Date: Sat, 29 Jan 2005 06:27:18 -0500
From: Jon Kent <jonkent@post.com>
Subject: SUDDENLY THAT SUMMER

DISCLAIMER

If reading erotic material is illegal where you live, read no further.
If you are under-age for this type of erotic material, read no further.
If you are determined to read more anyway, remember that in real life
you've always got a choice. Never put yourself in dangerous or risky
situations. Remember you always have the right to say 'No thank you'.


INTRODUCTION

Sexual encounters involving young people happen.
Only hypocrites will deny that reality.

Consider this.

At what age does the young male realise that he wants to experience sex?
In the modern developed world that realisation seems to be emerging
at a younger and younger age. Puberty itself seems to be occuring at younger
and younger ages. At the same time, youngsters are bombarded with sexual
imagery, sexual invitations, sexual temptation. And some of these young people
are going to become sexually engaged earlier in their lives.
This is simply a description of what happens.

At what age does the youngster become an 'older' person himself?
Does he go to sleep an 'innocent' the night before his birthday,
and wake up a 16-year-old predator?

Sex between an adult and a 'minor' is illegal.
Each society determines its own age of consent.
Members of a society should accept the consequences of their own actions.

But we should be aware that such relationships will happen.
This is not so suggest we should condone them.
It is to suggest that we should try to understand them.

To what extent are the stories here fictional?
For the record, they are entirely fiction; they never happened;
for in a sense ALL stories are fictional.
Even the purest autiobiography is fictional in the sense that
events, people, incidents, situations are selected, remembered,
reconstructed, reimagined.

Nothing ever was as it is remembered.


LET IT BE ME

Liam and I walked out onto the lawn, side by side, but hardly together.
He sat down in one of the swings. I sat on the other.
He looked back at the big house.
I looked back, too, and saw the two women talking in the sitting room,
or rather, Liam's mother talking, my mother listening.
I wondered if Mrs Morton was giving instructions.
I felt uneasy about my mother taking another woman's orders
but I'd already accepted this was the way it was going to be from now on.

I tried to read their lips, my mother's thin and pale,
Mrs Morton's perfectly out-lined in a washed-out pink.
If I'd known the word sensual, I might've used it.
Even without knowing it, I felt her sensuality even at that distance.
I turned and stole a glance at Liam. He was watching me
and I felt my face blaze from my over-starched collar to my hairline.
His lips were exactly like his mother's though not quite so pink.
Liam gazed at me without pity.

"What's your father do?" I asked to deflect his attention,
deflect his gaze.

"He doesn't do much. He's dead. Dead as a dodo. Dead as a doornail."

He used his long bare legs to push his swing higher. I envied him his shorts.
It was hot, really hot. I could feel the stickiness around my private parts,
in the crack of my bum. The sweat trickled down my legs.

"And yours?" he asked.

The inquiry sounded like an after-thought.
Polite, but distinctly an after-thought.

"Gone. Left. He's got a new family, I mean. Haven't seen him for a long time.
 Don't much care." The last remark was insouciant
 but the lump in my throat betrayed me.

"He died in the Atlantic."

"Who?"

"My father. He was a yachtsman. Sailing solo."

"Did they find the body?" This was my attempt at conversation.

"The body? They didn't even find the fucking yacht."

I pushed off till I was swinging gently backwards and forwards.
I thought it over. Liam's father going down with his yacht.
Somewhere in the Atlantic. Pretty heroic stuff.

"What's it like having a dead father?"

Liam thought it over for a bit.

"Much the same as having no father, I expect.
 At least we've both got our mothers now."

These remarks didn't make complete sense to me,
but I put that down to my inferior status.
Liam was 14. I was 12.
Two years is a huge stretch of time in the annals of childhood.

"Fucking hot, isn't it?" Liam said, dragging off his short-sleeved shirt
 and flinging it carelessly on the lawn.

I was tempted to respond with a snatch of bad language
but I knew I'd blush even more furiously. I stole glances at Liam
as he swung idly in the noonday sun.
Two years was the difference in our ages,
but he was long-bodied, lean-muscled, broad-chested
while I still carried the puppy fat of pubescence.
I was good-looking, I knew that.
Enough women insisted on tousling my hair.
But if I was 'cute', a word I detested, Liam Morton was handsome.
I couldn't compete with that, not that I'd even try,
and it only served to confirm my status.
My mother was the new housekeeper; his mother was the lady of the house.

Liam raised his arms to pull himself higher on the swing. I blushed again.
There was hair in his armpits, thick, luxuriant, dark hair.
My armpits were hairless, and as smooth as the brass doorknobs
that caught the eye in Heathfield House.
Thick, dark hair. I tried not to, but I couldn't help glancing at his crotch.
He would have hair down there, too, probably thick and dark.
My face was afire. I didn't want to think about that.
Because it made me think of what else would be down there,
and that, too, made me feel so young, so junior, so inferior.

I had hair down there. I had five hairs to be precise.
I knew because I'd counted them that morning.
Three on the left, two on the right.
They looked so pathetic I was tempted to pull them out.
Better not. Best left alone. Don't even think about down there.
You'll only get a stiffy again.
That was the right word, wasn't it? A stiffy, a hard-on, an erection.
I knew the words even if I wasn't sure what the purpose of the phenomenon was.
I wasn't that stupid. I knew it had something to do with sex.
Something about the gentleman pushing his 'stiffy' into the lady's 'down there'
and making babies and all that sort of stuff.
But when I thought about that sort of stuff,
I couldn't help thinking about my mum,
and that stopped me in my tracks.

"The pool. I said let's go down and have a look at the pool."

"What? Pardon? Excuse me. The pool? Have you got a swimming pool here?
Can we use it?"

"'Course we can, you dummy." Liam was grinning.
He leapt from his swing, faced me, grabbed both my hands
and jerked me from my swing. We can use it any time we jolly well like.
You can swim, can't you?"

I nodded.

In fact, I was an excellent swimmer. Mum was, too. It was she who'd taught me.
I didn't mention that to Liam. I salted the fact away.
He'd be impressed, and I so badly wanted to impress him.

"And Dan will be here on Saturday; he'll be here for the rest of the summer,
and it'll be fucking great, just fucking great."

"Fucking great," I echoed, but Liam was already trotting across the lawn.

I'd missed my chance to impress him with my carefree use of a forbidden word,
and I did so want to impress him.
Even from that first day I worshipped Liam Morton, worshipped him
with that dogged reverence the young have for the slightly older,
the almost attainable.
Worshipped him in the way that the young can never worship the grown-up.
Adults belong to a different world; Liam was a hero in my world.
And the fact that my world was almost entirely circumscribed by his world
made not the slightest difference.

The blue waters of the pool sparkled in the sun.
It hurt my eyes, made me squint, but it was paradise.
Not quite a full length pool, it was immaculate, white tiled, blue striped,
with a small diving board at the deep end.

"Dan filled her up last Saturday. Come on, let's get in."

