A story by Bard Boy [bard_boy(at)protonmail(dot)com]
Disclaimer: The following is a work of fiction about an inappropriate relationship between a man and a preteen boy. One of the boundaries crossed in this relationship is engagement in sexual activity between the man and the boy. If you do not want to read such a story, or it is illegal for you to do so because of your age or where you live, you should stop reading now and go do something else instead. The fictional depiction of an inappropriate relationship between a man and a boy is by no means encouragement to any man who would seek to forge such a relationship for real. This story is not set in the present day, so rest assured every aspect is fictional.
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Ten: Solstice
“Remember that time when I was nine, I went off exploring in the woods by myself without telling you and fell in that swamp?”
James lay with his head against my chest in our bed, together only with the low light of his cactus reading lamp.
“How could I forget?”
“You were really angry,” he said, a tone of knowing humour in his voice.
“Of course I was. You could’ve been seriously hurt, running off by yourself like that, and I’d never have known. It was lucky the swamp was the worst of it.”
“You made me strip outside and stand naked by the front door until you had the bath ready.”
“You were soaked, and you stank. I couldn’t have you in the house.”
“I was crying by the time I got in the bath.”
“I know. I felt a bit bad. You kept telling me how sorry you were. I guess the lesson stuck.”
I was caressing his chest. He pulled my right arm so that my hand rested on his belly instead.
“Remember that time the same year, when you were practicing your archery?” I said. “The time with the duck?”
“Aww, no!” said James. “Not the duck!”
“You hit it!” I teased.
“It was Mrs Williams’ fault! She scared it and it flew straight into my arrow! I was aiming at the barn wall.”
“It tasted good, though.”
“I kept thinking, what if she had ducklings…”
“You kept saying it too, and I kept telling you it was nearly winter, and all the ducklings would be grown up by now.”
My ring and little fingers were sneaking tickles a little lower, beneath his bellybutton. He pushed my arm further down, until my hand reached something firm and pointy. I looked at James and raised an eyebrow.
“Some things still grow up in winter,” he said, earnest-faced and sparkly-eyed.
**
I was trying to come up with ideas for some form of treat or present for James when I had a brainwave. I’d taken the pictures of us with my phone. There were surely other pictures still hidden away on its memory card.
I slipped out of bed that night, after he’d fallen asleep, and connected it to the computer. There were a few hundred photos in its gallery. I scrolled through them meticulously, until I found one that I knew would be there, and another that had come as a surprise. I printed them both and hid the photographs on top of a bookshelf, where James would never see them, let alone reach them.
Then I realised something else. The computer knew what the date was. I checked its calendar. Winter Solstice was marked as Saturday 22nd December, five days from now. I couldn’t believe I’d been so dim. I had an accurate calendar this whole time we’d been here, and I hadn’t realised to check it even once.
I imagine some people still celebrate Christmas, but it seems a bit hollow without knowing the exact date; without the tree and the gifts and all that nonsense that never really felt like the true meaning anyway. At the farm, immersed in our agricultural life, Solstice seemed the more appropriate mark to celebrate. Not to mention easiest to notice. Just wait for the shortest days and longest nights.
Now we would know for sure, and I’d give James the greatest celebration of his short life.
**
I’d made dinner. I don’t remember making it, but it must have happened. Spaghetti Bolognese the way my mom used to make it, to which I’d added small semicircles of chopped celery for some extra crunch. James was washing the sauce from around his mouth when there was a knock at the door.
I answered the door and it was Manny, a kid a year or so younger than James who lives down the street. He was holding a football under his arm.
“Can James come out to play?” he asked.
“James,” I called to the kitchen, where James was drinking from the tap having cleaned his mouth, “do you want to go and play out with Manny?”
James bounded to the front door. “Hi Manny.”
“You wanna go park and play football?” he said, dropping articles and prepositions like confetti in the way that kids do.
“Yeah, I’ll just put my shoes on.”
It was a bright summers’ day, lit up like honey. The evening heat was comfortable on our bodies, like a security blanket. The sky was an explosion in a paint factory, the sun a vast boiled sweet. Its heat hung just above our eyes, and on our cheeks, as birds flew backwards.
Across the road, Mr Hussain and his two daughters got out of their car after arriving home from somewhere, possibly the mosque. They saw us at the door and waved. I went to wave in return but couldn’t lift my arm, so nodded and smiled in acknowledgement instead. Manny turned and saw them and gave a little wave.
James had his shoes on. “I want you back before dark, okay?” I said, pulling a serious face into his. “As soon as the sun starts setting, you two start heading home.”
“Don’t worry, Jake. We will.”
They wandered off down the street, at a boyish snail’s pace. I closed the door.
Sometime later the window cleaner had arrived, and I must have let him in to pay him. He was standing in the hallway looking at our terracotta urn.
“We’ve had that for donkeys’ years,” I said. “Here, take this, Shaun.” I handed him a five-pound note, Churchill-up.
“Cheers boss,” he said. I looked over his shoulder and realised the door was open and the sky had begun to darken.
“Where are those boys?” I grumbled, more to myself than Shaun, who seemed a little out of focus. I made through the back door. Crossing the garden, my black-and-white shorthair tom cat, Stevie, jumped into my arms.
That was when I realised something was seriously wrong. Stevie was a notoriously uppity cat. He’d never show such affection outside of the house.
Then I realised I was flying, and birds began to speak. And I fell through the lonely, honeycomb field below as James and Manny watched on, Stevie no longer in my arms, until I landed somewhere impossibly deep with a gentle start.
Only the top of my head poked out of the bedcovers in the dark. The bedroom was cold outside of our cocoon of comfort, the wind howling at the windows. James’ sweaty little body was snuggled against my side, breathing softly in the warmth of the bed. My heartrate calmed, and slowly and carefully I turned onto my favoured right side to spoon James, taking his clammy back against my belly and the silken seat of his thighs against my knees, his head laid back on the carpet of my breastbone. Beyond the bed there was nothing.
**
I took James out on a second hunt, after our aborted first attempt, a couple of days before Solstice. It was a dry but windy day, slate layers of cloud dangling over the rooftops in endless rows. I left the trolley by the park entrance and we stood amongst the trees until we became part of the scenery, enveloped in silence but for the wind and the calls of the birds.
