In which Peter gets a surprise, Freddie has a visitor and Kevin sums up.
Kevin
Jeremy and I went window-shopping on Thursday morning. It’s not something I do very often, but I actually enjoyed it a lot – it’s completely different doing it with a friend, although to be honest I think I’d have been perfectly happy if we’d just spent the whole day sitting on the sofa talking to each other. I’d never realised how having a proper friend – or a partner – can change the way you look at stuff. It helped that I knew Colin approved, of course: it might have been a bit awkward if he’d been unhappy about it. Mind you, I still didn’t think I was ready to actually come out at school, because every form contains a few idiots, and even though I thought most of my form-mates wouldn’t have cared either way I didn’t see the point of looking for trouble – or not just yet, anyway.
I thought I might tell Jason, though, because he and I had become quite good friends since we started sitting next to each other in class. In view of what his brother had told me I didn’t expect Jason to be even remotely anti. But that would probably be the limit of it. And I certainly wasn’t going to tell my parents, not because I thought they’d react badly – although in Father’s case I suppose he might – but because I thought they wouldn’t let me have Jeremy to stay again if they found out we were sharing a bed, and that was something I wanted to go on doing. A lot. It wasn’t just the sex, either: it was waking up next to someone and being able to start the day with a kiss and a cuddle before you even have to get out of bed. I didn’t want to do anything that might stop me from doing that again. Jeremy went home on Thursday evening, and somehow my bed seemed far too big on Thursday night.
There was a football training session on Friday morning: Sunday’s game was against the Royals, who were still top of the league, and it was important: if we beat them we would still have an outside chance of winning the league ourselves – provided the Royals dropped a couple more points in their last two games – but if they beat us we might not even finish second. Needless to say, Mr Clifford expected us to win, and so the training was a little more arduous than usual. I did my best to keep out of the way – I didn’t fancy being sent on a long training run.
Afterwards Lee Woodford slipped me a note asking if I could go round to Freddie’s the following morning because he wanted to talk to me, and since I didn’t have anything planned I said I would. And then Dwayne grabbed me and walked me round behind the changing room.
“I just wanted to say thanks, man,” he said.
“How come?” I asked.
“’Cos you suggested we talked to Clive. And he done it for us – me and Silvio both. He done it with Silvio first – he swears he’s never done it before, but Silvio says he learned quick if that was true. And then he came round my yard on Tuesday. He was a bit nervous, like – ‘cos of me being so huge, natch!” He grinned at me. “But he did it anyway, and it was class. As good as you, anyway. He said he’d been hoping someone would ask because he liked the idea and wanted to see what it was like – that’s why he told us all he was gay, ‘cos he hoped someone would ask. And he liked doing it, so he’s going to do it for us some more. Course, I’ll get a girl soon and then I won’t need him, but till then he’s gonna be well useful. This afternoon Silvio’s coming to mine and Clive’s gonna do us both. So we both wanted to thank you for getting it started.”
“No problem,” I said, and he gave me a big smile and walked away.
So it looked as if almost everyone was happy now – everyone Chris had involved in his scheme seemed to have benefitted from it, but in ways Chris probably hadn’t foreseen when he sent me round to their houses.
On Saturday morning I went round to Freddie’s house. Lee wasn’t there, but Cousin Henry was, still obediently wearing his shorts. Freddie, however, was today dressed entirely in the style of 2012 – he’d even combed his hair into a much less geeky style with no hair gel.
“Given up on Just William?” I asked.
“No, not at all. I’m just having a day off,” he said. “And we were good enough to make someone think we really might have come from 1941 – well, almost. We didn’t actually make any real mistakes – he just couldn’t believe in time travel, no matter how convincing we were. He was impressed by our efforts, though. He’s supposed to be coming to visit this afternoon. I don’t suppose you know where I can find a tin bath, do you?”
“Sorry,” I said. “Isn’t there one in Henry’s attic? I thought that was supposed to be full of stuff.”
“No tin baths, I’m afraid,” said Henry. “We did look, but I think tin baths weren’t quite the done thing for the aristocracy.”
“The servants might have had one, surely?”
“Well, if they did, it didn’t end up in our loft. I suppose we could have a trawl through the old outbuildings…”
“Don’t bother,” said Freddie. “It was just a thought. I expect if I root around online I might be able to find one, but not before this afternoon.”
“You could always use a cattle trough,” I suggested. “It might not be terribly warm at this time of year, mind.”
“Maybe I’ll suggest it,” said Freddie. “I’m not sure he’ll go for it, though.”
