In which Dwayne tries it on again, Mark makes a discovery and Kevin meets an unhappy chess-player.
Kevin
Next morning it rained, which meant that for the first time I had the unpleasant experience of trying to run the line in wet weather. Fortunately Chris was thinking on my behalf: he advised me to bring a towel and a change of clothing, since otherwise I’d have to wait around after the match and then travel home in wet clothes, which, he assured me, I wouldn’t enjoy.
I didn’t enjoy the match too much either. I ran the line wearing a baseball cap, which at least kept most of the rain off my glasses, but I still got very wet, and it’s a good thing that there weren’t too many goals, because my little notebook got wet quite quickly and then my pen stopped working, which is how I found out that a pencil is a much better idea than a pen. In fact there were only three goals in the game; two scored by Colin and one by an opposition central defender who came up for a corner.
Mr Clifford wasn’t particularly impressed: Falconbury weren’t one of the best teams in the league, and as far as he was concerned we should have won much more easily. Still, at least we won.
“Give me your specs, and then you can come and have a shower,” whispered Chris in my ear once Mr Clifford had completed his post-match analysis. “If you can’t see properly you shouldn’t get hard. But if you do, you’re on your own.”
“You mean you won’t stick up for me?” I asked, rather wittily, I thought.
“Ha, ha,” said Chris. “Come on or there won’t be any hot water left.”
Actually this was a better changing room than ours, and the shower was quite large, too. Chris guided me to it – once I’d taken my glasses off I probably would have fallen into stuff on my own – and we grabbed a couple of shower-heads, and once I’d been under the hot water for a couple of minutes I felt a lot better. It was probably just as well I couldn’t see anything clearly, though, because once I warmed up a bit I began to wonder whether Colin was in here somewhere, and that caused a distinct twitch in my equipment. I decided to get out while the going was good, so I went back to the entrance where we’d left our towels, identified mine by colour and dried myself off, and by the time Chris came and guided me back to where I’d got changed my thoughts were back under control.
I put my glasses on as soon as Chris gave them back to me, but by then most of the team were at least partially dressed, so I didn’t get to admire anyone’s attributes. Maybe that’s just as well – I’m sure Chris would have been annoyed if I’d got hard.
But when we got home he still said that he wanted to talk to me.
“Is there anything you want to tell me?” he asked.
“Like what?”
“Like how you got on with Lee Woodford yesterday, for example.”
“It went okay. Why?”
“And you didn’t think you needed to explain why you were using my bedroom to give him a sex education lesson?”
“How do you know that?”
“I was speaking to him this morning. So?”
“Well, I couldn’t really use my room because of the camera, could I?”
“Why not? You should have told him you have to have it there to stop you being a pervert.”
“Yes, but…I didn’t think Lee would want to get undressed in a room with a camera in.”
“Oh, so you made him strip, did you?”
“I didn’t make him… well, not really. See, he was worried about being different from his best friend, and I wanted to tell him it’s normal to be… see, he’s circumcised and his friend isn’t…”
“Right. But you still can’t just use my room without asking me first – that’s completely out of order. I think it’s time for us to pull another name out of the hat…”
“Oh, come on, Chris – that’s only supposed to be for if I… you know, play with it.”
“It’s for breaking the rules too, and using my room without permission is definitely breaking the rules. If I let you get away with this you’ll start thinking you can sneak into my room when I’m out and have a wank on my bed, and that would really be out of order. You’re just lucky Lee brought his friend along, because it means I’m only going to add one more person now…”
Chris
The look on Kev’s face was priceless. Of course I hadn’t spoken to Lee, I’d just watched the film from the previous afternoon, but I didn’t want him to know about the camera in my room, for obvious reasons.
I thought about rigging the draw to make sure Colin’s name came out of the hat, because I knew Kev desperately didn’t want Colin involved, though I couldn’t understand why: I know Colin jerks off a lot because we’ve talked about it, so he certainly wouldn’t have had a go at Kev for it. In fact Colin likes Kev a lot – he reckons he’s everything a big brother should be, always willing to join in with stuff and never talking down to us, and I suppose he’s right about that, though as Kev is the only big brother I’ve got I don’t have anything to compare him to.
