In which Mark eats some pizza and discovers that Danny isn't just good at chess.
Freddie
I felt a bit strange after I’d got dressed again, so I told Henry to put his clothes on and we went back down to his room. It was almost time for lunch anyway, and we needed a bit of a wash before eating because the attic was quite dusty. I’d expected that and had come wearing my oldest clothes – I didn’t want my 1940 set getting too mucky just in case Lee and I got a chance to use it properly the following week.
Once we’d both had a wash we sat down in his room, me in the chair in the corner and him on the bed, and I tried to work out what to say to him, because by this point I was feeling really bad: how could I have made him do that?
“Maybe I should go,” I said, not looking at him.
“Why? There’s loads more stuff in the attic – we’ve barely started.”
“Well… because of… you know,” I said. “I should never have made you do that!”
“Did it feel nice?”
“Yes, but that’s not the point!”
“Yes, it is. Look, Freddie, we’ve got an agreement: I have to do whatever you tell me to – and I’m all right with that. I really didn’t mind doing that for you – after all, I’ve had to do it before at school, so it’s not as if it was new to me. So if you enjoyed it – and I think you did – you can get me to do it again whenever you want until I go back to school. It won’t change us being friends, I swear. And if you want Lee to find out what it’s like, I can do it for him, too. Or anything else you can think of.”
“You swear it’s all right?”
“I swear.”
Looking at his face it was clear that he meant it, and that made me feel a lot better. After all, it had felt nice – in fact it had felt amazing – and I suppose by now I’d recovered a bit, and I definitely wanted to do it again – but only as long as Henry didn’t mind. And now it looked as if he didn’t. I felt like the luckiest geek in the world.
“That reminds me,” he said, picking up his notepad and walking over to his desk. “Let’s find out just how big you are now.”
I was quite interested in that myself, so I went and joined him while he found a ruler and held it against the pad.
“Gosh!” he said, “according to this you’re about four and three-eighths inches – that’s” (and he turned the ruler round) “just over eleven centimetres. Crikey, that’s big for eleven, Freddie – all right, I know you’ll be twelve on Saturday, but even so, it's not bad. I wish I was that big.”
“So how big are you?” I asked. “I think we ought to check.”
“Oh, no, I don’t think… must I?”
“What do you think?”
Now that I was feeling a bit better about it I couldn’t see any reason not to tease Henry some more – although the fact that his thingy was already hard when he pulled his shorts and briefs down suggested that he didn’t mind this, even though it must have been pretty embarrassing for him – after all, he was a year and seven months older than me, and his thingy was obviously nothing like as big as mine. His balls were tiny, too – I didn’t think mine had been that small since I was about eight.
I took the ruler and held it against his erection.
“Oh, dear, Henry,” I said, “is that as big as you can get it?”
He nodded, staring down at himself.
“Well, according to the ruler, you’re about two and a quarter inches, or five and a half centimetres. That’s exactly half the size of mine. Mine’s quite a bit thicker, too. You must be really ashamed.”
“I am, a bit. But I think it’s true, what Kevin told us: it will start to grow a bit eventually. By the time I’m fifteen or sixteen I should look like everyone else – at least, I hope so!”
“We’ll have to keep checking, then,” I said. “We’ll make you undress and get measured every time we see you, and if there’s any sign of it growing we’ll have to cut a bit off it to keep it the same size it is now!”
“I’ve already had the only bit cut off that’s going to be cut off,” he pointed out, indicating his circumcision scar.
“Not if Lee and I decide it’s getting too big!” I told him, grinning at him.
I took hold of it and squeezed gently. It felt hot and very hard, and I wondered why it was hard so often: upstairs in the attic this morning had been the only time I’d ever seen it soft. Mine goes hard quite often, but Henry’s seems to be that way almost all the time. Perhaps he’d found a way of doing it deliberately to make it look bigger than it really is. I went on playing with it for a few seconds and then told him to get dressed, and he did so, but not very quickly.
“You’re a lot more grown up than I am,” he said, doing up his belt. “Maybe you should treat me like the boys at school do, which is as if I was about nine years old. It would be fair enough, because bits of me don’t even look nine, do they? So maybe you should be in charge of me all the time, not just during this holiday – at least, until I finally start growing up a bit. It would serve me right for being so immature.”