Eventually, as the short day gave way to twilight, a small group of roe deer crossed our path, poking at the undergrowth dejectedly, searching for sustenance. I looked at James and he nodded, drawing his bow. As James stood ready, the deer became aware of our presence and began to skip away, two pregnant females taking the lead. At the rear of the group, a male cast us a long glance, the small stubs of his new year’s antlers lowered to face us, and began to limp after the others. In truth, it was probably a mercy to take him.
James let fly and pierced the deer through its chest, the roe giving a loud, guttural bark as it collapsed to the ground. Its group fled in different directions. Roe are solitary creatures, only coming together to cooperate in the depths of winter. They’d rather take their chances alone than be caught as a group with humans around. The field was empty but for us and the roe as we approached him, lain twitching on the ground, staining the snow the crimson of a fortified wine. He grunted and gargled out a low growl, his breath steaming in the freezing air. James prepared a second arrow, looked away, and shot him straight through the head.
When we got home, I left the deer-laden trolley in the garden, covered with a tarp, ready to butcher in the light of the following day. James was thirsty. He poured us each a large glass of water from the tap.
“Cheers!” I said, clinking glasses with him.
He smiled and took a big gulp of his water.
“I’m glad we don’t have to keep getting water from a well, like at the farm,” he said.
“Me too,” I said. “Remember Tryweryn, I guess.”
“What does that mean?”
“All the water we have here comes from Wales, all downhill, no need for pumping. That’s why the taps were still working a little bit, before we added our rain catcher. Whole valleys were dammed and flooded to make that work, which meant villages were destroyed and people had to be moved to new places. They did the same for Liverpool, too, and one of the valleys flooded for that was called Tryweryn. Nobody in Wales wanted it to happen, but at the time they didn’t have the power to stop the government doing what it wanted for English cities. So, Remember Tryweryn became a slogan in the Welsh language for Welsh resistance to English rule.”
“Oh,” said James, drinking more of his water. I guessed he probably wasn’t expecting the sudden history lesson. He drained the glass and placed it in the washing-up bowl. “Welsh people have their own language?”
“Yeah,” I said. “It’s actually the descendant of the original British language, before English came from across the sea.”
“But Harry’s family is from Wales, and they never used to speak any other language.”
“Not every Welsh person can speak it. The British government tried very hard to wipe it out for a while, from the Victorian times pretty much until the time when I was born.”
“Jake…” James began, looking down and playing with his fingers, before finding his courage and looking me in the eye. “What happened to Harry’s family, and Cerys? I mean, really.”
“Your mom explained that Cerys wasn’t very well, and they decided it was best to go back to Wales, didn’t she?”
“Yeah, but…” James poked at a fork lying on the worktop, and looked me in the eye again, a little pleadingly. “That doesn’t make sense, Jake. It just doesn’t.”
I sighed and drew James to me, holding him softly. “James, Cerys was very unwell. What she had was very contagious. They decided it was best to move away for a while to protect you and your mom – you especially – from catching it too. That’s the truth.”
“So you don’t know what happened to them?”
“I’m sorry, James. I don’t. They started driving back to Wales and that’s all I know.”
“What about Cerys?” he asked. “If she was so poorly, how could they make her travel?”
“They… didn’t.”
James looked up at me, his chin resting on my breastbone as I stood holding him to me by the small of his back. “Where did she go, then?”
“I took her away to the next house, to look after her for a while. But… she was so ill, James. She didn’t…”
James watched me carefully, tears in his eyes.
“She died, James.”
He took a little breath and closed his eyes. “I knew it,” he said. “That’s why you went away too.”
I nodded my head.
“I thought you weren’t ever going to come back.”
“But I did.”
James nodded and pushed back from me, holding on to my hands to lean backwards.
“I remember, after you went, there was a fire. I saw it with Mom, over the hill. Was that you?”
I squeezed his fingers in my hands. “Yes, it was.”
“I thought so,” he said, pulling himself back upright and giving me a hug.
“I should make us some dinner,” I said, ruffling the hair on the back of his head. “Go and get comfortable in the living room. I think there might even be some hot chocolate somewhere in one of these cupboards.”
“I haven’t had that in ages!” said James, releasing me and stretching his arms above his head.
“I think I used the last of the stuff we had up north to make brownies on your ninth birthday, remember?” I said.
“Mmmm!” James said. “They were so good!”
“Not as good as real chocolate, though.” I said. He grinned and nodded enthusiastically. I turned him around by his shoulders. “Now go on; there isn’t enough space in this kitchen for spectators.”
James made to walk to the living room but turned to face me again at the kitchen door, his arms spread to hold either side of the doorframe.
“Jake?”
“What’s up?”
“Thanks,” he said. “You know… for telling me.”
I shrugged my shoulders.
“And for looking after Cerys,” he added, smiling gently, searching my face for an emotion.
“I did what I had to do, James.”
“I know.”
“Go on, get lost and let me get to work. I’ll see if I can find any hot chocolate. Good hunters deserve their treats.”
“Does that mean I get another treat at bedtime?” James grinned.
“Well,” I responded, smirking in return, “that all depends on whether you can keep being a good boy between now and then.”
James sniggered and bounded off into the living room.
**
James was indeed a good boy for the rest of the evening, and he certainly had earned himself a treat. He waited to use the toilet and brush his teeth, making sure I was finished first, so that he could strip his clothes off on the landing and make a grand entrance into the bedroom. His dick, stiff and pulsing, led his way as he marched in, hands on hips, giggling as he thrusted back and forth.
“Come on, show off!” I said, patting the bed. He leapt up next to me, skidding against my side on his knees.
“Is it treat time now?” James said, his voice low and breathless.
“I think you’ve been good enough, and it looks like you’re ready.”
“Mmm-hmm,” squeaked James, leapfrogging himself into position over my face, his knees either side of my head. He retracted his foreskin with his thumb and forefinger and began rubbing his moist cockhead against my lips. “Suck it.”
