Date: Wed, 13 Dec 2017 22:44:56 +0000
From: John Roman Baker <jrb@wilkinsonhouse.com>
Subject: A Place of Dreams (Nick & Greg}

[Preamble]
This story introduces Nick and Greg, two fourteen-year-olds growing up
in 1950s Brighton. It marks the beginning of their adventures which are
further chronicled in The Nick & Greg Books by John Roman Baker (for
Kindle and in paperback.) This story was first appeared with the title
"A Place of Dreams" in the short story collection "Brighton Darkness".

NICK & GREG (A Place of Dreams) by John Roman Baker
Copyright 2015 John Roman Baker

He was kicking a ball in St Ann's Well Gardens. Nick watched him,
sitting on a seat with his back to the pond. The boy had noticed him and
between kicks would look over; it was a smiling, cheeky look that seemed
to ask for attention. Nick saw how strong his legs were, and the shorts
he was wearing were dirty with mud. The ground was wet with a downpour
from the night before and the late autumn grass looked thin and worn
after too much use and abuse. The gardens had been crowded all through
the summer months, and well into October there had been picnics.
     "Do you want to come and join me?"
     The cry was cheerful and Nick, feeling self-conscious in his coat
and long trousers, shook his head in silence. But he smiled at the boy
and raised his hand in a half wave, half gesture of recognition.
     "Scared of getting your clothes dirty?"
     The boy kicked the ball in Nick's direction and it landed under the
long seat he was on. He realised, looking down, that his legs had been
wide open, like a goal post. In the next moment, the boy was on his
knees in front of him, and without looking up at Nick, retrieved the ball.
     "Sorry," he said, looking up. His face was smeared with dirt, but
he had bright blue eyes and Nick found them very attractive.
     "What's your name?" the boy asked.
     "Nick."
     "I'm Greg."
     Nick said hello and Greg sat down next to him.
     "I hope it doesn't fucking rain," he said, looking up at the sky.
"Always happens at the weekend, doesn't it?"
     "I don't come here often at the weekends. I thought there would be
more people."
     "What do you expect in November?"
     "It's warm. The sun's out."
     "Not for long. Look at the clouds coming in from Worthing."
     Nick laughed. Greg's voice was much deeper than his, and he was
impressed by the forbidden swearword he had used. He wondered if Greg's
parents knew he used words like that. The last time he had used the word
`bloody' he had been hit by his mother.
     "Do you swear much?" he asked, turning to stare at Greg.
     "Course I do. Shit, fuck, cunt. Didn't anyone talk like that to you
before? Must be a fucking polite school you go to."
     "No, they use words like bloody and even shit sometimes."
     "Should hope so. Everyone shits. It's the most natural word in the
English language. As for bloody, even my seven year old sister says
that. It's nothing."
     Nick remained silent. He turned away from Greg and looked at the
trees beyond the open space of grass. The trees still had a lot of
leaves, but they were turning browner than the earth beneath them. Then
quite suddenly he felt a sharp nudge in his side.
     "Dressed up like that and sitting like that you look like an old
man. I bet you are younger than me, but you look years older."
     "I was fourteen a few weeks ago."
     "Stand up."
     "Why?"
     "I want to see how tall you are. Your legs seems quite long, but
the rest of you looks shorter."
     Feeling embarrassed, but obeying Greg, Nick stood up.
     "Thought so."
     "What?"
     "You are shorter than me."
     Greg stood and faced Nick. He was about a head taller.
     "Does it matter?" Nick asked.
     Greg shrugged, then ran out onto the grass and began kicking the
ball again. It was around three in the afternoon and a few people began
to appear, most of them walking their dogs. One Alsatian was especially
interested in the ball and ran after it when Greg gave it a second kick.
Greg looked back at Nick who was still standing on the gravel by the
seat and called out, "Look, even he is more eager than you are."
     "He's a dog," Nick shouted back, stating the obvious. "I'm not as
stupid as a dog."