I have to admit I liked the idea of that. Henry isn’t just a year and a half older than me, but he’s six inches taller than me as well, and nobody seeing us would ever take me for the older one. So being able to boss him about would be fun.
“What do they make you do, then?” I asked.
“Well, I have to go to bed earlier than anyone else, and I’m not allowed to have a bath or a shower without at least one person supervising me. And I have to say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ all the time, and if I forget I get spanked. And of course you already know about the sex stuff.”
“But… don’t you hate it?” I asked. “I mean, I’m pretty sure I would if the boys in my class treated me like that.”
“I suppose I did at first. But when I got used to it it wasn’t too bad, and it’s a lot better than getting beaten up. It’s taught me to be really polite, too.”
“Then maybe we should do that,” I said. “After all, it would be a pity if you forgot how to be polite during the holidays wouldn’t it?”
“I suppose so. So – please would you come downstairs with me? We can see if lunch is going to be much longer.”
I followed him, thinking that this was actually likely to be a lot of fun…
Mark
On Tuesday morning I cycled over to Kevin’s place. I already knew that Chris wasn’t going to be there because he and Colin had gone up to London for the day. They’d asked if I wanted to go with them, and usually I would have said yes straight away, but when the alternative was spending the day with Kevin and being able to do pretty much anything we wanted to, suddenly London looked a lot less attractive. So I’d come up with some sort of family-based excuse and headed over here half an hour after Chris was supposed to have left. And I was delighted to discover that when I got there Kevin was alone in the house.
This time we didn’t even have to pretend to play chess first: instead we just went straight up to Kevin’s room and closed the door behind us, just in case. I wouldn’t have bothered, but of course Kev had already been caught that way once.
We took our clothes off and got into bed, and immediately I appreciated the larger bed: there would actually be room for two people to sleep in this bed without being jammed together like sardines. I still didn’t think there was any chance of persuading my parents to get me a bigger one, but perhaps if I could come over here and share with Kev occasionally it wouldn’t matter so much. Of course, once I found a permanent partner for myself … well, I’d just have to make sure I only went out with people who had a decent-sized bed.
Note the word ‘partner’ there: these days when I thought about going out with someone it seemed more and more likely that it would be a boy. I still liked the idea of having a girlfriend, but I have to admit that I liked the idea of having a boyfriend more, simply because I couldn’t imagine that being with a girl could be more fun than being with someone who completely shared my interests – football and computers, mostly. Of course Kev was expert at neither, but he did understand how I felt about them, and in any case I didn’t really view Kev as a partner as such, just someone who I got on really well with and who was happy for us to practise sex together. Ideally I would like someone of my own age, and preferably of my own height. But until that particular miracle happened I was happy enough snuggling up to Kev.
“So what’s the plan for today?” I asked him.
“Well, Danny Engel is coming round after lunch, so we’ll probably spend most of the afternoon doing chess stuff. But that leaves us the morning to do non-chess stuff. Got any ideas?”
“One or two….”
I’d discovered that I liked cuddling. I liked sex too, obviously, but just being close to someone was special in its own way, and even if we’d never done anything sexual I think I’d still have been happy. We didn’t even have to talk: a lot of the time we just lay quietly, snuggled against each other or just holding hands. I think that maybe that’s the sign of a good relationship, when you’re happy just being together and don’t need to keep talking.
We did some kissing, too. We kept it gentle, rather than trying to suck each other’s tonsils out, which somehow doesn’t really appeal to me. Just a nice, soft touch of the lips is enough.
And of course we did some sex, too, although we didn’t rush it: it’s nice being sucked over a period of about half an hour, and almost as nice to return the compliment.
I suppose we could have done the other thing too – by now I’d spent enough time practising with the plastic one that I was fairly sure I was ready for the real thing. But I didn’t suggest it, and neither did Kev. I suppose it’s because I’d like to think I will get a proper boyfriend eventually: after all, this is something special, and it would be nice to do it for the first time with the person you’ve fallen in love with. Of course I liked Kev a lot, and I’d be perfectly happy for him to do it for me if I came to the conclusion that I’m not going to find a proper boyfriend, but while that hope remained I wanted to leave that final step untaken.