As he spoke, Liam stripped off his shorts. No underwear.
He kicked his open-toed sandals towards the lawn. No socks.
"Come on," and dived neatly into the blue.
His penis, thick and heavy, at least to me, swung beneath him,
then led him beneath the shimmering water.
Beneath my flannels, my penis leapt to life.
It did that more and more these days, but usually in the shower,
usually in bed, usually when my hand slipped down to feel its pulsing life.
Why here? Why now?

Liam's face emerged, spouting water like a whale.
He did a backward roll, sleek as a young dolphin,
his penis bouncing from a thick nest of hair against his belly.
He swam to the aide and gripped the rail, pulling his shoulders from the water,
his dark hair thickly-plastered against his forehead.
He grinned, his even teeth shark-white.

"What you waiting for? Another invitation?"

"No swimming trunks," I muttered,
dragging one shiny black-leathered foot along the tiles.
I felt stupid. I know I looked stupid.

"What the merry hell do you need swimming things for?
You mightn't have noticed, but I'm male, too.
I've got a dick and balls. You've got a dick and balls -
you do have the right equipment, don't you?"
Like a fool, I nodded.
"So what's the problem. I'll look the other way if you're shy,"
Liam laughed, but not unkindly.

"My mother... your mother..."

"My mother? Your mother," he echoed. "Mothers don't count.
And we haven't got anything they haven't seen before.
At least my mother has. Come on. Don't be a chump,"
and with that he turned and slipped beneath the water.

I retreated twenty yards to a huge rhododendron bush.
I stood there. I frowned. I made my decision.
Solemnly I undid and removed my tie. Then my blazer.
Then my shirt with its itchy over-starched collar.
Folded them into a neat pile. Opened my snake belt.
Unzipped my flannels. Slid them off, perching precariously on a single leg.
Folded them.
Undid my shoes, slipped them off.
Placed them neatly by my trousers. Slipped off my socks.
Stood there in my white y-fronts. Slipped them off in a rush.
Cupped my genitals in my right hand.
Dashed for the deep end and dived in.

Bliss! Sheer bliss!

I rose to the surface to find Liam waiting, smiling,
spitting a stream of water into my face before I could recover.
Not fair. I dived below and pulled away his legs.
Taken by surprise he went under, came up spluttering, laughing, out for
revenge.
I turned and swam for the other end.
Liam was two years older, was stronger, had a better reach,
but I'd been trained by an Olympic trialist.
I only mention this because it's true.
He almost caught me, but I reached the shallow end, turned,
pushed off with my feet, was past him and away again.
Liam tried and tried again, but I was faster, slippier,
and could outswim him all day if I had to. But he cheated.
All's fair in love and war, and this was war.

Liam stopped in mid-pool, turned and waited for me to swim straight into him.
He swung both amrs around and held on. Not fair.
He was standing, my feet were off the bottom.
He held on to me.
I could feel his chest against me, his belly, his hips,
and what could only be the small hose pipe in his groin press against me.

"Where the fuck did you learn to swim like that? You've got to teach me."
His smile was as hot and carressing as the sun.
I basked in the glory.
I looked into those dark-fringed eyes, saw thunderstorms,
saw water-pearls hang from his ears,
noticed for the first time the tiny mole to the right of his nose,
felt my penis stir and thicken.

"Fuck, no, please, no, not now," I prayed to whatever God was not listening.
Liam held me tighter. He must feel me, must feel it.
I grew increasingly aware of his own private part.
His eyes joined his lips in his smile.
At least that's how it seemed to me.
My face burned, my shoulders, my chest burned;
beneath the cool waters my penis was turning to fire.

"Boys! Boys! Lunchtime. Come on in. Where are you?"

Liam's mother! On the way to the pool. Dream turned to nightmare.

Liam let go and called back.

"In the pool. We're in the pool!"

The traitor.

Liam let me, swam to the side, and was hauling himself from the water
as his mother arrived, trailing a cloud of white chiffon behind here.
Standing beside her son, looking down at me,
she seemed entirely unaware his nakedness.

"Robert. Lunchtime. Your mother's making a cheese and ham salad.
I'm making lemonade, with real lemons."
She made 'real lemons' sound like both a challenge and an achievement.
"Now out of the water like a good boy.
Liam will show you where the towels are
though you'll hardly need them in this heat."

"He can't."

"Can't what?"

"He can't get out of the water."

"Whyever not?"

"Because he's starkers, just like me."

She seemed to notice Liam's condition for the first time.

"Goodness gracious, that hardly matters.
In fact, it doesn't matter at all.
Let's not make a fuss over such a small matter."

Mrs Morton and Liam realised the import of her last remark at the same time.
Both burst into giggles. "It's not such a 'small' matter," added Liam.
The water in the nest at the bottom of his belly sparkled like diamonds.

"Well, I'll leave you boys to boys' business, whatever that is," laughed
Mrs Morton.
She turned and made her way towards the house, calling back over her shoulder,
"Five minutes, not a minute more."
Her laughter trailed behind her like the white chiffon.

"Come on. Let's get you out of there."

I could hardly refuse Liam's helping hand. He pulled me from the water
and onto the side of the pool.
Thank God, my cock - there, I've used the word - had subsided.
We stood there, two naked boys in the midday sun of the hottest July for
many years.

"No, not such a small matter at all," whispered Liam, his eyes of my
growing part.

Embarrassed, flustered, bemused, and vaguely flattered,
I ran for the refuge of my hot, sweaty clothes.
That was the last time I'd wear them that summer.

Haethfield House was in the middle of nowhere.
There was the village three miles down the road,
but the 'village' proved to be half a dozen cottages,
one general shop-cum-postoffice, and a tiny  church and graveyard.
As the graveyard was the most lively spot in the whole place,
Liam and I rarely cycled down to the village,
preferring instead to bike our way along the steep gravel paths that took
us... even deeper into nowhere.

Happy, happier, happiest.

That first week at Heathfield was probably my happiest,
at least in the sense of having Liam to myself.
Puffing and panting,
I peddled behind him, content to follow his lead,
content to have an uninterrupted view of those turning thighs,
the rounded buttocks, and the sweaty crease that split them.
Was it sexual?
Of course, it was. But perhaps no consciously so.
It was just wonderful, especially at the end of steep climb,
when we found a small valley, free-wheeled down, and threw the bikes aside.

Then we stretched out beneath a tree and rabbited on
about everying under the dappling sun.
Liam would stretch himself out, flip out a fag -
one draw had me coughing and spluttering -
parking his head on one arm, gaze at the sky and speak whatever was on his
mind.
I would lie alongside him, content to be there,
sometimes turning to sneak a peek at the strong lines of his face,
the straight nose, the slash of the eyebrows, his mother's lips.
The thirty three freckles around his nose.
Thirty three. I counted them.
Thirty three. Not one more. Not one less.
Thirty three.

Sometimes Liam would turn and lean on one arm, lean over me,
gazing down unabashed, seeming to inhale me, while I closed my eyes
and squirmed surreptitiously as the traitor between my legs awoke,
sensed the possibility of pleasure, and stretched into life.

"She did, you know."

"She did not."

"She did."

"Let you actually see it, you mean?"

"Where? When?"

As casually as I could, I adjusted my elongating penis.
Liam laughed, reached down, fumbled, took it between his fingers
and straightened against my lover stomach.