     "And he hasn't got a posh voice like you've got. Thank God all
fucking dogs bark more or less the same."
     The Alsatian, shocked by their shouting voices, bounded away, and
running to the ball, Greg picked it up and returned to Nick.
     "Don't you like sport?" he asked.
     "It's alright. I don't do much of it."
     "What school d'you go to?"
     "A small one. You wouldn't know it. Clifton College"
     "Posh is it?" He shrugged again. "Oh, fuck it, it doesn't matter. I
don't care what sort of school you go to. I never passed my Eleven Plus.
I live in Portslade, so I go to the Knoll."
     Nick had no idea where the Knoll school was, and as he rarely went
to Portslade he had no idea what kind of school it was. Clearly it must
be a place that largely ignored swear words, with a big playground, so
that in all the noise, the words could not be identified. At his private
school they had a small playing area and it was supervised. He looked
down at the ground and mumbled that he had better start out for home.
     "Where's that?" Greg asked.
     "Montpelier Road. I live in the big red house, next to the tennis
court."
     "A flat is it?"
     "Yes."
     "I live in a house. Dad will own it soon. He makes good money at
his electrical shop."
     His voice sounded defiant and boasting. There was also an edge of
anger in it as if he had to assert something over Nick.
     "Why don't we do something?" he said.
     "Do you really want to?"
     "Don't sound like a sodding wimp. Would I ask if I didn't want to?
I know a boy called Charlie. He lives around here. We could go and see
if he is in. He's got a TV set. We could see what's on."
     Nick, who lived alone with his mother, did not have a TV. She liked
the wireless and often in the evenings he would listen to concerts and
plays with her. She was separated from his father and lived a solitary
life, except for Nick who kept her company most of the time. He
certainly couldn't offer to take Greg back to the flat. None of the kids
he knew at school had ever gone back to his place, and as his mother was
in ill health, they would not have been welcome.
     "I thought television didn't start until the evening," he said.
     "Haven't you got a set?"
     "We're thinking about it."
     "Your mum and your dad?"
     "My mother. My father is dead," he lied.
     "What did he die of?"
     Nick paused. He went through a mental list of illnesses that could
possibly lead to death. He knew about pneumonia and cancer and
tuberculosis, then he thought of the obvious, the one he wouldn't have
to describe any symptoms of.
     "Heart attack," he said.
     "Was it quiet? I had an uncle who had a heart attack. Bloody cried
out as he went, or that's what my dad said. It's supposed to be fucking
awful painful."
     "I don't know. He died in the street."
     The lie was becoming more and more elaborate, but he was ashamed of
admitting there had been a separation between his parents. It was almost
as shameful as admitting you were illegitimate or that you had been
adopted because no one else wanted you.
     "Couldn't the ambulance men have saved him if they had come in time?"
     "Yes, I suppose so," Nick replied, running out of more ideas for
this lie. He had been brought up as a Catholic and had been to a
Catholic primary school. Lying was a venial sin, not a mortal one, but
all the same, he didn't like to tell them. He might go to Purgatory for
that if he told too many and didn't go to confession. Then he suddenly
reminded himself, that deep down he didn't really believe God existed.
He had realised that in St Mary Magdalen's church one day as he had been
gazing around at all the gaudy statues. It all seemed so improbable
suddenly, a God up there, way beyond the clouds, paying any attention to
him. He had been about eight or nine at the time, and he was so thin and
small he thought it would be impossible for a God to notice him, even if
He did exist. Then he felt guilty and crossed himself just the same. He
was almost tempted to say a few Hail Mary's, but then gave up the
thought and looked vacantly at the altar. The priest was raising the
monstrance, which was an inappropriate time to look up, and he lowered
his eyes quickly. He knew the word `atheist' as he had been told by a
particularly nasty master at school, that atheists were doomed to
damnation. He decided there must be a Hell and a Purgatory, and that
place Limbo for dead unbaptised babies and for people who had been dead
before Christ, and that not believing in God would take him to one of
them. He sighed at the comforting thought that he had at least escaped
from the possibility of Limbo as he had been baptised. He thought of
Heaven without God, then gave up.