So we spent virtually the whole of the morning in bed, and it was probably as good a morning as I’ve had for a long time. Eventually we got up and Kev phoned out for a pizza for lunch, which I suppose was pretty lazy, but who cares? I like pizza and so does he, and we even both like the same toppings (ham, mushrooms and extra peperoni) so we didn’t even argue about that.
“Should we save a slice for Engel?” I asked.
“Not with these toppings. He wouldn’t be allowed to eat it. Actually I don’t know if he’s allowed to eat pizza at all. We’ll have to ask him.”
“What do you mean?” I asked. “Why isn’t he allowed to eat it? Is he ill or something?”
“No, he’s Jewish. They can’t eat anything to do with pigs, so no ham or peperoni, for a start.”
“Oh. I didn’t know he was Jewish… that’s interesting. Oh, well, in that case I suppose we ought to finish the pizza ourselves.”
Of course finishing the pizza was no hardship – as I said, I like pizza a lot. Once we’d disposed of it we went through to the study and set up the chessboard, because I knew I wasn’t as good as Engel and wanted to get some practice in before he arrived. But we were still only on our first game – I think Kev wasn’t trying his hardest, to be honest – when he arrived, so we stopped long enough to go and let him in.
I was surprised by his appearance: at school he usually looks like a scarecrow, all untucked shirt and undone laces, with his hair all over the place and ink all over his face, although recently the ink at least has disappeared. But today he looked completely different: smartly dressed, his hair nicely combed and his shoes polished. I don’t know which of us he was trying to impress, but it made me feel positively scruffy. But Kev looked pleased to see him, so perhaps there really was more to Engel than I had seen at school. Yes, he’d been nice enough at Chess Club the previous Monday, but other than that he’d just seemed to be really quiet and frankly really uninteresting.
“Hi, Danny,” said Kev. “You look really good – again. I like the shirt.”
“Thanks. It’s new,” said Engel. “I wanted to get something a bit better than the sort of stuff I normally wear, so I saved up for a while. Hello, Thamnoboskou… actually, is it all right if I call you ‘Mark’? At least then I won’t have to worry about keep making a mess of your surname.”
“You didn’t make a mess of it – well, not really. Strictly the ‘th’ is pronounced as just ‘t’, and the ‘b’ is more of a ‘v’, but it depends where you come from. I don’t mind you calling me ‘Mark’, anyway. And you’re Danny, aren’t you?”
“That’s right, although Kevin is about the only person who ever calls me anything except ‘Engel’. So, what do you want to get thrashed at first, Kev?”
“Perhaps we should play some ordinary games first,” said Kevin. “After that we can teach Mark to play wide-screen and Kriegspiel and stuff. But I’m not going to get thrashed. Did you bring your clock?”
“Of course.”
So we went into the study and Kev and I finished the game we’d been playing (I lost) and then we played a few games of blitz, which I was hopeless at, either because I worried so much about the clock that I didn’t concentrate on the board, or because I spent so long thinking about what to move next that I forgot the clock and lost on time. Kev and Danny were about the same standard, though, so their games were a lot closer.
In the course of the afternoon they taught me a lot of new games, including one mad one that they said they’d invented themselves, using a lot of weird extra pieces that I’d never heard of before. They also taught me something called Kriegspiel, where you can only see your own pieces and have to guess where your opponent’s pieces are – you play it back to back and have a board each, and the third person – me – has a third board with both black and white pieces on and he tells the players what they can and can’t move legally. It must be really hard to play, but they seemed to enjoy it.
I was amazed by the way Danny kept joking around with Kev, because at school I don’t think I’d ever seen him smile. But here he was like a totally different boy: he seemed completely relaxed, and it was obvious that he and Kev really liked each other. I wasn’t jealous, exactly, because I don’t think of Kev as my boyfriend or anything, but I was a bit surprised.
“We’re not being fair to Mark,” said Kev after we’d been playing for a couple of hours. “How about if we go upstairs and play some video games? He’s probably better at those than you and me, Danny.”
