Date: Mon, 5 Feb 2018 18:36:18 +0100 (CET)
From: alexdaniels555@tutanota.com
Subject: THOSE BLUE REMEMBERED HILLS - GAY MALE - YOUNG FRIENDS

Gay Male - Young Friends

THOSE BLUE REMEMBERD HILLS

I was a gay child long before I knew the word 'gay' had come to mean
homosexual. Even as a seven year boy, I looked at other boys and found them
beautiful. Not that I could have applied that word to them. 'Beauitful'
implied a reaction, a response, a feeling rather than any kind of
knowledge. Around ten, the hormones kicked in, and while other boys talked
secretly about girls I dreamed about boys and remained silent.

Fortunately, I came to recognise boys around me who seemed to have similar
feelings. They were too scared to act on them; I wasn't. I made a game of
it. If a boy acted with horror, outrage or disgust, I made it clear he had
made a mistake - "only joking". But some took the risk, and I led them into
my world leaving them to leave or remain as they felt fit. This is the tale
of some of them, including me.

Time for the obligatory disclaimer. This story is fiction; it never
happened, at least not outside my imagination.  Oh, yes, if you have not
yet reached the age of consent, read no further. It is not the intention of
his writer nor Nifty to fill your head with dreams and desires which as yet
may be only vague and inchoate. But whatever you do - do it safely!

Finally - and most importantly - Nifty is a free site, but not for those
who run and administer it. They need our help, not only with our
contributions but with our donations, whether large or small, though in
this case bigger is better. But whatever we do, let's do what we
can. Remember you never miss what you've got till it's gone.


THOSE BLUE REMEMBERD HILLS

O Fuckity Fuck!

Late again.

Second time that week and it was only Tuesday.

I'd almost made it. Sprinted out of the house. Down Muirton Street. Into
the High Street. Just in time.

Just in time to see the red double decker pull away from the bus stop. I
shouted. I waved. The bastard conductor saw me. He grinned and waved two
fingers.

Couldn't really blame him. We were notorious. You could hardly blame us. We
were an all boys' school. His was the school bus. Fuck it. We were meant to
wreck it every day, twice a day in fact. Going to school. Coming
home. Wreck the bus. That was the natural order, the way it was supposed to
be.

I stopped for breath at the top of Blackness Avenue. Why hurry now? No
matter how fast I ran, bag bouncing against shoulder, I'd be late.

In fact, being very late was much safer than being just a bit late. A bit
late meant I was certain to get caught. I'd been caught the day before. My
fingers still stung at the memory of the belting I'd received from the
deputy head. But very late meant I'd a sporting chance of sneaking into
school without being caught. There were plenty of places to hide in the
ramshackle, rambling Victorian building that served as in informal Borstal
for some of the brightest boys in the city.

Tuesday. Whole school Assembly. Entire school packed into ye old Oak
Hall. With its forbidding portraits of Headmasters of yore. Wasn't quite
sure what 'yore' was but if it meant a long long time ago that would
do. The lists of gold, names in gold-lettering, listing those old boys,
prefects, war heroes, cricket captains, rugger buggers, all of those boys
of yore who'd serve God, King, Queen, Country, the school, and each other
so well.

Ye old Oak Hall with its serried ranks of boys... boys, boys and more
boys. Flanneled boys. Boys in blazers. The noble burgundy with the piping
of even more gold round the edge of the blazers. Badge affixed to each left
breast. A dead sheep and a stack of corn, representing what....?  I hadn't
the faintest idea. The school motto: per arduam ad... something or other.

Fuck it. I was only yards from the grey squatting hulk of the school. It
lay there lay like a beached and rotting battleship. I'd been day dreaming
again. Focus now, you fucker. Do a Houdini. Slip and slide straight in, as
the Bishop said to the choirboy. You won't feel a thing.

I swerved across the granite drawbridge. Swerve to the left swerve to the
right, that will always help you keep out of sight - or so we boys
believed. It wasn't a drawbridge that could be raised, but it was known as
the drawbridge anyway. Pupils weren't allowed to use it, strictly
forbidden, which on a Tuesday at this time of day made it the safest entry
of all. The Headmaster would be in Oak Hall, blah blah blahing on about
whatever occupied his pea brain that fine day.

That's not fair. Saying the Doc. had a pea brain. Very few of us had
intimate knowledge about our glorious leader's brain or much else about him
for that matter. Very few of us has seen Doctor Hopeless outside of Oak
Hall, beyond Tuesday whole-school assemblies. In fact, there was a rumour
the good doctor didn't actually exist, at least not apart from
assemblies. Science nerds suggested he was a hologram projected from his
office, but they were all Trekkies, Star Trek freaks, so no one paid them
much attention.

Across the drawbridge. Through the swing doors. Fuck it. Somebody should
take an oil can to those swing doors, but who the hell had an oil can in an
all boys' grammar school? It was all: amo, amas, amat. We left the
dirty-hands' stuff to the local technical schools. Places for plebs and
proles. Not for us, not for the intellectual creme de la creme, not for the
boys of Bruce Academy for the Sons of Gentlefolk. Whoever dreamt up that
name had a sense of humour - or was a complete moron. Take your pick.

Sharp right. Tiptoe through the tulips, metaphorically speaking, past the
double doors of the Oak Hall itself - Fuck it. They were only into the
first hymn: "Who would true valour see... humm dee dum..." down the
Classics corrider and into the Junior Boys' Toilet.

Strictly legit. After all, I was only 13, so technically I was still a
junior. At least until the Summer Holidays rolled in, and then away. In
late August I'd be in Middle School - hurrah! -then I could have my wicked
way with the fresh-faced First Years, but for the moment safety was
best. To be caught in the Middle Toilets by the Seniors meant you'd get a
chance to kiss the brown goldfish -- a large brown turd - close-up and
personal.

The Junior toilets it was. Swing door open. Step inside. Let door swing
closed. Fuck it - what a pong. Piss, crap and disinfectant. The smell of
hundreds of boys, even this early in the week, even at this unearthly hour
of... let's see: 5 past 9. To be honest, I didn't mind the smell. It was
pure school. It was pure boy. And to be honest, I liked school and I loved
boys.

Wow - what a weird statement: I loved boys. Pretty strong for a
13-year-old, don't you think? Thing is, I did. I loved their open faces,
and their unruly hair, and legs going every which way, and the chests,
broad and thin, topped with chewable raisins. And the way their bodies
narrowed into their school trousers, or cricket flannels, or gym shorts. I
liked their big feet, and their long toes. I liked their scabby
knee-caps. I loved their bums, the fat ones, the thin ones, the round ones,
the flat ones, the sticky-out ones, the sticky-up ones. I didn't
discriminate. I loved them all. Still do.

And I loved their cocks, their dicks, their penises, their stiffies, their
hard-ons. I loved them even when they had dumb names like 'members'. That's
what our idiot tutor called them as we trudged through dog-eared manuals on
Sex Education without ever really learning what we were desperate to
know. Could you get pregnant if you swallowed another boy's... ejaculate. I
swear that's what they called it. We called it stuff, or semen, or sperm,
or the newly-fashionable word: cum. I wasn't sure if that was spelled
'come' or 'cum'.

At this point I should admit I'm homosexual, or is that homo-sexshual? To
tell the truth, the word was too embarrassing to use. It was hinted at in
our Sex Ed. manual but only to rule whatever those homosexshuals did as
unmentionable, beyond the pale, the guaranteed route to Hell. It seemed
even worse than the big 'M'.

Masturbation!

I still shudder when I say that word, or even write it. They managed to
turn one of the most beautiful activities on the planet, a gift as
God-given as snooker, into something only fit for the fallen, only fit for
their Satanic majesties and their Satanic minions.

Sucking cock - yes!

But Masturbation - no! That will get you to Hell faster than you can say
"Beam me down, Scotty!"

And I can't admit I was a 13-year-old 'gay' because the word hadn't been
used that way yet. And I can't use the word homosexual because at 13 I
wasn't sure what I was yet.

But I can admit I was queer.

Fuck it - I AM queer. I love boys. As far as I know, I always have. And, as
far as I know, I always will.

I can't say I was proud of being queer. That's just the way things
were. Might as well be proud of being left-handed, or ginger-haired, or
having a big dick (well, I'm proud of that) because that's just luck, just
the way the cookie crumbles, the way the genes combine, the way the cards
fall - all a matter of chance. But whatever caused it, I'm grateful for my
big penis.

At first I was embarrassed about it when I arrived at secondary school and
found we had to shower naked in the showers after PE. No cubicles. Just a
row of showers under which around 30 boys tried to scramble at any one
time. Of course you had to wait until the Seniors had the best of the hot
water, just sit there naked and watched their long thick penises swing like
fire hoses. Nirvana!

Fuck it!

The door swung open, and in stepped Raymond.

Raymond, ah, Raymond, how can a boy, so well-built, so good-looking, be
such a nonentity. Raymond was 13, he was in my Year, in some of my
classes. I'd even sat beside him in class a few times, and Raymond, with
those big sheep's eyes, those freckles, that tidily-combed fringe was
utterly fucking boring. Raymond could bore for Scotland!

And so passive!

I always felt, when I could be bothered, like giving Raymond a sharp kiss
up his fat arse - not fair, it was big and round and firm, definitely not
fat - telling him to lighten up, unload, have fun.

Raymond was an over-looked boy. Last to be picked for the rugby team, not
because he couldn't play, he could, not because he wasn't strong, he was,
but because he was hardly there. At cricket Raymond always fielded in the
deep, as far away from the action as possible, and he always batted number
8 though he could belt a a cricket ball into the stratosphere with those
arms, those shoulders of his.

Pointless trying to have a lively dialogue, conversation, or debate with
Raymond to pass the time. All you could get out of him was 'Yes', 'No', 'I
don't know'.

Sample:

"Fuck it, I missed the bus this morning." "Mmmm..." "Did you miss the bus?"
(I knew Raymond didn't take the bus, but might as well try for
conversation.) "No." (I swear Raymond blushed when he said the one word.)
"That's the second time this week." (Reponse there was none.) "How the fuck
do you get to school, Raymond." (Pause for thought.) "Car." "You're too
young to drive." (That was me being facetious. No effect.) "I know." "Well,
who the fuck drives you?" "My mother."

The entire exercise was pointless.

"How long till the bell?" (Raymond studied his watch.) "13 minutes."

"That'll do."

I ran my hand across my flies suggestively.

'Suggestively' is the wrong word. I was suggesting nothing. This was an
open direct, invitation.

Have I mentioned that Raymond was queer? Well, he was. Fucking raving
queer. Though I doubt whether he'd have done anything about it until I sat
beside him and stroked his cock through his flannels during an
R.E. (Religious Education). (Well, how did 'you' pass the time during
R.E. lessons?)

Raymond responded! And I mean 'responded'. His face lit up like a Halloween
lantern. He shuffled that sweet arse of his, but made no attempt to move
away. Bingo! And when I let my sweet little fingers slide across his fly,
he had a stiffy like a half-pint milk bottle.

Big, too. Big and fat and hard.

Big balls, too. When I slid my cute little fingers beneath his balls, he
opened his legs wider and let me explore. Meanwhile he gazed straight
ahead, listened raptly to 'all things bright and beautiful' ringing from
the hall.  while I naughtily aroused him to where I wanted him.

You'll notice that those Sex Ed. lessons weren't totally a waste of
time. . The Devil in me, and there's a lot of Him, was trying to make sweet
Rayond 'cum' in his Y-fronts. He'd go around the rest of the day with dry
cum sticking his skin to his Y-fronts and I would be the author of the
achievement. Bravo for me!

So I gazed at Raymond and ran my fingers across my fly. I already had half
a hard-on anyway. One of the reasons I'd been delayed was I'd been playing
with my dick too long before breakfast. Not that I was intending to cum,
because I was aroused. And why was I aroused? I hear you ask... because I
was going after Eric. I was going after Eric that morning. Going after the
first prize, the big one, the school idol, at least the sports idol of the
Junior school. So I was playing with myself that morning, giving myself an
edge, making sure I didn't turn back... with the result I'd missed the bus
and had to stroll-sprint all the way to school.

Raymond stepped forward. I stepped back. Into a cubicle. Raymond
followed. I turned on tiptoe, probably looking like a fucking ballerina,
and plonked myself down on the toilet seat. I gave him my best 'yes please'
smile and he stepped forward. He reached tentatively forward and let his
fingers brush across the front of my flannels. Knowing Rayomnd, I suspected
he might take his time, time we didn't have, I undid my school belt,
unzipped my flannels, sat back, and gazed into Raymond's big brown eyes.

He dropped to his knees, worked my underpants and trousers to my ankles,
leaned forward and took me into his mouth. Yes, I'd gone from half-hard to
tent-pole hard in a matter of seconds. Hell, I was only human, only 13, a
mess of hormones and insatiable desire. "Oh what big red lips you have! -
All the better to..."

I looked down at Raymond. His nose was up against my dick. I wondered just
what he could see. He was enraptured, I could see that. He was worshipping
my dick, my 6, well, nearly 6 inches of hot hard flesh.  I felt The shaft
of my penis slipped between Raymond's thick lips, his tongue caressed the
unsheathed head, little kisses slid up and down its length. Felt him take
me deep again till the head of cock touch the back of his throat, tickling
his tonsils as it were.

Then I raised my legs and plonked them on the toilet seat. I was wide
open. I whispered what I wanted.

"Kiss my bumhole, Raymond. You know you want to. Just do it. Lick it, kiss
it, try to get your tongue inside me."

And, like the good boy he was, Raymond agreed to my request while I tried
to breathe through my hole to give him easier access. Amazing how the
handle of mum's hairbrush had made life so much easier.

I sighed and ran my fingers through Ray's thick rather coarse dark hair and
thought about... thought about myself actually. I found it a fascinating
subject: did then, still do.

Thirteen years old. Not that short, not that tall. Maybe about 5' 4". Slim
but not thin. Dark brown hair in a sort of bowl cut, the fringe parted at
the middle and swept away on either side. Lovely skin. I've always had
lovely skin. It sort of glowed, even in the winter, now it was
sun-kissed. Brown eyes set fairly wide apart with curving eyebrows, and
thick up-turned eyelashes that made me seem permanently cheerful and
inquisitive and cheeky. No little upturned nose, but nicely shaped, and
framed on either side by round cheeks that dimpled when I smiled, and I
smiled a lot. Nice, white, shiny teeth. Thanks, mum. I'd served my time in
braces, and here I was now with a lovely set of nice white, shiny, even
teeth. Little ears. Legend has it that mum had sellotaped my big brother's
dumbo ears every night when he was little. No need of that for my small
pointed elfin ears.

What else?

Oh, yes, I had/have a big penis. Have I mentioned that before?

For my age anyway. Actually I'd had it since I was about 8 years
old. Touching six inches and still growing.  Not like Eric's, not that
jumbo-sized beauty, but big compared with boys my age, my Year, and in the
Years above. I'd seen senior boys gaze at it in the showers, so it must
have impressed some people.

As I think I said, we all bundled into the showers after sports. No
curtains. No cubicles. No separation of the ages. All for one, and one for
all. Bundled into a big marbled shower room where the pipes rocked and
rolled and the shower heads spat either scalding or freezing water with no
Mister In-Between. And we all compared. What boys don't? And, wow, I was
big for my age, noticeably big, pleasingly big. I saw other boys eyeing me
up and staying to linger. No hair yet. Smooth as marble. And a dick many a
Fifth Year could envy. Surrounded by naked boys, all sizes and shapes. But
none as big and shapely as Eric, my Eric. Not my Eric yet, but if he was
human, if he was seducable, I'd be the one to seduce him.

I turned my attention back to Raymond. Though, for obvious reasons, I could
hear him slurping and slobbering down there, and I could feel his tongue
licking the inside of my bum cheeks, and the tip of his tongue probing at
my little starfish. I know it looks like a starfish 'cos when I'm really
horny I like to lie naked on the bed as close to the wardrobe as I can
get. Then I can watch the handle of mum's hairbrush - the one I've stolen -
working its way past my sphincters into my rectum. Out comes the handle so
I can give it and good licking and then... but more of that later.

I was proud or Raymond. At that age, I wasn't the most fastidious in
keeping my bumhole clean but he didn't seem to find. In fact it sounded
like he was relishing whatever he found there. Slurp and slobber - lick,
lick, lick - a taste of shit will do the trick.

My sac tightened, my balls rose in my scrotum. I felt the pulsation that
leads to the shudder, the uncontrollable shaking, the heavenly squirting
and spurting. No, no, not yet. Keep the edge. Keep the hunger. We had
German second period. German, where I sat beside Eric, the seats so small,
his thighs so big, where contact was guaranteed.

Gently I eased Raymond's head off my penis. He looked up at me,
glassy-eyed. My pre-cum glistening on his lips. Shit, he had beautiful
eyes. I'd never really noticed them before. He lowered his head to graze
again. I eased him away.

"The bell," Raymond. "Listen. That's the fuckin' bell."

"Oh, yes," he mumbled. "Thank you," he mumbled.

"No... thank YOU," I whispered, pressing my erection against my belly,
stuffing my shirt tail back in, zipping myself up.

"Raymond. Raymond."

"Mmmm... yes?"

"Get off your fuckin' knees, Raymond."

"Oh... yes."

Raymond rose to his feet just as the door burst open and half a dozen
juniors came storming in.

"Hi, Max." "Hi, Allan." "Hi, Max." "Hi, Marshall." "Hi, Max." "Hi, Oscar."
"Wanna fag?" "You know I don't smoke. It's fuckin' disgusting. How was the
Assembly?" "Fuckin' bor-r-ring." That was a chorus. "What have we got now?"
"Latin." "Shit, let's get going. Corky's a real bastard if you're late."
"Sure is. I know the first chapter of Caesar's Gallic Wars off by
heart. I've written the fuckin' thing out often enough." "Hey, who was that
in here with you?" "Just Raymond." "Oh, Raymond. Come on let's go."