“Anyway,” I said, “Lee said you wanted to see me…?”
“Oh! No, it’s not me, it’s Henry - although since you’re here I will say thank you for encouraging us with the wartime thing, because it turned out to be a lot of fun. So thank you.”
“Always a pleasure,” I said. “So, Henry, what can I do for you?”
“Can we go for a walk in the garden?” asked Henry, which suggested clearly that he didn’t want Freddie listening in.
“Yes, okay,” I said, and so we went outside and wandered down to the far end of the garden.
“Still worrying about next September?” I asked.
“Well, yes, and really that’s why I wanted to speak to you. See, I was wondering… if I do fail my exam… well, I thought that perhaps you might be able to take over, as it were. I thought that since you’re gay, maybe you’d like to… you know… look after me. I’m not sure if I could get to your school, because I live in Sussex, but maybe I could, and even if I couldn’t, perhaps we could do stuff at weekends? That would be miles better than nothing…”
“No,” I said firmly. “Sorry, Henry, but that really isn’t my thing at all. Besides, I’ve got a boyfriend now, and I hope he and I are going to be busy at weekends – most of the time, anyway. But even if I didn’t have someone I wouldn’t be able to do the sort of thing you want. Like I said when we were in the park, it seems seriously fucked up to me. I only want to share stuff that makes my boyfriend feel good – I don’t think I’d be able to hurt him.”
“Oh.”
He looked unhappy, but I wasn’t going to change my mind, because my idea of sex is nothing like his.
“I don’t suppose you know anyone else who might…?” he added.
“No,” I said. “I’m afraid everyone I know is like me. None of my friends is into hurting people or forcing them to do… stuff…”
I tailed off, because I’d just had a thought: actually I did know someone like that. Not very well, certainly, but all the same… except I wasn’t at all sure I should mention it. Like I said, Henry’s view of sex is seriously fucked up, and I wasn’t at all convinced that I ought to do anything to encourage it. I’d be a lot happier seeing him blissfully in love with someone and thinking about him – or her – the way I thought about Jeremy.
On the other hand, I wouldn’t want some straight boy telling me that my view of sex was fucked up and that if I wasn’t going out with a girl I was doing it wrong. So maybe if he was absolutely sure about what he wanted I ought to help him…
“All right, Henry,” I said. “Suppose one of those genies in a bottle appeared and gave you a wish: what would be your idea of a perfect sex situation?”
“Crumbs,” he said. “I suppose I’d be happy if I could keep doing what I do at school.”
“Yes, but this is magic and you can have absolutely anything,” I said. “You might be happy enough with the way things are at school, but what would make it even better?”
“Well… yes, I suppose there are some ways it could be better,” he said. “Let me think about it for a few minutes.”
So we strolled back to the house and then turned round and returned to the bottom of the garden.
“All right,” he said. “If this is magic and I can have anything… the first rule is no grown-ups ever get to find out about it. I’d have to be absolutely sure that nobody was ever going to tell their parents, because if that happened they would make us stop and people would get into trouble.”
“Well, it’s a fantasy, so if you want you can have a world with no adults,” I pointed out.
“That might be going a bit too far – after all, we’d need houses and food and stuff. But, anyway, in my perfect world my parents would be away somewhere for a while – it doesn’t matter where or how long, but while they were away I’d have to stay with someone else. A younger version of Farringdon would be perfect.”
“Who’s Farringdon?”
“The senior boy in my dorm. A younger version would be better because Farringdon is the same age as me, and it would be better if whoever was in charge of me was younger – at least two years younger, but stronger than me and a lot bigger… you know, there. And his parents would be away a lot too, so he’d be in charge and I’d have to do everything he tells me. Obviously I wouldn’t like that at first because I’m older than him, and so the first time he told me what to do I’d refuse, and he’d punish me by stripping me and beating me.
“Obviously when he saw how feeble I am, and how small my thingy is, he’d start to make fun of me. And after that he’d force me to do anything he ordered me to, like putting his thingy in my mouth and up my bum and stuff. I wouldn’t be allowed to wear any clothes at all indoors, and he’d start inviting his friends round to come and join in doing stuff to me, until loads of kids were doing it, all younger than me and all bigger. Sometimes I’d get beaten in front of them, but mostly they’d just do sex stuff to me. I think that would be amazing.”
“I think it would be appalling,” I replied. “But then I’m not you. But it still sounds seriously fucked up. Have you ever thought about seeing a psychiatrist?”
“Ah, so you think I’m mad, do you? Well, I suppose I can understand that. I’m not, though: I’m just a bit strange.”
