside and build the hugest
snowman you could ever imagine. I know it was a Snow-man, not a Snow-woman,
because it has Snow-balls!

David died that Spring. In Sri Lanka. He was doing a GAP year before
university. He e-mailed me every week until the accident happened. Every
time I hear Unchained Melody I cry - "lonely rivers flow to the sea."

"That Christmas I gave you my heart..." Another song and another Christmas,
this one much more immediate. Michael's Christmas.

How can I convey the immediacy of Michael?

Michael is 13. Michael is cute. That's not a word I use often but there's
no other word that quite fits the bill. Michael is cute, close to being
girl-pretty, but there's enough of the boy in Michael to keep that epithet
at bay.

Michael has thick dark hair. Sometimes it's shaggy. Then his mum hacks it a
bit but there's not much she can do to stop it being the kind of hair you
want to run your fingers through, and flick away the hair that hangs over
the boy's left eye. Is that how it started? Me walking Michael to school
some mornings, and flicking the hair from his eyes as we walked up the
narrow dirt path alongside the cemetery. The dirt path, fenced on one side,
thick bushes on the other. And Michael hanging around at the entrance to
the path so we could walk the half mile or so together.

On cold mornings his ivory skin glows with a red flush. His lips are
bee-stung. He has thick eyelashes, those double eyelashes like Elijah
Wood's, that some would say are wasted on a boy. His features are regular,
teeth straight and true, though they could use regular brushing. His shirt
is usually grubby, his school uniform shabby, his shoes wrong for the
winter weather.

Michael's family are poor and weird. The day that Michael was born, so he
tells me, his father announced he wanted to be a woman and be the mother of
the family. He put on a dress, a wig, and a few years later had "the
operation", as Michael puts it. He left the family when Michael was eight,
and access to the family is now barred. Michael has a step-dad who seems to
be a rotten shit. A few days before Christmas he came into the boy's
bedroom and announced: "Know what you're getting for Christmas - nuthin.
Well, not nuthin, cos you're gonna get a surprise but you won't like it."

It's easy to see that Michael is upset and shaken. His step-dad doesn't
physically abuse him, says Michael, but he's just rotten to him. The boy
doesn't want to tell anyone else about his home life, just me, and he
swears me to secrecy. It is clear he wants to be with someone, and the
someone he wants to be with is me. It all rattles around in my head;
Michael is a lovely boy, I am attracted to him, but, as they say, there be
dragons in that land.

A few days before the Christmas break we are walking home. Michael has
ambushed me at the top of the path. It's no big deal, everyone knows this
is the way I stroll to and from school.

We reach the centre of town.

"I know where you live," says Michael.

"I suppose you do. Lots of people do. I'm the only teacher who lives in the
centre of the town. And you live in Harley Street, which is... just over
there." (We live about half a mile away from each other.)

"My house is empty till 7," says Michael. "They've gone Christmas shopping.
I can't watch TV even."

I know the family has to hide the TV when the TV licence detector van is in
the area. They have no licence.

"And the house is cold."

Michael's eyes are huge in the Christmas lights. His skin glows, his breath
rises in misty vapours.

"I'd like to see your house. I promise I won't tell."

I do not investigate what it is that Michael won't tell. I sigh and say
come on then. We cut through the alley and within four minutes we are home.
The central heating is already on, the house is very warm, the Christmas
tree, the lights, the decorations, the size of the house seem magical for
the boy. He still looks slightly unsure, slightly forlorn, so I grab him
and throw him on the huge couch in the living room. Then I tickle him.

His laughter is like silver peals. Our bodies touch, our faces centimetres
apart as I wrestle and pin him down. His eyes are shining. I feel myself
stiffen.

I excuse myself and head for the bathroom behind the utility room.

"Back in a mo'," I hear myself whisper.

I am standing in front of the toilet, holding myself, watching the piss
splash down into the bowl. There is a shuffle of feet and Michael is
standing behind me.

"Can't wait," he whispers.

He prises open his buttons, and fishes himself out with a struggle. I hear
him tinkle into the bowl. I try not to look but I am only human.

Like me, Michael appears to be semi-tumescent, his penis is surprisingly
long and thick, he has pulled back the foreskin. The skin is a brownish
ivory, the head a purply cream, the shaft is true and straight. Like the
rest of him, Michael's penis is beautiful.