Half an hour later we are sitting in German. I feel the heat of Eric's
thigh pressing against my own.

We are reading, or rather translating, 'Emil and the Detectives' word by
word, line by line, sentence by sentence, paragraph by paragraph, from
German into English. If I Eric wasn't beside me, I'd scream from boredom.

I like the book. I've read it twice. I think that Emil is cute, and, after
all, he is surrounded by boys as they chase the thief across Berlin. It's
German I can't stand. All this hanging round till you get to the end of a
sentence, find the verb, and work out what the fuck is going on. If that
weren't bad enough, the teacher is 'Jock' Macdonald, deputy headmaster and
vicious bastard, who hates me even more than I hate him. It may not be
personal. Jock Macdonald hates all boys from the 'wrong' side of the city,
from the working class areas around the jute mills. He's a snob, and that
cuts no ice with boys who didn't know what snobbery was until they beached
up on the shores of the Bruce Academy for the Sons of Gentlefolk.

Jock Macdonald carries a strap, made of the finest Lochgelly leather, slung
over his shoulder, under his academic gown, and when he gives you 'six of
the best' you can't feel your fingers for an hour after. My fingers have
been so numb, I've even had a friend fish my dick out of my underpants when
I've needed to take a piss.

Well, fuck it and fuck Jock Macdonald. I had Eric Merry by my side for the
next fifty minutes and nothing was going to deny me that pleasure.

I slide my glance to the right as if watching the seagulls making their way
up and down the Estuary. Eric's is in profile. My heart skips a couple of
beats and I hear my indrawn breath. Christ, he is beautiful. I wonder if
Eric is aware of his own beauty. He is by far the best all-round sportsman
in the school but, unlike me, he isn't in the top sets for every
subject. Especially not Maths, and especially not Algebra. I've been trying
to demonstrate to Eric just how logical algebra is, but he's no Mr Spock,
and he just can't get it. In the end, he grunts and says "Let's do some
place-kicking," and off we go. I hate rugby and I hate place-kicking, but
I'm with Eric so it's Nirvana. We learned about Nirvana in R.E. I know
where my Nirvana is: right between Eric Merry's legs and up his bum hole.

It's really weird but every time I hear the intro to David Bowie's 'The Man
Who Sold the World', I think of Eric and get a stiffy. Weird or what?

Eric's got the first sentence of Chapter 3 to translate. His German's worse
than his Algebra. It's my favourite chapter and I whisper an adequate
translation. He repeats it for Macdonald, loudly because Macdonald is a bit
deaf. My turn, and I rattle off the next three sentences, knowing that will
annoy Macdonald who likes it sentence by sentence.

The teacher glares at me. "Didn't you hear my instructions, boy?"

I gaze blandly back. "Sorry, sir, what, sir? My ears are waxed up. Can't
hear a thing. Getting syringed this afternoon."

Macdonald grunts and glares. I doubt whether he heard much of my mumble,
but he doesn't seem in the mood to accept a challenge, and he goes on to
the next boy. Twenty two more boys to torment. It'll be a while before he
gets back to us.

I return my gaze to that heavenly profile. The straight nose. The slightly
curved lips. The cheekbones. The skin kissed by the summer term's sun. The
straight ash brown hair, flopping over the one eye. Those shoulders. That
chest. Those thighs - like fucking tree trunks. That bulge below the grey
flannels.

I take a breath and take the plunge.

I run the fingertips of my right hand along Eric's thigh. His school
trousers are so tight I might as well be running them on his bare skin. I
whisper, "Did you have a good weekend?"

I'm not the least interested in Eric's weekends, but I know he's fascinated
by mine. Eric has got it into his head that I spend most weekends doing
'dirty stuff' with girls on the 'wrong side' of town. Eric lives on the
right side of town. I know that's in his head because I put it there. I
wonder if Eric wanks (masturbates) to images of me doing dirty things to
girls. Actually I masturbate to images of doing dirty things to him.

Eric's not completely wrong. I don't do much dirty stuff, at least not with
girls, but I see more than my fair share of dirty stuff with girls. That's
because my elder brother, Iain, and his best mates, Oscar and George, are
notorious for doing dirty stuff with the girls in our neighbourhood. And
sometimes, when they're in a very good mood, they let me watch. Funny
thing, is it's not the girls I'm watching - it's them. At least it's Oscar
and George; it surely isn't my brother. I may be a pervert but I'm not that
kind of pervert!

Iain is fucking good-looking, though I've no interest in him 'that' way;
Oscar isn't bad; but George gives Eric a run for his money in the
body-beautiful stakes. George, with his shock of black hair, his thick
eyebrows, pouty lips, straight white teeth, and ear-to-ear grin, has been
the image that launched a hundred of my orgasms, but he belongs to Iain's
crowd, and I'd get a good kicking if I even mentioned homo stuff in front
of them. Although they're only two years older than me, they belong to a
different world that includes a different kind of school where they build
bird-baths, stools, and better kinds of mousetraps.

I don't know if any of them have fucked a girl yet. I'm pretty sure they
have but I always get sent away when the knickers come off. Not that I'd
want to hang around and look at 'that'! It's hard to get an image out of
your head once it's in there.

So I sit there in German class, casually stroking Eric's thigh with my
fingertips, describing as graphically as I can what 'we' did that weekened.

Her name was Marie. One of the Irish girls, from the poorest part of our
neighbourhood. She was 14, maybe 15. Saturday afternoon. Hot and sunny. And
Marie was stretched out in the gravel pits. My brother straddled her
belly. Her blouse was open, her bra was down at her stomach. His big fat
thumbs were kneading her big fat nipples. His fly was open, his hard cock
pulled out. He ran it across her lips. I looked away; it felt wrong to be
looking at my brother's hard cock, though I was happy that he, too, was
blessed down there.

Down below, Oscar was under her flimsky skirt. He was playing 'stinky
finger'. Oscar was ruthlessly finger-jobbing the girl with his middle
finger. He'd pull it out every now and again, wave it at me, and laugh,
"Want a sniff?"

Yuk!

Marie's head would have rolled from side to side, but it was trapped
between George's knees as he knelt above her, cock out, tossing himself off
over her eyes, nose and mouth. Every now and again, the head of his cock
made contact with the head of Iain's cock.

"Hey, Marie, keep your eyes closed and your mouth wide
open. Wider. Wider. Good girl, that's it." That was George.

My own cock was so hard it ached. George's cock was thick, brown, wet,
slimey, slippery, beautiful. That should be my face below it, eyes closed,
mouth wide open, but I wouldn't wait for him to cum, I'd slide up and slide
it in, I'd swallow him to the root, until that thick black hair tickled my
lips, until...

"Fuck off, Max."

That was Iain. He didn't even turn his head. Just hissed, "Fuck off."

I didn't argue. My brother could be violent. I have the childhood scars to
show it. And to be honest, I didn't like watching him. It made me feel
weird, uneasy, a bit ashamed. I'd stay because George was there, but when
Iain told me to fuck off, I felt relieved, turned and scarpered across the
gravel pits, through a hole in the high fence, and off to meet Alan Aitken.

Eric hears nothing of the end of the 'seduction' of Marie. He hears about
the hair and the slit and the 'clit' (I'd only just learned that.), and the
big puffy breasts and the pointy nipples.

My fingers are caressing the buttons of his flies.

Bingo!

But why the fuck hasn't Eric got a hard-on? Is he flesh and blood or what?
I've been working hard for a hard-on. I deserve a hard-on. But Eric is
still soft and squishy.

I'm puzzled but I don't remain puzzled for long.

"Up a bit. It's up a bit," he whispers.

So up a bit I go and discover I've been squeezing his balls.

Holy fucking Moses!

It's not his cock. It can't be. It must be his bicycle pump. He must've
shoved it down the front of his trousers. It's thick and hard and it goes
on an on, up and up, forever and ever... A-fucking-men!

Eric's erection is so long and hard that it doesn't seem real. Jesus, if he
shoved that up Marie it would poke out of her mouth - or mine, if I got
really lucky.

I fit my thumb and fingers round it. Must be 3 inches in diameter. I should
know, I'm top of the class for Maths. And the length - 8 inches
minimum. That's what we see in the changing rooms, and that's what I have
in my hot little grasp, eight thick inches of a stiff Eric Merry.

"Fucking hell, Eric, it's BIG. Where'd you get it?" I whisper in a vaguely
German accent.

"Well, yours is 7 inches. And you've got a curvy shape to the end of
yours."

How the fuck did he know?

Ah, the changing rooms, the showers. He must watch me as much as I watch
him. That counts for a lot.

As we whisper, I keep stroking.

"You know what I'm doing, don't you?"

"'Course I do. I'm not an idiot."

"Do you do it to yourself?"

"'Course I do."

"How long?"

"About 8 inches, I guess. I measured it. Eight inches."

"No, I mean how long before...?"

"Before... before what?"

"Before you cum, shoot, squirt?"

There's a pause while Eric works it out. Maths isn't his strong point.

"About 10 seconds."

Ten fucking seconds!

"Ten fucking seconds?!"

"That's in the morning. When I'm in a hurry. At night I can make it last a
bit longer."

I know what I want to ask next. And I know I don't dare ask.

"What do you think about when you're wanking?"

That's to myself.

I don't know what my next question would have been. The bell on the wall
behind us explodes. A flurry of books closes around us. We stand up behind
our desks. Everybody up - except Eric Merry. He sits there blushing
furiously, his Dumbo ears on fire.

"Merry, that was the bell."

That's Jock Macdonald.

"Yes, sir, I know, sir. But I wanted to... I wanted to... ask your help. I
can't understand this last sentence."

Eyebrows are raised around the room.

Merry doesn't ask for help with German, and Macdonald never stays behind
during the break. Break is fag time, and the only thing Jock Macdonald
enjoys more than paralysing a boy's fingers is his coffee and cigarettes,
cheap fucking Woodbines at that.

"Cameron can help you. He seems to know 'Emil' by heart. Cameron, help
Merry." And with that Macdonald swept out of the classroom in a swirl of
chalk dust and black gown.

Eric stands up. His erection is outlined obscenely in his thin grey
flannels. "We'll have to wait a minute."

I reach out my hand. He slaps it away, but he's grinning.

"Help me in the nets after school?" he asks, adding, "I want to hear the
rest of the story."

Cricket. I fucking hate cricket. You stand there in the deep for two hours
doing fuck all. Then one catch comes your way. It's the most important
catch in the whole match, and it's coming you way. Bombing down from the
sky like an Exocet missile. You're underneath it. You're meant to catch
it. You know you won't. You know it will bend your fingers, bruise your
fingers, maybe even break your fingers, but you will not catch that mean
little red leather ball. So you do what any sensible tennis player does;
you chicken out at the last second; move your hand away; and watch the ball
slam into your fucking big toe!

My face falls.

"Okay, half an hour in the nets, and half an hour on the courts. Deal?"

"Deal."

That leaves a spare half hour. Maths isn't Eric's strong point, but it's
mine. Two half hours equal one hour. Which leaves a spare half hour before
the school grounds close. Mmmmm..." My erection, wilting a few seonds ago,
takes heart and perks up again. I glance at Eric's crotch. He's wilted,
too. Now it's only like a small elephant trunk. And just sooooo
kissable. You want to kneel down and...

Oh, for fuck's sake, Cameron, is that ALL you ever think of?

It wasn't 'all' I ever thought of. That would be ridiculous. But I'd
thought of a lot since I was 11 years old. Exactly 11 years old come to
think of it. Happy birthday to me.

Tuesday afternoon. After school I hadn't gone home. I'd forgotten my key
and there was no chance that a window had been left open. Mum was fed up of
my scrambling through the kitchen window because "Sorry, mum, I forgot my
key." I used to wear the bloody thing on a string around my neck, but these
were my last few weeks of junior school. I was bound for Bruce Academy for
the Sons of Gentle Folk, and I was fucked if I was going to wear my doorkey
on a string round my neck. That was kids' stuff.

I took myself to Steve's. Steve was a friend of my brother's, not a mate
like George or Oscar, but a friend who'd give me house room till my brother
got home around half past four. I guessed Steve would be home because Steve
didn't go to school much. His mum was dead and his father was a drunk who
didn't give a shit where Steve was most of the time. So it was to Steve's I
headed, and I was right - Steve was home. He was smoking as usual, the
ciggy between his lips bouncing as he spoke, the smoke making his left eye
squint.

Steve was a rocker, a greaser, his thick black hair piled high on his head
and sleeked back with Brylcream. Steve was 13, maybe 14. He looked like a
younger version of Elvis Presley, younger and rougher. He wore a lot of
denim and a battered black leather jacket that ended about four inches
above his arse.

We sat and rabbited on about nothing much in particular, Steve's 45s
dropping onto the turntable with 2 and a half minute regularity, and Elvis
launching forth with equal predictability. I was no Elvis fan. I admit he
was good, but he just wasn't me. To be honest, I wasn't really into music
though some of the young guys appearing on TV were really cute. Hey, where
did that come from? Guys, not much more than boys, cute! I caught myself
blushing.

It's strange how you often can't remember how something started. You
remember what happened, but not how it started. How the hell did I end up
dancing with Steve to Elvis on that threadbare carpet in his darkened
living room. I remember the smell, Brylcream and whisky. Steve often stole
his father's whisky. More than once he'd been battered for it, but I
suppose if you live in a smelly dum[ like that with no mum and an alky for
a dad, you've got to find something to get you through the days, and the
nights.

When it happened, it wasn't Elvis. It was Procul Harum. It was 'Whiter
Shade of Pale'. The song was like nits racing through my junior
school. Everybody got a dose. The fuckin' song had been 'Top of the Pops'
for weeks. It was never off the radio. I thought it was a bit of a dirge,
and the lyrics didn't make any sense whatsoever, but the whole thing had a
hypnotic effect. You sort of went into a trance and hummed or whispered the
words along with the melody as if they were full of meaning, full of
significance, when you knew in your heart they meant jack-shit.

'Whiter Shade of Pale' was the last 45 in the bunch, so the needle would
reach the end of the track, lift, move back, drop, and start from the
beginning.

I don't know when it happened. I just realised that my head was leaning
into Steve's shoulder, my eyes closed, my nose full of the heady smell of
whisky and Brylcream, and that his hand was in the pocket of my school
shorts. Yes, it was summer term, and we were in the obligatory corduroy
shorts. I fuckin' hated them and was secretly thrilled to know I'd be in
grey flannel trousers by the end of August. For one thing, I've got a round
little bum, a bit like split peach, and those shorts didn't half show it
off. I suppose I should've got a new pair at the start of the year, but mum
was convinced I could "get another year out of them" even though they were
a bit tight last August, let alone this June!

So, the melody wound round us, my head on Steve's shoulder, my eyes closed,
my nose full of his smells, and his hand deep in right hand pocket of my
corduroy shorts. Fuck it! He'd have to choose that pocket, the one with the
big hole in it, a very big hole, and bigger now that his fingers were
through the hole, up the side of my y-fronts, playing with my very stiff,
very hard, birthday penis.

I was paralysed as much by my own lust as by terror. And I was scared, not
because I was afraid of what Steven might do, but because I didn't want to
admit how much I was enjoying it. Enjoying 'it', but what the fuck was the
'it' that I was enjoying? I'd never experienced feelings like this in my
life.

You'll have to take my word for it, but I hadn't the faintest idea what was
happening to me, especially what was happening 'down there', down there in
the Forbidden Lands. For Christ's sake, I had a mother who made her boys
sleep with their hands above the blankets, so I knew 'playing with myself'
was wrong, but she'd never given any instruction about another person
playing with my 'down there'. And I'd heard my brother and his mates pass
comments, remarks I knew were 'dirty', but I couldn't quite figure out what
was dirty about them.

I knew I wasn't going to pee. Believe me, I knew when I was going to pee,
and this just wasn't that about-to-piss feeling. This was in a different
league altogether. For a start, peeing didn't make my tummy flutter like
this. Peeing didn't make my legs tremble. Peeing didn't make my little
scrotum tighten. Peeing didn't make my limbs tighten and my bum-hole clench
then loosen like this. Whatever this was, it wasn't peeing.

I wanted to push Steve away. I wanted to pull him even tighter. I wanted to
raise my face and bury into the hollow of his neck. I wanted to pull his
buttocks so he pushed right into me. And I did. I wanted to feel that hot
thing of his burn even hotter against my groin. I wanted to slip my hand
round and feel its length, its hardness, its sheer alive-ness. I wanted
to... I wanted to...

And we danced on, a kind of staggering dance, into his dad's bedroom, where
the curtains were always drawn, where I was backed against the double bed,
where I fell backwards onto the bed with Steve full length on top of me. I
kept my eyes tightly shut, keep out the truth, keep out the reality, keep
out the shame of my pleasure.

I felt my snake-belt chink open. I felt my shorts being pulled down to my
knees, followed by my Y-fronts... and followed by... his mouth closing over
my hard, hot penis. If I hadn't been so sick with desire I might have been
stunned, shocked. I might have resisted, but I didn't because all I wanted
was more, more, more... whatever was causing these sensations made me it
even more.

I felt Steve naked against me, or at least naked from the waist down. How
the fuck had he managed that? And he was clambering up my skinny body,
knees on either side, and I felt him and tasted him against my lips.

"You don't have to," he whispered. "Not if you don't want to."

Oh, but I wanted to.