“Speak for yourself!” said Danny, although I didn’t actually expect him to be very good. Probably he was just trying to psych me out.
I know Kev isn’t too good at most games, and I suppose I thought that because Danny was another chess nerd he’d be exactly the same as Kev. So when Kev dug into his games box and produced GT5 I saw no reason not to announce my impending victory: even though racing games aren’t what I’m best at, I was confident I could beat Kev, and therefore that I could beat Danny, too.
“You might both be better at chess than me,” I said, “but now you’re going to get killed.”
“Really?” said Danny. “Are you sure?”
“Obviously.”
“Would you like to bet on it?”
“Danny!” said Kev warningly, but I ignored him.
“Yes, okay,” I said. “How much?”
“I don’t bet money. How about the loser has to strip naked?”
I stared at him. “Are you serious?” I asked.
“Why not? You reckon you can play this game, so what are you worried about?”
At that point I started to wonder whether Danny was quite as green as I’d thought, but of course it was a bit late to back out now, because as I hesitated, Kev butted in and said “What’s the matter, Mark – are you scared of a little weed like Danny?” and then of course I had to go ahead. Danny isn’t really ‘little’ – he’s actually an inch or so taller than me. But he’s really thin and appears to have no muscles, so ‘weed’ was probably fair enough.
“Okay, you’re on,” I said. “After all, if you want to make a fool of yourself, who I am to stop you?”
Of course, he slaughtered me: he pulled ahead at the start and after that I never got near him. The only question was simply how much of a gap there would be between us at the finish, and it was big enough to be pretty embarrassing.
“I love this game!” he told me afterwards. “I didn’t even know Kev had a copy, because we normally only play chess. But I spend ages on it at home. So, are you going to strip, or what?”
I sighed, stood up and began to undo my shirt.
“Your turn, Kev,” invited Danny. “Same bet?”
“You’ve got to be joking!” said Kev. “I’m not taking you on after that! If you want to make me strip you’ll have to beat me at wide-screen, like we usually do.”
He must have forgotten that I was there or he’d never have uttered a give-away like that. Like we usually do??? Anyway, I didn’t say anything, I just got on with pulling my shirt over my head.
“Why don’t we play a single game of blitz instead?” suggested Danny. “We don’t want poor Mark to have to stand around naked for ages while we play a complete game of wide-screen. I’ll nip down and get a board and the clock.”
He disappeared before Kev could argue, and that gave me a chance to ask the question I was itching to put to him.
“Is there anything you ought to tell me?” I asked. “Like what you meant by ‘like we usually do’, for example?”
“Ah. Well, Danny and I play a sort of strip chess sometimes. It’s fun. And he really must trust you if he’s prepared to risk it while you’re here – unless he’s sure he’s going to win, of course, which he might if he gets White and plays his damned Grob, because I still don’t know how to beat that.”
“Really? You’ll have to tell me all about it later,” I said. I’d never have guessed that the serious loner Engel would be up for that sort of game. Clearly I really didn’t know the first thing about him.
He returned thirty seconds later with one of the boards and the chess clock, which he put down on Kev’s desk. He grabbed a white pawn and a black one, put them behind his back to shuffle them from one hand to the other a couple of times, and invited Kev to choose, and Kev, with a sigh of relief, picked white. Danny put the clock down beside the board, and then he looked at me and said:
Danny
“Why aren’t you undressed yet?”
“I thought it would be fairer to wait until you’ve finished,” said Mark. “Otherwise the sight of my magnificent body would distract you from your game.”
Kevin laughed, and so did I – after all, Mark was no bigger than I was, and although he was a little heavier than me I didn’t think ‘magnificent’ was exactly the most appropriate adjective.
“All right,” I said. “But once I’ve thrashed Kev you’re both going to have to strip, and that’ll be embarrassing for both of you.”
“That’s what you think,” said Kev. “Are you ready? Then go!”
I’d been sure he’d play the Bird – the King’s Bishop’s Pawn opening he’d used before – and so I’d researched it quite a lot and was confident that I could beat it. So when he started with an English Opening instead I was thrown, and instead of a nice pre-planned strategy I found myself having to make it up as I went along. I took a little too long over my moves, and the result was that although I had a good position at the end I ran out of time.