"You've got a big one," he says.

"Pardon."

"You've got a big one," he repeats, "much bigger than mine. Look."

I am taken aback. Michael sounds so confident, so sure of himself, and
there is a smile in his voice. "I bet I could hardly get my fingers round
yours."

I am stunned, even more so when his fingers close around the shaft of my
cock. They feel so warm, they feel so right. As the last trickle dies away,
he shakes it for me. he is finished, too, but he makes no attempt to slide
his back into his trousers.

"Can I? Please, please?" he asks, and before I can work things out, Michael
is seated on the toilet, holding my stiffening prick only inches from his
face, from those red lips. "Please, please?" He opens my belt and gently
eases my trousers to my knees, then draws down my underpants, making sure
my cock is released from the opening. I am so hard now that it aches.
Michael pushes up my shirt so it is round my waist. He leans into me and
presses his face against my erection. I am absolutely stunned, absolutely
horny.

Michael is masturbating me now, openly masturbating me.

"My daddy likes this," he says. "My real dad, I mean. And I like it." He
leans forward and slides his free hand between my legs, between and under
till his fingers are deep in my crack. "I'll stop if you want," he
whispers. "Just tell me what to do. I'll stop if you want, but I don't want
to. Really I don't."

A time-shift of maybe twenty minutes. Michael and I are lying on my double
bed. The bed lamps are dim, the music low. We are both naked. He is cuddled
deep in my arms. I can see my hardened semen glisten on his chin, his neck
and his chest. I can feel his hot hard penis press against my stomach. I
never intended any of this, but here we are. I am immensely happy and
immensely terrified. But Michael, well, if boys could purr, Michael would
be purring.

There is movement and the boy is scrambling up my body. He sits astride my
chest. He grins down at me. His hair is thick and dark. There are just the
shadows of the future across his pubis. My hands are around his buttocks. I
gently urge him further up and forward till his erection is touching my
lips. I flick out my tongue and tease the head of his cock. He is very
excited and his foreskin is all the way back. His boy smells are
intoxicating. I pull him further forward and hear him sigh as he sinks,
penis, balls and everything, into my hot hungry mouth. He begins to hump my
mouth. He is face-fucking me. The expression is crude but that's what he is
doing.

Michael is slim. I wonder if he did this with his father when he was eight.
How small and slim was he then. If his father was "a woman" what else did
they do together? Did he/she get Michael to fuck him/her? How far did the
operation go? If the boy fucked him/her, in which orifice did he do it? Did
his father fuck him? It is all wonderfully weird. I am working it out when
I hear Michael meow like a stricken kitten; his body arches; and he is
cumming into my mouth with surprisingly strong spurts. His semen is hot.
Hot little squirts that make me gulp to get it all down.

The boy collapses across me as I ease him down my body. I cuddle him and
pull him under the duvet even though the room is warm. It is shelter we are
seeking, not warmth. Shelter from public opinion, from outraged adults who
would flay me alive, and Michael, too, if they knew.

I feel Michael's warm breath against my chest. There are so many questions
I want to ask him, but I realise he is sleeping. I sigh. I try to keep my
life simple and uncomplicated, and "Here we go again."

Eventually I got all the answers to my questions, but they are not the
point of this story. The point is... what did Michael need and want? Later
he told me, "I only want to be with you," then added, "but the sex is cool,
too."

Eventually I said, "I want to be a friend of the family. That will make me
your friend, too, but if it happens that way, no more sex. At least not
until you are 16, and not until I am no longer your teacher."

Michael argued fiercely and eloquently, but I refused to budge. He gave in
and that's the way it worked out. I know Michael went off looking for sex
elsewhere, but, as far as he know, he stuck to other boys, literally and
metaphorically, and never sought sex with adults. By the time he was 16, I
was abroad again. We kept in touch for a few months, then drifted apart.
Had anybody been saved, had anybody been lost? I have no idea, but I know
that for a little while Michael and I both got what we wanted and needed,
and not too many people can say that.

I had a break while writing. I went downstairs and popped in a video. And
there he was - Michael. Not that Michael, another Michael. I will call him
Mike though that's not a name I ever used for him.