My eyes fluttered open, and there it was, a thick dark sausage with the
purple head, knocking at my lips. And I'll never know how I knew what to
do, but I did. I opened my mouth just enough to let the head slide in, and
I sucked on the head, whirled round the head with my lips, slid a hand down
the shaft till I felt the hair brush against me, worked the shaft, let it
slide in deeper until around four inches were inside, and sucked and
suckled the shaft as if I'd done it all my life. I let my free hand feel
his arse, squeeze his buttocks, let it slide into the hot dangerous,
unknown territory in the depths of his crack. Was it instinct that guided
me to his bumhole?

Above me, out of sight, on another planet, Steve moaned and groaned, as he
fucked my mouth. I worked that one out. I wasn't stupid. I knew that men
and women fucked. I wasn't entirely sure how they did it but it was
something like this. I took my hand away from Steve's cock. He was entirely
capable of what he needed to do without my help, and using both hands, I
pulled his buttocks widely apart. Don't ask me why I did that. I don't
know. It just seemed the right thing to do, pull them apart, loosen, let
them come together, then pull them apart again. Establish the same rhythm
as his hot hard-on pushing and pulling into and out of my mouth. Speed with
him, slow with him. That's it: quick, quick, slow - then quick, quick and
quicker - then so quick that he was losing control.

Fuck it. Take it easy. You'll choke me. Pinch his arse hard, he'll get the
message.

Fuck, what's that!

It's hot, and it's salty, and it's slimey, and it's spurting, and it's
hitting the back of my throat, again and again, and over it goes. Hardly a
taste because it's all going over so quickly. Fuck, my mouth's full. It's
overflow time. Taste it now. Salty? Cameron? Both, and so fuckin' much of
it. And Steve's cock's gone now. And his open mouth is against my open
mouth. And he's tasting himself, taking himself back, and his tongue is
halfway down my throat. I'll show the fucker. I can give as good as I get
-well, almost. See me, feel me, touch me, heal me.

"Your turn now," he murmurs as he slides down my body and takes me in his
mouth again. I'm slipping and sliding between his lips, down his throat,
and I feel the sensations build again. Yes, this is it. Do it. Do it. But
he doesn't because he slips further down my body, gets an arms under the
backs of my knees, and heaves my legs up over my head until I can feel my
skinny knee caps brush against my ears.

What the fuck?

But his fingers are working my penis, and the sensations sweep everything
but my need to explode.

His tongue is licking my balls. He takes one in his mouth, sucks, releases
it, takes the other and then suck some more. Then his mouth is going lower,
deeper - he can't be going there! But he is! He is licking my shit hole,
kissing it, sucking at it pressing against my hole with the tip of his
tongue. I should be ashamed but I'm not. I like it, I love it, I want him
in deeper. I want his tongue deep inside me as I ......

explode!

And I cum!

For the first time in my life, at least when I've been awake, I feel little
spurts come out of me. Little squirts. Surely it's not piss. Steven
wouldn't let me piss in his mouth, would he? But this isn't piss. There's
only three, four squirts, and whatever it is is out of me and into
him. Like what came out of him is inside my tummy now.


My body thrashes around the bed like a trout granddad has got on the end of
his line. Coloured lights pop in my head, behind my eyelids. I realise
Steven's long, thick middle finger is right up arse, and I'm bearing down
on it because I want more...more... more...

Steve and I never had sex again. Not because he didn't want it. But he was
a friend of my brother. He knew Iain would kill him if he ever found out
what he'd done to his little brother. And when I say 'kill', I literally
mean kill. Even at that age I knew, and my brother's friends knew that Iain
was capable of killing someone. Best not to play too close to home. I was
certain Iain would kill Steve if he found out, and I wasn't completely
certain he wouldn't kill me. And the funny thing is Iain would be convinced
he was killing me for my sake, for my own good, to stop me becoming a
'homo'.

Too late, brother dear, someone had opened Pandora's Box, and I couldn't
resist diving facefirst into it.

I'm not sure how true that is. I'm sure I'd've got there eventually but
Alan Aitken certainly helped me speed things up. And this was strange
because Alan and I'd been friends since we were four or five years old. In
fact, I can't remember a time when Alan wasn't around.

Alan was cute. It's not a word I like much, but 'cute' is the best word I
can think of to describe Alan. Ever since I can remember women liked to
ruffle Alan's curly glossy black hair; women were charmed by his impish
good looks, the bow mouth, the sparkling black eyes. I've never met anyone
else with genuinely 'black' eyes but Alan's were. Sometimes you thought
they were the deepest of purples, but closer inspection revealed, yep,
genuinely black, set against the purest of white. upturned nose, the bridge
spattered with freckles, the high cheekbones, the dimples when he smiled,
and Alan smiled most of the time. His family was well-off; they lived on
the top floor of a... I'm not sure what to call it. If I write tenement,
you'll get totally the wrong idea. Poor folks lived in tenements; the
Aitkens were anything but poor.

You might find it odd that Alan and I even attended the same junior school,
but that was because... wait for it... Alan's dad was a chimney
sweep. Well, he'd started out as a chimney sweep, but in a few years had
built a chimney-sweeping empire with a monopoly over the whole city. There
were few chimneys in our city that were not swept regularly by Aitken &
Son. The 'Son' was Alan though he hadn't, as far as I know, had that much
contact with a sooty chimney yet. The Aitkens never forgot their roots,
never moved out of our district, and got on with everybody like a house on
fire - maybe that's not the best image for a chimney-sweeping business
-with everybody.

And Alan and I had become instant friends from the moment we pulled on our
floral pinafores at nursery.

I've just noticed I've been writing in the past tense. Fair enough, but
Alan is still very much part of my life though not so much of my sex life
nowadays because Alan has got a man, a real, live, grown-up, with a deep
voice, big muscles, and a cock like.... But I'm not going into Alan's
private life here. That wouldn't be fair. Maybe I will later, but not now,
not right at this minute.

Alan Aitken... What happened was this.

After Steve, after the unexpected introduction to the delights that lay
beween my legs, I was hungry for more. My hand was okay, my fingers were
even better, but I wanted more, I wanted someone else's flesh, male flesh,
pressed up against my flesh. I wanted a hot hard penis against my lips, I
wanted to feel the tip of a fat cock bouncing against the back of my
throat, I wanted to exchange the taste of semen with another mouth, I
wanted to... but with whom, and when, and where, and how?

The answer came from the most unexpected person - Alan. I spent lots of
time at Alan's. We'd both passed the 11+, both pulled on our new blazers
and long flannels, both caught the bus to Bruce Academy, both ended up in
the same Form Class, and in the same classes for most subjects. Alan is
very bright, but I'm brighter; at least I usually come top of the class
while Alan follows in second or third place. It's a rivalry we both love.

After school we often go to his home. His mum makes tea, and there's iced
buns or scones with real dairy cream. We stay at the table, get our
homework done - Alan's crap at Latin, my Geography is erratic - swap tales
of the day, then retire to Alan's room for half an hour. I was going to
write bedroom because there's a bed in it: a fucking double bed! For one
person. Not even a grown-up person: just Alan! But it's a lot more than
just a bedroom. Alan Aitken's bedroom is bigger than our living room. Fuck
it! And he's got great stuff. Like a real hifi set. His own TV. Toys
galore. And a fuckin' full size snooker table! I kid you not. His own full
size snooker table.

We were on the bed. Laughing and joking. I was looking at Alan. His eyes
were sparkling. That curly hair needed cutting. The sun had brought out his
freckles. I was listening to his voice; it hadn't even started to break; it
tinkled through the scales. We were stretched out on our backs, heads on
the same double-size pillow, looking at Alan's collection of model
aeroplanes; he was explaining the comparative merits of the Spitfire and
the Hurricane. My head was turned to him. I couldn't take my eyes away from
his face. And then it happened... so slowly that I wasn't aware of it until
it was too late.

A fuckin' erection!

It's a funny thing but at 11 and a half I had more or less the same size of
dick as I do now that I'm 18.  About seven inches long and quite thick. Not
quite true -my dick's seven inches now, and it is thick. But at 11 and a
half it was embarrassingly big for my age. I hadn't realised that until we
started having showers after P.E. at the Bruce Academy. Like I said, I'd
got used to the stares and the cheeky comments, and the furtive stares,
and, of course, I'd been relieved when Eric Merry revealed his ten inches
of thick ivory flesh. That had silenced all of us.

But there I was, lying on Alan's double bed, with an erection like a
milkbottle, outlined underneath the thin grey flannel of my school
trousers. I wished it to go down. I concentrated on the merits of the
Spitfire and Hurricane. I tried desperately not to look down at my tummy
and below, nor to look into Alan's eyes. Maybe he wouldn't notice. Maybe he
wouldn't say anything. Maybe Batman could beat Superman in a fair contest.

Alan's hand slid down my chest, down my belly, down to my belly button,
where his fingers grasped my hard-on and measured out its inches. I lay
there paralysed, stricken into silence.

"Shit, Max, you've got a big one. Where the fuck did you get that? I've
seen it in the showers, but, fuck me, you and Eric Merry make a right
pair." As he spoke, he continued to tweak and measure, tweak and measure
out its length from root to tip between his thumb and finger. I tried to
speak. My voice box betrayed me, and whatever I was going to say, escaped
as a strangled squeak.

Alan laughed.

"Let me see it."

I said nothing. I didn't trust my voice to get anything meaningful out. But
I didn't push his hand away. I lay there on the verge of wishing and
hoping...

"Let me see it."

Was that a note of exasperation in Alan's voice?

"Look, fair's fair. You show me yours and I'll..."

Alan started to laugh again. I couldn't see what was funny.

He reached down, unzipped himself with a flourish, fumbled into his
underpants, and fished out his own erection. Fuck it! His own erection was
as hard as mine. Not as long, not as thick, but definitely as hard. And it
was pretty. Lovely. Beautiful. A four-inch column of ivory. The foreskin
pulled back to reveal the shapely purple head, wet and slick with what I've
learned is called pre-cum.

"Can I?" I mumbled.

"Remember it's 'May I... not Can I..." he laughed, and added, "That's one
up for me."

Alan reached down and pulled his trousers wide upon, wriggled his bum up,
and pushed trousers and underpants down to his knees, then turned to me and
did the same.

"What about your mum?" I whispered though my blushes.

"We're not invite here in here. Are you deaf as well as dumb?" he
giggled. "Didn't you hear the door close about tenminutes ago. She's gone
round to Auntie May's. Back around 6. That gives us... mmmm... nearly an
hour." Alan pulled my hard-on away from my body.

A little kiss to start with."

He leaned over me and kissed the head of my penis.

Aw, fuck it, lots of kisses to start with."

His pursed lips ran the length of my erection, up and down, up and down,
his lips open to edge the shaft between his lips. He stopped a moment,
looked up at me, eyes glazed, and whispered, "Whatever you want to do, just
do it. I'll like it. Fuck it, I love it."

I understand the meaning of '69' now but I didn't then. It took me about
five minutes to discover the position. Was I the first? Probably not, in my
wilder moments I like to think so. Only joking.

Two naked 11-year-olds lying side by side on a double bed. Their fingers
clasped round each other's hard-ons. Their heads bobbing on their other's
stiffies. Mouths sliding the down until lips are pressed on each other's
naked pubis. The sweet liquid of precum already on their lips. Fingers of
each free hand manipulating hairless scrotums. Giving and taking in unison,
in harmony. Instinctly matching rhythms. So difficult to concentrate. Is it
the pleasure of fullness in the mouth? Is it the pleasure of the other's
mouth seeking to absorb the other's fullness. The naked limbs are twisted
in a beauty few sculptors can ever match.

Not only the sights but the smells. Sweat. Sour milk and honey. The
untainted smell of immature semen.

It was hard to focus on sucking Alan when my own senses were so
overwhelmed. The touch of his naked skin was overwhelming. The sight of
every vein, every curve of his scrotum, the pink of his shaft, the curve of
the head, the little eye that demanded to be probed with a tongue tip. So
much. So much. And always so much more.

I felt my legs pushed wider, felt Alan's head burrow between them, felt his
hot tongue lick my scrotum, his lips single out each testicle to find its
shape, assess its weight. To take one, then both, then the little sac into
his mouth. For a moment I panicked. Could there be any great exposure than
this? With one little clamp of those little white teeth my balls would be
gone. What could I tell my mother? I was an adept little liar but it would
be hard to wriggle my way out of that one. I sighed and copied Alan, my
mouth opening wide to take in his own little sac. Then I knew what it
meant. That I could snap off the sac, his balls, and swallow them in a
single gulp. And the possibility felt wonderful. He trusted me so
much. Trusted me with the family jewels. Trusted me with so much of his
future. If my mouth hadn't been so full, I would have laughed.

Then he was gone. Deeper. Lower. Into the unmentionable. My legs pushed
wide apart by his insistent head. I felt his thick hair brush and tickle
the inside of my thighs.

He couldn't. He wouldn't. Fuck it. He did.

His tongue was deep between my bum cheeks, circling the dirty place, the
place you had to wipe clean three times, the place no one ever talked
about, and certainly not in relation to what was happening, not in relation
to... sex. How could there be any pleasure in this?

Ah, but there was.

The image, even then, was incredibly erotic. My cock pulsed even harder. I
couldn't keep the image out of my mind. It was wrong, it was wicked, it was
wonderful. Alan's tongue circled closer and closer to... What should I
think of it as?

My bum hole. My arse hole. My anus.

Shit, I'd hardly ever seen my own bum hole, and here was Alan getting a
close-up in Cinemascope. I had seen it a couple of times... when I'd lain
on my bed at home, my legs hooked high by my elbows, a mirror strategically
placed. Why had I done that? I've no idea. Just my insatiable curiosity,
and an urge even then to be drawn to wards the taboo, the forbidden.

And the tip of Alan's tongue touched me there. Right on the centre
spot. The tip ran the tiny length again and again. Tiny pressures,
increasing with each run. My mouth took his cock in again. My lips swirled
around it. I sucked just the head, released it, and then took in the whole
shaft again. There was no music in the room but I felt a singing in my
ears. Thanks, Bowie.

"Whatever you want to do,just do it. I'll like it. Fuck it, I'll love it."

Had Alan really mean that - whatever I wanted?

Just do it.

Now my head was between his legs. He splayed them wide, giving me the
access I desired. It was dark in there. I wanted to see. I heaved his arse,
his legs around, a little rudely, a little uncermenoniously, until he was
facing the bedlamp. The light focused where I wanted it. There it was. The
centre of the known Universe. And I was about to go there, to boldly go
where... o for fuck's sake, not Star Trek. Beam me in, Scotty!

Valleys, sand dunes of silk skin ran towards the centre. Creamy ivory
darkened to a darker centre. The eye of the Universe. The gateway to the
all and everything. Cream gave way to a light flush of brown, to a slightly
serrated edge, to a pucker, to a rosebud that asked to be kissed. ! A
rosebud by any other name. A rosebud is a rosebud is a rosebud.

I closed my eyes, slid out the tip of my tongue, the serpent about to enter
Eden.

Bang!

"Alan! Max! I'm home. Tea'll be ready in five minutes."

A light rap at the door.

"Scones and cream. Real cream. Dairy cream."

Shit!

We unhooked ourselves and shot off that bed like bats out of Hell. A
scramble of clothes. When I got home, I found I was in Alan's underpants!
We dressed as if our lives depended on it; they probably did. Alan snagged
his dick in his zip. Hopped around in agony. I knelt and unsnagged it. Gave
it a little kissie to make better. Then neither of us could stop giggling.

"Boys! Boys!"

We made final adjustments to our stiffies, emerged from the bedroom,
crossed the lounge, and entered the kitchen.  Alan was nonchalant; I was
terrified.

"Come on, boys, it's on the table. Sit down and tuck in. Auntie May wasn't
in, so I got us a treat for tea...

"Max, you look a little pale. Alan, you look a little flushed. I hope you
boys aren't coming down with something. You don't want to be in bed for the
rest of the week, do you?"

Alan fell from his chair, laughing, his mouth crammed with scone and dairy
cream.

"Oh, Alan, you are a silly. Thank goodness Max has a lot more sense. You're
lucky to have a friend like Max. You could learn a lot from him."

Alan doubled up in helpless laughter, tears streaming from his eyes. I
tried but I couldn't help it; I joined in the laughter. Then Mrs Aitken
joined in, too.

As she pulled herself together, she smiled.

"I don't know what's made you two so happy, but whatever it is, it's doing
you a power of good."

And it was.

And it did.

Believe me, Mrs Aitken, it did.

***

Eric and I wander up Carnegie Avenue after school. It's 3.30 but it's still
warm, the sun casting stark shadows. The school sports grounds lie between
Carnegie Avenue and the Cairny Hill. To go home, Eric branches off to the
right and the right side of town; I branch off to the left, cross the hill,
and go home to the wrong side of town.

The sports grounds are first class, donated by a wealthy merchant who had
three sons educated at Bruce Academy for the Sons of Gentlefolk. The
grounds stretch over a few acres, the pavilion, tennis courts and cricket
square at the Carnegie end, the rugby and soccer pitches at the Cairny
end. There's a full time groudsman but he never shows up until 15 minutes
before closing time; that depends on the time of the year.

We stroll into the pavilion. There's a handful of boys there
already. Mostly senior, mostly tennis players. We dump our bags and change,
Eric into cricket, me into tennis whites. We must look a little incongruous
but nobody pays much attention to a couple of juniors like us - even though
we're already playing for the Under-15's (Eric, cricket; me, tennis).

We wander out to the nets where Eric becomes brisk and business-like. He's
going to bowl to me in the nets. Like fuck he is! I'm not going stand there
while the fastest bowler in the school aims chunks of leather at my most
delicate parts, even though I've got a cup on, and pads that reach up to my
waist. I sigh in relief when Eric announces he's going to use a practice
ball and that he'll only bowl spin. Even I can get bat to ball with spin;
well, either that or I can get the fuck out of the way.