“A bit? That’s like saying the North Pole’s a bit chilly. But if that’s really your idea of heaven… maybe I do know someone who could give you at least some of that. No promises or anything, and he might not be interested, but I’ll call him when I get home and find out.”
“Thanks!” he said enthusiastically, thus convincing me that he really was completely round the bend.
All the same, when I got home I called Peter Kenton – if what Jeremy had told me about him was true he might like the idea of being able to dominate someone without having to hold back because he still had bonds of friendship with his victim…
Peter
I hadn’t expected to hear from Four Eyes again, but out of the blue he calls me on Saturday morning.
“How’s things between you and Jeremy?” he asks.
“All right, I suppose,” I tell him. “What you said… it sort of made me think I’d gone a bit over the top with him. Obviously I’m still not happy with him being bent, but I’ve decided I can live with it, and so we’re sort of hanging again. Why?”
“Just wondering,” he says. “I was talking to him earlier this week and he seems a lot happier with life, and when I asked why he said it’s because you and he have patched it up a bit. I don’t get how he can still want to be mates with you after what you did, but he does, and so he’s happy you’re talking to each other again.”
“Well, we were mates for a long time,” I tell him. “We was always together at weekends, doing stuff, and I missed it when he turned out queer. And like you said, it’s not like he did it deliberately to piss me off. So I suppose I should say thank you for fixing it up for us.”
“From what he told me, that was mainly down to you. Anyway, he also said that while you weren’t mates you really enjoyed stripping him off and making him suck and stuff, but that you sort of held back from going too far because deep down you still liked him, at least a bit. Is that true?”
“I suppose so. Why?”
“Well… suppose I said I knew another boy you could push around and do stuff to, only without needing to hold back at all… well, obviously you couldn’t put him in hospital or anything like that, but otherwise you could do pretty much what you wanted to him – and you could let your mates join in, too, if you wanted. Would you be interested?”
“Well, yeah, obviously. I’d have liked to do a lot more to Jeremy, except like you said I couldn’t go too far ‘cos of us being sort of ex-friends. And it was a right laugh stripping him off, and being sucked was awesome… but I can’t believe you’ve found another kid who would take all that and more without grassing me up.”
“Believe it,” he says. “This kid’s seriously weird: the other kids at his school – he’s at a boarding school at the moment, although he doesn’t think he will be in September – have been doing all sorts of shit to him for ages – including fucking him – and it’s messed him up so much that now he sort of likes it. In fact he likes it so much that he’s looking for someone to take over from the boys in his dorm if he doesn’t pass his exam this term. So, would you be interested?”
“What, and I could do anything I wanted? Fucking him, whipping him, making him suck, whatever?”
“Yup.”
“Then, yes, I reckon I’m interested.”
“Then I’ll try to arrange for you to meet him. What are you doing this afternoon?”
“Nothing. But I still don’t believe this. There has to be a catch.”
“No catch. Look, I’ll find out if he’s free, and if he is we’ll come down after lunch. I’ll call you back in ten minutes.”
So ten minutes later he calls back and I arrange to meet him by the pond in the wood at around three o’clock. I still don’t believe what he’s telling me – after all, I can’t believe that anyone would actually want to be beaten up and fucked. I’m pretty sure Four Eyes has got it wrong, or there’s stuff he isn’t telling me. But I don’t have anything else planned for this afternoon – Jeremy’s out with his parents somewhere, and the other couple of mates I’ve called aren’t free either – and so at three o’clock I’m waiting at the pond like Four Eyes said.
Five minutes later he arrives with this other kid. He’s a couple of inches taller than me, but he’s wearing shorts, which is strange as it’s actually a bit chilly this afternoon. He’s got nondescript mid-brown hair and blue eyes and he looks completely ordinary, but when he opens his mouth and says hello he sounds unbelievably posh.
“Okay,” I say. “Let’s hear the story – only this time let’s hear the real story, because I’m not stupid. Four Eyes says you want to be beaten up. Tell me why.”
“Well,” he says, “it’s not that I want you to beat me up – not at all. But… according to the boys at school, I deserve it, and they don’t want me to escape by going to a different school in September – which will happen if I fail my exams this term. So they said I have to find someone else to take over from them, and Kevin believes you might be interested.”
“I’m interested,” I tell him. “But why do the kids at your school reckon you deserve it?”
“Well…they said I was spying on them while they were getting changed – and not just them, either. They caught me doing the same thing in the changing rooms a couple of times.”
“And were you spying on them?”
“Well, yes. I wanted to see what they looked like undressed.”