“Hah!” said Kevin. “Now you can both strip.”
I looked at Mark, and he shrugged and started to undo his belt, and although this wasn’t what I’d hoped for – I’d wanted to watch Kev and Mark together – I couldn’t back out now. And so I got undressed.
“Now stand up and face each other,” said Kevin, and so we did, and…
“Gosh, Mark,” I said, staring at him. “You look… well, like a man!”
“A four foot seven man,” commented Kevin, grinning.
“Yes, but… wow!” I said – because his genitals at least did look almost adult, what with all the hair and the large testicles and the penis, which was growing bigger as I watched.
“You look nice,” said Mark, staring back at me. “I like the end of yours… can I have a closer look?”
“Yes, all right,” I said.
“Right, I’m going downstairs for a bit,” said Kevin. You two just have fun for a while – and you can use the bed if you want. Just come back down when you’re ready.”
He went out and closed the door behind him, and at the same time Mark came and knelt down in front of me.
“May I?” he asked, moving his hand towards me.
I nodded. I was feeling strange again, like I had the first time that Kevin had touched me – but it was a nice sort of strange, as it had been on that first occasion too. And when Mark actually took hold of me and stroked it gently it felt every bit as good as it had the time Kevin had done the same thing the day I first came to visit him.
He examined it closely, running his finger along the circumcision scar.
“I like the way it looks,” he said. “It’s sort of neat. And it’s not a bad size, either.”
“Not as big as yours,” I said.
“I’m not sure. I think mine looks bigger to you because of the hair, but really it probably isn’t, or not much, anyway. So when you do this with Kevin, what usually happens next?”
I wasn’t sure what to say to that, because I hadn’t realise that he knew about us.
“It’s okay,” he said. “Kev sort of let it slip just now that you play strip games, but that’s all I know. But I’d like to try a few things with you.”
“Why?” I asked. “I mean, I think I’d like to try some things too, but why me? We don’t really know each other, and it’s not like I’m good-looking or anything – and most people think I’m weird. Doesn’t that bother you?”
“Not really. First, I like the way you look, even if you are a bit thin, and second, people only think you’re weird because they don’t know anything about you. Like I thought that a bit too, only now I know you’ve got a really good sense of humour, and that you’re awesome at GT5… well, it makes a difference, I think. It makes you seem more…”
“Normal?” I suggested.
“I was going to say ‘more like the rest of us',” he said. “I’m not sure that I’m exactly normal. Look, Kev said we could use the bed, so can we try… well… see, I like just getting close to someone. We don’t have to do any sex stuff, but I’d like it if we could just sort of cuddle a bit.”
Once again I found myself wondering exactly what Kevin had told him, because you don’t normally ask a boy you hardly know if he’d like to cuddle you in bed. Mind you, you don’t normally ask if you can stroke his penis, either, and the fact that I’d let him do that, and was in fact still letting him do that, because he was still gently caressing it – and by now it was very stiff indeed, which I suppose was another giveaway – probably suggested that I wouldn’t mind cuddling either. As to where he’d got the idea from, by now I was pretty sure I could guess.
“You’ve done this with Kevin, haven’t you?” I asked.
“Well, yes. The first time I more or less made him – that was back when he had to do whatever I told him, of course. But it was really obvious that he liked it as much as I did, and so we’ve done it a few times since. Only I think it’ll work better with you because we’re about the same height. So can we give it a try?”
“All right,” I said.
“Awesome! Come, on then!”
He went and got into Kevin’s bed, and I got in beside him and pulled the covers over us.
“Now what?” I asked.
“Well, if you lie on your back, I could come and lie on top of you… like this… and then you could put your arms round me… yes, that’s it… and then we could just relax.”
This definitely felt nice. When I’d cuddled up with Kev in bed we’d been side by side, with me having my back to him, and that had felt good. But like this we were face to face, and of course our genitals were pressed against each other, and that felt particularly nice. And then he leaned forward and touched his lips to mine, and that felt distinctly odd, because although Kevin and I had kissed each other once or twice it had never been on the lips. It wasn’t unpleasant, and actually it felt sort of interesting, but it was still definitely odd.