Eric bowls me first ball, and second, and third.

"For fuck's sake, keep the bat straight, Cameron. And stop hopping about."

Keeping a straight bat is indescribably boring, but the sight of Eric
running in, head tilted back, hair caught by the lightest of breezes,
crotch bulging is compensation enough. I knuckle down it and start stroking
the ball back to him.

"Stroke it for Eric." "Stroke it for Eric." "Stroke it for Eric."

I'm in dreamland when a ball hits a crack, rises sharply and whacks me
right where cup meets flesh. Fuck it that hurt! I yelp like a sissy, drop
to the floor, and start rubbing high inside my right leg.

Eric trots up and flops down beside me.

"Okay?"

"What the fuck do you mean 'Okay?'" I howl. "Of course I'm not okay. You
might not have a love life, but I have, and you might have ruined it, you
mutha..."

I don't complete the sentence because Eric's mother died when he was five
years old. I don't know the details. I know he lives with his father and
elder brother. I know they are a monied family. But that's about it.

"Oh, come off it, Max..." (Max - I like that.) "...it'll sting a bit but
it'll pass in a couple of minutes. See..."

See what?

See Eric's long, thick fingers slide down the inside of my thigh.

"There?"

"Down a bit."

"There?"

"Over a bit."

"There."

I sigh, "There, yes, right there."

Those thick fingers begin a gentle massage, a gentle caress, and the pain
drifts away as I take leave of my senses. In my cunning plan, it's me who
strokes Eric, not Eric who strokes me.

I suddenly realise I'm getting a bitch of a hard-on, and it's cramped in
the cricket cup. A pleasure it is not. I try to keep the frown off my face,
but Eric catches it and bursts out laughing.

"You're hopeless, Cameron."

"Don't you mean incorrigible, Merry."

"Nope, hopeless. Come on. Get off your arse. You still owe me 25 minutes."

And the 25 minutes are the most pleasurable I will ever have in relation to
cricket. Manfully, if ineptly, I knuckle down and give Eric full value. He
gets me out around 2 balls every over no matter how well I defend. That
pleases him and causes me no pain. My turn comes soon.

It's strange. Eric is definitely the best cricketer our school ever had. He
is, maybe, the best rugby player we've ever had. But on the tennis court
he's crap. Make that capital letters: CRAP. He tries his best. In sports,
Eric always tries his best. But even though I set the ball up for him, even
though I keep it mostly on his forehand, even though I set up dolly smashes
at the net for him, he manages to look clumsy and inept. But he does
try. My God, how he tries.

So I begin to drive the ball from side to side, hitting the baseline more
often than not, pulling him into the net and then lobbing the ball casually
over him so that he has to turn and scamper back to the baseline. He never
gets it back, of course, a little topspin makes sure of that. Am I being
cruel? No. If he runs enough, if he's sweaty enough (and Eric sweats
easily), Eric will need a shower, and me (we!) might just have a shower
before we head home. Cunning or what?

But I'm foiled... because those senior bastards have used up the last of
the hot water amd left us nothing but lukewarm dribbles. I go back and
check the water, just in case, but no luck. Nope, the seniors have gone and
the last of the hot water with them.

BUT (and it's a capital letters 'but') when I come out of the shower area,
Eric is stretched full length along one of the benches. Eyes closed. Face
redly flushed. Shirt unbuttoned to the waist. Crotch bulging. And that's no
cup.

I squeeze down on the bench just behind his head. I'm not quite sure what
to do. If I get this wrong, I could end up with a black eye, a bleeding
nose, and worse. That's easily explained at home, but I don't want to go
into school tomorrow and find that I'm a... a what? ... "a fucking
queer". I AM a fucking queer. My bum chums know I'm a fucking queer. But
that doesn't mean I want it broadcast around the school.

Better play safe. Better safe than sorry. Fuck it. I've never played safe
in my life, and, at 13 years of age, it's a little late to start.

I run my finger tips over Eric's forehead. I flick back the thick damp
hair. He sighs. He murmurs "Yeah". What I really want to do is lean over
and kiss him on the forehead, but that would be pushing things too far, too
quickly.

I run my fingers across his cheeks. Down his throat. Across the top part of
his chest.

He murmurs "Yeah". Not the most articulate of reponses but it will do for
me.

I shift my position so I'm squeezed alongside him. Actually I'm perched on
my left buttock, and if Eric shifts suddenly I'll fall on my arse. Ah well,
what's life for if it's not for falling on your arse now and again?

My fingers slide across his stomach. Wow, he's got one of those
six-packs. I'm not that sure what a six-pack is, but if it means a strong,
flat, muscly stomach, Eric's got one, and I'm fingering it. His belly
button's an innie. I wonder what it would feel like to kiss it. Eric
willing, I may get my chance today.

Fucking hell, the bulge at his crotch is... bulgier. In class, Eric would
reach down and straighten it out. That duty seems to be in my hands today.

I say a silent prayer and face the moment of truth. "It's now or never."
Elvis is absolutely fucking spot on: it IS now or never, and I decide on
now.

I finger the clasp on Eric's cricket flannels. I flick the clasp open. I
wait for the punch in the face. Nothing. I find the little zip and slowly,
agonisingly slowly, edge it down. Down, down, down, until there can be no
more down. Using both hands, thumbs and index fingers, I spread his pants
open, tug his shirt flaps away, and there it is. No, there IT is, curled
like sleeping python under the 100% pure cotton Y-fronts.

The python is awake. It is stretching for the sun. I watch it elongate,
then extend my fingertips to help turn it round to face due north. Shit, I
knew it was BIG; I never suspected it was this big. It's long but it's also
thick. It is genuinely ten inches long, and it's as thick as the span of
any three of my fingers put together. try that and you'll see what I
mean. Suddenly the head pokes out above the elastic. That's strong elastic;
it takes a lot of poking to get past that. There, Mister Python, you've
found the sun at last.

I notice that Eric has raised his bum off the bench. The penny drops. There
is a God after all. I reach over him and gently ease his underpants down to
his knees, revealing... it is beautiful, it's truly beautiful. In size,
shape, texture, colour, and... yes, sniff sniff... smell, it is truly
beautiful. A thing of beauty may be a boy forever, but his erection is a
thing of beauty right now. I reach and take hold of it, my fingers unable
to meet around it girth. I begin to jack him off. He'll let me do this, but
will he let me kiss it. I'm desperate to kiss it.

"I'll cum if you do that," he whispers.

(I'm proud because I taught him that word - 'cum'.)

So what? I want him to cum. I'm desperate to make him, see him cum.

"It'll make a real mess when I cum."

(Pause)

"I don't want to make a mess of my shirt or my whites."

(Pause - then the penny clunks off the floor.)

Cum - mess - bless you, Eric, bless you.

I lean forward and almost say "Ah". I let three, four inches of Eric's
thick shaft slide into my mouth. I'm amazed I can stretch my lips wide
enough to take a few inches in. I feel the head touch the back of my throat
and draw it back before I start gagging. I suck him hard. I want to taste
him as much as I can. See me. Feel me. Touch me. Fuck me.

I manipulate the base of his shaft, then jack it as I suck. Oh this is
going to be wonderful.

"Oh, oh, oh..."

Eric's bum jerks straight off the bench. His cock is driven to the back of
my throat. It's tickling my tonsils. And he's cumming! Squirt after squirt
splats against the back of my throat. I'm struggling, gagging, fighting to
get it all over, to get it all down the back of my throat, and not onto
Eric's whites, and not into my eyes. Splurt, squirt, splat! Who would've
thought the boy to have so much semen in him?

And now in me.

I gag, I cough, my eyes stream, but, little hero that I am, I take it all,
or most of it. A little escapes to my lips - a little sweet, a little
bland, but it will do. It contains Eric's babies, or at least his potential
babies, or at least 50%, genetically speaking, of Eric's babies, and
millions of them are swimming in my tummy. I wonder if they've got there
yet. I wonder how surprised they feel when they look around and find no
door marked EGGS-IT, or even ARSE-IT. Actually, I think all this later that
night as I lie in bed and relive Eric's first blow-job (that's the correct
expression, isn't it?)

Eric's embarrassed now. He sits up, swings his legs round, pulls up his
underpants, fastens his trousers, and now he sits there looking at me. His
eyes are a little glazed. He's blushing. I know he wants to tell me
something. I can't help because I don't know what it is he wants to tell
me.

He is pointing at me, at my face. Now it's me that's blushing. Why doesn't
he just come out with it?

"On your face, your lips."

"What? What?!"

"Me," he laughs.

I raise my finger to my lips. I feel it - a big gob of Eric. I can't help
laughing. I scoop it with my right index finger and slurp it into my mouth.

"There, happy now," I ask.

"Yes, happy now," he replies. "But I'm sorry."

"Sorry for what?"

"You know. Then ten-second thing. But I'll do better next time."

Next time!

My heart leaps.

"Hey," says Eric. "It's only ten past five. Want to come to my house for
tea?"

"For tea?"

"Yes," he laughs. "Just for tea. My brother'll be there. You'll like
him. Come on."

And off we go. No guilt, no shame, no remorse, no regrets, no
recriminations. Just two boys, hungry, and wanting their tea.

Anyway, there'll be a next time, so don't be greedy.

I suppose my seduction of Eric would have moved faster if I hadn't been so
distracted by sex and by love.

Blame the sex on Alan.

It wasn't that I had sex with Alan. I did but far less often than I might
have anticipated after that first encounter. Two things made sex with Alan
infrequent. First, I didn't fancy him and he fancied me less. Don't get me
wrong. We liked each other, and, as far as boys are able, we probably loved
each other. But we'd been together so long it was a bit like having sex
with your brother. A 'no go' area.

I don't know if nature makes a sort of taboo about that, but Alan and I had
been together for so long, since we were about four years old, nursery,
junior school, now secondary school, that it just didn't feel right. I
can't speak for Alan but I couldn't get those images out of my mind; all
those years when we were little kids, down on the beach, for example,
making sandcastles, squealing and running when the water lapped over our
sandals. I just couldn't match that with the times we lay head-to-toe
sucking each other off.

But Alan was... How can I put it? Alan was a voracious little predator who
enjoyed sex simply because it was there, and, above all, he enjoyed having
sex with boys (and men) who were or seemed to be unattainable. And since
I'd spent most of my life going along with Alan, I went right along with
that, too, and loved every inch of it.

Take Marshall Cooper. And in the end we took Marshall Cooper.

Marshall was beautiful, ridiculously, absurdly beautiful. He was in our
Year. He was tall, willowy, thick blond hair, blue blues, with the face of
a China doll that somehow managed to be more boy than girl. He was sweet
and kind, he was gentle and considerate, he was polite and helpful, he
was... just about everything wholesome and good.

And Alan wanted him.

It was the card school that did it.

Alan and I had always played cards. We usually played 21, vingt-et-un, but
Alan also knew how to play poker. He taught me and we introduced the game
as a lunch-time entertainment. We played for pennies, and we won a lot of
pennies. On a good day, we'd play for sixpences, and we won a lot of
sixpences. When someone ran out of money, he could play with his lunch
tickets. Lunch tickets were worth were worth 12 pence or 1 shilling each,
no mean sum in those days. Alan would advance the credit, win the lunch
tickets, and then sell them back at half price. He didn't mind waiting a
few days for the payment. Bruce Academy was a grammar school, and there was
honour amongst boys. Better starve than be known as someone who reneged on
their debts.

So Alan was a good player, and he was also a cheat. Probably the most
bare-faced cheat I've ever known. His deck of cards, actually he had three
decks, were marked, professionally marked. Even when Alan showed me the
markings, I couldn't find them again seconds later. But Alan could whiz
through a deck calling out each card almost as fast as he could deal them;
and he could deal them fast.

Marshall lost his lunch tickets. In fact, he lost two weeks' worth of lunch
tickets at one session. Marshall wasn't perfect; he was a compulsive
gambler. Worse than that, he couldn't afford to gamble. Marshall's dad was
dead, or at least AWOL. It wasn't done to ask personal questions. We'd met
his mum. One look at her and you knew where Marshall got his looks. She was
all woman, and he was all boy.

So losing his lunch money was no joke for Marshall. In fact, it was a
disaster. No one would ever mention it, but Marshall's blazer was
second-hand, his grey flannels too short, his tie frayed, and he had two
white shirts. You knew which was which by the ink splats.

"God, you are an idiot, Marshall. I told you to stop playing when you lost
this week's dinner tickets. It's only Monday. But you went on and on, and
what happened? You've lost next week's as well." That was Alan softening
him up.

We were standing in the toilets on the top floor, the third floor, where no
one went unless you had serious business to negotiate. I'd had Raymond suck
me off a couple of times, four times to be exact, up there in the 'Gods'
but the place was spooky. None of the classrooms on the third floor were
used, and there were vague stories about a suicide, a murder, Mary Queen of
Scots, and a headless horseman. I could never quite fathom what the hell a
horseman, headless or otherwise, was doing on the top floor of a boys'
grammar school, but History is full of weird stories and even weirder
characters.

"Could you let me have...? I mean, you know I'll..."

Marshall's big blue eyes brimmed with tears. I choked and felt like handing
over my lunch tickets for the week. After all, my pocket was stuffed with
them. Alan and I had already divided up the day's spoils.

"Well, I would," said Alan. "Remember I did try to get you to stop
playing."

Yeh, Alan, right, Alan. Deal someone a hand with a straight run in it, and
then try to persuade them to fold. I think not.

"And if it was only one week... well, I might... but two weeks. No,
Marshall, no can do. Everyone would think I was losing my touch. We've got
to play by the rules, and stick by the rules. After all, we are Bruce
boys. Remember the school motto: Play up, and play the game. Well, you
played and you lost. So it's time to pay up."

I turned away for a moment, blushing on behalf of Alan.

"I understand that, Alan. Honestly I do. But I can't go home. I can't tell
mum..." He choked, he couldn't go on. A single teardrop hung from those
thick eyelashes. I wanted to stick out my tongue and lick it away.

"Well, we could always trade, I suppose," murmured Alan, making it sound
like a concession dragged from the depths of his soul.

Hope springs eternal, and at that moment it sprang into the heart of
Marshall Cooper.

"I've got some Dinky cars," he said brightly. "I collect them, but you can
have the best ones, the best three, no, four, if..."

"Marshall, Marshall..." Alan cut him off. "Do I look like the kind of man
who collects fucking Dinky cars?"

Man! Fucking man! I felt like kicking Alan Aitken's fucking arse.

"No, I don't think you've got anything we really want except... naw, naw,
forget it."

You might as well tell a man dying of thirst not to bother about that
mirage on the horizon.

"What? What?" asked Marshall, not quite frantically, but not far from it.

"No, no, don't even think about it Just forget it."

"What? What? Anything, Alan. Anything. Just name it."

Alan didn't more than that. He stepped forward and felt it.

Marshall stepped back. His eyes widened. He looked down at his crotch,
probably expecting Alan's hand to be still there. It was.

Marshall looked at Alan.

Alan stood there smiling.

"I've heard about you," Marshall said.

"Oh, and what have you heard?" asked Alan sweetly.

"I--I--I've heard that you like, that you do...stuff."

"What have you heard? What is it that I do?"

A couple of weeks before I'd seen the film 'The Jungle Book'. There was a
bit in it when the snake was trying to hypnotise the boy. "Trust in
me... trust in me-e-e-e-." For the life of me, I couldn't get that image
out of my head.

"Look, Marshall, I said to forget it. I'm not going to make you do anything
you don't want to do. I know you'd like it, but if you don't want to, fine,
let's just get downstairs. There's twenty minutes to the bell. I've got
time for another card school."

Marshall stood there. Alan stood there. I stood there. Baby, baby, can't
you hear our hearts beat?

"What would I have to do?" Marshall's voice was tiny.

"You wouldn't have to do anything. We do everything. You stand there and
enjoy it." Alan stepped forward and ran his fingers against the thin grey
flannel.

"All of them, Marshall. You can all of the lunch tickets back. Fifteen
minutes, that's all."

As he spoke, Alan ran the back of his fingers up and down the front of
Marshall's crotch. Marshall said nothing. He looked at me. He ran that
little pink tongue of his his across those pink lips. I shrugged my
shoulders, gently. He turned and faced Alan. Alan kept eye-contact as he
found Marshall's zip and began to edge it downwards. He stepped
forward. Marshall stepped backwards into me. I put my arms round his
waist. He smelled like freshly-baked bread. I wanted to kiss the nape of
his neck. I touched my lips to the nape of his neck.

Alan kept his eyes on Marshall.

"Get his belt, Max."

My hands round Marshall's waist wandered and found the clip of his
snake-belt. I flicked it open. Alan had lowered his zip and was now edging
the flaps of his school trousers apart. I could hear Marshall's
breathing. His head tilted back a bit. I knew where Alan's searching
fingers were now. Marshall's Y-fronts slid to his knees.

"Hey, Marshall, that's nice."

I looked down Marshall's front. He was fully erect. His erection was hot
and hard, and suprisingly brown against the pale ivory of his skin. His
stiffy was about 5 inches long. Not in my league. Definitely not in Eric's
but he could give Alan a run for his money. I watched Alan's index finger
and thumb make a circle as he pulled the foreskin back from the head of
Marshall's penis. I watched as Alan raised Marshall's surprisingly floppy
sac.

I sat on the toilet seat and pulled Marshall towards me, my hands caressing
his bum cheeks.