He smelt sweet and musky, waving back and forth just under my nose. A sure sign that his excitement was at fever pitch. I took his entire willy in my mouth in one movement, savouring his taste on my tongue, sucking him to the root, my nose against his baby bare skin, picking up the scent of his crotch sweat from our busy day. I indulged him, forcing his foreskin back with my lips so I could tango my tongue across his glans, poking at his urethra with the point of my wet muscle as he gasped and panted, spidery hands gripping my head and pelvis methodically thrusting. Then, just as James let out a strained whine, I pushed him off me, firmly, flipping him onto his back beside me. I was on him before he realised what had happened.
“You’re getting too big for your boots, my boy,” I growled, pinning both of his wrists hard with my hands, and grinning directly into his face from millimetres above.
James squealed and kicked his legs playfully either side of me.
“Please, sir,” he said, smirking, barely stifling his giggles, “don’t hurt me!”
I kissed him roughly, pinning him with probably more weight than was wise, forcing him to taste his own flavours on my lips and tongue. I moaned into his mouth, the heat of our breath mingling as I felt his stiff willy jerking against my bare stomach, almost poking into my bellybutton. My own dick was a water balloon at full stretch, dribbling over the inside of James’ left thigh as he wriggled under my weight.
“You want the rest of that treat now?” I said, resting my forehead against his, nose to nose, two sets of blue eyes locked together. James nodded silently, his breathing quick and heavy.
I kissed his neck, suckling at his throat, then thrust my head down and attacked an armpit, his arms still pinned beneath mine. He shrieked, squirmed, and thrust his pelvis upwards.
“Jake… willy… please!”
I responded by nibbling at one of his nipples. James writhed and tensed his whole body again.
“Jake! Pleeease!”
I could smell his need in the sweatiness of his body, in the wafting scent of his boyhood as he slithered beneath me. I licked along the centre line of his body, pausing to tongue his firm little navel, pulling his captive hands down alongside his hips. Then, ravenously, I descended upon his fiery dick, cherry red, foreskin fully retracted, purple head throbbing, peanut testes drawn tight. I took liberties with my teeth, making him yelp and buck, teasing his scrotum and torturing his dancing spike with sensation. Within seconds he came, strong and dry, his squeal lighting up the room like a spark in an abandoned mineshaft.
I released his wrists, but his hands stayed still. I could feel his panting through the mattress. I moved alongside him, pulling the bedcovers over our bodies. His eyes fluttered as he regarded me beatifically. He was asleep in my arms within moments of me douting the light.
**
It was one more sleep to Solstice. James knew the next day would be a big party, so was zooming around like a hummingbird from first light in the morning. For the first few hours it was cute. For the following couple it was tiresome but endearing. After that it was just plain annoying. I took myself off to butcher the deer on the back step – where once my mother used to sit smoking and drinking tea several times a day, come rain or shine – but James wasn’t far behind. He simply couldn’t contain himself enough to sit still and focus on anything. Within minutes of watching me cut the deer open he was off frolicking around the garden, underdressed for the snow.
I had no idea how to butcher a deer properly, so I just cut the best-looking and handiest-shaped bits to cook as steaks for Solstice dinner and collected other useful meat to stew that evening. James was momentarily useful as a vegetable-puller for the other ingredients. I took my time putting the stew on. James was in the dining room, bouncing around and singing at the top of his voice, stereo on full blast. It was on a shelf slightly below his head height, making it perfectly placed for James to fiddle with. He seemed to have taken a liking to Maxïmo Park; I had meticulously collected all their albums through my teenage indie kid years and my early twenties, evidently nostalgic for those indie kid years.
I’d drawn out stew-making as long as I could, but the next part of the process was simply a covered casserole dish bubbling away for hours. I screwed up my eyes and rubbed my face, and I headed into the living room intent on serving James an ultimatum to calm himself down or face being banished to bed. Watching him through the archway between the living and dining rooms, I relented. There was something strangely beautiful about watching him, stood on one leg, the other kicking back and forth, arms out for balance, eyes closed, belting out ‘Apply Some Pressure’ with gusto. What happens when you lose everything? You just start again. You start all over again.
James was completely oblivious, lost in the moment. I watched as he sang out the closing lines. “You know that I would love to see you next year. I hope that I am still alive next year! You know that I would love to see you in that dress. I hope that I will live to see you undress!”
I applauded. James opened his eyes in surprise and blushed a little. “I didn’t know you were there, Jake!”
“That was very good,” I said. “I’m glad I didn’t disturb you.”
‘The Coast Is Always Changing’ started up from the speakers. Evidently, he had discovered how to set the CD player to shuffle.
“It’s not nice to sneak up on people,” James said, a little sheepishly.
“Are you, by any chance, a little embarrassed?”
“No!”
“Good. Don’t be. It’s good to see you enjoying yourself. But maybe you could tone down the excitement just a little bit? You have to be able to sleep tonight if you want to enjoy Solstice tomorrow.”
“All-riiight,” James said, with mock disappointment. “Do you want me to turn the music down?”
“Hell no,” I said. “I loved this album when I was fourteen or fifteen. Let’s dance!”
I took James by the hand and twirled him around, making him laugh and stumble. We bounced and whooped and sang together in the back room, our socked feet skidding on the laminate floor, our faces glowing and our eyes sparkling when they met.
It won’t be long before you’ve gone.
I can’t imagine leaving.
**
“Jake! Wake up! It’s almost light!”
James was on his knees next to me, shaking me awake hard enough to bounce the bed.
“Okay, James. I’m awake.”
“It’s Solstice!” he sang at me. “Are we going to start partying now?”
“Just let me wake up first.”
“I’ll make you coffee!”
James hurdled me and ran off down the stairs, oblivious or unconcerned that he still had no clothes on. When I heard the kettle boil and the clinking of crockery, I pulled myself out of bed. I put on my dressing gown and grabbed the oversized hoodie and some boxers for James. I threw them at him on arrival in the kitchen, before he had the chance to pick up the steaming mug of instant coffee and offer it to me. He caught the clothes and put them on without complaining.
“Thanks for the coffee,” I said, grabbing the mug from the side.
“What’s for breakfast?” asked James, his head popping through the neck of the hoodie.
“Hmm…” I said, as James stepped into his underpants, “I was thinking, maybe, chocolate?”
“Yeah!” cried James, hopping and yanking up his pants in one movement. “Can I get it out?”
I nodded. James jumped across the room to get at the fridge.