     "What you so quiet about?"
     Greg's deep voice roused him out of his thoughts. He looked at the
boy, then stared down at his sturdy legs. He saw hair growing on them
and he felt an impulse to reach out and touch them. He liked hair on
men's legs. It was then he realised that he hadn't asked Greg how old he
was. He looked old enough to be as much as sixteen.
     "Can you get into X films?" he asked suddenly.
     Greg laughed.
     "What you asking that for?"
     "Don't know. Just wondered."
     "I saw my first X film months ago. They let me in. Suppose I look
old enough."
     "How old are you?"
     "Year older than you. Born in December. I'll be fifteen next month."
     "So you're fourteen like me."
     "I'm not like you at all. Have you got pubic hair yet?"
     Nick had pubic hair, but he blushed at the nakedness of the word.
It sounded exciting coming out of Greg's mouth and he felt his penis
grow hard. Frightened that it showed, he put his hand down in front of
him. Then he remembered he was wearing a coat and it couldn't show
through trousers and a coat. He began walking and Greg moved quickly
after him.
     "I was just asking," he said. "I know a boy who began growing hair
there at ten."
     Nick laughed, not believing.
     "How do you know?" he asked. He knew this was a daring question to
ask, but he had to. His mind was full of images of hair around Greg's
penis, and by asking, he was prolonging what was a forbidden
conversation. He also imagined himself being caned for this at school.
     "I know 'cos he dropped his trousers and showed me. His cock was
bigger than I thought it would be as well. Bloody abnormal, I told him."
     They had reached the park entrance on Furze Hill, and it was there
that Greg steered the talk into another area.
     "Do you like science fiction comics?" he asked.
     Nick liked them very much and told him so.
     "I know this shop near the Theatre Royal. In Gardner Street. Want
to come with me and look at some?"
     "What time does it close?"
     "Half-five. We've still got time if we hurry. We won't see any
horror comics like my elder brother has. Fuck knows where he got them
from. I saw one once and it had a woman's head being cut off by this
monster. It was in colour and there was blood everywhere."
     Nick didn't like the thought of this much, but he looked up at
Greg's eager face and noticed again the sparkling, blue eyes. He
wouldn't like it at all if there were real monsters and he saw this
sudden (and possibly new friend?) having his head cut off.
     "Let's run," he said, all too ready to show he was fast at running.
He had to begin to impress Greg.

     Brighton and Hove was their playground, from St Ann's Well Gardens
to Black Rock. They ran a lot, laughed a lot, and Nick, while he was
with Greg, began to swear as much as he did. Only he wouldn't use the
word `cunt' which he didn't like. A deep reservation made him refuse to
use this most forbidden of words. He had heard a drunk in the street say
it when he was with his mother, and she had turned on the drunk, a
living burning flame of reproval in her red dress, and had said to him,
loudly and clearly, "You disgusting man. Aren't you ashamed of
yourself?" The drunk had looked at her and laughed through his broken
teeth. "What, haven't you got one?" he replied. His mother had drawn
Nick quickly away, and they went onto the West Pier where, as she said,
"the wind will blow the nastiness and the cobwebs away." Even now, when
Greg used that word, which was less frequent than the others, he looked
disapprovingly at him.
     "Don't be such a kid," Greg would say, then pinch him on the arm
cheekily and run on ahead.
     Every now and then, they would steal comics from the shops in the
warren of squalid houses that led down from the station. It was easy to
do, especially in the one on Trafalgar Street, where the man who ran it
was too blind to see anyway. Greg would always signal towards the more
lurid ones, the ones that resembled the films Nick was too young to see.
     One day they sneaked into the back of the shop and the nearly blind
man didn't see them. In the back room, they discovered a pile of older
comics that were hard-core horror. Some had scantily dressed women being
carried by a monster, or a creature, or a thing. He got very confused
about why these objects of terror had such different names.
