CHAPTER FOURTEEN



In which Freddie goes retro and Jeremy puts his foot down.

Kevin

I waited until Kenton was out of sight and then retraced my steps, back along the cul-de-sac and through the woods until I picked up the main track again. I followed this all the way beck past a farm until it met the road some way south of Jeremy’s house – by going that way I’d avoided walking past Kenton’s house.

Jeremy opened the door himself, and without saying anything took me straight up to his room.

“Why did you come?” he asked. “You knew I didn’t want you to see that.”

“I had to,” I said. “I wanted to know exactly what was going on, and I wanted a chance to talk to Kenton, too.”

“Oh, God… I bet you’ve made things worse!”

“I don’t think I have. Look, Jeremy, I couldn’t just stand by and leave you in this mess without trying to do something about it, could I? What sort of a friend do you think I am?”

“It would have been better if you’d stayed out if it. If he thinks I’ve got a friend he’s bound to make things worse for me…”

He looked as if he was trying not to cry, so I walked him to the bed, sat him down on it and parked myself next to him, putting an arm around his shoulders.

“It’s okay,” I said. “It’s not going to get worse. For a start, I gave him the impression I was going to go home and not get involved again, so he’s not going to do anything worse to you. But actually I think I gave him something to think about – and in fact I got him to admit that he doesn’t totally hate you. He even said that there’s a part of him that still likes you. It’s just you being gay that he can’t handle, and I’d guess he’s probably got his father to blame for that, because a lot of kids today don’t really seem too bothered about it. I’m guessing Kenton’s dad seriously hates gay people and says so, often and loudly, in front of him. The only way to deal with that is to show him that you’re nothing like the sort of caricature his father probably hates.”

“How am I supposed to do that?”

“I don’t know. Sorry, Jeremy, you’re going to have to work that out on your own. But there’s definitely hope. Part of him wishes you were still friends, I’m sure.”

“I wish I could believe that.”

But he’d managed to pull himself together again, so I gave his shoulders a quick squeeze and then stood up.

“Do you have to go?” he asked. “Couldn’t you stay for a bit?”

I checked my watch.

“I suppose so. I can always get the later train. So what do you want to do?”

“I don't really mind. I don't get to have people round any more, and it would just be nice to... well, anyway... we could play video games if you like.”

“Okay. I'm not much good – there are kids at school who seem to play games all night long, and so they're unbeatable, but I only play occasionally, if I can't think of anything else to do. And just lately I've been far too busy with other stuff to have any spare time. So, what games have you got?”

We played for about an hour, after which I had to leave to get the train home. He was a lot better than me, which I'd sort of expected: if you don't have any friends I suppose you have loads of time for games. But he was nice about winning, unlike some people I can think of... my brother, for instance. And when I left he looked a lot happier than he had an hour previously, so I suppose I'd done some good.


On Sunday we played an exciting game against Gorsefield United, which we ended up winning five-three. Predictably, Mr Clifford had a lot more to say about the three goals we let in than the five we scored (okay, maybe I shouldn’t say ‘we’ – after all, if the team had been depending on my football skills I’m fairly sure that Mr Clifford would have been a lot less happy). But he did at least acknowledge that the team had won.

This week things were back to normal, which meant that I was round at Dwayne’s house after lunch. Once again he’d managed to get rid of his brother for the afternoon, and this time he seemed confident that he wouldn’t be back for a long time.

“We got all afternoon,” he said, starting to get undressed. “So today we can take it nice and slow.”

Last time I’d done this he’d fairly obviously not expected me to do it, and he’d been putting on an act for me – exaggerating his street language and issuing orders. This time he didn’t even order me to get undressed. Of course I did anyway, and so did he – last time he’d just pushed his jeans down, but this time he took everything off and sat on the edge of the bed to wait for me. I took my time about getting undressed, but still he didn’t say anything – perhaps he was afraid I’d change my mind if he said the wrong thing.

When I’d finally finished putting my clothes into a neat pile on his chair I dropped to my knees in front of him and admired it. He was clearly already very much in the mood, and so I was able to get straight on with it, although this time I made no attempt to get the final inch or so into my mouth, and I also took it very slowly, working away at it happily for a couple of minutes while making sure he didn’t get too close. Then I took it out of my mouth and leaned back.

“Of course, you do realise I don’t have to do this any more, don’t you?” I said.

“What? But you told me…”

“We had a deal, Dwayne. The deal was that I’d go on doing this for you if you didn’t tell anyone else about it.”