We sat together at the dining room table, both eating chocolate, me drinking coffee. Two bars of stale Dairy Milk and a bar of stale Galaxy. If James grinned harder his face would have split.
“As if to say he doesn’t like chocolate,” I said.
James laughed. “I thought you’d forgotten that song!”
“How could I?” I said. “You used to play that album to death.”
We finished the first bar between us, and James started on the second. He took a first bite, began to chew, and made a little surprised noise.
“There’s something in this one!” he said, muffled by a mouthful of chocolate.
“Oh, sorry,” I said, “Is it a Fruit and Nut one?”
“No,” he said, swallowing, “it’s something sweet and crunchy.”
I pulled the bar towards me and turned it over to look at the packaging.
“Oh, it has Daim inside. I didn’t realise. Do you still like it?”
“Obviously!” said James, reaching to take the packet back from me and eat more of the bar. “Just surprised, that’s all.”
“Well I’m glad it was that. Daim isn’t so bad. The worst was when they started doing Dairy Milk with Oreo inside. It was like putting a statue of Ronald McDonald in the Sistine Chapel.”
“I don’t know what any of those things are,” said James.
“Sorry,” I said. “You probably hate it when I do that.”
“No,” said James, taking more chocolate and popping it in his mouth. “As long as you explain to me what you mean. I used to think I just wasn’t clever enough, but really it’s that you know a lot more than me about the way the world used to be. I like it when you explain it to me; it feels like learning secrets about the past.”
“Okay,” I smiled. “Where shall I begin?”
“The first thing you said. O-Yo.”
“Oreo was some American biscuit thing. We never had it here when I was a kid, but I guess at some point they started pushing it worldwide. It was horrible. All bland and stodgy and just… yuck.”
“What about the other things? Ronald and the chapel?”
“Ronald McDonald was the mascot of McDonalds, which was a global chain of cheap, greasy, unhealthy junk food restaurants. It was called fast food because you just went to the counter and hardly had to wait for your order. Ronald McDonald was a red-and-white clown in yellow overalls, and plastic statues of him were quite common at McDonalds branches.”
“What about the chapel?”
“The Sistine Chapel is a church in a great palace in Rome, where the head of one of the branches of Christianity used to live. Its walls and ceilings were painted by some of the greatest artists of their time.”
James made his way through more of the chocolate. “I get it. You’re saying that because Oreo was nasty and not natural to English chocolate, putting them together seemed as wrong as putting an ugly statue from a nasty restaurant chain inside a beautiful work of art.”
“Got it in one.”
James smiled to himself and sucked melted chocolate from his fingertips.
“I think you’ve probably had enough chocolate for now,” I said, pulling what was left of the second bar away from him and wrapping it back up.
“Chocolate isn’t very filling,” he said. “What else do we have?”
“Well, as far as special things go, we have some dried fruit, raisins, honey… Or I could get the crisps and we could sit and eat them while we watch a film?”
“That sounds good,” said James, hooking a tooth under his fingernail to tease out the last of the melted chocolate.
“Oh, I just thought – I have a present for you here.”
I got up and pulled the two photos I’d printed from their hiding place on top of the bookshelf. James stood to follow me.
“What are these?” asked James, as I passed the photographs to him. “Woah!”
“See,” I said, pointing to the baby in the first picture, “that’s you.”
“And Mom and Dad!” he said, grinning and bouncing on the balls of his feet. “How did you get this?”
“I took it, ten years ago I suppose,” I said. “It was still there on my phone, so I printed it just like I did with the pictures of us.”
“This is amazing!” said James, running his fingertips over the faces in the image. Ross standing against the backdrop of a familiar fireplace, staring proudly at the camera as he holds his infant son. Nell sitting beside in the armchair, almost out of frame. “What about the other one?”
“Have a look and see for yourself.”
“Hey! It’s Mom and Dad again… and you!” James looked up at me, cheeks plumped with excitement, dimpled by his dumbstruck smile. His eyes twinkled.
“It was at their wedding. Remember you asked about it?”
“I remember. Wait, who’s that guy?” He pointed at the man stood next to me in the photo. Four people in their late twenties standing together, the woman in a wedding dress, holding the hand of a grinning man in a fancy tuxedo. Beside them, me, in a grey suit with a pale blue shirt, and another, bigger man, in a dark suit. All happy and relaxed, positioned in front of a stone wall clad with roses climbing a trellis. The bride and I each hold a champagne glass. The lighting of the photo implies the summer evening sunshine.
“That’s Greg. He was a good friend of ours when we were at university together.”
“He looks like he had a lot of muscles.”
I laughed. “That he did. Lots of weightlifting, and rowing, and other things too.”
“I could look at these forever!” said James. He placed them carefully on the table and launched himself at me, squeezing me around the waist with all his might. “Thanks, Jake!”
“That’s okay, matey,” I said, running my fingers through his hair. “I’m glad you like them.”
He gave a satisfied grunt and pushed back off me, smiling up at me again. Then he seemed to think for a second, and the smile faded.
“I’m sorry, Jake.”
“What for?”
“I don’t have anything to give you. I didn’t think–”
“That’s alright,” I said, touching his head reassuringly, “I don’t need anything.”
“But it’s not fair, Jake,” he said. “You gave me a gift and it made me really happy, but I haven’t done the same for you…”
“Come on now,” I said, “there’s no need to get upset. You’re the only thing I need, and I have you every day, don’t I?”
“I suppose,” said James, still not sounding convinced.
“Chin up,” I said, resting the crook of my forefinger under his jaw. “We’re meant to be having fun.”
“How about if I write a story for you and give it to you in a few days? Would that be a good present? Or… maybe I’ll think of something else.”
“That would be wonderful. I’d love that. Now what film would you like to watch?”
James seemed a bit more satisfied. “Hmm…” he pondered, “how about Lord of the Rings?”
“Alright. Which one?”
“All of them!”
“All of them?” I said. “Well I suppose we do have all day. Go and get the first film ready; I’ll get the crisps.”
“Actually, Jake,” said James, plodding through the archway between dining room and living room, “I think I might leave the crisps for a while. I feel a bit sick.”
“Oh dear,” I laughed. “I told you you’d had enough chocolate!”
“Some things will never be different,” he said, plopping himself on the sofa and stifling a heaving belch with his fist to his mouth.