     "Why is he called an `it'?" he whispered as Greg singled out a
comic called It Came from the Gruesome Lands.
     "It's just to make it more exciting."
     "So what is the difference between a creature and a monster?"
     Greg paused and looked reflective, his hand poised to steal.
     "Monsters do more," he at last said simply.
     Nick felt slightly ashamed at asking such a childish question, then
nodded his head in agreement. Since he had met Greg, he had quickly read
both Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, which he found very heavily written,
followed by Bram Stoker's Dracula which was much more to his taste. He
pondered a while on this. Frankenstein's creature was called a monster,
so it was perfectly clear that you could be both at the same time.
     "Can we go and see one of those films?" he asked. "If we're
together, I'm sure I can get in with you. You're taller and bigger than
me, but you've often said my face looks older."
     "After Christmas and my birthday," Greg replied, then neatly
slipped a few of the comics inside his jacket.
     "Now let's make a fucking run for it," he said.
     The man did not see them as they left the shop, Greg carrying his
forbidden cargo.
     Often they would go to see Charlie. He lived in St Michael's Place,
which was considered a rough street to live on, with police cars going
up and down it. Nick's mother had told him, with inevitable severity,
that only drug addicts and prostitutes lived there. She called it
low-life and told him he must never loiter near or go along that street.
Only bad things happened there.
     Greg laughed when he told him that.
     "I bet she got that out of the local paper," he replied.
     "She doesn't read the local papers."
     "Then she doesn't know nothing," he added, with a full accent on
the bad grammar he had learned from detective films on TV.
     "She's not stupid."
     "Well, don't tell Charlie it's a bad street. His parents had a lot
of trouble getting their flat. At first the landlord said he wouldn't
take in teenagers. Too much noise for the house, he said, which just
shows how quiet the place is supposed to be."
     Charlie lived on the top floor of one of the tall houses on the
west side of St Michael's Place, almost next to the road which separated
it from the more expensive Montpelier Villas. Greg said there were
famous people living there, even someone on television, but he wasn't
sure of the man's name.
     "Gilbert something," he said. "It's a quiz thing. We don't watch it
in our house. It clashes with a programme Dad likes on the other side."
     "I don't watch it either," Charlie added, proud of the television
set his parents were renting. Charlie was a fat boy who loved sweets
which he ate copiously while his parents were out at work. He would
often skip school to watch TV, and it was on these days that Greg took
Nick round. He also had a magazine in the bottom drawer of his bedroom
which had photographs of nearly naked women in it. He said he'd stolen
it from a special shop, but would not say where the shop was.
     One day Greg was bold enough to ask if he and Nick could look at it
while Charlie was watching TV in the living room. He had winked at
Charlie and given him a big smile. Charlie replied it was okay as long
as they were ready for an emergency if his parents suddenly returned.
     "What did he mean by that?" Nick had asked, as Charlie closed the
bedroom door behind them.
     Greg said nothing in reply and began to turn the pages of the
magazine. He opened it wide to a full double spread of a woman lying on
a bed, her hand poised above her groin. She was dressed in a
semi-transparent nightdress, which revealed nothing clearly.
     "I like this one," Greg said. He then lay down on Charlie's
over-large bed and beckoned to Nick to join him. Nick sat on the edge of
the bed and looked carefully at the picture. The woman did not appeal to
him at all, but he was aroused by a tension in the air which he knew was
sexual.
     "What is she about to do?" he asked, his voice a little hoarse with
suppressed excitement at what Greg might say.
     "She's about to have a wank," Greg said quickly. He then looked up
at Nick from his own prone position and asked Nick to lie down next to him.
     "I don't know how women do it," Nick replied, complying with Greg's
request to lie next to him.
     "They finger their cunts," Greg added crudely. "They put their
fingers inside themselves."
     As he said this, he began rubbing at his own groin. Nick at first
turned away, then getting an erection himself, began to look down at
what Greg was doing.