“Mark,” I said, “are you gay?”
“I don’t know. I might be, but I think maybe I might end up liking boys and girls. Why? Is it important?”
I know that there are lots and lots of people who think it’s very important, mostly (so far as I can make out) adults who aren’t gay and don’t think anyone else should be either, although some kids can be sort of hostile about it too: like I said before, I’ve seen kids calling other boys nasty names if they think they’re gay.
“Well… I suppose not, not really,” I said. “After all, Kevin is gay and that hasn’t stopped us being really good friends, even if I don’t think I’m gay myself. And anyway, I don’t see what business it is of anyone else what Kevin does. It was just that I’ve never been kissed like that. Kevin has only kissed my cheek.”
“Oh. Sorry – I thought that probably you and he… anyway, I won’t do it again if you don’t want me to.”
I didn’t say anything. I suppose it seems odd that I keep saying I don’t think I’m gay despite all the stuff I’ve done with Kevin, and now with Mark, but…I suppose there’s a part of me that thinks that nice Jewish boys can’t be gay, because I’m pretty sure that’s what most of the people at my synagogue think, including my parents. Being gay would make life really complicated, so it was obvious that I couldn’t be gay. Except… well, I liked doing this stuff. Still, it wasn’t really proper sex, was it – and maybe when I got a bit older I’d find that I liked doing stuff with girls even more. It was confusing. Probably I was still too young to know what I was going to be when I grew up – and in that case there probably wasn’t a good reason not to keep doing something I enjoyed, was there?
“No, it’s all right,” I said. “It just took me a bit by surprise, that’s all. Now can we try another position? You’re getting a bit heavy.”
So I arranged us in the same position I’d tried with Kevin, both facing the same way and with Mark pressed against my back with an arm around me, and that was as good as I’d hoped – actually it was better, because Mark actually took hold of my stiff penis and stroked it slowly. After a bit we swapped positions and I played with his penis for a while, though what really fascinated me was the thick, soft hair: Mark has a lot more than Kevin, and touching it felt good.
“Mark,” I said, “would you like me to try rubbing it for you?”
“Would you? I’d really like that!”
“Lie on your back, then. Kevin showed me how to do this, and I suppose it’ll be the same for you…”
I took hold of it and began to do it the way Kevin had showed me, and he seemed to like it. It didn’t take very long, either.
“Crumbs, there’s loads, isn’t there?” I said. “And it’s really thick, too. Hold on…”
Kevin had left a packet of tissues beside the bed, which I reckoned was really thoughtful of him, so I grabbed a couple and did some mopping up., though it wasn’t easy to get all of it out of all that hair around his penis. I think I got most of it, though.
“Your turn,” said Mark, pushing me gently onto my back.
He took hold of me and started to stroke it, but very slowly, and every now and again he paused and ran his hand over my chest.
“You’re definitely too thin,” he told me.
“That’s what Kevin says, too, but I don’t mind being skinny.”
He tickled my nipples for a few seconds and then started rubbing my penis again, and I decided that I definitely liked this, whether it meant that I was gay or not. And then after a couple of minutes he ducked his head down into the bed and slipped it into his mouth instead. Part of me wanted to tell him not to – as I’d said to Kevin, it wasn’t fair that he should do this to me when I hadn’t done it to him. But rather more of me wanted to keep my stupid mouth shut and just enjoy the sensation, and I’m afraid that part won – and it won even more easily than I had won at GT5.
Just as it had when Kevin had done this it began to feel really special, and the feeling grew and grew until… well, it was absolutely wonderful.
“Thanks, Mark,” I said when I got my breath back. “That was great! I think you do that even better than Kevin does.”
He wriggled back up to lie next to me and I rolled towards him and gave him a hug, which seemed to be the right thing to do.
“We haven’t quite finished yet,” he told me.
“Haven’t we?”
“No. Stay there.”
He rolled out of bed, walked over to the door, opened it and yelled “Kevin!” through it.
There was a muffled response.
“Come up here, please!” called Mark, and then, leaving the door open, he came back to the bed and got in beside me.