"There you are. Don't be such a wimp.
We all get hard-ons when we think about sex."

His laughter was so unaffected, I couldn't help joining in.

"Down at the graveyard. Behind the big tomb on the left.
You know, the one with the weeping angel. All that pigeon shit over its face.
No wonder it's weeping."

"But she's the vicar's daughter."

"They're the worst. At our school, in the showers,
you never turn your back on the vicar's sons.
They're worse than soap-on-a-rope.
Or so they say. I wouldn't know, about the soap I mean.
About the vicar's boys I do know. Believe me, they're the worst."

I tried my best to look less interested, less fascinating.
I failed.

"It was after church, after Evensong actually.
Mother was extending her social network,
so we had to attend Evensong, at least once.
She was chatting to the vicar, probably chatting him up.
He's not bad looking - for a vicar.
Anyway, Millie, that's Millicent, and I went exploring."

"How did she..? I mean how did you...?"

"Her idea. We were inside the tomb. I didn't tell you
it's a walk-in-tomb, did I?"

I shook my head. Liam's face was above mine.

"She'd played with her brother's and she..."

"Played with!"

"Oh, you are such a baby," Liam grinned. "You might have one of these..."
He tweaked my erection. "...but you really are an innocent."
I was too engrossed in his story to care that he left his fingers
flat against my, against my... hard-on.
There, done, best to call it what it was.

"Jeannie plays with her brother's - he's 13 -
and she wanted to see if mine looked the same.
I said 'sure' but only if she'd let me see hers."

"Did she? Let you see it, I mean."

"'Course she did. That's part of the game."

There was a pause. The pause extended itself into a silence.
Liam was forcing me to ask. I gave in.

"Well?"

"There wasn't that much to see actually. Some dark hair. Like brushstrokes.
A crease down the middle. Like smiling lips turned the wrong way round."

"Is that all?"

Liam laughed. "Funny, that's exactly what I asked. 'Is that all?'"

"Well?"

"She pulled them open. The little lips, the little smiling lips.
I knelt down to have a look. In for a penny, as they say.
It was all pink and wet in there, sort of folded over, with a little bud.
No a bud really. More like an aspargus tip."

"Did you touch her?"

"Yuk, no."

"Did she touch yours?"

My penis was rock hard. The closeness of Liam's face.
His minty breath. His fingers tracing my hard-on. My chest rose and fell.

"I should say not. That wasn't part of the deal. Fair's fair.
I let her have a look, but I don't drop my trousers for just anybody."

"Oh."

The note of disappopintment in my voice was obvious.

Liam scrambled onto his knees, unbuttoned his tennis shorts,
and together with his underpants, pushed them down his thighs.

"Look..."

I didn't look. I stared.

"That's called an erection, a hard-on, a stiffy."

Liam's cock was huge, pink and golden, the head a purple plum.
The shaft was five inches, the head added at least another inch.
Each testicle was clearly outlined in the tightened sac.
Slighty curved to the left, the shaft rose agqainst his belly,
against the thick dark hair at the bottom of his belly,
until the head just touched his belly button.

I swallowed and looked round, hoping there wasn't anybody nearby, watching.
I turned my gaze back to Liam's exotic, tempting fruit.

"Touch it if you like," he whispered.

"Well..."

"It's okay. Boys in our school touch each other's. It's a really good school.
There aren't any girls," he added as if that made everything okay.
He wound his right hand round the shaft of his erection and
began to move the skin the length of the shaft.
Each time he closed the extra skin over the head. "This is the best. Do you
do this yet?"

I tried to say something but the saliva had backed up in my throat.

"Come on. Relax. It's summer. You know you want to."
Liam fumbled at my shorts, flipping each button open one at a time.
How did he know I wanted to. I suppose my aching stiffness was a clue.

I reached out and wrapped my fingers round his shaft.
Soft. Hard. Dry. Sweaty.
It was all these things at the same time.
I pulled up and down on his cock.

"Oh, for fuck's sake..." He wrapped his fingers round mine,
taught me the correct rhythm, the desired speed, the varying pressure.
I felt his fingers do the same to mine.
Both his fingers on my penis, my smaller, smoother, small boy's penis.

"Jeannie did this to her brother. She told me about it."

For some reason this added to my excitement. So many images.
I felt my buttocks clench.

"She did more."

More? What more could she do? After all, it was her brother.
At least Liam wasn't my brother, so that made things better. But more? What
more?

"She took him in her mouth. Took it in her mouth. 'This' in her mouth."
He pressed firmly round my stiffy. "She sucked him till he came."
Came?
"Sucked him till he spit. That's what she called it, spitting.
Silly little cow."

The dam inside me was going to burst. Something was going to happen.
Everything was going to change. It was getting hard to breathe.
I pushed myself up into Liam's grasping fingers, let myself drop, pushed up
again.
I'd lost control. If I'd ever been in control, I'd lost it,
and the dam was going to burst.
Something beautiful and terrible was going to happen.

"You could use your mouth," I heard Liam's voice somewhere in the distance.
Why had it become so distant?
"Suck it, I mean, but only if you want to. I've done it. It's..."

I burst away from his hand.

Rolled over onto my stomach. My bum rose and fell.
My throbbing penis pressed against the sweet fallen pine.
I burst into tears.

Liam stroked my hair.

"Hey, come on now. It's not so bad."

No, no, that wasn't it at all. It wasn't bad. It was good. It was wonderful.
But it was new, oh so now, and I'm always scared of the new,
terrified of the unexpected.
I lay there, shorts and underpants at my knees,
my sweaty genitals pressed into the sweet pine needles.
Liam stroking my hair.
I felt his other hand gently stroking and caressing my backside.
That was okay, that was fine, that was the right thing to do.

I rolled over onto my front, looked up into his eyes,
then saw his cock flopped disconsolately between his thighs.
It was still beautiful. I wanted to reach out, take it,
smother it with little kisses.

Liam did us both us up. Pulled up my underpants and shorts.
Did each button up one at a time, then fastened my snake belt.
Then he dressed himself.

"I'm sorry," I whispered.

"Hey, hey," he whispered back.
"Nothing to be sorry about.
There's always next time."

He was right. There would be a next time. We had all summer,
and there would be a next time. I'd die if there wasn't.

"Last one back to the pool's a mother-fucker!"

Liam leapt to his feet. grabbed his bike and was away
before my arse was off the ground.

"Bastard!" I shouted after him. "You're the fucking mother-fucker!"

I'd learned so much in such a short time, and we still had the summer
stretching before us.

His name was Dan. He was the handyman. He lived in the stable block.
The horses had gone, and Mrs Morton was considering converting the stables
into guest accommodation. Paying guests. The Mortons were well-off, but not
rich.
They needed to make a living. Liam's school fees were expensive.
Dan had the first apartment in the stable block.
You reached it by woeden stairs outside the block. I knew all this because
mum told me.
We had rooms at the back of Heathfield House, in the servants' quarters.
Heathfield had once had a small army of servants,
but now there were only Dan and my mother.
I suppose I was a sort of companion for Liam;
I wasn't much but I was better than nothing, I hoped.