“We were talking about my brother, weren’t we?” he asked, but it was obvious from the look on his face that he knew this wasn’t true.

“The deal was that you wouldn’t tell anyone, including your brother,” I reminded him. “And you broke your word, didn’t you? So give me one reason why I shouldn’t just walk away now.”

“But I only told one… no, you’re right,” he said, surprising me. “But I wish you’d just said that at the start instead of getting me…”

“That wouldn’t have been half as much fun!” I said. “But you’re right: it would be a bit nasty to leave you like this. So maybe I’ll finish it for you this time.”

He showed no intention of arguing, so I leaned forward again and resumed operations. I tried not to overdo the expertise the way I had apparently done with Silvio, but I still made sure that it lasted a while and that he enjoyed it, and when he finally erupted – and this time I remembered to grab a tissue and spit it out – it was obvious that he’d enjoyed it.

“I’m gonna miss that,” he said as he got dressed. “And I know I shouldn’t have told Silvio. But him and me are tight, and I just wanted him to find out how it feels. He says when you did it for him he’d never felt nothing like it, so I suppose it was worth it. You should always share good stuff with your friends.”

“I can understand that,” I said. “Anyway, I’m hoping Chris is going to let me stop doing this stuff at Easter, so you probably wouldn’t be missing out on much if I did stop now. But I suppose I could do that again next week – provided that you don’t tell anyone else about it, of course. No matter how good a friend he is.”

“No, of course I won’t, I swear!” he said, almost falling over himself to grab the promise before I changed my mind.

“Okay, then, I’ll be back next Sunday – unless I hear anything about it in the meantime, of course.”

“You won’t! I promise!”

“Good. Then I expect I’ll see you at training on Friday.”

I made my way back home, wondering why I hadn’t taken the clear opportunity to tell him I wouldn’t be going back. Yes, I know I’d been telling myself that I was just practising for when I got a boyfriend, but since I knew that the likelihood of finding one was about the same as my chances of playing for Manchester United I thought that perhaps I ought to admit, even if it was only to myself, that I was doing it because I enjoyed it. And it can’t be good to actually enjoy sucking other boys off, can it?

Of course, worrying about whether or not I was turning into some sort of sex-mad pervert wasn’t enough to stop me from going round to Mark’s house after supper…


Mark

I’d missed my Sunday evenings with Kev recently. Of course one of them had been due to our trip to Thorpe Park, and I hadn’t minded that at all, but I was glad to see him again this evening. As soon as he arrived I took him up to my room and closed the door.

“Where are your boots?” he asked.

“I’ve done them,” I told him. “Just get undressed and then we can do something more interesting.”

He didn’t seem to have any problem with that, and in fact as soon as his boxers came off it was clear that he was looking forward to it. I got my own clothes off at top speed and them we both got into my bed and I pulled the covers over us. It wasn’t particularly cold, but I wanted to know how it would feel actually sharing my bed with someone. Of course we’d already done this in his parents’ bed, but that is a full-size double and mine is only a single, and I have to admit that there wasn’t a lot of room in it for two people: I thought actually sleeping like this would be next to impossible. It was cosy, though, and since all I wanted to do to start with was cuddle a bit the lack of room didn’t really matter.

“So how did your sex education lesson go?” I asked.

“Not too bad, thanks. They liked the pictures… look, is there any chance of you getting me some more? I wasn’t going to ask, and you can say no and I won’t mind at all, because what I want is… well, a bit more explicit, and I don’t suppose you can get that sort of thing legally…”

“I’m not sure,” I said, though actually I didn’t think it would be too difficult – there are plenty of places where you can find pretty much anything, if you know where to look, although I didn’t want to make a habit of downloading anything that might be considered hard core. I know how to clean up the computer, but even so…

“What’s it worth?” I went on.

“What do you want?”

“I’d like at least one day during the holidays where it’s just you and me, preferably at your place, if we can persuade Chris to go and spend a day with Colin or someone. That will give us a chance to try just about everything, including… well, you know – what I bought the plastic one for. Do you think that’ll be possible?”

“I don’t see why not, although I don’t know how much longer we’ll have before my mother comes home. Chris spoke to her last night and apparently gran is getting a lot better. Once she can move around the house on her own I expect my mother will come back. But even if she does we might be able to sort out something for when she goes shopping, or something.”

“That sounds good enough,” I said.