     "I wonder who's got the biggest," Greg whispered, as if the words
were explosive enough to be heard by Charlie in the living room. "Shall
I push my trousers down? This picture's got me turned on. Are you turned
on?"
     "Yes," Nick said, but he was only really turned on at the prospect
of seeing Greg's penis.
     "Then let's do it, shall we?"
     "Okay."
     Nick could hardly breathe he was so tense.
     "Take yours out first and show me," Greg said and turned to look at
Nick's face.
     "Why me?"
     "I want to see if you are bigger than me."
     Nick unzipped his trousers, then fumbled with unsteady hands to get
his trousers down to his knees. He still had his underwear on, but his
erection clearly showed.
     "Yeah, I can see you're big. About as big as me," Greg whispered.
He then quickly pushed his own trousers down to his ankles, edged
himself up and pushed his underwear down too. His penis was thick and
red with blood and he had a thick bush of hair around it. It was the
same colour as the hair on his head. Dark brown, almost black.
     "I haven't got as much hair as you," Nick said.
     "Go on. Show me. Push your fucking underwear down."
     Nick did. His penis wasn't as big as Greg's, nor was it anywhere
near as hairy. Greg looked at it closely.
     "Now let's wank and imagine we are both fucking her."
     "But you've got the magazine on your side of the bed," Nick said,
trying to convince Greg that this was his real object of desire.
     "You've seen her. You can imagine her. Come on, let's do it and no
noise, remember? We don't want Charlie hearing us and coming in."
     "Have you ever wanked with Charlie?" Nick asked.
     "Don't be stupid. I'm not even sure how he finds it in that roll of
fat. I don't wank with just anyone."
     They both came, almost simultaneously. Greg looked at the picture
most of the time, but sometimes turned to look to see how Nick was
progressing. Nick could only concentrate on what Greg was doing with his
hand. Greg came a few moments before Nick and couldn't suppress a cry as
he did. Nick was too far gone to take notice of the cry and was quiet as
he climaxed.
     "Shit, I hope we didn't get any of it on the bedspread," Greg said
casually, wiping himself down with a dirty handkerchief. "You got one?"
he asked, and although Nick did have one, he wanted to touch the wet
handkerchief.
     "No," he lied.
     Nick took it and felt Greg's wet sperm touch his own penis. This
was the most exciting moment of the afternoon for him, but of course he
could not say so.
     "You okay?" Greg asked, pulling up his trousers.
     "Yes," Nick said, and clenched the handkerchief tightly in his hand.

     Christmas came and went. Nick spent it with his mother and an aunt
called Agnes, who was his mother's younger sister. She lived in a remote
town in northern England and rarely came down to Brighton. The holiday
days passed slowly and he wasn't even much interested in his presents.
He was given a watch by his mother and a book by his aunt: a Rupert
annual which he was far too old for. He kissed her over-powdered face.
     "I never can remember how old you are," Agnes said, no doubt
suspecting that she should have chosen something a bit older for a boy
who had reached puberty. She had considered an unabridged edition of The
Three Musketeers, but thought the prose looked a bit dense and that the
book was, in her terms, far too long.
     "He'll soon be a man," his mother had said in one of those rare
moments of pride. Nick knew she was secretly longing for him to grow up
so there would be a man and not a child to go out with.
     After Christmas he saw Greg again and heard about his family
gathering in the Portslade house.
     "They all came down to us," Greg said flatly.
     "How many?"
     "Too many. I had to sleep on the floor. I didn't get much sleep.
Noise all over the fucking house, and a lot of drinking. I had a few
beers, but you should have seen how much the rest of them knocked back."
Greg shook his head in dismay, and Nick thought that he wouldn't have
liked to have seen a house full of drunks. After the incident in the
street with the drunk, he hated alcohol abuse. He had secretly sipped a
vermouth that his aunt had brought down for Christmas and had disliked
the taste.
     "I drank a little as well," he said, both exaggerating and boasting.
     "What?"
     "Vermouth."
     "Never heard of it."
     When January came, Greg proposed they should try and get in to see
an X film together.