And there he is on the screen. So fresh, so alive, and so utterly beautiful
that it's hard to believe he existed in the flesh. His hair is light brown,
streaked with gold. Thick hair that managed to fringe his left eye at all
times. Almond eyes, gold and hazel. Wide set eyes. Elegant nose.
Mischievous dimples. A wide mouth that smiled at every opportunity. A happy
boy from a happy family. No traumas there. Michael, Mike - you deserved to
be 14 forever.

A happy boy from a happy family, and yet as sexually voracious boy as I've
ever encountered. Mike was waiting for me the day he joined our school. He
knew of me since I'd taught his sister, and she went home rabitting on
about this terrific teacher, with the ridiculous sense of humour, who
actually liked kids and got outstanding exam results for them. I learned
later that Mike insisted he be in my Tutor Group, and there he sat for five
years, directly in front of me, every morning, every lunchtime, with a
smile that said: "I know, and I love it!"

Mike didn't take me to bed until he was 14. I resisted him that long. I had
a golden rule: nobody from school, and definitely nobody from my own Tutor
Group.

Girls swarmed round Mike from the age of 11 and he loved it. He came from a
well-balanced family. His sister was beautiful; she knew it, and she loved
to be surrounded by boys. And Mike had girlfriends all the way through from
11 to 14 and beyond. I have never been sure if bisexuality exists; but in
Mike an insatiable desire to experiment with both sexes seemed to be what
satisfied him most. I don't want to make Mike sound promiscuous; he wasn't;
he kept the same girl for months on end, and he was fiercely loyal to the
girl of the month.

Whether or not Mike and I would ever have got it on had it not been for
Activities Week, I will never know. But away from school we went, me in
charge of 46 kids, on the hottest week of a hot June that turned out hotter
than I could ever have expected.

Michael (Mike) fell out of a tree on the second day. That was not much of a
surprise. An intensely physical boy, Mike had several absences from school
following falls from walls, bicycles, motor bikes, trees, buildings, and
pretty much anything above six feet. Although beautifully co-ordinated,
Mike took risks. If any act could be complicated until it was risky that's
the course he took, so it was little surprise when Mike was carried back to
the dorm at 10 in the morning to be dumped unceremoniously on my bed.

He was not badly injured, little more than a twisted knee, but the rest of
the day was going to be on a bed, or by the river, or in the swimming pool,
or at least somewhere with the weight off his leg. And that first place
happened to be my bedroom with its commanding view out over the grounds and
up and down the boys' corridors.

Michael lay there grinning. Smiling broadly is better though he winced when
I turned his knee.

"It needs cream," he announced, pushing his track-suit bottom to his
ankles, no mean feat when he could hardly sit up in bed. I obtained the
most inoffensive cream I could find and applied to the hollows around his
left knee. Michael chattered on, but when I tried to take my fingers away,
he whispered, "Stroke it, please. It feels so nice." I don't often blush
but I guess my face was afire.

Mike had this ability to make every conversation personal and intimate
within a few moments. Even in a crowded classroom, you'd find yourself
without warning in the middle of an intimate chat as if you were the only
person in the world Mike could confide in. It was not so much what he said
as the way he said it.

"I like being here with you, sir. Just us. Not all them kids. Just us. In
here. On our own. It's cool..." he giggled. "It's cool and so cool. Just
being here. Could you stroke higher please, sir. Please, just a little
higher."

His underpants were snow white, gleaming white. Old-fashioned jockeys, but
that bit too tight for him. And as we chatted and I stroked, Mike got a
hard-on. I watched it happen. He knew I was watching, and he let it happen.

"Just me and you, sir. Nobody coming. Nobody to disturb us. We can say what
we like. Do what we like."

His hard cock was outlined beneath the thin white cotton; then it arched
and tented the cotton. How easy it would be to let me fingers run the
length of this boy's erection. This boy who lay there, golden hair splashed
on a blue pillow case, lying there, touching me with his smile, inviting me
to ecstasy.

Suddenly he turned over. Embarrassed, I thought. Did I have time to sigh in
relief? I don't think so... for Michael reached round, raised his tummy and
jerked his underpants to his knees.

"Cramp, sir. Awful, sir. Right at the top of my legs. Could you, sir,
please, sir."

Medical, it's medical, I told myself.