I don’t think Colin would even care if he found out Kev is gay – I know he gets on well with Clive, who’s the boy in the team who’s out… mind you, we all do – Clive’s a laugh. Still, Colin never seems at all prejudiced about anyone, and he’d probably react to being told that Kev is gay by just saying “So what?”
Anyway, I decided to play it straight, so I got the pack of cards, shuffled it and handed it to Kev.
“Pick a card,” I said. “This time if you get someone who already knows about you, you have to pick again, but if you get lucky three times I’ll let you off.”
He didn’t look happy, but he cut the cards and drew himself an eight.
“Lucky,” I commented. “That’s either me or Lee, and we both know about you. Try again.”
This time he drew the seven of diamonds.
“That’s Silvio,” I said. “No nice fantasies for you there – he's small and dark, and we already know you go for tall blondies. Hard luck – maybe you’ll find the boy of your dreams next time.”
“I hope there isn’t going to be a next time,” he said. “How much longer is this going to go on?”
“Until the end of the season, I should think,” I said. “That seems fair to me. Anyway, this afternoon you’re at Dwayne’s, and Mark still expects to see you after supper.”
For some reason that didn’t seem to bother him. I wondered if Mark was letting him down easy – after all, I know he likes Kev, too. I wondered if I ought to have a word with him – we don’t want my brother getting away with stuff, do we?
Mrs Jordan served us lunch right after that, and she also had some news for us.
“Your father’s coming home at the end of the week,” she told us. “He’ll be here next weekend, and maybe for a couple of days next week too. Won’t that be nice?”
Actually I thought it was. He’d kept in touch, of course, sending us mails and phoning sometimes in the evening, but I thought it would be nice to see him in person again, although I thought it might interfere with Kev’s increasingly busy schedule – he could hardly tell Dad that he had to go out because loads of the boys in my football team needed him to clean their football boots. Still, we could always worry about that next weekend.
I wondered how many more of the team I could realistically get involved, because Kev was definitely running out of free time; what with football practice, chess club and visiting the Microbes every Thursday, not to mention Lee, Dwayne and Mark at weekends. I supposed we could squeeze one more in at the weekend, and in theory two more in the week, but I didn’t think it would be fair to mess him about to the extent that he couldn’t get his homework done. Still, I knew he was able to do his homework with Jason on Thursdays, so provided I found someone sympathetic for Tuesdays and Wednesdays… although after that he’d really have no time, at least until the holidays came round.
So, Silvio and two others, then… and I wondered which two would be most fun to choose. It might be interesting to give him to Clive, for a start: if Clive really is gay, as he keeps claiming, that could benefit both of them. Otherwise I didn’t think Kev would care one way or the other, except in the case of Colin.
So should we tell Colin, or not? I know Kev didn’t want us to, but I thought Colin’s reaction to being left out of the loop would be unfortunate, so perhaps we’d just have to tell him. In any case, I don’t think he would respond at all badly: as I’ve said before, he likes my brother a lot, and I didn’t think this would change that at all. I’d just have to think about it next time Kev messed up.
Dwayne
So I’ve been thinking a lot about this over the last week and I’ve decided to push it a bit and see how far I can go before Chris’s bro tells me to eff off. ‘Cos, after all, how often do you get a chance to have this sort of fun? So when he comes round my yard this Sunday afternoon, first thing I do is take him to our room and lock the door.
“Sam’s out,” I tell him. “He’ll probly be back ‘fore you go, but for now it’s just you an’ me. So last time we agreed that you had to do whatever I say, so this time, now Sam’s not here to hold me back, you’re in deep shit. Get naked.”
Not a word of argument – he just strips off straight away.
“Now get it good and hard.”
He does that as well, and I’m starting to think I might not be able to come up with anything he won’t do. But then I think of something I’m sure nobody would do. I stand up, undo my belt and push my jeans and boxers down.
“Now suck me off,” I say, expecting him to get up, grab his clothes and walk out – or at least, walk to the door, ‘cos I’ve got the key in my pocket. But no…
“Come on, Dwayne, do I have to?” he says, just standing there and looking at me.