A little moan escaped from Marshall's pink lips. Maybe I was the only one
who heard it. Alan was working his stiffy, and I knew how expert Alan was
with hard-ons. He could make me moan when he set his mind to it. Alan
pulled the erection towards him, let it go, it boinged healthily back into
an upright position. Three or four times Alan did that: boing, boing,
boing.

Sitting behind Marshall at just the right height, I used my thumbs to prise
his bum cheeks apart. He was too far gone to notice it. What a sweet little
starfish and not that little. In fact, it looked like a used little
starfish but nonetheless appealing for that. I slipped a fingertip onto the
little mouth. Surprisingly sweaty and greasy. I ran my fingertip along the
little mouth, applied a little pressure, and surprise surprise it slide
into the first knuckle. Why had Marshall's dad disappeared from the family
home?

Nothing ventured, I pushed my finger all the way in. Maybe Marshall played
stinky finger every night. What boy doesn't? And begin to finger-fuck
him. And, surprise, surprise, I felt Marshall lowering himself down onto my
finger until my while middle finger was in his anus. I was only thirteen so
I wasn't deep enough in to stroke the velvety walls of his rectum but I
wiggled and circled by finger around as best I could.

 By now you'll have guessed I'm crazy about bottoms, bums, backsides, holes
with tiny lips, anuses and what lies beyong the puckered openings. Why? I
haven't the faintest fucking idea. I just do and I accept it.

Wait a minute.

I'll be back.

***

I just read that last bit again. You see, I had to take a break to get my
Latin homework done, and the break lasted two days. So now I've come
back. I've read that last bit again, and it reads like... Porno!

And it's not meant to read like porno. This isn't meant to be
pornography. It's just meant to be a record of what happened. I'm just
telling it like it is and like it was.

It's true that I'd like to be a writer some day, a full time writer, making
my living out of writing. And it's true I'm trying to make sure there's
some literary merit in my wrting, especially in this writing, because it's
definitely not meant to be pornography. I can't help it if other people
find it exciting, or sexy, or erotic, or any of these things. For me it's a
record of the way it was and the way we were, and I feel I've got to write
it down before it all sort of disappears in the sands of time (that's a
metaphor).

In five minutes of minutes, Marshall shuddered and gasped, his head falling
back to rest on my chest. I managed to whip my finger out of his anus
before I suffered any injury. I sucked it just to make sure.

It turned out Marshall Marshall really enjoyed the experience in the third
floor toilets. Alan got his sex, Marshall got his lunchtickets back, and I
got a real friend. It turned out Marshall really liked me, but he was a bit
shy, and he thought I was 'out of his league', so to speak. Dumb ass! LOL I
got to know his body, especially his anus and rectum, far better than he
ever would, and I probably loved it more than anyone else ever could.

In fact, I ended up having more sex with Marshall than Alan did because
Alan was becoming more and more preoccupied with his MAN-friend, and men as
friends were certainly out of my league. And anyway, I was in pursuit of
Eric Merry, and I'd have got there a lot sooner if I hadn't... even now I
get a bit embarrassed admitting it - if I hadn't...

Fallen in Love

R. Frankie Morrison. That was his name. That is his name. R. Frankie
Morrison.

The R stands for Robert, but he uses Frankie as his first name. Why? I
don't know. I've never asked him. Life is full of little mysteries. You can
go around solving them, or pretending you've solved them, or just accept
them. I just accept them.

R. Frankie Morrison - a First Year, and I, a Third Year, fell
head-over-heels. Actually, Frankie was the one who nearly fell-head-over
heels, literally, and I was there to catch him when he fell.

Friday, 3.30, the end of school, and the end of the school week. For some
reason, lost in the mists of time, I had to go down to the city centre. I
guess I was on an errand for mum, otherwise I'd never dream of going into
the City centre during the week because that meant taking a second bus
home. But that day into the city centre, diving on what for me was the
'wrong' school bus, going in the 'wrong' direction, I went.

As ever the school buses were packed, riotous and uproarious. I usually had
no difficulty scrambling onto the bus and parking my cute backside onto the
lap of whatever 6th Year would have me, and quite a few would. We'd sit
there as the bus trudged it way up Carnegie Avenue, me grinding my bottom
into the older boy's lap, feeling him harden beneath me. God, what a little
tart I was. But it was all in good fun, and, no, I would not get off the
bus early and let a Sxith Former walk me across to the wooded area of
Cairny Park. I valued what was left of my virginity.

But the city centre bus was alien territory, and I ended up in pack of
younger boys crammed onto the platform. I was just thinking "Fuck this for
a month of Sundays", when I raised my head and found myself looking into a
pair of impossibly beautiful eyes - grey, fringed with heavy
lashes. B-ring, b-ring went the strings of my heart. That was the sound of
the departure bell but to me...

I let my gaze scan the face that held those beautiful eyes. It couldn't
possibly live up to them. But it did and more. The clear skin, the
cheekbones, the straight little nose, not too little, the clearly defined
but not too full lips, the small ears, the freckles across the bridge of
the nose, the longish neck, the fringe of ash brown hair straight-cut
across the clear forehead. I lowered my gaze to take in the broad
shoulders, the slim torso that slid hipless into the school trousers.

The bus jolted along, and I was happily thrown into the bearer of those
beautiful eyes. The platform was packed, dangerously packed, we couldn't
have separated if we'd wanted to. I mumbled a 'sorry', and realised I was
apologising to a First Year - unheard of! I knew it was a First Year
because we all wore ties to signify the Year we were in. This was a First
Year - tall, elegant, beautiful, but, nevertheless, a First Year; and I was
a member of the mightily-feared bunch of nutters in the Third.

"It's okay. It's always like this."

The vision spoke. The vision could speak. And the vision was speaking to
me.

"Is it?" I managed to reply. "I usually take the Muirton bus."

There it was: Muirton. The most unsalubrious sector of our fair metropolis,
and I'd just admitted to coming from there.

"I know," he said.

It took a few moments for the reply to sink in. It took a few moments for
anything to sink in. With each jolt, I was thrown into contact with this
mysterious sprog and you know what the 'nearness of you' does to the brain
- scrambled eggs.

"How do you know that?"

"I watch you play tennis."

Full alert. Full alert. Note the use of the present tense: watch, not
watched. Not the past tense signalling a single, fortuitous occasion, but
the present tense signalling a delightful continuity.  (Told you I want to
be a writer.)

"You 'watch' me." I emphasised the word 'watch'.

The boy blushed. Not much. Just enough to make the skin at his colour
glow. Just enough to make me want to reach forward, pop out my tongue,
and...

"On Tuesdays. When Year 7 does sports together. I mean, we don't get to
play with you..."  (Play with me! Play with me!) "...but we're all at
Elliot Road together. I love tennis; my mum teaches me." The last was
offered as justification for watching me. Fair enough. "You're very good."

"Thanks..." It was my turn to pink up a little. "Hey, this isn't fair. You
know my name, but I don't know yours." I'd jumped the gun a little because
he hadn't said he knew my name.

"It's Frankie," he said. "It's Frankie Morrison. Actually, it's R. Frankie
Morrison."

"Frankie?" I couldn't keep the note of surprise out my voice. I knew the
name 'Frankie' existed, but (a) I thought it was a girl's name, and (b) I'd
never in my life met anyone called 'Frankie', and (c) I knew it was a
helluva posh name.

Frankie was akin to Eric; wrong side the tracks for me.

The conversation didn't happen in a vacuum. The bus continued to bounce
along the cobblestones of Telford Road; boys were hurtled against each
other like marbles in a sardine can; boys jumped off without paying; the
conductor hurled abuse at them; and Frankie and I held onto each other,
laughing between exchanges as if we did this every day.

The bus swung into the city centre as if the driver was desparate to
disgorge each and every passenger.

"My stop," said Frankie.

"Mine, too," I lied.

Not a huge lie. This was only one-stop early. I wasn't that desperate -
yet.  But I was curious to see what Frankie did next. He jumped down from
the platform; I jumped after him. He swung his school bag over his
shoulder; I had none to swing. If you were still carrying a bag in Third
Year, you were a fucking nonentity. Bags indicated willingness, and the
Third Year were rarely keen about anything other than avoiding work and
having a good time.

We strolled along the High Street. Only about 500 yards. Frankie stopped.

"I live here."

Live where? There was nowhere to live. This was smack in the middle of the
city centre. Nobody but nobody lived 'here'.

"Here," he said, pointing at the Bank of Royal Scotland.

"The fucking bank of fucking Royal Scotland?"

"Not 'in' it. Above it. Up there."

Frankie pointed to the top storey of the five-storey building.

"We've got a place up there." Pause. "My mum my little sister and me."

What is it about me? Why do I keep falling in love with people who have no
dads, or only a dad, or an absent dad. Maybe it's because I never had a
father myself. Hold on, I'm not claiming Immaculate Conception; I know who
the fuck my dad was; or at least I take my mother's word for it. I
refrained from asking where, if anywhere, Frankie's father was, but, to
tell the truth, I hadn't the slighest interest. It was Frankie I loved, not
his mother, father, or little sister - him!

Loved?

I don't know. Is there such a thing as love-at-first-sight. All I knew
right from the start was I wanted to spend time with Frankie. I enjoyed his
company. I loved his smile, I drowned in his eyes. I...

"I'd better be going."

Was that a note of reluctance in his voice?

I should be so lucky, lucky, lucky.

"Oh, yeh, sure. See you again," I said, and he was gone, skipping up the
marble steps of a door at the side of the bank. He turned, smiled, waved
and was gone.

I strolled across the High Street towards the bus stance where I'd find the
bus to take me the long way home. The afternoon sky was blue, the sparrows
were twittering, the diesel fumes were Coty L'Aimant, my mother's favourite
perfume. I sat upstairs and watched the world go by in rainbows of many
colours. I worked out the hours and minutes till I'd have the chance to see
Frankie again - a long long wait till Monday but I had his image engraved
in my heart and all I had to do was turn my gaze inwards to see him. I went
into the bathroom, pushed down my trousers and underpants closed my eyes,
imagined Frankie, and wanked myself silly.

***

Where was Eric in all this?

I don't know.

On Monday when I got to school - late - Eric squeezed up against me during
Period 2. "Tell me about the weekend. Touch me if you want to."

Funny thing was I didn't want to. Well, I did and I didn't. I certainly
didn't want to use use my imagination to conjure up erotic images. I had no
need of them. I had R. Frankie Morrison. Well, I would have after school
when I planned once again to take the double trip home.

I sat there stroking Eric's thigh in a desultory fashion. I glanced at his
crotch. He had an erection fit to break a plate, but try as I might, I
couldn't muster much enthusiasm.

"What's wrong?"

"What?" I whispered back.

"What's up? What's wrong with you?"

"Nothing. Just thinking, that's all."

"For fuck's sake, you get me all worked up, and then you sit there doing
nothing about it." The note of exasperation in Eric's voice broke my
reverie.

"Well... mmm... well... my cat, it's my cat, it got run over at the
weekend. We buried it in the backyard."

"Your cat? Your fucking cat!"

"Yes, our cat. Her name is - was Lucky. I'll tell you about her if you
want."

Even to myself I sounded moronic.

"No, forget it. Hey," Eric went on, as if were an afterthought, "what about
coming up to the Sports Ground after school? A bit of cricket, a bit of
tennis, a bit of..." Eric grinned. "You know a bit of..."

"Sorry, no can do. Got to go into town. Doing something for mum. Maybe on
Wednesday."

Maybe on Wednesday. That was to Eric Merry, the No. 1 pin-up, heart-throb,
dick-throb in the entire school, and there I was saying I'd help him out on
Wednesday - maybe.

I felt his cock deflate beneath my finger-tips. I gave it a couple of
strokes for luck, but my heart wasn't in it, and I think Eric knew it.

Funny thing was, he put his arm round my shoulder, in open class, and gave
me a squeeze. Then he whispered, "Your cat really was Lucky - to have you."

For a moment I wondered what I'd call Lucky if Eric ever got round to
visiting our house. I decided on Blackie, but I knew Lucky would have
ignored the name with disdain. I sighed and dreamed on. Emil and His
Detectives were on the bus, and the bus metamorphosed into our school bus,
and Emil was Frankie, and I was the naughty man, and Emil/Frankie was in
hot pursuit of him/me.

I should be so lucky - lucky, lucky, lucky. That sounded like a song. I
don't know if it was, but it should be.

The day wandered aimlessly on as if 3.30 was an ever-receding mirage, but
at last the bell went and we were all charging up the ramp and out of
school. I headed for the wrong bus again and leapt on at a single bound. My
eyes swept the seats and the aisle - no Frankie, no fucking Frankie! Maybe
upstairs! I bounded upstairs: no luck. No luck and no Frankie - shit and
damnation. And the bus was moving off. I bounded downstairs.

The bus was moving off - and there was Frankie, running helter-skelter for
the bus. Shit, the bus was gathering speed. I stood on the packed
platform. I tried to reach the bell, impossible through the wedge of
bodies, and still Frankie was running, tie askew, blazer open and flapping,
leather bag bouncing off his back. He'd never make it.

But he tried. And he did - almost.

His left hand grabbed the upright rail and held on. But the bus was moving
fast now, so fast that Frankie was lifted right off his feet, and his legs
went up into the air. He couldn't hold on for long, but if he let go, he'd
go crashing into the road where other buses were barreling along behind us.

I grabbed his wrist with both hands, jammed my right foot against the
bottom of the rail, and held on. I'd hold on forever if I had to. I didn't
have to hold on forever, it only felt like it. I held on around 500 yards
until the bus reached its first stop. It slowed down. Frankie found his
feet, ran along behind the bus, and jumped aboard just before it stopped.

He was grinning at me. The fucking idiot was grinning at me.

"What the fuck are you grinning for, you idiot?" I shouted at him.

He didn't reply. He couldn't. He hung on to me, gasping for breath.

"You could have caught the second bus," I stormed.

He held on to me and grinned.

"I know," he said. "I know."

"Well, why the fuck didn't you?"

"Because... because..." He got enough air in his lungs to get it out.

"Because you weren't on the second bus. You'r on this bus."

The funny thing was - have you noticed there's a lot of funny things in my
life? It's probably much the same in your life, in everybody's life - The
funny thing was that all of this was said at the top of my voice and with
what was left of his while we were surrounded by other boys on the platform
of the city-bound bus, and it didn't seem to matter at all. The only thing
that mattered was that he'd made it, I'd made it, we'd made it together.

By the time we'd got to Frankie's stop arrangements were finalised. Tennis,
together, next Saturday morning. We could've managed Wednesday but I
wouldn't do that to Eric.

We stopped outside Frankie's door, that weird entrance into the flat above
the Bank.

"I'd say come up but..."

"It's okay," I interrupted not sure I could face any kind of rejection. Did
Frankie read my face?

"But I've got to go and collect my little sister from nursery. Mum works in
the bank till half past four. Come in and say 'hello'. She'll like you... I
do," he added with a shy smile.

It was my turn to decline the invitation, but in my case it was fear - fear
that Mrs Morrison would take one look at my face and know instantly that I
was in love/lust with her son.

"Thanks, but I've got to..."

My pause gave Frankie his chance.

"You've got to come and collect my sister with me. Only if you've got
time. Only if you want to."

We strolled down Union Street towards the harbour. We didn't say much. We
didn't need to. At one point we caught each other's eye and burst into
laughter.

Frankie's little sister was as sweet as him, and as daft as my own little
sister. It was difficult to leave them, but I'd be an hour late home at
least, and questions might be asked. Not that my mum didn't trust me; she
just liked to know where her kids were. Good parents do, don't they?

On Wednesday afternoon, after school, after cricket, after tennis, in the
showers Eric sucked my cock.

Put that way it sounds brief, perfunctory, a matter of routine, but it was
anything but that. I made no move towards Eric, though I had to admire the
hose swinging between his legs. But in the showers he put those strong arms
round me, pulled me into him, chest to chest, groin to groin, trembling
knees to trembling knees. Then he dropped to those trembling knees and took
me in his mouth.

I knew this wasn't easy for Eric. I knew what a commitment this was. Eric,
the man-boy of our Year, was on his knees sucking on my erection, sliding
the skin all the way back from the head, running the head against his lips,
his cheeks, then taking me deep again. I couldn't help it. I pumped my hips
against his face, my hands pulling his face into me, I saw him squatting on
those muscled legs, his cricketer's arse muscly and solid.

I tried to warn him.

"Eric, I'm gonna, I gonna," but he only pulls me in tighter - and I'm gone.

I'm spurting and squirting into him. My hips are bouncing uncontrollably. I
feel his lips flatten my pubic hair. I try to draw back, but he won't let
me go. It's over now, sensitive, too sensitive, but still he holds, still
he pulls me in.

"Eric, for fuck's sake. Le'go."

And those big dreamy eyes are gazing up at me. He looks dazed. His lips are
puffy. He is Adonis, he is the young Alexander, the splendid Achilles, and
he is on his knees before me, me, his little lover.

"It's my turn. Let me."

And we are sitting on the warm wet floor of the shower room, face to face,
legs splayed apart so I can sit between his, and his erection is like a
small tree trunk, and I'm holding it with both hands, my fingers and thumbs
meeting round it girth. I want to suck it, but I want to see it more. I
want to see Eric cum; I want to see the semen shooting from this hot column
of flesh; I want to look into his eyes; I want him looking into my eyes, as
he spurts and squirts across my chest, my belly, my already-erect-again
cock.

And that's how it happens. Not ten seconds. But certainly not ten
minutes. And Eric shudders and shakes as I work the shaft. Then leans back
on both hands to watch himself erupt over me. And I go with my instincts. I
catch some up with my middle finger and bring it to my mouth. Lick it, suck
it, take it all in, then lean forward so that Eric can share himself with
me again.