“So you’re queer, then,” I say.
“Well…I suppose I might be,” he admits. “I suppose I could stop trying to see what other boys look like, but I don’t want to. It’s interesting. But the other boys in my dorm didn’t like me doing it, and so they gave me a beating, but when they undressed me to beat me they saw that…I’m not very big, you see, and they said that made it even worse, because being spied on by a little baby is worse than if it’s someone who is at the same stage of growing up as you. So now they punish me a lot, and because what I was doing has to do with sex they punish me with sex. But I really won’t mind at all if you don’t want to do that.”
“Oh, I should think I can manage to keep doing it,” I tell him. “So how long do you have to be punished for?”
“They didn’t say. I suppose it’s until I leave school.”
Bloody hell, I think, this is far too good to be true…
“Where do you live?” I ask, and that looks a bit like a snag because it’s sixteen or seventeen miles away, so he can’t just pop over at a minute’s notice. But it turns out he’s not far from the railway, and that makes it easier.
“All right,” I say. “What’s your name?”
“I’m The Honourable Henry Latimer.”
“His father’s a Lord,” explains Four Eyes. “That’s why he’s called The Honourable.”
“And actually that’s another reason why the boys said I should be punished really badly,” says The Honourable. “They said that my behaviour was completely unacceptable for a member of the aristocracy, and I suppose they’re right.”
“All right, but you live a long way away from me,” I point out. “If I call you and tell you to come over, what’s to stop you just telling me to fuck off?”
“Well, the boys at school have some photographs and videos of me that I wouldn’t want anyone else to see,” he says. “I’m supposed to put you in touch with them so that you can tell them if I don’t do what you tell me. I expect if that happens they’ll put everything on the internet. Or they might send you the photos so that you could do it yourself.”
God, I think, if that’s true he’s completely screwed. I can actually feel myself getting an erection at the thought of it – and him being a bloody aristocrat just makes it so much better. My dad doesn’t like queers, and he doesn’t like snobby rich bastards either, and I think I’d agree with him on that.
“Okay,” I say, “let’s have a trial run. Get your clothes off.”
“What, out here?”
“Yes, out here. And you’d better get on with it unless you want a trial whipping too.”
And the kid starts to strip, and I have to do my jacket up in order to hide the bulge in my jeans. He stops when he’s only wearing a pair of white briefs.
“Look, do I have to?” he asks.
“Of course you have to!” I tell him. “Get on with it!”
So he slips them off and sort of huddles down with his hands over his groin.
“Stand up straight and put your hands on your head!” I yell.
My God, it’s tiny. This kid is so small he makes Jeremy look like a porn star. Okay, it’s a bit cold out, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen a smaller one – there’s almost nothing of it except a little pink knob with no skin over it. And his balls are about the size of frozen peas.
“Fucking hell,” I say. “How old are you?”
“I’m thirteen,” he says. “I’ll be fourteen in September.”
That makes him almost two years older than me because my birthday’s in August, and that’s pretty hard to believe. Okay, he’s taller than me, but still…
“God, that’s pathetic,” I say. “If I do end up dealing with you, you can be sure that that won’t spend much time covered up. Now I could give you a whipping anyway – you were a bit slow getting stripped – but you said the others give you sex punishments. What sort of stuff are we talking about?”
“Well… they like to put theirs in me,” he says. “In my bum, or sometimes in my mouth. And they like hurting mine, too, if you want to count that.”
“I’m surprised they can find enough of it to hurt,” I say. “Well, okay, let’s see if they’ve taught you anything. You can give me a suck.”
Of course I’m still expecting him to say ‘no’ at this point – after all, I don’t know who the other kids are, and so if he did refuse I wouldn’t have any way of making him or punishing him for refusing. Somehow I don’t think Four Eyes is going to get that involved. But perhaps Henry‘s afraid I will find out who the others are – after all, I expect Four Eyes knows which school he goes to – and so he just kneels down in front of me and waits for me to drop my jeans and boxers to my knees.
“Crikey,” he says when he sees it. “That’s really big… How old are you?”
“Eleven,” I tell him. “Now get on with it.”
And to my absolute astonishment he does, and he turns out to be bloody good at it, too – it took ages for Jeremy to get this good. So maybe it’s true about the kids at his school forcing him to do this, because somehow he’s learned an awesome technique. It doesn’t take long before I can feel it getting close, and I warn him just before it happens – I’ve got into the habit of doing that for Jeremy, so he can prepare himself – and he turns his head a little so that it doesn’t shoot against the back of his throat. Yes, I think, he definitely knows what he’s doing.