Dan was too young to be middle-aged, and too old to be young.
Sort of middling in height. Strongly built, especially in the arms.
He could lift Liam and me with each arm and hold us off the ground for ages.
He was good-looking though not handsome in the way that Liam was handsome.
Brown eyes, reddish brown hair, a slightly hooked nose.
He was so tanned I imagine he spent most of his working life outdoors.
Big nipples, like fifty pence pieces.
I blushed when I first saw them.
Thought my own little starfish nipples, of Liam's raisins,
and now Dan's big nipples, deep pink against brown skin, topped with black
currants.
Liam told me that men's nipples could be really sensitive. Liam told me
lots of things.
I tried rubbing my own, at night, in bed, but felt nothing.
I wondered what it would feel like to rub Liam's nipples, or Dan's,
and what would it feel like to them?

I was jealous of Dan, right from the start. Jealous of the easy-going,
friendly relationship he had with Liam, with my Liam.
And to tell the truth I was jealous of Liam, too.
It wasn't a hateful jealousy. I didn't wish them ill.
But they seemed to be a closed circle, and I was on the edge of that circle,
when I wanted to be inside, to be part of it.
I don't think they sought to exclude me, but between them was an easy-going
warmth
I found difficult to be part of.

Dan arrived that Saturday. Liam and I were in the pool.
In swimming costumes. Dan came strolling across the lawn.
I saw him first.
The sun was behind him, creating a halo effect around his head.
I guessed it might be Dan. I squinted to make out his face.
"Hey, Liam," I called across the pool, "who's that?"

"Dan! Dan!"

Liam turned, the water showering from his shoulders.
Even as he shouted again, he was pulling himself out of the pool.
As he ran bare-foot across the lawn, he shook the water from his
hair. "Dan! Dan!"

The handyman dropped his battered old suitcase, stetched out his arms.
Liam leapt into them, raising his legs so he could hook them round Dan's waist.
I heard myself "Tut tut"... after all, Liam was 14 years old.
He wasn't a child anymore, and jumping into a man's arms
was surely what only a child would do. As I tutted, I wished it were me.

"Well, well, who've we got here?"

Liam and Dan were standing near the edge of the pool. I held onto the bar
at the edge and looked up.

"That's Robert, Robbie. His mum's the housekeeper. He's only 12 but he
can't half swim."

"Good afternoon, Robert, it's a pleasure to meet you."
Dan knelt down by the side of the pool, careless his knee was in water,
and extended his hand. I extended mine and we shook hands rather formally.
His skin was dry, warm and pleasant to touch.

"And you, sir."

"No, not sir. Never sir. Mister Cummings if you must.
But I'd prefer Dan. And may I call you 'Robbie'?"

Nobody had ever called me Robbie - until a few seconds ago
when Liam decided I was to be 'Robbie'.

"Yes, sir. I mean, yes, Mr Cummings. No, I mean, yes, Dan."
My blush was furious but Dan was kind enough to register nothing
except that I was still holding onto his hand.
He glanced at our hands. I glanced, too, and jerked mine away
as if I'd touched the hot stove.

"Let's get you settled in." Liam rejoined the conversation,
sounding precisely like his mother.
"I'll show your rooms. Mum had them recurtained while you were away.
But she left the mattress on the floor 'cause that's the way you like it."
Liam turned to me.

"Go on swimming. I'll be back in a little while.
Then we'll as your mum to rustle up a picnic.
For the three of us. For the boys. For the men."
He turned and picked up Dan's suitcase.
I heard him grunt as he swung it over his shoulder.

"Catch you later, alligator. Or should I say dolphin." That was Dan to me.
He held my eyes for a moment. His eyes were smiling.
I don't know if eyes can smile, his were.
I used mine to smile back, then turned and free-styled my way up the pool.
I was showing off. I knew it. I couldn't help it. I wanted to impress Dan.
He wasn't what I'd expected. A handyman should be rough and ready,
but Dan was well-spoken, polite, kind, considerate.
I turned at the far end of the pool and saw them mount the stairs
attached to the stable block, Liam chatting animatedly,
Dan's hand on his shoulder.
O, let it be me, let it be me.

That night Liam kissed me.

I was grateful for his attention. I felt I'd been abandoned.
Liam hadn't returned from the stable block until 5 that afternoon.
I'd wandered the grounds, did a jigsaw, wandered the grounds,
thought about climbing the stable stairs,
but I've always had a horror of being uninvited, of being unwanted, of
being an extra.
The son of a servant, I knew my place, and my place was in the background,
waiting for the summons, waiting at the behest of my betters.
I thought of biking down to the village.
I might examine the gravestones in the churchyard.
I might explore the empty tomb where Liam and Jeannie had...

We'd had breakfast together. Lunch together. Dinner together.
Now we might have sex together. 'Have sex'... what a strange way to put it.
As if sex wasn't really a part of us, as if it was something
we pulled out of a bottom drawer, like Scrabble, and had it together.
Then put it back in the drawer until the next time.

We were lying on Liam's double bed. Mine was a narrow single in a back room.
His was a double in his room on the first floor of the house.
A room with a view.
The road, twisting and winding its way down to the village.
Blue hills in the distance.
I tried to initiate conversation about Dan, about his stable block rooms,
about how they'd spent the afternoon, but Liam smiled my questions away.
His mood was languorous. I'd found that word during the long afternoon.
Languor.
Dreaminess.
Indolence.
Lotus-eating.
I wasn't sure why anyone would want to eat a lotus, but Liam was dreamy and
indolent.
At least he was content to let me lie by his side.

It was my turn to lean over him. I noticed how his eye-lashes turned upwards,
like an inverted fringe. That's why he had always had a look of slight
surprise on his face.
I counted his freckles again.

"Dimples."

"Pardon?"

"Dimples. I'm going to call you dimples," he said,
"because you've got dimples in your cheeks when you smile.
They're very sexy. That's who you are: Mr Sexy Dimples."

I blushed.

"There you go again," Liam giggled. The look on his face became solemn.
He put his arm round my neck and pulled my face down to his.
Noses touched. Cheeks brushed. Lips touched. And then he kissed me.

This was not the first time I'd been kissed - by someone other than my
mother, I mean.  There been a few others; three to be exact. A fat girl
with freckles at a school dance; she smelled of garlic bread and seemed
vaguely desperate; a girl at summer camp - impressed by my swimming; and my
cousin Irene; I didn't like to think about that because she was family.

But Liam's kiss was different, different in kind, different in quality,
different in nature.
The brush of his lips against mine like silk on satin.
The pressure his flesh against my own.
The tip of his tongue that ran along the valley between my lips.
The gentle probing and pushing that opened me up.
The tongue that seemed to grow as it pushed deep inside my mouth,
then withdrew demanding pursuit from my own.
Never this intimacy of innocent geometry as our cheeks and chins
sought accommodation so that our tongues could explore
the deep recesses of our mouth. His hands held each side of my face
as he urgently probed ever deeper, then withdrew to let me enter him.
Our saliva ran like wine from mouth to mouth.
I tasted him: fruit gums, lemon drops, echoes of liquorice.
We lay there, me over him, and gnawed at each other.

I felt my penis hard, stiff, relentless, urgent in its need.