**
We sat through The Fellowship of the Ring occasionally munching stale crisps. When it finished, having eaten only chocolate and crisps all day thus far, I decided we should have a more substantial lunch, and went to heat up some of yesterday’s stew. James decided he wasn’t hungry for stew and instead had two lollipops that were hidden amongst our secret stash. Then, after a while, he decided he was hungry after all and got himself a second fork and spoon to pick at my stew as I ate.
After the Battle of Helm’s Deep, I told James that we should start preparing our Solstice dinner. I had him chopping vegetables with me to boil, steering him away from the larger and sharper knives in the drawer in favour of something more suited to his size and skill. I had the big daddy knife, he had to make do for the moment with the little boy scalpel.
I’d put some potatoes on to boil while we chopped, and now I set them to roast. We waited a while before preparing the deer steaks. I got myself a beer and James brought back the photographs, and we stood chatting about them for a long time. I could smell the potatoes cooking.
James asked to try some beer. The taste was a little off; the bottles were very old. He smacked his lips and wrinkled his nose.
“It’s a bit of an acquired taste,” I said.
“I don’t dislike it,” James countered, “it just tastes different from what I was expecting.”
He decided he would have one with his dinner, like me.
I got the steaks ready to cook. “Which herbs should we put on them?” I asked.
James reached over the sink to the window ledge, where I’d potted some of the herbs from the garden before the weather turned. Snow had started to fall in slow, cottony flakes outside.
“Parsley,” he said, pulling a clump from the pot, stalks and all. A brief flicker of childhood memory, sitting watching a grainy VHS of Parsley the Lion with my mother, sparked across the back of my mind and extinguished within the same millisecond. James began roughly chopping the parsley, including the stalks, with the knife I’d given him.
“I don’t think we want the stalks, mate.”
“They’d just be wasted otherwise,” said James, looking up from his chopping to wave an arm in protest. “They still taste like parsley – see?” He popped a segment of chopped parsley stalk into his mouth.
“You’re a funny boy,” I said, “but I still love you. Are you done chopping?” I had the steaks sizzling in a pan. James lifted the chopping board and reached over to slide the parsley onto the steaks with his knife.
**
We ate at the table. I put the stereo on as accompaniment. I’d uncapped a beer each for us. “Cheers!” I said, clinking bottles with James.
“Skol!” he replied. I laughed in surprise. It was something Nell used to say. I had no idea she’d taught it to him.
“Na zdravje,” I responded, chuckling.
“You win,” said James. “I don’t know any more.”
The roe we took may not have been the greatest specimen, but the meat was fine. The meal tasted like the bonhomie of a pop-up Christmas market after dark on a Saturday night. We were in a silly mood. James cracked jokes and reminisced about times he’d been naughty as he munched through his dinner and swigged his beer. I got us the rest of the chocolate and two fresh bottles. James grabbed at it like a starving beast, making exaggerated chomping noises as he pretended to eat it all at once.
“Little monkey,” I said.
James laughed and broke a piece of chocolate from the morning’s half-eaten bar, handing it to me.
“Aren’t you sweet?” I said.
“That was terrible,” James snorted.
“I knew you’d like that one.”
“Can we get more chocolate?”
“We can head over to the factory one day if you like. It’s not too far away. There’ll surely be lots left over there.”
James bounced in his seat. “There’s a place where people make chocolate near here?”
“Used to make chocolate,” I corrected. “But yes, the Cadbury factory is very close by. This is practically the land of chocolate. The Cadbury family pretty much invented British chocolate culture.”
“We have to go,” said James, matter-of-factly.
We swilled down the chocolate with more beer. I went and fetched a rum for myself. It was dark and spicy, particularly good for drinking without mixer. James requested a glass. I was dubious. He insisted, so I poured him a mouthful, instructing him to sip it. He gulped it back in one and spluttered.
“Easy!” I said, taking the glass from his hand as he waved it around, coughing. “You don’t like it?”
“Tastes like burning,” said James, between coughs.
“Should I get you some water?”
James shook his head. “I want to drink more of that.”
His cheeks and ears were flushed. His eyes were lively; slightly bloodshot. He caught me looking at him and burst into giggles. He took the glass back and waved it at me.
“Just one more,” he begged. “Then you can take me for a lie down.” He giggled as he said it, motoring his eyebrows at me.
I poured him another shot’s worth, then drained my own glass. As soon as he was finished drinking, I had him scooped up in both arms, kissing sweet, passionate, spicy kisses. Suede was playing on the stereo, Animal Nitrate. I threw James down on the settee in the living room and ripped his clothes from him savagely. I carried him, fireman’s lift, to the bed, where we would have more room.
**
Under the glow of the bedroom light I had my head up James’ bare arsecrack, his flavour rich and bittersweet like a chocolate stout. He grunted and moaned. I was massaging the foreskin of his pencil-stiff willy back and forth, teasing the ridge of his head with my thumbnail through the skin as I went. Then I had enough and flipped him roughly onto his back. I stripped kneeling above him, my hard, adult cock straining and bouncing over his narrow and immature body. He held me in his gaze, somewhere between adoring and dizzy.
I lined my dick up to James’ lips, an imitation of a position I loved to see him in over me – that I was certain he loved to be in. He opened wide and sucked me in, his tongue working my glans without a moment’s delay. I grabbed the jar of Vaseline from the table, twisted around. My balls rested on the bridge of James’ nose. He squeezed and rolled them gently in his hand. I took everything he had in my mouth. He whimpered. The blow job had become uncoordinated and sloppy. I felt saliva running down James’ chin onto my thigh.
I lifted his legs, slathered James’ crack with mammoth globs of jelly, probed his arse deep with a single thrust of my little finger. He yelped and squirmed. My mouth tasted of nuts and fresh bread. My nose was on his varnish-smooth bifkin, right over his hole. I could smell its greasy, leathery scent over the Vaseline as it sucked on my finger to the base.
I rolled us sideways, pulling up James’ leg further to gain yet more access to his rear end. James’ tongue was all over my cock. Everything was damp and sticky with saliva. I still had willy and pouch together in my mouth, suckling gently. My focus was elsewhere. I withdrew my middle finger and plunged my index alongside it through James’ tight ring of muscle. The spasms caused my fingers to cross inside him. His whole body bucked and tightened. He grunted and gargled on my dick, his raised thigh squeezing instinctively against my head. I fingerfucked him rhythmically, in and out, round and round, scissor motions. James whimpered and mewed softly, switching to licking my cock and balls, his jaw exhausted.