“Course you do. You got to do everything – i’n’t that what your bro said? So do it.”
He looks at me, and then he drops to his knees, and I’m thinking no, he’s never going to… is he??
“Wow, Dwayne, that’s pretty big,” he says.
”Pretty and big,” I say. “Only thing you have to worry about is, is it too big to go in your mouth?”
“I don’t know,” he says doubtfully. “I’ll try, though.”
And he does – he puts his lips on the end and slowly slides it in, and it feels unbelievable.
“Oh, my days!” I exclaim, and he slips it out again and looks at me.
“Oh, my days?” he says, staring at me.
“’Sright. What, you think everyone got to swear all the time?”
“No – in fact, I have a friend who never swears either,” he says. “I was just surprised, that’s all. I thought you…”
“You think 'cos I’m black I got to swear a lot? Man, that’s racist.”
“No, it isn’t! Most kids I know swear, that’s all. Actually I think it’s kind of impressive that you don’t.”
“Oh. Well, do it again – we still don’t know if it gonna fit in.”
So he slides it slowly in again, and it feels just as good, and then he starts to slide his lips up and down it, and licking at it, and I haven’t ever felt nothing like it. He does this for thirty seconds, then stops.
“Sorry,” he says, “it’s just a little bit too big – if I put it all in it touches the back of my throat and makes me feel as if I’m going to throw up.”
“You better keep trying,” I say, still not really believing this is happening. “Otherwise maybe I’m gonna think you ain’t trying.”
So he starts again, and it’s getting better and better. I don’t have a girlfriend and so I’ve never had sex, but if getting this done can feel like this, maybe I’m not gonna worry if it takes me a while to find a girl.
Soon I can feel it starting to build up. I’d make him stop to draw it out, ‘cept I don’t really want Sam to come in and see this – okay, the door’s locked, but if he gets back too soon I’ll still have to let him in, and I think he’s too young for this. But there’s one thing I want to check – it’s never felt this big or this hard, so I tell him to stop a minute, and when he does I grab a ruler from my desk.
“How big?” he asks.
“Almost five inches,” I tell him. “You better get it back in your mouth quick before it goes down.”
I sit down again and he carries in – he doesn’t argue or nothing. And soon I can feel it starting to build up again…
Kevin
“Ready?” he said. “You better be, because…”
Five seconds later he spurted into my mouth, not just once, but three or four times. Maybe he didn’t have quite as much as Mark, but there was certainly enough to taste. I’d swallowed it down without thinking about it, and it was only after I’d done so that I realised he’d think it weird. He might realise that I’d done this before, and I really didn’t want that to happen. So when he told me I could take it out of my mouth I slipped it out slowly and then, keeping my mouth closed, I went to my jeans, pulled out a handkerchief and pretended to spit into it.
“Told you I had more than you,” he said, pulling his boxers back up. “Believe me now?”
“Yes,” I said. “I apologise, Dwayne – you’re well grown-up for twelve. And you’ve started getting some hair, too. I was thirteen and a half before mine started.”
“Good,” he said, doing up his belt. “Now let’s see you get yours hard.”
I was a bit lucky here, because mine had been hard earlier, but when his stuff shot out it hit the back of my throat, and I suppose that struggling not to be sick had made mine soften a bit. If he’d seen that I was hard he’d probably have guessed that I’m gay.
So I played with it until I got it hard – it didn’t take long this time, because I was still quite excited – and when it was stiff he handed me the ruler and watched as I help it alongside.
“Hah! Four and three-quarters!” he says. “And you’re two years older than me! Shame, Stratford!”
I bowed my head, hoping that he’d let me go before his kid brother got home, because having to do it in front of the kid had been really embarrassing.
“You’re not going to make me do that again, are you?” I asked.
“Obviously I am – every week!”
“I’m not sure that my brother would be happy if he knew you’d made me do that,” I said. “It’s going a bit too far, isn’t it? But… okay, I won’t tell him, on condition that you swear not to tell anyone about it – including your brother. Deal?”
“And if I don’t tell anyone you’ll do it again next time?”