"You could use your mouth," he'd said. "You can suck it," he'd said.

I wanted to. I wanted to suck him, lick him, nibbe at him, chew him,
eat him up, gobble him up. I wanted to take him inside me, all of him,
devour him, make him mine, and become him, so that he would never never
belong to anyone else but me... because he would be me and I would be him.

My hand slid down the front of his shorts. That summer, as I remember,
we wore shorts always, never trousers,
never jeans, only shorts, swimsuits, or nothing.

He wasn't hard. He felt full but not hard. I was so hard I ached.
How could he not be hard? How could we kiss like this,
and he not be so hard it hurt?

Liam pushed my hand away. Gave a slight moan, frowned slightly
and pushed my hand away.

"Not now, Dimples. Not just now."

I was hurt, disappointed.

"Let's just lie here together and watch the stars come up."

I was content, I was happy.

Later, in my own bed, my hand slid down between my legs. Two, three squeezes,
and I was hard. But I didn't want to.
Without Liam I didn't want to.
Without Liam it didn't mean very much. And why not wait?
After all, we had all summer.

Blame it on Sherlock Holmes.

If I hadn't become engrossed in the sleuth of Baker Street,
I'd never have fancied myself as a boy-detective, and, maybe, just maybe,
I'd have minded my own business.

I found the novels in the house library, a house library that held
as many books as my school library.
Wall to wall books, on shelves that stacked them from ceiling to floor.
There was even a slide-along rickety staircase to reach the uppermost shelves.
I've always been a reader, so after tea I got into the habit of stretching
out on the chaise longue and tried to forget Liam
by losing myself in Arthur Conan Doyle.

Most days, after tea, Liam disappeared for an hour or so.
When I probed, he shrugged his shoulders. "Helping Dan, that's all.
This is going to be a guest house, so he's showing me the ropes."
There was no invitation for me, and I was too scared of a rebuff to suggest
I might come along, too. After all, I mustn't be greedy.
I had Liam most mornings, afternoons, and evenings
though usually he'd take off with a cheerful
"Helping Dan out. Catch you later."

It was the day, a Wednesday, if remember aright, that it happened.
Liam and his mother left after lunch for the market town.
Liam needed new 'togs' for school in September. They'd be back around six.
After tea, just mum and I, I was bored, restless, lonely.
I convinced myself that Dan might need me; I'd be his helping hand this time.
He wasn't round the grounds. Didn't seem to be in the house or the outhouses.
I wandered to the stable block, hung around the foot of the stairs. No sign
of Dan. I turned to go.

"Hey, come on up."

It was Dan. The door was open. He stood there, rubbing his eyes as if not
long awake.
Faded, blue-striped pyjama bottoms hung from his waist defying gravity
to bring them to his naked feet. he scratched his bare chest.
"Come on up. Going to put on a movie."

I climbed the wooden stairs and followed Dan into the block.
A huge room just below the eaves. Sparsely furnished.
A small wooden table, two wooden chairs.
A wooden wardrobe.
A small television set on a coffee table.
The double mattress, rumpled sheets and a crimson quilt. A tiny kitchen on
the right.
What looked like a shower room on the left.
Not too much of anything.
Nothing feminine about the room; a boy's place.

Dan flung me a cassette. Luckily I caught it.

"Stick that in the VCR. Then c'mere."

He sprawled on the mattress. I saw thick black hair in his armpits.
His chest was hairless but I could see hair on his lower belly.
It thickened below but narrowed into a thin straight line
as it headed for his belly button.

I'd never used a VCR before. I fumbled the cassette into the slot
and looked for the button. How the hell did these things work?

"Hey, c'mere. I got the remote."

Whatever the 'remote' was, it seemed to solve the problem.

Given the choice, I'd have sat primly at the table,
but it would've been rude to refuse Dan's invitation,
so I sat down on the edge of the mattress and fixed my gaze on the dark screen,
conscious that the man's half-naked body was inches from me.

"Hey, relax, take it easy," he said, friendly laughter in his voice.
"Here, take a mouthful of this. It's Liam's favourite.
And I won't tell if you won't."

Blindly I reached for whatever he was offering me.
It was a can. A cool can of cold lager.
I'd tasted lager before, a few clandestine sips at a school disco.
I didn't much like it, but it would be rude to refuse.
I tipped the can over my open mouth, misjudged the distance,
and felt a stream of cold liquid run down my throat.
I expected to cough and splutter.
I didn't.
In fact, I liked the stuff and kept pouring.

"Hey, take it easy, Slugger. Save some for me.
Plenty more where that came from and we've got all afternoon."
Dan laughed openly now and I could help giggling along with him.
The screen flickered into life. The movie was on.
Dan shifted around so that I leant into his chest with my back.
I blushed but accepted the comfort. After all, this is what Liam probably did;
just two friends together, enjoying a movie, and each other's company.

The movie didn't make much sense, and even I could tell the acting was rotten.
A young window cleaner was doing his rounds, and at every second window,
he got invited in for tea and biscuits.
He never seemed to get either the tea or the biscuits.
He ended up on the floor, or on the kitchen table, or in the bath,
or on the stairs having sex with the lady of the house.
But they kept most of their clothes on,
and even I could tell they weren't really doing 'it'.
I sat there and watched, my eyes fixed on the screen,
wondering when the real story would start.
Occasionally, Dan passed the can to me and I took a mouthful.
I liked the way the liquid warmed my belly, and it seemed such a grown-up,
such a Liam-thing to be doing.

Dan's arm was round my waist, his big right hand across my stomach.
Ever so slowly it inched its way onto my shorts and onto my private parts.
Maybe he hadn't even noticed. It was such a hot day I hadn't buttoned my
shorts up properly.
The third and fourth buttons were slid open. Dan slid his fingers inside.
He moved my underpants aside and took me in his fingers.
My face burned, my heart banged inside my chest. He twiddled my bits around.
I didn't go hard. I don't know why. I wasn't scared; I was too frozen to be
scared.

"You're a funny kid."

I felt his beery breath on my neck.

"Bet your ticklish."

He grabbed me backwards onto the mattress, and began to tickle me.
I didn't laugh but I struggled against the tickling.
In the struggle, my shorts and underpants were pulled to my knees.
I was mortified. I was wearing the baggy y-fronts mother always bought me.
How I longed for the sexy slips that Liam wore but I couldn't think how
to ask my mother for them. We continued to wrestle, or rather
Dan continued to bend me in assorted shapes like a handful of branches and
twigs.
I ended up across his lap, front up, head twisted towards the television as if,
by gazing at TV, I could deny what was happening to me on Dan's double
mattress.

I started to become aroused by what he was doing. I was embarrassed.
I could feel myself begin to fill and elongate.

"Getting excited?" I heard him whisper.

"No," I said. "I'm just watching the movie."

"Don't bother. That film's rubbish."

As he spoke, he pulled me round so that I was lying on the bed, alongside him,
our feet pointed towards the TV. He'd lost his pyjama bottoms.
He was aroused, in full erection, his penis huge and hard,
jutting up angrily from a forest of thick black hair, the skin pulled basck
from the head,
leaving it purple and urgent. He put one arm around my shoulder and used
his other hand to manipulate me. He looked at me from time to time
but I just lay there staring at the wooden beams above.