I laid the tube of cream aside and gently dug my fingers into the tender
places where his long legs ran into the arch of his buttocks. Press,
release, press again. Knead and manipulate.

"That's good, sir, harder, sir. And a bit higher."

I have always been anal. I don't know why. One of life's mysteries, one of
life's little tricks. Almost unconsciously, my fingers parted his cheeks,
enough, just enough to see the pink wink of his pucker, so sweet, so
vulnerable. A sigh rose from the pillow. Michael spread his legs so that
one of the dangled over the edge of the bed. It was hot in the room, in
there, in that little furnace. The smell of cream and sweat and pure boy. I
pressed harder, manipulated more openly, leaned closer into him.

"Kiss my bum, sir."

Had I misheard? Was that Michael's voice or a tiny inner one of my own.

"Please, sir, kiss my bum."

I leaned forward and ran my tongue from the hollow of the boy's back into
the crack between his cheeks. How far to Babylon? Can I get there and back
by night again? Michael's hands came round to pull his buttocks wide
apart. "Please, sir." His whisper was hoarse, a whisper from a voice on the
edge of breaking.

I leaned all the way and ran my tongue along the inside walls of his
buttocks. My tip touched his anus, pinky brown and sweetly puckered. A
magnet. It drew my tongue to its very centre. I stroked it with my tongue,
pushed and probed, lost in a universe that had always been calling me
name. How long? I have no idea.

Michael swirled on the bed, grabbed me and pulled me to him. Tall for his
age, he was slim but strong. He pulled me onto him and kissed me full on
the lips, his tongue pushed at my lips frantically, I surrendered, opened,
and let him invade me. I fenced back the invader, attack, retreat, attack
again. His saliva poured into me in retaliation for mine. The flood gates
opened. He kissed my mouth, my lips, my face. His hands pulled and tugged
at my T-shirt while I jerked his up and away from his shoulders. Chest to
chest, belly to belly, we were glued to together by the heat of the room,
our bodies and our own sweat.

I was caught in a maelstrom. Michael jerked at my track-suit bottoms, my
slip, and pushed them down my legs. He flopped around like a landed fish
until we lay head to feet, faces jammed between each other's legs, sucking
the life out of each other. Me on the bottom, Mike on top, his legs
straddling me head to give him as much leverage as possible. Frantically,
he drove his cock into my throat until I felt the silk of his pubic hair
against my lips. He jerked the base of my cock and suck halfway up and down
the shaft.

I tried to warn him, tried to pull away, but he grabbed my bum and forced
me as deeply into him as he could cope with. My hips jerked and heaved in
time with his own; we emptied our balls into each other simultaneously. I
felt the semen was being sucked out of as much as I was squirting it. We
flip flopped around the bed; it bounced several inches across the room; we
held on for dear life until the earthquake pitched, passed, the turbulence
passed, and peace fell over the kingdom.

Michael struggled up the bed and wrapped my arms around him. He grinned
directly at me, hair matted across his forehead.

"Wow, fucking wow! Shit! That was the greatest!"

I almost told him to mind his language, but then laughed myself and pulled
him to me. "Hey, be careful with your knee," I whispered. "What fucking
knee?" he whispered back.

We lay for a short time, then he whispered again, "May I go exploring now?"
Not quite sure what he meant, I nodded assent. Down the bed he scrambled,
heaved at legs until I got the message, and turned myself over. The chance
to bury my head into a pillow and dream too much to pass on. Then I felt
it. Michael's long fingers pulling me apart, his smooth cheeks against my
own, his finger tips pulling me gently open, and his tongue probing,
inching, penetrating me. My sphincter sighed and gave up. I turned and
looked quizzically down the bed: "Are you sure...?" Michael looked with I
hesitate to use the term, a shit-eating grin on his face. Then our intrepid
explorer dived headfirst into the Dark Continent again.

Later, that night actually, after lights out, Michael crept into my bed and
told me with a grin he didn't love me. But he liked me lots, he respected
me, he loved having me as his Form Teacher, he loved my jokes, my moods, my
dictatorial whims. He didn't think he was gay though he'd "pulled" four or
five of the boys, and nine of ten of the girls, in his Year at school. He'd
never had sex with a man, didn't really want it, but wanted it with me.
Wanted me to be his teacher. Had wanted it since he'd joined my class. But
he'd been 11, only a baby, hardly worth my time. Didn't know about my
sexuality, wasn't interested in it, wouldn't pester me, but he did want to
be with me, for now, for this time. And would he let me...?