“Well… all right,” I said. “I just don’t want anyone else finding out about it, because I don’t want people thinking I’m gay. If nobody knows except you and me, I’ll do it again. But not every week!”
“Whenever I tell you,” he replied. “That’s the deal – you do it whenever I want, and in return I don’t tell nobody what a good cocksucker you are!”
“Well… I suppose so,” I said, hoping I sounded even more reluctant.
“Good. Now you better go before Sam gets back,” he said, so I threw my clothes on, said goodbye and left. Well, I thought, that could have been a whole lot worse…
After supper I headed round to Mark’s. At least I managed to persuade Chris not to put the cuffs on my this time, but he did tell me that if I didn’t get there quickly enough he’d have to assume that I’d stopped to misbehave on the way, and that would mean yet another person finding out about me. Consequently I ran all the way.
Mark opened the door himself and took me straight up to his room.
“I missed you last weekend,” he said. “It’s not often we get visitors on a Sunday, but my uncle was visiting from London and so I didn’t have a lot of choice. Perhaps we can make up for it this week, though…”
“I wouldn’t mind that,” I said, enthusiastically. “But… listen, could you do me a really big favour?”
“Such as?”
“Well, I’ve sort of found myself having to give sex education lessons to Lee Woodford and his friend, and I was sort of hoping that you might be able to find me some… well, teaching material.”
“What sort of material?”
“Well, photos. I was thinking that maybe you could find a naturist site, or something – I need to be able to show them what happens at puberty, and since I wouldn’t know where to start looking and you’re much better with computers than I am…”
“You mean you want me to find you some pictures of naked kids?”
“Well, yes, I suppose so.”
“You realise that it might be illegal?”
“Is it? I’d have thought that kids on nudist beaches and places like that ought to be okay.”
“I’m not sure that they are any more – the government seems to want to clamp down on stuff like that. But I expect I could find you something suitable… you want boys and girls, or just boys?”
“Both, if you can.”
“Then I’ll see what I can find. When do you need them?”
“Not until Saturday.”
“Okay, then. Of course, it’ll cost you.”
“How much?”
“Not money, stupid. I was thinking that maybe you’d like another chance to practise sucking.”
“Oh! Well, sure – I mean, I’d have done that anyway, whether you help me with the pictures or not.”
“Good,” he said. “Then we’d better get undressed, hadn’t we?”
So we did, and the next half hour or so was actually a lot of fun: we cuddled on the bed for a while, and then he said that if I was going to suck him, maybe he ought to get a bit of practice in too. I wasn’t going to argue with that, so I lay back on the bed and let him get on with it…
Mark
It’s strange – when I first started doing stuff with Kev I was really just messing about, pushing him to see how far he was prepared to go and stuff like that. I’d never really expected him to agree to sucking me off, and so when he did it was an incredible surprise – but I suppose being sucked is always going to feel pretty good, no matter who is actually doing it for you, and if that had been the only thing I enjoyed it wouldn’t have bothered me at all.
But then on his second visit we’d done a lot more – cuddling and even kissing – and that had felt amazing too. And then I’d wanted to find out what it felt like to do the sucking, and when I discovered that I even enjoyed that… well, you’d have to be asking yourself questions after that, wouldn’t you? And over the next couple of weeks I’d found that even doing stuff on my own had changed: now when I played with it I started out thinking about girls, but each time within thirty seconds I found myself thinking about Kev instead. And then at half term…
So by now I was pretty sure that I wasn’t quite as straight as I had thought. Sure, I could kid myself that this was a one-off, and that it was simply happening because Kev didn’t have any choice, no matter what I wanted to do with him… except I knew that wasn’t true, either: Kev was obviously enjoying it as much as I was, and by now I’d got to liking him so much that I would never have made him do anything he wasn’t happy about. I didn’t think I actually fancied him - although once he took his glasses off he looked pretty good – but in any case we were hardly compatible, what with the nine-inch height difference and the two year age gap. If I was really going to turn out gay I supposed I’d have to find a partner in my own year.