“Ready for number three?” I asked. Except it wasn’t really a question.
He knew it. I felt him nod against my lower quarters and whisper a tight-throated “yeah.”
Out the two fingers came. James’ anus winked and spasmed, open and shut, up and down, millimetres from my eyes. Index, middle, and ring finger. A new fat blob of jelly. Pressed together in a triangle. In they went.
Resistance. Lots of resistance. “Yeeeow!” James cried. His body stiffened and he panted and whimpered.
“Just relax,” I said. “Remember to push. Good boy.”
I waited for him to get used to this new invasion. His willy had gone soft, and I nuzzled it. He recovered enough to start licking dutifully once more. Fewer spasms on my fingers. I moved them around a little more.
“Do you think you’re ready for something a little bigger?”
“You’re going to put your willy in me, like the boy and his uncle in the story.”
“Is that what you want?”
“Mmm.”
“James?”
“Do it to me, Jake.” He slurred it a little as he said it. He had his eyes closed and hiccoughed with his mouth over the end of my dick.
“Roll over onto your other side,” I said, pulling away and directing him with one hand on his hip. “Hold your knee up to your chest for me.” I was slathering my spit-soaked boner in additional Vaseline, heartbeat fracturing my ribs. James clung to his knee with both arms, folding it into his chest. I lay beside him.
“Do it, Jake.” Another hiccup. I pulled his buttock up with the palm of one hand and lined up my dick with the other. His arsehole looked red and angry, much unlike its usual little pink wrinkle.
I pushed.
“Aaa-oooouw!”
“Are you okay, James?”
“Yeah…” he panted. “Keep going.”
“Good boy. Brave boy.”
My cock had been repulsed by James’ ring. It slid up against his balls, tight against his body, his willy hanging limply down to the side, mine leaving a goopy trail up his taint and on his genitals.
“I’m going to try to put it in again.”
James nodded. If he folded his knee into his chest any tighter, he’d have snapped himself in two. His teeth were gritted, eyes tight shut. This time I popped past his body’s resistance. He screamed again, his other leg involuntarily kicking against me. My front was soaked in his sweat, but I smelt something else. I heard it too: the baritone drubbing of water on a drumskin. James had dribbled out a stream of urine, his bladder full from the alcohol, leaving a trail down his hip and a puddle under him on the bedsheets. He lay stoically in place, grunting and whimpering as his anus spasmed wildly over the tip of my cock.
“James, are you okay?”
“I’m fine. Please do it, Jake. I want it.”
“I’m not sure you do,” I said, reaching up to stoke his face, his jaw and eyelids still on lockdown.
“I do want it, Jake,” James said, sounding pained as he tried to push his hips back against me. “It’s my present to you.”
My dick slipped a little further inside him. He yelped and I heard another dribble of piss. He sniffled. He was trying not to cry.
It’s my present to you.
Pins and needles spread through my body like a sudden onset of chickenpox. My stomach felt like it had fled to the other side of the room. My balls went numb and my dick shrivelled inside him, popping out, making him grunt and buck again. I wrenched his arms from behind his knee and rolled him onto me, away from his wet patch. I cuddled him into my sweat-drenched chest.
“My poor baby boy! I’m so sorry, James. So, so sorry.” I rocked him from side to side against me.
“Why, Jake?” he sobbed. “I just wanted to give you your present. We both wanted to do it.”
I held him tightly to me and pressed my lips into his sweat-matted hair, trying to fight back my own tears. James hiccoughed and heaved a little, as if he was going to puke. I let him go and he wriggled free.
“I feel sick,” he said.
“I need to change these sheets,” I replied robotically, feeling as if I was observing myself from the ceiling. “Go and wait in the bathroom for a while just in case.”
James crawled off the bed. He stumbled when he stood; braced himself against the wall. Then he waddled his way to the bathroom, banging both doors along the way, a couple more hiccups reverberating off the walls.
Alone on the bed, I growled and kicked, digging my fingernails into my face. I stood up and tore the soiled sheet from the bed, balling it manically in my fists, pounding it against the wall as my tears came, fiery heaves and sobs laced with dark rum, sickly-sweet chocolate, and the scent of James’ urine; the acrid stench of my shame.
**
I sat in the living room. The bedsheet lit up the fireplace like a beacon, but the room was darkened. There was something still playing on the stereo, but it didn’t register with me any more coherently than the sound of a jet engine on take-off. Outside, a blizzard raged, wind rattling the windows and snow whiting them out, cold and final as a metal shutter.
I had got my boy drunk and tried to fuck him.
I had got my eleven-year-old boy drunk and tried to fuck him.
I had got my eleven-year-old boy hopelessly drunk and tried to fuck him.
I had got my dead friend’s eleven-year-old orphan boy hopelessly drunk and tried to fuck him.
I had got my dead friend’s eleven-year-old orphan boy hopelessly drunk, attempted to anally rape him, and made him think it was what he wanted.
How much damage had I done?
He would hate me. Surely, when he sobered up and realised what had happened, he would hate me. I’d let him humiliate and debase himself. I’d humiliated and debased him.
I loved him so much I would die for him. I would do anything to protect him.
He was better off without me.
Tomorrow, I would take him to the nosey Asian family. They would keep him safe. He’d live a normal life. He was better off without me.
Without me in his life.
Without me alive.
The fire whooshed and crackled. The sheet could have set the whole house on fire. Even in my shame I was selfish and dangerous to James.
The stairs boomed and creaked as if an elephant was tumbling down them in slow motion. A naked boy appeared in the doorway. Wobbled a little. Hiccoughed.
“Jake, when are you coming to bed?”
“I don’t know, mate. There’s a lot I have to tidy up down here.”
“Would you come now please? I’m cold and I want a cuddle.”
He leaned bonelessly against the doorframe as he spoke. The thick layer of Vaseline remained between his legs, glittering in the glow of the fire.