I have images of Michael dancing in my head.

That week we are up the river, having gone at least a mile in our canoe
beyond the others. We are lying in a field, the grasses are high, I am on
my back. Mike is trying to lower himself onto me, trying to fit my cock
inside him as he squats across my hips. We are both laughing between the
grimaces because neither of us brought Vaseline, cream, or any lubricant
other than our spit, and we've already kissed all that away. We gave up and
canoed our way back down the river, blinded by the sunlight bouncing from
the water and by our unsatisfied lust.

That week we are sharing a shower. Michael is pissing on me, holding his
foreskin tight and squirting over my stomach and legs with the little hose
of his cock. He's read about Golden Showers; he wants to try one, wants to
try everything. Later that session I am sitting on the toilet trying to
take shit while Mike sucks me off. It is damned near impossible; try it and
see. It's Michael idea. I am very dubious but he talks me into it. Later
that same night we are in bed again, in the 69 position, trying to make
each other come, but only by tongue-fucking each other up the bum. I can't
come that way but Michael explodes with a series of scream that could the
wake the dorms if the boys weren't stunned by the activities of the day and
the heat.

Am I ashamed of all this? I have tried hard to be ashamed but I just can't
make it. After all, it seems to be something Michael needs, and if not with
me, with whom? Because I would not put anything past the boy, and I know
what it's like to be standing in a bus station toilet on a wet and windy
miserable afternoon being sucked off by a strange man, hoping, praying he
will not bite my dick off, or force me to suck him, if I don't choose to,
or murder me and hide my mutilated body, etc. etc.

The coach pulls back into school grounds. I had already arranged to give
Michael a lift home. His family lives closer to me than the other Michael
did. As I drive, he chats. Mostly it's thank you; it's so warm, so sincere,
I begin to wonder if we have been through the same experiences. And he
tells me before I tell him: It's over. The people in our Tutor Group
wouldn't understand the closeness between us; they would misinterpret it as
favouritism, and never indulge in favouritism, especially with my
favourites.

As we reach Michael's home, we see his mother at the door. She waves to
us. As I pull the car in, he leans across me and gives me a big open kiss
full on the mouth. I am literally gob-smacked. Then he jumps out of the car
and dives into his mother's arms. As I haul his hold-all from the back
seat, I hear Michael shouting: "Told you I'd do it, mum. Told you!"  His
mother comes towards me, smiles, says: "Ignore him, he's an idiot, but he
has one a fiver from me."

Then she grabs me and kisses me.

"There, I got my fiver back!"

Michael is married now. Sue and Michael have twins, one boy, one girl; he
never does anything by halves. He still pops in from time to time; he is
great company, but the past is the past, and never casts its shadow between
us, only its sunlight.

Five years, five long years that passed by all too quickly. And during that
time, sex was probably the least essential element in my relationship with
Michael. That's the way it should be. Those who give themselves the name of
Boy Lovers should have this in common: loving all of the boy is so much
more satisfying than the silly, self-defeating exclusive focus on genital
areas. Oh, don't get me wrong; that side of being male is wonderful, but
taken in the context of a whole relationship, it is only part of the whole,
the rays of sun that light up an already breath-taking landscape.

It is the same for Man Lovers, those boys, who like myself, want a man in
their lives, a whole man. For if you look at those boys you will find they
have something in common: they are missing a significant male figure in
their lives. Absent fathers, inadequate fathers, insignificant fathers
won't do. Boys are hungry for role models, and the only role models who
really matter are the men in their lives because finally that is what they
have to be - men.

Don't get me wrong. Many of the sweetest, strongest, most tolerant,
independent boys I have met are those from single parent families where it
is mum who has raised them; it is mum who has passed on to them so many of
their caring qualities, their ability to listen, their ability to feel,
their ability to share emotions; it is mum who has allowed them to develop
their female side. But in the end boys have to function in the world as
men, and if they have no men as guides, mentors, role models, they will go
out and find them.

Bobby found me, just at the time I needed to find him.

Oddly enough, given the overhwhelming love I have for Bobby, the images
that come to mind aren't initially sexual.