For a while we just lay quietly, and it felt really good.

“Tell me something,” he said. “If I got lucky and found myself a boyfriend… would it bother you?”

“Why, do you think that’s going to happen?”

“Not really, but it could. So, would it?”

“No, I don’t think so,” I said. “Why would it?”

“I just wondered. See, Chris said it wouldn’t bother him, and I’m pretty sure he really meant it, too, so I just wondered how you would feel about it.”

“I think I’d probably just say something like ‘Good for you’,” I said. “Why do you think I might not want you to?”

“Well, if I had a boyfriend I might not be able to go on doing this,” he pointed out. “And I know you enjoy it, so…”

“I would miss it,” I admitted. “But do you think that having a boyfriend would stop you having fun with other boys?”

“I don’t know, but… well, probably. I think if you’re going out with someone you ought to stop doing stuff with other people.”

“Oh. Well, in that case I suppose I’d just have to try to find a replacement for you, wouldn’t I? At least until I can get a girlfriend, I mean, and we both know that isn’t likely to happen till I grow a bit. Just make sure you warn me before you ride off into the sunset with the boy of your dreams.”

“I should think you’ll be safely married by then,” he said.

We lay quietly for a little longer, and then I rolled out of bed, went to my cupboard and rescued the plastic willy from its hiding-place.

“I’d like you to use this on me,” I said. “That way I’ll be a bit more ready for the holidays, if we do decide to… you know, do it properly, then. Hold on and I’ll get the Vaseline.”

I checked that the coast was clear, nipped into the bathroom and came back with the little jar of lubricant. By the time I got back Kev was sitting on the side of the bed ready, and to judge from his mid-section he was quite keen to get on with it.

I handed him the Vaseline, folded up a small towel to put between me and the duvet in case of accidents and knelt down at the side of the bed, spreading my legs, and a few seconds later I felt the tip of the dildo pressing against me. By now I’d done this myself a few times, but somehow it felt better with Kev doing it for me – maybe not being in control of the situation is what makes it exciting… in any case, it felt good once it was inside me, and as he manipulated it the feeling got better.

Once again I found myself wondering what this said about me. It wasn’t a worry, exactly, but the fact that I enjoyed this as much as I did clearly suggested that I’d also enjoy being on the receiving end of another boy. Maybe that wasn’t a bad thing, but it wasn’t something I’d want everyone to know about.

I trusted Kev, though – and maybe he wouldn’t mind doing this for me sometimes even if he did get a proper boyfriend. It wasn’t really like asking him to use his own penis on me, was it? Of course, I didn’t really think there was much chance of Kev finding a boyfriend, so probably it wouldn’t matter…

And at that point it started feeling so good that I just stopped worrying about it and simply enjoyed it. I really can’t explain why it felt so good or why I was getting more and more excited, but I was, and pretty soon I was having to fight to stop myself from spurting all over the towel. And it only took a few seconds more before…

Okay, stop,” I said, once I was more or less back in control of myself. “You can take it out now. Thanks, Kev – that was amazing!”

I took the towel and the dildo through to the bathroom to clean up.

“Do you want a go?” I asked as soon as I got back.

“No, thanks, not tonight,” he said. “Can we just cuddle a bit more? Maybe if we give it a while you’ll be ready for something else. Maybe I can suck it for you.”

“Well… okay, then,” I said, getting back into bed. “But it’s okay for you to get to feel good too if you want.”

“I know. Move over.”

He got in beside me and we snuggled up, and this definitely felt nice. Maybe I’d have to try to talk my parents into getting me a bigger bed, although I have no idea how I might persuade them that I need one – it’s not as if I’m bursting out of this one. Maybe if Kev does get a boyfriend I’ll have to look around for someone smaller to take over from him, someone who can fit in here more easily. I wondered briefly if either the Microbe or Silvio would be in the market, because they’re probably the only members of the team who are shorter than me. Still, given Kev’s chances of finding a boyfriend I supposed that I probably wouldn’t have to worry about it for a long time yet.

After a bit I’d recovered enough for some more action, so Kev sucked me, very slowly, and it felt awesome. I felt a bit guilty for not doing it for him, but he assured me that I didn’t need to, and that he was actually perfectly happy just doing it for me. And you really can’t argue too much when someone says something like that, can you?


Kevin

Nothing much happened that week. Danny came over on the Tuesday, but it was raining and so Chris decided to stay at home, and that meant that Danny and I had to endure a frustrating evening of pretending not to be friends and doing almost nothing except playing chess.