“Not bad,” I say, taking it out of his mouth and pulling up my boxers and jeans. “Keep that up and I won’t have to torture you too often. Okay, I suppose you can get dressed, and you can also tell the boys at school that you’ve found someone to sort you out during holidays, and from September if you try to duck out of the same school as them. We’ll have to make sure you come to my school if that happens.”
Surprisingly he doesn’t look too worried about that, so maybe he thinks he’s going to pass his exams after all, or maybe he thinks his dad will cough up whatever it takes to send him to some posh private place. But even if I only get to see him in the holidays this is going to be fun.
“Thanks,” I say to Four Eyes. “If you know who the kids at his school are, give them my number so we can sort out how it’s going to go. And you, posh boy: you needn’t think it’s going to be as easy as this next time. This was just a quick audition. Next time we’ll have a much longer session and try a lot more things out. And I’ll probably invite a few mates round, too.”
“Please don’t,” he says. “It’s really embarrassing having people looking at me when I’m undressed.”
“Tough,” I said. “Serves you right for spying – and for having a pathetic cock.”
Once Posh Boy is dressed they head back towards the station and I go back home. I still expect this to fall through, because I can’t believe I can possibly be this lucky – but I really hope it doesn’t fall though, because the idea of having a posh kid at my mercy is awesome. I’m going to have to think up some really good tortures for him…
Kevin
“Well?” I said as we got into the train, “what do you think?”
“I think he’ll be really good. And he’s got a really big one for eleven, too – I thought Freddie’s was big, but his is even bigger. Actually it’s probably no smaller than Farringdon’s… and he seemed to like it, too, so perhaps this really is going to solve my problem. Thank you, Kevin – not just for introducing me to him, but for telling me what to say to get him interested, too.”
“You’re not really going to let him have any dodgy photos of you, though, are you?” I asked. “At the moment you can just walk away if he goes too far. You probably wouldn’t be able to do that if he had some naked photos of you.”
“I don’t want to be able to walk away. That’s the whole point, Kevin: I want to have no choice.”
“That sounds really stupid, if you don’t mind me saying so. My brother had some photos of me recently, and I was delighted when he deleted them. Okay, I know, you’re unusual… but you could find yourself in serious trouble one day if you’re not careful.”
“Maybe, but I trust you, and I don’t think you’d have introduced me to that boy if you thought he was likely to do anything too serious too me.”
“You can’t be sure, though.”
“No, and that’s what makes it exciting. Don’t worry, Kevin. Anyway, Farringdon has heaps of photos and videos of me, and he’s never gone too far. But if I ever do find myself in real trouble I promise I’ll come to you for help.”
“Gee, thanks! It would be a lot better if you were just a bit careful.”
“I know. Don’t worry, I’m sure everything will work out. Just let me have his number so I can pass it on to Farringdon.”
Well, it’s your life, I thought, and so I gave him Kenton’s phone number. I just hoped I would never be called upon to come and dig him out of the mire.
It rained on Saturday night, so on Sunday morning we found the football pitch was a bit muddy. Maybe that would make it harder for the Royals to pass the ball about the way they usually did, but of course it was the same for both sides. Our team was at full strength: anyone who had been away for the Easter holidays was back, and so if we did lose there couldn’t be any excuses.
Quite a few more spectators than usual turned up, too: this was an important game, after all. Even Freddie appeared, and I was fairly sure that he wasn’t a huge fan of football, so it was nice of him to come and watch Lee’s performance, although since Lee started out as a sub he was going to have to wait.
If this had been a Hollywood production we would have fought out a thrilling match and won with a goal scored in the 94th minute (although since at this age level they only played thirty-five minutes each way that would have called for a hell of a lot of injury time). But this wasn’t Hollywood, and whoever had written the script, it clearly wasn’t Mr Clifford. We were two-nil down at half time, and then ten minutes into the second half Tony Plaistow, who was one of our midfield players, horribly mistimed a tackle on the greasy surface and almost cut the opposing winger in half. If I’d been the ref I’d have sent him off, and the guy in the middle agreed with me, waving a red card almost at once. Poor Tony, who was a quiet boy at the best of times and who had never even been booked before, was literally in tears, although this was mainly on behalf of the player he’d injured.
After that it was hard for the team to concentrate, and even if they hadn’t been a man down I don’t think they could have got back on terms. In the end the Royals won four-nil, and the only reason it wasn’t more was probably that most of them were worrying about their injured team-mate too.