Although I was only half hard, he began masturbating me.
I'd learned the word from Liam.
After five minutes or so, he said in a low voice, "Come on. Help me out.
Do the same thing to me."
He took my right  hand and pressed it into his genitals.
They were hot and sticky;
I felt his balls wobble in their sac,
and the shaft of his erection burned against my wrist.

He whispered something in my ear. I couldn't quite make it out.
He whispered again: "You could use your mouth. Go on, suck it, you'll like it."
He pushed my face into his groin.

I felt the bile, if that's what it was, rise in my throat.
I tried to check it, hold it down, but I couldn't.
I vomited.
I think it's called projectile vomiting. It wasn't a polite vomit.
The vomit surged up my throat, into my mouth,
and I spewed all over his huge, hot, hairy hard-on.
I wretched and vomited up some more.
A blend of lager and cream scones splattered across his lap.
He pushed me away and rolled off the mattress.

"Oh, for fuck's sake."

He stood there dripping in my vomit,
his cock pathetically lopsided.

Though I was exhausted, I dragged myself to my feet,
and pulled up my underpants and shorts.
By some miracle, there wasn't a spot on me.
I couldn't meet his eye but I remained polite.

"Thanks very much for the movie, sir, and for the cold drink.
I'd better be going now. Mum'll be wondering where I've got to."

Dan said nothing, just stood there and dripped.

I made my way down the wooden stairs, crossed the lawn
and stood at the side of the swimming pool.
The waters sparkled blue and innocent.

"Aw, fuck it," I said out loud and threw myself into the pool.
The water embraced me, enfolded me and enclosed me. I began swimming lengths.
After 30 lengths I was dog-tired but I was content.
As I pulled myself from the pool, I even managed a laugh.

What a summer!

What a fucking great summer!

That evening Liam was bubbling with life and showed no signs
that he knew of my adventure in the stable block.
I couldn't share his enthusiasm as he prattled on about school in September,
his new togs, his new tennis racquet, his new rugger boots.
This was a world I couldn't share,
a world where you didn't go home after school,
a world where you studied, played, showered and slept near other boys.
As we lay on his bed, he described an alluring world I would never share.

"I won't be a junior any longer," he told me with some satisfaction.
"Not quite a senior, of course, but not a bloody sprog.
I'll be sharing with three other chaps instead of eight of us crammed in
one dorm."

I couldn't resist asking, though I could get the words out properly.

"Do you boys... guys... chaps... I mean together, you know?"

"'Course we do. There aren't any bloody girls around, so what do you think
we do?
Better than nothing. Anything's better than nothing. Even you."
His laughter took the sting from his last remark, and I joined in.
He lifted my hand and dropped it on his crotch.
"Give it a try if you like."

He was hard, very hard. Only his thin shorts and silk slip
separated my fingers from his throbbing flesh,
from his stiffy, his hard-on, his erection.
I unbuttoned him and slipped my fingers in.
Liam sighed and lay back, his head cradled by both hands.
For a moment I saw myself as a doctor making a delicate inspection.

"For God's sake, it won't bloody break. Haul it out."

I hauled it out. I stared at it. The thick shaft. The bulbous head.
The loose foreskin that moved easily back at the touch of my fingers.
The little red eye already weeping.

"You could use your mouth."

Had Liam actually said it or was it an echo in my mind?

He'd explained masturbation to me, semen, sperms... and the word 'cum'.
The word made sense. When I'd asked what happens when "it comes", he'd
corrected me.
"Not when 'it' comes, when I come, or when you come.."
It was protein, he'd explained, perfectly safe, and supposed to be good for
the skin.
I wasn't quite sure how it could be good for the skin but I took Liam's
word for it.
I took his word for everything.

I could use my mouth. And when he 'came', what then? Liam explained
it was best to swallow it, one's own, or a friend's. He also swallowed his own,
he explained. Made less of a mess of his underpant, bedsheets, towel,
socks, handkerchief, or whatever was available.

I could use my mouth. So I did. I leaned forward and kissed the head of
Liam's penis.
Kissed it again, aroused by the shape, size, texture, smell. With the tip
of my tongue
I flicked away a clear drop, let it rest on the tip, and then
rubbed it onto my lips and in, like a frog taking a passing fly.
Not much of a taste. Maybe a hint of saltiness.
Nothing offensive.
I sighed, bent to my task and closed my lips around the head,
resting them where the foreskin bunched along the shaft.
It was strange but it seemed the right thing to be doing.
I let my head fall and let Liam slip deeper inside my mouth. "You can suck
it if you want," so I did.

Three or four inches slid into my mouth. I felt Liam's pubic hair brush
against my lips.
I went down till my lips rested on his pubis.
Rose and slid down again.
Instinctively, I applied more pressure.
"Tighter... faster," I heard a whisper instruct me from above.
So tighter and faster it was.
"Play with my balls," so I did.
I played with Liam's balls -
they didn't seem that much different from my own -
and sucked his penis as it slid deep into my mouth, then out to the tip,
then in deep again.

"Touch me there."

I hadn't the faintest idea where there was, and I was in no position to ask.
I felt him take my free hand, my non-free hand was grasping the last inch
of his shaft,
and push it into the cleft below his balls. "There, there, down there."

Did he really mean where I thought he meant?

Liam knew best, and I let my fingers slide beneath his balls and beyond.
Along the sweaty seam that divides a boy in two, then on to the hot, sweaty,
moist darkness of his... I blushed as I tried to find an acceptable word.
There was none, so arsehole it was.
I'd never thought of the arsehole as erotic; before Liam I'd never thought of
anything as erotic; but now it seemed as fascinating as
the Interior of Darkest Africa must have been to Stanley and Livingstone.
I remembered a medieval map we had in school, and the Unknown Continent
on whose mysterious interior was emblazoned: Here Be Dragons.
Intrepid explorer that I was, I ventured on.

The tip of my middle finger touched a hotspot, and I jerked it back.
A hiss from on high renewed my courage.
I slid my fingertip over flesh that gave way to my touch: it was an arsehole!
But it was Liam's arsehole and that made it beautiful, and I wanted to make
it mine.
Suddenly I was not alone! Liam's hands, I presumed they were Liam's hands
were there,
pulling his bumcheeks apart.
What was that phrase mum used: "In like Flynn!"
I hadn't the faintest idea what she was talking about,
but if there was ever a call to be "in like Flynn" this was it.
I pushed and probed, and without warning my middle finger slid in to the
knuckle.
A groan from far off told me I was on the right track. Up the Congo I would
go!

I did what came naturally. I sucked faster, harder,
and at the same time drove my middle finger in and out of William Morton's
bottom.
The sounds above my head told me I was doing okay. I continued the process
with vigour.
Liam's body seemed out of his control; his hips jerked spasmodically,
his bottom lifted clear from the bed.
Was this the 'demonic possession' hinted at in one of my Sherlock Holmes'
stories?
Who gave a fuck, certainly not Liam, certainly not me.