Then we laugh. He hauls me to my feet. And we shower again in the last of
the warm water, the last of the soap suds, the last moments of another
first time.

We wander across the fields to Eric's home. And I have tea with Eric, and
his brother David, and his Dad, who is early home from work. And it's so
unusual for me to be in the company of other boys and men; my own life is
full of women. And David and Dad like me. I'm sparkling. I'm funny but a
little serious at the same time. Exaggeration comes easy to me. I'm not a
liar but I'm a born story-teller.

As I go, Mr Merry ruffles my hair and says, "You're welcome any time, son,
any time," and I go home to face the music, glowing like the rosy sinking
sun.

Life would have been so simple if it'd been Eric and only Eric. But that
night I jerked off to images of Eric, then fell asleep with Frankie's name
on my lips.

Saturday morning and Frankie sent another forehand whistling past me.

Cheeky bugger!

This will not stand.

I pepper his backhand. I assault his backhand. No matter what he hits to
me, I get it back on his backhand, his weaker side, his weak side. Bravely
he stands up to the pressure for all of five minutes, and that's a long
time, but then I force him wide on the backhand and then slice wide to his
forehand.

"Get that, you little fucker," I whisper to myself.

None of this is personal, but nobody belts forehands past me with impunity
- not if they have a weakness I can exploit they don't. I'm clinical,
vicious and relentless, and when my point has been proved, I call him to
the net.

"Hey, you're not bad at all," I grin, "but we've got to do something about
that backhand. Where'd you get it?"

Frankie, still panting a little, confesses he'd inherited it from his
mother who'd taught him for a couple of years. Prepare to be disinherited.

"Right," I said, "for the next half hour, I'm putting every shot into your
backhand. Not away from your backhand, 'on to' your backhand. They'll be
easy to get, but it's pointless to get them unless you get them
right. We'll start with sliced returns, they're the easy ones. In a couple
of weeks we'll get onto topspin returns, they're far more difficult to
learn, but if you haven't got a decent topspin, you're fucked, technically
speaking."

We both laugh and get on with it. Frankie picks things up quickly. I put
myself into a training trance and the kind of rhythm that turns you into a
metronome. Feet in place, racket back early, follow through. Easy - not. At
least not until you've done it a million times and you don't think about it
any more.

You may be wondering, or you may not, how a little shit from the wrong side
of town ended up a decent tennis player. It was the wall what done it. The
factory wall on one of the many factories on the Industrial Estate that ran
just behind the council estate where we lived. I found a wall with a long
white stripe about 3 feet high, got my auntie's wooden racket, and stood
there, sometimes for three hours at a time, banging my one and only tennis
ball back and forwards off the wall. I don't know if there's any such thing
as a 'natural' at a sport, but hitting the ball against the wall seemed to
be just what I should be doing. The fact that it got me out of cricket was
a bonus I never anticipated.

It was Frankie who gave in first.

"Hey, Max, can we have a break? I'm knackered."

I tut.

The word 'knackered' was out of bounds in my family. I'm not sure why, but
it was further beyond the pale than 'fucked' or 'fucking', not that I'd
ever use any 'bad language' in front of mum.

"No breaks," I call. "That's it for this morning. You're okay. You can play
-a bit," I tell Frankie who beams.

"What now then?" he asks.

"Let's get changed and wander down the Blackie. What about a milkshake at
Delanzo's?"

Delanzo's milkshakes are an extension of his Italian icecream, the best in
the world.

In the pavilion we strip off, fold our tennis whites and stick them in our
tennis bags, school bags actually.

Like me, Frankie is naked but for his underwear and tennis socks. I wear
baggy Y-fronts; Frankie wears a tight cotton slip. God, he is slim, not
skinny, just slim, and his chest is fuller and deeper than you might
expect, his shoulders are butterfly wings, his tummy absolutely flat, his
skin ivory pale, his nipples are surprisingly brown, like brown ten pence
pieces. His cotton slip shows the outline of his penis, not erect, surely
not erect, but pushed up vertically against his pubic bone, his balls round
like encased ping pong balls beneath.

I can hear his breathing. I see his damp hair strung across his forehead, I
step forward and with my left hand push the hair from his eyes. I know that
I can reach down with my right hand and run my finger tip the length of his
penis. I know he will harden quickly. He is blushing now but he doesn't
step back. We stand there looking at each other. He reaches out to me and
runs his fingers through the thick dark wavy hair on my head. He waits. I
wait. The world waits breathlessly.

"You're hot," I hear myself say. "The quicker we get those milkshakes the
better... and get your jeans on. Anybody'd think you have a hard-on."

"Well, you do," he smiles back.

I look down and find I have!

Whoops!

"Come on, we both need that milkshake," I laugh.

You've probably noticed by now that I'm a little weird. Don't worry. You
won't offend me if you think that. I realised I'm a little weird a long
time ago.

For example, guess who my hero is? No, it's not a sportsman, nor an
astronaut, nor even a fucking train driver. I've never wanted to be a train
driver. I can't imagine any boy in his right mind wanting to be a train
driver. I wouldn't have minded being William Wallace or even Robert the
Bruce at a push, but they're not really 'heroes' of mine.

No, my hero is none other than Robert Louis Stevenson - R.L. Stevenson,
author of 'Kidnapped' and 'Treasure Island' and other novels that set my
heart racing when I was a kid. "Ahhhhrrr, Jim lad, drop them breeches, and
see how I like 'ee."

It wasn't only R.L.'s novels that set me on fire, it was his life. How he
stood up to his father and refused to become a lawyer or an engineer; he
had decided to become a writer and nothing was going to stand in his way,
not ill health, not poverty, not being disowned, nothing. How he crept
around the dark streets of Edinburgh Old Town having sex with whomever he
pleased. How, half dead with consumption, he crossed America by train to be
with the person he loved even if that person was forbidden to him.  How he
bought a boat and, taking all the people he loved, including his mum, he
sailed the Pacific until he settled on Samoa, fought for its people, wrote
more brilliant novels, and then one day fell down dead - just like
that. The sailor home from the sea, the hunter home from the hill.

That was the life for me.

My favourite R.L.S. wasn't the boys' adventure novels but the long short
story he called Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. The story of a man with a split
personality. No, not that. Really it was two men with completely different
personalities sharing the same body.

That's what I was turning into: a Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde though I don't
think my nasty side was really nasty, but two me's there definitely
were. I'm not talking about the two boys that made up me: the boy who sat
happily at home, head over his Latin homework, construing one daft sentence
after the other; and the boy who knelt in the toilets trying to lick the
juices out of Marshall Cooper's rectum.

No, no. There was nothing exceptional in that. Most boys are two boys: the
boy for home consumption, and the boy out in the streets with his mates.

It's strange but the further I drifted away from Eric, the harder he
pursued me. And not just for the sex. I ended up having tea at the Merrys
regularly after every Wednesday practice, and then on every Saturday
afternoon after I'd sat and watched Eric cracking a cricket ball round
Hamilton Road, taking 'Man of the Match' more often than not.

My Saturday mornings were taken up by my own matches, tennis. Frankie got
into the habit of turning up for these matches. He was completely accepted
by the Under-15s because it was obvious he could be a heck of a player if
he ever got his backhand grooved, and it fell to me to groove his
backhand. After every match, we'd catch the bus to the city centre, to
Frankie's home where his mum fed us burgers and chips and Coke. I always
felt a bit rotten not being able to spend the afternoon with Frankie and/or
his family, but it was tacitly accepted that a First Year couldn't sit and
watch U-15 cricket matches without having a damned good reason. Being with
me couldn't supply that reason. Frankie also had a couple of hours' tennis
practice with me every Tuesday after school.

It wasn't too difficult to juggle these commitments. What was difficult was
to move from the affection and lust I had for Eric to the love, and, yes,
lust, I felt for Frankie.

Wow, this has got awfully serious, and it wasn't like that at all. It was
just so damned busy, and so damned exhausting. I hardly ever tossed myself
off before going to sleep; my head hit the pillow and I was dead to the
world - the dreamless sleep of the damned.

And there was an added complication.

Alan's man-friend wanted to 'meet' me. I wasn't entirely sure what
'meeting' the man would involve, but knowing Alan, it would be scary,
thrillingly scary.

There were very few men in my life. My dad had mysteriously disappeared
before I knew him, and his disappearance was not a question we could broach
with mum. She had her private life; we had ours. Whole areas were
off-limits to both sides. To tell the truth, I was quite scared of men,
terrified, whether it was the postman, milkman, or a policeman come to
report our mischievous behaviour, or even the rentman. I'd vanish into the
bedroom until the intruder disappeared. It took me sometime to get used to
Mr Merry putting his hand on my shoulder or ruffling my hair, though to be
strictly honest there was something sexually arousing about the touch or
scent of a man. But to actually meet a man who saw a boy as sexually
desirable was something different.

I avoided Alan's invitations. I hemmed and hawed, found excuses, invented
excuses, and for the first time in all our years together simply lied to
Alan. It didn't work, of course.  In the end Alan simply tricked me into
the encounter.

Like many of my friends, I was obsessed by snooker. There were three
snooker halls within fifteen minutes' walking distance of the school, and
you could find up to two dozen Bruce boys frequenting these 'dens of
iniquity' during the last period on any day of the week.  Bruce Academy was
very strict about somethings - "don't piss on the toilet seats" - and
remarkably lax about others - Period 6 registration. During Period 6 each
day, we were in tutor groups; half the time the tutor didn't turn up, and
half the time half the boys didn't turn up; the trick was to synchronise
both halves!

I was addicted to snooker, but I didn't have much chance to play because of
my commitments to Frankie, Eric, and to my school work. I wasn't a 'swot'
but I'd always been at the top or near the top in my classes and I wasn't
about to sacrifice that. So when Alan suggested we skip Friday Period 6 and
start the weekend early by playing snooker at his home, I didn't think
twice.

Daniel, or Dan, was already there. I didn't need an introduction. We got
into Alan's house - his mum was at Auntie May's - dumped our stuff in the
lounge (we had a living room; the Aitkens had a lounge) and raced each
other for the bedroom.

The first I saw of Dan was his arse bent over the snooker table. I didn't
recognise him at once, not yet being on speaking terms with his arse, but
as soon as he turned round I knew it was him, Daniel, Dan, the man Alan
claimed he loved and who loved him.

"Max meet Dan. Dan meet Max."

Dan beamed and his smile lit up the room. Alan hadn't lied. The man was
seriously handsome.  Somewhere between 30 and 40. I'm no good at
ages. Tallish and well-builtish. Shaggy brown hair, needing a trim. Strong
eyebrows, a favourite of mine. Brown eyes that smiled. Hell, I know eyes
can't smile, but they can add to a smile. A generous mouth with little
laughter lines. Five o'clock shadow even though it was only 10 to 3. White
socks, light denim jeans and an Arsenal football shirt.

He stretched out his hand to me. Automatically, I raised mine. Bruce
Academy is strict about etiquette. He took my hand. His grip was strong but
not oppressive. His skin was warm and dry. Mine was damp.

"Hi, Max. Nice to meet you at last. Alan's told me lots about you. He
wasn't fibbing."

I tried for nonchalance but it came out as a squeaked "Same to you," though
that didn't make much sense.

"Here," said Dan, "have my cue. You two have a game. I'll just lie back and
watch you.  Just get yourselves warmed up." An alarm bell went off in my
head. What the hell were we warming up for? Dan took a few steps and let
himself fall backwards onto the bed.  "If you need any help," he added,
"just whistle. You know how to whistle don't you. Just put your lips
together, and... blow."

Alan smirked at me. "That's what Dan calls a blow-job." I must have looked
nonplussed because Alan frowned and added, "I'll explain later, dummy." He
kicked off his school shoes and booted them into a corner; I followed
suit. The carpet pile was thick below our feet.

We'd been playing for about 10 minutes and I was just finding rhythm and
concentration when Alan called: "Show me how to play left-handed again,
Dan?"

Dan swung himself from the bed. I admired how fluent his movement was, and
wondered for a moment if he played tennis. He stood behind Alan who leant
on the left side of the snooker table holding the cue awkwardly. Dan
slipped one arm round Alan's waist, the other arm helped steady and sight
the cue. His face was very close to Alan's and I couldn't help feel a
twinge of jealousy. The boy half turned and smiled at the man; the man
returned the smile, leaned forward and kissed the boy gently on the
lips. My treacherous penis twitched into life.

I knew Dan was murmuring in Alan's ear. I couldn't make out what he was
saying. Then I saw his hand move inside my friend's white school shirt and
I knew he was stroking my friend's chest and tummy. I saw Alan's eyes close
in slow delight and guessed Dan was concentrating on his nipples; Alan's
nipples were ultra-sensitive; we had a standing joke you could get anything
from Alan as long as you stroked his nipples. I watched Dan's free hand
slip lower, then heard a familiar click, the click of a school 'snake' belt
snapping open, followed by the long slow sigh of Alan's zip being
lowered. Dan pressed against Alan from behind and I saw the bulge at the
front of his jeans press into the crack of Alan's buttocks.

Surreptitiously, I hoped, I worked my lengthening penis from the horizontal
to the vertical.

I could hardly believe what I was watching.

Dan reached round Alan's front, unsnapped his belt, unzipped him, and
pulled down his trousers and underpants to his ankles. Then he stood back
and did more or less to himself until he could press his lower half into
Alan's lower back, bum and legs. The man had a hairy bum. It was the first
big hairy bum I'd ever seen. He began to press crotch into Alan's naked
arse. I couldn't see my friend's bum but I saw his legs spread and guessed
Dan's hard cock was between them.

"Fuck snooker," I heard Alan whisper.

Alan took small steps backwards, moving Dan backwards with him. He giggled
as man and boy backed towards the bed. The sight was erotic and comical. I
wondered if they remembered I was in the room. I picked up a cue and
pretended to concentrate on the snooker but worked the white to the other
side of the table so that the bed was in my line of sight. I watched man
and boy tumble backwards onto the double bed.

"Hey, Max. Come and join us when you're ready."

That was Dan.

"Fuck the snooker," said Alan. "Come on, Max. This is a lot more fun."

I mumbled something about needing to practise and bent my head over the
table. I could still see what was going on - a wrestling match, boy
giggling, man laughing, as they wrestled each other's clothes off until
both were naked. Alan looked tiny against the bulk of Dan's body.

Dan really was a man. His shoulders were broad, his chest deep, his nipples
intimidatingly big, and he had hair on his chest. Not lots of it, but there
was fine black hair, and just below his belly button a thin line of dark
hair widened into a delta that fanned out below stomach. And balls, big
hairy balls, beneath his erect cock.

I'd never seen balls that hairy. Dan raised his hands and entwined them
behind his head. Hairy armpits!  Seriously hairy armpits. A man's
armpits. I'd noticed a few hairs in Eric's armpits; actually I'd licked
them a few times. I knew there were dark shadows in my own armpits, but
nothing like Dan's. Nothing like the thick forests of hair that hung
glossily down in each armpit.

Alan's looked pale and vulnerable against the strength of the man. He
looked much younger than his 13 years. He reminded me of when we were 8 or
9 in junior school.  He lay there, stretching along Dan's body, chest to
chest, so that he could reach up and exchange kisses and nibbles. I watched
as he chewed at Dan's lips, actually chewed on them, then slid his face
down to the man's chest. I saw his pink lips close round the brown nub of
Dan's right nipple and chew on it. He lay stretched out along Dan's body
sucking on the man's nipple like an infant at its mum's tit.

Dan caught my eye again, and he held me. He smiled and patted the side of
the bed. I laid the cue against the table and moved to the bed. I sat
down. I don't think Alan knew I was there. I could hear the sounds he was
making, wet, smacking, gurgly sounds. My eyes moved to Dan's hands and my
friend's buttocks. Using his big hands, Dan gently prised Alan's buttocks
apart, then just as gently pressed them together again. He continued doing
this - apart, closed, apart, closed, apart, closed... As he opened the
boy's cheeks, his middle fingers slid closer and closer to the little pinky
brown button at the centre until the tips of his fingers met right over the
hole. It was very warm in the bedroom. The skin of Alan's buttocks was damp
with sweat; his little hole looked greasy.

I watched as Dan held the boy's buttocks open and let his right middle
finger tip move backwards and forwards over Alan's hole. I heard Alan sigh
and watched his arse push up towards the invader. With a shock I realised
this wasn't the first time for Alan, that he and Dan had done this lots of
times. I'd resisted Alan's assaults on my own most intimate place because
all the old taboos were still in place. Now I was fascinated by my friend's
little brown pucker, the little pink rose at the centre of his being. This
spot was as much a part of him as any other part, and as such it deserved
to be loved just as much as any other part. The frown on my face was one of
concentration, not one of disapproval.

Alan's little ring of muscle, the sphincter, seemed to surrender all at
once, much as I surrendered my own prejiduce. Dan's finger slid in to the
first knuckle. Gently he began finger-fucking my best friend. I'd seen my
brother's mate Oscar finger-fucking Maria O'Doherty. I knew what Dan was
doing. Surely he wasn't going to play stinky finger with Alan. Looking up,
I realised Dan was gazing at me. I blushed furiously.  He smiled in
response, looked down at his handwork, looked up at me again, and nodded. I
knew it was an invitation. Well, fuck it, Alan was my friend,
too. Tentatively, I reached a hand and felt Alan's arse; it was smooth,
satiny, warm, and rounded, almost like Maria O'Doherty's breasts.