I expected Mr Clifford to go ballistic, but instead he was the complete opposite of his normal self, merely telling the team that he knew they’d done their best and then spending ten minutes talking quietly with Tony and then taking him to see how the injured Royal was doing. He came back ten minutes later and told us that the boy was basically OK, with no lasting damage, and that at least was good news. But it did mean that the league championship was now out of reach, although if we won our last two games we could still finish second.
Afterwards Freddie, who was still in 2012 mode, came and said hello while I was waiting for Chris to finish getting changed.
“I have to say that just demonstrates why I don’t like football,” he commented. “It’s muddy and messy and really not very civilised. I really don’t know why Lee likes it so much. I think that the fact that they stopped playing – at least in the top leagues – during the war is another reason the war was a good thing.”
“Another reason?” I queried. ”I can’t think of any reasons why war is ever a good thing.”
“Oh, I don’t know. If we hadn’t decided to fight we’d probably all be speaking German now, and it’s a really difficult language, so I’m glad we don’t. But I agree that most of it was bad. I spent most of yesterday afternoon teaching my new friend Josh about it.”
“Is that the boy you met while you were pretending to be from 1940?”
“Actually it was 1941, but yes. He came to visit yesterday…”
Freddie
Actually I hadn’t expected to hear from Josh again, or at least not unless he got involved in a WW2 project at his school. But he’d called me up and asked if he could come to visit, and I thought that might be fun, and so I said yes.
He arrived at around half-past two on Saturday afternoon, which suggested that he was keen – he would have had to eat lunch quite early to get here that soon. Anyway, I took him up to my room. Most boys of my age have posters of football teams or pop stars or racing cars on their bedroom walls, but I’ve got posters from World War Two – including one which had come from some sort of Sunday supplement that said ‘Danzig ist deutsch!’ which was apparently one of the Nazi claims in the late 1930s and was used in part to justify the invasion of Poland. Josh looked at the posters.
“You’re definitely strange,” he told me.
“Yes, I know,” I said. “So?”
“I like strange things. So have you really got a tin bath?”
“No, but I did look for one. Maybe I can find one for the next time you come.”
“And did people really have to use them the way you said?”
“Yes, of course. After all, in 1940 a lot of places still didn’t have electricity, and so the only way to heat water up was on the stove. But it must have been hard for kids who did have electricity at home when they got evacuated to the country and had to survive without it. I’ve done a lot of reading on what happened to kids who get evacuated, and there were loads of them – over a million just from London. They got taken from their families, stuck on a train and ended up miles away, having to live with complete strangers. Often they had to share a room, or even a bed, with someone they didn’t know, or at least not very well, and I’ve already told you about having to share a bath. Some people got lucky and ended up in nice families, but a lot more hated being away from home, especially if they’d never been in the country before. I’m glad I didn’t have to do that.”
“I can imagine,” he said. “Can I have another look at your 1940 clothes?”
I got them out of the wardrobe. Lee had left the other set with me, too – after all, I’d bought them and so really they were mine.
“They’re quite thick, aren’t they?” he commented. ”A lot thicker than modern shirts, anyway. Aren’t they uncomfortable to wear?”
“Not really,” I said. “They feel a bit odd at first, but you soon get used to it.”
“Can I try them on?”
“Yes, if you want.”
“You too, then – I don’t want to be the only one looking weird.”
“All right,” I said, and we both got undressed and put on the complete 1940s kit.
“Can you do my hair like you had yours?” he asked, and so I helped him to gel his hair into a side parting, and then did the same myself.
“Take a picture of me,” he said, handing me his camera, and so I took three or four, as well as couple of us together.
“It’s a pity you couldn’t find a tin bath,” he said. “I’d like to find out what that was like.”
“Well, you can find out what having to share a bath is like in a normal bath,” I pointed out. “It’s probably a bit bigger than a tin one, but you’d get a fair idea.”
“Can we, then?”
“I’m sorry?”
“Can we share a bath? I’d just like to know what it would have been like, having to share with someone you hardly knew.”
“Well… all right, then,” I said, because I was quite keen to get another look at him without his clothes on. My sister was officially babysitting, but she was in her room with her headphones on, and I was 99 per cent sure she wouldn’t emerge again before supper. And so I took Josh through to the bathroom and ran a bath.
“I’m not sure if the soap would have been as good as ours during the war,” I said. “And probably there wouldn’t have been any shampoo. I’ll try to find out. Anyway, I don’t think it would have been any deeper than this because of having to heat the water on the stove, so we can try if you like.”
“Okay,” he said, and began to get undressed. “Last one naked gets the tap end!”