On Wednesday Silvio had once again cleaned his boots before I arrived, but this time he seemed almost reluctant to ask me to suck him. Instead he wanted to talk about Dwayne.

“You’re not too mad at him, are you?” he asked. “I mean… you’re still going to… you know… do it for him, aren’t you? Because I swear I haven’t told anyone, and I won’t, either, and I’m sure he won’t tell anyone else…”

“Well, I admit I wasn’t too happy about it,” I said. “But I don’t think this is going to go on past Easter anyway, so as it’s only another couple of weeks or so…”

“Oh,” he said, looking disappointed. “Why’s it going to stop?”

“Because Chris has more or less said he’ll let me off at Easter.”

“Oh,” he said again. “But… you don’t have to stop if you don’t want to, do you?”

“What, you think I like doing this?”

“Well… I suppose not. And I bet I’ll never find anyone else willing to do it, either.”

“Cheer up, there are still two or three weeks left,” I pointed out. “So shall we get on with it?”

It’s a measure of how much the thought of losing my services depressed him, because this time when he removed his boxers his penis was soft, and like that it looked really small. But I set to work on him and soon had it up to its more respectable erect size, and after than he just seemed to be enjoying it as much as he had the previous time I’d done it for him. I drew things out for as long as I could, and the final result seemed to be entirely satisfactory

Afterwards he thanked me sincerely and managed to stop himself from begging me to carry on beyond Easter, though it was clear that he wanted to.

As far as I could tell from my visit to Jason and Luke the following evening, they were less worried about losing my services, mainly because they now seemed to be having a lot of fun on their own. They didn’t actually tell me anything new, but watching their attitude to each other was revealing: Luke cheeked his brother incessantly, and Jason meekly just took it. It was a pity Mark couldn’t rig up a hidden camera in their bedroom, because I’m sure the resulting film would have been fascinating viewing.

After training on Friday evening Mark slipped me a small USB stick when nobody was looking.

“Be very careful with this,” he said. “Make sure nobody finds it, and give it back to me when you finished with it so that I can erase it properly. It ought to make your next lesson really quite interesting.”

When I went up to my room to investigate it later that evening I found that he hadn’t been joking, either: there were photographs, and even some short films, illustrating just about every activity between boys and girls, and between boys and boys, that I could imagine. I wondered where on Earth Mark had found this stuff, and then decided that it was probably better not to know. I wasn’t going to show all of it to Lee and Freddie, that was for sure, so I opened a new folder on the stick and copied into it some of the less shocking material.

Next morning I got a phone call from Freddie straight after breakfast. At first I thought he was calling to cancel the morning’s lesson, but instead it turned out that his parents wanted to go shopping as usual but that Freddie’s sister wasn’t at home, and so he wanted to know if I could go round and babysit.

“I think they want to buy my Easter eggs, so they don’t want me to go with them,” he added in a whisper. “So can you? Please?”

“Only if you and Lee promise to do whatever I tell you,” I said sternly.

Freddie made a rude noise and asked me to wait, and a few seconds later a woman came on, announced that she was Freddie’s mother and asked if I would be prepared to look after the boys for a couple of hours while she went shopping. Considering that she’d never met me I wondered why she was apparently prepared to trust me, but I supposed that Freddie had been feeding her some sort of nonsense about me being a responsible person or something, because she seemed only too happy when I said I wouldn’t mind.

In an attempt to look responsible I actually put on a clean shirt and a tie, but I probably needn’t have bothered because Mrs Chalfont just took one look at me, nodded, and said she’d be back by half past eleven, or twelve at the latest, and then ran out to get in the car, which her husband already had running on the drive. I watched them drive away and then closed the front door and took my jacket off – she hadn’t even seen the tie.

“Where are you?” I called, since the boys were nowhere in sight.

“In Freddie’s room,” called Lee from the top of the stairs.

I hung the jacket up in the hall and went up to Freddie’s room. Lee was there, dressed neatly as usual, but there was no sign of Freddie.

“He’s in the bathroom,” Lee told me when I asked. “So, did you manage to find us some more naughty pictures?”

“Maybe,” I said. “You’ll have to wait and see.”

“That means ‘yes’,” he said. “Yippee!”