And yet… cuddling Kev felt really, really good, and I liked sucking him, and I loved being sucked by him, and I thought it completely possible that we’d go further still, once we’d both had a few more preparatory sessions with my plastic willy. Doing that sort of thing with someone I hardly knew seemed completely out of the question…
Maybe I’m weird, but I’m not sure that casual sex is a good idea. I know there are kids at school who do stuff together – at least, I’m pretty sure of it – but they’re not really friends, and somehow a quick wank in the toilets isn’t really what I want. I mean, obviously I don’t know for sure because I’ve never done anything like that, but I didn’t think it would get within a million miles of what me and Kev were doing right now. And because we were friends we didn’t feel awkward afterwards – at least, I certainly didn’t, and I’m pretty sure he felt the same. So after I’d sucked him and he’d sucked me – and he was getting really good at it, too - we just lay side by side on my bed for a while, and it felt good even when we weren’t talking.
“I suppose I ought to go,” he said eventually, though without actually moving.
“Why?” I asked. “You haven’t got to be home for ages yet, surely?”
“Well, no, but I don’t want Chris to think I’ve bunked off somewhere to do something I shouldn’t. After all, I’ve had time to clean your boots about ten times by now.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll make sure he knows you were with me,” I promised. “Anyway, I like you being here.”
“Sounds like you’re starting to fancy me!” he said, grinning.
I made fake vomiting noises. “You’re the blind one,” I pointed out. “I can see exactly what you look like, remember?”
“You said you liked me with my glasses off.”
“Well, that’s true, but it doesn’t mean that I fancy you. I reckon Chris and Colin are both pretty good-looking, too, but I don’t fancy either of them.”
“I’m glad to hear it. Somehow the thought of you and my brother… well, ewwww!”
“That’s just because he’s your brother. I find the thought of my sister and her boyfriend doing stuff pretty disgusting, too, but if she wasn’t my sister I wouldn’t care. I bet you wouldn’t worry if you thought me and Col were at it, would you?”
“Yes, I would!”
“Why?”
“Well…I can’t really imagine Colin doing sex stuff. And, anyway, I want you all for myself – after all, there isn’t enough of you to share!”
I thumped him, but instead of retaliating he just lay still, his eyes taking on a sort of dreamy look.
“What’s the matter?” I asked. “Thinking about me and Col getting sweaty together?”
“Well… is Colin even interested in sex?” he asked. “I mean, I’ve never seen him undressed – has he even started to develop yet?”
“Of course he has,” I informed him. “Obviously not as much as me, but I’m a superstud, after all. But he’s got enough to work with.”
“Oh.”
He went quiet again, and suddenly I became suspicious.
“It’s Colin, isn’t it?” I said. “He’s the one you fancy!”
He went all red and started to stammer…
Kevin
“No! I mean, well, obviously not… I… I mean, why… what makes you think…”
“Oh, what a giveaway!” he said, grinning hugely. “You’ve gone as red as a clown’s nose, Kev. So Colin’s your dream boy, huh? Wonder what he’ll say when I tell him?”
“No!!” I yelled. “You can’t… I mean, you’re wrong anyway, but… look, please, Mark?”
“Admit it, then,” he said. “Admit it and I swear I won’t tell him.”
“No, but you’ll tell Chris instead, and that would be just as bad.”
He looked at me seriously. “Do you really not trust me, Kev?” he asked. “Do you really think I’d drop you in it with Chris? That’s not the sort of thing you do to your friends. And obviously I’m not going to tell Col, either. But I’d still like to know if it’s true.”
“It’s true,” I admitted. “I just think he’s really good-looking – and he’s nice, too. I really like him. Look, Mark, you know him: is he… well… you know…”
“Gay? I don’t think so – as far as I know he likes girls, although he doesn’t actually talk about sex hardly at all. I think he’s far more interested in football and video games – but then that’s probably true of most of the boys in our year. Yes, one or two go on about sex, and like I said, there’s a couple who I think are messing about together, but the talkers are probably just making it up, and the other two never talk about sex anyway. So I don’t know for sure what Colin thinks about it, if he thinks about it at all. Do you want me to try to find out?”
“No!” I cried. “I don’t want him getting the slightest hint…”
“Why not? After all, if he does turn out to be interested, wouldn’t you want to know about it?”