There is Bobby running in from cricket, diving full length onto the couch
as if he owned my room and all its possessions as exclusively as he held my
heart. Face flushed, he announces: "We won! Just by 3 runs but we won!"
Bobby taking the stairs three at a time, diving into my arms, embracing me
with his legs, yelling, "Mum says I can't stay the weekend." Bobby gobbling
half a kilo of ice cream, then staring hungrily at what's left on my
plate. Bobby by the lake, stretched out full length, his head on my stomach
as he twitches on the fishing line tied to his big toe. Bobby taking a shy
bow as he completes his first evening in the school play I have written
especially to provide him with a starring role. Bobby mastering backgammon
in a couple of hours, then going on to defeat me time after time,
unhindered, as I am, by my steady gaze at his face rather than at the
board.

There is a special picture of Bobby that hangs in this room. It is Bobby
and his mother. We travelled across the county on a warm, sunny June day
for Bobby to battle through to the final of the County Under-13's
championship, and Bobby has won the final 6-4, 5-7, 6-4. His head is tilted
back, his face flushed with laughter, victory, exertion and the
sun. Opposite is his mother, her head thrown back, laughing, sharing in
Bobby's pleasure. And I am there to capture the moment in a photograph
which will never be equalled in either of their lives.

The sex seems almost trivial though Bobby approached even that with his
typical forthright delight. How did it begin? With sport of course.  Rugby.
Bobby staggering into my rooms in the House after a school match in the
mud. He is 12. He has to wait for his mother to arrive in the MG to pick
him up; she is always late. "May I?" and he is into my shower cubicle,
throwing his shirt, socks, shorts, jock strap behind him as he goes. The
young take so much for granted.

"Don't go. I want to talk about the game."

Bobby steps out of the shower, water running down his well-built,
well-formed body, diamonds hang from his nipples, he rubs his thick dark
hair briskly as his penis, large for a 12-year-old, bounces between his
thighs. It is only later Bobby admits he pulled at his penis in the shower
to thicken it a bit, "just in case..."

He throws the towel to me.

"Can you do my back, please?" I catch the towel, it is very damp, so I
flick a fresh one from a drawer and begin drying his butterfly shoulders,
the nape of his neck, his back, his strong rounded buttocks. His presence
is over-powering. "Mum says come for dinner," he announces between
recollections and reflections on the match.

"Shit, I've got cramp. Ooops, sorry, sir, but I really do."

He turns to me, left leg cramped in pain. I kneel before him and begin to
knead the calf muscle. He is in pain, his groans and assorted ouches tell
me so. My open palms run the length of his leg again and again, and then
squeeze the calf muscles rhythmically.

I glance up and Bobby is fully erect.

His erect penis is about four inches length and thick for his age. The skin
is the palest pink. There is a flutter of foreskin round the head of his
cock. A few wisps of dark hair show that puberty has set in. His balls hang
low, the outline of each testicle clear. He pushes himself towards me a
fraction.

I look up into his face. His eyes are alight with desire.

"Maybe I'd better lie down," he whispers.

Bobby backs towards the couch. I follow on my knees. He stretches out full
length. "Can you massage me?" he whispers. I know I should turn away, step
briskly to my feet, play the man to the boy, nothing has happened yet. His
voice is filled with desire... "Please."

I lower my face and press the length of his penis against my cheek. I am
lost. I am drowning, not waving. And stretched out before me is the Word
made Flesh, beauty incarnate, a desire as compulsive as my own. A light
breeze flicks the curtain open. I open my lips and seal the future.

Bobby and I have two years. Then he moves up into the senior school, and I
move away to London. And, yes, there is sex lots of it, and so much of it
humorous and in the most unlikely places. But the time comes when it is
time for me to move on, to let Bobby move into a life that does not depend
on me, a life where all the options are open to him. Unlike me, Bobby is
not a fly fixed in amber, but, like me, he is content with what he is, or
with whatever he will become. And I honour him by letting him go.

And so it is Monday night 31 December 2001. Time to reflect and recollect.
Time to move on. Time to let the old baggage go and only carry what's
important into the future. And my boys, all them, are important, and I will
carry them into whatever future unfolds. Photographs, memories, they are
not all that's left to me, but they are important to preserve in pleasure.

And tomorrow... well, tomorrow is another day.