**
I didn’t sleep, but I gave James what he really wanted: someone to cuddle up to in the dark. I extricated myself at dawn and went to clean up the mess of the sheet fire and our dinner spread. Light could barely penetrate the front windows for the snow. A trip into the garden to dump the ashes confirmed a blizzard in full force.
My head thrummed with despair. My insides were missing. As I cleared away the rum bottle from the table, most of what was left of me wanted to neck it. Somehow, I resisted; it had played a big enough part already. I put it back in the fridge, dead as my soul, and settled for instant coffee.
James arrived just as I was finishing my brew. I was sat on the settee in my dressing gown. He was still naked. He dumped himself into my lap.
“My head hurts.”
“That’s what happens when you have too much alcohol.”
“I only had a little bit!” James’ throat sounded sore.
“Even a little bit is too much for little boys.” I was choking up just speaking to him. My throat was dry, and my heart pulsed like a sprinter.
“Are you okay, Jake?” asked James, turning on my lap to face me side-on. He looked and sounded concerned. I put my arms around him, leaned back into the settee, and burst into tears.
“Jake? Jake?” James sounded panicked. I couldn’t open my eyes to look at him. He tried wiping my tears, but gave up and squeezed me tightly instead, pushing his face against mine. “It’s okay, Jake. It’s okay.”
“No, it’s not,” I whispered, between heavy sobs. “I hurt you, Jamey. How could I do that?”
“Oh…” he was sheepish. “I don’t remember that very well.”
Because I let you get hammered on booze almost as old as you are, and four times as strong.
“Are you sure?” I asked him.
“Well, maybe I do a little bit,” said James. “But it wasn’t that bad, Jake.”
Except for the part where I overstretched your arse and tried to fuck you, while you were too polite and pliant to say no.
“James, what I did was very, very wrong,” I said, holding the back of his head and talking directly into his ear. “Nobody should ever try to force someone else to do things with them, and you should never let anyone else do things with you that you don’t want to do.”
“But I did want to do it,” James insisted. “At least, I thought I wanted to, at the time.” He paused for a second. I tried to cut across him, but he put his hand over my mouth. “I just wanted to make you happy. I lied to you. When you realised I was lying, you stopped.”
“Jamey,” I said, when he let go of my mouth, still holding him to me, both drooped on the settee, “You know I knew deep down you didn’t really want to do it at all. I knew you were drunk – way more drunk than I should have let you get – and you didn’t know what you were saying. But in the moment… In the moment I chose to ignore what you wanted. You shouldn’t be forgiving me so easily for that. I taught you better than that.”
James was silent for a while. I could almost feel the cogs working in his head as he lay cheek to cheek with me.
“You taught me to always look after the people you love,” he said, after a while. “Please don’t be sad, Jake. I’m not that sad. I just feel like… I dunno. I suppose like we made a mistake. But we won’t do it again. Maybe we can do… that… when I’m a bit older?”
“James, I’m the adult. It’s my responsibility, not your mistake. I shouldn’t have let any of that happen.”
“But it did, so we can’t change it now.”
I gave a wry chuckle. “Who’s the grown-up here?” I said. “I’m not sure I deserve you.”
James sighed theatrically and lifted his head from mine, sitting up straddling my hips. “You know what you’d say to me if I was being like this?”
“What?” I asked.
“Stop being a silly goose!” he tapped the end of my nose with every word, then – out of nowhere – he slapped my cheek, not entirely playfully. “Get up. I need you. I feel rubbish and it’s your fault for letting me get drunk, so you have to look after me.”
I sat up and blinked at him. He smirked at me.
“Yep,” he said. “You’re going to have to really look after me today. Or else I might have to be sick on you.” He made himself giggle.
He didn't hate me. It was a relief. But I still felt hollow and dirty for what I'd done.
“James?” I patted the space between me and the arm of the settee. He clambered off me and snuggled in next to me. I put my arm around his shoulders. “How’s your bum feeling today?”
“It’s…” he lay his head against my chest and spoke into it as he played with my hair. “It’s… well, a little bit sore. And I touched it this morning and it’s still greasy and smells weird.”
“I’m sorry, mate.” I squeezed and stroked his bare shoulder with my thumb.
“You didn’t mean to hurt me,” said James. “Did you, Jake?” He looked up at me, bloodshot eyes searching mine.
“Of course I didn’t, Jamey. I’d never, ever want to hurt you on purpose.”
“I know,” he said, satisfied and smiling. He reached up to kiss my cheek. It still stung that he had to ask.
“We’ll put you in the bath. A nice soak will sort everything out. Your sore head too.”
“Just by myself?”
“Just by yourself, though I’ll sit by the side and chat with you if you want.”
“Thanks, Jake.”
“James, there’s something else I need to ask you.” I looked into his eyes, very seriously. He looked a little panicked again. “I want you to be honest with me. We promised not to lie to each other, remember?”
James nodded his head.
“Do you like the things we do together?”
“The sexy things?”
“The sexy things.”
“Obviously,” said James, with a dismissive guffaw, “otherwise I wouldn’t do them, would I?”
“You didn’t like what we were doing last night, but you still said you’d do it.”
James stopped for a second and was silent.
“James?”
“That was different,” he said, quietly but clearly and firmly.
“So you don’t do sex things with me just because you feel like you have to?”
“No,” said James, firmly, shaking his head and looking me in the eye.
We sat quietly together for a few seconds, my hand still idly caressing James’ shoulder as he snuggled against me, listening to each other breathing.
“When we first started, when I was younger,” James volunteered, “I liked doing it just to… you know…”
“Get off?”
“To… to have an orgasm,” James gave a little snigger under his breath at using the formal term.
“Okay. But?”
“But… when I realised I could do stuff to help you, too… well, it felt exciting and cool to make you feel good as well. Like we were bonding or something.”
“So you are doing it just to please me?”
“No!” James countered. “It’s hard to explain. Just listen.”
“I’m sorry. I’m listening.” I said. James shuffled over and put himself on my lap again, drawing my arms around him with his.
“Lately,” he said, “I’ve been… sort of…” He sighed and lay his head back against my chin, scrunching up his eyes. “I dunno. Somehow it feels sexier now to do things with you. Like telling you what I want you to do. And… it’s really fun… like when we play games together and you pretend like you have control over me. I know that it’s not real, but that feeling like you have control over me, and can make me do whatever you want, or I have control over you… Does that make sense, Jake? It’s just really… really sexy, to do that with someone you love.”