I’m not sure when I last heard someone actually say ‘Yippee!’ – actually I’m not sure if I’d ever heard anyone say it. It suited him, though: he seemed to be stuck in some sort of time warp from a time when children were sweet and innocent and well-behaved – the Fifties, perhaps, although I suspect that if I asked my grandmother about it she’d probably tell me that kids have never been sweet and innocent and well-behaved. But Lee was a mother’s dream: neat, nicely-pressed clothes, shiny black shoes, and a clean, well-scrubbed face. Of course, his enthusiasm for more ‘naughty pictures’ rather contradicted the sweet outward appearance…

It was a couple of minutes before Freddie came in to join us, but he was well worth waiting for: if Lee looked like a child from a non-existent age, Freddie was unmistakably out of the nineteen-forties. He’d clearly been listening the previous time we’d talked about his appearance, because now he was wearing long grey socks, grey shorts that ended closer to his knee than to his groin, one of those elastic belts with an S-clasp, a grey sleeveless pullover over a thick grey shirt, a horizontally-striped school tie and, best of all, a school cap.

“What do you think?” he asked me.

“You look pretty amazing,” I said. “Where did you find all that stuff?”

“My dad knows a man who does amateur dramatics, and he knows a shop where you can find period clothes,” he told me. “I had a bit of money saved up, so I thought, why not?”

“Okay, but are you ever going to actually wear that kit in the street?” I asked.

“Well… I might. Otherwise it would be good for fancy dress parties – I could say I was going as Just William.”

“Who’s just William?” I asked.

“It’s a series of books for boys written ages and ages ago, and the hero is this eleven-year-old… at least, I think he’s eleven… anyway, they’re set back before the second world war, so he dresses like this. The BBC filmed some of the stories a year or so back, so I know exactly what they looked like back then. Lee’s dared me to come to school like this, but I don’t think that would be a very good idea. Our headmaster doesn’t have a sense of humour.

“Anyway, have you got some more pictures for us to look at?”

“Maybe,” I said again, wondering if I’d get another ‘Yippee’. But instead he said “Awesome!” which seemed a bit out of character.

“I don’t think they said ‘awesome’ in 1940,” I pointed out. “Don’t you have to say ‘smashing’ or ‘spiffing’ or something like that?”

“I don’t know. I suppose I’ll have to get lots of old books and start reading them if I want to find out. Actually that might be quite fun. I wonder if I could persuade people I’m really from 1940 but I fell through a wormhole in time, or something? I’d have to make sure I didn’t say anything too modern, and I’d need to pretend I don’t understand computers and stuff…but it would be really funny if I could get good enough at it to fool people. I’m definitely going to practise.”

“I’ll help,” said Lee. “Every time I hear you say something that is too modern for 1940 I’ll hit you.”

“I don’t think so,” said Freddie.

“Why don’t you get a second set of clothes for Lee?” I suggested. “Then you could both be time travellers and you’d have to learn to speak 1940 together. That way it would be fair – if one of you gets something wrong the other one can hit him.”


Freddie

Actually I thought that was a great idea – after all, we were already both so geeky that anyone meeting us for the first time would be sure to think we were weird, and I was fairly sure I could learn not to say anything twenty-first century. And Lee’s pretty bright, too – I mean, I’d never admit that to him, but he is – and so I’m sure he could learn to pretend to be a time-traveller.

“I think Lee would have to change his name,” Kevin went on. “I don’t think people were called ‘Lee’ in 1940. Freddie’s OK, but not Lee. Though if you went to a good school back then I think you’d probably use each other’s surnames, so you’d have to remember to call him ‘Woodford’ instead of ‘Lee’.”

“My second name’s George,” said Lee. “That would be all right, wouldn’t it? I mean, even the King was called George back then.”

I was surprised to hear that Lee seemed so ready to go along with this – I’d expected him to say it was silly. But I knew that he did have a sense of humour, even if he didn’t show it very often, and perhaps this sort of thing would appeal to him the same way it did to me.

“Of course, if this was the 1940s I’m sure there wouldn’t be any sex education,” said Kevin. “So perhaps I ought not to show you any more pictures.”

“All right, I’ll stop pretending it’s 1940,” I said. “Just until you go home, anyway.”

“Then hadn’t you better take all those 1940 clothes off?” suggested Lee, grinning at me.

“I don’t think so,” I said. “At least, not unless you’re going to get undressed as well.”

Normally I wouldn’t have minded getting undressed – after all, they had both seen me undressed before. But if there were going to be some more pictures to look at it was a certainty that my thing would get hard, and that would be a bit embarrassing if I was the only one with no clothes. And I wasn’t too surprised when Lee said that he’d prefer to keep his clothes on.