My fingers were drawn inwards, but I snatched them away when they came into
contact with Dan's hands. He said nothing, only smiled. Slowly I returned
my hand and fingers until they lay the length of Dan's, my middle finger
resting on his, the tip touching Alan's backdoor. Dan pulled his finger
upwards. I winced but Alan only grunted. I saw the little space that had
been created for me. Everything seemed dreamy, out of kilter, unreal.  I
slid my finger forwards and watched the tip slide into my friend's arse;
bolder I pushed forward and was surprised when my finger, much slimmer, of
course, than Dan's slid all the way in. It was an incredible sight: Dan's
big man-finger and my slim boy-finger sliding in and out together of Alan
Aitken's anus.

I shifted a little on the bed, trying to get more comfortable. Dan looked
at my crotch and smiled, and nodded. I took this for approval. I unzipped
and hauled my aching cock into the open; it was stiff and hard, the
foreskin already retracted, the head already slimy with pre-cum. Dan
whistled; I took that as approval, too. I played with myself for a bit but
couldn't resist beginning a steady wanking rhythm. It was stunningly
erotic: Alan's pale, slim, boy's body, his buttocks high and curved,
stretched along Dan's much stronger, darker man's body. Dan's middle
finger, my middle finger aligned together stroking in and out of Alan's
anus, the sphincter gripping tightly like a little hungry mouth. My
trousers and underpants at my knees, my erection gripped by the fingers and
thumb of my right hand, throbbing over my best friend's bare bottom.

It was too much. I tried to hold back, believe me, I tried. Then it
happened. The squirts, the spurts, the semen spitting onto Alan's
backside. I didn't tried to avoid it; in fact, I pulled my shaft down and
directed the semen onto Alan's hole, onto my fingers, onto Dan's
fingers. Four, five, six spurts splattered into the valley between my
friend's buttocks.

I was mortified, ashamed. My desire and my cock collapsed almost
immediately. One moment I was on fire with lust, the next all I wanted to
do was get out of that room. The smell of sex was over-powering. I pulled
up my underpants, scrambled from the bed, pulled up my trousers, zipped
myself up, and couldn't find my shoes.  Where the fuck had I kicked them?

"They're under the bed."

Who the fuck was that?

"Max. Your shoes are under the bed."

It was Dan. I didn't look at him. I dropped to my knees and peered under
the bed. Yes, they were there! I grabbed them at hauled one on. It didn't
fit. Shit, it must be Alan's.  No. Alan's were over there. I realised I was
cramming my right foot into my left shoe.  Fuck it. I got my right shoe on
my right foot, my left shoe on my left foot. I headed for the door.

I couldn't resist turn for a last look.

Alan was under Dan. The man was straddled across the boy's chest as they
lay on the bed. He looked huge compared to that tiny body. He was holding
his stiff cock with one hand. The fingers of the other hand were opening
Alan's mouth. The man was jacking off into the boy's mouth. Alan's eyes
fluttered open. They looked glaze. His eyes caught mine. He smiled weakly.

"Don't go," he whispered. "Dan's not going to hurt me. He does this lots of
times. Then he's gonna let me fuck me. He says he'll let you fuck him
too. We can fuck him at the same time. Think of that. Don't go."

Dan turned his head to me. "You don't have to go. Stay with us, baby."

This baby went.

I never saw Dan again. At least I never saw him in flagrante delicto (I'm
actually pretty good at Latin.) I did have a hamburger or a pizza with Dan
and Alan a few times, and he was always good fun to be with, and he never
mentioned that time in Alan's bedroom.  It turned out Dan was a solicitor,
Alan's dad's business and family solicitor. That's how Alan met Dan. Alan
told me they liked each other instantly. Alan explained how he had come on
to Dan, not the other way round. How Dan had resisted his charms for ages
but then had finally given in after Alan had persuaded him to come round
"for a bit of snooker".  I knew how persuasive Alan could be.

They are still together. In fact, Alan says he's going to study Law at
university though he wants to be a barrister rather than a solicitor. Alan
will make it; he's a determined little bugger; whatever Alan wants, Alan
usually gets. Alan wanted Dan, and he got him - little bugger.

***

As for me, I had Eric and Frankie, and my summer exams, and that was more
than enough to be getting on with.

Summer was a cummin' in and we were all going cuckoo. We sat the
examinations with the temperatures in the mid-80s. I felt I'd done well in
the circumstances and, since the results wouldn't be known till late
August, flung myself into a whirlpool of sport and romance. So buoyed up
was I that I turned out for House cricket side and - wait for it - ran out
Eric Merry!

Fielding in the deep, and taking advantage of the only shade, a battered
old elm tree, for miles around, my mind was on lower things when the
inevitable red rocket came bombing out of the sky towards me. Eric had hit
a belter, a certain six, and all I had to do was get out of its way. I
panicked, flung up my hands to protect my face, and felt the vicious little
leather bastard thwack into the palms of my hands. In a boys' own story,
I'd have held on for a magnificent catch but real life is rarely so
generous. The ball plopped at my feet. I picked it up. I looked to the
cricket square and saw Eric ambling home for an easy four. Sighing, I
picked up the ball and flung it back towards the end he was strolling
towards. I'd forgotten about the tennis. I'd forgotten hours and hours of
tennis day after day, week after week, month after month had strengthen my
right arm abnormally.  The ball curved against the blue in a low parabola,
the standard y2 = 4ax, where 2a is the distance between focus and directrix
(okay, I'm showing off).

The ball soared towards the wicket. Then dropped plumb onto the bails. Eric
stopped dead, a good three feet outside his crease, dropped his bat, pulled
off his gloves, and saluted me - with his middle finger. Both sides fell
about laughing.  Eric saw the funny side and joined them. I stood there in
the deep blushing aplogetically and wishing the ground would swallow me up.

The match was on Friday. Mercifully there were no more inter-school
matches, so we had Saturday afternoon free.

"Why the hell can't we leave on Saturday morning? That'll give us the whole
day. Why wait till Saturday lunchtime?"

Eric wasn't best pleased, and I couldn't expain to him that Saturday
mornings were sacrosanct.  That Saturday morning was free but I'd promised
it to Frankie. It was the last Saturday before the last week of school and
I wasn't sure how much I'd see of Frankie during the summer.  I knew
Frankie and his family spent most of the summer in Montrose, only 10 miles
away, but for me it might as well have been on another planet. Much as I
loved Eric, and I did, oh how I did, I couldn't give up my last Saturday
with Frankie.

"Okay then, but we're leaving early. One o'clock, sharp. It'll take us
about an hour and half to bike out to Inverbervie. You bring the
sandwiches; I'll bring the drinks.  And be ready, Max!" Eric turned to go,
turned again, and grinned: "Great run out, you lucky wee shit," slung his
cricket back over his broud shoulders and strode off home.

I watched him go - what an arse! - then turned back to the tennis courts. I
could get in half an hour's serving practice before bundling off to Alan's
for tea. For a moment I wondered whether Dan might be there; I wasn't sure
whether the prospect appealed or appalled.

Saturday 10 minutes to 1, and there I stood in T-shirt and tight shorts,
waiting for Eric, horribly self-conscious. I'd borrowed Iain's bike, a
fucking racer. I hated bicycles at the best of times - terra firma for me,
please - and there I was propping a 20-speed racer against a pair of tight
silver Lycra shorts. I had the feeling everyone in the Square was hiding
behind their curtains, peeping at me, giggling at my humiliation. Shit,
what if a boy got a hard-on in these things! My cock stirred at the
thought, and I switched my focus to the sandwiches I'd made. Peanut butter
sandwiches, my favourite. Smooth peanut butter, not that crunchy stuff that
sticks to your teeth and makes you feel you've got to brush them again and
again.

Eric raced round the corner, tilting his bike so far over, that I thought,
hoped, he'd fall flat on that gorgeous arse of his. He braked within inches
of my legs, throwing dust all over my freshly-washed cotton tennis
socks. Prat! But I loved him even more for those little human
weaknesses. Who was Eric trying to impress if not me?

What the fuck was that noise? It was coming from the carry-bag fixed to the
back of Eric's bike. What was that? Something about being a naughty boy and
letting your knickers down. Got it. It was the Beatles. Googoo-goo-choo, or
something like that. Must be one of those transistor radios. Fuckin'
expensive.

"Hi, sweetheart. Come on, let's get going."

Sweetheart!

Eric Merry had just called me 'sweetheart'! Then I remembered. That's what
Mr Merry called his boys, and now I was 'sweetheart' to Eric.

Off we peddled into the bright hot sunshine. We turned into the industrial
state, deserted on a Saturday afternoon, and took the dual carriageway that
led deep into the heart of the country. I was relieved that Eric took the
official cycle track that ran just above the roadway proper. No cyclist
I. And I wanted to concentrate on Eric's arse, those powerful thighs, and
his curving back rather than be totally focussed on carwheels that whizzed
by only inches from my unprotected legs.

Have you ever had a perfect day? I've had a few perfect days, but few more
perfect than that last Saturday of the school year. In the morning Frankie
had been great fun, worked his ass off, and finally managed a dependable
backhand, switching from low slice to kicking topspin just as I wanted
it. If he worked at the same level during the next six months, he'd be a
helluva player, and a helluva tennis partner. Okay, that's a little selfish
I know, but the idea of spending time at my favourite sport with my
favourite person... guilt flushed through me as I watched Eric peddling
stoically on.

Why couldn't I just love both of them equally? Maybe I did, but there was
no way to test that. Maybe 'love' was a word in neither of their
vocabularies. I sighed, bent my head, and peddled hard to keep up with
Eric.

Eric was right. Inverbervie was worth it. High grasses, burned golden by
the unnatural summer sun, swished down to a river that still gurgled
merrily with the freezing waters from the Grampians in the distance. Apart
from the throaty bubbling river noises, all was still, even the birds
stunned by the afternoon heat. It felt like Eric and I were the only ones
left outdoors in Scotland; everyone else had fled to the shade of bars,
pubs, restaurants and hotels.

Our t-shirts hung on a bush. Shoes and socks were tucked in its shade. Eric
lay flat on his back, not in the tickly grass, but on the tartan blanket
he'd brought. I sat above him, drawing a blade of grass down his chest,
sweeping it across his nipples, down over his muscly stomach, into his
belly button, and then down across the crease marks the elastic had made
across his waist.

"That tickles."

"I know. It's meant to."

"Do something."

"Do what?"

"Kiss me."

Kiss him! First it was 'sweetheart', and now Eric Merry, heart-throb
supreme, was asking me to kiss him. Straight out. No beating about the
bush. Kiss him.

"Kiss you where?"

I looked down at Eric's face. He was puckering up! Either that or he was
going to spit at me. I leant down and put my lips cautiously against
his. He grabbed the back of my head and pulled my lips tight against
his. Yahoo! Within seconds we were crashing mouths, mashing lips, bruising
skin. His tongue pushed against my lips. I surrendered and opened to
him. My tongue was deep in his mouth. I tasted his saliva. Then his tongue
was deep in my mouth, mixing his saliva with mine. I couldn't breathe. Who
the fuck needs breath anyway? I felt my skin wet and hot against his; I
felt our chests slide against themselves; I heard the popping of sweat
bubbles. Then I was seriously short of breath. I pushed myself up on my
arms. Eric dragged me back. I pushed away again. I looked down at Eric
again.  His eyes were closed. Beads of sweat hung from those thick
eyelashes.

"Kiss me."

"Where?"

"Anywhere. Everywhere."

My eyes gulped in his powerful shoulders, that sculpted chest with its twin
raised raisins, the flatness of his tummy, the little innie button, the
narrow waist, the wide hips, the creasy crinkles where the elastic had
been. I leaned across Eric and ran my lips across his chest. My tongue
lapped at his nipples. I wasn't sure what he wanted but I knew what I
wanted: to lick him, lap at him, chew him, drink him, swallow him, make him
mine, and keep him forever - keep this moment, this hour, this day forever.

The transistor tinkled in the background. I recognised the song: Hey, Jude.

I made love to Eric Merry's body. There's no other way I can put it. I
worshipped his body with my tongue, my lips, my eyes, my skin, my hands, my
fingers... anything that could touch him I used to worship him. I reached
his shorts. He raised his bum from the blanket. I eased down his shorts and
his white cotton slip at the same time. His huge cock sprang into the
Scottish sunshine. Na-na-na-na-na-na... Hey, Eric! I pressed its length,
its girth against my face. Hot, sweaty, sticky - pure male incarnate.  I
circled my thumb and fingers to draw back the foreskin, revealing the thick
purple head that asked to be kissed. I kissed it, then ran my lips the full
ten inches of his shaft.

Ten inches.

It really was.

I wonder if I'll ever see a cock like that again. I don't think I'll ever
seen one like that on a 13-year-old boy again. I suppose on some boys it
might look freakish; on Eric it looked perfect. The perfect cock for the
perfect day, and they were both mine.  I felt the shaft pulsate in my
mouth. I wondered if Eric was going to shoot his load.  Was this another
ten-second wonder? No matter. We'd solved that problem by letting Eric cum
whenever he was ready; then we'd go on for the second load, and the third
when he was particularly horny. As far as Eric was concerned, I thought I
had everything under control, there were no surprises left.

I was wrong.

"Just a minute. I want to get comfortable."

I released Eric from the back of my throat and from my mouth. He surprised
me by flipping onto his front. "I want to lie here and listen to the
river," he said. "You do what you want," he added.

Taken by surprise, I blurted out, "And what am I meant to be doing?"

Eric looked back over his shoulder. He was smiling, but his smile was
almost solemn.

"You said you want to kiss me all over. Do whatever you want... and take
those shorts off. You must be boiling in them.  And they look fuckin'
silly." He lay back down, his head resting on his entwined fingers.

Self-consciously, I struggled out of my Lycras, and sat there, listening to
the river, wondering what I was meant to be doing. Then I looked down. My
eyes ran the length of Eric's body, and I knew.

I sat naked, cross-legged and leant down over Eric's naked length. I
pressed my lips to the back of his neck. Shit, this was sexier than kissing
his front. I reached for a thermos of raspberry pop and drizzled some down
the back of his neck and between his shoulder blades. I kissed and licked
the sweet liquid away.

"Mmmmmmmm..."

That might have been me, but it was Eric.

I let the cool liquid run down his shoulder blades to gather in the hollow
of his lower back. I applied my lips again. I kept my hands away. Hot skin
to hot skin was not needed on a day like this. Eric turned his face to the
side. I poured some of the sweetness against his lips. I returned to his
back and observed the way it fitted into the rounded curve of his
buttocks. Those muscled buttocks with their big dimples on either side. Oh,
things of beauty are a boy's buttocks forever. I wondered... "whatever I
want".

Oh well, all he could do was kill me.

With my left hand I eased his left buttock away from its twin. Dare I? Dare
I? Dare I?  I dared. The dribble of raspberry pop ran into the cleft of his
bum and collected at its sweet little centre. I wasn't afraid to admit it
to myself. Boys' bottoms are beautiful. Boys' bottoms hypnotised me,
mesmerised, enchanted and entranced me.

"I can't let the raspberry juice stay there," I rationalised to
myself. It'll just get sticky and uncomfortable. I lowered my face into
Eric's buttocks, into the abyss between.  I cast aside the thermos
flask. This was a two-handed job. It was also terrifying.  What if this was
too much for Eric? What if he found it, found me disgusting and dirty? What
if he sprang up, hit me, and cycled off home without me? He'd have to put
some clothes on. That would give me time. Time for what? Time to beg for
forgiveness. Time to promise him that I'd never never try anything like
this again.

Like this.

The tip of my tongue touched his ring.

Like this.

The tip of my tongue pushed and probed his little back door.

The tip of my tongue rubbed Eric's magic lamp. Open, open, sesame. Says me!
I wasn't sure what I'd do once I got into the cave of wonders, but I'd
figure out what to do once I got there.

"Is that all you're going to do?"

That was Eric's voice. Impatient. Urgent. "All...all..." Was that all I was
going to do?

"You won't hurt me, you know." Then added mysteriously: "Your dick's long
but a wicket is much longer."

What the fuck did he mean? Surely not. Oh, surely he didn't mean that. I
remembered Dan and Alan. "He's not going to hurt me. And I like it."

Despite the heat, I was trembling. I looked down at myself. My erection was
hot and hard. I waddled on my knees between Eric's legs. I moved them
apart. I wasn't sure what to do next. Or even if that's what I was meant to
be doing. Eric's hands came round behind him; he grasped his buttocks and
pulled them apart. There could be no misunderstanding now.

I pressed the tip of my finger against his sphincter. Hot, moist, giving. I
ran the tip of my finger backwards and forwards, increasing the
pressure. Nothing would give until it did. My finger was outside, and then
it was in, straight to the second knuckle.  I finger-fucked Eric. I hate
that expression, finger-fucking, but only in relation to Eric. It was so
much more than that. I heard him grunt. Was that intended as encouragement?
I added a second finger. It took another five minutes before it slipped
inside.  I continued the sawing motion, staring intently as the little
brown eye opened wider. Then I tried for it.

Pressing the head of my cock against where I imagined Eric's rectum to be,
I leaned forward, resting my weight on out-stretched arms. No luck. I was
nowhere near it. I tried a third finger, and now Eric's grunts were closer
to a steady moan. Tried my cock again. It stayed rock hard but I just
couldn't get that initial entry. Come on, Max, think, think.  You're a
Bruce boy, trying to fuck another Bruce boy, by the banks of the Tay at
Inverbervie.  You're top of the class, so think, think.

Peanut butter!

No, that was ridiculous, outrageous, out of the question. But what the
hell. I loved the feeling of my lips pressed against Eric's anus; I loved
peanut butter; it was the perfect solution. And thank God, I used the
smooth creamy kind. Thank goodness, I'd kept the peanut butter in its jar,
intending to do the sandwiches at the last minute. Twisting like some
circus contortionist, I managed to extract the jar from the carry-bag,
twist the lid off, get out a great gob on my middle finger, and apply it to
Eric's hole. If Eric knew what I was doing, he didn't let on. I tasted the
peanut butter; it now had a sourish taste but was far from inedible. In
fact, it was finger-licking good, so I licked it from my middle finger,
then shoved another gob up Eric's bum.