“Well, yes, but…it’s too dangerous. Suppose he hates gays? I wouldn’t want to risk him getting even a sniff at the idea that I might be… I don’t want him hating me.”
“I’m pretty sure he won’t hate you. He likes you – he’s always saying what a good brother you are. Of course, there’s a big difference between ‘brother’ and ‘boyfriend’… So I take it you’re not intending to tell him, then?”
“Definitely not,” I said. “I don’t want to have to hide in my room every time he comes round.”
“I really don’t think he’d take it that badly, but obviously it’s up to you. I’m not going to out you to him, anyway.”
“Thanks, Mark,” I said, and I rolled over and hugged him.
Before I left the house Mark phoned Chris up and told him that I was about to leave, so at least Chris wouldn’t think I’d dawdled on the way home. I didn’t exactly run flat out, but I did jog, and while I ran I thought how lucky I was that Mark had turned out to be such a good friend. Quite what I would have done if Colin had found out… well, I was just glad that it wasn’t going to happen.
Monday night was Chess Club, except that on this occasion we actually had a match, away to a school in Hastings. Most school teams travel to away games by coach, but there are only six players in a chess team, and so we generally use public transport – in this case, the train, because there’s a direct train from where we live to Hastings. The teacher in charge of the team bought the tickets and then disappeared behind a newspaper, which left the six of us to entertain ourselves. So Danny and I grabbed a couple of seats at the far end of the carriage and I got my pocket chess set out.
“Is it still okay if I come round to your place tomorrow evening?” he asked.
“I don’t see why not. I’m not going anywhere as far as I know. It’d be fun to play some more wide-screen chess. Except… Chris will be there, so you’d better not look as if you’re having too much of a good time, or he won’t let you baby-sit me any more.”
“It sounds silly to call it ‘baby-sitting,” he pointed out. “You’re more than two and a half years older than me.”
“Chris will like it if you call it that, though,” I pointed out. “If he thinks you look down on me he’ll definitely want you to keep coming round.”
We played chess for most of the journey, only putting the set away when the train reached the tunnel after West St Leonards. The school was a short walk from the station and just for a change the teacher in charge didn’t manage to get us lost – in fact we actually reached the room where we were going to be playing ahead of schedule.
Our usual Board Two was missing – I think he was ill or something – and so I found myself promoted to playing on Board Three, with Danny next to me on Board Four. I’ve already commented on the fact that I look like a chess nerd, and it’s fair to say that a lot of chess players look nerdy – a high percentage of us seem to wear glasses, for a start, and some players have other nerd characteristics like untidiness, bad haircuts and dodgy personal hygiene. But the boy who came and sat down opposite me was about as un-nerdy as you can get – he had no glasses, a nice haircut – quite long, dark blond hair – no zits, no halitosis, no… in fact he was stunning. He looked a year or two younger than me, which probably meant he was good at chess, because this was an Under-15 match, and if you’re a lot younger than that – like Danny, for example – it usually means you can play a bit. He had blue eyes with long lashes, and I was already thinking that if I looked at him instead of the board I’d probably lose inside ten moves.
He seemed a bit nervous, though – in fact when a door slammed somewhere along the corridor he actually jumped and looked around with a scared look on his face. So perhaps he was new to the team and was worried about making a mess of it…
“Hello,” I said, offering him my hand to shake. “I’m Kevin Stratford.”
He said his name was Jeremy something – it sounded like ‘mealfin’, but when he wrote it on his score sheet I saw that it was written ‘Millefin’.
“It’s French,” he told me when I asked. “Originally it was pronounced ‘mee-fan’, but I suppose somewhere down the years people just read it like it’s written. According to my dad our ultimate ancestor came over with William the Conqueror, got injured in the Battle of Hastings and simply decided to stay where he was, and we’ve been here ever since. Supposedly, anyway. I’m not sure if I believe it myself.”