“Then I’m keeping my clothes on, too,” I told him. “But I will take my cap off if you like.”

I removed my cap and threw it on top of my chest of drawers. Of course even without the cap I still looked like a boy from 1940 because I had my hair gelled into a parting again. I was definitely going to have to persuade Lee to try a nice old-fashioned hairstyle.

“So what have you got for us this week?” I asked, looking at the screen.

“Well, so far all the pictures you’ve seen were basically just shots taken in naturist resorts or at the beach,” said Kevin. “But this time they’re a bit more… well, explicit, I suppose.”

He opened his folder and selected the first picture, and I found myself looking at a picture of a fair-haired boy of about my own age with his hands on his hips looking at the camera. He was naked, and I suppose this photo might have been taken at a naturist resort like the ones we’d seen before, but the difference was that in this picture the boy’s thing was stiff, with his foreskin open a little and the head visible beneath it.

Lee gave a little gasp – I’m fairly sure that he’d never seen a picture like this before either, and I wondered how the photographer had persuaded the boy to let him take the picture – although the boy looked proud of himself, so maybe it hadn’t been that difficult. And the next half-dozen or so photos were also of boys showing themselves off – some a little smaller, some a little bigger, some like mine with skin and some like Lee’s without.

“Remember what I said last time,” said Kevin. “It doesn’t really matter how big or small it is. Some people say that girls prefer a long one, and some think they prefer a thick one, but probably they won’t mind too much as long as it makes them feel nice. You remember I told you that’s why it goes hard, so you can get it in? Well, even a fairly small one, like his, for example,” (the photo showed a naked boy on a beach, and his erection looked no bigger than Henry’s) “is probably big enough to make a girl feel good. So you can tell Henry not to worry about being small.

“And now here are some pictures that you two can recognise.”

Up came a number of pictures of two boys holding each other’s stiff things. When Lee and I had done this it had always been standing up and facing each other, but the boys in this picture, and the ones that followed it, were lying down side by side.

“We’ll have to try doing it like that!” said Lee, demonstrating that he was on exactly the same wavelength as me.

“If you like I’ll go downstairs and leave you to try it out,” offered Kevin.

“No, that’s all right,” I said. “You can stay if you like – maybe you can give us some advice. Are there any more pictures, though?”

He hesitated. “No, not this week,” he said. “Maybe next week – after all, that’s likely to be the last lesson, so…”

“Oh!” interrupted Lee. “Why’s that?”

“Because my brother is going to let me stop having to work for people once the Easter holidays start,” said Kevin.

“Yes, but you could carry on if you wanted to, couldn’t you?” I asked.

“It’s funny – that’s what everyone has said so far. But there isn’t a lot more to tell you, anyway – at least, nothing you need to know right now.”

I took that to mean that maybe there would be some more stuff for us to learn in the future, and since that suggested that maybe Kevin wouldn’t mind coming back to teach us when he thought we were ready. I decided to just keep quiet for now. Instead I stood up and started to get undressed, gesturing to Lee to do the same. By the time we were in our underwear Kevin had removed the USB stick from the computer and then turned it off.

“Wow, where did you get those?” Lee asked me, looking at my 1940s underwear, which were made of a sort of white cotton with little holes in. The vest didn’t look very different from a modern one, but the pants were vaguely boxers, but shorter and looser. “Does that shop even stock old-fashioned undies? I wouldn’t have thought there would be a lot of people wanting those, because if you were in a film about the war I don’t suppose you’d actually take your clothes off in it.”

“Maybe you’d want to go swimming in a canal, or something,” I pointed out. ”I think kids did that sort of thing back then, and if you were poor you probably wouldn’t have swimming trunks.”

“I think they’d probably swim naked,” said Kevin. “But I suppose you couldn’t have a lot of naked kids in a film – at least, not one that was going to be on at the cinema.”

“I suppose not,” I agreed. “But they came from that shop, anyway. They feel a bit odd to wear, but you sort of get used to them.”

I pulled them off and lay down on the bed, and Lee finished undressing and came and positioned himself next to me, and for the next ten minutes or so we experimented with the most comfortable position for holding each other. It was fun, and I didn’t mind Kevin being there at all.

“Try this,” he suggested. “Freddie, lie on your back, and Lee, lie on top of him facing him… yes, like that. Now if Freddie puts his arms around you and you both relax, it should feel nice.”