Then the delicate part. I looked around. No wasps - yet, but be quick. A
huge gob in my right hand, grip my seven inches and run the butter up and
down its length. The butter was already running in the heat. I leaned over
Eric and whispered in his ear, "Help me."

"I'll hold myself open as wide as I can," he whispered.

Ah, teamwork, nothing like it!

Eric held his buttocks wide apart. The creamy butter was frothing at his
hole a a bit.  I felt the head of my hard penis touch his hot spot; he held
me in place as I leaned forward on my hands.

How could it be so easy now when it'd been so difficult only a few minutes
ago. I felt Eric open up to me. I felt myself slide in. He was hot and
tight, and I felt the friction against my shaft, but it wasn't difficult. I
was in, all the way in, I felt my pubic bone against his buttocks and knew
I was all the way in. Eric returned his hands to rest his head. I knew what
to do. No lessons were needed. In one way or another, men had been doing
this ever since they discovered the pleasures their bodies could give them.

I raised myself on my hands, extracted my cock to its head, and then
lowered myself to slide deep into Eric's arse. I could see us both as if I
were having a near-death experience.  I saw two boys, on a tartan blanket
by the river, making love. The smaller boy driving his penis again and
again into the bigger boy below. I wanted this to last forever.  I could
feel, or imagined I felt, the walls of Eric's rectum take and hold my
shaft, reluctant ever to release it. And as soon as the shaft was released,
all it sought was the joy of that dark, warm, moist place again. But Nature
has its own imperatives, and my hips began to speed up almost against my
will.

I found myself driving harder and deeper into Eric, the long thrusting
became short little stabbing thrusts. I could hear my grunts and Eric's
groans above the babble of the river, above the tinkle of whatever was
playing on the radio. What was that song that mum wouldn't let us hear
every time it came on the radio: Moi, je t'aime non plus. I was slamming
into Eric now; I could hear my flesh slap hard against his. I wanted to
slow down, make it last, but my body said "Fuck it! We're going for it." If
I were a dog, I would have howled.

Something exploded in me and out of me. I felt my body disintegrating into
a million fragments. I felt as if I were shooting stars. For the first time
in my life, I felt the sperm leave my balls, race the length of my urethra,
and squirt into whatever awaited it in that dark cavern. I felt as if every
pore in my body were open, every hair standing on end, my nakedness exposed
for the Universe to see - and applaud.

Of course, there were no words at the time. Nor even thoughts. Nor
emotions.  Only feeling. Naked, exposed feeling.

I'd lost any sense of time. I was lying along Eric's back, my penis still
inside him.

"Hey, hey, Max."

"What? Where?"

"Hey, Max. Let's clean up in the river."

"What? In the river? Okay."

"Take your prick out first."

"Pardon?"

"Your prick. It's up my arse. Take it out, please."

Gently, slowly I raised my own arse up, felt my incredibly sensitive penis,
still half hard withdraw, heard a kind of plop, and smelled for the first
time the totally overwhelming smells of all-the-way sex. I rolled onto my
side on the blanket. I felt arms go around me. Felt Eric's lips against my
own. Opened my eyes. His eyes were an inch away. They were smiling. I told
you eyes can smile.

"Come on. Let's lie in the river."

We lay in the river. The water was freezing. We lay side by side. The water
was wonderful.

"Eric, can I ask you something?"

"'Course you can."

"Today, when we came here, before we came here, I mean, did you know, did
you know we were going to... you know..?"

"Make love?"

I was grateful for that.

"Yes, make love."

"No. At least I wasn't sure. I knew I wanted it, but I wasn't sure if you
did. I was hoping for today, but, no, I wasn't sure."

A thought struck me.

"Eric... Eric, do you want me to do that for you?"

Eric was silent for a moment. Then he laughed. "Me up you? What do you
think?"

I looked down Eric's body. Even in the freezing water his cock looked like
a young python.

"Well, maybe not. Not yet anyway."

"I wonder," said Eric, "I wonder if girlfriends will like it, be able to
take it, I mean.  I guess they will. They're built for it, down front, I
mean."

Eric must have seen the look in my eyes.

"Hey, Max, I'm not a homo. I'm gonna have girlfriends. I'm gonna fuck
them. Then I'm gonna have a wife, and I'm gonna fuck her, and I'm gonna
have kids, maybe a dozen of them."

"But... but..." I wasn't sure how to put it. I was always the one with the
words, but I just couldn't frame what I wanted to say.

"But what am I doing here with you, doing this, you mean?"

"Yes. I don't understand."

Eric rolled over on top of me in the clear running water. He looked into my
eyes.  "Because it's you, you silly fucker, only because it's you. Remember
you seduced me - and sure took your fucking time doing it."

I felt his cock harden and lengthen against my belly, and I understood.

Because it was me, only because it was me.

That perfect day drifted into the perfect weekend, the perfect week and the
perfect end to the school year.

On Sunday afternoon Alan and I sat in the Aitken's private gardens,
slurping noisily at giant knickerbocker glories, quaffing ice cold orange
juice - Alan could squirt the stuff through the tiny gap between his two
front teeth - and burping at each other as rudely we can could. Alan's mum
and dad had wisely commandeered the shady side of the garden.

"Well?"

"Well what?"

"What do you think of Dan?"

"Oh, Dan's all right, I guess."

"'All right?' Just fuckin' 'All right', you guess. You dumb piece of shit."
Alan and I had an extensive range of endearments for each other. "Daniel
Marlow is more than 'all right'. Daniel Marlow is gorgeous, and
intelligent, and successful, and... fuckin' great at sex."

"I'm not arguing," I replied. "I said he was 'all right', didn't I?"

"Yeh, you did. But you said Dan's all right... but."

"I didn't say 'but'."

"You fuckin' well did." Alan scooped out a load of vanilla icecream and
aimed his spoon at me. "Admit it. You fuckin' said 'but'."

"I didn't actually use the word 'but'."

"I know you didn't, smart arse, but it was there. I heard it. You don't
have to say it for me to hear it. So come on. But what?" Icecream was
running down the spoon, down Alan's wrist. Expertly he caught it with a
flick of his tongue. I was reminded of a chamelon we'd seen on a nature
programme at school. One flick and the dragonfly was gone.

"Well... look... Dan's a nice guy, and he's good-looking, and he's your
Dad's solicitor, so he must be bright. But, damn it, Alan, he's a
man... and you're a boy. Isn't that a bit..."  I hesitated to say the
word. "... isn't that a bit pervy?" There it was out.

"Yeh, it would be 'pervy'..." Alan tinged the word with a smile. "...if it
wasn't me that wanted him first. If there's a perv at this table, it's
me. Oh, yeh, and you. As a matter of fact," he drawled, "it was your finger
up my bum, not just Dan's, yours, too. How's that for pervaciousness?"

I blushed furiously.

"Are you boys all right?" called Alan's mum across the garden. "Not too hot
for you, is it?"

"Yes, mum, we're just fine, thanks," Alan called back.

"You don't care if Dan's older then?" I asked.

"No, I don't. In fact, that's one of the reasons I like him. And we don't
fuck like bunny rabbits all the time. A lot of the time, yes, but not all
the time. Did you know that Dan is teaching me how to drive?"

"A car?"

"No, a scooter, you fuckin' idiot. Of course a car."

"I didn't know that."

"No, you wouldn't. Not since you get engaged to Eric The Wonderboy
Merry. By the way, have you fucked him yet?" I said nothing. "Well, good
for you," Alan laughed. "That tight-ass has needed something up his bum for
a long time. Imagine it being my little Max." Alan said that with exactly
the same intonation his mum used. "And what about that kid in First Year?
Don't think I haven't noticed? You must be shagging both of them. You're
too shagged to help me out at school these days."

All this was said with a friendly conspiratorial grin. Alan and I could
never be lovers, but we'd always be friends.

"Anyway, I do a lot more with Dan than you'd guess. I go fishing with him
and dad every Saturday afternoon. You wouldn't know because you're never
around. And he's taken me to the Law Courts three times. It's great, Max,
really great. You should come along with us sometime, you really should."

"Yes, but..."

"Come on, spit it out."

"Well, do you think a man should be going out with a boy?"

Max laughed but it wasn't unkind.

"Going out? Going out? I hardly think we're 'going out'. Dan likes my
company; I like his.  I can talk to him like I can't talk to anybody else
-except maybe you. But we know it's not gonna last. At least I do. Listen,
Dumbo. I'm 13, nearly 14. I like my life. I admit I'm dead lucky but that's
the way the cookie crumbles. I don't know if I'm a homo, or anything like
that, but if I am, so what?" He laughed. "Mum'll still love me anyway."  He
squirted some juice between his teeth.

"I met Dan. And I fancied him, and I put the moves on him, and he... loves
it. And we're not hurting anybody. In fact, I think I've learned more about
life, spending time with Dan, than I ever knew before. And, tell you
something, Max, I'm gonna enjoy it while I've got it. I like the way he
looks at me.  I like the way he speaks to me. He pays attention to me, real
attention, not like Dad, as if I was some afterthought, but real
attention. You know something? I think we'd be just as happy together if
there wasn't any sex, but there is, and I like it that way."

I hadn't heard Alan make a speech like that. In fact, I'd never heard him
make a speech at all. He was serious, deadly serious. Them were his secret
thoughts, and he'd shared them with me. Those two little boys in their
pinafores in the nursery were growing up fast.

"And what about you?" he asked.

"What about me?!"

"Is it Eric Merry or that kid in the First Year?"

"Frankie."

"Frankie?"

"Frankie Morrison. That's his name. The First Year." My look warned Alan
not to take the piss.

"Well, is it Eric or Frankie?"

I spooned some choc ice into my gob.

"I don't know. I just don't know."

"You poor fucker," he commiserated. Then added brightly, "Why not have both
of them - together?"

"That wouldn't work," I sighed.

"Why not?" came the reply. "It nearly worked for me."

"What do you mean?"

"You and Dan. I nearly had you and Dan at the same time. That was my idea,
you know, not Dan's, strictly mine."

It was my turn to load the spoon and take aim.

"Hey?" I asked. "Have you ever had a knickerbocker glory up your arse?"

"No," laughed Alan, "but I bet you have. Between us, you're the Bum Boy."

The ice cream caught him right between the eyes, and I nearly made it to
the pool before he caught up with me, rugby-tackled, and sent us both
splashing into the sparkling blue.

***

"Montrose? With the Morrisons? For a fortnight?"

My mother's arms were folded across her chest. This meant she'd take some
convincing.  But at least she'd met Frankie three times and liked him;
she'd met Mrs Morrison in the supermarket, and they'd liked each
other. They'd ended up in the coffee shop nattering like old hens while
Frankie and I inspected the sports gear.

"Well, it's only Montrose. That's not far away. But they're not taking you
for nothing.  Mrs Morrison works in the bank and she's got her husband's
pension..." Mum knew more about the Morrisons than I did! "...but they're
like us. They aren't made of money.  "But she's getting the house for free
and..."

"You know! You know all about it!" I managed to blurt his out even though
my mouth hung open. It isn't easy to do, try it.

"Of course, I do. You don't think I'd let a son of mine go off with
strangers. We settled things a couple of weeks ago. I was only waiting for
you to ask, or not to ask, in case you had other plans. You don't have
other plans, do you?"

My face flushed, but one of the reasons I adored my mother was because she
allowed us our secrets, the secret lives of teenage boys. That's not to say
we had carte blanche to do what we liked - far from it. But she trusted us,
and that trust extended to letting us have parts of our lives that were
strictly our business.

"One thing..." Ah, that note of caution. "Frankie's a bit younger than
you."

"Yeh, but he's taller than me. Nearly an inch."

"That's not what I meant. What I mean is - take care of him."

"I will, mum, I will." I grabbed her and whirled her round our small living
room. We fell backwards onto the settee laughing. Of all the sounds in the
world there are none more beautiful than the sound of a boy and his mother
laughing.

And in Montrose there was lots of laughter, not only between Frankie and
his mother, but amongst the four of us.

Mrs Morrison often took Marie shopping or to the beach leaving Frankie and
me to find our own amusements - another intelligent mother - though I'm not
sure how she would have reacted to find Frankie and I naked on the double
bed, arms and legs entwined, hard-ons pressed against each other's bellies,
and tongues slobbering saliva into each other's mouths...

Frankie naked on the bed. Those long legs hitched up behind his ears.My
body stretched out along his. This is first time. I want to get it
right. I've been working on his bumhole with my fingers, my lips, my mouth
my tongue for half an hour. He is so tight I think about giving up. but
every time I draw back I hear him whisper: "No, no, I want it." And now the
tip of my cock is hard against his little starfish and I'm pushing
forward. I hear the boy grunt. I pish harder. Harder. Until I'm surprised
to find the head of my cock is inside his anus.

I let him get used to feeeling for a while. I lean forward. His eyes
flutter open. He smiles. I lean down and kiss him on the lips. He opens his
mouth to let me tongue enter. My tongue is in his mouth, my cock is in his
anus. I press forward again and this time there's a moan of pain. I lean
harder into him and the shaft of my cock sinks deeper inside him - three,
four inches. It feels like there is an elastic around the shaft. We are
both breathing heavily.

"More, more..."

I raise my hips and then, with a single thrust, drive all the way into
him. His legs tighten round my hips, his hands clutch at my
shoulders. "Fuck fuck, fuck," he whispers. I start pumping him, pulling my
cock almost out and then driving home. I have this image. The velvet flesh
of his rectum surrounds my hard penis, the softer head brush the walls. I
am through both his sphincters. I have become part of him. I start to suck
his neck and then remember I mustn't leave a hickey - at least not on his
neck.

I'm happy feel Frankie raising his arse from the bed to drive me deeper
into him. He is muttering and moaning into me but I can't make out much of
it. He begins to jerk up from the bed in time with my jerking. I can feel
it begin: that deep down shuddering that signals the start of the process
that can't be stopped. I'm going to shoot the most intimate part of me into
the most intimate part of him. His hands have dropped to my bum. He is
pulling me cheeks apart, then squashing them together. Again and again. I
feel my body is being played.

And then I cum.

I wouldn't have believed it happens but it does. Behind my eyelids I see a
rainbow of colours. The colours flash in time with the spurts from my
body. My cum is hitting the walls of his rectum; his red flesh spatter with
my cream. And round my back, I feel Frankie's legs locked tightly, his
heels drumming into my lower back. And underneath me on my belly there are
spatters of warm. Frankie is cumming! Cumming with me!

Later, but don't ask me how much later, Frankie whispers in my ear: "What
took you so long?" whispered Frankie.

"What do you mean?"

"I knew you fancied me for ages but it looked like you were never going to
get round to doing anything." He laughed. "In the end I had to stand nearly
naked in the changing room waiting for you to do something. Why didn't
you?"

"I was scared, I guess."

"Scared?  Of what?"

"Scared that I'd freak you out, scared I'd chase you away, scared you'd
think I was a perv or something like that. Frankie laughed again, then
wiggled his tongue inside my ear. "Cut that out," I laughed. "It tickles."
I paused. "It's gross." More laughter. "There's nothing you about that's
gross," he murmured. "I want to put my tongue inside every bit of you -
like you do to me."

I blushed.

"Sorry 'bout that. I don't know why I love doing it so much. I try to stop
myself... but I can't stop."

"Don't stop. I like it. I love it. And I want to do it to you again... and
I want to do it to you."

"Mmmmm.....?"

"I've got this kind of fantasy."

"Tell me," I whisper.

"I want to push my tongue right up your bumhole, deep as I can go. I want
to pull your hole wider and wider, so I can push my face inside you, right
inside you. Then I'd wiggle until my whole head was inside. I'd have a look
around. I bet it's warm and snug in there. Then I'd wiggle and wriggle till
I got my whole body inside you. I'd fit my head into yours, my shoulders
into yours, chest, hips, dick, balls. Arms, legs, feet until I was
completely inside you... until we were two people but the same person. It's
nuts, I know."

I pulled Frankie into me.

"No, it's not. That's exactly what I'd like to do to you."

"May I please? May I?"

The kiss on his lips was my answer.

Frankie wriggles down my body, kissing every inch as he goes. I raise my
legs over my head. Get as comfortable as I can. Feel his fingers pry me
open. Feel his hot wet tongue laving my most private place. And surrender
myself, not to fantasy, but to the dream that has become a reality. Maybe
I'm so different after all.

***

This afternoon I was playing guitar and singing Frankie's favourite song,
Joni Mitchell's 'The Circle Game'... and these lyrics have stuck in my
mind:

'So the years spin by and now the boy is twenty Though his dreams have lost
some grandeur coming true There'll be new dreams, maybe better dreams and
plenty Before the last revolving year is through.'

Four years from now, Eric and I will be twenty, and Frankie will be
seventeen, and there's only one thing I know for certain: we'll have those
new dreams, maybe better dreams and plenty, and with a little luck and lots
of love we'll still be sharing them.

This afternoon, in English class, we were studying the poems of
A.E. Houseman.  A couple of his verses have stayed with me:

Into my heart an air that kills
From yon far country blows:
What are those blue remembered hills,
What spires, what farms are those?

This is the land of lost content,
I see it shining plain,
The happy highways where I went
And cannot come again.

I've decided that I'll take those happy highways, and I'll let them take me
wherever they go, so at least I'll be able one day to look back and know
that I've travelled them.

...

My thanks to 555 who encouraged me to put this story down on paper.