Liam's body arrested itself with his arse fully off the bed.
The position held as his hips jerked frantically.
I felt spurts of liquid hit the back of my throat.
Two, three, four.
I'd no time to taste them. There was no time for the swallow reflex to kick in.
The spurts hit the back of my throat and went straight over.
I jammed my middle finger as deep into Liam as I could and held it there.
The palm of my free hand felt his tummy flutter uncontrollably.
I wished I could see his face, his expression.

His body stilled. I gently withdrew my finger and had a sneaky sniff.
A little bit shitty but nothing offensive. For a moment I went to suck my
finger.
Fuck no! That must be perverted. I was tempted but I didn't want to be a
pervert.
Liam eased my head off his wilting cock, and pulled me up level with him.
I put his arms around me and snuggled me tight. I was grateful for that.

"Gosh, I needed that," he whispered. "Thanks a mill."

"Nothing really," I whispered back, unable to think of anything more
appropriate to say.
Then added "Anytime," and blushed as I realised the import of the last remark.

Liam giggled.

"I'd do you now, but I'm knackered.
The shopping - and you - really took it out of me.
Hey," he added as a thought struck him.
"You've got a million little Liams swimming in your tum."
He slipped his palm under my t-shirt and rubbed my stomach.
Then slipped his fingers down further. "Breathe in." I breathed in deeply.
He slid his fingers beneath my shorts, beneath my underpants,
and let them settle flat on my hard-on. "I'll bet that's tasty," he whispered.
"Not as tasty as you," I whispered back.

I sometimes wonder if I'd left things there if it would have turned out
differently.
But I couldn't. I was Sherlock Holmes and I had to know,
had to solve the riddle of those missing hours, when Liam disappeared from
my life
and closeted himself with Dan in the stable block.
Did Dan show him crummy movies, share his lager, and mess around with Liam,
my Liam?
I tried to tell myself I wasn't jealous, to tell myself that I only wanted
to know, that I wouldn't do anything about it.
I was here for the summer, a companion for Liam.
My mother was a housekeeper, a servant; I was the son of a servant;
it wasn't my place to interfere,
and certainly not in the life of my employer, my master.
Still, I had to know, I just had to.

Thursday afternoon was hot, probably the hottest afternoon of that long hot
summer.
I lay on Liam's bed reading 'The Hound of the Baskervilles'.
Reading is an exaggeration.
My eyes skimmed over the text but I took very little.
In the morning we'd swum; a light salad for lunch; then Liam disappeared.
No sign of Dan.
I let the book fall, slid from the bed, and hung out of the bedroom window,
my gaze fixed on the stable block and the wooden stairs that led to the
wooden door.
My imagination was feverish.
Was Liam's face even now being forced down onto Dan's huge horse cock,
was he choking on the man's cum,
was a long thick middle finger jammed up my friend's bum?

Those wooden stairs, that wooden door; they were not only way into the
stable block.
I'd reconnoitred the scene just as the great SH himself might have done -
though he'd probably have sent faithful Dr Watson to do the donkey work.
And what had I found? An inside staircase, not so much a staircase,
as wooden structure leading from the old stables to the loft above.
They'd probably used it get the stored bales of hay down from the loft
to the equine beasts in the stables. I loved that phrase: the equine
beasts, very Holmsian,
my dear Watson.

The thought was father to my deed. I crossed the lawns, the gravel path,
and slid,
liquid as a cat into the stables. Sweat trickled down my back.
I climbed the wooden structure.
It wasn't very difficult but the sweat on my palms made good gripping
difficult,
and I was relieved when I reached... a wooden trapdoor!
and it could only lead to one place, Dan's room.
I pushed against it with my head, certain it would squeak like ten bats out
of Hell.
In fact, it slid up with ease and elegance.
Dan was a lot of things, a first class handyman being one of them.

I don't suppose I would have seen that much if Dan's bed hadn't been a
mattress on the floor.
As it was, I had a clear unobstructed view. I didn't understand what I was
looking.
I sensed something under my skin.
An all over prickling you feel when the air, heavy and humid, is charged
with electricity. Light filtered through the fine dust making what I saw
more unreal.

Dan lay on his back, his legs either side of the mattress.
Naked.
Liam straddled his thighs. Dan held Liam's hips.
Urged on by Dan's big bony hands, splayed against the tanned ivory of
Liam's skin,
Liam rose and fell, rose and fell.
His hair hung down over his face, dark hair, wet with sweat, the fringe
clinging to his forehead. Dan's back was off the mattress
as he pulled Liam's face and shoulders into his own.
The man's thick tongue penetrated the boy's lips, his mouth, his throat.
Now, of course, I can interpet what I saw, but at the time
I could only guess because what I saw didn't seem real, didn't seem possible.

As Liam rose and leaned forward, I saw it. A hard column of flesh
that miraculously appeared from my friend's bottom, his bum, his...
I had to believe my own eyes: his arsehole. And as Liam slid downwards,
the column of flesh, obscenely glistening, an ivory running baton,
disappeared until the boy's bum nestled in thick dark hair that could only
have been Dan's.

Was this happening in silence? Probably not. But I heard nothing, saw only
the moving images. I couldn't see Liam's face and I couldn't read Dan's:
ecstasy, cruelty, delight, determination - they seemed to flicker across
the man's face with a hundred other emotions I couldn't interpet.

This was fucking.

I'd heard about fucking; Liam had told me, but he'd told me about men and
women, boys and girls, and this was different, this was man and boy.

I'd seen fucking; or some semblance of it in Dan's crummy movie.
But the window cleaner and his ladies had nothing of the grim determination
I was looking at now. And I could understand how a woman could take a man;
after all, I knew where babies came from.
But how could Liam take Dan?
How could he take that huge hard horsecock deep inside him?
Surely it must hurt, must be terribly painful. Why wasn't he screaming?
He rode up and down on that slippery column of flesh,
and, apart from a few grunts and moans, the rest was silence.

I couldn't watch anymore. The hatred for Dan leapt into my throat
as sudden and quick as the vomit had. I wanted to climb through the trapdoor.
Run to the mattress. Scream and shout in fury. Tear Liam off that thrusting
pole, and smash smash smash Dan's smug face to pulp.
But I knew I couldn't.
I knew I was only a boy,
and this was an adult's world.

Like Sherlock Holmes I would retreat, bide my time, take stock, ponder my
next move.
To separate Liam from Dan. To remove Dan from the world I shared with Liam.
To have Liam for myself. To have and to hold. Liam. Liam. Liam. Let it be me.

That evening I stayed in my room. My mother told the Mortons I was flushed
and feverish,
obviously I'd taken too much sun. Obvious, but not true. Liam looked in on me
but I turned my face to the wall and feigned sleep.

Next morning I knew I'd do something. I'd no idea what that something was,
but I'd know it when it came, and it came much sooner than I could have
anticipated.

It was early afternoon. In the morning we played tennis; Liam won.
Lunch. A short siesta. A swim.
Then I to my room and my Conan Doyle; Liam to his rendezvous.
Around three o'clock there was a gentle tap on my door. Mum? Lemonade!
"Come in."