So I threw my clothes off as fast as I could and managed to finish first.
“We can swap halfway if you like,” I offered.
“No, it‘s all right… oh, this is a bit embarrassing,” he said, removing his underpants to reveal an erection.
“That’s quite big, isn’t it?” I commented. “Don’t worry about it, though – I expect it happened a lot when you had to share your bath. I expect you’d just get used to it.”
“I suppose so. It’s still sort of embarrassing, though.”
He might have said that, but he made no attempt at all to cover it as he got into the bath, and nor did he put his hands over it when he was sitting down.
“There’s not a lot of room to wash, is there?” he commented.
“I expect there was only one piece of soap, so they would have had to take it in turns,” I said. “Or maybe they washed standing up and only sat down again when they were properly soaped up.”
“We could try that,” he said, and he stood up and started to soap his chest and arms. Of course this left me staring at his stiff thingy, and I didn’t have to stare at it for too long before mine went the same way.
“Could you wash my back?” he said, turning round.
So I stood up, took the soap from him and washed his back. I’d never done this before – obviously – but it was interesting, and he seemed to enjoy it, too, accusing me of deliberately tickling him at one point.
“Right, give me the soap and turn round,” he said after a bit, and he started to wash my back – and not just my back, either: he reached around and soaped my chest and up both arms, and then he did the small of my back, and then he got a little lower… I think he was waiting for me to shout ‘stop’ but I didn’t actually want to shout ‘stop’, and so he went lower still and washed my bum.
“Spread your legs,” he said, squatting down, and so I did that as best I could and he washed the cleft of my bottom, which felt really interesting.
“Turn round,” he said again, and when I did he lathered up his hands and looked up at me. And then, when I still didn’t say anything, he took hold of my erection and washed it, and my balls, very slowly and thoroughly. It had felt nice when Lee had held it and squeezed it, but having it done by hands that are really soapy and slippery somehow felt a whole lot better.
“I don’t think you’ve washed yours yet,” I pointed out. “Do you want to give me the soap?”
So he gave me the soap, and this felt pretty amazing, too, having his hard thingy just slipping through my fingers.
“Do under the skin,” he told me, and so I carefully pushed the skin back and washed the head.
“That’s really nice,” he said, dreamily – and then he caught himself and said, “Nice and clean, I mean,” in a much more normal voice. “Perhaps we should sit down and wash the soap off?”
So we did that, splashing each other quite a lot in order to get rid of all the soap.
“We’d better pretend there’s no shampoo,” he said; “otherwise we’ll have to use up more of your gel getting our hair right again. So, do you think we’re clean enough yet?”
“I expect so,” I said, and I stood up and got out of the bath, finding a couple of towels in the cupboard and handing one to him.
“Could you dry my back?” he asked, and so of course we dried each other, thoroughly, and that was a lot of fun too. Finally I decided I was dry enough and I picked up my underpants.
“Wait,” he said. “Can we go back to the bedroom?”
I didn’t think there was any danger of my sister coming out of her room, but even so…
“All right,” I said, picking up my clothes. “Come on, then.”
I dived across the landing and into my room, and as soon as he was in the room with me I closed the door.
“Have you got any 1940s pyjamas?” he asked.
“Well, no. I didn’t see any reason to – although actually some boys wore nightshirts instead back then. Why?”
“Well, we’ve tried sharing the bath and I was wondering about sharing the bed. I can’t see how two people could actually sleep in a bed that small, though. But I suppose we can’t try if you haven’t got any pyjamas.”
“Do we really need pyjamas if we’re just going to try it out?” I asked.
“I suppose not,” he agreed. “You get in first, then.”
I got into bed and wriggled across as far as I could and he climbed in after me and pulled the duvet over us.
“We wouldn’t have had a duvet,” I said. “It would have been sheets and blankets. I’ll have to ask Mum if we’ve still got any.”
“Well, we can get an idea like this,” he said. “There really isn’t a lot of room, though, is there? I should think that every time one of us moves it would wake the other one up.”
“I expect if we had to sleep together every night we’d get used to it – we’d probably adjust the way we sleep so as not to move too much.”
“I bet it would take quite a while, though,” he said. “The first few weeks would be really uncomfortable. There certainly isn’t room for us both to sleep on our backs… let’s try it on our sides. I think we’ll have to face the same way, or our knees will keep bumping into each other.”
So I rolled onto my right side and he did the same and wriggled close to me.
“It’s still all big and hard, then,” I commented as it pressed against my bottom.
“So what? I bet yours is too.”