It did, too: Lee and I have been friends for ages, but I’d never felt as close to him as I did right then. I stroked his back and he put his head right next to mine, so that we were cheek to cheek, and it felt absolutely perfect. I wouldn’t have minded staying like that all day, and Lee showed no signs of wanting to get off me, either. I don’t know how long we were lying like that, but eventually Kevin said that we probably ought to get up and put some clothes on before my parents came home.

“Thanks for showing us that,” I said as I got dressed in my normal clothes, rather than the 1940 kit – my parents already think I’m a bit odd, and I didn’t want to freak them out completely… or not just yet, anyway. “If you know any more stuff like that, please can you show us next week?”

“Maybe,” he said.

I hope he meant it: life has certainly got more fun since I first met him…


Kevin

I had no plans for the afternoon, so as soon as I got home I turned on the computer, discovered that Jeremy was online and asked him if he wanted to come and visit. He said he’s really like to, but of course he didn’t have the money for the rail fare. This time I couldn’t book a ticket for him online because my father wasn’t at home and so I couldn’t use his credit card, and obviously I haven’t got one yet, and that meant that the only way to do it would be for me to visit him instead – although I supposed that I could travel down to his station and then buy him a ticket so that we could come back to my house together. It was a bit of a waste of money for me to go there and come back on the next train, but I wasn’t exactly short.

Jeremy was waiting for me at the ticket office. I bought a return ticket for him and then we went out to wait on the platform.

“How’s your week been?” I asked him.

“Not too bad. Kenton’s more or less left me alone this week. He’s been really quiet – in fact yesterday I actually asked him if there was something wrong. He said no, so I said, ‘You can tell me if there is,’ and he said, ‘What, so you can gloat?’ and I said, ‘No, so I can help. You don’t gloat when your friends are in trouble,’ and he said, ‘We’re not friends, Millefin,’ and I said, ‘No, but we were, and as far as I’m concerned we could be again,’ and he didn’t say anything, so I shut up.

“When we got off the train I walked back to his place with him. I asked if he wanted to see me over the weekend and he just shook his head and went indoors. But either he’s got some other problem, or else… well, maybe he did take some notice of what you said to him last week.”

“I hope so,” I said. “Still, even if he doesn’t want to be friends with you, at least it’s something if he stops pushing you about, isn’t it?”

“Yes, of course. I just wish…”

“That things would go back to how they used to be? I don’t think they can,” I said. “Not really. I should think the best you can hope for is that he’ll leave you alone. Anyway, let’s talk about something else. We’ll be on holiday in a week’s time. Do you think you’ll be able to come and stay with me for a couple of days? It would give you a break from home and keep you out of Kenton’s reach.”

“Well, yes, if you’ve got room for me,” he said straight away. “I don’t want to be a nuisance, though.”

“I wouldn’t have asked you if I thought you were a nuisance,” I said. “And we’ve definitely got room. We’ve got quite a big house.”

The train arrived and we made the journey back without talking a lot, but without the silence being uncomfortable, either. I caught him looking at me a couple of times, and the second time I removed my glasses and tucked them into my jacket pocket.

“Why’d you do that?” he asked.

“Well, I know you think I look kinda gross with them on…” I began.

“No, I don’t!” he interrupted. “I know I’ve said a couple of times that I think you look really good without them on, but that doesn’t mean you look gross wearing them! Anyway, I know you can’t see much without them, so put them back on – please?”

I did so.

“Thanks,” he said. “Look, I’m sorry: I shouldn’t have asked you to take them off when we were on Skype. It wasn’t because I think you look bad with them on, because you don’t. It was more that you look absolutely amazing without… well…”

He tailed off, looking embarrassed.

“If you think I look amazing you obviously need glasses yourself,” I said. “Anyway, don’t worry about it. Although I admit I prefer being able to keep them on, because that way I can see you properly. Without them you’re just a blur.”

“I reckon if you weren’t wearing those big magnifying lenses you couldn’t see me at all,” he said. “I’m a midget.”

“No, you’re not,” I said. “You’re not a lot shorter than me.”

He gave a snort of derisive laughter.

“Seriously,” I said. “Look, stand up.”