Mrs Morton stepped into the room. I was started and sprang from the bed.
Mrs Morton rarely talked to, rarely acknowledged my existence.
She was never unkind, simply distant.
She smiled Liam's smile and pushed some stray hair from her eyes,
a mirror image of a Liam-gesture.

"Robert, forgive me disturbing you. I'm looking for Liam.
I know you and he usually go cycling in the afternoon,
but your mother told me you'd taken too much sun yesterday - typical boys -
I thought Liam and you might be resting in his room.
No sign of Liam there, so I tried here. I'm sure you'll forgive the intrusion."
Mrs Morton was nonplussed by my failure to respond.
I realised I was being rude.

"Terribly sorry, ma'am. I've no idea where Liam is.
We never go cycling in the afternoon.
Morning, yes, after breakfast. Sometimes in the evening.
Never in the afternoon. It's been just too hot."

"But then what do you do in the afternoon?" I could hear the puzzlement in
her voice.

"I stay here. I read Sherlock Holmes." I thrust the volume of stories at her
as if it was an alibi.

"But Liam. What on earth does Liam do? I can't see him reading all afternoon.
The sports pages in the Daily Telepgraph, perhaps, but not a... book."
She spoke the word 'book' as if were akin to a turd on the lawn.

"So what on earth does he do?"

Given time to think, I might have prevaricated, dissembled,
found a suitable cover story.

That's a lie.

I didn't need time.

With the blandest expression I could muster, I cold-bloodedly said:
"Liam spends every afternoon with Dan."

"With Dan?"

"Yes, Mrs Morton, with Dan."

"Doing what?"

"I don't know. Liam doesn't tell me."

"Surely not helping Dan around the place. Liam's got as much interest in
mending a fuse
as he has reading a book. And I haven't seen them together around the house.
Come now, Robert, you must know where they are, what they're doing?"

Was the woman entirely stupid? The Bank of England was falling round our heads,
and she hadn't even heard a penny drop.

"Maybe he's helping Dan in the stable block, in Dan's room. I don't know.
I'm not invited there."

Mrs Morton's face was expressionless, yet I could read her face as easily as
any of my beloved mysteries.
Expressionless, yet cold, as cold as the winds which whipped our high rise
block back home in February.

"Leave this matter to me."

She turned and swept from the room. I waited a few moments,
then crossed the corridor into Liam's room.

I watched from the window as she strode across the lawn, reached the stable
stairs, paused, then climbed the stairs with purpose, reached the door,
failed to knock, flung the door open, and stepped out of the light into the
darkness.

I didn't see Liam, but I saw Dan leave. Shoulders hunched. Battered old
suitcase banging against his leg. On the road to the village. He could
catch a bus there.

Which one? Who cared? I didn't. I'd done what I had to do.
I'd saved Liam and I'd saved the last two weeks of summer - for us.

Liam didn't appear for dinner. I was terrified he'd been sent away,
maybe even run away with Dan. That was too awful to think about.
But finally he did appear, about ten o'clock in my room.

"You fucking little bastard. It was you, wasn't it. Y
ou jealous little piece of shit."

Liam was furious, the fury increased by his sibilant whisper.
He stood there in his crimson slip, ready for bed.
I stood there in my baggy Y-fronts.
His body was as taut and tight as an overwound bicycle chain.
Even in the lamplight, I could see the blue vein throbbing in his neck.

I spluttered something incoherent.
Something about saving him, protecting him, loving him.

"You fucking moron. I wanted it. I started it. Me... me... not him.
I seduced 'him', not the other way around. Last summer.
And we were happy, happy till you came along, you stipid little..."
He struggled the to find the word, then spat it out: "servant".

"But I..."

I lowered my eyes, afraid to face the disdain, the derision in his voice.

Liam was hard. I could see his erection outlined beneath his slip,
the shaft slanting to the left, his balls two silk-covered globes.
I felt myself harden in response. Oh, no, not now.
I tried to think of the Hound of the Baskervilles, charging across the moor,
ripping the throat out of... but that only made things worse. I couldn't
help looking at my growing self.

Liam laughed, but there was no warmth in his voice.

"So that's what the little boy wants."

He stepped forward and pushed me backwards towards the bed.
Part of me wanted to resist, but the greater part wanted to give in.
The backs of my legs hit the edge of the bed, buckled,
and I went backwards under Liam's weight.
He lay full length on top of me,
skin to sweaty skin. I felt him reach below and rip away my underpants.
He was already naked. I felt his hot hard erection push against my belly.
He stretched my arms and pushed them above my head. I was helpless and
wanted to be.

I felt Liam's lips slide down my body. His lips fastened on my belly button
and he sucked hard.
It should've been silly but it wasn't.
The hot fierceness of his lips, the sound of sucked sweaty flesh,
the grinding of his crotch against mine... made me harder and harder until
I ached.
His lips were lower, my legs pushed wide apart by his hands, my penis
engulfed in his mouth.
What wonderful shame.
I covered my eyes with one elbow, my free hand sought his tousled hair.
The sucking motion increased in intensity.
I could feel his lips slide the length of my penis until his lips kissed my
pubis,
then slide back until he held only the head of my cock vbetween his lips.
Then down again.

He found my sac and manipulated the eggs inside.
His fingers went deeper.
He probed at my most intimate place.
I'd done the same to him, once,
but I couldn't anticipate the pleasure and pain I felt
as he rudely jammed his middle finger up my arse.
Pain, yes, but the pain became indistinguishable from the pleasure.
One finger, two fingers... no, no, not three. Yes, yes.
His fingers sawed into me rhythmically; his mouth pumped my penis.
I felt a pleasure beyond description well up in my groin, spread itself
throughout my body,
reach my brain, and set a thousand alarm bells ringing.
This was it. I was going to CUM!
Liam'd explained the theory; I'd seen him 'cum';
I'd watched his arching body as he rode Dan.
But nothing, nothing had prepared me for this.

Nobody should be present when another person cums.
It is too open, too revealing, too naked, too bare.
Nothing is left but pure surrender. It was late.
My mother was only a room away, but I began to howl.
I was a wild wolf and it was my night to howl.

Liam jammed a hand over my mouth.
Sucked faster, harder; fucked me faster, harder.

I exploded. Fragmented. Become a million pieces of light.
Self smashed into smithereens. My hips bucked. My arse rose clean off the bed.
My back arched. I spurted, squirted, spat, and spattered into Liam's throat.

I felt I was dying, and dying was so exquisitely desirable. I lay there
exposed,
open, wanton.

I heard Liam's voice from afar. I could hear the tears.

"There. That's what Dan gave me. Now you know."

I heard the door click as he went.

Next morning Liam was gone. I didn't see him go.
Mrs Morton explained Liam'd decided to have the last two weeks of the summer
at his aunt's in Scotland.
He'd send a postcard, but, knowing Liam, best not to hold my breath waiting.

Mrs Morton was leaving, too. That afternoon.
To spend a fortnight in Paris.
My mother would be paid for the whole summer.
We were welcome to stay on at the house for two more weeks.

We didn't.

We left the following afternoon.

Summer was over.

- THE END -

If you enjoyed this story, you may
like my 'Still Life Water Colours'
which appears in Adult-Youth
Jan 2 2005
Jon Kent