     "What's on?" Nick asked.
     They bought a paper and found an inviting title at the Astoria
cinema: Invasion of the Hell Creatures.
     "Let's go and see that," Nick said, and turning a few pages, they
found an image of a bulbous-headed creature, carrying a female (as
usual) with smoking ruins and desolation all around. The X certificate
was very bold and big and the size of it alone promised a lot. Nick felt
almost as excited as he had been with Greg on the bed, but of course in
a different way.
     "Yes," he said.
     At the Astoria, it was easier than he had expected. Greg bought the
tickets, and although there were a few people in the foyer, no one came
up to question his age. He was an adult at last. Once inside the
auditorium Greg made his way to the back row of the stalls. They had to
sit through a routine film first which was extremely boring and not a
horror film. Then they had an ice cream each and waited for the curtains
to reveal the forbidden X certificate and the warning that no one under
the age of sixteen should be present.
     "Here we go," Greg said.
     To their disappointment, the film was half horror and half comedy.
There was also a lot of kissing with couples in cars in a wood. There
were no cities crumbling with devastation. Instead they saw little
creatures (was Hell that small?) scuttling across the screen. There was
a confusing scene with a cow and syringe-like creature fingers poking
into it, and at one point a creature eye was poked out, but the film was
in black and white, so the blood was pitifully unrealistic. It was not
what they had expected and Greg turned his head to look at Nick.
     "Not as good as the X I saw last May," Greg said. "It was at the
Savoy. I thought it would be difficult to get in, but I'm tall and they
didn't even look at me. The cinema was packed 'cos the film was really
special."
     "What was it?"
     "The Curse of Frankenstein."
     "Was it in colour?"
     "Fucking was. Real soaked-in colour, like you could feel it, and
the monster! Unbelievable! His face was all criss-crossed and sewn
together by Frankenstein. Saw the body parts too. Some silly woman
nearly fainted in the row in front of me. She screamed and everything.
She almost had to be carried out. And it was a double-X programme, not
like this one. The other film was all about a prostitute in Rome. I've
never seen a film about the goings on of a prostitute before. Makes me
hard just thinking about it, not that you saw her cunt or anything. Pity
you couldn't have seen that with me. Would've made you hard as well."
There was no one in the row of seats other than themselves, and no one
to shush them for talking.
     "It sounds exciting," Nick said as he imagined sitting in the
cinema with them both getting an erection. His penis started to stiffen
and as if reading his mind Greg reached out, took Nick's hand and placed
it on his groin. Although totally unexpected, the action was totally
desired. Nick felt Greg pushing his hand up and down against the bulge
of his erection.
     "Unzip me," he whispered as one of the little creatures appeared in
close-up. It looked as if it was watching them and Nick realised they
were about to do a punishable act in public.
     "Take it out and wank me," Greg urged. His voice was almost
pleading, but as much as he wanted to, Nick couldn't do it.
     "I can't," he said, and tried to draw his hand away.
     "Why the fuck not?"
     "The usherette may come. She has a torch."
     "Don't be so fucking stupid. She's a lazy bitch. I know this
cinema. I've seen her before. She never comes in during a film."
     I want him, Nick thought. We are in the back row. Lovers usually
use the back row to kiss. That's common knowledge, but am I a lover? I
can't use that word with Greg. It's forbidden. No one would ever let us
be lovers, and certainly not in the back rows of cinemas.
     Greg was getting impatient with him now and after a minute or two
of waiting for Nick to do what he had asked, he pushed Nick's hand away.
     "It doesn't matter," he said. "I thought you'd want it. But what
the fuck, if you're going to make it complicated. I can do it myself
when this bloody awful film is over and I've gone home."