“James,” I whispered in his ear. “You’ve given yourself a stiffy.”
“I know,” he giggled, flexing and twitching his boner for show.
“I think,” I said, “that what’s happening is that my little boy is growing up.”
“Don’t be saccharine, Jake!”
“Wow!” I laughed. “Saccharine! You really are growing up!”
“You taught me that word, remember!”
“You learn so much that I can’t possibly keep up with where it’s all coming from,” I said, tickling his belly until he wriggled off my lap. His penis had flopped back to normal size.
“I’ve got a headache, remember!” James protested. I was sat up at the edge of my seat, he was stood between my open legs. I placed my hands on his shoulders and looked into his eyes.
“You’re sure that everything’s okay?”
He nodded his head.
“Maybe it would be easier to write down some of those feelings than to try to explain them to me now.”
“You mean like in a story?”
“That’s it,” I said. “Exactly like that.”
James smiled. “I can do that!”
I stood up and ushered him into the hallway. “Go on,” I said. “Run a bath for that bum of yours.”
“Alright,” said James, making his way slowly up the stairs.
There was a knocking at the front door. James stopped halfway up the stairs.
“Who the hell could that be?” I said.
Of course, there were very few living souls who knew our address, so the pool was quite limited, especially given the weather. I peered through the peephole to see the distorted image of a tangled mess of unruly black hair and skin the colour of milky coffee, somewhere below the level of the glass. I opened the door.
“Manny?” I said.
The boy stepped through the door, slumped under the weight of his sodden clothes and a full-to-splitting rucksack. He was soaked to the bone and had a whiff of little boy BO about him.
“Manny!” shrieked James, bounding back down the stairs and throwing his arms around the boy. Manny stood awkwardly, wide-eyed, as his naked acquaintance embraced him.
“Brrrr!” said James, letting go of Manny and pulling back. “You’re really cold.”
Manny stood stone still, staring at James’ bare crotch, and mumbled something.
“I’m up here, Manny,” I said, turning the boy’s chin so he was looking at me as he spoke, rather than ogling James. He glowed beetroot and avoided my gaze. “James,” I said, “go and cover yourself up, please.”
“Oops!” said James, belatedly cupping his genitals in his hands and blushing a little too. “Sorry Manny. I’ll get dressed.” He raced away up the stairs with one hand over his front and the other hiding his rear cleft.
“What was it you were saying, Manny?”
“I said…” he sighed and glanced at the still-open door. “Can I stay with you, please?”
I closed the door and looked again at the young boy before me. The dripping from his clothes was creating a large puddle on the hallway floor. They were filthy as well as soaking wet. His hair was overgrown and tangled. His face was streaked with grime and his eyes looked tired, red, and puffy.
“James!” I called up the stairs.
“Yeah?” he shouted in return.
“On second thoughts, don’t bother getting dressed. Be a good big brother and run a bath for you and Manny to share.”
“What?” he said, incredulously, having appeared at the top of the stairs with a pair of colourful boxer briefs in hand, draped over his genitals to keep them hidden.
“Go on,” I said, “before Manny freezes to death. You two can have a bath together and warm him up.”
“Cool!” said James, throwing the underpants to one side and bursting through the bathroom door. I looked at Manny, dripping freezing water onto the laminate floor, and stroked his cheek with my hand. He collapsed against me and squeezed me tight.
I held him to me while he kept up the hug. “Thank you,” he whispered, slowly letting me go.
“Alright,” I said, running a hand through his soaked, tangled hair. “You’ve had James flash you, it’s only fair you return the favour now.”
Manny blushed and smirked to himself. I took his hand and began to lead him upstairs.
“James!” I called. “Are you ready?”
**
Hey!
If you’re reading this then GET THE HELL OUT OF OUR HOUSE! You won’t like to see us when we’re angry. James fires arrows more accurately than Legolas and Manny is a better fighter than Aragorn.
Only joking. We don’t mind you being here if you’re friendly. But you have to keep tidy, don’t break anything, and DON’T STEAL OUR STUFF!
This is our winter house. It was Jake’s house when he was little, so he will beat you up if you mess it up. We know it’s true because James saw it happen to someone before. We’ll be back here in the winter. If anyone reads this then please leave us a message here too. It’ll be really cool to read messages from different people as much as possible.
Especially if there are girls because Manny wants a girlfriend. James smells like farts and wets his pants.
Sleep well house, we will see you again soon!
James & Manny
xx XX
**
Jon,
If you’re reading this then I’m so happy that you’re safe and well. I’ve missed you every day.
I understand why you had to go; Francesca was scared, she wanted to get back to her parents, however far away that was. I told you then that I understood and truly I still do. But I hoped you would return. I hold on to that hope. This will always be our home whenever we need it.
I left the house stocked up as best I could, like a survival bunker, in case you returned once the baby was born. Nearly four years later it was all still here. It was good for me; I needed it. I’ll explain why. But it saddened me to know you still hadn’t come back. I’d give anything to see you again; to meet your little girl or boy.
After you left, I couldn’t stay here. Like I said, I stockpiled everything I could and went back to Nell and James. Unfortunately, Nell is no longer with us. It’s just me and James. I brought him here with me for the winter. They’re getting worse – I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you that – and I could barely keep us both alive on that farm by ourselves. Not through the worst of the winter, not that far north. James is everything to me. I can’t bear to let him down.
You’ll probably see – if you haven’t already – his letter here with mine. He’s an incredible young man and I know you would love him too if you met him. He’s taken a shine to wearing that old signed shirt of yours – sorry he’s taken it away with him! He’ll probably wear it to destruction this summer. I know you would’ve done the same at his age. I’m looking after another young boy as well, Manny. His story is a bit more complicated. I can explain everything if, WHEN, I see you again. The hope will never leave me.
I know I went away too, after Mom died, and disappeared to the farm. We knew how to find each other, though. We could get messages to each other if we needed to. Now I’m left with only this void. I dream of walking through the door next winter and seeing the three of you standing in the kitchen waiting for us. Even just you, whatever the circumstances. Even just a note in return, so I know you’re ok. I’ll understand, just as I know you understand me.
All my love,
Jake x