It wasn’t too easy on the swaying train, but he managed to stand up, and when I stood up in front of him the top of his head was level with the bridge of my nose. Okay, I’m by no means the tallest boy in the class, but even so…

“I’d guess there’s about four inches between us,” I said. “That’s hardly worth worrying about – and you’re taller than some of the kids in my year. If you were in my form nobody would assume for a moment that you didn’t belong there. It’s true that you’re probably slightly shorter than average for fourteen, but not by that much. I think you worry too much about it. You look perfectly normal to me – in fact you’re a whole lot better than normal…”

I decided to shut up before I said something really embarrassing – and I was sure that the last thing he wanted was to have an ugly lump like me lusting after him.

“We’ll be there in five minutes,” I said, wanting to change the subject. “What time do you have to be home?”

“I don’t think it really matters too much,” he said. “Just as long as I let them know when to expect me. They’re only too happy to see me out with someone else instead of sitting in my room all weekend.”

“Good,” I said. “We’ll check what time the last train is, and hopefully it’ll be late enough for us to be able to spend as long as we want together.”

So we checked the timetable when we reached my local station and discovered that the last train didn’t leave until twenty to one in the morning. That was clearly too late, so we settled on the 2150 as being the one to aim for. Then we caught the bus back to my house, and when we reached the end of the drive Jeremy stopped and just gaped.

“When you said you’d have room for me… you weren’t joking, were you? Is your dad Richard Branson or something?”

“Nothing like that,” I assured him. “He usually tells people he’s ‘something in the City’. The only bad thing about it is that he’s away a lot, and at the moment my mother’s away too, looking after our gran, so right now Chris and I have the place more or less to ourselves. Come on.”

I took him inside and gave Chris a shout, but there was no answer, and then I spotted a note he’d left for me on the hall table.

‘Gone over to Mark’s,’ it said. ‘Back for supper. If you get back before me, behave yourself!!!’

“Cheek!” I commented under my breath.

“Chris has gone out,” I told Jeremy. “Come on up to my room, and then we can decide what we’re going to do.”

Jeremy followed me up to my room, parked himself on the bed and asked the obvious question.

“Oh, it’s there to stop me playing with myself,” I explained. “Remember I told you that Chris and Mark decided to fix it to make it difficult for me? Well, that camera is part of the system they rigged up. There’s a microphone under the bed, too.”

“Why do you put up with that?”

“Because if I don’t they might put the films they’ve got of me online.”

“No, they won’t!” he said. “I’ve met them, remember? And I’m sure they’d never do something like that to you. You said yourself they’re both still okay with you, didn’t you? So I think it’s about time you stood up for yourself.”

He took the chair from in front of my desk, placed it under the camera, stood on it and moved the camera so that it was pointing at the ceiling. Next he looked under the bed, followed the cable from the microphone as far as the wall, where Chris had apparently drilled a hole between his room and mine for it, and then went out of the room. He came back a couple of minutes later.

“I’ve turned the whole system off,” he told me. “And I’m going to talk to your brother when he gets home. This is completely out of order – your room should be your place where you can do whatever you want. I bet your brother wanks in his room.

“So, what are we going to do?”

“Whatever you like,” I said. “We could play chess if you want – Danny and I have invented a new version I could teach you.”

“Yes, okay.”

I got up and went to my cupboard to get the two chess sets and boards, and while I was doing that Jeremy went over to my bookcase.

“Hey, you’ve got the third Alex Rider,” he commented. “Do you think I could borrow it? I haven’t read that one yet.”

“Sure,” I said.

“Great! It’ll give me something to do on the train going back… hey, why have you got a webcam in your bookcase?”

“I haven’t… have I?” I said.

“Yes, you have… and it’s connected to this laptop down the back of the bookcase. Is it yours?”

I shook my head, so Jeremy delved down the back of the bookcase and retrieved not only a laptop, but an external hard drive too.

“That’s got to be Chris,” I said, staring at them. “The bastard! That’s how he filmed me in the first place!”

“Well, he isn’t going to any longer,” said Jeremy, disconnecting the camera and the hard drive and putting all three items in his bag. “We’ll hold these to ransom until he hands over any film or photo he’s got of you and swears not to try filming you in future. Now let’s go and play chess.”

He headed for the door and I followed him, thinking that he’d changed a lot from the mousy kid I’d first met at his school. Maybe helping him to stand up to Kenton had done a lot of good. I was quite looking forward to seeing what happened when Chris got home…

******************************


How is Chris likely to react to Jeremy pulling the plug? You'll find out in the next chapter.

Got any opinions on the story so far? Try gothmog@nyms.net – probably the best mail address in the world. Or not.

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