“Now we just have to wait for a bit,” he said, and I realised what he was intending. And I thought it was an excellent idea…
Kevin
Of course, I just thought that Mark and Danny had finished doing… whatever they’d been doing and just wanted another game or something, but when I got back to the bedroom I found that they were still in bed.
“Get your clothes off,” said Mark, “and then we’ve got a little something for you.”
I wasn’t quite sure what he had in mind, but I trusted him by now, and if anything I trusted Danny even more, so I didn’t think they were going to do anything too horrible. So I got undressed.
“Now come here and get into bed,” said Mark, getting out himself to make room for me, while Danny wriggled over to the far side of the bed. I got in and Mark got in after me, pulling the covers over us. I’m not sure that we could have slept like that because with three in the bed it was a bit of a tight squeeze, but it turned out that a tight squeeze was exactly what they both wanted, because they put me onto my back and then snuggled up against me on either side and put their arms around me.
“So why did you do that?” asked Mark.
“Why did I do what?”
“Why did you get us both naked and then disappear like that?”
“Ah. Well… I knew you were looking for someone of your own age to do stuff with, and preferably your own height, too. And I knew Danny likes doing some of the stuff you do, and that he’s capable of being a really good friend, just like you are… so I thought maybe you’d… well, you know – be able to have fun together. So did you?”
“Yes, we did. But does this mean you’re trying to get rid of me?”
“What?! No! God, no, Mark, I’d hate it if you just disappeared! I hope we can go on being friends, and even… you know, practising together – at least until I find a proper boyfriend, which is likely to be a very long time. Same with you, Danny – I don’t want you to stop coming round, even if you and Mark become… you know, good friends.”
“Do you think we’re going to become good friends?” asked Mark, looking at Danny.
“Well, yes, I hope so,” said Danny. “I just hope you don’t get too fed up with being thrashed at GT5 every time we play.”
“I shouldn’t think we’ll be playing that very often,” Mark told him. “I bet I’ve got some games you’ll be crap at.”
“Does that mean I’ll be allowed to come and visit you to find out?” asked Danny.
“Well, yes, I hope so. What are you doing tomorrow afternoon?”
“Nothing.”
“Then you are now. But first we need to do something for Kev to say thank you for getting us together…”
The next fifteen minutes or so were incredible: either of them on his own was capable of making me feel good, but together it was almost like sensory overload. I’ve no idea how I lasted a quarter of an hour, but when Mark finished me off, using his mouth once more, I thought it was going to go on for ever.
Afterwards I said “Thank you” very politely and we just lay quietly for a few minutes. I really liked the feeling of closeness…
Eventually we got up and put our clothes on and spent the remaining hour or so until Chris came home playing more video games, although this time without any bets being made. And that was probably just as well, especially from Mark’s point of view, because Danny turned out to be pretty good at most types of game and won more games than Mark and me put together.
“I don’t think I’ll be able to do anything next week,” Danny reminded me as he was leaving. “I’ll be busy with family stuff. I’ll see you at Chess Club on Monday week – and I expect Mark can tell you how many more games he gets thrashed at when I go round to his tomorrow!”
“I don’t think I’d tell even if that happened,” said Mark. “And it won’t – I’m going to make sure we only play games I can kill you at. I’ll probably see you over the weekend, Kev – I’m going to want to come over and raid yours and Chris’s Easter eggs.”
“I’ll make sure I remember to hide them, then.”
When they had gone I went back up to my room to tidy up a bit, wondering if bringing them together like that had been the right thing to do. From a purely selfish point of view I was a bit worried that if they really hit it off together I might not get a lot of chance to see either of them very often – but on the other hand, Danny was definitely a better choice of partner for Mark than I was, since he was the same age and same height. Overall I thought I had probably done the right thing – and maybe if there’s such a thing as natural justice I’d be rewarded by having Colin suddenly come over all gay and desperate to sleep with me. Yeah, right…
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Now that's really nice of Kevin, thinking about the happiness of his friends. However, it really doesn't seem likely that Colin is going to grant him his wish...
gothmog@nyms.net – it does exactly what it says on... okay, that's about enough of the advertising riffs, I think. If you want to contact me, you know what to do.
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