“You don’t look very French,” I commented. “Blond hair, blue eyes…”
“I expect there’s some Saxon or Viking in the family too,” he said. “Anyway, I suppose we’d better start…”
He pushed his king’s pawn forward two spaces and hit the clock, and I played the Sicilian Defence, hoping I’d know it better than him… and then there was a snort of disbelief from the boy sitting next to Millefin, and glancing at their board I saw that Danny had decided to play the Grob Attack. Boy, are you in for a shock, I thought, looking at Danny’s opponent.
My own opponent started confidently enough, but he still seemed nervous about something and every time there was a noise, inside or outside the room, he jerked in his chair. It affected his concentration, too, because after ten or eleven moves he blundered away a bishop, and a couple of moves later he lost the exchange, and three moves after that he resigned.
“Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t give you much of a game.”
“That’s okay,” I assured him. “Do you want to have a look at it?” Most chess players like to indulge in post-mortems.
“I suppose so, but I know where I went wrong – throwing bishops away isn’t usually a good idea.”
We went and gave the result to the teacher in charge and then moved to a board on the far side of the room to play through the game again, but before I sat down I asked if he could show me where the toilets were.
He glanced out of the window and then said, “Come on, then,” and led me out into the corridor, along to the end of it and out into the yard.
“Over there,” he said, pointing to a door on the far side. “Can you find your way back okay?”
“Yes. I’ll see you back in the room in a couple of minutes.”
I walked over to the toilet. I supposed this would have been an opportunity to do what I’m not supposed to be doing, but their toilet cubicles didn’t look any better than the ones at our school, and I decided that I wasn’t that desperate, so instead I just had a pee, washed my hands and strolled back across the yard.
As I stepped back into the corridor I heard a yell from the first classroom on the right, followed by a crack and another yell. I opened the door and stepped inside.
Millefin was lying face down across a pair of desks, with one boy holding his wrists and another his ankles. His trousers and underpants had been pulled down to mid-thigh and a third boy was beating him with a belt, while a fourth had his mobile phone out and was recording everything. All four boys looked younger than me, which gave me the courage to intervene.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Piss off and mind your own business!” replied the boy with the belt.
“This is my business,” I said. “I’m supposed to be playing chess against that boy. Let him go.”
“I don’t think so. He owes me money.”
“How much?” I asked.
“Two quid.”
“Is that all?”
“It’s the principle,” said the boy. “He was supposed to have paid me on Saturday, and he’s been avoiding me all day, so now he needs a reminder about paying on time. You can go and wait outside – we’ll let him go and play his stupid game when we’ve finished.”
I dug into my pocket, found two pounds and handed them over.
“Now it’s my problem,” I said. “You’ve got your money, so you can go now – or maybe I should go and find a teacher?”
“Nah, we’ll go,” said the boy, pocketing the money. “Flip him over, boys!”
The boys holding Millefin’s ankles and wrists turned him over so that he was lying on his back.
“Next time I’ll whip your balls,” said the boy with the belt, dropping it on Millefin’s chest.
“You can’t do that - he hasn’t got any!” commented the boy with the camera, grinning.
The four boys laughed and went out, and I helped Millefin to stand up, trying not to be too obvious about checking him out, although in fairness there wasn’t a lot to check: he might have been a little bigger than Jason Temple, but not much. It was pale, thin and lacking in hair.
He managed to pull his pants up, and then got his trousers up, rethreaded the belt through the loops and buckled it. Then he wiped his eyes.
“Thanks,” he said, quietly. “I’ll get the money back to you somehow.”
“Don’t worry about it,” I said. “Are you okay?”
“Just about.”
“Come on, then – we’d better get back.”
So we walked back down the corridor together. I realised I’d been lucky: despite my situation and the number of boys who now had the right to order me around, so far none of them had wanted to beat me. And now I’d witnessed it happening to someone else I was really keen to make sure that situation didn’t change…
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So Kevin's secret is out, at least to Mark. But now he's met someone worse off than himself, and this encounter is going to have consequences.
Here's gothmog@nyms.net – it doesn't reduce the appearance of wrinkles or other signs of aging, but you can use it to tell me what you think of the story so far.
Copyright 2013: all rights reserved. Please do not reprint, repost or otherwise reproduce this or any part of it anywhere without my written permission.
David Clarke