     When he heard these words Nick made a decision. Gulping hard with
both dread and joy at what he was about to do, he put his arm around the
back of Greg's seat and then with a sudden movement, grabbed Greg's
shoulder, forcing him to turn in astonishment towards him. Then he moved
his own head close to Greg's and in an instant was kissing him on the
mouth. The action was clumsy and awkward. His own mouth was open, but
Greg's was clenched shut. There was no response from him, and Nick moved
away, knowing that in that instant, he had probably destroyed
everything. He stared vacantly at the screen as the creatures were
encircled by a group of cars and caught in the glare of their headlamps.
There was a lot of creature shrieking as the tiny little things were
destroyed. Suddenly they were all gone in a puff of smoke, and the wood,
not to mention the world was saved from their pathetic savagery. Greg
sat in stony silence beside him, as if he too was pinned by the car
lights. The end of the film was approaching and also the end of Nick's
futile attempt at being a lover. Then Greg spoke.
     "I'm not like that," he muttered. "I can't be like that."
     "I'm sorry," Nick said.
     The lights in the cinema would soon come on, and he did not want to
face Greg in the light. He got up from his seat and feeling frustrated
and angry with himself, made his way out into the foyer. He looked at
the come-on images for the film and thought how much the expectation had
turned out to be a lie. Was this how it was going to be? Always, for
him, if he continued to desire boys like Greg? He knew that he was
something Greg was not, and the realisation of that difference brought
tears to his eyes. He saw a possibly long life before him, and although
he still believed God had nothing to do with it, he felt with a shudder
that he would be consigned to Hell's eternal flames. Atheists go to
hell, and so do people like me, he told himself. The ugly, protruding
eyes of the creatures didn't seem to deny this as they stared
apathetically in his direction. I have done the one thing, the kiss,
that has made me act upon what I am. Homosexual. That is my new name
now. He was not even conscious that Greg had joined him in the foyer.
     "Come on," he heard him say, "let's get out of here. You look
bloody twelve years old standing there. Don't be so bloody pitiful for
fuck's sake. I still like you. It's no fucking tragedy. I still want you
to wank me. It doesn't mean the end for us."
     He sounded awkward. His words sounded edgy and nervous and when
Nick looked at him he saw that his face was pale.
     "I shouldn't have acted like that," Nick said.
     "Don't blame yourself. The back seat of a cinema always does it. I
should have chosen the front row, but honestly I'd prefer you licking me
than those creatures. Think how they look from the front row. Almost in
your lap. You've got a better mug than them. Anyway, you're even better
than a girlfriend. At least you pay for yourself."
     "I haven't paid you for the ticket yet."
     "Give me the money in the street."
     Greg's expression was blank, and he looked tired after the string
of words he had just spoken: spoken with the stuttering fastness of a
machine gun in a war film.
     Out in the darkness of the street, they passed people waiting to go
in for the evening performance. Most were couples. A few of them were
openly kissing each other in the queue. The cinema will be full this
evening, Nick thought.
     "Do you want to go home now like you said?" Nick asked tentatively.
     There was a moment's silence. They both looked at the ground. Then
Greg looked at Nick with his devastating smile and said, "Let's go on
the Palace Pier. Got enough money?"
      "Yes," Nick replied. "I've still got my week's pocket money."
     "Then let's push pennies and see if we can get some more."
     "I hope all X films are not going to be like the one we've just
seen," Nick added to fuel the conversation and the returning ease
between them.
     "Wait 'til The Curse of Frankenstein comes round again. I bet the
Rothbury in Portslade will get it eventually. They re-run things."
     Nick thought that he wasn't really sure about Portslade, then ran
on ahead, with Greg following.

******

Want to read more of the adventures of Nick & Greg? Follow their lives
and loves in "The Nick & Greg Books" by John Roman Baker available in
paperback and for Kindle:
"Nick & Greg" (ISBN 978-1-899713-51-6)
"Time of Obsessions" (ISBN 978-1-899713-56-1)
"Nicks House" (ISBN 978-1-899713-61-5 - publication January 2018)
"Foreign Passions" (ISBN 978-1-899713-66-0 - publication Summer 2018)
All titles published by Wilkinson House Ltd - www.wilkinsonhouse.com -
info@wilkinsonhouse.com