And he snaked his hand round me and took hold of it, which felt really rather good.
“See?” he said. “Told you.”
I reached behind me and took hold of his.
“This is fun, isn’t it?” he said. “I don’t think I’d have minded being evacuated if I ended up sharing with you. I knew I was right about you.”
“What do you mean?”
“When you were at my house… I knew you were sort of brave and adventurous as soon as you owned up to being from 2012 – after all, you’d just stripped naked and had a bath in front of me even though you knew I was filming you. Not many people would have done that. And that’s why I wanted to come and visit, to find out if you really were as brave and adventurous as I thought. And obviously I’ve decided that you are, and that you’re a good laugh, too.
“Hey… maybe we could try exploring other bits of history – we could try to find out what it would have been like if we were boys in Ancient Rome, or in the Middle Ages…what do you think?”
“Do you like history, then?” I asked him.
“Yes, it’s really interesting… of course, the other kids at school think I’m a total nerd because I’m interested in the past, but I don’t really care. That’s why I wanted to know more about the war. I’d really like it if you could tell me a bit more about it – if you don’t mind, of course?”
“I think the Geekoid Twins might just have become triplets,” I commented. “You’ve even got the glasses for it. And I think you’ll fit right in…”
Kevin
Freddie finding a new friend was just about the last chapter of what Sherlock Holmes might have called The Singular Case of Kevin’s Glasses. Yes, the various relationships that started as a result of Chris walking into my bedroom back in January – almost exactly three months ago – would continue to grow and develop, but Josh’s visit to Freddie was the last real new connection.
We all went back to school the following day, and with Mother back home again our situation was virtually the same as it had been at the start of the spring term in January. But in some ways our lives had changed altogether. It wasn’t quite the plot of Love, Actually because in some cases it was nothing to do with love: instead it was exclusively about sex or friendship. Dwayne and Silvio had linked up with Clive in a relationship that apparently suited all three of them; the Microbe Brothers’ relationship had changed for the better – at least, that’s what Jason said, even though he was now almost playing second fiddle to his brother – to the extent that Jason was no longer desperate for the loft conversion to finish, because he was much happier sharing with Luke; and Henry had a safety net lined up in the form of Peter in case he failed his exams.
To be honest I was still worried about Henry, because I still don’t understand how anyone could enjoy being on the receiving end as much as he did. But I got a letter from him a couple of weeks into the term telling me how much he was enjoying what was happening to him at school, and that he’d arranged to introduce Farringdon to Peter so that he could pass on all the photos, videos and nasty ideas he’d dreamed up. And it was easy to tell from the letter that he was having the time of his life, and so I just shrugged: if he’s happy, I thought, good luck to him.
Rather closer to a Love, Actually couple were Mark and Danny. They were keeping a very low profile at school because neither of them wanted to make waves with either their parents or their classmates (though Mark had told both Colin and Chris about it and their reaction had been as positive as it had been about me and Jeremy). But when I saw them in private it was obvious that they really liked each other, and when we finally managed to double-date with them at half term it was a lot of fun.
My social life had blossomed a lot, too: I’d made friends with Jason and Danny and enjoyed helping out with the football team, and all that running about had certainly made me fitter. The team did win its last two matches and so managed to finish in second place, one point ahead of North End but six points behind the Royals. Still, there’s always next season. And next season I might actually be the man with the whistle, because at half term I passed my referee’s exam. I expect I’ll get a lot of comments about my glasses, but it doesn’t worry me anything like as much as it would have done three months ago, because now I know that they aren’t quite as repulsive as I’d always thought.
And that of course brings me on to Jeremy. I can only say that he’s changed my life. I’d never expected to find a boyfriend anyway, and I’d had no idea of how different things seem when you’ve got someone special. Of course we’re both new to this and we might well make a mess of it or fall out with each other, but right now I can’t begin to imagine how that could possibly happen. Being with him still feels completely wonderful.
So maybe Why I hate wearing glasses isn’t really such a good title after all, because now it really doesn’t bother me half as much as it used to. And if it hadn’t been for my glasses, quite a few people would be less happy today than they actually are. Life can be really strange sometimes…
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So that's the end of the story. Thanks as always are due to my friend and reader JJ, who as usual helped me to present this in a more or less readable format; and thank you too for reading. If you want to tell me what you thought of it, or if you've worked out which character would have won the game of Mornington Crescent referred to at the start of Chapter Two – or, indeed, if you want to complain about weird references that could only be picked up by middle-aged Brits – then by all means write to me at gothmog@nyms.net
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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